For most college students, the dog days of summer mean lakeside fun, long evenings with friends and time at that pesky part-time job. But for one group of students from Dallas’ Criswell College, summer took on a new meaning.

Nine students and two professors embarked on Criswell’s first mission trip to England last month, bringing the hope of Christ and a healthy appetite for tea with them. The team left July 18 for eight days filled with street evangelism, discipleship and personal interaction with residents of the rural towns and villages in northern England.

“For most students this was their first opportunity to reach people without the Christian dialect we have here in the Bible Belt,” said Criswell professor Joel Wilson. “Our mandate is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the world. All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. Jesus is the answer. This is one way we do it.”

Criswell students have answered that mandate. For Ginger McFadden from Criswell’s class of 2008 the trip made the top of the list of things to do with her summer after graduation.

“I’ve had a passion for about seven or eight years now for missions over seas,” McFadden said. “This trip continued that passion. I had been to several countries on mission, but never to Europe.”

To another student, senior R.J Nanny, the self-proclaimed last minute fill in, the trip offered an unusually diverse mission experience.

“This was a buffet mission trip,” said Nanny, who was with the college’s Oxford scholarship study group shortly before the trip. “I love the English people? We did outreach to an elementary school, in a city that is a stronghold of Islam, in a town that is known for its gay community, as well as door-to-door evangelism in regular English neighborhoods.”

Regardless of the individual reasons for going, the team was reminded of their common purpose.

Once in the town of Inskip, the students and professors stayed in the homes of other believers from a local evangelical church called Inskip Baptist Chapel. Each morning the team joined several deacons and pastors from the church for prayer and devotion before departing to their location for the day.

“Every day was different but they always started with breakfast and Bible study and ended with prayer,” McFadden said. “Whatever the Lord led us to do we were able to do. The people at the church were really hospitable, demonstrating Christ’s love towards us and welcoming us into their homes.”

But despite the welcome they received within the church, the students also met their fair share of resistance to the gospel among some of the people they interacted with outside the church.

“Really the whole area surprised me,” Nanny said. “If you do evangelism [in the U.S.] people are fairly open, but [in England] you don’t talk to people you don’t know. People think you’re weird for talking to them. They’re like, ‘Get away from me.’ Culturally speaking some people call this British reserve versus American openness through friendly conversation.'”

Despite setbacks, the team also saw the fruit of some of their labors. During their stay, they were able to offer significant help promoting a community barbecue held at the church. The event drew two-thirds of Baptist Chapel’s 80 or so members and more than 120 people from the local community, many of whom were not Christians.

“This church is nearing its 200th-year anniversary. It is very encouraging to receive so many non-Christian people from our community to our annual outreach barbecue. The Criswell students certainly made a significant contribution to help achieve that result,” said Baptist Chapel Pastor Daniel Ralph.

For the students involved, the energy around the barbecue was contagious.

“It was good to see the village come together,” McFadden said. “People who were not used to coming to a church interacted with Christians. It was my favorite part of the trip.”

Interaction with local believers and non-believers wasn’t all social, however.

Later, after meeting with local missionaries to the Muslim community, the team attended a faculty Bible study at the university in Prescott.

“The leader announced to us that he was a Christian Anarchist,” Wilson said. “The next faculty member referred to himself as a ‘liberal’ from the Church of England. We also met a Pentecostal,as well as an East German lady who confessed to loving God yet hating the established church.”

The study was from John 5 about the man needing to get into the pool. As an Old Testament instructor, Brooks offered some insights from Jesus’ use of Moses. Wilson said he prayed during the Bible study that those attending would have as transformational an encounter with Jesus as the man with the infirmity in John 5 did.

Criswell College requires each of its students to participate in a mission trip before graduation. One of its core values is the development of “God-called men and women in the Word and by the Word.”

The team brought this value to England by teaching adults, youth, and children in services not only at Inskip Baptist Chapel, but also in other churches and in a public school. After delivering a sermon on living out the resurrection power of Christ, Wilson was approached by members of the congregation.

“They very gratefully received the message, and were encouraged by the way they felt I had made the Scriptures very personal to some of them,” Wilson said. “We’ve just got to believe that the Bible is inerrant, and let the Holy Spirit guide us as we open up the scriptures. He opens our minds and hearts to God’s truth.”

Overall, the American and English believers said they were encouraged by the time they spent together spreading the gospel.

“When the Spirit unifies God’s people around the cross, we see love for one another through Christ. This spans countries and cultures. It was wonderful for us to see how the members of Inskip Baptist Chapel are able to bring a glimpse of biblical truth to their dark region. It was our privilege to bring them encouragement and support,” Wilson said.

For students like Nanny, the lessons they learned from their English brothers and sisters sink far deeper than a cross-cultural experience or a typical college summer experience.

“Even when it seems like sin abounds, God’s people are still there,” Nanny said. “I just thought Europe was dead, but God does have an open door. Those people are very healthy. They aren’t like the big Southern Baptist churches; they are in small pockets. A remnant? It’s not over yet.”

Hundreds of educators, executives and Christian leaders regard the art of storytelling as one of the most effective ways to reach a world of people and cultures that rely heavily on oral communication. Many of these proponents of an evangelization method known as storying will gather in the Dallas-Fort Worth area Sept. 15-18 for the 2008 conference of the International Orality Network (ION).

As director of a 27-member network that includes the International Mission Board of the SBC, Campus Crusade for Christ, Navigators, Trans World Radio and Wycliffe International, Avery Willis brings to the table a lifelong association with Southern Baptists as both a missionary and discipleship leader. Since retiring from the IMB in 2004, Willis has focused his attention on encouraging orality studies through the collaboration dedicated to helping individuals, churches, denominations and mission agencies effectively communicate the story of Jesus to all people, including oral learners.

“Oral learners not only learn differently, they think differently?stories are their primary way of communicating and retaining information, as well as the way their worldview is shaped and transformed,” Willis said. “Jesus himself spoke and taught through stories. Using storytelling to share about God is just smart communicating.”

The ION 2008 Conference will provide resources and training to help Christian men and women more effectively influence the lives of oral learners.

“We desire to encourage and equip thousands of storytellers to tell life-transforming stories of God to those within their spheres of influence,” stated Willis, who began his ministry pastoring Texas churches in Fort Worth and Grand Prairie.

The sixth-annual ION Conference is appropriate for anyone interested in learning successful oral communication tools and strategies. The ION 2008 Conference offers training tracks specialized for primary oral learners, secondary oral learners, executives, women, and other specific circumstances.
Further information on the meeting at the Dallas Solana Marriott Hotel in Westlake is available at internationaloralitynetwork.com.

DALLAS?Following a unanimous vote by the Criswell College trustee executive committee, Mike Tirone has been elected as the new general manager and senior vice president of radio station KCBI (90.9 FM) and Criswell Comminications.

Tirone has 17 years of broadcasting experience. He is a graduate of William Paterson University.
Tirone’s experience includes 12 years at NBC News (including CNBC and MSNBC). During this time, he was senior producer of MSNBC’s ” Scarborough Country” and was the NBC executive producer for special coverage of “Tsunami: Relief and Recovery.” He also served as producer of “Hardball with Chris Matthews” and traveled throughout the U.S. producing the “Hardball College Tour” at various university and college campuses.

He was awarded the NBC Ovation Award for coverage of Ronald Reagan’s funeral and was recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts and Science for excellence during coverage of 9/11.

Tirone came to Dallas in 2006 as vice president of KCBI and the Criswell Radio Network.

Western culture has too high a tolerance for silliness. There is a delightful draw to infantile behavior, especially for men. Behaving as children, wearing funny hats, telling stories on one another, and then collapsing in fits of laughter is more a guy thing than something that predictably blesses the hearts of the fairer sex. Either way, there’s a place where doing things to make people laugh becomes counterproductive.

Without roosting here too long, I think graduation ceremonies might be an example. My daughter’s graduation was held in a church. We had prayer, exhortations to godly service, a hymn or two, and we had a couple of dolts in the back with a Freon horn (like you hear at football games). Other people, seemingly impatient with not being the center of attention, had to make do by yelling and whooping. Very few were blessed by the racket and those very few laughed like fiends at their own cleverness.

School teachers, Sunday School teachers?all those who deal with minor children?are tortured all through the day by the tendency of children to have frequent “look at me” moments. I think many television programs have added to this syndrome. All the kids are smart-mouthed, all the adults are witty or stupid, and a laugh track goes wild at every tedious quip. Kids seem to think that the world should come with a laugh track.

And then there’s this item from the news yesterday. A judge in New Zealand has enforced a law there that bans children’s names that would cause offense or embarrassment. Examples of banned names are: Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii, Fish and Chips, and Keenan Got Lucy. Lest you think this censorship has gone too far, Number 16 Bus Shelter was ruled an acceptable name for a child.

Celebrities in the U.S. have a history of embarrassing their children by naming them silly things. Frank Zappa gave us Moon Unit, Dweezil, and Ahmed. Grace Slick, of Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Starship, named a child “god.” Good sense overcame her later and she changed the name to China. Gwyneth Paltrow, perhaps in revenge for her own name, named a child Apple. Bruce Willis has children named Rumor and Scout. Perhaps these don’t rise to the glories of Fish and Chips but they’re not different.

I’m fairly sure we will never have a Supreme Court justice named Apple and that New Zealand will never have a Nobel Laureate named Number 16 Bus Shelter. The names alone will ensure the children’s paths will not go that direction.

A dictionary definition of “silly” is “exhibiting a lack of common sense or sound judgment.” A good antonym of silly is “sober.”

The pastoral letters of Paul and 1 Peter use exhortations to be “sober” and “sober-minded” as calls to be clear-headed and sensible. You can see the relationship with the concept of sobriety as a contrast to drunkenness. It does not mean somber or humorless. I interpret this word to additionally include an aspect of knowing and respecting the difference between important and trivial things.

The sober-minded among us can celebrate a child’s graduation without being rude or foolish. Someone who can tell the difference between the significant and the trivial will not answer every question with a smart remark. Sensible people don’t name their kids something that only seems funny when they’re drunk.

I think being silly has its place, albeit a fairly small place. Joking around is conducive to bonding within a family or friendship. Silliness can lighten the mood when that is appropriate. Little kids love it when Grandpa is goofy or Grandma acts like one of the kids. That’s all precious and it’s a bit intimate. Maybe that’s why public foolishness is not so funny to most looking on?it immodestly displays something personal to a general crowd.

And I also see a difference between someone who performs in an intentionally silly way and amateurs who foist their own attempts on an unwilling audience. It is not, by definition, inappropriate to tell a joke or goof in a performance for people who want to experience it. Even so, some comedians become rude, even irreverent, when they make light of things that matter or make innocent people the victims of the joke.

Innocent people are the victims when parents name their kids after fast food. I’m somewhat sympathetic with the idea of a law that protects 9-year-old girls (such as Talula Does The Hula, etc.) from being humiliated by the names inflicted on them by juvenile parents.

This might be a good place for Christians to be countercultural. While we might not be so energized as to initiate laws against silliness, maybe we should work harder to teach our own children what’s appropriate. Maybe Dad (speaking to myself here) shouldn’t fall back on the goofball role quite so often. I think pastors should consider humor to be the cayenne pepper of their sermons and use it very sparingly. Turn off sitcoms and cartoons that teach your kids to be relentlessly mouthy.

When Christians model joy and good sense at the same time, we season a culture that easily loses any understanding of moderation. If we avoid the desire to be the constant center of attention, we just might attract the interest of that one who’s looking for a grownup to help him answer important questions. When that happens, it’s good to be sober.

It’s hard to get a radar on the logic behind accusations that Southern Baptists place the Bible above Jesus. This tired old charge has been flying since at least 2000, when the Southern Baptist Convention firmed up its faith statement. A document I read recently was a reminder that the “bibliolatry” charge is as alive and well as those Internet rumors about Madalyn Murray-O’Hair?she’s dead, by the way?pushing to get Christian broadcasting off the air.

The bibliolatry charge was employed in the last century by opponents of biblical inerrancy. Of late, Baptist moderates have found it useful.

In the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message confessional statement, Jesus was described as the “criterion” by which Scripture should be interpreted and Scripture as “the record of” revelation rather than revelation itself. This language was omitted in the 2000 BFM revision to help clarify the SBC’s stance on biblical inerrancy amid challenges in semantics.

As most Texas Baptists know, the changes are the cause of some perpetual soreness with critics.
What you won’t hear from some quarters is that a problem developed in post-1963 Baptist life that needed solving: Those who held that Scripture, while “containing” God’s Word contained errors also, could easily affirm the Bible as the record of God’s revelation while privately holding neo-orthodox views or so-called limited inerrancy. The latter holds that the biblical writers got it right in the salvation message and things pertaining to it, but erred in historical narratives and “non-revelatory” details.

One could claim to believe in “the authority of Scripture” on the one hand, and dismiss Genesis 1-11 as partially or totally allegorical on the other.

Or if one were a red-letter Christian, he could, for example, question Paul’s insistence about male leadership in the church and home as cultural blindness by appealing to Jesus’ elevation of women during his ministry. In this scenario, the question “What would Jesus do?” is applied in creative new ways.

Thankfully, with the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, the wiggle room was taken out and the hems were sewn back taut to fit a doctrine of inerrancy in the autographs, the original writings, from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 and all points in between down to the jot and tittle. The SBC has spoken in the spirit of Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon and other notable saints: What Scripture says, God says.

I recall sitting in on an interview with the late Garth Pybas, who at the time was one of the last living members of the 1963 BFM committee charged with revising the 1925 BFM statement. At the time, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Ralph Elliot’s book “The Message of Genesis,” originally published by the Baptist Sunday School Board’s Broadman Press, had shocked most Southern Baptists for denying the historicity of Genesis 1-11.

Pybas was adamant: “There wasn’t a liberal in the bunch.” His understanding of the Jesus-as-criterion language, he explained, meant that Jesus believed in the full inspiration of the Old Testament, including Genesis, based on his frequent quoting of the Torah and the prophets. In other words, when Jesus spoke of Abel or Noah historically, that settles it for us.

If only everyone was as clear-minded and well-meaning as Pybas was.

Unfortunately, what was intended as a faithful response to Elliott’s book over time became a loophole for some as the WWJD? question was answered by appealing to a Jesus of one’s liking.

The BFM 2000 provided much-needed clarity on several issues, not the least of which was the article on the Bible.

Everything we know about the Trinitarian God (that includes the Son) he has graciously breathed out for us through human writers at particular places in time so that, as Paul told the Athenians, “we might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.”

I’m not exactly sure how one would place Scripture above Jesus, save for praying to the pages in the NIV or Holman or KJV and bowing down before them each day in front of the fireplace.

No doubt, some who have repeated this charge likely don’t know what they are saying. They are simply repeating what they have heard without critically thinking. But others, doubting the full inspiration of the Scripture, continue the rumor.

A reader, concerned about our running a story last issue about the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship meeting where a presenter questioned Christ’s deity, wanted to know where we stood on the issue.

I happily explained we did, indeed, believe in the deity of Jesus, and added that “we affirm the verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture; its inerrant nature is foundational for sound doctrine and a sure-footed faith, and from it flows all that we believe.”

See, it’s hard to hold absolutely to the deity of Jesus while denying the absolute truth of the very revelation that tells you about him. That’s tantamount to building a house on sand, and Jesus had something to say about that.