In a couple of weeks the RDU area will host a gathering with some of the most significant leaders of our time talking about some of the most urgent issues of our day. Advance11 hits Raleigh May 4-5.  There is a special rate for students so you surely should come to this. For more info or to register go here.

Speakers for the event include some of the most articulate thinkers/leaders on the gospel, gospel-centrality, and missional Christianity on the planet: practitioners and thinkers who both teach well and live well the subjects they will address:

Tim Keller: The Yoda of Urban Church Planting, Keller rarely travels to speak. He has helped me personally to understand better the world of urban America, church planting, and biblically centered mercy ministry.

Alan Hirsch: author of many books related to mission Christianity, this Aussie has become a facebook friend whom I hope to fellowship with while here. He has a keen awareness of the need for the church to move into a missional posture.

Eric Mason: Urban leader who also spoke at our first Advance the Church gathering in 2009. Eric also has insight into the gospel’s effect in a city and its culture.

Several Southern Baptists will be leading this event which gives me joy.

Danny Akin: my president, my hero, and my boss. Akin gets the changeless Word of God and he gets now, something relatively few seem to be able to do. I thank God every day that I get to teach at SEBTS under his leadership. God is doing some special things in our time.

J.D. Greear: two time SEBTS grad and pastor of Summit Church, Greear has a new book coming out called Gospel that must be required reading for everyone on the planet .  He is my former student and current friend and hero.

Darrin Patrick: pastor of Journey St Louis. I first met Darrin over coffee in St Louis a few years back, and have been blessed by his friendship and particularly by his outstanding book Church Planter.

Tyler Jones: pastor of Vintage21 in Raleigh and one of the bright young pastors in our time, Tyler impresses me not only with his passion and intellect, but by his teachable spirit. I sat in his office with a couple of other guys when the dream for what has become Advance began. I am happy to join Tyler in encouraging you to come to this gathering in 2011.

One more thing: any church leader, or anyone interested in the gospel should come to this. My daughter’s boyfriend is coming all the way from Florida to attend (well, that is not the only reason he is coming!).  But young adults, and especially young men, should make this event a priority. Why?

You have grown up in a time when you spend most of your time around others your age. Almost without realizing it, you can develop an attitude that others your age are the people to go to for advice, for challenge, or correction. There is a reason passages like Titus 2 encourage younger men and women to be taught by those older, and why Paul modeled mentoring a younger Timothy. You need, far more than you realize, the wisdom, the counsel, and the example of older men of God. At this event you will have the opportunity to hear from older men, from their 30s to senior status, who simply know more and have more wisdom than you.

Few things encourage me more than young men who yearn to grow, to be stretched, to be pushed, and I know a lot of them. In fact, most of the young men I know, which includes believers and non believers, yearn to learn from older men, and God has in fact given me great relationships with many. However, few things are more perplexing to me than young men who dismiss the wisdom of older men. No doubt some do so because the older men in their lives have not shown wisdom.  But the men at Advance will be a great model of a better way. So if you are a young man (or not) and know young men, encourage them especially to come to Advance. It could be a trajectory changer in ways unexpected.

Last night Michelle and I attended a banquet with our faculty, trustees, and board of visitors. The banquet focused on showing appreciation to the faculty at SEBTS. I sat and enjoyed the evening with such great gratitude.

I am finishing my 16^th year at SEBTS, which makes me one of the most seasoned profs at the school. We have grown dramatically, from around 1000 students when I came to something like 2700-2800 now. Our faculty has grown from the 20s to the 70s. I have such joy teaching with a faculty not only filled with world-class scholars, but with people who actually love students, the classroom, and the church.

President Akin took a moment to reflect on the goodness of God from the early days of the Conservative Resurgence, a time of renewal in the SBC when we as a convention took an unambiguous stand on the authority and inerrancy of Scripture.  As he beamed with gospel pride in the faculty assembled last night, I could not help but reminisce on one of the real concerns in the early CR days. I was only a seminary student then, but I was a foot soldier in the movement, and I remember the concern over where the faculty would come from if in fact the CR were successful (it was).  I am humbled and honored to be one of those faculty members today.

A little review: In 1979 I sat in a Baptist University classroom preparing for ministry in the SBC. That year, unknown to me, Adrian Rogers was elected president. That event strategically shifted the trajectory of the SBC. I for one am grateful, for there is no way I would be teaching at SEBTS today had that shift not happened.

We now stand just over 30 years later. How are we doing?

I wanted to take a brief look to see how we are doing, and as one who not only supported the CR in the 80s when we had no idea how things would turn out (I did not wait to see how things went to pick sides), I have had a long term view of our continuing trajectory. Let’s see how we are doing:

Leadership:  3 former SBC presidents in the CR era now lead 3 critical institutions: Tom Elliff, who will speak in chapel today,  now leads the IMB; Paige Patterson, an architect of the CR and the man who hired me at SEBTS, leads my alma mater SWBTS; Frank Page now heads the Executive Committee. Page’s role as SBC President included his visionary recognition that if changes beyond the affirmation of inerrancy did not occur, we were still in trouble. He was right.

What about the other agencies?

Al Mohler now leads the SBTS.  Mohler has not only become one of the most articulate defenders of biblical inerrancy, he and Danny Akin have been recognized as two of the more promising leaders of the future in the Evangelical Church in America.

Kevin Ezell leads NAMB, a faithful pastor who has had remarkable influence at SBTS, a school greatly changed by the CR.

Akin, a Criswell College grad (a small school in Dallas which has had a remarkable impact on the CR) and a protégé of Patterson, now leads SEBTS, a missions battleship heading to war for the gospel. I know I am prejudiced, but I am also right: there is no school who gets the importance of an uncompromising commitment to the Word of God AND the ability to take the Word to this culture like SEBTS.

Phil Roberts, a SBC blueblood whose dad led a state convention years before, was one of the young academics who helped to fill the void for professors during the changes brought about by the SBC. He taught early on at SEBTS under the leadership of Lewis Drummond.

We cannot forget Thom Rainer, who studied with Lewis Drummond, leads Lifeway Christian Resources. Another stand up man in the CR, Rainer has been a stellar leader in our time. His books have helped a generation of inerrantists reach people and grow churches.

Chuck Kelley leads NOBTS. Kelley for years taught evangelism there and has been unambiguous in his support of the inerrancy of Scripture.

Jeff Iorg, who recently spoke eloquently in chapel at SEBTS, is a contemporary of mine from SWBTS and another example of one who would fill the professor gap.

I could give many other examples. In the 70s and 80s the Indiana Baptist, the paper of the State Convention of Baptists in Indiana, provided the only state convention-based newspaper that unambiguously supported the CR.  I had the honor of serving in that convention right out of seminary. The Executive Director in Indiana in the late 80s and early 90s who wrote some of the most pointed articles of the era was Mark Coppenger. The editor of the paper during that same time was Gary Ledbetter. I served the convention first as a Home Missionary and then as State Evangelism Director. Today Coppenger teaches at Southern Seminary, Gary serves as editor of the state paper for the new and CR-produced Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, and I teach evangelism at SEBTS.

Then there is the immediate past president of the SBC, Johnny Hunt. I first heard Johnny preach in 1989. He was introduced as one of the shining examples of what happens when we stand on the Word. He still is. He is the one who led the current Great Commission Resurgence efforts, aided by several noted above. Ronnie Floyd, who chaired the GCR task force, has been another soldier in the CR.

As we celebrated last night it was not lost on me that we today stand in a continuum of leaders of the CR. But this continuum has not been static. Leaders have recognized over time that changes had to include more than an adoption of inerrancy. The CR was a starting point, a change of trajectory, but it was by no means the end. For instance:

Our leaders have recognized the growing need to reach the cities, the unchurched, those unengaged with the gospel. The fact that we have been successful in reaching people like us has at times blinded us from reaching the teeming masses who are not southern, white, or Republican.

This has led to a renewed focus on church planting. Such a focus has caused a lessening of focus on what had been our bread and butter evangelistically, programmatic and pulpit evangelism (evangelistic methods and evangelistic meetings/pastors). I for one do not think we should jettison those approaches that have helped us, but I completely agree with those who argue for a growing emphasis on planting churches among the unreached peoples of America.

Further, to borrow a phrase, an elephant in the room is that the very venues that once provided the opportunity for younger leaders to come into further responsibility have waned in their influence. For instance, across the country state evangelism conferences, once the largest attended meetings in state conventions, have increasingly older attendees and decreasing numbers overall. As a former evangelism director and someone who still speaks at this, that makes me sad to a certain extent. But today, to become a significant voice one must be effective in podcasting as much as in conferencing.  This fact is not a bad thing, as listening to a pastor’s sermon series via podcast in his local church arguably provides a better measurement of him as a leader than one sermon at a conference.

Another recognition by many today is that as pernicious as liberalism was and is, legalism can be just as deadly. However, some fear being called a liberal more than being called a legalist. Jesus condemned both unequivocally.  Legalism is a problem in the Southern church, and confusing preferences over unchanging truth should not be a legacy of the CR. I am grateful so many recognize the need to, as Jesus stated it, avoid the leaven of Herod, the Sadducees, AND the Pharisees.

We have also seen a deepening of theological conversation. Inerrancy in fact served to open the door for further conversations related to theology. We have always had Calvinists and non-Calvinists, for instance. During the CR those of a Calvinist persuasion had far less of a voice, with notable exceptions, than those more inclined to promote premillennial eschatology, for instance. So, the shift of conversation in more recent days from eschatology to soteriology has caused some to question our future. I for one am not alarmed, as historically we have seen the pendulum swing.  I am grateful for a renewed focus on the gospel, for in great historical awakenings the preaching that characterized such movements was not “how to have revival,” but a renewal of the preaching of the gospel. We see such a renewal today, and that is a legacy of the CR for which I am grateful.

Change is hard. When change begins, it is hard to control a movement. Sometimes it goes in directions some who began the movement did not intend. But I for one, as an early advocate of the CR, sit in wonder, joy, and thanksgiving at where we are today. There is much to be done. But I am excited about our trajectory.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein

In college I worked during the summers on a construction crew. Rough people. One summer a guy on our crew had spent 34 years in jail for murder, another 26 for armed robbery. Most of the time those two summers I was the only believer in the group, the only one going to college, the only with (at least it seemed) long term goals.

These men loved to get to the weekend so they could drink their beer in great excess, watch sports on TV, and sometimes go fishing. Oh, and the 4^th of July they loved to roast a goat and drink rum.

I would shake my head at these men. Such a lack of purpose. Such aimless lives. They would make fun of me, picking at my lack of work ethic because I only did 3 months a year what they did all year long., and then I just lifted books. They made fun of my Christianity. I did not always respond appropriately, and sometimes it got to me. But most of the time I was part of the crew and they accepted me in spite of my youth and my different worldview., and I tried my best to live a Christ-honoring life in front of them.

I realized one day how much I saw them through the eyes of self-pity. And, too often, through the eyes of self-righteousness. They did not come from the family I did. Oh, we did not have a lot, but we had each other and we had Jesus and my parents pushed me to live a life that mattered. These men had no goals greater than goat and rum on the 4^th of July. I had to repent of my judgment of them while offering them the hope of Christ. After all, I was no better than them; I simply received a gift from God.

Then I made another observation. None of these men wanted to live the way they currently lived the rest of their lives. Not a single one wanted their current  lifestyle for their own children. But for some reason they seemed to think that if they just kept doing the same thing, somehow along the way they would get their lucky break and do something else. This was before a lottery or I am sure they would have played that also to up their odds.

I am around a lot of young adults these days both inside the church and outside. They are thoughtful, bright people. I love them. I have also learned that more than a few young adults, those I do not really know but hope to get to know, are quite similar to the men I mentioned above. They work in the service industry or hold some other job to pay the bills. They are in and out and back in college.  They typically go to work, go hang out with friends, often get smashed, and then do it all over again. But none of them who do that in their 20s want that in their 40s. Most want a family, kids, etc. But somehow from what I hear they have this idea, or many do, that their specific lot in life will change. But they just keep doing what they are doing.

Life is about more than being a glorified hamster running in a circle.

Maybe I am wrong about those observations. But I am sure about the next one. I see a lot of believers, people who love Jesus and have been changed by the gospel, who come to church regularly. They are not where they want to be in their gospel impact, or in their devotional life, or they see clear areas where they need to grow in relationships with others.  Yet they do little more about this fact than keep showing up at church and doing what they have been doing.

I am not sure a believer unsatisfied with his witness or character is a lot different from a construction worker who wants a new job, if in both cases they keep living life virtually unchanged and expected changes to happen.

Insanity is in fact doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Let’s be clear, when Jesus Christ changes a life through the power of the gospel, that is the work of God. We do nothing to earn it. It is God’s free gift and costs us nothing. But we in light of that gospel work have a call, to use Paul’s words, to “press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:14).  For some the needed change is theological, to rightly understand the gospel. But change is needed for sure.

I lost weight over the last two years and got in much better shape. Why? Not by doing the same thing.  I changed. I pushed. And I did it not to earn anything from God, but so that I could serve Him with greater energy and I pray for a longer time.

My impact among unchurched young adults is greater today than at any time in my life. Why? I changed my calendar to spend less time with my Christian brothers and sisters.

If insanity is doing the same and expecting different results, perhaps making clear, gospel-driven changes is the essence of sanity, or of a healthy mind. Perhaps it even helps us to have more of the mind of Christ.

What do you want to see changed? Perhaps the better question is, what are you changing?

Insanity is also the names of a new workout that is, in fact, insane. I did it for almost 30 days. It is a 60 day program. I mentor a group of young men and hammer them with the fact that men finish what they start, men do not quit, even when they over commit except in extreme cases. Men suck it up and finish the job. But I have an artificial hip and insanity was beginning to give that leg problems.

Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. And sometimes the changes we try to better ourselves are unwise. So I sadly gave up on insanity (I do not recommend it for those who have a fake hip!). Instead, after getting some wisdom from my son, I started P90X again last Thursday. And, I am doing a Power90 group for the next 3 weeks. That should be exercise enough.

Insanity, in other words, is only a good word when it applies to an extreme workout program that sane people can do.  Otherwise, avoid insanity at all costs.

But do not avoid change.