I attended the Whiteboard Sessions 2010 conference in VA Beach on Friday, May 21. These are my notes from the various speakers.
Dr. Albert Mohler serves as the 9th president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Big Idea: You are going to die. I am going to die. Everyone else is going to die and there is nothing you can do about it. We ought to do ministry every day in light of this fact.
We are born and we die and in between is all of this earthly life we will know of it. So is this all there is to it? Let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we will die?
The reality is that there are two deaths and certainly there is no way to avoid the first one. Death is a hallmark of ministry and the work of this life will still be unfinished business. It is a constant work-in-progress.
Christianity can handle the subject of death as it gives light to physical vs. spiritual death.
1 Cor 15 – Paul points out that if Christ did not raise from the dead, we of all people are to be pitied. But if he did, lookout!
We prefer to try to put death out of view and out of mind. But we should keep in it view because it frames the reality of this life and the importance of the Cross. Time and life is short and goes by in a flash. There is an urgency to the work we are doing. The work is never done and we work until we die and then someone else comes and takes our place, but we are okay with that (or we should be).
People fear the first death, but it is the second that they should really fear.
So What?
Dr. Mohler used to keep a skull sitting on his desk as a reminder of this idea. [To keep Death in the Picture] In generations past this was an understood symbol of death, but not as much now (thanks to Halloween decorations).
A few key reminders: