In case you did not know, the church where I'm doing my internship (Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC) has many ways that they are trying to disciple young men, help pastors of all ages, and breath a biblical approach to church structure and practice into broader Evangelicalism.
The organization that they do much of this through is called 9Marks Ministries. This is a parachurch ministry; however, it shares the same offices of Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC). Also, CHBC gives financially very generously to this ministry. They write a bi-monthly e-journal, put on conferences in different locations, preach and lecture at numerous conferences, record conversations with pastors and theologians about the church, write and publish books, etc. What I do as part of the internship is a part of this vision of discipleship. The other thing they do three times a year is called a Weekender.
The weekender is a time when they invite 50-60 complete strangers (pastors, elders, lay-elders, leaders, and seminarians of churches) to come in and observe every aspect of their local church. CHBC has built their church on what the Bible teaches about what a church is and they hope to model this to many churches in the world. Most of the pastors are from the U.S.A. but in this Weekender there is one from Australia, another from Scotland, two from Quebec Canada, and two from Serbia.
The Weekender will run for 5 days. Thursday 9/13/07 evening through Monday morning 9/17/07. Most of the days are packed with lectures, great food, fellowship, and other activities (lunches with the pastors and staff). The highlight is certainly corporate worship on Sunday morning and evening!
The pastors and staff treat this as a business trip and basically kiss their wife and children goodbye for the weekend in order to stay up late, talk, serve, and give themselves fully to the Weekenders. This is a great conference. You really should try and register for one in the future if you are a pastor or leader in a local church (or a seminarian).
I am working much of the Weekender since I’m an intern, but I hope to post on some of the other sessions, Lord willing. So this could end up being a "semi-liveblogging" of the Weekender. Either way stay tuned;)
1 comment:
Hope all goes well. Glad you're able to serve and learn as an intern there. I met you at the Weekender a year ago, and that was a very profitable time for me.
Doug Smith
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