CBMW Says Goodbye to Brent Nelson

By John Starke

This last week has been a sweet-remorse for CBMW.  We say good bye to our very dear friend, Brent Nelson.  The Lord is taking Brent and his family to a new post of Kingdom work.  For those of us who have had the pleasure and honor to go shoulder-to-shoulder with Brent over the issues so prevalent to CBMW, we know the great loss that we suffer.  Brent provides pastoral wisdom mixed with a joyful spirit to all that he does.  I emphasize the joyful spirit.

It might be helpful to disclose why he is so joyful.  Brent strategically places his joy in the cross and the forgiveness of sins in all that he writes and says.  Not only has his joy in the Gospel instructed his smile, but it has also been applied to all his efforts here at CBMW.

CBMW and the battle for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood need more men like Brent, whose complementarianism is not undergirded by social concerns or agendas, but specifically informed by God's sovereign Word.  Brent is gifted in untangling the confusion in today's world with Gospel truth.  While another Kingdom post will benefit from his wisdom and joy and we rejoice in God's providential hand in his life, we will miss him.

Most of all, I will miss my dear friend.  Brent, I have never left your company without being encouraged.  Never.  Your family has been a sweet gift to us.  With tears, I know my daughter will say good-bye to your sweet little girl - her best friend.  Thanks so much for your frienship.  All the blessings to you.

By Jeff Robinson

"A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity." (Prov. 17:17)

One of the singular greatest gifts that God gives to His people is a community of fellow pilgrims who are marching to the Celestial City, fellow pilgrims to encourage and exhort them, fellow pilgrims whom they can properly call "friends." Genuine friendships, even within the church, take time and labor and patience and their health requires grace from Him who is the infinitely faithful friend of sinners. Over the span of one's life, genuine friendships are rare and we know them when we see them: Frodo and Sam, Whitefield and Wesley, the T4G guys, the Mahaneys at Girl Talk, Jesus and the Peter/ James/John cohort.

God has graced me with numerous substantive, cherished friendships through the years, particularly within the church. Some of them have been and continue to be colleagues. Brent Nelson, my fellow laborer in the cause of Christ here at Gender Blog these past couple of years and co-teacher at Clifton Baptist Church, is one such cherished friend.  

Thanks to God's grace to me through the means of his friendship, I walk with my eyes fixed more certainly upon our dear Lord and Savior; thanks to his irenic example of Christ-honoring, others-centered discourse, I seek to address the themes of theology and gender with a greater awareness of the my need to walk in accord with 1 Tim. 2: 24 ("And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach...").

Brent, as you go to fulfill this most sacred of callings, please know that your gracious pen and your inestimable pastoral wisdom will be deeply missed in this tiny corner of God's world, but go knowing that your brothers here will be praying for you; we will be praying that God will strengthen you, that He will grant you endurance in the truth and godliness and joy and courage as a good soldier of Christ, and that He will be pleased to bear much fruit in and through you, your precious family and your ministry, for the fame of His matchless name.