kenosis

What if...?

2010-06-25T19:36:00.005-04:00

What if...?

Have you ever asked that question? Or maybe a better way to put it is how any times have you asked that question?

What if I had scored that winning run instead of tripping over third base? Answer: I would have been drafted. What if I had studied more for the SAT? Answer: I would have been accepted at "that" school. What if I had taken a different approach when asking her out? Answer: She would have said yes. What if? Chances are, whatever answer you supply for your "what if" scenario probably involves you reaching some kind of potential that you never have actualized.

What ifs and potential are often linked together. The definition of potential is "having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future." We all want to reach our potential but we usually fall short and we start playing the futile "what if" game. Its futile because the end game of a "what if" is always disappointment. There are no do overs.

I fell victim today. In a couple of months the fall semester begins at Carolina. As I was thinking and praying over the upcoming semester this morning I found myself playing the game we all so often play. Except this time hope and excitement usurped disappointment.

What if...?

We had 4 years in one place...We had access to one of the most influential campuses in the world...We had the opportunity to live in close community with hundreds of students unlike us...We had access to world class facilities of all kinds...We had a public square where we could freely express our deepest thoughts and desires...We had a support system to help us develop into Godly men and women...

What if...?

The Gospel is true...We are accepted just as we are in the eyes of God...God has a purpose for our lives beyond just getting a college degree...God is sovereign...The same God who changed Saul into Paul is the same God who is active in our world today...The Lord really (as spoken to Paul in Acts 18) has "many people in this city..." We are truly God's ambassadors on this earth...Our identity rests solely in a perfect righteous King...

The answers go something like this: We do, it is, we are, he does, he is, he does, we are, it does.

Potential is at our doorstep. It's not some far off pipe dream. Disappointment will not win out this time.

God has uniquely and purposely placed us at one of the greatest culture-making centers in the world. The possibilities are limitless. He has given us every spiritual blessing in Christ and the resurrected King lives in us. He has many people in this city and He will use us to find them, love them, and run the race with them. This is reality and not some vague, unattainable "what if." We are exactly where God wants us and we can trust that He is who He says He is. Potential has arrived. It's gonna be a crazy ride!!

Carolina BCM 2.0

CarolinaBCM.org

2009-04-16T13:20:00.005-04:00

By Error Interrupted: Ehrman's Evangelical Challenge

By: Douglas Baker

When Dane Hadley, 21, first arrived at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill from Havelock, N.C., he was not totally unfamiliar with the historical-critical method of biblical interpretation. Hadley had briefly encountered the various ways people interpret the Bible during his time as a lifelong Southern Baptist. He was not fully prepared, however, for his Introduction to the New Testament class with Professor Bart Ehrman.

Hadley remembered one of the professor's first lectures. As Ehrman entered the classroom his first question to the class was, "How many here hold to the inerrancy of the Bible - that the Bible is God's infallible Word?" Many hands are raised. His second question surrounds J.K. Rowling's novel, Harry Potter. "How many have read Harry Potter all the way through?" Ehrman asks. More hands are raised. In follow-up he asks, "How many have read the Bible from cover to cover?" Few hands were raised. Point made.

Many struggled to overcome the "facts" as presented by Ehrman as one after one a cascading effect began and Christian orthodoxy as defined by revelation from the Bible washed away with the tide of literary deconstruction. Hadley readily admits that when the Bible is forensically examined, none is better than Ehrman at pointing out the Bible's "discrepancies."

Bart D. Ehrman, the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, has become notorious as the professor who with one lecture can totally unravel the faith of college students. Hadley, now a junior majoring in religious studies, has taken two of Ehrman's classes and testifies that a class with him can "unsettle someone and create much doubt" about the traditions learned from childhood. "In some ways, he enjoys putting the students on the defensive," Hadley says, "but in the end the direct challenge to their faith causes them to wrestle with faith and some emerge stronger in the end." He admits, however, that other students do not emerge from the rubble of doubt with a faith in tact.

Ehrman's new book, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them) is, by far, the most pedestrian of his books. By his own testimony, this book took him two weeks to complete and is part autobiography, part Sunday School for agnostics. Soon after acquainting the reader with the fact that he is a lapsed evangelical of the Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College variety, he begins to unfold what reads like a refutation of everything held as true by most Christians. Ehrman knows if there are errors in the Christian canon, then the veracity of Christianity can be called into question as little more than a cobbling together of ancient texts over time written by erring copyists with political agendas.

Refuting such claims as the apparent contradiction between the accounts of the crucifixion in Mark's gospel (where Jesus is crucified at nine o'clock in the morning) and John's gospel (where Jesus is crucified sometime after noon) can be daunting even for the most seasoned Bible scholar. Hadley struggles himself to reconcile the texts. "That is a legitimate issue for me which brings into question the whole idea of inerrancy," he said.

Hadley has struggled with the issue of inerrancy over the course of Ehrman's classes. Mistakes by copyists or other agendas in the Bible seem to become radically plausible especially when illustrated by Ehrman's use of a simple exercise. The professor enters the room almost the same way every day - with a can of Diet Pepsi. After taking a drink of soda, he normally begins his lecture. On one particular day he desired to show the impossibility of unity in the recording of history even by eyewitness accounts as he asked his students to write down on a piece of paper exactly what they observed him doing from the time he entered the room until he began his lecture.

The results were devastating. No one had anything in the same order and some had omitted key actions all together. Hadley remembers that illustration as reinforcement that the Bible, if it is to be represented in any way as bearing a human component to its inspiration, may well contain error. For him, however, "it doesn't really matter." The Bible remains central to his life and Christian faith even with contradictions that he cannot fully explain. "In some ways you lose your innocence when you are exposed to theological complexity," he said. "Everything doesn't always fit together the way you learned it in Sunday School."

In addition to Ehrman's writing, Hadley has also read the work of F.F. Bruce whose book, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? has rescued many from the abyss of doubt. Thus far in his study Karl Barth's, Church Dogmatics remains a favorite. "As far as an expositional preacher, there is none better than Barth," Hadley said. "Some of my favorite sermons are those Barth preached to a group of prisoners called Deliverance to the Captives." Reading these sermons makes him wonder "at the state of preaching today." He believes some of the problems with inerrancy could be solved if preaching had more theological depth rather than just a desire to entertain. "Preaching has become more psychology-driven rather than theology-driven because the goal is not to learn more about the Bible; it is to be entertained - to keep the attention of those who listen," he says. Even as a person who is struggling with the entire concept of inerrancy, he "knows the Bible is ultimately not about you, but God; not about self-help, but God."

"Dane is an example of many on our campus who come here with questions about the Bible only to find Ehrman's class disorienting," said Lee Sullens, campus minister with Baptist Campus Ministries. "While Dane continues to read, pray and study the Bible with a heart open to the work of Christ and the power of God, others come out on the other side of Dr. Ehrman's classes radical atheists who believe they have been duped by the church since they were children."

Sullens works to combat both biblical illiteracy and the fear that any academic study of the Bible will result in apostasy. "Just as the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy states that God has not promised an inerrant transmission of the text, the original autographs are to be regarded as inerrant in that the canon is free from all mistakes and so safeguards the truth of God's Word that all the assertions are absolutely true." He is aware that accepting such a position may come through many hours of study and even a painful process of doubt and struggle. "We give our students space to struggle and a place to learn at the same time," Sullens says. "Our goal is to rigorously teach the Bible here in such a way that Carolina students emerge from their time here more grounded and confident in the power of God's Word as the word of God written. We aren't afraid of questions or objections."

Sullens wonders if pastors are aware of what awaits many of their young people when they leave the familiar scenes of their home church and venture onto the college campus. "For many students, it is the first time they are away from home and the influences of their past do not hold them in the present," he said. Those who are not doctrinally anchored may quickly drift way. "The challenge for all of us as ministers of the gospel is to teach young people well through high school and on into college so that when their faith is stressed by strong personalities, differing perspectives or outright challenges to truth, they are able to remain anchored in strong Christian doctrine." Unless a change takes place to make that a priority, Sullens says, "we will face a losing battle in a culture that is now outright hostile to the church and the gospel."

Hadley desires to pursue doctoral studies and become a professor of New Testament. He knows that the path toward that accomplishment comes through more rigorous study of the Greek New Testament. In many ways, this pastor's son looks forward to the journey even as the onslaughts of more academic research will further challenge the faith he learned as a child. For him, it does not seem so much that Jesus has been interrupted by error; it is that He has not been obeyed as Lord. For now, Hadley's Bible remains open with an eye toward a future where the source of the church's faith and practice remains grounded in the sacred text.

Spiritual Insights of a 4 year old

2009-03-03T15:48:00.018-05:00

I have a 4 year old son. It's strange for me to even say this because it seems like just yesterday we were living in a small Georgia town anxiously awaiting his birth. Braden, however, is quick to remind us how "big" he is. Don't ever make the mistake of calling him a baby. He is mister independent these days. Maybe having a one-year old sister makes him feel bigger than he really is. When he compares himself to Madi he comes out more advanced in just about every category. I say just about every category because Madi's manipulation skills are much more advanced than Braden's. It must be a girl thing. She's a whole other story...

Braden is growing each day in his knowledge of God. It's awesome to see. Every night when we have our Bible Story and prayer time he has some pretty amazing insights and observations. He does get a few things mixed up though. For example, David seems to be in the middle of every story. When he defeated Goliath with a simple slingshot he instantly landed himself a starring role in every Bible story ever retold by Braden. My favorite is the time David whipped out his slingshot and defeated the Roman soldiers who were "mean to Jesus," and "didn't obey Jesus' words." I don't know how he did it but David somehow came to the rescue. His success with Goliath landed him leading roles retroactively as well. David used his slingshot to help the people of Israel escape from the mean "Fay Wo." He and Moses led the people through the parted Red Sea to safety and then David went back to finish the deal with (yes, you guessed it) his slingshot. It's pretty seamless as well. David is never forced into the story. He just fits. Fascinating, really. It makes total sense in a 4 year old mind. David was a beast. A man for the ages. A hero.

My 4 year old is fascinated with King David, which is cool, but his affection for Jesus is what will really move you to tears. It started several months ago when I would playfully pin him up against the wall and suspend him there for a while as he flapped his arms and legs and giggled. One day he didn't respond with the usual kicking and laughing. This time he responded with, "Look Daddy, I'm Jesus on the cross." Wow. Since then we've had some great conversations about the cross...the meaning of it, the power of it, the promise in it. Does he understand it all? Of course not. But it sure is a sweet journey we're on. When we read the story of the crucifixion the questions and comments fly. "Why are they being mean to Jesus? Why don't they obey Jesus' words? He didn't do anything wrong." Surprisingly though, Braden never gets too sad. Maybe because he knows what came next. If you're ever at our house in the early afternoon, as he enjoys "quiet time" in his room, you may just hear the rest of the story through the hums of a 4 year old:

"Jesus, he can move the mountains...He is mighty to save...

He is mighty to save...Jesus, author of salvation (salbation)...He rose and

conquered (konkied) the grave...

He rose and conquered (konkied) the grave....Jesus......"

Braden can sing lots of worship songs now and he will even quote to you John 11:25, one of his favorite verses. 'Jesus said, 'I am the resurrection and the life.'' I think my 4 year old is starting to get it. His affection for Jesus definitely grows a little deeper each day. My prayer for him is the same prayer I have for myself and for my students. I pray that Braden will live his life in response to the glorious truth of Christ as the resurrection and the life. It's one thing to know it but it's an entirely different thing to live it!!

Yeah, David had a slingshot and could wield it with precision and power. But Jesus, now that guy is in a league of his own. He conquered the grave! I don't care if you're 4 or 94. That's pretty stinking cool. Why don't we all start living like it's true!!

Ministry Team Process for 2009-2010

2009-02-25T12:20:00.001-05:00

As we approach Spring Break and the mid-way point of Spring Semester it’s time to once again start looking at the leadership process for next year. In the past we’ve probably waited a bit too late to finalize the process. This has forced the ministry team to fully plan out Fall Semester over the summer, which is always really difficult. This year we wanted to fully install the new ministry team by the first of April so we can get a good jump on fall semester planning. In order to meet this goal applications will be available this week!! Be on the lookout.

I know many of you are wondering what this process will look like. Let me give you a few details that will hopefully shed some light on what can sometimes be a confusing time. In the fall of 2008 we transitioned toward a ministry team model. The ministry team model is different from an executive council model in that the major focus is on ministry instead of administration. Administration is certainly important and there will always be administrative elements to the ministry team. However, I’ve noticed that our natural tendency is to solely function administratively, perhaps because it can provide tangible results. We can scratch something off a list, plan an event, fulfill a duty, etc... The harder thing is to put our hands to the plow and work tirelessly to effectively communicate the Gospel to our campus. This takes hard work, lots of discipline, and deep devotion. If we are going to be a light to this campus we need to shift our focus from simply busying ourselves with details to intentionally working toward taking Christ to the campus. This will mean a greater commitment to prayer, small group ministry in the dorms, intentional personal evangelism and disciplemaking, strong accountability, radical devotion to reading, studying and memorizing the Word of God, and the list goes on. This year’s ministry team has done a wonderful job in our transition. They were the guinea pigs and it hasn’t been easy. However, they have worked to provide the spiritual leadership necessary to aid us in this transition.

HOW WILL IT LOOK?

Council/ministry team has always consisted of students with individual titles and responsibilities. We have searched for spiritually mature students with specific skill sets. While this is not a bad approach it can sometimes lead to burn out and a “tunnel vision” mentality or a disconnect from the greater purpose and vision of BCM. Each person works hard to fulfill their specific duties and it becomes difficult to involve themselves in anything other than that very specific skill set. Additionally, if they experience burn out in their position they are stuck with it for the rest of the year. Everyone else is too tied up with their own duties to help out significantly. This obviously leads to a loss of passion and enthusiasm.

In light of these observations, we are going to try something a little different for next year. Instead of applying for specific positions, you guys will have the opportunity to simply apply to be a part of the ministry team. We will be looking for people who are ready to have an intentional ministry on the campus. The removal of specific titles will help keep the focus on communicating the Gospel to UNC instead of getting bogged down with a job. We will collectively share the administrative load and plan things as a team. The primary focus of ministry team will be on spiritual growth, accountability, and determining the right things to do in order to fulfill our purpose as a BCM.

This approach will potentially allow for more applicants to join the team because we won’t be limited by a small number of titles. If you are committed to passionately following Christ, learning how to effectively communicate the Gospel to our campus, and using your skills to move BCM closer to its goal then we welcome you to apply. One thing I’ve learned the past 4 years is that Carolina students are extremely gifted. You guys possess amazing skill sets. I’m not at all worried about failing to accomplish certain tasks. I believe looking for students who want to fulfill the vision of BCM instead of matching up skill sets with positions will only serve to make us stronger as a community. We will be able to accomplish more and reach more people with the Gospel.

If you have any questions about how ministry team will function next year, or what will be expected of the ministry team please set up a time to talk with me. You can facebook me, text me, call me, or tackle me on campus (be gentle though, I’m getting older...). The process will simply be: (1) apply (2) set up an interview with me (3) be interviewed by the current ministry team. It’s as easy as 1,2,3. In the initial interview with me I will share all the details you care to know so we will both know if you are ready to be a part of the team or if it is something you even care to pursue. We’ll talk about expectations, accountability, vision, dates to mark on your calendar, any questions you may have, etc...The interview with the ministry team will add another level of discernment as we put together a winning team. They are the real heroes, men and women who understand what it takes. They’ll ask tough questions, make you laugh, and encourage you in your walk with Christ.

I’m excited about how God is going to use BCM next year to spark revival on our campus. I hope you’ll be praying about your commitment and involvement level for next year. I look forward to teaming with you as we believe God together and respond to His mercy and grace!!