Andy Crouch has a piece in today’s Wall Street Journal about evangelicals in the city. He writes: Though the American evangelical movement is often stereotyped as rural and provincial, it has actually had its greatest success in the suburbs and exurbs, where entrepreneurial pastors found cheap land and plentiful parking to build the “megachurches” of the past generation—think Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., seating capacity over 7,000. But a new generation of church founders believes that city centers will be the beachhead of a new evangelization… “You go to the city to reach the culture,” Mr. Keller tells his congregation. Read the rest here.
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The Big Three
Desiring God has asked listeners to help them select the best of John Piper’s sermons so that they might feature them in the Desiring God app. They are asking not only for the sermon title, but also for a brief testimony of how God used the sermon to impact your life. I’m going to offer my response in this space. For me, there are three messages that stand out. They are messages that proved to be spiritual watersheds in my own life, and they are still impacting me today. “Did Christ Die for Us or for God?” Passion ’98, Austin, TX – January 1, 1998 I first heard John Piper…
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The Lord of the “Already” and the “Not Yet”
Dr. Brian Payne, professor of Christian Theology and Expository Preaching at Boyce College, preached one of the best sermons I’ve ever heard in Southern Seminary’s chapel. It’s just good, solid biblical exposition. You can watch it above, listen below, or download audio here. [audio:http://www.sbts.edu/media/audio/fall2012/20121016-payne.mp3]
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On third party candidates
The Simpsons provided some wry political commentary in the weeks before the 1996 presidential election. Bob Dole was challenging Bill Clinton for the office, and Ross Perot was running as a third party candidate. In the episode excerpted above, Homer discovers that Dole and Clinton are really aliens in disguise and that he needs to expose them before one of them gets elected president. The story lampooned the popular notion that voting for a third party candidate meant that you were throwing your vote away. I disagree with the premise of this. I do believe that voting for a third party candidate is tantamount to voting against the major party…
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Why Abortion Is the Most Important Issue in This Election
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) — On Nov. 6, America will go to the polls and elect the next president as well as members of the House and Senate. In advance of this vote, most Americans believe that the chief issue facing the country is the ailing economy. I want to make the case that this thinking is wrong-headed and that the transcendent issue of this election is abortion. The current law of our land excludes from the human community a whole class of human beings — the unborn. Right now, under the regime of Roe v. Wade, it is legal in our country to kill unborn human beings at any stage…
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PLNTD Conference | Gospel Leadership (25% off)
From Timmy Brister: ——— Healthy church leaders in local churches are vitally important. In three weeks, the PLNTD Network is hosting a conference in Nashville focusing on cultivating gospel-driven leadership. On the weekend of Nov. 2-3, Ed Stetzer and Trevin Wax will address this important topic, namely how the gospel shapes church leaders as well as how to forge a distinctly gospel-driven philosophy of leadership. Whether you are a seminary/college student, pastor, church planter, or small group leader, this focused time of training will provide instruction and encouragement for anyone wanting to train, equip, and send out gospel-driven leaders to reach our communities for Christ. Alongside the main sessions, there…
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It’s okay to fight against homosexuality
Christy McFerren shares her gut-wrenching testimony in a recent post at the online Prodigal Magazine. The story is gut-wrenching because she has experienced powerful attractions to other women throughout her life, yet she has never given in to a homosexual identity. In fact, her whole testimony is aimed to communicate that it’s okay to fight if you’re a homosexual. It took her years to come to this conclusion, but that is where she ended up. For me the most powerful part of her testimony is in the following lines. Pay special attention to the underlined portion:
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What is an evangelical?
I am glad that Rachel Held Evans is stoking a conversation about the meaning of “evangelical.” Evans says that she herself is an evangelical, yet she defines the term in a way that can only be described as radically revisionist. I daresay that very few would recognize her definition as anything approaching what evangelicals have historically held. We all know that defining the term ‘evangelical’ can be controversial, but many observers still look to David Bebbington’s quadrilateral as a helpful outline of the defining characteristics of evangelicals.
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What ever happened to that KONY 2012 guy?
Do you remember the KONY 2012 video that went viral earlier this year? It was a campaign to end the terror of African warlord Joseph Kony. The efforts of the filmakers were undermined after the very public breakdown of the face of their campaign, Jason Russell. Now after many months, the campaign has come out with a new video, released just last night (see above). In it, the filmakers explain that the effort to stop KONY is still ongoing. They also attempt to explain the emotional breakdown of Jason Russell. In the video, Russell apologizes and says that he is fully recovered.
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The Criticism of Jim Lehrer Is Hogwash
After the debate last Wednesday, many journalists criticized Jim Lehrer for getting “steamrolled” by the candidates, for losing control of the format. These journalists think that Lehrer should have inserted himself more into the conversation and asked tough follow-up questions to the candidates. I think this complaint against Lehrer is hogwash. And it comes from a class of professionals who seem to have an overinflated sense of their role in this process.
