Event Spotlight

The 2012 SJD Parish (aka Family) Retreat returns to Camp Allen. This retreat is for all members of SJD at all ages & stages of life: singles, married, families with & without children, all are welcome! Our speaker this year is Pastor Jared Wilson, speaking on themes from his new book Gospel Wakefulness. Wilson is also the author of our Fall 2011 study, Your Jesus Is Too Safe. Childcare is provided for those under 3 yrs. and under. Deanna Maykopet will lead the children’s program, David Russell will lead our youth, and the Rev. Reagan Cocke will facilitate the adult program. Don’t miss this fun, fellowship-filled event!

The cost of the retreat is approximately $150 per person for those ages 12 and up and $50 per person for children 11 and younger. Those under 2 years are free. We have room for approximately 100 adults and 100 children.

Contact the Rev. Reagan W. Cocke for additional information, .

To download the brochure, please click here.

To register, please cleck here.

Below is an interview with Jared Wilson, our Parish Retreat speaker, on his new book. If you have yet to sign up for the Retreat, Feb. 17-19 at Camp Allen (follow this link to register: http://www.sjd.org/event/2012-02-17-2012-parish-retreat/), I hope this read will give you a good insight into what you will be missing! Scholarships still available by replying to me.

Q: The gospel is earth-shaking. Why is it so easy to become numb to it?

A: Because we are stubborn and flesh-fixated. Because we're sinners and have to reset to gospel mode every day. I also think we get trained to think that the gospel is just relevant at the earth-shaking of conversion, so we reason that the Christian life is about moving on, or graduating, to "normal" spiritual things.

Q: How did you become so fixated on the gospel in your own life and ministry?

A: Out of the train-wreck I made of my marriage. I had killed my marriage with secret sins and selfishness, and when I realized I had lost what was most important to me, I also began drowning in a depression that led me to think off and on about taking my own life. I spent a lot of time just crying out to God. He should have been my first hope, but it wasn't until all other hopes had been taken away that he became my only hope. And in one vivid repentant moment of crying out to him, face down on the guest bedroom floor where I had banished myself, I heard the Spirit say to my heart, "I love you and I approve of you." I knew of course that God did not approve of what I had done or of my sinful self, but I knew he approved of me in Christ. Like the prodigal son in the pigsty, I "came to myself" in that moment. And while I am still a sinful, struggling, idiotic person, I know a joy in Jesus now I had not before, and it has shaped my life and drives my ministry today.

Q: What would you say to someone who thinks that "gospel-centered" is a passing fad?

A: That they could be right. Only time will tell. I don't think it is a fad, however, because of the variety within the movement of various movements, denominations, generations, and organizations. And the similarity it bears to historical recoveries of the gospel. But, yes, it's quite possible that in seeking gospel-centrality in the church, we are deceiving ourselves with a sort of sloganeering gospel-centered-centrality. We have to be on guard about that and remember to delight in Jesus more than a movement. I don't think it's a passing fad, but I want to be cautious and realistic about human nature.

Q: How does "Gospel Wakefulness" apply to some of the recent controversies about how we're sanctified?

A: The way I develop gospel wakefulness in the book upholds the passive nature of salvation -- that we are saved totally by God's grace received through faith -- while rebuking any passivity in worship. In other words, this is not the Keswick type "let go and let God" kind of thing. Two chapters in particular hone in on identifying idols, killing sin, and embracing the spiritual disciplines of Scripture reading and prayer. Wakened people "move." Nobody becomes holy by accident. Gospel wakefulness comes at sanctification from the angle that justification drives sanctification; that our part in the work of holiness must be a worshipful response, what awed people do in response to that awe.

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