Prayer for Upcoming Speaking Engagements

I have four speaking engagements in the next six weeks, and I would really appreciate the prayers of family and friends. Two of the opportunities will be different than anything I have done before.

This Sunday, May 28, I will be preaching the Sunday morning service at Barlow Vista Baptist Church in Hampstead, NC. My friend Paul Brewster is the pastor, and he is currently vacationing for two weeks in Arkansas, his home state.

The following Sunday, June 4, I will be preaching both services at Barlow Vista. The church is about a half hour from Wilmington, so Leah and I will actually go up on Saturday and spend the day before at the beach together.

June 14 I will be speaking at the annual Kingdom Summit of the Southern Baptist Church and Home Education Association. The SBCHEA is a network of Southern Baptists who promote homeschooling and private Christian schooling as better alternatives to government funded schools. I will be part of a panel of four which will discuss current issues for homeschoolers. My topic (still being refined) will be something related to the importance of teaching our children about our Baptist identity (i.e. what makes Baptists different from and similar to other Christian denominations). The SBCHEA meeting is in conjunction with the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting June 12-14.

July 12-16, I will be at the Fourth International Conference on Baptist Studies at Arcadia Divinity College in Nova Scotia, Canada. I will be delivering a short paper on William Carey, an 18th century British Baptist who was a leading founder of the "modern missionary movement." He is one of my heroes of the faith. In 1792, he wrote a booklet in which he argued that the Great Commission is a binding command on every generation of Christian, which (amazingly, from our perspective) most people didn't believe at that time. Carey founded the first foreign missions society and served several decades as a missionary in India. He led thousands of Indians to Christ, translated the Bible into over 30 languages, and founded a college that is still in existence today. You ought to check out Timothy George's biography of Carey, Faithful Witness: The Life and Ministry of William Carey.

Thanks for your prayers.