Forecasting 2012

I am a bit fasctidious…okay that may be an understatement. I am anal about organization and I tend to plan out nearly everything that I can. My year is no different. I plan out the topics I am going to study, the books I am going to read, and more. So both for my personal life and my online ministry I have a plan. If you’re interested in knowing where we are going to go here at Pastor Dave Online in 2012 then keep reading…if you couldn’t care less then the short version is: I’ve planned for some more and different stuff this year and you can come back and read it starting next week.

1) New Series here at Pastor Dave Online.

Not to reveal all my cards, but I do have a number of exciting series that I want to dive in with my church here at Pastor Dave Online. We will be discussing issues of identity in Christ, a theology of sex, more hipsterdome stuff (and particularly a post on why I use this rather derogatory label), and a series on the common idolatry. I will be inviting quality professional theologians to our conversations, review more books, and discussing some of my favorite coffees (of which I have many). The year looks to be fun and engaging… at least for me.

2) New Books I am excited/interested to read:

The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler; this is Chandler’s first book and since I am a huge fan of his preaching I am naturally excited to read his book.

Real Marriage by Mark and Grace Driscoll; the book has already garnered heat from both progressives and conservatives and I am anxious to see what the fuss is all about. I read Driscoll’s book on porn and found it okay, not great, but not bad. So we’ll see if the hype is worthy of the content.

The Kingdom Through Covenant by Stephen Wellum and Peter Gentry; Dr. Wellum was hands-down my favorite professor in seminary and I am more than extatic to learn Biblical Theology again from him through this forthcoming work.

Center Church by Tim Keller; Keller’s theology of ministry is certainly going to be worth a deep, thoughtful, and repeated engagement as he has more to offer on the subject than any contemporary pastor I know (in my own humble opinion).

3) Personal Study (which will no doubt show up on the blog)

Normally I pick a topic for the year and study it out, but I had so many subjects come up this past year in my disicpleship and discipling that I felt it would be a good use of my time to spend the year studying in part multiple subjects. So I will read ten books each on a number of varied topics and try to get a good healthy introduction to them. The topics I have laid out are as follows: a theology of sex, Christ and Politics, and identity in Christ.

A theology of sex: since I help pastor a church full of college students I get more questions and more counseling scenarios related to this topic than almost any. This says to me that in many ways the Christian church needs to boost its theology of sex according to Scripture and present it afresh. I aim to do my small part in that area by studying up and formulating the introductions to a theology. I look forward to healthy discussion here at Pastor Dave Online.

Christ and Politics: As a young man I inherited a right-wing, conservative theology that I adopted whole-sale. In college I moved much more to the left and have now settled somewhere in between with a mixed bag of beliefs that I am sure do not conform well together. In light of that and in light of the growing trend among my generation to distance themselves from politics I felt compelled to figure out what I believe. I will examining the theological foundations for my political views and then seeing where the common offerings align themselves more with or against that theology. In the process I hope to have the start to a good political position. This is way out of my comfort zone so I look forward to many healthy and informed conversations with friends and readers here at Pastor Dave Online.

Identity in Christ: this is a subject that I think is at the heart of nearly all discipleship issues. I fear that most of us do not recognize who we are in Christ and as a result either have a too low or too high view of ourselves. I want to study this out and present a Biblical theology of the self that is rooted in the gospel. My reading on this subject looks to be very engaging.

Check back next week for the start of all of this, plus more!