Rochester

This year's L'Abri conference examined contemporary ideas of spirituality, using FAS' True Spirituality as a springboard,

more specifically working through Bill Edgar's excellent biography, Schaeffer on the Christian Life.

Bill was a L'Abri worker in the early 70s, one of the Harvard group which oversaw the historic lectures which became The God Who is There. Later working at the Reformed Seminary in Aix, France, teaching in Geneva, then moving to teach apologetics at Westminster - (real reason for moving being to play jazz piano!).  Much of the energy of former workers, such as Edgar, has gone into initiatives like the Trinity Forum and Veritas Forum, establishing a thoughtful presence in higher ed.

It was, for us, the best conference in years, Michael taking in John Hodges' lecture on Les Miserables, as well as Jerram Barrs' workship on Tolkien. 

It's also a reunion time and I always wonder how much longer that early generation - now in their late 60s/early 70s can hold out.

From the airport, where we experienced this famous winter, mercifully only 18 degrees for us and the boys got to play.

We also stayed at the conference hotel for the first time, along with Elle, so were more central to things.

RST is a midsize town with a nice center, kept alive by the Mayo Clinic.  The food seems better every year, as shops cater to the unusual international cluster of medical specialists.  My father worked at a turkey hatchery downtown and went under the knife to remove a chicken bone, caught in his throat!  Being a fastidious document keeper, I still have the original bill and hospital menu! 

Michael's Coming Home Day usually falls on this weekend, so we ate Chinese one night and took in his 10 year anniversary with us!

Worshipped at Trinity, a local PCA with origins overlapping with the start of the L'Abri branch, as well as a school which meets in the adjacent lot outside the city.  Jerram preached while another St Louis pastor, Zack Eswine, taught Sunday School. As we chart new ground for our new church, we were reminded of what makes L'Abri rather unusual, opening up vistas, making connections with culture, rather than shut them down. Always a breath of fresh air - although this year's theme seemed a bit ingrown and churchy a topic for my tastes?

And then there're those discovering Schaeffer anew, such as Lecrae, a prominent hip hop artist who seems to be making the rounds these days, engaging his audience to take on the cultural mandate.  (Someone needs to introduce this guy to Rookmaaker!)

There's a lot of talk these days about being "gospel centered" and "missional," so, as always, I'm suspicious, but I believe Lecrae gets it right:

"I started to dig back and got into my D.O.G.'s -- my dogs, my dead old guys. That's when I started getting into the Spurgeons, the Calvins, and my personal hero, Francis Schaeffer. I think he just got it. He totally got being immersed in culture, affecting it, transforming it, but not losing sight of his convictions of who Jesus was,"

as he digests a steady diet of Reformed literature, but most of the New Calvinist crowd seems to have adopted culture as a banner to only mean evangelism; for decades, the only activity worth doing.  A redeemed soul, the only thing worthy of concern.

The more things change, the more...

A pic of Valentine's Day at BHCA, devouring heart-shaped donuts in sunshine from Rolling Pin, while we donned our winter coats in the upper midwest.