April 22, 2009

CRandE Bio

One Goal
I want to glorify God in everything, primarily by presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ accurately and faithfully. He is the one hope for the world and the one reason I am here.

Tell Me About YourselfWhere to start? As funny as it sounds, I would like to start with you. The online medium leaves a lot to be desired concerning connecting at a personal level. One small bridge we can build is through email. Please grant me this one indulgence and post a greeting in the comments or
email me. Tell me a little something about yourself, offer an insight, ask a question, or just say hello. I enjoy meeting people and would like to get to know you, even if only in a small way. For tentmaker ministries, a friendly hello goes a long way.


Who We Are
Essentially, "we" at CRandE is me. My name is Dave Sherrill. I am a conservative evangelical Christian with a deep interest in theology and apologetics. The Lord has blessed me with a wonderful Christian wife and three great kids (who are all growing up WAY too quickly). My regular job is a project leader in the computer department of a national food manufacturer. I describe the CRandE website/blog as a tentmaker ministry. For those of you unfamiliar with the term "tentmaker", Paul worked sometimes as a tentmaker while ministering the gospel. I'm not Paul, but I do have a regular job offline (what we used to call the real world before the internet came along).


HistoryI have had an online presence since the early 1990's, primarily responding to the Jehovah's Witnesses. My research began as the result of a family member becoming involved with the religion. Since that time I have collected and read a fair library of original Watchtower books and magazines, along with many Christian books and commentaries. One personal benefit for me has been a strengthening of my own faith through the challenges raised by critics and skeptics.


Theology
I have been called an informed layman by some of my friends. I have not had any formal schooling in theology through Bible school or seminary. I hope to pursue those studies at a distance in the next few years. Although focusing primarily on refuting the Watchtower Society (also known as Jehovah's Witnesses), I have growing concerns about movements within or impacting the evangelical world (i.e. Open Theism, Post Modernism, Emergent Church). Special areas of study include the Deity of Christ, the Trinity, Justification, Apologetics, Systematic Theology, and Biblical Greek (boy, has Greek drug out ad infinitum).

I characterize myself as a "conservative evangelical". I hate to die the death of a million qualifications but I find that 'evangelical' is used very loosely these days. There are liberal evangelicals, 'evangelical catholics', post-evangelicals, and who knows what else will be coming around the corner (if you throw them all in a blender, you might get a postevangeliberaholic??). The list continues to grow.

In brief, I am inerrantist concerning bibliology, trinitarian concerning theology proper, calvinistic concerning soteriology, baptistic concerning the ordinances (i.e. baptism and the Lord's Supper), and elder/congregational rule concerning church polity. Hopefully that adequately fleshes out what I mean by 'conservative evangelical'.

My favorite authors and preachers (living and dead) include Charles Spurgeon, Horatius Bonar, Abraham Booth, James White, Ed Komoszewski, Rob Bowman, Robert Morey, John Piper, John Murray, John Calvin, B. B. Warfield, J. Gresham Machen, and William Hendriksen.


Church
I am an active member of the

First Evangelical Free Church of Sioux City, Iowa. I have served in many capacities there, including Overseer, Church Chairman, Adult Sunday School Teacher, and volunteer webmaster of their site and podcast. One of the greatest privileges I have ever had has been the opportunity to fill the pulpit in my pastor's absence.

Thank you for stopping by the blog. I hope you will find helpful information here and through the links provided to other ministries. And don't forget to
drop me a line, ok? Ok.

5 comments:

Greg Ryan said...

Nice to meet you Dave. I post about evangelism on my Twitter account and your bio came up.

Subscribed to your blog, look forward to your posts.

Unknown said...

Thanks Greg. I'm curious to hear how you're using twitter.

Greg Ryan said...

Hey Dave, to be honest, I think it is using me. The thing it has done was introduce this country boy to technology.

That's how I found your site, using a Google alert on evangelism. I have met some really "cool" people and some really "interesting" people.

Kim Pittman said...

Hi Dave!

I'm Kim, in Charlotte NC :-) Wife to an AMAZING husband, mom to a 12 year old AMAZING son, and 3 AMAZING stepkids. I hated to use that word "amazing" that last time but I couldn't use a different word, it would have looked like I didn't like my stepkids :-) Oh, most important (geesh!) I've been a Christian for 35 years (since I was 5) so you do the math! I love Jesus with all my heart, a heart that breaks when I realize others don't know him personally and have the peace that I do. And so I share :-)

Your writing is phenomenal, I'll be keeping up as often as I can. I found your jude3 site when looking for info to debate a JW, and will often go there also.

GREAT to meet you!

Kim

Unknown said...

Kim,
Thank you for introducing yourself. I see you are AMAZING in your addiction to superlatives. :-)

What a blessing to know Jesus. He gives us a heart of compassion for others who were like us before we came to Him; hopeless, lost, and doomed.

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement. May the Lord bless you with sowing, watering, and reaping a harvest for Him.

Serving Our Amazing Savior With You,
Dave