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Creation Museum First Impressions

By on July 1, 2011 in Creation, Culture, Education

This past week while at the IFCA International annual conference I was privileged to visit the Creation Museum for a day with my wife and the other IFCA conference participants. This was my first trip to the museum, which I have heard so much about, so I was very excited to see what God was doing through this place.

If you are not familiar with the Creation Museum you should be! The museum is an arm of Answers In Genesis, founded and led by Ken Ham. It was opened in 2007 and has since seen over 1.3 million people walk through it’s doors. The museum itself is located in Petersburg, KY just outside of Cincinnati, OH. The Creation Museum website describes itself as:

The state-of-the-art 70,000 square foot museum brings the pages of the Bible to life, casting its characters and animals in dynamic form and placing them in familiar settings. Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden. Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s Rivers. The serpent coils cunningly in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Majestic murals, great masterpieces brimming with pulsating colors and details, provide a backdrop for many of the settings.

Since I am teaching “Theology of Creation” this fall I knew a visit to the museum would be helpful. The museum itself presents a walk through history starting with a presentation of a biblical worldview. The main walk through part of the museum is tied around the seven C’s of History (Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, Confusion, Christ, Cross, Consummation). The first four C’s are the heart of the museum and the walk through culminates with what I think was the best part of the museum in the “Last Adam Theater.” In this theater a video presentation is shown that describe and explain the last three C’s; Christ, cross, and consummation. The presentation is a clear and compelling display of the gospel.

Some of the other highlights for the trip included:

  • Lunch with Terry Mortenson, one of the AIG researchers and speakers. I was able to talk to him some about my class and also my dissertation ideas.
  • The Stargazer’s Planetarium was pretty cool. They showed a 22 minute video that represented the giant size of the universe. It was very well done and extremely interesting.
  • Michelle and I walked around their beautiful gardens and trails. They have a wonderful location in northern Kentucky.
  • We also visited the petting zoo and fed both a zonkey and a zorse.

If you have not been to the museum yet you need to make it a priority. I am thankful I did and I look forward to a time when I can return. If you do visit the museum tell them I sent you…they will probably look at you funny.

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Kevin Bauder on the Christian School

By on June 24, 2011 in Culture, Education

Kevin Bauder nails the assessment of the Christian school in his most recent edition of “In the Nick of Time.” Any parent or person interested in education should read this carefully and understand it well. I think Dr. Bauder has done very well to serve us with this precise article.

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On the Horizon | A Personal Post

By on May 6, 2011 in Education

I wanted to take a post to sort of fill out what I’m focusing on these days. I want to communicate these things because I think it will give a little reflection to why the blog might be a little more quiet in the coming weeks…but perhaps not.

I am set in full tilt mode right now chasing after the work on my next doctoral class, Models of Sanctification. I am looking forward to this class for a few reasons: 1) My friend Andy Naselli is teaching half of the course and he is an expert in this area; 2) Bruce Ware is teaching the other half of the course and he is a world renowned theologian and scholar, and 3) Sanctification is something that we are all trying to grow in, so we ought to be doing it correctly—this class will help me with that.

So for now I am plowing through some reading so that I can have it done by time the class starts on June 6. On the docket is:

  • Christian Spirituality: Fives Views on Sanctification edited by Donald Alexander
  • An Anthology of Christian Mysticism by Harvey Egan
  • Five Views on Sanctification edited by Stanley Gundry
  • Faithfulness and Holiness: The Witness of J.C. Ryle by J.I. Packer
  • The Saving Life of Christ by W. Ian Thomas
  • Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin (Chapters I-X, XX)

There will be plenty of other reading and research happening as well as I work towards the final paper of the class as well. So…since I’ll be doing all of this reading the blog might be a little quieter—maybe not though, because I just might find time to share what I am learning. Pray for me.

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Reflections on Education and the Church | Part 3

By on May 5, 2011 in Education

This will be the last post in this short series. Perhaps I’ll continue to process through more information on the topic, but as I have thought through this final post it is going to take some time to continue to work through these thoughts.

If you haven’t seen the first and second part before this post, be sure you read those first. Part 1 | Part 2

In essence, for me, what it all boils down to is churches taking the responsibility to equip their people for ministry. They should be working to engage a core group for potential leadership and in this group be working to discern giftedness and call to ministry. Some churches do well with this, but most churches not so much. Perhaps I can summarize the rest of what I am thinking by giving you an example from my experiences.

When I was in Philadelphia at Grace Bible Church, the elders thought it appropriate to create a group where they could evaluate gifting and confirm calling to ministry—whether that be elder, church planter, deacon, etc. We met under the name of “TableTalk,” fashioned after Martin Luther’s TableTalk sessions. We would meet about once a month at a friends coffee shop to study, learn, pray, recognize the grace of God in one another’s lives, and to hold each other accountable. Each month there would be some sort of assignment that we would work on and then the following month we would come back and talk about it. Everything was working good in concept, except the group sort of turned into just another men’s group that got too big and was unproductive (at least for the purposes set out originally). The elders of Grace have now reorganized under the banner of “Catalyst.” Since I have moved and left the church I am not 100% of what they are doing, however, I am sure they are working to discern gifting and calling, their original intent.

I feel that my church might be headed into a similar scenario. Men’s groups are good, but they can get big and fail to serve the purpose in which it was originally created. The church needs to get creative in identifying gifted and called people to be elders, deacons, church planters, and missionaries. If the church is leaving it up to the colleges and seminaries I fear that the church is failing because so many men in the church are gifted but will never go to Bible college or seminary.

At this point I wish I had more answers. I am continually engaged in conversations on this topic and if you have thoughts on this please let me know. The more we pool together ideas and thoughts the better chance we have in putting education in the church.

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Reflections on Education and the Church | Part 2

By on April 19, 2011 in Education

On Saturday I started this series, so if you haven’t read that first post you probably want to click over there first and then come back here. It will give you some context to where I am coming from and even to where I am headed.

After the panel talked about the current trends that I mentioned earlier, they moved directly into how the church should be functioning in equipping pastors for ministry. Al Mohler, the president of a seminary, said this:

Seminaries should not exist to train pastors. Seminaries should exist to help churches train pastors.

The emphasis in the previous statement is extremely important and identifies how many churches have failed to help future pastors prepare for the pastorate. Let me illustrate this with a fairly generic, albeit common, example.

Johnny goes to summer camp and comes home stoked about ministry. Over time through his youth group or through his youth pastor, he is encouraged to go to a Bible college and get a Bible education. Johnny heads off to Bible college, learns a lot about the Bible, graduates and then asks what is next? What is next? Well that could be to find a church or if Johnny has been led well it might be that he heads off to seminary to get more education. Johnny gets to the point where he graduates from seminary and is finally ready to start shepherding some sheep…or so he thinks.

The problem in this scenario is that nowhere along this education processes was Johnny plugged into a church that was evaluating his calling or his gifting to be a pastor. In essence what the church has been doing is franchising pastoral education to the colleges and seminaries instead of owning the responsibility themselves. I am not saying that colleges and seminaries are not important, they absolutely are. However, they should be working hand in hand with the churches.

Mark Driscoll illustrated this well for us at TGC conference. In Re:Train, the education arm of Acts29, they focus on on three things; Head, Heart, and Hands. The head is for knowledge, the heart is for character, and the hands are for skills. Colleges and seminaries can equip for the head, they can give the knowledge. However, there are few schools out there that can adequately address the heart and hands. This is where the church is so important. The church should be working alongside the schools to test the character and to give the skills men need for ministry. So the problem is that many schools only address the head, but never the heart or the hands. Thankfully the school I work for does address the heart well, but what about the hands?

The reality is if you are not in a church based education program then the hands aspect of this illustration will not happen. It must happen through the church. So what is the solution for the church then? We will address some of these ideas in the next post.

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Reflections on Education and the Church | Part 1

By on April 16, 2011 in Ecclesiology, Education

This last week at The Gospel Coalition Conference I sat in on a panel discussion about education. It was moderated by D. A. Carson and included Al Mohler (SBTS), Mark Driscoll (Pastor of Mars Hill Church Seattle), David Helm (Pastor of Holy Trinity Church Chicago), and Ligon Duncan (Pastor of First Presbyterian Church Jackson, MS). They talked about various topics as it relates to education and training the next generation of pastors. Of all the sessions I sat in on this one was in its entirety worth the cost of the conference. These men captured my affections for education and the church so well I felt this physical emotion that I cannot even describe. Needless to say, it was so encouraging to hear the things these men were saying. I will attempt to explain some of the highlights while drawing some conclusions from them.

The first question posed by the moderator was along the lines of, “What trends are we seeing today in education?”

The first and obvious answer relates to technology. I couldn’t agree more with the idea that technology is driving education today. As an instructional designer for a university I deal with this daily. The Internet is changing the way people do education and receive an education. Certainly there are good and bad things that come from this. There are certain things that people shouldn’t be learning online. I believe it was Driscoll who pointed out that he wouldn’t want to go to a surgeon who’s credentials came from an online school. Surgery is one of those disciplines that we would expect the Dr. to have gotten from the classroom and from labs and from observations. An online education does not suffice for someone like this. So what about the theological student? What about the person studying to be a pastor? Those questions went largely unanswered, however, were alluded to at times throughout the rest of the discussion.

The second trend that was mentioned, and where the majority of the time was devoted, was that education is seeing a return to the church rather than to the seminaries. Churches, by and large, have done a deplorable job of educating and preparing men for ministry. Most churches have no mechanism in place to educate or confirm calling and giftedness. This is a travesty and is where I will pick up in my next post, discussing this trend and why this is so critical for the health of the church.

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The Day of Reckoning

By on March 18, 2011 in Creation, Education, Video

The day of reckoning for me and the paper I had to write for a doctorate course is here. I just turned in my paper, which was probably my longest single paper I have had to write so far. In seminary I had to put together a systematic theology of sorts but that was eleven different papers combined into one. This paper for biblical creationism was one paper total. I will post pieces of it over the next week or so. The topic was looking at John Sailhamer’s view of creation as he explains it in Genesis Unbound.

John Piper believes the peculiar view that Sailhamer teaches. So until I start posting some pieces of my paper take a look at this video.

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Free Class with Bruce Ware & Andy Naselli

By on March 11, 2011 in Announcement, Education

This summer (June 6-10, 2011) Dr. Bruce Ware and Dr. Andy Naselli will be co-teaching a course at Northland International University on the “Models of Sanctification.” Northland Graduate School is offering this course for free to all new students who want to check out their Doctor of Ministry or Master of Ministry program.

The Nitty-Gritty

  • When: June 6 – 10, 2011
  • Where: The beautiful campus of Northland International University (Dunbar, WI)
  • How Much?: Free for all first-time students in Northland’s graduate program
  • Workload? You can download the syllabus and take a look for yourself!

The course will work with Dr. Naselli starting the course with a survey and evaluation of the Wesleyan, Keswick, Chaferian, and Pentecostal views of sanctification. Dr. Ware will start teaching on Wednesday afternoon thru Friday morning with a survey and evaluation of the contemplative view and explain the reformed view of sanctification.

If you want more information on the course you can find that by clicking over to Northland’s website.

This is a course I will be taking as I work towards a D.Min. degree. If you have any questions at all feel free to shoot them to me through my contact page.

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My Continuing Education…Class #2

By on December 20, 2010 in Creation, Education

This last summer I started another degree. This time around I am working on a post-graduate degree, a doctor of ministry. A doctor of ministry has some similarities to a Ph.D. but is a little more practically oriented and doesn’t typically include learning foreign languages or taking comprehensive exams. Since I work for Northland I am able to do this degree for free through them…so I figured why not?

My first class this last summer was on biblical counseling. Coming up in January I will be doing the second course towards this degree; a class on biblical creationism. Creation studies are interesting to me because I teach a class on the Pentateuch, which of course includes the book of Genesis and the foundation for a literal six day creation.

For this course we have two professors and they are both creation scientists from Answers In Genesis, the ministry founded by Ken Ham. The first professor is Dr. Jason Lisle, an astrophysicists and the second professor is Dr. Terry Mortenson, an author and lecturer. With all of their qualifications I’m looking forward to learning from these two men.

In total I need to read seven books (about 2000 pages) for the reading portion of the class and then I need to write a 30-35 page paper. I have already read three books and have started on the fourth (books are listed at the bottom of this post). For the writing project I am going to read and write a formal critique of John Sailhammer’s book, Genesis Unbound. In this work Sailhammer chronicles a unique view that focuses on the Hebrew language. This is consequently the same view, or closest to the view, that John Piper holds to. With Piper being one my heros of the faith it makes this project very interesting and appealing to me.

These are books that I need to read for this class. Perhaps as time permits and ambitions allow I will post some reviews of these works at a later time.

Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth Edited by Mortenson and Ury

Taking Back Astronomy: The Heavens Declare Creation by Jason Lisle

Ultimate Proof of Creation by Jason Lisle

The Young Earth: The Real History of the Earth – Past, Present, and Future by John Morris

The New Answers Book (Answers Book Series) edited by Ken Ham

Already Gone: Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer

The Great Turning Point: The Church’s Catastrophic Mistake on Geology–Before Darwin by Terry Mortenson

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