Revival with Dave Black

This week our church has been blessed to have Dr. David Black with us for revival services. Dave was my professor of New Testament Greek while in seminary and I am still deeply indebted to him for the impact he had on me my first two semesters (even though some of those quizzes were horrible). One of the things I appreciated about Brother Dave was his ability to close that professor-student gap. There is a presupposed distance between professor and student but Dave works really hard to bridge that gap so students feel more at ease with a difficult subject, which he teaches with ease. He has even preached this week from his Greek New Testament (yes, Dr. Black, if you're reading, I noticed!).

It has been very difficult, however, not to think that at the end of services this week I am going to be receiving a grade...

Nevertheless, we have had a blessed week of teaching and worship among the body of Christ at our little church on the backside of nowhere. Sunday night, Dave taught on Jesus' missionary method from Matthew 9:35. Though it was not his primary point and was not intended to be, I could not help but think of how we have made the missionary endeavor too difficult for those called of God to go.

The simplicity of Jesus' missionary method overwhelmed me. I do not discount the necessity of our missionary sending organizations, funding programs, or the hoops we make a lot of would-be missionaries jump through, but I wonder if they are counter-productive to kingdom growth.

Monday evening was an intensely evangelistic message based on the genealogy of Christ from Matthew 1:3-6; the Gospel According to Four Women. That pricked some ears! Jewish genealogies are by their nature patriarchal, so the inclusion of four women in the genealogy of Christ must be significant.

Tuesday evening we heard primarily from Becky Lynn Black, Brother Dave's, lovely wife. She shared about their missionary experiences in Ethiopia, which regular readers of Dave's website will know that that is where their hearts are. We have received a love offering each night and 100% of it goes to the Blacks' work there. If you are interested in supporting the Blacks' work halfway across the world, I would encourage you to visit their website.

Tonight will prove to be a heart-stopper, I'm sure. Dave will be sharing from his book, The Myth of Adolescence. The church as well as parents have abdicated their roles and responsibilities of raising up godly kids and Dave is going to help the church understand this terrible problem tonight. I plan on blogging more about that later.

Meanwhile, may God bless us as we seek to do his will.

P.S. If you follow the link to Dave's site and go to his blog, there is a picture of my family. The girls are beautiful, but I cannot vouch for the short, ugly fellow on the right.