This is the home of The Jude 3 Fellowship. My name is Jim Jenkins and I have worn a number of hats in my life. I have gotten into the habit of having my students call me Dr. J. It’s simple to type, easy to remember, and the closest thing to (stolen) basketball glory I will ever attain.
For thirty three years I was a senior pastor…twelve years in Canada and then 21 years with one congregation in Cottage Grove, Oregon. For twenty of those years I also served as a Chaplain in the Navy Reserves; retiring in 2011. I have also had the privilege to serve as a Bible College/Seminary professor for over a decade at two institutions….Eugene Bible College (now called New Hope Christian College) and The Kings University. (online classes) I have been married to my Canadian wife Judy since 1979. We have two children, Hannah who is married to Jonathan, and the proud Momma to our two (so far…) grandbabies, Nina who is 3 1/2 years old, and Lucie who is 2. I have in my life, been addressed as Lieutenant Commander Jenkins, Pastor Jim, Doctor J, and even Uncle Jimmy…but I have to say that my favorite title is Papa Jim.
My son Peter is married to the lovely Holly (Kennedy), and they are both educators. Peter leads worship at his church as does Hannah in hers. They make the point that PK’s don’t have to end up neurotic. They are powerful ministers in their own rights and I am so proud of both of them. They have each married outstanding spouses.
I started The Jude 3 Fellowship because I have a burden for the church. In my lifetime I have seen a steady, methodical, relentless assault on the reliability and trustworthiness of the Bible. So strong is my conviction, that I wrote and self-published a book titled Why it Matters…Avoiding Shipwreck at Cape Disappointment.
Last year I teamed up with Deep River Books. They have agreed to publish and distribute the book under a new title, Fatal Drift: Is the Church Losing its Anchor? The book will be released November 13, 2014. The e-book is available on Amazon, Kindle, and Barnes and Noble.
In this blog I will go into some depth about the situation in which the Bride Christ finds Herself in these turbulent times.
I will also have a running devotional thread throughout. You are not imagining things if you have been feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong in the church these days.
In an effort to slavishly adhere to the culture, many writers and bloggers have accepted the following premises to be universally true;
- There exists this special group of of people known as ‘Post Moderns’ or ‘Millennials.’
- The church, as it has thus far existed, is unable to reach them with the ‘old ways’ of doing business.
- The answer is to adopt as much of the culture into the church as possible in order to earn a hearing.
- Insistence that there is only way of salvation must give way to an ethos that honors diversity and downplays certainty.
- There must be a fundamental change of emphasis from talking about sin and judgment and repentance, and replace it with a gospel of social justice.
I reject all of these premises out of hand. I believe it falls to us to stay the course and live out the truth of Jude verse 3:
Beloved, When I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you to exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered unto the saints…
As this blog develops it is my prayer that you will recognize that these are consequential and perilous times. I hope this website helps you to see ‘Why it Matters…’
Dr. J.