Certain Truths in Uncertain Times - A Review of Nathan Crockett's Presentation at the BJU Pastors/Wives Fellowship

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently had the privilege of attending a Pastors/Wives Fellowship in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania sponsored by BJU. In my first post on the conference, I made some general comments and introduced the speakers and topics. In my second post on the conference, I reviewed and commented on the first session by Dr. Bob Jones, III.

In today's post, I will review and comment on the second presentation of the day, "Certain Truths in Uncertain Times: Timothys and Pauls working together for the cause of the Gospel" by Nathan Crockett.

I don't believe I have ever heard or met Nathan before, but I believe one of his brothers came to our church (Fellowship Baptist Church of Salisbury) a couple of years ago as the leader of a BJU Ministry Team. I also had the privilege of hearing his father, Dr. Leigh Crockett of Grace Baptist Church of Anderson, Indiana, many years ago when I was a ministerial student at BJU. Some of you may remember Dr. Crockett was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer a few years ago and was cured in such a way that it puzzled the doctors and he was interviewed on Good Morning America at the time - one news story on the situation can be found here.

I appreciated Nathan's workshop very much. His task, it seems, was to basically approach the Paul and Timothy scenario from that of a Timothy. (He is a fairly young man - I would guess no more than 30 at this point.) While he made some introductory comments about Understanding the Times in which we are living, the focus of the session was on the Paul and Timothy relationship.

Nathan was kind enough to send a copy of his entire notes - including the quotes he used and all the references, but I want to take most of my comments here from the notes that I took that day on the handout that was given.

As he began the initial part in regards to Understanding the Times, he made a comment that "Scripture gives examples of changing a method without changing the message" and he used the examples of Paul at Mars Hill and Jesus' approach to different people - Nicodemus (John 3) and the Samaritan woman (John 4).

In the area of Understanding the Times, he discussed understanding the world around us and dealt with a number of the characteristics of the day in which we live (such as Technology- driven, Consumed with the present, Pluralistic, Sensual, Fast-paced, etc.) and understanding the church today - including a consumer mentality in which the "church is full of window shoppers and church hoppers." He discussed some of the errors of the day in the church (both old and new errors) and how that we are seeing the same errors spilling over into Fundamental churches.

He then offered some "Biblical Solutions" towards the situation in the world and in the church - nothing ground-breaking, but true, nevertheless. The five things specifically mentioned were as follows:

1. Expect the world to be worldly
2. Offer people something distinctively different
3. Value eternal souls
4. Speak the truth in love
5. Trust God

After dealing with the times, he dealt with Pauls Understanding Timothys and then Timothys Understanding Pauls.

In the Pauls Understanding Timothys, he commented that he asked some of his other young friends training for ministry what they perceived to be the strengths and weakeness of the previous generations. He mentioned appreciation for many things (such as witnessing zeal, faithfulness, strong convictions, etc.) but focused on the perceived weaknesses - of which he listed the following.

1. Lack of mentoring
2. The rut of tradition
3. Unfair evaluation of certain evangelical ministries
4. Preaching concerns
* issue-oriented (rather than theologically-driven) preaching
* lack of expositional preaching
5. Unnecessary divisions

In addressing the Timothys understanding of Pauls, he encouraged the Timothys to understand five things.

1. The need for loyalty
2. The need for humility
3. The need for dialogue
4. A respect for tradition
5. A respect for age.

As I listened to Nathan, I was encouraged to hear his heart in this area and I think that he overall has gotten a lot of things right in his presentation. The nature of a presentation like this limits the ability to have lengthy discussions about each of these areas, however, I do believe that many of these things are worthy of a longer discussion - and the nature of blogging is that we can have that longer discussion - assuming that some of you folks would like to participate in the discussion.

Before anyone jumps on me (or Nathan) about the list of weaknesses, I would like to note three things. 1. This list is given as "perceived" weaknesses. Whether we would agree that these are truly weaknesses of the older generation, we can at least agree that many young men perceive these things in the older generation of Fundamentalism (no matter where we personally fall in that dynamic of old or young). 2. These are necessarily broad-brushed statements. Surely even those who brought them up to Nathan and Nathan would acknowledge that these things are not true of every one in the previous generation. When you paint with a broad-brush, you usually paint a lot of areas that should not be painted. 3. These are the observations of a number of young men - young men Nathan describes as "cream of the crop" type young guys committed to Fundamentalism - and not Nathan's observations alone. (In fact, some of these areas were not on Nathan's radar - for instance, he had the privilege of being mentored by his father, who was also his pastor and feels that he has received a lot of mentoring.)

While I have some quibbles with some of the things in Nathan's presentations (which I plan on bringing out in the follow-up posts), I appreciate Nathan's tack in this area much better than the bombastic and often bloated sounding criticism of the "older generation" of Fundamentalism offered by some of its critics - including some who still claim to love at least the "idea" of Fundamentalism.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

BJU Pastors/Wives Fellowship - Dr. Bob Jones, III Session

As I mentioned last week, I recently had the privilege of attending a Pastors/Wives Fellowship in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania sponsored by Bob Jones University. I introduced the speakers and made general comments in my last post.

The first session of the day was by Dr. Bob Jones, III, Chancellor of BJU. Dr. Bob spoke on "Turbulence in the Air; Chaos in the Cabin; Confusion in the Cockpit: What a Time to be Flying!"

The text was from 2 Timothy 3 and Dr. Bob used the analogy of an airplane flight throughout - as if you could not have guessed that by the title :) .

In regards to the Turbulence in the Air, he spoke about the "dangerous times" v. 1 and the reality that the prince of the power of the air continues to stir things up and cause many problems.

In regards to the Chaos in the Cabin, he spoke about the fact that church has tares among the wheat and that in these dangerous times there would be persecution from without and corruption from within.

The character of men in general (the world at large) is described (with lovers of self and lovers of pleasure being the bookends of the description given in 2 Timothy 3:2-5) and the reality is that this description is often mirrored within the church.

The description of ministry men is also discussed in this passage with a description given in 2 Timothy 3:6-9 and 2 Timothy 3:13 - reminding us that there are folks in the ministry that sneak into houses, they deceive, and wax worse and worse.

In regards to the Confusion in the Cockpit he dealt with the confusion that sometimes occurs among the older and younger men in ministry and the need for "Pauls" and "Timothys" to work together. In doing so, he focused on 2 Timothy 3:10-17 where Paul writes that Timothy has fully known his doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, etc.

The emphasis was on the relationship between the older and younger men in ministry.

Among other things mentioned, there was a challenge to the older men to admonish the younger as Paul did with Timothy (2 Timothy 2:7, 2:8, 2:14, 3:14; 1 Timothy 4:6, 4:11), there was a challenge to the older men to instruct the Timothys, and an encouragement that God was not looking for another Paul when he chose Timothy and that one day the Timothys will replace the Pauls.

He also encouraged the older men to "train the Timothys, don't try to clone yourself" and "Don't fault them because of questions. There is nothing wrong with asking questions. They need to have freedom to come to Bible convictions themselves. We can't dictate the Timothys conclusions."

To the Timothys he commented on the need to not blame the guy in the pilot's seat for all the turbulence and to have a learning disposition and to recognize that both Pauls and Timothys are needed.

He also commented on a discussion he had with some folks who were from far different theological perspectives (one was Episcopal, I believe) and the concerns that they had going on within their groups. After discussing this conversation, he also made a comment (not as an excuse, but as an observation), that every group (including Fundamentalism) has "foolishness, failures, and fogeys."

In the discussion time, he also commented to the effect that there are people who call themselves Fundamentalists that he would not want to have anything to do with - which led to a private conversation later that will remain private.

I don't know where I am in the Paul/Timothy scale anymore. I tend to think of myself as young still, but now that I am 40, perhaps some would dispute that.

I do know that I have greatly appreciated some of the Pauls in my life.

As a teenager, God brought Pastor Ron Hamilton (no, not THAT Ron Hamilton) into my life as a Youth Pastor at my home church in Phoenix, Arizona and I had the privilege of later serving with him at Heritage Baptist Church in Mt. Laurel, NJ when I was the Youth Pastor and he was (and still is) the Administrator of the Christian school. It was neat being able to work with Pastor Ron and I appreciated the privilege of even having some of his children in my youth group while I was there (as I had been in his youth group when I was younger). Pastor Ron helped me prepare my first "real" sermon, demonstrated for me a steadfastness in his walk with Christ that never seemed to waver even in the midst of difficult times, and showed me how to uncompromisingly stand for the right with a right disposition.

In college, I had a number of godly men that surrounded me - from my society chaplain, Eric Chapman (now a missionary to Lithuania), to teachers, pastors, and work supervisors.

As I got older, I was privileged to serve under Pastor Mark Franklin at Hardingville Bible Church in Monroeville, New Jersey. In Pastor Franklin, I was able to observe up close the kind of Pauline leadership that Dr. Bob was espousing as we had three young men go through the HBC Pastoral Internship program while I was there before I also went through a modified version of the Pastoral Internship program in preparation for my current ministry as "Senior" Pastor.

On the Timothy side of things, I appreciate the fact that God has given me the opportunity to work with a number of young people over the years who are now faithful in serving Christ - including some who are faithful as Godly laymen and deacons, as well as those in ministry as Pastor, Youth Pastor, and Christian School Teachers.

As I thought about the illustration/analogy that Dr. Bob used, I was reminded of a recent plane flight that I was on in which I experienced more turbulence than I have ever experienced before as a passenger. While I would love to do some piloting myself one of these days, I have never actually been a calm passenger (on the inside). I am grateful that the pilot who was flying was experienced with dealing with the turbulence. I appreciated his warning that it was coming and the calm demeanor he projected as he spoke of the upcoming turbulence. I also appreciated the reassuring comment that we were just about through the worst part of the turbulence. A hand of experience at the helm in the midst of turbulence can be a very good thing. Having been through it before will help to avoid the errors of inexperience - whether that is failing to realize how serious it is or overcompensating and making changes so quickly that the cabin is even more chaotic than it was at the beginning.

Anyway, just my thoughts on his thoughts,

Frank