UPCOMING LECTURES | PAST LECTURES
The Henry Center sponsors the Scripture & Ministry lectures, which feature distinguished Christian speakers addressing issues of crucial importance for relating Scripture and ministry. This series brings together Trinity Evangelical Divinity School faculty members, pastors and community members for a time of learning and fellowship. The relationship between theologians and practitioners calls for earnest efforts to bridge the gap that all too often divides them and to encourage mutually enriching collaboration in the gospel.
PAST LECTURES
March 17, 2010 | Christine Pohl | Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, KY “Practicing Hospitality in Troubled Times: Promise and Peril for the Church” (1pm in ATO Chapel at TEDS)
Offering hospitality to strangers was a distinctive feature of ancient Christian life. The biblical texts and tradition, Jesus’ practice and explicit teachings, and the needs of the ancient church and world combined to make hospitality a central aspect of Christian discipleship. In the last 500 years, transformative understandings of hospitality have been mostly lost, and with them, some crucial insights into Christian witness, social ministry and congregational life. Giving fresh attention to an ancient practice allows us to see the close connection between theology and everyday life, and offers promise and challenge to the contemporary church.
January 20, 2010 | Richard Mouw | Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA “Confessions of an Evangelical Pietist” (1pm in ATO Chapel at TEDS)
The Christian community needs to work at integrating our doctrine, action and piety (“head, hands and heart”). But which takes priority? And a closely related issue: what, in the most basic sense, is the Bible trying to “do” to us? Shape the way we think? Guide us in the activist programs we align ourselves with in the word? Transform our inner life? Obviously, all three are crucial. In this lecture, Richard Mouw explains why he keeps coming back to the fundamental need to be guided in everything else by the kind of piety that characterized the “sawdust trail” of our revivalist past.
Confessions of an Evangelical Pietist | Video | Audio | Audience Q&A (Audio)
Interview | Video | Audio
October 7, 2009 | Craig Carter | Tyndale University College and Seminary, Toronto, CA “Augustine and the Secular in Christendom and Modernity”
- This lecture addressed the growing relevance of Augustine in debates concerning secular space. Particular attention is given to how Augustine’s City of God delineates a positive conception of secular space and its role in civil society. A distinction between Augustinianism and Triumphalism is made to differentiate Augustine’s conception of the secular from the secularism and statism of many modern statist projects.
Augustine and the Secular in Christendom and Modernity | Audio | Video
Interview | Audio | Video
September 23, 2009 | Ravi Zacharias | Ravi Zacharias International Ministries “Toward an Evangelical Understanding of Postmodernism and Mission”
- Someone from India recently quipped to me, “India has gone from ancient to postmodern and skipped over the modern period.” Indeed, in distilling truth, it has been rendered to neutrality. How then, in a climate of cultural preferences (whether in the East or in the West), does one share the Gospel graciously and winsomely without it seeming like a cultural chiding or contravention? This is the essential challenge before us in the church today.
Toward an Evangelical Understanding of Postmodernism and Mission | Audio | Video
Audience Q&A | Audio | Video
Interview | Audio | Video
Chapel Sermon: Lessons from History: The Tale of the Story of Two Men | Audio | Video
March 18-19, 2009 | Esther Meek | Geneva College, Beaver Falls, PA | “Knowing Knowing, Knowing God: Contours of Covenant Epistemology”
- Most people have never had a philosophy course; that doesn’t keep them from practicing philosophy. We all inherit “default settings,” unexamined presumptions about what knowing is, which are proving unhealthy and unbiblical. They infect every dimension of human life, including knowing God. “Epistemological therapy” thus holds the prospect of favorably impacting everything from business to Christian discipleship, athletics to scientific research. This lecture introduces you to Meek’s “covenant epistemology,” centrally the proposal that we take, as our paradigm of all human knowing, the transformative, interpersonal, covenantally-featured relationship. Dr. Meek’s lecture explores its key features and the ways it accords with the Christian Scripture, commending its value for reshaping the way we engage the world, and restoring us to ourselves.
Knowing Knowing, Knowing God: Contours of Covenant Epistemology | Audio | Video
Interview | Audio | Video
January 21-22, 2009 | Bradley Nassif | Professor of Biblical & Theological Studies, North Park University | “Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Christian Antiquity”
- Contemporary Christians are increasingly turning to the past for wisdom and guidance in the 21st century. While some of the past is best left behind, other portions offer buried treasures for Christian life and ministry. This lecture examines the nature of holiness in the great Desert Fathers and Mothers in Egypt, Palestine and Syria from the 3rd – 6th centuries, with an emphasis on the role of Scripture in personal development and pastoral counseling. In it, Dr. Nassif examines the rise of the great desert disciples and the role Scripture played in cultivating a life of holiness. For them, the Word was not only to be interpreted with the mind, but also to be “seen” as an exegeted text. A holistic “hermeneutic of the desert” emerged in the context of personal discipleship and a life of prayer, fasting and inner watchfulness.
Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Christian Antiquity | Audio | Video
Interview | Audio | Video
October 29, 2008 | Dr. David Wells | Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, MA | “How, then, Should We Preach to the (Postmodern) World?”
- Western technology, coupled with its unparalleled abundance, have created a life with more information, more choices, better medical care, and longer life. At the same time, it is a world in which we have fewer connections to place, family, and friends, as well as more emptiness and anxiety. More of our children are more demoralized than ever before. That is the American paradox. Never have we had so much and never have we had so little. This is the world into which we are called to live out Christian faith and to speak Christian truth. How are we going to do this? This lecture explores the question from the point of view of the preacher.
October 1, 2008 | Dr. Phil Ryken | Senior Pastor, Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, PA | “The Suffering and the Glory: Pastoral Ministry in Union with Christ”
- What is the meaning and purpose of suffering in the work of pastoral ministry? What hope do we have that preaching the gospel will make a lasting difference for Christ? In this lecture, Dr. Philip Ryken contends that the rich biblical doctrine of union with Christ provides a complete theological and practical context for understanding both tragedy and triumph in the ordinary work of the pastor. Through his thirteen years of preaching ministry at Philadelphia’s historic Tenth Presbyterian Church, Dr. Ryken has experienced, as it were, both the cross and the empty tomb. The author of thirty Bible commentaries and other books on Christianity, culture, and the church, Dr. Ryken has a passion for the local church and for connecting people in ministry to the life-giving work of the crucified and risen Christ.
April 9, 2008 | Dr. Craig Blomberg | Professor of New Testament, Denver Seminary | “Neither Poverty Nor Riches: On the North Shore? You Must Be Joking!”
- What exactly does the Bible teach about material possessions? What does faithful New Testament stewardship entail, since it’s not a tithe? What does generous, sacrificial giving look like in an area as wealthy as Chicago’s North Shore-for individuals? for churches? for a seminary? Craig Blomberg doesn’t pretend to have all the answers but he has lived here, gone to seminary here, and, more recently, studied and written a lot about a biblical theology of possessions, especially in his book, “Neither Poverty nor Riches” (Inter-Varsity Press, 1999), and in his Bible study guide for individuals and groups, “Heart, Soul and Money” (College Press, 2000). play audio, play video
- Scripture and Ministry Series Interview | play audio, play video
January 30, 2008 | Dr. Mark Dever | Senior Pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington, DC. | “Re-ordering Friendship, Love & Enmity: A Biblical Reflection on Church Membership”
- Membership should reflect a living commitment to a local church in attendance, giving, prayer and service; otherwise it is meaningless, worthless, and even dangerous. What does the lack of church membership say to the rest of the world about the church? To be a member is knowingly to be traveling together as aliens and strangers in this world as we head to our heavenly home. In this lecture, Dr. Dever explores church membership from a biblical and historical approach, touching on the most difficult issues keeping many Americans from committing to church membership. play audio
- Scripture and Ministry Series Interview | play audio, play video
November 7, 2007 | Reverend David Jackman | President of the Proclamation Trust and Director of The Cornhill Training Course | “Our Business is Growing: Developing the Preacher and His Skills”
- Biblical preaching needs to be fresh as well as faithful, if it is to nurture and equip church members to make a difference in their daily lives. But so often we, the preachers, are stuck in the concrete of old patterns and threadbare approaches. How can we keep growing as pastor-teachers? How can our preaching develop in depth and helpfulness? David Jackman uses this address to share some of the insights and methodologies developed in preaching seminars through the work of the Proclamation Trust, UK. play audio
- Scripture and Ministry Series Interview | play audio, play video
October 3, 2007 | Dr. George Yancey | Associate Professor of Sociology, University of North Texas | “Principles for Successful Multiracial Churches”
- Why do we still worship in our own racial enclaves? How can we construct our churches in ways that will help us to draw people of different races? Is it possible to overcome much of the racial segregation that still troubles the greater Chicago area? George Yancey draws on his years of research of multiracial churches to offer some answers to these questions. He outlines the principles that these churches used in order to become racially diverse. He would love to help provide insight into how you can reach people of different races for your ministry as well. play audio
- Scripture and Ministry Series Interview | play audio, play video
March 21, 2007 | Dr. Robert J. Priest | Professor of Missions and Intercultural Studies, TEDS | “Short-term Missions and North American Congregations”
- Every year an estimated 1.6 million US church members, supported by two or three billion dollars, travel abroad on short-term mission. Short-term missions is changing the face ministry within North American congregations, and is changing the way in which Christians from the two-thirds world build strategic links to resources in the West. There remains a pressing need to think through this phenomenon and how best to carry out short-term missions.
February 7, 2007 | Dr. Steve Seamands | Professor of Christian Doctrine, Asbury Seminary | “The Trinitarian Shape of Pastoral Ministry”
- When we truly grasp that the ministry into which we have been called is “the ministry of Jesus Christ, to the Father, through the Holy Spirit for the sake of the Church and the world,” it transforms our perception of who we are and has significant implications for our practice. Discover how the Trinitarian shape of ministry can establish, challenge and inspire your pastoral vocation.play audio
- Scripture and Ministry Series Interview | play video
November 1, 2006 | Dr. Quentin Schultze | Professor of Communication Arts and Science, Calvin College | “Beyond the Digital Rat Race: Using Technology Wisely in Our Lives, Work, and Churches”
- All of us are burdened with desires and demands to expand our technical abilities and to push for greater use of information and communication technologies in our daily lives. Yet the temptations to overuse and misuse technologies are evident all around us. How can we equip ourselves, our families, and our congregations to use email, PowerPoint, cell phones, instant messaging, personal Web sites, and other technologies appropriately? Dr. Schultze provides some helpful suggestions in this lecture. play audio
- Scripture and Ministry Series Interview | play video
