Third Avenue Baptist Church is now offering a pastors in training program called The PIT. The elders are very excited about this program. Please check out The PIT web page for details.

Last week I mentioned a new blog series of elder e-interviews. Here’s the introduction. This first interview is with Aaron Menikoff on “Aspiring Pastors and the Pursuit of a Ph.D”. (You will be able to find permanent links to these on our elders page.) So without further adieu…

Brad (BAT): Aaron, you are working on a PhD in American church history. What is your subject and thesis?

Aaron (AMEN): Thanks for asking, Brad. My subject is American Christianity mainly in the nineteenth century, particularly the Second Great Awakening. It was a time when churches and Christians were involved not only in revivals, but in a great benevolent movement that changed society. My thesis is that Baptists, North and South, during this time period were social reformers. Part of their social reform work was indirect. By praying and preaching they expected to change their communities and the country. Part of their social reform work was direct. Some Baptists petitioned Congress, fought temperance, formed welfare committees in their churches, etc. I wanted to get a sense of how conservative Christians thought and acted about society.

BAT: How do you think your research and writing will be helpful one day in your pastoral ministry?

AMEN: This is an important question. It is my earnest desire that in ways I may never be able to fully assess, the few extended years of study will help me feed the Lord’s sheep.

BAT: What was your greatest enjoyment about the Ph.D? Was it your little cozy office?

AMEN: Certainly not. While I’m thankful that I had space to work at the library (Bruce, our fellow elder, is the librarian that provided me this space) my greatest enjoyment has to be interacting with faculty at the seminary as well as writing the dissertation. As laborious as the process is, I appreciate the opportunity I have to devote so much time and attention to one subject. That is quite a privilege.

BAT: What was your greatest difficulty?

AMEN: Economists talk a lot about opportunity costs. In order to take advantage of one opportunity you may have to sacrifice something else. A PhD has certain opportunity costs associated with it. I went to a meeting the other day and heard a ThM student remark that he wasn’t going to pursue a PhD because he didn’t want to kill his wife. I appreciate that brother’s desire to protect his family. While I think that overall I have guarded my wife and kids, in order to get done in a reasonable time we have made certain sacrifices as a family. Furthermore, I have not done as much as I would like at church. It wasn’t like this the entire PhD, but the final stretch has been tough.

BAT: If you could summarize in a couple of sentences how it feels to be near completion, what would you say?

The need or lack thereof for church “vision” statements has the potential for being a controversial topic. I’ll confess that I’m a bit allergic to them myself. You’ll be hard pressed to find one on our website and I think I would have difficulty articulating one. What I can point to is our governing documents, particularly our Church Covenant. We remind ourselves of it on first Sunday of every month before taking the Lord’s Supper. Our “vision”, therefore, is to live in accordance with the articles of that covenant.

Okay, someone could argue that’s a bit unfair. The covenant doesn’t rightly meet the terms and conditions of a traditionally-defined “vision statement”. Furthermore, it fails to answer the question of what’s so wrong with a vision statement? In response, let me point you to an blog post by Richard Phillips to better answer that question. He has “Some Thoughts on Church ‘Visions’ “ that are well worth reading. Here’s his conclusion (emphasis added):

Church visioning is a powerful tool that can help make leaders much more effective. But since it necessarily focuses on things man can achieve, it has a dangerous tendency to secularize the church. Therefore, in my opinion, church visioning is probably a good idea only for churches that are strongly established with an ordinary means of grace emphasis, but who need to pay more attention to their missional context. Also, I would suggest that a visioning process should be conducted only periodically so as to set some longer term trajectories for ministry aspirations. The document should be kept ready so as to offer its analysis to future decision-making (hiring decisions, budget priorities, etc.), and then the church should continue to focus on its God-given mission of serving the Kingdom of Christ through the God-given strategy of Word, sacrament, and prayer, with biblically-defined elders and pastors serving a biblically-shaped church. (See 2 Cor. 10:3-4, and 1 Cor. 1:21-2:2).

If you are a leader in your church and thinking about reforming then this may be a conversation worth having with other leaders.

Our Spring Christianity Matters course and sermon series have been uploaded. Please take the time to look around. If you are going to be joining us for a service, we encourage you to spend the week meditating on the sermon text. Our Christianity Matters course begins at 9:45 am and Worship Service at 10:45 am.

(If you periodically check this blog, I’m sure you’ll find some interesting conversation generated from our XM classes.)

We now have an updated articles page. Please be sure to check out some of the things that some of our elders and members have written.

Bruce had a little series a while ago that discussed distinctives of our little church. Another distinctive came up over lunch with some college students I thought I should share. The college student told me what makes us cool is the fact that we are not cool. At first my heart was shattered because my life pursuit is to be cool and a cool Christian would have to go to a cool church. Thankfully the college student saw the abyss of despair this comment sent me down and explained. What he (and other college students with him) liked about our church was that we do not do anything to attract people with bells and whistles. I was taken back and encouraged that they just loved how we preached the gospel plainly and clearly. What people like about us is that we are not trying to be cool, hip, trendy, or anything of the sort.

We are trying to stay faithful. What this college student was saying reminded me of the great prophet Huey Lewis, “its hip to be square.” WOW, we are clearly not cool, we cited Huey Lewis on our blog. There are all types of seeker-sensitive churches that are organizing their services and outreach to target certain ages and types of folk. This is a trend that has been around for some time and is simply being modified by the second generation that are just doing it cooler than their fathers. The goal is to show the church is hip. I am pleased they are preaching the gospel faithfully to these types, I am just not sure if a church should remodel itself to appeal to a particular type of fellow. Theologically, the church is made up of all types. We are set and sturdy on preaching Christ and him alone. The cleverness/wisdom of man, well, I hope we are not distracted by it in attempts to be cool. I also am not assuming we are the only “not-so-cool” church in town.

Of course this opens the whole big issue of how are we related to a culture, how is the gospel suppose to be “cultural.” Let me get on a hobby-horse. I am not a fan of the phrase “incarnational ministry” as a reference to our attempts of proclaiming the kingdom in the world. The incarnation is God breaking into history, time, the created order, and even death taking upon himself all that is foreign to him in order to redeem it. When we are taking the gospel into an art gallery, fair, bar, coffee shop, etc we are not incarnating ourselves or the gospel. We are doing the things we like to do and hoping to be light their. Calling it incarnational takes away from the unique person and position of Christ who alone is incarnate and over exalts someone who is simply engaging culture the way the church has always intended. It is called evangelism.

Our elder, Bradford Manley Wheeler, wanted everyone to know of the nomination of a senior pastor. Here’s what he had to say:

Over two years have passed without a Senior Pastor. Two years! That’s a long time without a shepherd. Lord willing, this is all about to change. This past week we nominated Kurt Heath to come and shepherd us. (applause sound effect)

Roughly six years ago I (Brad Wheeler) sat in on Kurt’s membership interview at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. I heard about his childhood in Lima, OH, his ability to soar above the rim in high-school, and his brief stint at Liberty (sorry, Keith. Does anyone like it there?). I listened to him recount his spiritual struggles overseas in Russia, and how the Lord used His Word to bring a wayward brother back to Christ. In the ensuing months we talked through D.A. Caron’s A Call to Spiritual Reformation, I rejoiced with him over his engagement, and I remember when he first talked with me about leaving his job on the Hill as a Press Secretary for a prominent senator to pursue ministry. But never would I have guessed that years later we would call this man to shepherd our local church. What a testimony to God’s sovereign love that he gives his children such special joys.

God in his grace has sustained us well over the past two years. We’ve not only healed as a body, but have been able to put in place a new constitution, elected a plurality of elders and strengthened our Statement of Faith. The Lord has brought about a remarkable unanimity of mind in the absence of a pastor. Few churches are so blessed.

And yet despite all this, we’ve needed a shepherd. The few poor souls who sat in on our last elders’ meeting can attest to this. Was that a staff meeting, or an elder meeting? To our congregation who has so graciously endured our preaching rotation – thank you. Know that nobody desires more continuity in the pulpit than your leaders!

For this elder, September 2nd won’t come soon enough. (And to my fellow elders, yes, I did choose this title with a double meaning in mind! I assume it wasn’t lost on you. ☺)

Please check out our sermon audio to hear Kurt’s sermon from his May visit.