There’s a recent interview with Princeton Seminary professor Kendra Creasy Dean about her new book, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church. The book is written towards mainline churches as a result of the National Study on Youth and Religion (which is outlined in the books Soul Searching and […]
Christian Smith and Young Adults: “No Regrets”
So, it may not be the best prose or the kind of book that makes you want to curl up next to a fire with a cup of coffee, but the latest book by Christian Smith sure is fascinating. It reports on the next phase of the National Study of Youth and Religion (the first […]
Reggie McNeal: Who is this for?
Reggie McNeal, in his book The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church describes a comment from a pastor after listening to McNeal speak. I think it is a great way to begin to help people understand the mission mindset: “From now on, when some idea comes up for something new to do at […]
Reggie McNeal on the Bible
Reggie McNeal, a Baptist, in his book The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church says this about the Bible in North America: The current dilemma with how we use the Bible is twofold. One is that in the last gasps of the modern church, we have made Bible study in itself a mark […]
Phyllis Tickle on Homosexuality
I just finished Phyllis Tickle’s The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why last week and read the quote below the day after I returned from the ELCA Churchwide Assembly. Given the nature of what happened that previous week, it stuck out. It’s an interesting historical analysis. To approach any of the arguments and […]
Craig Van Gelder on the Church as Hermeneutic
From The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit: As the church lives “into” and “out of” the biblical story, its life is transformed by its power. The biblical story is contextualized in the life of the church. The church becomes, in fact, the hermeneutic of the gospel. That is, the world […]
Craig Van Gelder on Word and Sacrament
More from The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit: The Reformers’ intent was to return the Word to the center of life within local congregations. But singling out preaching and sacraments can produce several problems in how the ministry of the church is understood and practiced. These include (a) the tendency […]
Craig Van Gelder on Corporate Salvation
Continuing with quotes from Craig Van Gelder’s The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit: Defining salvation in individual terms is biblical, but it is not all that the Bible teaches. The Spirit of God is creating a new community as the body of Christ. While salvation is always individual in its […]
Craig Van Gelder on the Holiness of the Church
From Craig Van Gelder’s The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit: In understanding the holiness of the church we need to remember that the “holiness of the church does not stem from its members and their moral and religious behavior.” [1] The issue is not who we are as humans, but […]
Rollie Martinson on a Theology of Youth Ministry
I’m reading Rollie Martinson’s 1988 youth ministry classic Effective Youth Ministry: A Congregational Approach for this class I’m about to take (do you see a trend here?). I’m not very far through it yet, but so far it reads as a fairly robust and grounded approach to ministry (i.e not 20 years old). Here’s a […]