In less than a month, there will be over 3,000 students, singles, and young married couples making their way to Louisville for the upcoming New Attitude Conference. I attended this conference for the first time last summer, and NA is easily one of the best conferences I’ve ever been to. Between the community, the speakers (CJ Mahaney, Al Mohler, Mark Dever, John Piper, Joshua Harris, and Eric Simmons), the bookstore, and everything this conference has to offer you will leave New Attitude with an increased passion for the local church and for the truths of the Gospel. Over at the Sovereign Grace Blog, CJ Mahaney has written a post on ”New Attitude 2008 and Why You Should Come.” Here’s the promo video for NA:
This year’s conference is focused on rediscovering the doctrine of Scripture. I highly recommend that you register for this conference, especially since registration closes on May 5th. Whether you’re going or not, start praying for the speakers and attendees of the conference; it’s going to be a very fruitful time.
—-As a quick side note, I encourage you to check out the New Attitude blog. They are putting out some really great posts and articles. Two articles that are “must-reads” in my opinion are the two that discuss “The Gospel and Relationships.” There’s one for guys by Jospeh Stigora and one for girls by Erin Sutherland.
Last weekend I had the privilege to help lead Disciple Now back at my home church, LaGrange Baptist Church. The weekend centered around small groups splitting up to different homes. I had the opportunity, along with my roommate Clay, to the lead the 7th and 8th grade guys. The material we walked through during the weekend answered the big questions that many people ask about Christianity: What does the Bible say about sex?, What does the Bible say about suffering?, etc. The weekend proved to be a challenging time for the guys and a refreshing and challenging time for me as well. Here’s a 6-minute fly through our time together at Disciple Now:
Over at the New Attitude blog, Justin Buzzard has posted a must-read post on biblical manhood. He offers three short starting points for pursuing biblical masculinity in our lives. The three points are as follows:
“1. Establish a clear conviction of what it means to be a man from God’s Word. This requires effort and diligence in our study, prayer, and purposeful application. This is important because biblical masculinity undefined will inevitably become biblical masculinity unpracticed.
2. We must create and maintain an example worth following. We need to fight our sin, be doers of the Word We can serve our churches, our sisters, wives, children by being compelling examples of godliness (Philippians 3:17, Hebrews 13:7).
3. We must cultivate a holy ambition in our lives for the work of the gospel and kingdom work. We need to lead with zeal (Romans 12:8), to have a passion and unending enthusiasm to know Christ and the power of His resurrection (Philippians 3:7-12). This ambition should drive us to work hard and be courageous in the work of the Lord (1Corinthians 15:58) in the uniquely masculine ways God has called us to. “
I love Justin’s point when he says, “…biblical masculinity undefined will inevitable become biblical masculinity unpracticed.” I think that’s so true and so evident in our churches today. Many people are asking the question of why guys aren’t stepping up to fulfill their God-given roles. I think one of the main answers to that question is because not very many guys have a solid, biblical understanding of what it means to be a godly man. Obviously, this is an area in which we as men will constantly be growing, but I think that gives us a place to start. In order for us to start living lives of biblical manhood, we must first define what biblical manhood is and where else are we to look except in the Word of God.
There are some great resources that have been made available for this very purpose. I encourage you to visit CBMW’s Website (The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood). You can read Justin’s full post here.
Over at the Desiring God blog, Josh Sowin has written a great post on the importance of reading in the life of the believer. I completely agree with Josh when he says, “Our culture has become aliterate. We have the ability to read but not the desire.” He goes on to write:
Reading is one of the best ways to develop our minds. It can help us to know God and ourselves, gain vicarious experience, increase our perception and imagination, train our minds to think critically and logically, and teach us self-discipline.
I encourage you to read this post, and apply the principles presented to your everyday life. At the end of the post, Josh provides some great links to list of books that would be great for any believer to read. Reading isn’t just for pastors and theologians, I see it as an excerise for every believer so that we may better “love the Lord with all our…mind.” Check out the full post here.
Well, my posts have been very few and far between this summer. This is due to the fact that I’ve been in Gatlinburg, TN for the majority of the summer. I’m here through Campus Crusade for Christ with around 2o other students. We had a few staff members with us until last week when they each left to go the National Staff Conference in Colorado. Now that they have left, we (the students) each have our own role now. Here’s a slideshow I put together reviewing the first half of our stay here in the Smokies:
If you are a pastor, teacher, or ministry student then head on over to the Pastor Bookshelf Blog because they are giving a way a free book each Friday…if you get lucky that is. You can checkout the post here. Here’s the announcement from the blog:
Thanks to those of you who participated in our first Free Book Friday book giveaway, and congratulations to SBTS seminarian Matthew Wireman.
I’ll be attending the New Attitude Conference in Louisville for the next couple of days. I’m really looking forward to the sessions that we’ll have throughout the conference; each session is on the topic of discernment. The speakers are Joshua Harris (discernment), CJ Mahaney (discern your heart), Al Mohler (discern your culture), Mark Dever (discern your doctrine), Eric Simmons (discern the graymatters), and John Piper (discern what pleases God: Himself and discern what pleases God: personal obedience). Bob Kauflin and his son, Devon, will be leading worship over the weekend. Here are a couple of blogs that will be liveblogging the conference:
The Campus Crusade for Christ movement at Virginia Tech is posting updates on the latest happenings on their campus. A few of the students that were killed in the shootings were members of VT’s CRU movement. From reading just a few of the posts, it seems that God is really using these sad events for His glory. Continue to pray that the renown of God’s Name and the truth of His Gospel would spread through this tragedy. You can read the updates here.
Dr. Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has put up a post listing ten solid biographies, each telling the story of a few godly Christian men. Some of the men mentioned are guys such as St. Augustine, Jonathan Edwards, John Calvin, Martin Luther, Martin Lloyd-Jones and a few others. He provides an excerpt and description for each biography, so you can read the post in full here. Here are the ten biographies that Dr. Mohler recommends (I’ve provided a link to purchase each one on Amazon.com as well).
About a month ago on the New Attitude blog, Eric Simmons posted a two-part entry on “Why Your Friends Don’t Go to Church.” He starts off with this fact, “70% of people between the ages of 18-34, who once attended church, no longer do.” He goes on to answer the question of why 70 % of this generation are missing from church. It’s some great insight. To see what Simmons has to say on the issue, here’s Part 1 and Part 2. I hope to post more on the importance of the local church because of how much it is lacking in my generation.
QUICK REMINDER: The New Attitude Conference is a little bit more than a month away. Simmons will be one of the main speakers during this conference, along with Joshua Harris, CJ Mahaney, Al Mohler, Mark Dever, and John Piper. It’s in Louisville, KY during Memorial Day Weekend (May 26th-29th). You can get more information here. Registration closes May 7th.
Posted by Cameron Potts
Posted by Cameron Potts
Over at the 
Posted by Cameron Potts
