Archive for October, 2009

Press Release: Introducing the Worldview Speakers Bureau

October 27, 2009 at 10:47 am · Filed under Announcements

From Warren Cole Smith; Charlotte, NC, Evangelical Press News:

Dear Friends:

I’m pleased to announce that I have joined forces with five of my friends - fellow authors and speakers - to form a speakers bureau that we are calling Worldview Speakers.  All of us already do some public speaking, but because all of us also have “day jobs,” we haven’t been able to get the word out about our availability in any consistent way.  By banding together, we have been able to contract with Natalie Page to help us schedule more engagements, and to keep the details straight once the engagements have been booked.

Here are my colleagues on the Worldview Speakers roster:

Eric Metaxas.  To condense Eric’s biography to a few sentences is impossible.  Eric is the author of many books, including the New York Times bestseller Amazing Grace:  William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery.  His biography of Bonhoeffer will be published by Thomas Nelson in March 2010.  His 2005 book Everything You Wanted To Know About God (But Were Afraid To Ask), was widely praised, and spawned two sequels, one in 2007, and one due out this January.  Eric has written over 20 children’s books, and he has written for VeggieTales and done voice-overs for them.  His work with Rabbit Ears Productions has earned him three Grammy nominations for Best Children’s Recording.  Eric’s wit makes him a popular - and hilarious - public speaker.  For more information, go to www.ericmetaxas.com
Marvin Olasky.  Anyone who has paid attention to religion and politics over the past 20 years already knows the name Marvin Olasky.  Marvin currently is editor-in-chief of WORLD magazine, the nation’s largest Christian news magazine, as well as serving as provost for The King’s College, an academically rigorous Christian college in the heart of Manhattan.  He is the author of more than 20 books, including The Tragedy of American Compassion, which has been credited with providing the intellectual underpinning for the most sweeping reforms in our welfare system ever.  Marvin is widely credited with coining the phrase “compassionate conservatism,” and was an advisor to George W. Bush during Bush’s tenure as governor of Texas.  Marvin has written extensively on abortion, and speaks often to pro-life groups all around the country.

Alex McFarland.  Alex McFarland is the president of Southern Evangelical Seminary, the nation’s leading seminary dedicated to Christian apologetics.  Alex has written or contributed chapters to more than a dozen books, including Stand:  Core Truths You Must Know For An Unshakable Faith, which has more than 250,000 copies in circulation.  Before becoming president of Southern Evangelical Seminary, he spent almost three years with Focus on the Family as their director of teen apologetics, appearing repeatedly on Dr. Dobson’s daily radio program, heard by millions of people around the world.  Alex is also an accomplished rock-n-roll guitar player who has performed on-stage with the Beach Boys.  For more information, go to www.alexmcfarland.com
Frank Turek.  Dr. Frank Turek is the award-winning author or coauthor of: I Don’t have Enough Faith to be an Atheist; Correct, Not Politically Correct; and Legislating Morality. As the founder and president of www.CrossExamined.org, he leads a team of instructors to college and high school campuses to present evidence for Christianity and to cross-examine ideas against it.  Frank hosts an hour-long TV program each week called I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist every Monday night on DirecTV, and a live call-in radio program that airs on 126 stations across the nation every Saturday morning.  Frank also writes a column for www.Townhall.com and has appeared on numerous TV and radio programs including: The O’Reilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes, Politically Incorrect, The Bible Answerman, and Focus on the Family.  A former United States Navy aviator, Frank has a master’s degree from George Washington University and a doctorate in apologetics from Southern Evangelical Seminary.  He and his wife Stephanie live near Charlotte and are blessed with three incredible boys.

Dan Burrell.  Dan Burrell is a pastor, educator, author, and well-known speaker - especially in the field of Christian education.  Dan holds three degrees in educational fields, including a doctorate in Educational Administration.  In addition, Dan is a former president of the Florida Association of Christian Colleges and Schools. FACCS represented nearly 200 schools and over 55,000 teachers and students during his tenure and was the largest state affiliate in the American Association of Christian Schools.  Dan has served on the Executive Board of AACS, has co-authored three books on Christian education, has spoken at dozens of Christian educational conferences, lectured and preached at over a dozen Christian colleges and travels internationally to speak on Christian education, Church Leadership, family topics and Christian Worldview.

Warren Cole Smith.  Warren Smith is a writer, editor, and publisher of the Evangelical Press News Service, which is used by 100 Christian publications with millions of readers each month.  He has written, co-written, or edited eight books, including A Lover’s Quarrel With The Evangelical Church.   Newspapers he has edited or published, including “The Charlotte World,” have won more than a dozen awards - including Newspaper Of The Year - from the Evangelical Press Association.  He is a regular columnist for WORLD magazine, and his articles have also appeared in the Dallas Morning News, BeliefNet, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sports Afield, Alaska Magazine, and elsewhere. He has been quoted in stories for National Public Radio, CBS News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and on hundreds of Christian and secular media outlets all across America.   For more information:  www.loversquarrel.net

So, if you or someone you know is responsible for booking provocative speakers for colleges and universities, conferences, fund-raising events at Pregnancy Care Centers or other pro-life or pro-family  organizations, please do not hesitate to call Natalie Page at 704-305-3581.  Or, you can email her to book a speaker or for additional information at Natalie@worldviewspeakers.com

Natalie looks forward to hearing from you.

Cordially,

Warren

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Into Every Life a Little Change Must Come…

October 26, 2009 at 3:47 pm · Filed under Announcements

Time for another update in life’s journey.  I haven’t written much in the last few weeks as my responsibilities in my place of ministry have been increased dramatically recently.  We moved to South Florida 16 months ago from North Carolina to minister at New Testament Baptist Church in Miami and Broward County, FL.  I have been serving as the Executive Pastor of our multi-site church ministry and the Vice-President of our various schools.  The economy in South Florida remains extremely challenging (that’s polite code for, “IT STINKS!”) and on-going organizational shifting has had to occur where I serve as is the case in most every other ministry of which I’m aware.

Thus, I was recently given the responsibility of taking on the roles of CFO (temporarily) and COO (longer term) within our ministries.  This means, I have multiple additional departments that now answer directly to me rather than through the CFO and COO which was previously the case.  In addition, we have had to adopt some rather challenging budget reductions as well.  I’m not complaining — I’m thankful to have my ministry position — it just means that my available “free time” to write and so on, has become a bit more rare.  I still Twitter a bit and Facebook, but that often happens while I’m multi-tasking (like sitting in a meeting or talking on the phone or worse yet, driving.)

Then last Saturday, (I had know this was coming for about 10 days), our Senior Pastor, Dr. Dino Pedrone, announced to our congregation that he has been lead to assume the presidency of Davis College in Binghamton, NY full time.  For the last year, he has been commuting each Sunday afternoon through Wednesday afternoon.  How he has kept up that schedule and the workload is beyond my comprehension, but he has done so with grace and good spirits.  But he has determined that for the benefit of both ministries, he needed to choose one for his focus and he believes that the Lord would have him spend his remaining ministry training young people for serving the Lord.  He has just completed his 14th year in Miami and obviously, this was a difficult decision for him and his wife, Bobbi.

So, for only the fifth time in its 55-year history, New Testament Baptist Church will begin the search for a Senior Pastor.  The church is strong and there is a good spirit as we prepare to say “good-bye” to Dr. Pedrone.  At the same time, we are all also keenly aware that this is a vitally important time in our church’s history as new pastors mean changes in direction, priorities and style.  The deacons of our church are very committed to using this time to prayerfully seek God’s best for our ministry and I hope you will pray for them.

On a personal note, of course this also has the potential for changes for many of us in leadership.  It is always the perrogative of a new pastor to select their leadership team and closest staff and we do not know what the Lord has in mind for any of us.  In the meantime, I intend on serving this church and its various ministries to the very best of my abilities as I know that this does not catch the Lord by surprise one bit and that obviously He ordained that we would be here during this time.

South Florida is an exciting, yet challenging place to minister.  As the gateway to South, Latin and Central America, we have an amazingly diverse community even within our church and schools.  I have every confidence that we have nearly 100 different nationalities and ethnic groups represented in our congregation and ministry family.  As an anglo of European descent myself, I am well experienced in being part of a “minority” group as we are probably represented to the extent of about 10% of our ministry family.  But, the Lord has generally erased divisions which might be accentuated in other parts of the country with a realization that we are truly missionaries to a very needy and important part of the country.  This is as close as one can get to being on a foreign mission field without actually moving to a foreign country.  We love that aspect of living in South Florida and we love the people of this church.

Please join us in praying that the Lord’s will would be revealed in a clear and unmistakeable way for our church family in the coming months.

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To Those Who Teach or Administrate in Christian Schools

October 7, 2009 at 6:12 pm · Filed under Biblical Thinking, Links

The issues of “rules” in a Christian day school setting have been discussed for many years.  Now with a full generation or more of “products” since the great explosion of evangelical Christian day schools hit our country in the 70’s and 80’s, many are being forced to admit that most of us would not want to attend the reunions of our graduating classes as we’d feel horrifically out of place.  In other words, the “rules” really didn’t make that much of a difference.

Mike Durning has written a thought-provoking article for those who still think that “rules” and “standards” help produce good Christians.  When I first began raising similar questions nearly twenty years ago, I was considered a renegade and a “liberal”.  Mike does a great job of making his case and if you are part of a school that seems to be “rules-oriented”, may I suggest you read his essay and follow the ones that will be released over the next few days.

You can find it HERE.

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