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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:

1. Elementary Director – serving on the larger Childrens and Family team, supporting the parents of our elementary school kids – 400 kids with their families.
2. High School Pastor – serving on the larger Student and Family team, supporting the parents of our high schoolers – 350 students with their families.
3. 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

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

If you are a Rob Bell fan, this is must reading.

Update February 26, 2007

Witherington has now reviewed all of Bell’s videos.  He thoroughly appreciates all of them.  He questions a couple of his Jewish rabbi comments but still thinks they are outstanding. 

Rob Bell’s Nooma Videos 11-15

Rob Bell’s Nooma Videos 6-10

Rob Bell’s Nooma Videos 1-5

Update February 18, 2007

Ben Witherington has written a more comprehensive and gracious appreciation and critique of Rob Bell at "Velvet Elvis and the King"– Has he Left the Building?   Read it.  He encourages Bell to consult the standard commentaries and to ignore some fringe scholars who would liken Jesus to a third century AD Jewish Rabbi.   

Original Post:

Ben Witherington has posted his assessment of Rob Bell’s presentation last night in Lexington: Rob Bell hits Lexington and a Packed-Out House.  Ben is a professor of New Testament at Asbury Seminary and a prolific commentary writer.  Rob is the most downloaded preacher on the internet (perhaps behind Joel Osteen) and pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, MI.   (See ITunes "Religion and Spirituality" category – Bell’s ITunes podcast link is here).

Witherington praises Bell’s style but critiques his substance saying that Bell doesn’t know the difference between 3rd century AD Rabbinic judaism and Jesus’ context and he critiques Bell for waffling on homosexuality.  I guarantee that this post will be the hottest one in the Christian blogosphere today and this week. 

I commented saying that I don’t know how Bell puts together his creative, brilliant presentations each week.  With his influence, he should speak a little less and research a bit more.  (By the way I love listening to Bell).  I also say that perhaps Bell was addressing pastoral responses rather than actually stating his doctrinal position.  Brian McLaren took some heat for this a while back on the Out of Ur Leadership journal blog.          

I also mentioned that Bell was the most downloaded preacher on the internet.  Those statistics change regularly though.  See the iTunes Religion & Spirituality podcast page for the latest rankings.  Like other iTunes store links, that link will only work if you have iTunes (which is free to download and install on your computer) installed on your computer.