header

Issue Number Thirty-five

Don's Schedule
Please pray for these
ministry opportunities
in December and January.


  • Faith Bible Church
    Evansville, IN

  • First Baptist Church
    West Plains, MO

  • Carlisle Ave. Baptist Church,
    Louisville, KY

  • Augusta Road Baptist Church (leadership retreat)
    Greenville, SC (retreat elsewhere)

  • Open Door Baptist Church
    Raleigh, NC

  • Lake Osborne Presbyterian (PCA) Church
    Lake Worth, FL

  • Topeka Bible Church Men's Retreat
    Topeka, KS

  • Faith Community Church
    Kansas City, MO


Recommended Resource

If you spend a lot of time in the car or truck—or you expect to on an upcoming trip—or if you like to listen to recorded books, then I highly recommended www.ChristianAudio.com. I recently spent three hours with the co-founders of this ministry, and I'm impressed with their work. They have over 400 titles available, and more are added regularly. They even have a free download of an entire book every month. You can buy their books as .mp3 downloads or purchase them as CDs. I can't recommend every title, but there's lots of Piper, Packer, Edwards, Dever, Spurgeon, Sproul, MacArthur, Alcorn and many others.

From the Audio Archives


Was Jesus Born of a Virgin, and What Difference does it Make?
Part One
Luke 1:26-35 and Matthew 1:18-25
Listen in Real Audio


Was Jesus Born of a Virgin, and What Difference does it Make?
Part Two
Luke 1:26-35 and Matthew 1:18-25
Listen in Real Audio


Featured Bulletin Insert
For Christmas


Ten Questions to Ask at a Christmas Gathering - .doc .pdf


Featured Bulletin Inserts
Great for The New Year


Ten Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year or On Your Birthday - .doc .pdf

Use a Bible Reading Plan - .doc .pdf

Read One Page Per Day - .doc .pdf



Subscription Information

Know someone who would like to receive this newsletter?
Try forwarding it, or see the simple directions at the bottom of this page. Received this email from a friend? Click HERE to subscribe.

New bulletin insert—useful anytime, but especially for Christmas

One Simple Question

Here's an article that I hope may prove useful to you for the rest of your life. But I introduce it now with prayers that it may be of particular service to you during the next few weeks as you interact with family, friends, fellow church members, and coworkers at Christmas and New Year's gatherings."

Over and over I've seen one simple question open people's hearts to hear the gospel. Until I asked this question, they showed no interest in spiritual matters. But then after six words—only seventeen letters in English—I've seen people suddenly begin to weep and their resistance fall.

Click here to finish reading this article, or to download it as a free, MS Word-formatted bulletin insert.



The Privilege of Sharing the Gospel

Anyone who thinks that talking about Jesus is a mercenary duty for a professional rather than the inestimable privilege of every Christian doesn’t understand the Gospel. Evangelism is not just something we’re told to do, but something we get to do. As members of the church of Christ we have the honor of being royal ambassadors. Each one of us gets to tell the world the truth about the Creator of the universe, about the awesome majesty of His holiness, about the greatness of His love in sending His Son, and about the glory of His heavenly home. And then we have the authority to invite people to know Him. Who could truly understand what a blessing this Christian birthright is and then speak of paying someone to do it in the same way you’d speak of paying someone to haul away your garbage?

[Taken from page 97 of Don's book, Spiritual Disciplines Within the Church. Find out more about this book here.]


The Center for Biblical Spirituality
presents a
National Conference with Donald S. Whitney

Biblical Spiritual Disciplines For Real People

Developing the simple, biblical means God has given to every Christian for pursuing intimacy with and conformity to Christ.

This is the most popular conference Don has held in local churches across America. In it he teaches simple, biblical solutions to the almost universal problems of (1) drudgery in prayer resulting from habitually saying the same old things about the same old things, and (2) failing to experience God or perceive spiritual progress through one's daily Bible reading.

Click here for info about this two-day, weekend conference to be held
April 4 and 5
at the beautiful Legacy Center on the campus of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Come alone, or bring a group!




Don's latest book is available here.


A Discussion Guide is included in this 64-page book, which retails for $5.95 and sells here for $5.50. Generous discounts are available for bulk purchases. Click here for more information or to order.


An enhanced audio CD of Don's book Family Worship is available now. Click here to read more or to order.

Read endorsements of this book.

Family News & Notes

Don was joyfully grateful for the response to the first Center for Biblical Spirituality National Conference at the end of October. This was a huge new undertaking for the CFBS, and the responses by the participants were very encouraging.

Don recently preached at the Building Bridges Conference sponsored by Lifeway, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Founders Ministries. A few of the many reports available are at here and here. You can download or listen to the papers, sermons and panel discussion here.

He's still learning the ropes of his new (this fall) position of Senior Associate Dean for the School of Theology at Southern Seminary. The steepest part of the learning curve will come immediately after the first of the year as he attempts to coordinate the academic schedule for the School of Theology for the 2008-2009 academic year.

Also in January he will teach the first seminar in a new Doctor of Ministry in Biblical Spirituality program at Southern (the first of its kind in the SBC seminaries). Potential students for this new degree program should contact Adam Greenway at agreenway@sbts.edu with inquiries. Don is excited to have his long-time friend, Michael Haykin of Canada, to join him in teaching Biblical Spirituality (and Church History) at Southern. Dr. Haykin has taught adjunctively at Southern for several years while working full-time in Toronto, but now is part of the permanent SBTS faculty.

Caffy just finished teaching her annual class on "Discipleship" to a group of women in the Student Wives Institute at Southern. She's also been enjoying an Art History class which she's been teaching every other week at Dorothy Sayers Classical School in Louisville. Her final big commitment for the year has been preparing to sing on two consecutive Sunday nights in a Christmas cantata with the combined choirs of our local church and a sister congregation.

We have watched Laurelen grow in grace since her baptism this summer. She is in the midst of "recital season" at the present. The piano recital is done, but the voice recital is still ahead of us, as is the one for a group of little girls that Laurelen and her friend Hannah instruct in voice and piano. She's also singing in the cantata with Caffy.

Farm & Garden Report

Caffy has put the garden to rest, and now it's thick and high with a beautiful green spread of buckwheat as a cover crop. The big news, however, is with the apiary. Normally you have to let the bees keep all the honey during the first winter of a hive. But there was such a good "fall flow" (a beekeeper's term) this year that Caffy unexpectedly was able to harvest three gallons of honey from her three hives (eventually combined into two). And it was delicious! The taste makes us speculate that the bees did much of their work in a nearby vineyard rather than simply gathering from random goldenrod in the area.

The other major outdoor news makes us blue—as in blueberries. Don did a bit of research and determined to buy some three-year-old bushes from a blueberry nursery two hours' south of us. He drove down near Edmonton, KY to Bluegrass Blueberries and stood in the rain to learn some of the ins and outs of growing blueberries. So now we have three Blue Crop and three Jersey bushes, along with three smaller ones we planted last year. We are told that, if things go well, we should be able to harvest two or three pints per plant as early as next August. If that happens, you can expect to hear about it here. The biggest problem has been trying to keep Arwen (the half-Lab, half-Australian Shepherd we got last year) out of them.

Prayer

Among the most pressing prayer needs at present are (1) grace for Don to persevere and complete his long-term writing project; (2) the Lord's help for Don in fulfilling his new responsibilities at the seminary; and (3) the Lord's blessing upon the National Conference in April.

"The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you" (2 Timothy 4:22).


Articles | Audio | Biography | Books | Churches | Conf. Topics | Contact | Inviting Don
Ministry Tools | Order Books | Sample Chapters | Schedule | What's New? | Home
To be removed from this list, please reply with "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the subject line.
Know someone who would like to receive this newsletter? Try simply forwarding it. However, if when you hit the "forward" button you see only text at the bottom of your screen you need to simply copy this address and send it to them instead: http://www.BiblicalSpirituality.org/newsltr.html