Four Reasons I’m Excited about this Semester

A new semester has begun, and I’m excited by what we have in store. At least four reasons:

1). The Sojourn Forum. We’re kicking things off with a discussion of Brit Hume’s comments calling Tiger Woods to convert to Christianity, and the subsequent media firestorm. This raised issues of proselytizing, evangelism, faith in the public square, tolerance, and comparing religions. I’ll post more in depth on this later in the week.

In following weeks, we’ll cover, in no particular order:

• Avatar and its pantheistic, pagan, capitalistic, imperialistic subplots
• “Is Environmentalism a New Religion?”
• Meaning & Purpose
• A special “Darwin Day” discussion on 2/11
• Free Will, DNA, and Destiny
• Critical, but not Constructive Thinking
• We may discuss the movies “The God Who Wasn’t There” and “What Would Jesus Buy”
• Other topics our Sojourn Forum will determine together

2. The “Skeptics Bible Study.” This is brand new, an offshoot of Sojourn. We’ll be looking at particular biblical texts, making sure to deal with questions & objections skeptics may have about the Bible. Where Sojourn tends to approach issues “top-down” (starting at the Big Idea), this Bible Study will approach questions from “bottom-up,” by looking at specific biblical texts.

Among other topics/texts, we’ll be looking at:

• The Prodigal Son as a parable summarizing the Bible’s (hi)story of redemption (with help from Tim Keller)
• Is the Bible really all about Jesus? Luke 24:44-49
• The Bible’s View of Itself  2 Timothy 3:16
• The most famous verse of all–John 3:16
• “Judge not lest ye be judged”
• Did Jesus fulfill or abolish the Law (or, should Christians be kosher?) Matthew 5:17
• Biblical texts on women
• Biblical texts on homosexuality
• Biblical texts on slavery
• Irrational, Angry Jesus? The cursing of the fig tree and cleansing of the Temple
• The resurrection: historicity, conflicting accounts, etc.

3. Partnership with other ministries

I’ll continue working with several other ministries for the larger purposes of the Kingdom here at PSU.

• coaching ACF’s church-planting couple, Pete & Jackie; & working with ACF on missional movement
• speaking 3 times to Navigator’s student leaders on apologetics
• featured speaker for Harvest’s on-campus “retreat” in March (Harvest is a largely Korean student-church on campus)
• developing partnership opportunities with Campus Crusade
• praying for our campus with several ministries on Wednesdays at lunchtime
• working with fellow CCO ministers, including Calvary Baptist/Doulos

4. Conferences

I’m participating in two conferences in February. The first is the Verge Conference in Austin, TX, 2/4-6. It’s all about “missional communities,” with some leading thinkers & practitioners including Alan Hirsch, Ed Stetzer, Neil Cole, Francis Chan, Jeff Vanderstelt, and the good folks from Austin Stone Church and Hill Country Bible Church UT. I’m very much looking forward to taking in everything they’re doing at Univ. of Texas.

I’m also leading some breakout sessions at CCO’s Jubilee Conference, 2/19-21. I’ll be moderating a panel discussion on faith & doubt with some atheists and Christians, as well as speaking on college ministry as vocation. Looking forward to it!