Wanted: New Church Methods

CONFESSING GOD

The Cynic's Guide to Sin
We're not surprised when people fail us. But should we be?
Derek Rishmawy
It's important to maintain a healthy realism about humanity's moral potential. As Dorothy Sayers pointed out after World War II in Creed or Chaos?, "The people who are most discouraged are those who cling to an optimistic belief in the civilizing influence of progress and enlightenment." The brutality of the war, she said, was "the utter negation of everything they believed." Still, much of the news in 2017 has threatened to push my realism in the direction of cynicism. Everywhere I look, I find myself tempted to offer the most cynical take on my neighbors. Their votes? Myopic self-preservation. Their social media posts? Virtue-signaling. Their silence? Cowardice. continue reading >>

News Pew: US Followed Global Trend on Refugees Until Now Meanwhile, more Christians than Muslims find refuge in America each year. Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra

Women Why Female Theologians Take Flak in the Public Square The potential rewards of celebrity culture are many, but so are the risks. Leah Payne

Theology A Roman Catholic Appreciation of Justification by Faith Both traditions can appreciate Luther's famous dictum as a recovery, not a discovery. Nancy Enright

The Exchange One-on-One with David Dockery on the Reforming Catholic Confession that Celebrates the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation Faithful Protestants continue to share many basic Christian beliefs in spite of our very real denominational differences. Ed Stetzer

Pivot Wanted: New Church Methods for New Church People Changing the world with the Gospel of Jesus is less likely to happen using traditional methods with every passing year. Karl Vaters