I enjoyed a long lunch yesterday with a friend who is in seminary.  Among other things, we talked for a bit about the various trajectories college graduates take after intensely pious or zealous undergraduate years.  Some react dramatically against certain experiences, setting off in radically different directions.  Others carry scars in various forms that bear […]

Eerdmans Publishing Co. celebrated its one-hundredth anniversary last week.  They hosted a talk on Saturday morning by Mark Noll, who gave an overview of his new book Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind.  It’s a sort of sequel to his Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.  I had intended to bring my well-marked-up copy […]

*Given at Midtown Christian Community, October 15, 2005* Almighty and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with […]

As I said yesterday, there are many things to say about evangelism.  I’m just discussing a few things I regard as essential but that are often overlooked or neglected when it comes to strategizing about evangelism.  The three big notions I’m drawing out are (1) the character of salvation, (2) Jesus’ command to make disciples, […]

There are many things to say about evangelism, and I don’t claim to have the final word on this topic.  I’ll just lay out some important considerations that I believe have been overlooked or neglected, matters which ought to have priority in our thinking about evangelism. I’ll develop three biblical/theological notions that ought to orient evangelism, […]

Let me throw a wild-card into this discussion of evangelism.  I’m not really going anywhere specific with this; it was just banging around in my head today (along with lots of thoughts about Tiger Woods and the PGA Championship this week). In my college and seminary courses on the church, the question of the purpose […]

The discussion from yesterday’s post raised some good questions about methods of evangelism.  I’m putting together some of my own thoughts on this, sparked by Scot McKnight’s forthcoming book, The King Jesus Gospel.  For now, however, I’m just wondering a bit about the extent to which context determines method. Here’s my question: How wise is it […]

In his forthcoming book, The King Jesus Gospel, Scot McKnight relays an experience from his youth in the program Evangelism Explosion.  Doing door-to-door evangelism, he and his program mentor far over-stayed their welcome in a person’s home who finally broke down and “received Christ.”  It seems that he did so, however, just to get his […]

This very striking story ran in our city newspaper yesterday.  I love hearing accounts of forgiveness so I tore it out to discuss around the dinner table tonight.  True stories and good stories often resist simplistic “lessons,” but here are some scattered observations: Forgiveness is so profoundly powerful and beautiful.  I find that people of all […]

I wrote a few posts on the gospel last week and had kept things pretty general.  I didn’t make plain my real targets because I’m still finding my feet in this blogging medium.  I’m slightly hesitant to develop a negative tone, and the “hyperventilating religious invective-slinging blog” category seems fairly well-covered. At the same time […]