David Capes
Wow. You’re inching up. Well not really inching up, but really leaping up, because that’s a big percentage of change. And you’re going to different cities around the country. How do people find out about Didasko? How does a pastor or church leader who wants to be enriched by these events get information?
Chris Dolson
We have a website and it is word of mouth, basically. I was in a denomination, the Evangelical Free Church of America, so a lot of people know me that way, and so that helps. But it’s basically word of mouth, I’m telling you, pastors go to these things and they say wow, that was really helpful. And then they tell their friends. There was a pastor of a large church in Chicago that was at a seminar we did in May. We went through the book of Revelation, and he said I’ve been pastoring this church for 30 years. I’ve never preached Revelation, and, this has really helped me out.
He did the seminar, and after that, he’s telling his friends about the Didasko. He said you’ve got to go to this. You’ve got to go to it, because it’s just so hands-on. That’s the whole thing and what I tell the scholars is, our job this week is to serve pastors. That’s what we do. We serve the pastors. And the pastors have to come away feeling that was helpful in a million ways.
David Capes
It’s just super! I saw it myself. I saw how beneficial it was, both to hear from the scholar, the subject expert, and then to have you begin talking with them through how they are going to preach this. How do we take these things that we’ve heard from the book of Philippians or Romans, or Mark, or whatever it might be, and go ahead and proclaim them?
Chris Dolson
Yes, absolutely. My part is really leading a collaborative exercise. You know, David, one of the things I found in doing these seminars is that pastors don’t collaborate very much. A lot of them are on their own. But here they’re actually experiencing a collaborative environment. I’ll divide people up in groups of five or so, and ask what do you think the purpose is? What’s going to be a payoff for doing a talk on this passage and get him to talk to each other. It’s very cool to see, because this is Haddon Robinson, right here. Haddon was really big on, do the work. Do the work in the commentaries. Do your exegesis. Ask what a woman would think about this passage. What would a Gen Z person think about this
passage? Imagine 10 different types of people you have in your audience.
David Capes
Your audience is not a single person, right? You can’t just visualize your audience as a single type of person, as a middle-aged male or whatever it may be. Because in your audience you may have a Gen Z, Millennials, senior adults, males, females, kids, teenagers. All of that. What are they going to think?
Chris Dolson
Absolutely and Haddon used to say, the difference between a good preacher and a great preacher is a good preacher thinks, first, what am I going to say? A great preacher thinks, who’s my audience? You change your talk based upon your audience. If I give a talk to the middle school group here at our church, it’s not the same talk as if I’m giving it to the senior citizens.
David Capes
All right, let’s talk a little bit about some of the cities where you’ve met, but also some of the scholars that you use to speak to these pastors on a regular basis.
Chris Dolson
I’m pretty passionate about this, as you can see. I love the Bible, and I love doing what we’re doing. That leads me to scholars like Tim Mackie, who’s one of the founders of Bible Project. Tim used to work for me here at Blackhawk Church. When he was getting his PhD, at UW Madison, he helped me a lot. Tim and I have the same passion for the Bible. He’s going to bleed the Bible. That’s me too. I just love the Bible. Our deal is to connect the Bible with congregations through the preaching of the word. I want to get scholars who know the Bible, and are really experts in their field. John Walton would be another guy we’ve used several different times for Genesis, and he’s just fantastic. Doug Moo we just talked about. Craig Blomberg, Nijay Gupta, Sandy Richter, Lynn Cohick, Dave Matthewson from Denver, on Revelation.
David Capes
Great! Is your focus mainly New Testament or Old Testament? Are you trying to do a little of both?
Chris Dolson
A little both, yes. And we’re starting to get a little smarter in terms of how to do it, and taking suggestions about what pastors need. If they can hear Danny Carroll talk about the Minor Prophets, that’s something that they’re going to say, I need that. That’s what Revelation was. That’s a book that pastors avoid. But we also do books like Philippians too, and most people preach on Philippians. It’s valuable to sit down and listen to Lynn Cohick talk about Philippians. Or to listen to Nijay talk about Galatians. That steps up your game.
David Capes
Yes, it really does. It puts you in touch with some of the most current thinking on these particular books. The seminars have been around the country, right? You’ve not just been there in Chicagoland or Gordon Conwell up in the Northeast.
Chris Dolson
That’s right. The seminar that we did for Gordon Conwell was in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and we’ve branched out since then. So south of Portland, Oregon, there’s a place called Mount Angel Abbey. We’ve been there. We’ve been in California, near the Bay Area. We’re going back to the Bay Area, to a place called Mission Springs. We were there. There’s a place out in New Jersey called Harvey Cedars Camp. Most of the time we go to retreat centers. So everything is in house. You eat there. Everybody sleeps at the same place. It’s like a retreat. We’ve tried the church model, also where maybe three or four times, we go to a local church and people stay in hotels. We’re still a new organization. We’re still trying to figure out what is best. People that go to the retreat model say, don’t ever do it at a church. This is the best. Because you eat together and share other things like accommodations together.
David Capes
The other thing too, is that when you go to a church, it may not feel that it’s neutral ground for everybody. Maybe it belongs to the Pentecostals, the Methodist or some other group.
Chris Dolson
People who attend are from broad denominations. We have all kinds of different men and women. Basically, if you believe in the Bible and you preach it on Sunday, this is seminar for you.
David Capes
Yes, exactly. All right, we’re talking about having you guys come our way in the not-too-distant future. We’re looking at a seminar here in Houston, at the Lanier Theological Library in October of 2026. If they want to know more about that they can go to Didasko, Didasko Seminars.
Chris Dolson
Yes, Didasco Seminars. Let me just spell it. Didasko, because you and I know it’s a Greek term that means to teach. Some of your listeners might not know that.
David Capes
Yes. didaskoseminars.org, is the website, and you can find out where and when seminars will be held. We’d be excited to have any of those speakers to come here and be part of our week. I’m sure we’d have people from Houston that would be interested in hearing from Doug Moo or Craig Keener, or any of those folks.
Chris Dolson
It’s just the best. This is pastor-centered. Pastors are overrun and sometimes we see pastors that have lost their first love. They got into ministry because they love the Bible, and they wanted to preach and shepherd people. But man, things happen in churches, and all of a sudden it’s budgets and building projects and boards. They come to Didasko, and it’s Bible. It’s just Bible. And people feel like they were back at school again. Pastors fall back in love with the Bible. It’s really amazing.
We had a seminar outside of Portland, not too long ago, and one of the guys was crying, and I went up to him afterwards, and asked is everything okay. And he told me, when you said we need to fall back in love with the Bible, I realized I’d lost my love for the Bible. This has really helped me get that love back.
David Capes
That’s great! Chris Dolson, with Didasko Seminars. I’m excited about what you guys are doing. It’s so forward-thinking. It is so helpful, and I think it will just change the lives of many of these pastors. Thanks for being with us today on “The Stone Chapel Podcast.”
Chris Dolson
Well, thank you. I really appreciate it a lot. Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
