Christian Faculty and Staff Network gathering on 10/23 - Speaker: Phil Bishop

Come to the Christian Faculty and Staff Network lunch gathering on Wednesday, October 23, at 11:45 AM (done by 12:45 PM). We meet at the Baptist Campus Ministries building (University Boulevard and 4th Avenue). 

More:

• It's the best meal deal in town: You can get lunch there for $1 thanks to the generosity of local churches. Don't forget to thank the church workers for what they do for the students. The first meal of the term is special, so you won't want to miss it.
• Our book for the term is Tim Keller's Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work. Here's a summary from the Amazon page: "With deep conviction and often surprising advice, Keller shows readers that biblical wisdom is immensely relevant to our questions about work today. In fact, the Christian view of work that we work to serve others, not ourselves can provide the foundation of a thriving professional and balanced personal life."
• You're welcome to facilitate one of our meetings as well. I pass around a sign-up sheet and invite all to participate. Some things you might want to do:
• Facilitate the discussion of the current chapter of the book we're going through. That involves asking questions and inviting responses.
• Giving a discipline talk about what you're doing in your area. It's a chance to get to know you and what you're doing at UA.
• Bring in a guest speaker (we can also dial up someone on speakerphone).
• Invite your pastor or college minister to chat about college students in your church.
• Etc. That's a catch-all in case you have a great idea about something else for our lunch gathering. 

On 10/23, Phil Bishop will share about his work with Christian Wellness Week and an Italy mission trip. 

Living in cities could be like living in the palace in Chapter 7: there are significant advantages, and there are ways it could go awry. A blog item by Sara Kyoungah White with Lausanne Movement shared some ideas about taking cities seriously:

• Background.
• 1st meeting: "…in 2010, Tim Keller, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, sat down for breakfast with Bob Doll, a highly respected investment manager."
• 2nd meeting: "…Keller and Doll sat down for their second breakfast of the day, this time with Mac Pier, longtime friend of Keller and the founder of The New York City Leadership Center (NYCLC, now known as Movement.org)."
• The idea. Unite the church, business, and non-profit sectors.
• "Their unique callings as pastor, marketplace leader, and non-profit expert came together to form an unconventional ‘three-legged stool’ that they believed was the key to realizing a vision they all yearned for: the acceleration of the gospel in New York City."
• "…the vibrancy of the gospel in the city is in proportion to the depth of unity between different members of the same ecosystem."
• Context: "For the first time in human history, more than half the world’s population lives in cities, with that number sharply rising every year. In fact, every 30 days the equivalent of a new San Francisco is birthed somewhere in the world. The city is where the most numbers of the next generation of young people, the most unreached migrant peoples, the culture shapers, and the poorest of the poor all live together in a glorious jumble of discord and harmony, brokenness and beauty."
• Problem: "But is the church moving into the city fast enough? Jurie Kriel, Director of Movement Day Expressions and a Catalyst for the Lausanne Network on Cities, says that sadly, ‘As the population density increases, the effectiveness of the gospel decreases. Unless the church answers the questions cities are asking of it, the gospel will increasingly lose its relevance to the generations that are to come.’" 

Happenings.

• Sav-A-Life Tuscaloosa has their Iron Bowl Banquet on 11/4. Some of their staff have attending our gatherings.
• Here's something interesting. There will be a Cru Faculty Commons conference in Starkville, MS on 2/28 - 2/29, 2020. 

Really big shew on 10/23 in history:

• 4004 BC. The biggest shew of them all. God created the heavens and the earth at 9:00 AM GMT, according to Archbishop James Ussher's chronology of the world. He calculated it from a literal, closed accounting of the biblical genealogies.
• 1385. Pope Urban VI approved founding the University of Heidelberg as a college of the Cistercian order.