{"id":6660,"date":"2016-03-09T12:07:42","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T19:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/thoughtlife\/?p=6660"},"modified":"2016-03-09T12:21:04","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T19:21:04","slug":"at-cbmw-giving-thanks-for-2015s-increased-financial-provision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thoughtlife\/2016\/03\/at-cbmw-giving-thanks-for-2015s-increased-financial-provision\/","title":{"rendered":"At CBMW, Giving Thanks for 2015’s Increased Financial Provision"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"cbmwlogo\"<\/a>It\u2019s scary, learning to ski. You are trained first to snow-plow, which means that you crawl down the mountain. After even a few trips down the slopes, your legs begin to shake. You haven\u2019t mastered speed, and you\u2019re scared of it. You feel very little momentum. Plus, it\u2019s cold out, and you crave hot chocolate, and the wind is against you.<\/p>\n

But then something changes. As you grow up, you learn to use speed, not fight it. The black diamond trails you stand at the top of no longer represent fear. They stand for opportunity. You still feel jitters; you still face the ever-present possibility of a crash, a spectacular one, which on many trails is provided for the viewing pleasure of the chairlift-riders above you. Nonetheless, as you learn to ski, you unlock the exhilaration of the snow. It courses underneath you. A cold, steep mountain is just like the ocean\u2013there\u2019s power coiled in it. It wants to fling you forward. When the skills are in place, momentum is with you, even though the wind is still against you.<\/p>\n

I resonate with skiing because I grew up doing so in one of the world\u2019s most beautiful places: Maine. I don\u2019t get to ski much these days, but I do feel momentum. I feel this both at surging Midwestern Seminary and at the organization I have the privilege of leading, the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood. In 2015, CBMW\u00a0brought in nearly $300,000. The CBMW staff, led by Grant Castleberry, has worked very hard to accomplish this goal.\u00a0As Matt Damico just chronicled<\/a>, this represents a third straight year of increased giving to CBMW, with over 300 new donors supporting us in our mission.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t tell you how encouraging this news is. It increasingly seems like all the forces of a secular culture are training their guns on this particular area of Christian doctrine. Complementarity has never been more controversial. This means, however, that complementarity has never been more revolutionary. It has never been more needed. All around us, men and women have no idea who they are. CBMW, with tens of thousands of churches all across the globe, has the thrilling mission of providing gospel-shaped answers to this most modern of dilemmas.<\/p>\n

People and churches are responding to this vision. People are tired of a blurry, fuzzy, gender-neutral society. They recognize that transgender ideology leads only to heartbreak and sin. They see that our sexuality has a covenantal shape, that we are not made for the gratification of our lusts, but the glory of our God in happy marriages or chaste singleness. They know that a\u00a0sexualized culture offers not liberation, but enslavement. They realize that the Bible\u2019s teaching on manhood and womanhood is both true and good, impossibly good.<\/p>\n

As the President of CBMW, I want to say a public thank-you to the many, many, many believers who are standing alongside us. I am grateful for the hundreds and hundreds of donors who are giving speed to our work. I am deeply appreciative of the pastors, scholars, and leaders who love Scripture and laugh at Satan\u2019s attacks on biblical truth. The complementarian movement stands against the world, but it is for the world. We may be hated for affirming biblical doctrine, but we love all, even our enemies, and preach the gospel and its outworking in our lives to all we can.<\/p>\n

In sum, I give thanks to Almighty God. He is the one who gives success. He has blessed us with three straight years of increasing financial strength. We\u2019ve been able to hold events all the world, publish books (with several more coming, including\u00a0The Grand Design<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>in a couple weeks!), and joyfully promote glorious truths of the faith, truths that followers of God\u00a0have held since the dawn of time. We\u2019re throwing\u00a0a conference with 30 speakers from all over the world<\/a> in a month (including Piper, MacArthur, Begg, Mohler, DeYoung, Duncan, and more), and it will gather Christians from an array of backgrounds and denominations. In all this, we take nothing for granted, we find no confidence in ourselves, and we have no sense of the future. We haven\u2019t done this. God has done this. But we do feel momentum in all these things, and thank the good Lord for it.<\/p>\n

We are speeding down the mountain, and it is exhilarating. There is wind in our face, yes. But like any experienced skier, we\u2019re not focused on what opposes us. We\u2019ve got work before us, exciting work, world-defying work, Christ-exalting work. And here\u2019s the funny thing: it\u00a0turns out that when you find joy in your labor, you don\u2019t even really feel the wind after all.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s scary, learning to ski. You are trained first to snow-plow, which means that you crawl down the mountain. After even a few trips down the slopes, your legs begin to shake. You haven\u2019t mastered speed, and you\u2019re scared of it. You feel very little momentum. Plus, it\u2019s cold out, and you crave hot chocolate, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1217,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[926,3227],"tags":[13045,452,13024,1715,13180,1801],"class_list":["post-6660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-complementarianism","category-council-on-biblical-manhood-womanhood","tag-al-mohler","tag-alistair-begg","tag-council-on-biblical-manhood","tag-john-macarthur","tag-john-piper","tag-kevin-deyoung"],"yoast_head":"\nAt CBMW, Giving Thanks for 2015's Increased Financial Provision<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It's scary, learning to ski. You are trained first to snow-plow, which means that you crawl down the mountain. 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