Author: Andy Rowell

Youth and Children’s Ministry Positions Open

Post author By Andy Rowell
Post date February 27, 2007

My friend Rob Rienow, Family Pastor at Wheaton Bible Church in Wheaton, IL, has asked me to spread the world about some positions that they have open in youth and children's ministry. They are particularly looking for people who are interested in a home centered approach to youth and children's ministry. He has invited me to post his letter on the blog.

Rob is an outstanding leader, supervisor and speaker. He has been at Wheaton Bible for fifteen years. You can learn more about him and his philosophy at his Visionary Parenting site or by listening to WBC sermons.

Wheaton Bible Church is the church where I grew up and my mom still attends there. It has about 2200 people in attendance. They are currently building a new facility.

I have posted previously about How to Search for a Christian Ministry Position

Letter from Rob Rienow

Dear friends,

I wanted you to know that Wheaton Bible Church is currently looking three major positions in our Children's and Youth Ministries. I thought that you might be able to help!

We are committed to finding people who are already familiar with and committed to a theology of ministry that puts parents first in the discipleship process. We need people who believe their primary job as youth and children's ministers is to inspire and equip families become centers. Ben Freudenberg calls this "home centered, church supported" discipleship. That is what we are after as we move into the future at Wheaton Bible Church.

Here are the three positions that we are looking for right now:

Elementary Director – serving on the larger Childrens and Family team, supporting the parents of our elementary school kids – 400 kids with their families.
High School Pastor – serving on the larger Student and Family team, supporting the parents of our high schoolers – 350 students with their families.
Girls Discipleship Director – serving on the larger Student and Family team, supporting the parents of our teen (both hs and jr) girls – 225 girls with their families.

If you are interested in any additional information about these positions, or you know potential candidates that you can send my way, I would be grateful for your help. Feel free to email me back, or direct potential candidates to email me their resume at rrienow@wheatonbible.org

God's Love,

Rob Rienow
Family Pastor
Wheaton Bible Church
www.wheatonbible.org
www.visionaryparenting.com

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James Cameron says he has found Jesus’ family tomb

Post author By Andy Rowell
Post date February 26, 2007
2 Comments on James Cameron says he has found Jesus’ family tomb

A new documentary by James Cameron (director of Titanic) entitled The Lost Family Tomb of Jesus says that Jesus and his family’s tomb has been found. He is showing off Jesus’ tomb today! See the Time Magazine article: Titanic Claim: Jesus Still Dead

For a solid response, see Asbury’s Ben Witherington’s initial take at THE JESUS TOMB? ‘TITANIC’ TALPIOT TOMB THEORY SUNK FROM THE START. Basically he says that there were lots of Jesus’s and Mary’s in the first century and that we have had this tomb since 1980. There are some good scholars involved with this but Witherington thinks they have fallen for the publicity instead of relying on the peer-review process.

In the comments, Witherington argues with one of the scholars James Tabor who is part of the project. Tabor has blogged about it at Some Initial Thoughts on the Talpiot Tomb.

Other New Testament scholars who will be good to watch on this include:

Dallas’s Darrell Bock: Hollywood Hype: The Oscars and Jesus’ Family Tomb, What Do They Share?

Duke’s Mark Goodacre who has an inital take entitled: "The Tomb That Dare not speak its name" and another "Jesus’ family tomb": how blogging helps

North Park’s Scot McKnight’s Was Jesus Married? One More Time

Andy Stanley

Who is Andy Stanley?

Andy Stanley is known for popularizing video venues, pioneering satellite campuses, speaking and writing on church leadership, being a younger proponent of the seeker-driven approach, and his belief in teaching one simple point with great creativity. He pastors a huge church in Alpharetta, Georgia, outside Atlanta.

My students for Program and Curriculum Development are beginning to read Seven Practices of Highly Effective Ministry. I have prepared this post to help them.

In a photo by James Fitzgerald of Vision Magazine, you see Andy a foot “larger than life” (as Leadership journal put it in its interview entitled “State of the Art” in the Spring 2006 issue pp.26-32). The high def image in the center make it appear that he is actually there but he is not. It is a screen.

The Andy Stanley article at Wikipedia gives some basic information about him which I have pasted below with some revision by me.

Andy Stanley is the senior pastor of North Point Community Church, Buckhead Church, and Browns Bridge Community Church.

Stanley was born in 1958. His father is Charles Stanley, who is the senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta and founder of InTouch Ministries.

Stanley received a bachelor’s degree of journalism from Georgia State University and later earned a masters degree from Dallas Theological Seminary. After working for several years as Associate Pastor and Minister to Students at First Baptist Atlanta, he and five others founded North Point Community Church in 1995. The church has now grown to three campuses and over 15,000 attenders each week.

In 2007, he was voted the 20th most influential Christian in America and in 2006 North Point Community Church was voted the 3rd most influential church in America. Later Note August 2, 2007: the Church Report that does these rankings is probably not a reputable resource for rankings. See article about founder.

Key Video, Audio and Text Links for understanding Andy Stanley:

He has written a number of books that can be viewed at this link at Amazon.com.
If you would like to hear him preach, you can watch or listen to him at: North Point Messages. Or at iTunes: Pause series on temptation, Christmas series,
He has been closely involved with the Catalyst Conference – speaking every year at it. You can listen to a great interview with him at the Catalyst Podcast page from March 2006. You can also find the Catalyst Podcast at iTunes.
You can hear Andy, Lane Jones and Reggie Joiner discuss the seven practices at Practically Speaking. At iTunes: Practically Speaking.
Now you can watch the Drive Conference videos from 2006 for free at Video Player for Five Sessions. H/T Todd Rhoades at Monday Morning Insight.
Also available is the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast at iTunes.
Leadership journal’s Out of Ur posts generated lots of comments: Is Ministry Leadership Different? Andy Stanley and Jim Collins in an unexpected point-counterpoint and Is Ministry Leadership Different 2: a response to Andy Stanley Andy himself commented on my post entitled Andy Stanley Says There is No Such Thing as Distinctively Spiritual Leadership after this barrage.
North Point graciously provides a number of their administrative documents for free at Nside Admin
According to the Barna Group’s survey, you can get an idea of how well-known Andy Stanley is.
- Percentage of Awareness Among All Adults,
  - 5% Andy Stanley
    >> 3% favorable
    >> 2% unfavorable
- Percentage of Awareness Among Born Again Christians
  - 6% Andy Stanley
    >> 4% favorable
    >> 2% unfavorable
- I don’t think you should conclude much from the fact that he is not viewed favorably by 2% of people. Just about everyone on the list has done publicly embarrassing things including Billy Graham (i.e. comments about Jews on Nixon tapes). Andy hasn’t. Even if you disagree with video venues or the seeker-driven approach, Andy is still pretty likeable.
- H/T Kent Shaffer at Church Relevance post Top American Christian Leaders :: How Likeable Are They?

The bios for the other two authors of Seven Practices of Effective Ministry are at the North Point Ministries website here. I have pasted that information below.

Reggie writes the meat of the book. Andy basically writes the preface and conclusion.

Reggie Joiner is the executive director of Family Ministries at North Point Community Church. He leads the staff responsible for programming children, student, and married adult ministries. He is also creator of FamilyWise a non-profit ministry aimed at helping churches and families teach kids character and faith. Reggie lives with his wife Debbie and his four teenagers Reggie Paul, Hannah, Sarah, and Rebekah in Cumming, GA.

Lane writes the parable in the first half of the book.

Lane Jones is a native of Atlanta, Georgia where he lives with his wife Traci and their three children, Jared, Caitlin and Madison. He is on staff at North Point Community Church where he loves to write and participate in the creative process. Lane holds degrees from Georgia State University and Dallas Theological Seminary. A commenter, Nick, writes that:

Lane Jones is the campus director of Browns Bridge Community Church (a campus of NPCC).

Note: I had previously thought that North Point Community Church was a Southern Baptist Convention church but a commenter says it is not. Thanks for the correction commenter.