I’ve been quiet…

Well, maybe I haven’t been quiet, but all has been quiet on my blog for the past week or so.

Other responsibilities and distractions have just conjoined to keep me away from my blog, which has been a benefit and a disappointment.  A benefit because other items have been more needful (e.g., it was more needful to spend mother’s day with Raye Jeanne, doing what honored her rather than an hour or two in the afternoon with my head bent over the keyboard of my computer).

And it has been a disappointment because the discipline of writing (which encourages logical and concise thinking) is good for my heart and soul.

And as much as I’d like to resume at the end of this week, that won’t be happening much either, as tomorrow I am headed to a 9Marks Weekender at Capitol Hill Baptist Church:

Three times a year, 9Marks and Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC host around fifty pastors, seminarians, and church leaders from Thursday night to Monday morning for a full-on immersion in the life and inner workings of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, a church committed to living and ministering biblically.

You’ll have box seats for a new members’ class. You’ll be front and center for lectures from Mark Dever on expositional preaching and implementing change. You’ll even go behind closed doors to observe an elders’ meeting. And all that’s just the first half of the weekend.

From leadership to worship to body life and more, it’s all on the table.

Having an appreciation for Mark Dever and the ministry at Capitol Hill, it has been my desire to attend one of these events for several years.  And this weekend I’ll be there.  And having sneaked a peak at the schedule, it is clear that I won’t be doing much writing over the next few days either.

So, as I go, I would appreciate your prayers for a heart to continue to be stimulated to joyful and biblical ministry, an understanding mind, and wisdom to appropriate those things that would be beneficial for me and the ministry at Grace and discard those practices which will distract us from the goal set before us here.

That being said, there are a few things that I have been gently mulling over in the recesses of my mind, that I hope to address in the coming weeks:

• Using technology to the glory of God
• The relationship between the Biblical words choose (or election), predestine, and foreknowledge
• How a pastor prays for his people
• Death, dying, and the believer
• Church buildings and ministry

But those (and others) will have to wait until next week (or later).  Until then…