One Heart and One Soul

Many know the name of William Carey (Read more about Carey here).  Considered the Father of Modern Missions, William Carey was a passionate follower of Jesus Christ who proclaimed the gospel to the lost of India.  He attempted great things for God and he expected great things from God.  One of the major reasons behind Carey’s work in India was the relationships he had with friends back home.  He was united in one heart and one soul with such men as John Sutcliff, Andrew Fuller, and John Ryland.  These were his close friends who supported him through prayer and financial backing as he carried on his missions work in a foreign land.  If it were not for these men Carey’s ability to proclaim the gospel in India would have been null and void.

When Carey first considered going to India the group of friends used the image of a gold mine to describe their heart for India and relationship to Carey.  In the words of Andrew Fuller, “We saw there was a gold-mine in India, but it seemed almost as deep as the centre of the earth.”  Carey’s missionary drive led him to be the one to venture into the darkness of the gold-mine, but he would not go without support.  Carey would go down into the mine, but he requested of his friends that they “must hold the ropes.”  Carey would not go alone into a foreign land.  Instead, he went with the backing, prayers, and financial support of friends at home.  As Carey descended into the mission field he was held safely by the ropes of his close friends at home.

As we venture into the gold-mine of Baltimore we are asking for friends to hold the ropes.  We cannot do this without your help.  This is why we use the wording of partnership.  We are going on mission together.  We may have different roles, but we are all seeking to accomplish the same goals: lives changed through the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Some will go and some will hold the ropes.  As we go, would you prayerfully considering holding the ropes for us.  Join us as we venture together, one heart and one soul.

E-mail Update

Here is the e-mail update we recently sent out:

Dear Friends and Family:

Welcome to the first Turner Family e-mail update.  As we embark on our journey in Baltimore we are thankful for you, our friends and family who are walking down this path with us.  We look forward to sharing our lives and ministry with you.  Many of you have already received our prayer letter in the mail.  There is only so much we can cover in a prayer letter so our hope is to dig dipper in these e-mail updates.  We want to keep you up-to-date with what we are doing in Baltimore and we also want to share prayer requests and needs with you.  We believe you are joining us in a partnership.  It may occasionally slip out, but we don’t like the word “supporters.”  We don’t want a bunch of people who give us money with only a minimal interest in who we are and what we are doing.  Our desire is to develop ministry partners.  People who are committed to us, committed to Baltimore, and committed to loving, reaching, and teaching people who don’t know Jesus.  It is a journey and we want you to come alongside of us as we travel together.

We are excited to share with you that as of today we have raised approximately 10% of our total support.  We still have a long way to go, but we are thankful for those who are partnering with us, whether it be through giving or praying.

Ministry Partner Commitment Form

We also wanted to take a moment to explain in a little more detail the Ministry Partner Commitment Form.  We just received an account number so things should be cleared up regarding how the form works.  I have also attached an MSC Support Q&A form which should answer some questions.

1. This commitment form is for our record keeping.  If you make a monthly commitment toward our ministry than you fill this form out and send it back to us (address below).
2. Our NAMB-MSC account number is 9401.  Please write the following in the memo section of your check: MSC account # 9401.  This number should also be placed in the Ministry Partner Commitment Form where it asks for our account number.
3. Checks should be made out to: North American Mission Board.  They should be sent to the following address: NAMB-MSC, P.O. Box 116543, Atlanta, GA 30368-6543.  We do not receive the checks.

What exactly are we doing in Baltimore?

1. We are working with a historic local church located in the middle of Baltimore City.  Seventh Metro Church will be 165 years old next year.  For Southern Baptists this is the church where Annie Armstrong accepted Christ and was baptized.  There is a rich tradition of history that we are following.  You will hear more about our church.  We are committed to the local church and believe that city transformation takes place and flows out of the ministry of the local church.
2. I (Will) was recently licensed as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ back in June.  My official title is Minister of Missions.  My role is quite encompassing.  Pastor Ryan and I will be working together to further the purpose, mission, and vision of Seventh Metro in order to reach Baltimore from the inside out.
3. Specifically, I will be working on strengthening present outreach ministries as well as reaching out to local college and universities to share Christ with students.  Another focus of my ministry will be young families.  We will be filling in the gaps in future e-mails.
4. Sarah is currently praying and thinking through ways to reach out to children and various possibilities of children’s ministry in our city.  But her first priority is taking care of her husband and children, which is already a full time job.

Prayer Requests

1. Trust.  It is hard to trust in the Lord for his provision and care.  Please pray for us that we would consider the flowers of the field and the birds of the air.  Many in the world would consider us crazy for giving up a steady job to embark upon an unknown journey full of so many uncertainties.  We believe that the Lord equips and provides for those whom he calls.  Some days are just better than others.
2. Our Children.  It has been amazing to see our children at first disinterested in Seventh Metro and now they are excited to go to church.  Please understand that there is no children’s ministry in place.  There are not enough resources (i.e. people).  Yet, our children sit through the service and for the most part do really well.  We don’t want them to become frustrated or uninterested in what we, as a family, are doing.  The other day Hudson was building with his blocks and made Seventh Metro.  It was pretty cool.  Our children are part of our ministry and we want them to have ownership with us.
3. Wisdom.  There is much on our hearts as we look at the church and the community around it, but we need God’s wisdom as we plan and implement the work he has for us.
4. Love.  It is continually a challenge to seek a ministry that flows out of a love for God and our neighbors.  As 1 Corinthians 13 reminds us, without love all would be in vain.

Housekeeping

1. If you do not wish to receive future e-mail updates from us please e-mail us back and we will remove your name.  We promise not to be offended, unless of course you are family! J
2. If you would rather receive our prayer letter via mail please e-mail us.  We will not be sending it out as frequently, but we will certainly mail it out to you.  We are trying to do our small part in going green.
3. If we have used a wrong e-mail, spelled your name wrong, or something along those lines please let us know and we will correct it.
4. If you know of anyone who would be interested in learning about our ministry or partnering with us please send them this e-mail.
5. Besides e-mail you can follow us on our blog (www.abandoned7.wordpress.com) and on Facebook (Turner Family Fan Page).
6. If you have any questions about anything please let us know.

I am afraid that this is already too long so this is the end for now.  Please let us know how you are doing and how we can pray for you.  We would love to hear from you.  Thank you for taking the time to be involved in our lives.

Grace and peace,

————————————————

Will, Sarah, Abigail, Calvin, Hudson, and Lydia Turner

Abandoned: Prayer Letter 1.1

Some of you may have received our prayer letter via US mail or e-mail.  If not here it is: ABANDONED PL 1.1.  Our prayer letter is saved in Microsoft Word (97-03).  Also here is a link to the Ministry Partner Commitment Form (Adobe PDF file format) if the Lord has laid on your heart to partner with us in our ministry.

My “Canon of Theologians”

Okay.  I have put together an initial reading list following the schedule I posted below.  What would you add?  What would you take away?  I would love to hear your thoughts.  Download a Microsoft Word (97-03) file of this list.

January – Early Church

ð        Jaroslav Pelikam, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition∞

ð        Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought

ð        J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines

ð        Henry Chadwick, The Early Church

February – Augustine

ð        The Confessions*

ð        The City of God

ð        On the Trinity

ð        The Triumph of Grace (Augustine on Salvation)

ð        Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo*

March – Medieval Theologians

ð        Anselm

ð        Aquinas

April – Luther

ð        Bainton, Here I Stand*

ð        Oberman, Luther

ð        Luther, Basic Theological Writings

ð        Luther, Tabletalk

ð        Luther, Galatians

May – Calvin

ð        The Institutes of the Christian Religion

ð        Beatitudes

ð        Commentaries

ð        Cottret, Calvin

ð        Francois, Calvin

June – Puritans

ð        Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices

ð        Watson, The Godly Man’s Picture

ð        Flavel, Works

ð        Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armor

ð        Miscellaneous Puritan Paperbacks

July – Edwards/Whitfield

ð        Edwards, On Knowing Christ

ð        Edwards, The History of the Work of Redemption

ð        Edwards, Miscellaneous Sermons

ð        Dallimore, Whitfield Biography

ð        Whitefield, Journals

August – Spurgeon

ð        Spurgeon, Autobiography (2 vols.)

ð        Spurgeon, Sermons

September – Princetonians

ð        Machen, Christianity and Liberalism*

ð        Machen, What is Faith?

ð        Machen, The Christian View of Man

ð        Warfield, Works

ð        Vos, Biblical Theology

ð        Hodge, Systematic Theology

October – D.M. Lloyd-Jones

ð        Revival

ð        Preaching and Preachers

ð        Romans Sermons

ð        Ephesians Sermons

November – 20^th Century

ð        John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied*

ð        John Murray, Collected Writings

ð        C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

ð        Lewis, The Screwtape Letters*

ð        Lewis, God in the Dock

ð        Lewis, other wiritngs

ð        Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics (4 vols.)

ð        Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, Saved by Grace, The Bible and the Future

ð        Ridderbos, Paul, The Coming of the Kingdom, and The Gospel of John

December – Contemporary Writers (John Frame, J.I. Packer, David Wells, D.A. Carson, G. Goldsworthy)

ð        D.A. Carson, John and Matthew Commentaries

ð        Carson, How Long, O Lord

ð        Carson, Love in Hard Places

ð        Stott, The Cross of Christ

ð        John Frame, The Doctrine of God

ð        Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life

ð        David Wells, Losing Our Virtue

ð        Wells, Above all Earthly Powers

ð        Goldsworthy, Gospel Centered Hermeneutics & Preaching the Whole Bible

ð        Vanhoozer, Is There Meaning in this Text?

ð        Beale, The Book of Revelation

ð        Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (articles)

∞ Started.  Not finished.

* Already read.  Want to read again.

Thoughts on Reading

I love reading, but I am coming to realize that I don’t do it as well as I should.  What do I mean?  I don’t have a very good plan.  My reading is unorganized and ad hoc.  When some interest comes up I read about it.  That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it also has its drawbacks.

I want to become more focused in my reading, more purposed.  I have been thinking through what Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, does when it comes to reading good books.  I like his idea of concentrating on a different theologian or time period every month.  I have tried something similar, but it didn’t work.  What I have previously done is dedicate three months to reading a few books on Edwards, but it proved too much and I lost focus.  The idea of spending only one month on any specific author or time period really appeals to my “prone to wander” mind.

Here is what I am thinking (modified from Dever’s approach):

January – Early Church

February – Augustine

March – Medieval Theologians (Anselm, Aquinas).  Surprisingly, Dever doesn’t read regularly in this area (according to his reading plan).  Medieval theologians are not necessarily light nor enjoyable reading, but they are no less important.

April – Luther

May – Calvin.  Maybe I will finally be able to complete the entire Institutes.

June – Puritans.  Puritan Paperbacks are great for this.

July – Edwards/Whitfield

August – Spurgeon.  I have hardly read any Spurgeon.  I will begin this month with reading his Autobiography.  I don’t even own any of his sermons!  Shame on me.  I need to correct that.

September – Princetonians (Hodge, Warfield, Machen, and Vos).  I love Machen, but have read very little of his contemporaries.

October – D.M. Lloyd-Jones.  One of my favorite authors.  I am currently reading his book on Revival.  Do I hold off until October or just finish it now?

November – C.S. Lewis, Carl Henry, Herman Bavinck.  I have never read a full book by Lewis!

December – Contemporary Writers (John Frame, J.I. Packer, David Wells, D.A. Carson, G. Goldsworthy)

What I like about this plan is the ability to read a variety of different books all in the same year.  It will also help focus me to read some of the great classics which I have never read yet (ex. Luther’s debate with Erasmus).  By God’s grace and his peoples’ encouragement I will stay the course and hopefully this will begin a new and fruitful course in my life.

I will begin with Spurgeon’s Autobiography, volume # 1.  Please pray for my faithfulness.

Seventh Metro Video

Check out this video of Seventh.  It is a few years old now, but is interesting to see where the church was.  Now we need to work on where the church is going.

Amazon Wishlist

We have placed a link to our Amazon wishlist on the side of this blog.  What we “need” is all to a certain extent relative, but these are some tools we believe would help our ministry.  Comments are placed describing the level of “need” (a.k.a. want) for each item.  Here is the link: Ministry “Needs” Wishlist.  Hopefully, this will offer another tangible way for our partners to help support our ministry in Baltimore.

Why Abandoned?

Let me explain our mission in Baltimore.  We are developing our ministry around the idea of “Abandoned.”  First, what does abandoned mean?  The Compact Oxford Dictionary says, “To desert or leave permanently” or to “give up completely.”  Merriam Webster goes into more detail: “to withdraw from often in the face of danger or encroachment” and “to withdraw protection, support, or help from.”  If you pull out the Thesaurus and look up abandon or abandoned you will feel the weight of its meaning: forsaken, deserted, discarded, dumped, neglected, thrown away, thrown out, emptied, and withdrawn.  Abandoned carries the idea of being completely and absolutely forsaken, rejected, and despised.  It is a word full of pain and despair.  For those who are abandoned, there is no hope.  They are the rejected ones.

Now if you visit Baltimore you will see numerous abandoned houses.  We call them “abandonminiums”.  Countless city blocks are laden with empty houses.  These once great city blocks have been ravaged by the reality of drugs, violence, and HIV/Aids.  I don’t think it is an over-exaggeration to say that these city blocks serve as the devil’s playground.  How has this happened?

Sadly, houses are not the only abandoned buildings in Baltimore.  Countless churches have abandoned the city.  When the going got tough the Christians and their churches left the city.  The suburbs offered an apparently safer environment than the drugs and violence offered by the city streets.  They proved more comfortable.  Instead of seeking to transform the city by the power of the gospel the churches handed over the city to the prince of this world.

The empty church buildings stand as a testimony of God’s people to the city.  It is a testimony of abandonment and rejection.  When followers of Jesus Christ left the city a vacuum was created which has been filled with everything but Jesus Christ.  Drugs, HIV/AIDS, murder, misery, emptiness, and hopelessness are the marks of an abandoned city.

Our greatest desire is to return the gospel of Jesus Christ to Baltimore.  The answer to abandonment is offered by Jesus Christ.  The opposite of abandonment is adoption.  Through the power of the gospel, lives once rejected and forsaken are accepted and re-created.  By returning the gospel of Jesus Christ to the cities of this nation we are rebuilding our testament that Christ is in the business of adopting those once abandoned.

The message of adoption is heralded to the city by the church.  The church in the city shows the people of the city that Christ has not abandoned them.  The church stands in the wilderness crying out that Jesus Christ is the Lord of this city and the gates of hell will not prevail against Christ and his church.  This is the message of hope and acceptance offered by the transforming gospel of Jesus Christ.  This is why the church must return the gospel to the cities.  This is our passion, to return the gospel of Jesus Christ to Baltimore.  To proclaim a message from abandonment to adoption; from forsaken to accepted; and rejection to reception.  Only the gospel of Christ can transform an abandoned city into a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.

Baltimore Shooting Rampage

Baltimore is a city in need of the transforming power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Here is one example why:

Last night (Sunday 7/26/09), 17 people were shot throughout the east side of Baltimore.  Two were confirmed dead.  Some of these shootings took place a few miles from our church.
The Baltimore Sun wrote, “Heading into Sunday night, homicides were up about 5 percent over the same time last year. Nonfatal shootings were down significantly.”  In other words, compared to last year, the people who are getting shot are actually dying.

Abandoned: Purpose

The purpose of this blog is to provide a point of contact for our ministry in Baltimore.  We hope that through this blog we will be able to share our lives, our joys, and even our sorrows.  This is primarily for those who partner with us in ministry.  We want to keep you in the know.  We want to share our passion for inner-city Baltimore, passion for the church, and passion for Christ, the head of the church.

We want you to walk with us as we seek to do our part in returning the gospel back to Baltimore.

In the near future we hope to begin answering a bunch of questions you may have about what we are doing.  Some questions may include:

Why Baltimore? What are we doing? Why are we doing it? What is MSC? What is the SBC and NAMB? What is means to be a missionary to North America? Why are we raising support? What do we hope from our ministry partners? What is a ministry partner? How you can pray for us? What is Seventh Metro Church? What are we specifically doing at 7th? Etc…

If you have any questions you would like to ask us please ask them in the comments section or e-mail us: wturner [at] seventhmetro.org.  We look forward to hearing from you!