Phil Douglass: Your Church Has a Personality

Dr. Douglass is Professor of Practical Theology (what theology isn't?) at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis, where he has taught since 1986. In 2008 P&R published his book, What Is Your Church's Personality? Discovering and Developing the Ministry Style of Your Church. In some ways the book sums up the heart of what Dr. Douglass is contributing to Covenant Seminary, its students, the PCA, and the broader church.

You can view a 9-minute video interview with him about the book here.

One reason I'm eager for the new earth, aside from freshly stocked largemouth bass, is hearing from the Lord how strategic and far-ranging an impact Dr. Douglass made in the kingdom, far beyond what we can detect. He meets with every new student+wife for two hours (one hour if single) every fall semester, and does the same for outgoing students in the spring semester. That's a massive chunk of time. Time that could be spent reading, writing--'making a name for himself' (yuck). Instead he has determined to pour into the students in this critical way. When together they review that individual's spiritual gifting, personal wiring, ministry vision, core passions, and so on. Not an efficient use of his time. But invaluable to the students.

And with this book, Dr. Douglass is helping not only individuals but churches understand how they are wired, and how to wisely match up prospective staff with their church's personality.

On a personal note, it would be difficult to express how important Dr. Douglass was to me as a student at Covenant. From interaction with other students and pastors I know that my testimony is the norm. I will spend the rest of my life with two things drilled into me. One, godliness trumps everything. Two, awareness of specific personality wiring, while secondary to godliness, is wise, strategic, neglected, and will spare some (not all) heartache. Wish I could clone Phil Douglass and put one in each seminary.

Thanks for putting flesh and blood on Philippians 2:4, Dr. D. I love you.

A website has been set up around this book here.

Over at the P&R site you can view the table of contents, which shows the eight church personalities Dr. Douglass has diagnosed, or read chapter one online.

The Thrill of Heavenly Warfare

William Still, on the role of another's prayer in his call to pastoral ministry:

It was an old lady between 80 and 90 years of age who prayed me, all unknown, into my place and then prayed me into the forefront of the battle with me resisting, in terror, a good part of the way until I caught the thrill of heavenly warfare.

--The Work of the Pastor, 99

New Covenant Seminary Resources

Two excellent resources just made available by our friends at Covenant Seminary:

1. Kevin Vanhoozer's three talks for the 2010 David C. Jones Lectures in Theology and Ethics, 'Redramatizing Theology: Faith Seeking Practical Understanding.'

2. George Robertson's five lectures from a class he taught this past year at Covenant on 'Preaching through the Psalms.'

Free Audiobook: Ministries of Mercy

Today is the last day to download for free the audiobook of Tim Keller's Ministries of Mercy over at christianaudio.com.

Lloyd-Jones: I Am Only at the Beginning of It

During my 26 years in my Westminster pulpit there have been times when in my utter folly I have wondered, or the Devil has suggested to me, that there is nothing more for me to say, that I have preached it all.

I thank God that I can now say that I feel I am only at the beginning of it. There is no end to this glorious message of the cross, for there is always something new and fresh and entrancing and moving and uplifting that one has never seen before.

--Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Cross: God's Way of Salvation (Crossway 1986), xiii

Pride Will Not Mind Reason

Reminded this morning of the elusiveness of humility and the subtlety of pride. In 'The Blind Eye and the Deaf Ear' in Lectures to My Students, Spurgeon quotes a certain Mr. Payson as writing this remarkable statement to his mother in a letter:

You must not, certainly, my dear mother, say one word which even looks like an intimation that you think me advancing in grace. I cannot bear it. All the people here, whether friends or enemies, conspire to ruin me. Satan and my own heart, of course, will lend a hand; and if you join too, I fear all the cold water which Christ can throw upon my pride will not prevent its breaking out into a destructive flame. As certainly as anyone flatters and caresses me my heavenly Father has to whip me: and an unspeakable mercy it is that he condescends to do it. I can, it is true, easily muster a hundred reasons why I should not be proud, but pride will not mind reason, nor anything else but a good drubbing. Even at this moment I feel it tingling in my fingers' ends, and seeking to guide my pen. (331)

Spurgeon goes on to comment, 'A sensible friend who will unsparingly criticize you from week to week will be a far greater blessing to you than a thousand undiscriminating admirers if you have sense enough to bear his treatment, and grace enough to be thankful for it.'

A word in season. This is not all that needs to be said, of course. There is a place for encouragement. A crucial place. But how naturally the heart takes affirmation of an evidence of grace and turns it into self-congratulation.

Gospel Community Conference

This looks like a helpful, inexpensive, and strategic event to consider attending.

Ceasar Kalinowski from Summit Crossing on Vimeo.

Why We Get Up Sunday Mornings

We did not walk into church today to airbrush our impressive appearances or to fine-tune our already established obedience. We walked into church today saying to Christ, 'We want newness of life, and we are coming to you for it.'

--Dad's wonderful sermon on humility last week

A Great Theologian

J. Gresham Machen:

What a great theologian is the Christian heart--the Christian heart that has been touched by redeeming grace!

--What Is Faith? (Hodder & Stoughton, 1925), 194

Halo 3 Doesn't Compare to Salvation History

Darrin Patrick:

The gospel is the most beautiful story in the history of the world. In fact, the reason that other stories are beautiful--the reason we love movies, novels, and biographies that are saturated with redemption themes--is that they are an echo of the story. All good stories follow the same basic plotline of the gospel. . . . The story of redemption captures the human heart, inviting and challenging us to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. This story is movie-ready and myth-like. C. S. Lewis was converted out of atheism as he was enraptured by the beautiful story of the gospel, calling it a 'true myth.' . . .

[T]he gospel is not just cold, dry historical facts--it is God's perennial speech to man. The gospel is history on fire. (Church Planter, 112)

Reminds me of something I read a few days ago in William Still, concluding an overview of salvation history, the great snowballing story of redemption rushing through the Bible and of which we today are a part:

How could any of us be put off balance in any day, whatever it held or threatened, if we knew that that was what we were engaged in furthering. Some ministers I know, for light relief from the burden of holy work, read complicated novels full of tangles and twists and intriguing and unexpected cleverness. But not in their wildest dreams (or their favorite authors' wildest dreams) have they come across anything so exciting, fabulous, fantastic as this that God has done and is doing. Truth is stranger than fiction. (The Work of the Pastor, 107)