seeking glory, but whose?

i'm back in the chair after an amazing trip to holden village and the north cascade wilderness area. here is a picture to give you a sense of the place i go to renew my soul.

i'm back now working hard to prepare for our upcoming sarah smith conference titled 'religiously incorrect? public faith in a pluralistic world'.

we've got a cool graphic (above) and great speakers, and we're working on building good participation, as well. yet in the rush of planning for a big (perhaps our biggest) conference of the year, i sat down to pray the morning office and read this quote from john 8, where jesus says 'if i were to seek my own glory my glory would be worth nothing; in fact, my glory is conferred by the father.' it is so tempting to be at yale, to invite prominent speakers and have them say yes, to have access to resources to host such events in style, and then lose track of the purpose and begin to seek our own glory, as the yale center for faith & culture, or worse, as chris scharen. and all that prominence is, jesus says, nothing. not nothing altogether, but nothing if it does not serve to give glory to God. if it does that, humbly and faithfully using resources and access for such an end, then good.

anon, and peace