Good to talk to you again. Thank you for all of the kind emails and Facebook posts thus far. I miss all of you and am praying for you all by using my makeshift membership list.
I wanted to give you an update on my life here so far. I want to look at this under four headings: Taking Class, Auditing, Going to Church, and Touring the Campus
Taking Class
My first J-term class just ended: The Doctrine of the Church, with Dr. Mark Dever (picture below). Dr. Dever is pastor of Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., where Josh and Abigail Abbotoy are members, and author of numerous books on the church. He's also a really pleasant guy.
Classes would run from 9:00-12:00, then from 1:30-3:30 every day. He began class every day by calling the roll, only instead of saying "Here," we had to tell what passage we read in our devotions that morning. We would then sing a hymn (e.g. "Doxology," "There is a Fountain" "Arise, My Soul, Arise"), and then he would pray. Next, we would read through and discuss what various Protestant Confessions had said about the Church: The Augsburg Confession (Lutheran), the Thirty-Nine Articles (Anglican), the Westminster Confession, the First London Baptist Confession (1644), the Second London Baptist Confession (1689), the New Hampshire Baptist Confession, the Abstract of Principles (Southern Seminary's statement), and the three versions of the Baptist Faith and Message (1925, 1963, and 2000).
Next he would lecture us on various aspects of the church. There was a lot of interaction, as well. The overall topics we learned about were:
I. Preaching (along with the proper administration of the ordinances, gospel preaching is one of the two marks of a true church)
II. Baptism (the meaning, the mode, baptism and infants, baptism and children, baptism and membership)
III. The Lord's Supper (the various historical views, how the ordinances make the church visible, whom to allow to take communion, how often should we take it, etc.)
IV. Membership and Discipline (the Bible's teaching, its purpose and meaning, 12 steps to regaining meaningful membership in your church, should unbaptized people be allowed to join your church?, how church discipline was done in early 19th century Baptist churches in Georgia, 9 steps to restoring biblical discipline to your church, etc.)
V. Polity/Church Government (the different forms, biblical arguments for congregationalism, elders and deacons, plurality of elders, the authority of the congregation and the elders, biblical arguments for the regulative principle of worship, arguments against the practice of multi-service and multi-site, etc.)
In short, the class was wonderful. The required reading list consisted of the following, any of which I would recommend to any of you.
Edmund Clowney, The Church
John Hammett, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches
Jonathan Leeman, The Church and the Surprising Offense of God’s Love
Mark Dever, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church
Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, What Is the Mission of the Church?
Jonathan Leeman, Reverberation
Mark Dever and Paul Alexander, The Deliberate Church
As for the authors above, Dever was my professor, Gilbert pastors the church I will be attending, and Leeman conducted Jared and Maggie's wedding. What a small world! :-)
As for people, I got to meet and befriend many very dear brothers. Lunch time was good for fellowship, as I made it a point to seek at least one class mate out to eat with. The class contained Christians from China, South Korea, India, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. [addition to the original post: I am in class with Matthew Price, who was the interim pastor for the church that the Reformed Baptist Church of Nashville sent Jeremy Meeks to revitalize. Jeremy came up to visit Matt, and we had lunch together at a Cuban restaurant.]
Auditing
With my spare time (I did most of the reading before I got here), I sat in on a Christian philosophy class with Dr. Paul Helm (picture below). Why? you might ask? Well, the content didn't interest me too awful much, but Paul Helm is one of the most celebrated Reformed Christian philosophers in the world. And since he is also 71 years old, I thought it safe to assume he was a wealth of wisdom that I probably won't ever get the chance to sit under again. He is an Englishman (Yay, Miss Jane!), and a very witty, kind, and godly man. Pray for him, as he'll be flying back to England today to be with his wife.
Going to Church
I have been in Louisville now for two Wednesday nights and one Sunday. The church I plan to attend and pursue associate membership with is called Third Avenue Baptist Church, pastored by Greg Gilbert (http://www.thirdavenue.org/). Why Third Avenue? Well, there are several very good churches here, but I chose Third Avenue because of its association with both Capitol Hill Baptist (where Josh and Abby are members) and Gilford Baptist (where Rob and Caroline used to be members, and where Pastor Carroll, Miss Linda, and I have attended several times while visiting the Spinneys). Greg Gilbert, the pastor, was formerly a pastor at Capitol Hill, so I assumed that Third Avenue would be very similar in its worship and structure with CHBC and Gilford. I was right. :-)
Gilbert began a 7-part series on Ezekiel last Sunday morning. Their Sunday night service is a combination of prayer meeting, church family time, and a brief devotional. I plan to pursue associate membership with them, which will require me to go through the membership classes which are offered in the Sunday School track. Since they do not have a Wednesday night service (they do small groups during the week), I have attended Clifton Baptist Church both Wednesdays I have been here. Why? Because three of my former professors attend or are elders there: Thomas Schreiner, Bruce Ware, and Shawn Wright. So far, I've met Dr. Wright (who remembered the Davises and the Lakes) and Dr. Ware.
[Note for college students: moving away from home for an extended period of time means that you need to find a like-minded, evangelical church where the gospel is preached, the ordinances are properly administered, and church discipline is practiced (the most accurate embodiment of which will be Baptistic and Calvinistic, but if you can't find the Baptistic part, try Presbyterian or Anglican :-) ) and plug in as soon as possible. If you are a member at Grace, college is not meant to be a time when you float around churchless for four years like a severed body part. Such a practice will only cause you to dishonor God and dry up spiritually.]
Touring the Campus
Here are some photos I have taken. The descriptors will be listed above.
The inside of my current dorm room [It is not good for man to be alone]
The outside of my current dorm room: Williams Hall.
The James P. Boyce Library (named after one of the seminary's founders).
Norton Hall, where pretty much all my classes will be.
It's been a long email, I know. In honor of Martin Luther King Day there will be no classes on Monday (note to Ezra Baker: I will miss being there to watch the "I Have a Dream" speech with you like last year). My other J-term class with run from next Tuesday through Saturday, 8:00-5:00 daily. I'll save that one for another update.
I love all of you, and look forward to being with you again soon. Thank you for your support, both spiritually and materially. Keep the emails and Facebook posts coming.
Justin Dillehay
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