He gets is both barrels from Nate Fisher at the American Reformer: Collins has long been celebrated by evangelical influencers, and upon his departure those praising him included Russell Moore, Tim Keller, and David French. The well-credentialed evangelicals who populate urban churches like Keller’s have been taught to aspire to a “faithful presence” in elite …
Rediscovering the Early Pentecostal Worldview: The Lost Message of Full Consecration
This Week in AG History —September 27, 1930 By Darrin J. RodgersOriginally published on AG-News, 30 September 2021 “I sometimes wonder whether God is…Rediscovering the Early Pentecostal Worldview: The Lost Message of Full Consecration
Our Goal in Life is Really, Truly to be Happy
Barna's people find such a statement depressing: While focusing on career data and a shifting workforce, Barna's vocation project found something troubling in the church, Christians are pursuing happiness instead of Christ."It's not a sustaining framework to just chase after happiness, that's so circumstantial," said Dr. Stephanie Shackelford, author of You on Purpose."I think what …
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Modern Pentecost’s Use of an Anglican’s Missionary Method
In this interesting article about Assemblies of God missionaries to Latin America Melvin and Lois Hodges, this observation: Melvin and Lois Hodges teamed with veteran missionary Ralph Williams, who practiced English missionary Roland Allen’s philosophy of indigenous principles. While ministering in Nicaragua, Hodges was given an opportunity to put into practice these principles, which Allen …
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After 9/11, the Ministry Remains
Today of course is the twentieth anniversary of the 11 September attacks on the World Trade Centres and the Pentagon. I've done this before but I'm going to post again the slide show/video I made for the Church of God Chaplains Commission about that event and the ministry response the church made, presented at the …
How the Assemblies of God Have Succeeded
An interesting article in Christianity Today discusses the success of the Assemblies of God: At most denominational conferences these days, leaders have to recognize and reckon with the challenge of continued declines in membership. But for the US Assemblies of God (AG), which drew 18,000 registered attendees to its General Council meeting in Orlando last …
The Main Obstacle to Religious Freedom
This past week my wife and I had the chance to attend the International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, DC. It was an interesting conference on a subject that gets the short shrift these days. In attendance were representatives of several religions including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and many others. The fact that any kind …
Is Meaningful Lay Involvement in the Church That Bad?
Every now and then I run across an article that has me saying to myself, "What is going on here?" One such piece is Ben Jeffries' Abiding with Error in the ACNA. There's a great deal to unpack here, but I'm going to try to focus on one thing: his idea that easing the laity …
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The Reformed vs. Athanasian/Nicene Approach to God
An interesting comparison by Bobby Grow: Scholastic Reformed theologians claim to be in line with Nicene theology proper. But when you read scholastic Reformed theology, particularly their confessions, what becomes immediately apparent is that scholastic Reformed theology operates out of the apophatic ‘negative’ and/or speculative tradition for thinking a doctrine of God (and Christ); whereas Nicene theology thinks …
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John Wesley and the Liturgy
From William Palmer Ladd's Prayer Book Interleaves: The Church of England had its Prayer Book, and thus the liturgical way of life was kept alive. But when in the XVIII century, the heyday of the Whig bishops, the easy-going parsons, and the infrequent Eucharists, a prophet arose in the person of John Wesley, the Church …
Positive Infinity 