John Piper addressed Bethlehem Baptist Church this Spring about the elders' hope for clarity regarding his succession as the Pastor for Preaching and Vision. As many of our readers have been prayerfully observing this process, below is the update Pastor John gave in last weekend's sermon.

________

Update on the Antioch Moment
June 11, 2011
John Piper

On April 9, I said that the elders would be praying every Thursday for six weeks seeking the Lord’s mind on three issues facing us at this moment in the 140-year life of our church: succession (when should a new pastor for preaching and vision take my place and I move over to teach and write and mentor), structure (one church on multiple c…

Continue Reading →

Today is John Piper’s 65th birthday. Join us in blessing a man for whom retirement from the kingdom work is not on the horizon!

Pastor John, in honor of your birthday the DG staff has compiled 65 reasons why we are thankful to God for you. (Many more were submitted!) And of course there are some similarities, but then again, some things simply bear repeating.

Heavenly Father, we really love Pastor John and are so grateful that you have made him a man who(se)

1. Really finds You, in all Your triune glory, to be his greatest treasure and points us to you.
2. Helps us see and savor Your Son, Jesus, more.
3. Relentlessly preaches Your supremacy in all things in a man-centered world.
4. Puts godlines…

Continue Reading →

One kingdom-constant in this age is that those who are called to lead must at some point “entrust” what they’ve learned and built “to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). And that’s happening today at Desiring God.

On behalf of the DG board and staff, it is my great joy to announce that effective today Scott Anderson is the new Executive Director of Desiring God.

Scott is a DG veteran, having joined us in May 2001. He has served in a number of roles over the years, most recently as Director of Events & Partnerships. Some of you might recognize him as the emcee at our conferences and the host of our recent series of DG Live broadcasts.

It doesn’t take…

Continue Reading →

I wrote this report for Bethlehem and have adapted it for this first day of 2011 on the DG Blog. It’s longer than a blog should be. My only excuse is that I did cut 263 pages.

For eight months of this year (May–December), I was on a leave of absence. That meant I was free from all my pastoral duties. It also meant that all my public ministry was shut down (with a few exceptions): no preaching, no writing for publication, no speaking (except for the Desiring God National Conference and two overseas engagements), no blogging, no tweeting. Therefore, this report will be on the blessings of this leave.

My heart overflows with thankfulness to God and to the elders and staff and people of Beth…

Continue Reading →

Like most non-profits in the U.S., December is a crucial month of financial support for us at DG. Historically, we receive about 30% of our annual gifts in December. This year we’re praying for $823,000 to help us meet budget.

To date we have received $327,000 toward that goal. Historically, the last day of the year is our largest receipting day. The Lord provided $226,500 on December 31, 2009. The Lord seems to like to supply in this way, since he does it so often.

We know the Lord will provide what we need. Our confidence is in him. We’re simply letting the need be known to those who care about our outreach.

Would you prayerfully consider helping us meet our year-end budget goal?

Kenny Stokes made the following announcement before his sermon this weekend at Bethlehem:

As many of you know, earlier this year the elders granted Pastor John Piper a leave of absence from Bethlehem from May 1 through December 31. John will be returning to Bethlehem, as planned, the first week of January, but he and Noël will be in Georgia for New Year’s weekend (Jan 1-2) with her family. His first weekend back, God willing, in the Bethlehem pulpit will be January 8 & 9. Join us in praising God for his grace to the Pipers and to Bethlehem since May, and in praying with us for a strong finish to 2010, and a God-honoring start to 2011 as John is back with us.

Noël and I continue to be deeply thankful to our family at Bethlehem for the gift of these months away. You may recall my explanation for the leave where we said there were three components: soul, marriage and family, and vocational. Each needed a reality check. And of course they are interrelated.

On the soul front, we continue to probe the roots of our most characteristic sins with a view to confessing them and repenting and seeking God’s transforming power through prayer and Bible-saturated counsel. Extended time in prayer and the word is part of this focus.

On the marriage and family front, we are spending much more time than usual talking with each other and connecting with our children…

Continue Reading →

We are very excited about the short-term missions team of young people that have come to Bethlehem from the Dominican Republic. Over the next couple weeks they will be teaming up with members from Bethlehem to minister to Hispanics and Native Americans in Minnesota.

The team came to Desiring God yesterday for a visit, and infused our routine with their energy and enthusiasm.

We are thankful to God for the partnership we have with these brothers and sisters. Moreover, we are reminded that the gospel knows no cultural or national boundaries, and those who share in the gospel have brothers and sisters around the world. What a beautiful thing God is doing, uniting a people for himself fro…

Continue Reading →

Today is Lukas Naugle's last day at DG. And we’re feeling a mixture of sadness, deep gratitude, and excitement about what the Lord has in store. 

Lukas joined the DG staff in 2004 as our Customer Service Manager (CSM). He didn't remain in that position very long. Not because he wasn't good at it, but because he was good at many other things too. 

I discovered quickly that Lukas is not one to color inside the lines. I have come to love that about him. The fact that his job description didn't say anything about creating new resources mattered little. He just started doing things. Sometimes he'd come to me with a new idea and sometimes he would just go ahead and do it and tell me about it l…

Continue Reading →

(Click through if you don't see the video.)