Hello all:

Today, Sara and I made it to Doug Foster’s class entitled “Three Decisive Years for Churches of Christ (A Church Historian Reflects on 1809, 1909, and 2009)”. It was such a blessing to hear Doug Foster speak; he is a great teacher and speaker who can really make Church History interesting, even for my wife, who actually wanted to go to his class. This was the second time I’ve heard Doug Foster speak, and both times have been great.

Dr. Foster spent the last part of the class talking about 2009, the year of the Great Communion. To commemorate 200 years since Thomas Campbell’s Decleration and Address, the three streams of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement will hold “Great Communion Sunday,” encouraging churches from all three streams to worship, fellowship and commune together. Dr. Foster encouraged people to go out and meet the Disciples and Independents in their areas and to start a plan to celebrate the Great Communion. One of my goals for 2009 will definatly be to help organize a Great Communion event for the Portland area.

Dr. Foster also just released a new book through Leafwood Press focused on the Great Communion called One Church that you can order here.

After Doug Foster’s class, I went and heard Lynn McMillon talk about “Lessons Learned from Restoration History (The Scottish Experience).” Dr. McMillon spoke about the Scottish Glasite and Sandemanian Churches, that called themselves Churches of Christ and which bear quite a resemblance to our movement. This has been a topic I’ve been curious about ever since I read Leroy Garrett’s history of the movement, and it was a very enjoyable class. Dr. McMillon wrote a book on the Glasite churches called Restoration Roots that I’m looking forward to buying and reading.

I ended up missing the next two sessions because of homework, but I ended up with a good great so I guess it was worth it.

Later in the day, I was quite blessed to have dinner withBobby Valentine, and we got to talk about life, school, and theology.

The Main Lecture was by Gary Selby of Pepperdine, who spoke on “The Wealth of the Faithful.” Selby criticized the security and wealth that we cling to, and how that wealth and security interfears with the Christian life, which was odd to hear in Malibu among the million dollar homes, $75k cars in the Pepperdine parking lot, etc. It was a powerful message, though, and helpful to myself and Sara as we continue to strongly consider quitting my secure civil service job to go back to school to study theology.

The night ended in Bobby Valentine’s class on The Struggle for the Soul of Churches of Christ, which was excellent. I must admit, I went to Bobby and John Mark Hicks’ class on Kingdom Come two years ago at Pepperdine, bought the book, read it, and enjoyed it. I was persuaded by many of the arguments in Kingdom Come. And then…I heard Bobby speak about it for three days this year, and had a chance to talk to him about the Nashville Bible School tradition… and that, coupled with the events that have taken place in my spiritual journey over the last two years, has won me over to the apocalyptic worldview embraced by Lipscomb and Harding. I believe it is true to scripture, true to our heritage, and true to the Spirit… I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about these things, and you may see a change in which topics I blog about soon because of it.

Another great night at Pepperdine.

-Clarke