At noon today, Fuller Theological Seminary announced that Dr. Mark Labberton is their new President. I’m excited for Fuller! Mark is a good friend and, though he’s not that much older than I am, has been a mentor to me for the last twenty years.
Mark grew up in a family where faith was shunned, but found Christ in college and ended up feeling called to ministry almost right away. He did his M. Div. at Fuller, spent a couple years as a study assistant to John Stott and then served as a college pastor at First Presbyterian Church Berekely. From there he went to Cambridge for a PhD in New Testament and then eventually returned to First Pres Berkeley as Senior Pastor. He’s been serving there until just recently. Along the way he was involved in starting ScholarLeaders International (then called CISF), the international leadership development initiative that I’ve been involved with for almost 20 years. Mark has written a few thoughtful and well-received books and chaired some important organizations. He currently serves as a Fellow with the International Justice Mission and, until this announcement, has been the founding director of the Lloyd John Ogilvie Center for Preaching at Fuller.
None of this – nor his appointment as President of Fuller – comes as a surprise to those of us who’ve known him for the last 20 years. In fact, I started saying it five years ago until I figured out that Mark would really rather that I not.
Mark came to Chicago this fall to speak to a couple groups. I was able to get a day of his time and had him speak to a couple groups as well – one is a group of Trinity students that I meet with every few weeks, the other is a group of young preachers that I meet with every other month (I do so because of Mark, but that’s a different story). The following insights come from the things he said during those 24 hours. Mark is the kind of guy I take notes on. I have four pages from our last day together. What follows is just a few highlights.
- Lots of what is written about preaching today focuses on preaching as information, inspiration and entertainment. All three are important, but the crisis in preaching at the moment lies with the character of the preacher.
- Wisdom is the truth and character of God lived in context. Jesus is the incarnation of wisdom. Christians are to be that as well. The culture doesn’t expect us to be perfect, but it does expect us to be credible.
- The evidence of good preaching is what shows up in the lives of the people. Preaching – which is public discipleship – is designed to form wise people who live out the truth and character of God. Preaching is not a diamond where the ring is modeled to focus on it. Preaching is salt that is to be spread out so it can do it’s work.