Desiring God interviews Sam Storms

A favourite of the contributors to this blog, Sam Storms is interviewed briefly at the blog for Desiring God. Here are the questions he answers:

Interview with Sam Storms
January 17, 2010 | By: Nick Laparra | Category: Conferences

Sam Storms will serve as the keynote speaker at our upcoming pastors conference. I had the privilege of conducting a brief interview with him. Please keep him in prayer as he prepares for the conference, and if you haven't registered for the conference, there is still room!

Nick Laparra: What do you love most about being Senior Pastor of Bridgeway Church?

Sam Storms: Without question what I enjoy most is the privilege of speaking the Word of God into the lives of our people. Even beyond this is the joy I experience in witnessing their joy in Jesus deepen and expand.

There’s something uniquely powerful and satisfying in watching lives change through the power of the Spirit operating by means of the Scriptures. I can’t describe the thrill I feel in watching their minds being enlightened with the truth of God, their hearts being warmed with the love of God, and their wills being energized for kingdom of God.

So, in a word, what I love most about being Senior Pastor here is preaching!

NL: I've read several of your books and am currently reading The Hope Of Glory. Do you have any other writing projects underway that you can tell us about?

SS: Crossway is publishing in two volumes my meditations on 2 Corinthians. I hope they will be available at the Pastor’s Conference. If not, they should be out a week or two later.

These are brief (well, not that brief; it did take two volumes rather than one to get all 100 in!) daily meditations that take a person through every verse of this incredible letter. The title is, A Sincere and Pure Devotion to Christ (taken from 2 Cor. 11:3).

I’m also working on a book on Eschatology, but I suspect it may be a year or more before I’m ready to go to the publisher with it.

NL: Are there one or two key ways the ministry of Desiring God or John Piper has impacted your life?

SS: Absolutely! I think the most important way John has affected me is in showing me from the Word that it is actually ok to “desire” God!

I was raised, as were many, thinking that to focus on my desires or passions or longing for happiness was probably selfish and sinful. How could I possibly be concerned with my own gladness if I was concerned with God’s glory?

John, especially in the book Desiring God, awakened me to the relationship between the two: that God’s glory is seen most vividly in my gladness in him. That was life changing in countless ways, many of which I’ll share at the conference.

NL: Can you give us a sneak peak into your upcoming talk at the pastors conference?

SS: My first talk will focus on the astounding truth that the purpose of pastoral ministry is actually identical to God’s purpose in creating the universe! That’s a breathtaking thought. I’ll be looking at how this worked itself out in Paul’s ministry to the Corinthians.

In the second talk I will try to explain the biblical and theological foundations of Christian Hedonism. What is it and what does it mean? I plan on setting this forth in seven theses.

Finally, I’ll wrap things up by looking at the practical side of Christian Hedonism, specifically, how it gives us a strategy for the war with the world, the flesh, and the Devil, and then secondly, what pastors can do in their own lives and ministries to deepen their joy in Jesus and in turn deepen that same joy in those whom they serve and to whom they preach.

One of the things I’ll focus on in particular is how suffering actually serves joy rather than suffocates it. But I’m giving too much away!