{"id":22205,"date":"2011-11-06T18:18:32","date_gmt":"2011-11-07T00:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/?p=22205"},"modified":"2011-11-06T18:28:23","modified_gmt":"2011-11-07T00:28:23","slug":"from-boston-to-providence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/11\/06\/from-boston-to-providence\/","title":{"rendered":"From Boston to Providence"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>Recently I had the privilege of giving some lectures on the East Coast, beginning at Gordon College. I have to express my thanks to Keith Krass, at Gordon, for the kind invitation to give a lecture on <em>The King Jesus Gospel<\/em> and then do a college convocation. After the convocation we met with some student leaders at Gordon, and it was great that Tracy and Carey Balzer, from John Brown University, were with us \u2026 they were at Gordon to do a retreat with some folks.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/sites\/40\/2011\/11\/Screen-shot-2011-11-06-at-4.36.57-PM.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-22206\" title=\"Screen shot 2011-11-06 at 4.36.57 PM\" src=\"https:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/sites\/40\/2011\/11\/Screen-shot-2011-11-06-at-4.36.57-PM-300x201.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"201\"><\/a>My time at Gordon began with an opportunity to spend time with some ministry students where we discussed the most pressing challenges of the American church today. Here are some of those challenges, and I wrapped this up in a more anabaptist package for them:<\/p>\n<p><!-- @font-face {   font-family: \"Arial Unicode MS\"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: \"Times New Roman\"; }p.Body1, li.Body1, div.Body1 { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: \"Times New Roman\"; color: black; }p.Numbered, li.Numbered, div.Numbered { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in; text-indent: 0in; font-size: 10pt; font-family: \"Times New Roman\"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0in; }ul { margin-bottom: 0in; } -->1.\u00a0 There is today less church and, instead, more social\/political action: \u201cexperiment with potential disaster\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>2. Christianity is becoming more political, not less political (in spite of complaint that the emerging generation wants less politics); the \u201cpolitics\u201d of Christians today have become less partisan, more social\/ethical\/global, and more distributivist.<\/p>\n<p>3. Holiness: sex, personal spiritual life (Renovare is more or less for 50+), prayer, personal Bible reading. I suggested that our activism needs to be brought into the circle of holiness.<\/p>\n<p>4. There is a massive shift at work today on Vocation\/jobs\/labor. We are moving from dreams of global significance to where many may need to return to the challenge of \u201cordinary realities\u201d of common labor, manufacturing, trades.<\/p>\n<p>5. \u201cMissional\u201d is gaining traction but I fear evangelism is losing.<\/p>\n<p>It was a hoot to see my former North Park colleague, Justin Topp, at his new digs where I\u2019m sure he will flourish as a professor and scientist as he did at North Park. Fun, too, to see some friends at Gordon, including Ramsey Michaels and Marv Wilson (Roger Green was in Chicago!) and a group of folks who were with us this summer in Israel. And to dine with Keith and his wife Sarah, along with Dan and Kathy Russ. (Not sure I got all those names right.) Note: Keith Krass is the son of a college friend and I have to say that Keith is a 6 foot version of dad!<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/sites\/40\/2011\/11\/Screen-shot-2011-11-06-at-4.40.44-PM.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-22207\" title=\"Screen shot 2011-11-06 at 4.40.44 PM\" src=\"https:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/sites\/40\/2011\/11\/Screen-shot-2011-11-06-at-4.40.44-PM-210x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"300\"><\/a>When the luncheon with the student leaders was over, I hopped in the car with my former student, Stephen Mook, and his father, Lyle, a Covenant pastor, and we headed down to Providence RI to do a double event at Gloria Dei Lutheran:<\/p>\n<p>First, we gathered with some Christian leaders in the Providence area to discuss the proposals of <em>The King Jesus Gospel<\/em>, and it included a good bit of discussion with lots of Q&amp;A. Very good ideas, and it helped me clarify a few ideas \u2014 and I\u2019m finding an encouraging groundswell of folks who know there is too much shallow evangelism and a confidence that focusing on the gospel of the New Testament is the place to begin.<\/p>\n<p>Well, the big event was second: Stephen and Andrew Mook are at the heart of a genuine attempt by young Christians to work together in Providence. And wow do they have some talented folks. The event, called One Event, started at 7pm and, well, it didn\u2019t wrap up until 10pm, and it was a wondrous evening of worship and singing and hearing stories about substantive gospeling in Providence. We saw a video story about Reservoir school where churches are partnering with schools to make a difference with the kids; and then a marvelous story of an undocumented worker and his family \u2026 and a prayer by a leading actor in that event that was translated \u2026 and I got to \u201cpreach the gospel\u201d (I focused on Acts 10:34-43) \u2026 and then a closing prayer that turned into a witness to what God has been doing at Renaissance Church in Providence\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2026 and the music and worship team was awesome.<\/p>\n<p>Great to be with Stephen, meet Lindsay, see Lyle again, and meet Andrew and all those great folks in Providence.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently I had the privilege of giving some lectures on the East Coast, beginning at Gordon College. I have to express my thanks to Keith Krass, at Gordon, for the kind invitation to give a lecture on The King Jesus Gospel and then do a college convocation. After the convocation we met with some student [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>From Boston to Providence<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Recently I had the privilege of giving some lectures on the East Coast, beginning at Gordon College. I have to express my thanks to Keith Krass, at\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/11\/06\/from-boston-to-providence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From Boston to Providence\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Recently I had the privilege of giving some lectures on the East Coast, beginning at Gordon College. I have to express my thanks to Keith Krass, at\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/11\/06\/from-boston-to-providence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-11-07T00:18:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-11-07T00:28:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/files\/2011\/11\/Screen-shot-2011-11-06-at-4.36.57-PM-300x201.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/11\/06\/from-boston-to-providence\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/11\/06\/from-boston-to-providence\/\",\"name\":\"From Boston to Providence\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-11-07T00:18:32+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-11-07T00:28:23+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"Recently I had the privilege of giving some lectures on the East Coast, beginning at Gordon College. I have to express my thanks to Keith Krass, at\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/11\/06\/from-boston-to-providence\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/11\/06\/from-boston-to-providence\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/11\/06\/from-boston-to-providence\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"From Boston to Providence\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than fifty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/author\/scotmcknight\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"From Boston to Providence","description":"Recently I had the privilege of giving some lectures on the East Coast, beginning at Gordon College. I have to express my thanks to Keith Krass, at","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/11\/06\/from-boston-to-providence\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"From Boston to Providence","og_description":"Recently I had the privilege of giving some lectures on the East Coast, beginning at Gordon College. I have to express my thanks to Keith Krass, at","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/11\/06\/from-boston-to-providence\/","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2011-11-07T00:18:32+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-11-07T00:28:23+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/files\/2011\/11\/Screen-shot-2011-11-06-at-4.36.57-PM-300x201.jpg"}],"author":"Scot McKnight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Scot McKnight","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/11\/06\/from-boston-to-providence\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/11\/06\/from-boston-to-providence\/","name":"From Boston to Providence","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-11-07T00:18:32+00:00","dateModified":"2011-11-07T00:28:23+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252"},"description":"Recently I had the privilege of giving some lectures on the East Coast, beginning at Gordon College. I have to express my thanks to Keith Krass, at","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/11\/06\/from-boston-to-providence\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/11\/06\/from-boston-to-providence\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/11\/06\/from-boston-to-providence\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"From Boston to Providence"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252","name":"Scot McKnight","description":"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than fifty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/author\/scotmcknight\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}