Minor Thoughts from me to you

I've made no secret of the fact that Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church Seattle is one of my favorite people to listen to. I've learned a fantastic amount through his sermons and the Holy Spirit has really used him to clarify a lot of ideas for me.

That's why I'm so interested in hearing his upcoming sermon series, tentatively titled "Ask Anything".

Last year, as I was preaching through the book of 1 Corinthians, I was struck by the fact that Paul's letter was in large part a series of answers to various questions he received from the church.

Members of the church at Corinth were so distressed about various factions, controversies, and false doctrines in the church that they visited Paul to seek his counsel (Acts 16:17; 1 Cor. 1:11; 8:1; 11:18). The Corinthian church also sent Paul a letter with a number of questions that they wanted his opinion on. The situation at Corinth escalated so greatly that Paul had Timothy deliver his letter of responses on his behalf (1 Cor. 4:17; 16:10).

Throughout the letter, Paul frequently quotes directly from the letter he received from the Corinthians (e.g., 6:12, 6:13, 8:5, 10:23). He also notifies the reader of when he is transitioning from answering one question to another with the simple phrase "now" (e.g., 7:1, 7:8, 7:25, 8:1, 12:1, 16:1, 16:12).

Paul's example got me to consider what it would be like to do something similar. The result is the upcoming preaching series with the working title Ask Anything. I invite you to get involved and also get the word out by visiting http://askanything.marshillchurch.org/about.

Here are the details:

1. Ask a question about anything you want. There is a 200-character limit for each question, but you can ask as many as you want.
2. Vote for your favorites. You are limited to ten votes per day (which can be given to ten different questions, a single question, or anything in between).
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until November 1st at 5 PM, PST. At the conclusion of the preliminary stage, no more questions can be submitted; the fifty highest vote-getting questions will then move on to the final stage of voting and carry with them the amount of votes received during preliminary voting.
4. Vote for the top nine questions you want answered. All voting concludes December 14th at 5 PM, PST, and the top nine questions will be confirmed.
5. Come to a Mars Hill campus beginning in January 2008. I will answer the top nine questions in the form of a sermon series: one sermon per question. (sermons will be available for free via podcast, vodcast, and download at www.marshillchurch.org).
6. The questions and answers will also eventually be published as a book I will write for Crossway.