On March 13, a week from today, we are hosting our new Scripture & Ministry lecture featuring John Oswalt, who will talk about “The Centrality of Holiness in the Scriptural Vision of Salvation.”

Dr. Oswalt is a visiting distinguished professor of Old Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary. He was president of Asbury College from 1983 to 1986 and a member of the faculty of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School from 1986 to 1989. His latest work is Lectures in Old Testament Theology: Yahweh is God Alone, with Dennis Kinlaw, 2010.

You can find more details about the upcoming lecture here. It starts at 1:00 PM but you can come early for coffee and refreshments. We hope to see you there, but if you can’t make it, remember the event will be streamed through stream.tiu.edu.

Next Wednesday February 20th, The Henry Center is hosting Michael McClymond for our next Scripture & Ministry series.

Michael McClymond is an Associate Professor of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University. His lecture, entitled “Christ Between the Thieves: The Theological and Pastoral Challenge of Christian Universalism,” will address the hot issue of universal salvation, popularized by Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins. McClymond is a well-published author, his most recent book is The Theology of Jonathan Edwards. To learn more about McClymond, visit his university webpage.

The lecture, followed by a q&a, will take place at Trinity’s chapel, from 1 to 2:30 pm. You can come early and join us for coffee and refreshments. And if you’re not able to make it, you can follow the lecture online at www.tiuproductions.com.

We hope you enjoyed Michael Horton’s lecture as this course’s first guest speaker on the Henry Center. Next Wednesday, October 3rd, we will have the privilege of hearing from Mark Labberton, professor in preaching at Fuller Theological Semminary and  director of the Lloyd John Ogilvie Institute of Preaching Preaching. Labberton will speak on “Preaching in a Wisdom-Hungry World,” addressing how to reach a world that seeks wisdom without acknowledging it. Find more information about the upcoming lecture here. At the end of the event there will be a time for questions and answers. Afterwards you can take the opportunity to chat with Dr. Labberton and other participants.

We hope to see you next Wednesday, October 3rd, at 1:00pm at Trinity International University’s chapel. If you come a bit early, you can enjoy coffee and refreshments served at the entrance from 12:45 on. Don’t miss this opportunity to grow in your ability to teach and understand the sometimes disregarded wisdom genre.

If you are unable to attend the event but you still want to follow us live online, click on this link: http://client.stretchinternet.com/client/tiuadmin.portal

Keep track of our next events here.

The Henry Center eagerly anticipates Mike Horton’s visit next week.

He will be lecturing on “Ascension and Ecclesial: Promise-Driven Ministry in a Purpose-Drive Age.” (For a fuller description of the talk, check out the summary here.) The lecture is at 1:00 in the ATO Chapel, with a Q&A to follow.

Anyone familiar with Mike Horton’s message knows that he is among the more thoughtful reforming voices within contemporary evangelicalism, neither rejecting our heritage as some post-evangelicals do, nor defending the movement as though nothing’s wrong. And the (neglected) doctrine of the ascension figures prominently in Horton’s prophetic call to repentance and renewal.

Although the ascension has long been part of the church liturgy, it has received scant attention in recent theology, either formally (Donald Macleod, Robert Letham and Millard Erickson spend too little time on the subject) or in church practice (few evangelical churches recognize, let alone celebrates, Ascension Sunday). The currents are changing slightly, however, if the popularity of Douglas Farrow’s Ascension and Ecclesia is any indication. Horton is among the leading evangelical voices beckoning us to remember the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of the Father and to live according to this new historical-redemptive situation. Continuing the message that he has already begun (see this helpful, brief article that Horton wrote for 9marks.org, this more general sermon that he gave at a Ligonier conference, or a more thorough discussion in chap.1 of People and Place), we eagerly await this challenging and edifying time of reflection and dialogue.

We hope that you’ll join us, preferably in person, but alternatively via our live-stream.

The Henry Center is pleased to announce that Alistair Begg’s recent Scripture & Ministry lecture and interview sessions are now posted free of charge for the viewing of the general public.

October 26, 2011 | Alistair Begg | Parkside Church, Cleveland, Ohio

“Inadequacy: The Surprising Secret to Being Useful to God”

The NBA champions this year was a team made up of fewer stars and less glitz than their opponents.  We might say that humility triumphed over hubris.  There are lessons-a-plenty in this for an evangelical church that routinely produces all-stars.  Such an approach endangers the recipients of such adulation and discourages those who are by-passed in the process.  In this lecture, Alistair Begg will consider God’s pattern of using unlikely and ordinary characters and address the possibility that what we regard as a hindrance may be the key to usefulness in God’s service.

Lecture: Audio | Video

Interview: Audio | Video

Alistair Begg is the senior pastor of Parkside Church in Cleveland, OH, and he can also be heard regularly on the radio program Truth for Life. On October 26, he will be the speaker for the Scripture and Ministry lecture series sponsored by the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding.

The lecture will be held in TEDS chapel. This event is free and open to the public.

Refreshments will begin at 12:45 pm, followed by the lecture at 1:00 pm (with Q&A to follow).

The topic of the lecture …

“Inadequacy: The Surprising Secret to Being Useful to God”

The NBA champions this year was a team made up of fewer stars and less glitz than their opponents. We might say that humility triumphed over hubris. There are lessons-a-plenty in this for an evangelical church that routinely produces all-stars. Such an approach endangers the recipients of such adulation and discourages those who are by-passed in the process. In this lecture, Alistair Begg will consider God’s pattern of using unlikely and ordinary characters and address the possibility that what we regard as a hindrance may be the key to usefulness in God’s service.

The Henry Center is pleased to announce that Timothy Laniak’s recent Scripture & Ministry lecture and interview sessions are now posted free of charge for the viewing of the general public.

September  14, 2011 | Timothy Laniak | Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Charlotte, North Carolina

“Shepherds After My Own Heart: The Enduring Challenge of Pastoral Identity”

The most consistent biblical metaphor for leaders among the people of God is the shepherd. But what, really, is a spiritual shepherd? Beyond the specific job descriptions and role expectations of others, what does God expect of us? How does God see us? In this illustrated presentation, Dr. Laniak will take us into the world of Bedouin shepherds for unique perspectives on Scripture’s challenge to shepherd God’s flock. Come renew your pastoral calling with images and insights designed to keep you on course as you serve the Chief Shepherd. Let God reset your identity as his shepherd.

Lecture: Audio | Video

Interview: Audio | Video

The Henry Center is pleased to announce that Michael Glerup’s recent Scripture & Ministry lecture and interview sessions are now posted free of charge for the viewing of the general public.

Moses, a pivotal figure in the story of salvation, was a friend of God, who God spoke to “face to face, clearly and not in riddles.”  He was the most humble man on earth and a powerful intercessor for Israel yet was rejected and maligned by his community. The early church-apostles and later interpreters– steeped in scripture, encouraged by Jesus words “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me” mined Moses’ life for insight into the Christian life and faith. In this lecture we will investigate with the early exegetes, particularly those from the African continent, the key events of Moses’ life and explore their implications for pastoral ministry, Christian formation, and the mission of the church.

Lecture: Audio | Video

Interview: Audio | Video

By Rob Moll

Our world is one in which people, ideas, and products travel from everywhere on the globe to anywhere else. As a result, every place is a mission field, a home to people in need of the gospel. Yet bringing the gospel to them can be a serious challenge.

Typically, missionaries find ways to contextualize the gospel, to make it understandable and meaningful in a particular culture. In the U.S., where the gospel has to a large degree shaped the culture, the problem is not contextualization but over-contextualization, says Casely Essamuah. How do you make the gospel understood where it is such a familiar presence as to be unremarkable? This is the challenge of missionaries who come to the U.S.

Casely Essamuah is global missions pastor or Bay Area Community Church in Annapolis, Maryland. Originally from Ghana, Essamuah and his wife met while they were students in Boston. Angela Wakhweya-Essamuah, after receiving an MA in Economics at the London School of Economics, is now deputy director of infectious health for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The couple works with short term mission trips from Maryland to Africa as well as with immigrant communities planting churches in the U.S. The couple spoke at the Henry Center Scripture and Ministry Series (Lecture: Audio | Video; Interview: Audio | Video).

Around the world, the gospel has not been evenly contextualized. “In 1900,” Casely said, “33 percent of the world identified itself as Christian. That is the same as in the year 2000. The Christian market share has remained the same, but the real issue is where the growth took place.” In Africa and Latin America, growth of the church as been feverish, he said. “This is a testament to the successful contextualization of the gospel. God worked through southern church.”

However, Casely said, despite some success in South Korea and a few other countries, efforts at church planting in Asia have not gone far enough. In the West, the picture is ambiguous. “The church is alive and thriving,” he said. “Churches are active in relief among the global poor. The church seems to be meeting the challenge of the 21^st century, but there are clouds. The Western church suffers from an over-contextualizing of cultural forms.”

Reverse missions

Missionaries coming to the U.S. have so far only recognized the problem. These missionaries are not sent by their home churches specifically to share the good news on U.S. soil. Instead, they come to America as economic migrants and slowly their identity shifts toward that of a missionary.

Casely said that most Americans today don’t recognize what the rest of the world saw as a momentous decision when, in 1965, the government overturned the system of country quotas that preferred immigration from European countries. “That set the U.S. on a course that was different than past 300 years,” he said. “Today we have a president called Barak Obama.”

This allowed migrants from very different cultures to arrive on these shores, and they brought with them their religion, often Christianity. However, they are often shocked at the degree to which their faith is absent from American culture.

“One of the things we encounter around the world is the shock when Westerners are introduced to poverty,” Casely said. Immigrants to the U.S. don’t experience the same type of shock. They know what the U.S. looks like. They’ve seen television shows or movies, and they know what to expect. But what does shock these immigrants is the degree of secularization of American culture, Casely said, “especially when people come from where Christianity is strong. They see the U.S. as a place of dry bones.”

This is the start of their transition from economic migrants to missionaries, and these reverse missionaries are having incredible success, first with fellow immigrants and slowly with the rest of American society. “The church of Pentecost is 50 yrs old in Ghana,” Casely said, “and they have established 200 churches in the U.S. in 25 years.”

As a Ghanaian Methodist minister in Annapolis, Maryland, he said, “There are six Ghanaian Methodist churches within an hours’ drive.” They were formed to provide refuge for immigrants looking to worship in their language and a familiar culture. Now, however, “They are renegotiating their identity as Ghanaians in the U.S.”

The effect of their missionary efforts remains to be seen. Can reverse missionaries change American culture? Time will tell. We do know, however, that there is no need to wait for experts to travel around the world to find out. Americans can visit their local store-front church or neighborhood recreation center on a Sunday morning and see the whole world in worship.

The Henry Center is pleased to announce that the Essamuahs’ recent Scripture & Ministry lecture and interview sessions are now posted free of charge for the viewing of the general public.

An African evangelical family with almost two decades of experience in American church leadership reflects on the missions work of immigrants in light of the current state of Christianity in the world. Examples of global outreach and evangelism efforts through short term missions will be discussed, as well as the impact such experiences have on the participants. Highlights will be drawn from Uganda and Ghana short term missions trips by American Christians and what they learned from their experiences.

Lecture: Audio | Video

Interview: Audio | Video