Donald McGavran and the Church Growth Movement
by Matthew McAffee and Barry Raper One of the major developments in the church of the twentieth century has been the rise of the modern church growth movement. The key figure of this movement was Donald McGavran, considered by most authorities to be its founding father. The inception of this movement has been tied directly to McGavran’s seminal work, The Bridges of God (1955) [1]. This work arose out of his experiences on the mission...
Book Review: Shepherds After My Own Heart
by Craig Batts What does it mean to be a shepherd in the church? What does it involve? When we consider these questions, it rightfully leads to a discussion of leadership. Unfortunately, there often seems to be a flaw in the way we proceed from that point forward. There is a temptation to look to the corporate world or to socially-established practices in order to develop an understanding of what qualities leaders ought to possess....
Book Review: Christ in the Chaos: How the Gospel Changes Motherhood
by Ana Batts Nine months of pregnancy, or months (sometime years) walking the road to adoption, can never prepare you for motherhood. Before those bundles of joy are sleeping through the night, there are a thousand people telling you the “best” way to feed, clothe, diaper, and raise your baby. It doesn’t end when babies become toddlers, preschoolers, elementary age, or teenagers. There will always be people watching, making sure that...
Poetry, the Afterlife, & Today
by Nathan Trimble “And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life” (1 Jn. 2:25). Christianity is a religion of the past, present, and future. Yet what will this future look like for Christians? What will the afterlife, that period of time immediately following physical death on earth and extending throughout eternity, contain for those who claim Christ as their Savior? When we look to Scripture, we read about the resurrection...
Shaping Not Shielding Our Students
by Dr. Ian Hawkins I recently had an interesting conversation with some friends from graduate school. One of them is a lesbian, and the other a Mormon. The lesbian mentioned that she does not believe that science is as objective as she once thought. However, the Mormon began asking me why I didn’t believe in evolution. I found this ironic: the lesbian seemed more sympathetic to my perspective on science than the Mormon. What was most...
Recent Comments