In the second part of my interview with Don Carson we spoke about how to prepare people to serve as leaders and preachers in the Church. We spoke about the place of seminary, and about those who, like Martyn Lloyd-Jones, serve without spending time there. We also spoke about conferences, and the importance of recognizing that most of us are just going to be ordinary Christians.

The following video was filmed at New Word Alive in April of this year, when I had the opportunity to speak with Don Carson. We spoke about his reasons for coming to the UK, about how he chose to leave the field of chemistry to become a pastor and then left pastoral ministry to train ministers in a seminary, the crucial importance of the local church, and his relationship with his father.

Jonathan Leeman has kindly transcribed some of the key points about seminaries and churches-

• "The front line is the local church, and there's a sense in which the seminary is a back up slot."
  
• "The first impetus toward ministry and toward stamping people for what ministry ought to be ought to be within the context of the local church."
  
• "A good seminary, a good theological college, helps to provide the kind of training, and further exposure, more technical knowledge, grasp of the language, this sort of thing, that virtually no local church can produce."
  
• "Yet it's really important for those who teach in such places, nevertheless, to be pastors first, because if they think of themselves as teachers and scholars first, then they tend to produce teachers and scholars. So there's a stamping not simply from the course materials, but from your own values, what you think about, what you dream about."
  
• "So at our seminary, we always hire a certain percentage of faculty who wish they were in the pastoral ministry or else, quite frankly, we don't want them. Now, they have to be academically competent and all the rest. But we don't want people who just want to be in a seminary.We want people who, in many ways, would prefer to be in the local church."
  

Okay—political post warning. For those who think Christians should not engage in the political process or write political commentary, I suppose you’d better pass on by. But equally for those looking for an unequivocal statement of support for a particular party or leader, again pass on by.

I think it’s important that we have opinions on political matters. And while I don’t often write about politics here on my blog, I have done so occasionally. For example, last December I expressed my strong concerns about the leadership ability of Gordon Brown, who is our current prime minister. Since then, even a member of his own party has claimed that Brown was put on earth to remind us all of how good Tony Blair was. There have also been no fewer than three sets of memoirs published that haven’t exactly portrayed him very well, and there have been a string of mistakes he has made which have been well catalogued in the British media.

What I want to highlight today is a serious blow to the very heart of our political system. It has always been the case that on matters of conscience, such as morality, our political parties do not have official policy. There is an unwritten agreement that members of Parliament and the Lords will always be given a free vote on such matters as abortion and embryo experimentation. This is based on the fundamental principle that the people of the UK do not elect parties, they elect individuals to serve them, and on moral questions those representatives are best placed to make those judgment calls. This has had a number of effects. It has not meant that we necessarily have more moral laws. What it does mean is that, unlike the U.S., where it seems such things are decided by unelected lawyers in the Supreme Court, if we want the law changed all we have to do is elect the right people.

Since the right people in the UK do not necessarily belong to particular political parties, it has also had the result that Christians are far less wedded to the Conservative party than their counterparts in the U.S. are to the Republicans. In fact, many Christians would have voted for Tony Blair, who was known as a man of some faith (which is perhaps relatively unusual in our politicians). Many Christians in the UK are, however, still rather detached from the political system, which is arguably as much a bad thing as being overly embroiled in it.

Gordon Brown risks awakening a sleeping bear in our nation for he has turned the status quo on its head. Despite howls of protest, even from some of his cabinet members (some of whom are Catholic), he is making a certain bill before the house currently into what is called a “whipped” bill for members of his party. The other parties are still allowing freedom of conscience.

Brown initially stated that his party would be forced to vote in favor of every provision in the act. Now, in true Brown style, he has climbed down, but only in a meaningless partial and tokenistic way. His members will be allowed to vote with their conscience on individual portions of the bill, but then if the portions are passed, when the bill as a whole comes before them they will be forced to vote in favor irrespective of their religious or ethical convictions. He is also being criticized for placing very short time limits on the debates over these vital issues.

This all sets a dangerous precedent, and is very worrying to Christians, especially considering the provisions being considered, which are as follows:

• The creation of animal/human hybrid embryos.
  
  
• Permission for IVF doctors to create "saviour siblings" chosen specifically to provide donor tissue to their sick older brother or sister.
  
  
• Removal of the requirement for IVF clinics to consider the need for a father figure when deciding whether to offer treatment.
  
  
• Removal of the requirement that doctors sign a form stating that an abortion is in the interest of a woman’s health.
  
  
• Reduction to the term limit for abortion from 24 weeks to 20, saving 2,948 of the 193,000 lives taken by abortion each year in the UK.

Please pray that there will be a miraculous turnaround and that somehow we might be delivered from these things becoming law (except perhaps the last one, which is, of course, a step in the right direction).

My dear friend and the leader of Jubilee Church recently went to New York to the Dwell Conference on building city churches. The conference had Mark Driscoll, Tim Keller,  C. J. Mahaney, Ed Stetzer, Darrin Patrick and Eric Mason as its speakers. 

You can read more about the conference on the Acts 29 website, where I understand the talks will be made available.

In the meantime, here is a video of Tope's thoughts. If you live in the UK make sure you listen to the very end when he makes an invitation that I think you may find interesting! You can also download an mp3 of his report. If you want to learn more about my pastor, you can listen to a number of his sermons.

For some reason, in the UK we celebrate Mother's Day in March. Actually, this morning I was surprised to be able to attend a church in the European city I am visiting at the moment. There they celebrated Mother's Day, as well as Pentecost. The sermon was like a clear trumpet note for the type of experiential Chrisitanity I long for each of us to grow in. At the end, I had the opportunity to share that it seemed to me God was putting a bright future before the church and saying if they would "look at him and do likewise" as Gideon told his small group to do, they would know a season of great blessing.

Anyway, since this is an international blog, and, frankly, you moms deserve at least two days a year, HAPPY MOTHERS DAY! The following video is a fantastic summary of what it is in the life of mothers that can leave them feeling somewhat frazzled. Back on our UK Mother's Day, we showed our church this. You can hear my wife's reaction and thoughts on being a mum at the beginning of my Mother's Day sermon.

I just ran into a fascinating quote on the importance of people. If there was one man I remember who embodied this, it was Henry Tyler, who was my mentor. He made you feel like you were the most important person in the whole world when you were speaking to him. I had the privilege of meeting John Piper at New Word Alive, and he had a similar effect on me. Go read what he has to say about this quote from C. S. Lewis:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would strongly be tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.

— C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, HarperOne, pp. 14-15.

John 3:7
“YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN”

I have today decided I want to work through a series of sermons John Piper recently finished giving at his church. I would encourage you to join me. There can be nothing more important than to get ourselves clear about being born again, being regenerated. Are YOU sure that you have experienced the new birth? Are you sure you are on your way to heaven? What exactly happens when someone is born again? What changes? What are the results?

Allow John Piper to teach us together about this most critical subject. We must understand well for the sake of our own souls, and for the souls of those we love. So please, join me. The sermons are available in written, video, and audio forms.

I encourage you to watch as many as you can for maximum spiritual impact short of being in the same room. We are looking for a miraculous work of the Spirit to quicken God's words to our hearts and enlighten us. It is not just an intellectual exercise. Don't let's rush this. If you have a blog, consider yourself tagged. Write about this series on your own blog. What else could be more important?

The sermons are available from the Desiring God website, and the series is entitled You Must Be Born Again.

"Another reason I am eager to focus on the new birth is to help you know what really happened to you when you were born again. It is far more glorious than you think it is. It is also more glorious than I think it is. It is wonderful beyond all human comprehension. But that mystery is not because there is little about it in the Bible. There is much about it in the Bible. It’s because when all is comprehended there is still more. So I hope that you will know more and know better what happened to you when you were born again . . .

And the reason I want you to know what happened to you in your new birth and others to know what must yet happen to them is threefold. 1) When you are truly born again and grow in the grace and knowledge of what the Lord has done for you, your fellowship with God will be sweet, and your assurance that he is your Father will be deep. I want that for you. 2) If God would be pleased to bring this kind of awakening to his church, then the world will get the real deal of radical love and sacrifice and courage from the church and not all these fake Christians that live just like the world. 3) If you know what really happened to you in your new birth, you will treasure God and his Spirit and his Son and his word more highly than you ever have. And he will be glorified."

— John Piper, You Must Be Born Again