Everywhere, Always, By All

This semester the Doctor of Ministry group that Dr. Justus Hunter and I lead is reading the Commonitorium, by Vincent of Lerins. Writing in the wake of a very contentious Council of Ephesus (431), Vincent famously insisted that “in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been…

As We Pray, So We Believe

Many have noted that what we call “contemporary” worship isn’t so contemporary anymore. It’s a feature of the “attractional” model of church growth, embodied so well in Willow Creek and like-minded megachurches that popped up in the 80’s and 90’s.  The basic philosophy of the attractional model is that if we can create a church…

Preaching Atonement

“In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us” (2 Cor 5:19). This is one of the most well known passages of Christian scripture. It is also one of the most puzzled-over. Atonement is a particularly knotty theological matter. While the…