We praise God for the 82 delegates who made it to this year’s conference! See you all next year, D.v.

Register online by clicking here. To request for transportation during the conference date/schedule, submit your requests by clicking here.

Stay-Out Conference Fee is P3,500 until February 29, P4,000 until March 31 and P4,500 until April 15 (Less P500 for Full-time workers). Conference Fee already includes materials and all meals (Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner).

Although this is a valid option, we still highly encourage everyone to stay at the hotel as this provides more time to interact and network with other participants. Staying at the hotel and staying out is just a P1,000 difference for 4D/3N conference. So why not opt to stay at the hotel instead?

Click here to register online!

CCOWE: ALL OF GRACE, 3rd Leadership Training Conference from SKT Digital Productions on Vimeo.

You can download the video by click here (1920×1080, 58.98MB, mp4 format).

If it’s not in the list, please feel free to contact us here.

Participants are advised to arrive in Cagayan de Oro on Tuesday, in time for the registration, which begins at 9:00 AM.  Volunteers and facilitators, however, are requested to book their flights on May 7, 2012 (Monday).

Participants are also advised to book outbound flights from CDO during early afternoon, preferably after lunchtime. Locals have informed us that late afternoon to evening flights have the tendency to get delayed, if not get cancelled altogether.

Please note that organizers are only responsible for transportation and accommodation during the Conference Date and Schedule. Transportation requests will only be honored for participants from out of town. Cagayan De Oro residents are requested to go Harbor Lights Hotel by themselves. Deadline for submission of transportation requests is on April 30, 2012.

Please click here to submit your transportation request.

Wondering if it’s safe to travel to Cagayan de Oro after Typhoon Sendong? Read this article, attend the ETF Conference in CDO and help revive its tourism industry. It’s a GO for CDO!

THEME TALKS

• Amazed by Grace
• Scandalized by Grace
• Compelled by Grace
• Endurance by Grace
• Glorified by Grace

WORKSHOPS/TRAINING

• Thinking Theologically
• Leading & Growing Groups that Make a Difference
• Communicating the Gospel With Impact
• Understanding God’s Big Picture
• Preaching Workshop for Pastors

To know more about the conference speakers, Rev. Ying Yee and Rev. Eugene Hor, please click here.

We are extending our REGULAR REGISTRATION of P5,500 or P5,000 (Full-Time Workers) until June 21, 2011 (next Tuesday)! The fee includes accommodation, full meals and more than 50 pages worth of Conference Materials or Resources.

Add to that, we are now offering DAY RATE (Stay-Out Option) at P650 per day. That’s P2,600 in total if you wish to attend the whole conference! The Day Rate is inclusive of complete Conference Materials and dinner only (no breakfast or lunch) at the Atrium Hotel, without accommodation.

REGISTER TODAY!!! (Registration ends on June 19, Tuesday)

SESSIONS/WORKSHOPS:

• Handling the Word Rightly — This interactive seminar aims to push us hard in understanding the text of scripture so that we can preach it faithfully and clearly with the goal of transforming lives, growing the church and honouring God.
• Thinking Theologically — This aims to help us understand how to think theologically about a range of issues.
• Thinking Through Church & Ministry — This aims to think through the various key and strategic issues for growing our church.
• Dividing the Word Rightly — This is a time to be encouraged from the preaching of the word of God.

The Bible consistently affirms education as a central responsibility of God’s people. In the Old Testament, the Jewish people were reminded that the education of their own children was an essential part of their responsibility as God’s covenant people. In Israel, a father was to teach his son diligently, and to point his son toward the only true wisdom — the wisdom established in the fear of God.The New Testament also dignifies and elevates education to a matter of essential importance for the church. Great attention is given to the teaching office of the church — to those men who are called to the ministry of the Word. The apostle James reminds the church that those who teach the Word “will be judged with greater strictness” (James 3:1).

In the apostle Paul’s two letters to Timothy, his young protégé in ministry, we find Paul instructing Timothy about the priority of the teaching office and of the preacher’s responsibility to be found “rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). Timothy is to practice and to immerse himself in the tasks and responsibilities of the ministry “so that all may see your progress” (1 Tim. 4:15).

Driven by the Bible’s emphasis on teaching the faith and by the responsibility to ground new believers in the truth and practices of the Christian life, the early church borrowed heavily from the Jewish experience in the synagogue and went on to develop catechetical models that were distinctively Christian — the earliest Christian schools.

During this era, senior teachers, following the example of Paul teaching Timothy, taught pastors of the church. Younger men would attach themselves to older men who would nurture them in the knowledge of the Bible and the tasks of ministry. This early model of theological education was congregational — located in the church itself.

In later centuries, pastors were taught by means of priestly orders and monastic communities. The rise of more institutionalized forms of theological education came with the emergence of the university. The development of the medieval university, organized with theology as the highest science, gave shape to the theological curriculum that is still recognizable in seminaries today.

The Reformation was a movement largely led by university-trained men like Martin Luther and John Calvin. Both held university degrees and were very much at home in the university environment. The Lutheran reformation was based in Luther’s own university in Wittenberg. Calvin’s influence was vastly expanded through the academy for preachers he established in Geneva.

The development of the theological seminary represents an American adaptation of the older British and European models. Even as the early American universities were established explicitly for the training of Christian ministers, secularization and specialization in the universities led to the development of schools specifically designed for the training of pastors.

By the time America entered the twentieth century, the theological seminary was where most young ministers received their theological educations. Sadly, many of these same seminaries also allowed theological liberalism to gain a foothold, demonstrating that a seminary — just as a college or university — can quickly compromise or even repudiate the truths upon which it was established.

All this points to the fact that a theological seminary, if it is to remain faithful, must be directly accountable to its churches. Lacking this accountability, the institution will inevitably drift toward heterodox teachings. A robust confessionalism is necessary, but the constant oversight of churches is of equal importance.

The role of theological seminaries remains crucial for the education and training of Christian ministers. At its best, the seminary is an intentional gathering of Christian scholars who are dedicated to the preparation of ministers, committed to biblical truth, gifted in modeling and teaching the tasks of ministry, and passionate about the Gospel.

No other educational institution exists to serve the needs of the churches in this way. In that sense, a theological seminary is as crucial to the training of ministers as the medical school is essential to the preparation of physicians.

Nevertheless, count me as one seminary president who believes that the local church is even more important to the education of the pastor. The local church should see theological education as its own responsibility before it partners with a theological seminary for concentrated studies. The seminary can provide a depth and breadth of formal studies — all needed by the minister — but it cannot replace the local church as the context where ministry is learned most directly.

In this day, we need to encourage more pastors to follow the example of the apostle Paul in mentoring Timothy as a young minister, preacher, and pastor. As a seminary president, I want to partner with pastors like that in order to raise up a generation of faithful pastors who will, as Paul instructed Timothy, “fulfill your ministry.”

Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr. is president and Joseph Emerson Brown Professor of Christian Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Each month, the editors of Tabletalk select an influential pastor or scholar to address issues pertinent to the life and ministry of the church in Pro Ecclesia.

© Tabletalk magazine

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