Whirled Views with Dan Burrell

Well, it’s official.

I am no longer a Charlottean. Today was the closing on our house.  Last week, we moved into our new house in Pembroke Pines, FL.  Apart from the occasional visit to our friends in Charlotte and visits to our vacation place in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Carolinas are no longer home. As I drove out of the city, I could look into my rear view mirror and see Charlotte fade away. In spite of a (how do I say this nicely?) “tumultuous” last year, there is much about Charlotte that I will miss.

The Carolina Panthers, Pike’s Old-Fashioned Soda Fountain, the four distinct seasons, vine-ripened tomatoes, my back yard, the Charlotte skyline, the ability to be at the symphony in 15 minutes — the beach in 3 hours — the mountains in 2 hours and picking my own strawberries in 30 minutes, Max and Erma’s Buffalo Chicken Sandwich, The Speedway Club, apple-picking season and last-but-not-least some very, very dear friends.

What I won‘t miss is rather inconsequential and not worth mentioning.

I’m shocked at how much we all are enjoying our “re-entry” into South Florida (we lived about an hour north of Pembroke Pines for 17 years in the 80’s and 90’s). Each morning, I look out on the small lake behind our house and see the ducks paddling about and the giant fish breaking the surface of the water. Our yard is filled with orchids and palms and butterflies and flora of all kinds. South Florida food is amazing. The people in the west Broward County communities are extremely warm and friendly — more so than in Charlotte surprisingly. There are fewer Christians, but in many ways the Christians one meets are far more authentic and transparent than what you would find in the Bible belt with far fewer “hang ups”. The multi-ethnicity of our church and local communities is a tremendous blessing (we have 70 nationalities and ethnic groups in our church.) I’m only 15 minutes away from the Miami Dolphin’s stadium! Though real Floridians rarely go to the beach, it’s there if we want to go. Saturday, we’re taking an airboat ride out into the Everglades and will see tons of alligators and other amazing wildlife. Miami has one of the best zoos in the world (I love zoos.) I enjoy the sounds of Latin and Caribbean music about everywhere I go.

So all in all, it’s beginning to feel like home again.

Over the last year, for a variety of reasons — much of it related to weekly commutes back and forth between NC and FL — I haven’t taken the time to write as much as I had planned. My blog has been particularly silent. But I anticipate getting into a rhythm in the coming weeks and once again, I hope to hit the blog scene regularly. Because of my infrequent posting, my month blog readership has fallen from about 15,000 per month to less than 10,000, so I plan on getting that pumped up again. Tell your friends and neighbors that I’m coming back! :-)   I’ve actually planned a few new categories of articles and features which I’ll be developing in the future.

If you would like or need my new mailing address or our home phone number, drop me a line and I’ll respond privately.

In the way of personal information regarding my family, Julie is happy to be back in her home state and will soon be actively involved in Bible studies and a little homeschooling, I’m sure. Nathan is going to transfer out of Liberty this year and attend college locally while we all get acclimated. He’s working with computers this summer. Megan will be a Senior at Dade Christian School this fall and is looking at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach for her college of choice. Katie is going to do homeschooling with mom this fall and has been a big help around the house as our resident “organizer”. Josh is already making friends and will be in 6th grade at The Master’s Academy about 5 miles from our house beginning in August.

Many of you know Rene’ — the young man I’ve affectionately called our “fifth” kid — who has been part of our life for the last 14 years. He has been living in South Florida the last year also and recently underwent very serious abdominal surgery. He has been in the hospital for two weeks and remains there recuperating. We’d appreciate your prayers for him and his recovery which has been very slow with multiple setbacks.

So that’s the latest and I’ll look forward to hearing from you and even sparring with some of you in the future. Please keep coming back to Whirled Views!

We’re still unpacking boxes after our big move over the week-end, but I thought I’d jump back into blogging for a couple of minutes to touch on a couple of thoughts regarding doctrine.  In our Christianity “Lite” generation, many of the Emergents have willfully chosen to de-emphasize doctrine — some even going so far as to declare doctrine “transient” and to be examined in light of current cultures and worldviews.  This denigration of doctrine comes in the backwash of the 1990’s mantra of avoiding denominationalism.  While I don’t believe a church has to have Baptist on its sign to be doctrinally sound, denominational distinctives built on sound doctrine aren’t something to be glibly dismissed.

Today, the Pew Report on Religion in Public Life issued findings that included the disheartening statistic that stated that 57% of “Evangelicals” believe that there is more than one way to get to heaven.  The seeker-driven mentality of the modern church growth movement has created a generation of alleged “believers” who don’t know what they claim to believe and why they believe it.  Apparently John 14:6 isn’t “friendly” enough to be taught to those who must deny all except Christ for Salvation.

Dr. Charles Wood also offered some additional thoughts a couple of days ago that I found important in his “From the Woodchuck’s Den”.  I’ll leave his ruminations with you in closing….

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    Generally, I read (or more accurately, scan) Christianity Today at Barnes and Noble.  This week I actually bought the June, 2008 issue because of a number of items I saw while scanning.  When I got it home and went through it carefully, it had even more interesting information than I had realized.

    Previously, I mentioned the controversy surrounding the termination of a professor at Wheaton College.  That situation involved a procedural issue without any discernable (at least to me) doctrinal overtones.  I also mentioned the so-called “situation at Cedarville” which started out centered around a doctrinal/philosophical matter.  At the end of the day, however, it was also a procedural matter that brought about the termination of two faculty members.  That story made its way into the June issue of CT!

    These two stories were absolutely eclipsed by other items in the magazine.  A female faculty member at Southwestern Seminary was dismissed by Paige Patterson because he saw the role she was playing (or had arrogated to herself?) as in violation of Biblical teaching regarding the proper role of women in ministry.  That is somewhat a question of practice, but it is based on doctrinal concerns.  [The woman moved on to Taylor University but filed an unlawful dismissal suit against Southwestern Seminary.  The suit was dismissed - as almost all such suits are, at least currently - on the basis that the court has no jurisdiction in matters that involve the doctrine or internal workings of churches or even of church-related organizations.]  So maybe Paige Patterson ought to join the rest of us dinosaurs as we sit in that cave and read ancient manuscripts.

    But just a minute!  Venerable Westminster Seminary in the Philadelphia area (founded by J. Gresham Machen as a partial answer to the departure from the faith of the old Princeton Theological Seminary) has, by a split decision of its Trustees, dismissed two professors over positions they have taken on the doctrine of inspiration.  This one is a full-fledged difference over doctrine.  The Trustees voted 18-9 for dismissal so I guess we may have to make our cave a little bigger.

    And then the bomb was dropped.  The “Head Lines” page includes an article titled “Willow Creek’s Huge Shift.”  This is only my opinion, but I think the matters reported caught CT a bit by surprise (or may have occurred just before publication deadlines). and I expect a much fuller treatment of the subject in a future issue.  The article appeared to me to be a bit “thrown together,” and had a distinctly negative slant toward Willow Creek, but it was literally a bombshell.

    For some time it has been public knowledge that Bill Hybels has not been happy with the state of discipleship at the church.  It appears now that he has decided to do something about it.  The article begins, “After modeling a seeker-sensitive approach to church growth for three decades, Willow Creek Community Church plans to gear its weekend services toward mature believers seeking to grow in the faith.”  The next paragraph may mean that I will get to have fellowship in the cave with Bill.  It says, “The change comes on the heels of an ongoing four-year research effort first made public last summer in Reveal: Where Are You?, a book co-authored by executive pastor Greg Hawkins.  Hawkins said during an annual student ministries conference in April that Willow Creek would also replace its midweek services with classes on theology and the Bible.”  Further on in the article we read, “Greg Pritchard, author of Willow Creek Seeker Services, told CT the church sporadically has recognized it was not teaching a robust enough theology and needed to turn the ship around.”

    There is more to the article than I have quoted, but much of it seems to me to belittle the change at Willow and to indicate that it very likely will not work.  For those of us, however, who have long been unimpressed by many of the aspects of the “seeker-sensitive” paradigm, this all comes as a striking admission that at least some of our concerns were legitimate.  I greatly admire Bill Hybels for recognizing and admitting an area of weakness or failure and for taking steps to correct it.  Actually, the “seeker-sensitive” approach of Willow appears to have produced little more depth than the very different. but no less “seeker-sensitive” approach of Jack Hyles and First Baptist of Hammond.

    E. F. Hutton is no more, but when they were and spoke, everyone listened.  I’m not sure everyone listens to Bill Hybels, but when he speaks and Willow Creek changes, hundreds - if not thousands - of pastors and churches are going to listen (and, in the majority of instances), respond to at least some degree.

    In our postmodern world that some of the various manifestations of the emergent churches would reach by down-playing or even elimination any attention to doctrine, it is refreshing to find that one of the largest and most influential ministries in evangelicalism is about to issue by example a call for increasing the importance of and stress on doctrine (just another name for “theology).  I rather think that the Apostle Paul would be pleased.  After all, he said, “Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine, continue in them….”

    Hang in there, Bill.  You’re going to take some hits and lose some people, but you may be the means of turning the church back once-again to stressing theology for what is was once known as, “The Queen of the sciences.”  May God grant us a steady-stream of well-trained men who can “rightly divide the Word of truth” by study of the systematic approach to the content of the Word and also by consulting the history of doctrine, and may they come to stand in the influential pulpits and places of leadership in a day when post-modernism appears not only to dominate in the public square but also to have seriously infiltrated the church.  God bless you Paige Patterson, Al Mohler, John MacArthur, John Piper, Warren VanHetloo, and now - apparently - Bill Hybels (and others).  May your tribe increase until the Word of God rather than the (mis?)perceived needs of people dictates our agenda and our approach!

We’re still up to our necks in boxes in our new house in Pembroke Pines, but saw this article this evening and thought it would make for some interesting reading.

Click HERE.