Archive for the 'Church & Culture' Category
Alan Chambers. God’s Grace and the Homosexual Next Door: Reaching the Heart of the Gay Men and Women in Your World. Harvest House, 2006. 288 pp.
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
—1 Corinthians 6:9-11
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Al Fasol, Roy Fish, Steve Gaines, Ralph Douglas West. Preaching Evangelistically: Proclaiming the Saving Message of Jesus. B&H, 2005. 148 pp.
Characteristics of an Effective Evangelistic Service
Know Your Listeners
Some preachers study the Bible. Others study people and culture. Effective preachers analyze both. Why? Because the effective evangelistic preacher will preach differently to a group of senior adults than he preaches to a group of high school seniors. Likewise, he will preach differently to a group of unchurched, white-collar, upper-class people in suburban Los Angeles than he preaches to a group of church-oriented, blue-collar, middle-class people living in a rural area in the southeastern United States. Although the message of the gospel never changes, how it is presented should connect with the cultural persuasions and unique personalities of the people addressed.
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Michael P. V. Barrett. The Beauty of Holiness: A Guide to Biblical Worship. Ambassador-Emerald, 2006. 285 pp.
Contemporary! Traditional! Divisive words—particularly when referring to methods of worship. Some churches commit themselves to one particular style while others divide themselves into distinct congregations with separate services to accommodate a mismatched membership with dissimilar preferences regarding music or dress. For some reason music always seems to be at the heart of the issue. Should the congregation find the words to hymns in hardback hymnals or the words to choruses projected on a screen? Should soloists sing to recorded music with microphone in hand or to organ accompaniment with arms passively at the side? Should the congregation applaud or whisper “amen” when blessed? Should drums and guitars be allowed in church? Should music styles reflect changing cultural models, or are some melodies and rhythms inherently inappropriate for worship? These are tough questions with answers that almost always fail to convince or change the other side.
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Wayne Grudem. Countering the Claims of Evangelical Feminism: Biblical Responses to the Key Questions. Multnomah, 2006. 284 pp.
Egalitarian Claim:
The New Testament writers urged the mutual submission of husbands and wives to one another (Ephesians 5:21). Therefore, there is no unique leadership role for the husband.
Ephesians 5:21 says, “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Egalitarians say this verse teaches “mutual submission,” and that means that just as wives have to submit to their husbands, so husbands have to submit to their wives. Doesn’t the text say that we have to submit “to one another”? And this means that there is no unique submission that a wife owes to her husband, and no unique authority that a husband has over his wife. . . .
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Gary McIntosh. Beyond the First Visit: The Complete Guide to Connecting Guests to Your Church. Baker, 2006. 192 pp.
We’re a Friendly Church
If you were to survey churches and ask them to list their strengths, almost every one would include, “We’re a friendly church.” . . . It’s interesting that in every one of the churches I coached, someone either wrote on a survey or stated verbally that they believed their church to be a friendly place. It did not matter if the individuals were attending churches in danger of closing down, in the midst of twenty-year-long plateaus, or bursting forth in growth. They all felt their church was a friendly one. . . .
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Alan Roxburgh & Fred Romanuk. The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World. Jossey-Bass, 2006. 240 pp.
Introduction
The question is familiar: “What do you mean by missional church?” Even though the term is now used everywhere, there is still confusion about it. As we begin this book, here is a brief description of what we mean by the phrase.
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Ben Young. Why Mike’s Not a Christian: Honest Questions About Evolution, Relativism, Hypocrisy, and More. Harvest House, 2006. 144 pp.
A while ago I was flying from Pensacola, Florida, back to Houston. I was sitting next to a businessman from Connecticut, and we got into a conversation about what we did for a living. I was just returning from one of our youth retreats, where I’d been talking on the subject “Who Am I?” So we got into a little discussion about philosophy, and it kind of meandered into theology. And as my fate would have it, during the course of conversation he found out I was a minister.
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Andreas Kostenberger & David Jones. God, Marriage, and Family: Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation. Crossway, 2004. 448 pp.
Summary of Findings
We have come to the end of our discussion, and it is now time to briefly summarize the findings of our study of the biblical teaching regarding marriage, the family, and related subjects. At the outset, we noted that for the first time in its history, Western civilization is confronted with the need to define the meaning of the terms “marriage” and “family.” The cultural crisis that rages concerning the definitions of these terms was seen to be symptomatic of an underlying spiritual crisis that gnaws at the foundations of our once-shared societal values.
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John Piper. What Jesus Demands from the World. Crossway, 2006. 400 pp.
Introduction
The aim of this book is God-glorifying obedience to Jesus. To that end I am seeking to obey Jesus’ last command: Make disciples of all nations . . . teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Matt. 28:19-20). Jesus final command was to teach all his commandments.
The Impossible Final Command
Actually, the final command was more precise than that. He did not say, Teach them all my commandments. He said, Teach them to observe all my commandments. You can teach a parrot all of Jesus commandments. But you cannot teach a parrot to observe them. Parrots will not repent, and worship Jesus, and lay up treasures in heaven, and love their enemies, and go out like sheep in the midst of wolves to herald the kingdom of God.
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Walt Mueller. Engaging the Soul of Youth Culture: Bridging Teen Worldviews and Christian Truth. IVP, 2006. 239 pp.
In a world where the lost long to be found, Jesus still commands his followers to “go and make disciples of all nations.”
This is a book about obedience to the Great Commission in a rapidly changing culture. I want to help you think seriously about our responsibility to go to the unique “nation” of young people living in our current postmodern culture, as well as subsequent cultures sure to emerge.
Whether we admit it or not, we’ve become increasingly ineffective at the task. We haven’t kept up in our ability to listen to and understand our world and its cries for redemption. We need to take a fresh look at what it means to live and proclaim God’s will and way as we cross cultures into the mission field of youth.
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