By Greg Forster
Pastors equip the saints for works of ministry, and seminaries equip pastors to do this equipping. In the Oikonomia Network, our calling is to equip the equippers of the equippers! This month, we’re posting several new tools on the ON website that we hope you’ll find helpful as you prepare future pastors to empower their congregants and communities to flourish in their work out in the world.
Good things come to those who wait! The video introducing the Oikonomia Network, shot at Milwaukee’s Grohmann Museum last fall, is now online. We have also put together a one-minute trailer version to whet people’s appetites for the full video. Many thanks to the ON faculty leaders who appear in the video, which describes how we’re connecting biblical wisdom, good stewardship, and sound theology to the world of work and the economy:
- Chris Armstrong, Bethel Seminary
- Antony Beckham, Trinity International University
- Celeste Cranston, Seattle Pacific University
- Scott Daniels, Azusa-Pacific University School of Theology
- David Gill, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
- Donald Guthrie, Trinity International University
- Craig Mitchell, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
- Scott Rae, Talbot School of Theology (Biola University)
- Charlie Self, Assemblies of God Theological Seminary
We hope this video will be a useful tool for you to share with your colleagues, school administrators, and anyone else who wants to know what the ON is all about.
An audio recording of Dallas Willard’s presentation on economic wisdom and human flourishing from our faculty retreat is now online in two parts, Part I and Part II. As our learning community grows beyond just the subject of work to connect theology and economics, Willard’s talk resonates in powerful ways. In my message last month, I reflected on just a few of the themes Willard touched on that illuminate the challenges the church faces in the world today. See the nearby story for more information and a brief outline of the presentation.
On March 27, we held our first ON Topic webinar, which featured Bob Lupton, author of “Toxic Charity.” We’ve made the best clips from the webinar available online; at a few minutes each, these clips are easy to use in a variety of contexts. The entire talk is available as well. See the story in this newsletter for an overview of the videos’ contents.
As our network produces more video content, we’ve added a special page to the ON website for hosting videos. In addition to the ON introductory video and the Lupton ON Topic event, we’re uploading a video from the Jan. 29 “Flourishing Churches and Communities” event at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary – including a few short clips you can use. In the months to come, we’ll continue to produce and post videos and short selections.
We need your feedback! Are these videos helpful? What could we provide that would help you equip pastors in this vital area? One of the great things about the economy is the built-in feedback mechanisms it provides, which hold us accountable to serve our neighbors with excellence. Businesses that don’t provide good value at a good price tend to lose ground in the marketplace. They need that feedback to tell them when they’re serving customers well and when they aren’t. In the same way, we need your feedback to let us know if we’re hitting the mark. Drop us a line!
