New Life was Tight!

As I get caught up from the my recent travels, I must say that the New Life Bible Conference (June 21-23, 2007) was again a most encouraging and uplifting experience. Louis and Jamie Love and the good folks at New Life Fellowship Church do a wonderful job at welcoming visitors to the northside of Chicago and treating them to a most encouraging Bible conference for free. And even though I have had the pleasure and privilege of speaking at the conference for several years now, I am most appreciative of the preaching that I get to sit under. This year the conference was on The Godly Life. I had the task of sharing on the The Godly Family and The Godly and the Church. I pray my messages were half as enlightening, inspiring, and challenging as were Thabiti's (The Godly and Culture and The Godly and Evangelism) and Louis' (On the Godly Life and Mortification of Sin). These brothers were tight and right.

If you have ever been to the conference, then you know that New Life looks forward to this time of the year and they come out to serve their brothers and sisters and put on Christ. I can say from the personal experience that they wear Christ well. If you have not been to the New Life Conference, I implore you to mark your calender for next year and be sure to be in attendance. I have heard from a good and reliable source that the conference next year promises to be even better than this year. The speakers have not yet been confirmed, but with the subject matter and the short list of potential invitees promises to be as good as ever.

Also this year, the kind folks at Reformation Heritage Books sent a representative and he brought with him a more than adequate book table. It provided a nice addition to the conference and hopefully a partnership for many years to come.

Here are a few of the pictures from this years conference. Hopefully they will wet your appetite and help establish your plans for next year. Lord willing, maybe next year your face will be among these, if it is not already. Enjoy.

Dea. Chisum giving opening remarks

Pastor Love preaching on The Godly Life

Checking out the Book Table before the Session begins

Adriane and Jamie

Big TA and Little TA

Thabiti preaching on The Godly and Evangelism

Wyeth Duncan at the keyboard

Anthony's Speaking Schedule

These speaking dates are in addition to the regular times I preach at our home church, Southwest Christian Fellowship in Atlanta, GA. I will normally preach at our church once or twice a month.

July
13-18 Family Bible Conference, Seven Rivers Presbyterian Church, Lecanto, FL
27 - 28 Stone Mountain Conference on Reformed Theology, Stone Mountain, GA

August
5 -15 Wedding Anniversary and Family Vacation
19 Cornerstone Church, Knoxville, TN

November 2-4 Singles Retreat, Intown Community Church, Atlanta, GA

7 -10 Miami Pastors Conference, Miami FL

December
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

January 2008

1 Campus Outreach New Years Gathering, Atlanta, GA

24-26 Symposium on Worship, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI

February

27-28 Covenant College Chapel Service, Lookout Mountain, TN

March

27-29 Southwest Christian Fellowship Men's Retreat

June

19-12 New Life Bible Conference, Vernon Hills, IL

November

5-8 Miami Pastor's Conference

It's Official, Eric has been Elected!

I was not planning to do any blog post this week. I have been very busy meeting deadlines and preparing for a busy next couple of weeks. However, I just received news that last evening the ol' boys at the Southern Baptist Convention elected Eric Redmond to the post of 2nd Vice President. I have already posted my thoughts on Eric. You can read them in the previous posts. Here is what the Convention news has reported:

Redmond was elected with a vote of 1,765 (61.69 percent) to 1,077 (37.64 percent) over evangelist Bill Britt of Gallatin, Tenn.

"First of all, Eric Redmond is a family man," said Doyle Chauncey, executive director of the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia state convention, in his nomination speech. "Eric Redmond is a pastor and a scholar. Eric Redmond is an evangelistic pastor, attempting to reach the 20,000 people who live within a mile of his church. Eric Redmond is a church planting pastor. In 2006 Eric Redmond led his church in planting a new church in College Park, Md., in cooperation with the SBCV and the North American Mission Board -- a church which continues to thrive."Redmond serves as a trustee for Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and an executive board member of the National African American Fellowship of the SBC. He is an adjunct professor of hermeneutics at Capital Bible Seminary in Lanham, Md. He is also a member of the Evangelical Theological Society.

Congratulations to our brother Eric for this assignment. And congratulations to the SBC for electing such a strategic, capable, qualified, and good man.

An Interview with Potential VP Eric Redmond

I love Eric Redmond. He is a brother who has grown dear to me because I find in him a heart for the Kingdom of God and a mind for truth. I admire his vigor for the church and for the redemption of African-American thought and life. His labors encourage me that we really can make a difference now and for eternity. I am thankful that God has brought him into my circle of friends and comrades in arms. I would be even more thankful if God would see fit to place him in the leadership position for which he is currently being considered. As we noted in the previous post, Eric has been nominated for 2nd Vice President of the Southern Baptist Convention. Recently, the candidates were interviewed and asked a series of questions concerning the current state of affairs in the SBC. One of the questions was:

Do you wish to comment on the influence of Calvinism or Reformed theology in light of the LifeWay survey that indicated 10 percent of Southern Baptist pastors are five-point Calvinists?

Eric responded:

The issue is not Calvinism, per se. Nor is settling the issue as simple as considering the history of English Baptists or seeing the embracing of Calvinism as a reaction to open theism. At issue is how we speak of God and man: Is God absolutely sovereign in all things, all glorious, and absolutely holy, such that “he does whatever he pleases” (Psalm 115:3)? Is man, though constituted in the image of God, naturally soulishly wretched, blind, poor, naked, deceived, suppressing the obvious truth of the existence of God, under the just judgment of God, and completely unable to save himself (Titus 3:3-7)? When we speak rightly of God and man, the gospel of his grace is magnified.

What we need to do is speak about an awesome, magnificent, all-merciful, holy God who, in the most incredible love, gave his only Son to save people unable to save themselves—people who are ignorant of their need for salvation, and self-deceptive about his existence. If we preach of God and man in this way—as revealed in Scripture—God will be magnified by the preaching of the gospel—and that needs to happen in every sermon from every pulpit on every Sunday. Personally, I think the gravitation toward Calvinism is a gracious work of God in the hearts of many who desire to center their ministries around the gospel, and in some cases, it grew out of a reaction to becoming weary of seeing the results of people fed the pablum of self-help, self-centered, gospel-devoid sermons Sunday after Sunday.

On a popular level, many visible, non-Baptist Calvinists have been most vocal about calling pulpits back to the center of the gospel, such that many have answered the call, even within the SBC. But there are many, less-visible Southern Baptists working hard to center their pulpits and ministries on the message of the gospel. I think our seminaries are working hard to prepare future leaders to do the same. (read the rest of the interview here).

Man, I thank God for Eric. I hope the SBC will thank God too, and appoint him to VP.

To Exposit or Not to Exposit

My man Quincy Jones (no not that one) aka Q-D.O.G, has responded to Xavier Pickett's recent blast about Blacks and Espository Preaching. Quincy takes issues with Xavier's article and the tenor of Xavier's recent web logs. He writes:

The final and most concerning problem, as with many of your recent posts (as I also mentioned in my e-mail), is that I believe you are stirring an unconscious and unnecessary antagonism against all things "white" and reformed and have forgotten the "wall of hostility" that has been broken in Christ and that "Christ is all and in all". (Read the post in its entirety).

I am impressed intellectually with both of these brothers. Xavier undoubtedly can be a bit edgy at times and thus may cross the line too often for comfort. Nevertheless, he writes some provocative material and often causes us to grapple where we may not have grappled before. However, I must say the Quincy does raise some legitimate questions with Xavier's recent post. I like the approach he is taking in dealing with this issue. I am eager to see how he further explains his concerns and how he offers correction. I am interested to see how this develops and where Christ will be glorified through the truth being known and the reconciliation of ideas.

A Fresh Word, A Fresh Beat, and Alistair Begg

Check this out. This is good stuff.

A Shout Out to our Cayman Brother

Thabiti has spent a year officially blogging, and we have all been the beneficiaries of his labors. Here are his reflections on his first year of blogging. As you read, keep in mind that I made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Keep on keeping on, my Cay-man.

She's Back!

My wife was blogging at Sarah's Daughters, but for the reasons of a busy life, she stopped blogging for a while. But now she is back and apparently is finding much to blog about. Today she is reminded that the call of mothering four daughters is a call of finding the joy that only comes in the chore of doing hair.