In October of 1999, a group of missiologists, missionaries, and church leaders gathered in Brazil for an important event sponsored by the World Evangelical Fellowship, based in Singapore. These leaders from fifty-three countries, many of them from the two-thirds world, rallied to the cause of world mission-but with a somewhat surprising twist. As Christianity Today […]
Beginning especially with the 1995 Peter Jennings special report on religion in America and the August 1996 Atlantic Monthly cover story, "Welcome to the Next Church," seeker-driven megachurches have received a great deal of secular media attention. Perhaps most interesting about these reports has been the way these pragmatic churches-and their leaders-present themselves and their […]
When the Apostle Peter wrote of his desire for the Church to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Pet. 3:18), did he have in mind a bevy of megachurches, filled with American suburbanites, providing spiritual resources for every aspect of middle-class life, from Christo-centric ceramics classes to […]
"You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last…."John 15:16. What would happen if everyone in our pews for worship on Sunday morning departed afterward with a deep understanding of all that Jesus meant by the sentences above? For that to happen, […]
Church growth as it is described in Scripture might be best explained by a three-tiered formula. (1) It begins with spiritual vitality, which then leads to functional effectiveness, which in turn often leads to statistical increases. Statistical increase is the result of functional effectiveness and functional effectiveness is the result of spiritual vitality. The goal […]
Every Christian would like to see the Church of Jesus Christ grow. Church growth is the norm. Nongrowth is abnormal and needs reassessment on the part of the leaders. But how does the Church grow? Churches grow as the believers share the Gospel of Jesus Christ by word of mouth and attract opportunities for this […]
MR readily admits that we do not entirely understand the church growth movement; we are suspicious of the possible syncretism involved in borrowing so heavily from marketing methodology. At the same time, we understand that there are differences within the movement-though these variations are often difficult to see from the outside. As such, we asked […]
The English historian Patrick Collinson describes the Church of England in its founding decades as "putting down its anchors in the outer roads of the broad harbor of the Calvinist or (better) Reformed Tradition." (1) I hope it is possible to say that Anglicanism floats its ship even closer to the center of the somewhat […]
Exegeting Our Self-Worshiping Culture The massacre in Littleton, Colorado, is branded vividly on our collective consciousness, as are the senseless killings in Jonesborough, Arkansas; Paducah, Kentucky; and Oklahoma City. I began this review as reports flashed across television screens that stock trader Mark Barton had murdered his family of three before going on a murderous […]
For obvious reasons, last words carry a profundity not found in more common speech. Their impact lies in the fact that they give cause for the summation of life, and so when they are captured they are often weighty. This is especially true of Christ's last words. The Heart of the Cross attempts once again […]
