ClarkeComments.com

Hello all:

Well, Sara and I took the our youth group to Central Oregon this weekend for a youth ralley. They seemed to have a good time.

While we were there, we got to spend some time with my parents and my grandmother. I was telling my mother about the Carl Ketcherside books I got, and she thought that was pretty neat. My dad didn’t know who he was. My mom asked my 78 year-old Grandmother, who hadn’t heard the conversation, if she knew who Carl Ketcherside was.

Her response was “Oh, yeah, I know who he is….He was a troublemaker!”

I have often wondered how my grandfather, who was an elder in the church, would feel about my theology. I guess my grandmother can give me a window into what he would think.

My grandfather could have heard Ketcherside speak even, but I don’t know. They lived in the area of Rockford, Illonois, almost their entire lives. Ketcherside lived in Missouri and often spoke at congregations in Illonois. Thats just speculation though.

So, I guess I’m a troublemaker, too. Guess we’ll see how it goes.

-Clarke

Hello all:

So, I dropped my wife off at work this morning, came back home, and found a large package sitting outside my door from College Press.

When I was at the Pepperdine Lectures, I had the occasion to meet Carl Ketcherside’s daughter. While we were talking she offered to send me a couple of books by her late father, and I agreed.

I lugged this huge package I found outside my door into the house, and opened it, and found 12 volumes of Hardcover books…”The Works of Carl Ketcherside”. The set is about as large as a smaller set of Encyclopedias, including his writings from the Mission Messenger magazine that he published.

This is more than I ever imagined. I expected to get a couple of paperbacks, and instead got this huge collection. I’m excited…I’m not sure when I’ll have time to read all of it…I shouldn’t run out of reading material for a while.

-Clarke

Hello all:

Its time to do some promoting (non-compensated, I assure you) of some stuff I’ve come across as late.

Check out the Faith & Education Scholarship Fund. This Scholarship is just for members of Churches of Christ to attend a 4 year liberal arts college or university. There is no requirement that you attend a church college, and they seem to actually promote attending secular universities. This is a brand new ministry that has just started up. I got some of their literature at the Pepperdine Bible Lectures. If you have money that you can part with, send some their way…or if you know of a starving college student, send them their way. I’m hoping they’ll throw some money my way when I get back into a 4 year school. Unfortunatly its just around for undergrad work, maybe they’ll expand later, who knows?

Also…I bought John Mark Hicks and Bobby Valentine’s new book Kingdom Come while at the lectures. I’ve started it but haven’t gotten very far because of school. However, their lectures centered on the book, and I’m very excited to read it. The book is on the Spiritual Legacy of Harding and Lipscomb and the Nashville Bible School Tradition vs. the Texas Tradition. Very cool. Check it out, buy a copy.

-Clarke

Hello all:

I’m writing from the Firestone Fieldhouse, waiting for the evening Songfest and Keynote Lecture.

Today has been an interesting day. I went to the last session of Rick Atchley and Bob Russell’s lecture on being Together Again. It was again, a great session. That lecture has been completely packed all three days, and gives me great hope that we will be “Together Again.”

I want to take a moment to note a phenomenon that Greg has talked about on his blog, and that was addressed during the Stone-Campbell Symposium. While there has been much talk of unity between the Churches of Christ and Independent Christian Churches, there has been little to none that included the Disciples. Those lectures that did mention the Disciples of Christ were fairly negative in nature. There were no mentions of the ICOC, either. I understand why this is…and its even a knee jerk reaction for me to not talk positively about the Disciples. I am trying to change, however, and I believe that our brothers and sisters that are interesting in unity need to as well. Highlighting brothers such as Newell Williams, a Disciples Historian and President at Brite Divinity School, and ministries such as Disciples Heritage Fellowship are good starting points for these discussions.

Anyway…back to the Lectureship. I missed Rubel Shelly’s last session, I had a last minute homework deadline that I had to make. But, I’m sure it was good.

The most exciting lecture I attended today was “3 Churches 3 Miles Apart….with the Same DNA (How we Discovered our Common Roots). Two pulpit ministers and a worship minister were present to talk about these churches. One from Churches of Christ, one from Independent Christian Churches, and one from Disciples of Christ. The most interesting this was that the Church of Christ minister was a former Catholic, the Independent Christian Church worship leader was originally from Churches of Christ….and the Disciples of Christ pulpit minister was originally from Independent Christian Churches, went to Pepperdine, joined the Churches of Christ, and is now (reluctantly) a Disciples minister (long story). These three congregations, all near Pepperdine, recently had a joint worship service and are getting to know each other better. It was a very interesting and exciting lecture.

I also went and listened to Dr. Paul Pollard, professor of Greek at Harding, speaking about the culture surrounding the Johannine letters. That guy knows how to make a history/scripture lesson interesting, and he is definatly a scholar.

The songfest is about to start, then a keynote address by Don Mclaughlin, and then I’ll attend one more lecture. I fly out of LAX at 6:00am. It has been a fun experience, I’ve learned, I’ve grown I think, and I’m glad I came. I would encourage all of you to attend next year, or attend the various unity events such as the North American Christian Convention that is going to be happening soon.

-Clarke