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December 31, 2008

 

 

 



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Best Practices Video
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The ministry of tattoo removal
To the Point:

The central and simple message of the New Testament is that the promised age to come has dawned, the promised victory over what has emptied life of meaning and filled it with confusion and dismay has been won. . . . Were it not for the resurrection, Paul suggests, abandoning ourselves to a life of empty party-making and a fatalistic sense of doom would be quite logical. There is no hope in 'this age.' It lies under the judgment of God. It is all, despite its brilliance, now dying. It has no future. It can offer many pleasurable experiences, many momentary distractions, but it is doomed. It has no long-term future and can offer no meaning besides what it manufactures for the moment, which is as fleeting as the morning mist.
- David F. Wells, The Courage to Be Protestant

Got a favorite quote? Send it to BestPractices@ameritech.net. 
Loren4Best Practices "Night Owl Cafe" at the 2009 Ministries Convention
I keep looking for opportunities to meet more of you; but being a pastor myself, I don't get to travel to all the events where pastors gather. At this year's Ministries Convention in Myrtle Beach, we're going to try to get Best Practices readers together.

We've got a slot after the evening meeting, starting about 9:30 PM, where we want to have conversations with innovative pastors. We're calling it the Night Owl Cafe.

I'm arranging some topics to get our conversation started.

On Sunday night, we'll begin by interviewing Michael Coe from Florida. Mike and his team have redefined evangelism: they're mounting a full-scale assault on their community not just with doctrines, but deeds. We'll discuss, among other things, the evangelistic value of non-doctrinal outreach.

On Monday night, Raj Attiken, one of the truly innovative leaders and thinkers in the church, will be with us. Raj is going to lead us in a discussion of the main streams of missional thinking right now among Christians, which ones we Adventists can embrace, and which are problematical.

On Tuesday night we're going to talk about small churches and their unique challenges and conflicts. If you've got some experiences or expertise in small churches, please drop me a note.

This is where the creative pastors will be sharing! Please be there!

Contact me at BestPractices@ameritech.net.
Reading for Pastors
by Best Practices Editor, Loren Seibold

The argument continues: I previously told you about David Beckworth's paper suggesting that people become more interested in church in an economic downturn. Gallup claims to contradict that finding, although Monte Sahlin isn't impressed by Gallup's methodology. "David Beckworth's research indicates that the increase in baptisms comes about 5 to 6 quarters after the economy goes down," says Monte, "and it correlates with baptisms, not attendance."

On the same topic, Monte asks, "How will the Christian community be seen to respond to this greatest economic disaster to come upon our country in 80 years?" What is your church doing?

Do abstinence pledges for teens work? According to at least one recent study, not very well.

A new universalism? The respected Pew Forum just redid a portion of its survey on religion in America, which shows (again) that many Americans think people of all religions can be saved. Sound theology or wishful thinking? Here's Pew's original Religious Landscape survey from June.

More on the "secret spy worshipper", from CT: Hospitality evaluators doing checkups on churches. Quote: "This is a near-perfect example of what happens when we let marketing experts into the church building."
sednak
Book Review:
Africa's Roots in God: the Knowledge of the Creator Embedded in the Indigenous African Culture
By Sednak Yankson
Sankofa Heritage Books, 2007 (www.africasroots.com) I've always been fascinated by relationships between languages or customs that were temporally and geographically separated. They exist, we assume, because we all came from the same roots. People moved, and their ideas moved with them, even before jet planes and global communication networks. Sednak Yankson, a Ghanaian Seventh-day Adventist pastor and scholar, has traced astonishing connections between the Old Testament and the culture of West Africa. Yankson shows how Hebrew names, words, concepts and even entire ceremonies (including, significantly, the Sabbath) survived in some indigenous African cultures. Even given the possibility of natural convergences of ideas, the parallels are too clear to be accidental, such as a nearly precise reproduction of the Passover service by the Ga people right down to painting the house doorposts red, and the Akan people's golden "mercy seat" on which blood was sprinkled. That Africa was a dark continent before the arrival of the missionaries is only a partial truth, insists Sednak: the truths of Scripture were contained in the ceremonies and stories of the African people, awaiting only their awakening and fulfillment with the story of Jesus. This book helps to explain why Africa responded so readily to the stories and ideas of the Bible, and why the once Dark Continent will soon have the largest concentration of Christians in the entire world.
Resources, Ideas and Events
Compiled by Best Practices Editor, Loren Seibold
  • From Dave Gemmel at Vervent: "Just in case you haven't heard, you are invited to the Church Ministries Convention in 2009. There will be more pastoral workshops at this event than any other convention that I have ever heard of. Most of the workshops are conducted by pastors for pastors."
Got a tool, resource, site, article, idea or seminar that you like a lot? Share it with us at BestPractices@ameritech.net.
NAD Events
Do you have an SDA-sponsored event that you'd like to invite NAD pastors to? Tell us about it at BestPractices@ameritech.net.
NAD Church RESOURCE Center
Best Practices is an e-publication of Vervent
NAD CHURCH RESOURCE CENTER
Editor: Loren Seibold
Senior Pastor, Worthington Ohio Seventh-day Adventist Church