NEWS: NEW L'ABRI IDEAS LIBRARY FEATURE

Some of you may be familiar with the L'Abri Ideas Library, if not, you should definitely check it out. The library is a collection of the of the audio resources from L'Abri over the past 50 years. There are more resources being added regularly. These recordings have been an important part of the L'Abri work over the years, and are just as significant now.

In support of that project, we have provided new reference links to the lectures that have influenced many of Schaeffer's books (some of which were possibly further refined by Schaeffer, we are not fully versed on the history of all of these recordings). One of the best examples of how we are integrating the library is our True Spirituality page. On this page you will find the seventeen different lectures on True Spirituality from the Dr. Schaeffer Collection at the L'Abri Ideas Library just under the book description. We may move things around a little later as these technically belong in the "External Resources" section of each book study page, but we thought it would be good to put them in a place where everyone can easily get to them.
Just look for the following logo:

We are excited about promoting the L'Abri Ideas Library and hope that these additions will greatly benefit your studies!

NEWS: EXTERNAL RESOURCES UPGRADES ON FRANCIS SCHAEFFER STUDIES.ORG

If you have been following the ongoing progress on the Book Studies pages you know we have added a new multi-tab view that allows you to switch between book information, study information, glossary information and external resources.  On the resources section of each book page you will now see a new feature that allows you to "like" an external resource. When you "like" a resource, the next time the page or section is loaded the resources will be sorted by the resource with the highest likes. This is a helpful way to contribute and no login is required!

This is one of many interactive features we hope to provide in the near future. Keep checking back as we continue to make the works of Schaeffer more accessible and make you more a part of the study. To try it out visit the Christian Manifesto Page for starters: http://francisschaefferstudies.org/schaeffer_books.php?book_title=A-Christian-Manifesto

NEWS: FRANCIS SCHAEFFER STUDIES.ORG MORE UPDATES!

News: Updates to Why Schaeffer Page: Schaeffer Symposium
http://francisschaefferstudies.org/why_schaeffer.php

News: More info. on our staff (blogs and more)
http://francisschaefferstudies.org/staff.php

News: New External Study Resources to A Christian Manifesto, Art And The Bible, Back To Freedom And Dignity http://bit.ly/hloMP6


News: Over 4,000 page views by nearly 500 visitors in our first two weeks! Thanks for visiting!

Article: What Difference Can One Man Make?

This is perhaps the question that we all must ask ourselves. Francis Schaeffer continued to think big regarding the work of L'Abri and yet always lived simply and desired the lesser place. He did not thrust himself into the lime light, but rather spoke the truth and let others promote his thinking. His first tapes where recorded by others, his first books were transcribed from his lectures and sent to him, much to his surprise.

When L'Abri started, Schaeffer kept telling his family and those involved with the work, "We have this challenge, if the Lord calls us to it, of being a very small work always. But if He were to make it significant, and a bigger work, to be prepared to accept that, in the same spirit, of just doing God's will, as he leads it."

He had something to say, and was happy to have the opportunity to say it. Yet, he constantly strove to honor God in the totality of life, in an natural and "organic" way and taught others to do the same. Confessing to be flawed like us all, and professing to be sustained by a God who is there and not silent.  This is why we teach Schaeffer. He taught an honest and authentic Christian life for 20th century and beyond.

Check out our Why Schaeffer? page for more resources.

THANKS TO SCHAEFFER STUDY CENTER

A shout out to Rob Shearer at http://www.schaefferstudycenter.org who has agreed to link to us! Schaeffer Stduy Center is basically a Schaeffer High School, with an emphasis on humanities and the arts. Too Bad I'm too old, I'd enroll like yesterday!

NEWS: NEW PAGE ENHANCEMENTS

PAGE CHANGES

We finally got the changes applied to the study page: http://francisschaefferstudies.org/studies.php

We found more Schaeffer books, that are not in his works! These are generally works that he published with others. We are finding this information very helpful to clear up some of the questions we had.

In one case in particular we had to do some digging. There is a book called Corruption Vs. True Spirituality which Schaeffer wrote with Vishal Mangalwadi. Some questioned whether it was a foreign publication of True Spirituality. After consulting with Richard Krejcir (Schaeffer's nephew) we find out that Schaeffer was good friends with Vishal and Richard told us that Schaeffer said Vishal was the smartest man he had ever met! They worked together to add another seventy pages or so to True Spirituality under this title. Looks like we got some reading to do! Get more links on the Corruption Vs. True Spirituality book page.

BOOK/STUDY PAGES

Since we are doing primarily book studies we decided we wanted to have a very extensive book reference as well as be able to easily accommodate the study, glossary, and external resources. Here is an example of what it looks like:

Let us know what you think!

NEWS: Big changes to the book study page!

You'll notice changes to book study page on our site-We are implementing the largest (we think) Francis Schaeffer database on the Internet! We'll have more specifics on this as we complete the first database phase!

NEWS: HONORED BY REEPICHEEP!

 ~ HONORABLE MENTION BY THE HUMBLE SWORDSMAN REEPICHEEP

- A great blog and always an interesting read!
Check it out.

http://reepicheep-ajf.blogspot.com/2011/01/check-new-francis-schaeffer-site.html

(See also a mention here: http://thegraze.org/sunday-school/)



This was Dan's response to the above post:
(slight edits for clarification have been made for clarification)

Thanks for posting this Tony. I always love hearing how Schaeffer has influenced other people's life. We are definitely a recipient of that important influence in Tony's life, and I can say that I have benefited much from it myself, sitting under solid Biblical teaching.

When L'Abri started Schaeffer kept telling his family and those involved with the work, "We have this challenge, if the Lord calls us to it, of being a very small work always. But if He were to make it significant, and a bigger work, to be prepared to accept that, in the same spirit, of just doing God's will as he leads it." This sort of quote is what makes me passionate about Schaeffer, as it was never about him and it was always about Christ. I deeply want to see the team at franscischaefferstudies.org follow this example. What we are doing could be big, and there is this sense of that, but it could remain just another web site. Our goal is really to just do what naturally leads from a truly changed heart. To use all of our gifts, with all of our might to display your love for God and others. Making a web site is really the least we could do!

Phil, gave me a verse the other day that hits home and we will be using often: The Apostle Pauls says, "Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us." Phil 3:17. As Phil told me, "This is really all that we are doing," and I could not agree more! 

I really enjoyed Woody's comment. It's important to note that Schaeffer was so in tune with the gift that God gave him that he was "prophet-like," He definitely had his thumb on the pulse of the culture of his day and where it was headed. His works still speak into where we are today and this is why it is so important.

Jack (JZAAK) McGregor at L'Abri MN, shared with Jason, that he is excited to see some people of the next generation taking interest in the philosophical/theological content of Schaeffer, because their experience has been that there are many who are merely embracing the romantic notions of L'Abri. This is where Schaeffer's predictions from his work The New Super-Spirituality come to light. We must realize that much of the current church are constantly focused on romantic ideas of faith. In this mode of thinking Jesus becomes only a feel-good, lovey-buddy god. While it seems innocent, it is actually a symptom of what happens when Christianity has lost it's theological truth-content. So we again find, in this mode of thinking that we have no answers (or limited) for a watching world, and moreover only limited answers for ourselves as Christians. This is not the Christianity of the Bible (Note, I am not saying that any of these people are not Christians, they are our brothers and sisters, I am just saying there is much more to our faith than just a romantic view of religion). So you can see, this is what we are up against. FSS is really about impacting that mode of thinking, with all our might we need to uphold those who are rightly teaching the need to understand our faith and world and provide Biblical answers as well as teach them again to a Church that is often ignorant of it's need and hungry for it.

Thanks everyone! Your prayers are appreciated. We are hopeful to provide more and more ways for interactivity with the site, so keep checking back.
Dan Guinn
franscischaefferstudies.org 

 

NEWS: NEW PROMO VIDEO TEASER RELEASED!

We invite you to share the teaser new teaser video:

YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/v/z8gSzmQ6KAY&feature

Use the video share options available on the player above. 

You can also find various promotional items on http://francisschaefferstudies .org/promote.php

NEWS: FRANCIS SCHAEFFER STUDIES.ORG ON GOODREADS.COM!

We've added yet another way to connect with us. Check out http://www.goodreads.com/francisschaefferstudies or see the widget on our social media page at http://francisschaefferstudies.org/social

NEWS: FRANCIS SCHAEFFER STUDIES.ORG LAUNCHES ON 1-1-11

It's still a work in progress, but we are formally announcing and promoting the site at this time! Check out http://francisschaefferstudies.org/ and start following the site on your favorite social media at http://francisschaefferstudies.org/social.