Repairing The Missional Breach

Making disciples is the primary calling of the church; however, in the past decades of American evangelicalism, there has been a breach of Christ’s Great Commission (as found in Matt 28:19–20). Much of this failure can be attributed to the doctrine and practice within three modern church movements. The book offers a history and critique of modern American evangelical church movements, including the Church Growth, Emergent Church, and Missional Church movements. Each of these movements did not result in disciple making multiplication. In this book, you will find an analysis of disciple making in these movements as compared to the methods and model of Jesus. Informed by these critiques, formative ministry adjustments are presented as a faithful path for future missional approaches.

Making disciples is the primary calling of the church; however, in the past decades of American evangelicalism, there has been a breach of Christ’s Great Commission (as found in Matt 28:19–20). Much of this failure can be attributed to the doctrine and practice within three modern church movements. The book offers a history and critique of modern American evangelical church movements, including the Church Growth, Emergent Church, and Missional Church movements. Each of these movements did not result in disciple making multiplication. In this book, you will find an analysis of disciple making in these movements as compared to the methods and model of Jesus. Informed by these critiques, formative ministry adjustments are presented as a faithful path for future missional approaches.

Far too many churches in North America are either plateauing or dying. In almost every community, a former church is either closed or turned into something other than who she used to be. It is heartbreaking to see places where once people glorified God sold away as the church property changed hands through a sale or auction on the courthouse steps. One must realize that it is not one decision that closed the established church but multiple decisions, sometimes made over decades, that got it to closure. Without a clear mission, the church lurched inward and slowly died. One does not have to look very far to find the missional call found in Matt (28:16-20) or, as others call it, the "Great Commission." Yet where is the church on mission today? Far too many are focused on internal matters instead of external spiritual issues and are allowing millions to go to hell without knowing the redeeming grace of Jesus Christ. What will it take for a transformation to happen? Missional service will take a willing heart to serve others locally and internationally as the hands and feet of Christ. It will take the ability to keep learning and growing in God's grace while celebrating victories as they come. It seems basic, right? Yet, most churches in communities like yours do not support missionaries through programs tied to mission agencies or investing locally to reach the lost. The time of inaction has lapsed, and it is time for God's church to come alive through visionary local leadership to promote and then lead in the area of missions.

What comes after deconstruction? How do we begin to pick up some of the pieces of a faith or religious life that we had held on to for so long? We Don't Trust Your Theology is one person's approach to starting the reconstruction work. Meant as a jumping off point, this book walks alongside the reader to give ideas, encouragement, and some personal stories on what that may look like.

The statistics speak for themselves; record numbers of individuals who at one time identified as Christians are deconverting from the faith and identifying as unbelievers. Why is this happening and what can be done to prevent it? A Recipe for Disaster seeks to answer those questions by focusing on the four ways churches and parents unwittingly contribute to the deconversion process. By over-preparing, under-preparing, ill-preparing, and painfully preparing those they are responsible to disciple into mature believers, churches and parents instead set them up for a crisis of faith that all too often leads to the loss of faith. In response to each of the four methods of poor preparation, A Recipe for Disaster offers a recipe for success, four alternative methods of preparation designed to instill lifelong faith.

The aim for this book is to bring out the truth and reality of the Hebrew names of the Lord, who is Jesus Christ, and what his role is in the middle of a global pandemic, such as COVID-19. In this modern era, where technology is right at our disposal making it easy to look up a Bible verse on Google or a Bible app, we fail to fully digest the meaning behind Scripture. Memory verses are especially critical in times of severe pressure, when there is hardly any time to pray and the whole world suddenly comes crumbling down like an avalanche right in front of you. It takes time, endurance, and determination to memorize Scripture. But there is still time, and there is no better time than the present.

A practical guide that helps churches identify their strengths and weaknesses and discover what action to take in order to develop the health of their church. It focuses on the quality of the church's life rather than just the numbers attending.

For centuries women, youth, and the poor have been seen as objects of Christian ministry, but rarely as those who do ministry themselves. This is so much the case that in some quarters today ministry and mission are bad words, reeking of older and paternalistic models of Christian "service." In this challenging book, Cheryl Sanders demonstrates how mission can be updated. Far from being regressive or irrelevant in a multicultural, nonpatriarchal world, Christian mission can come alive when it is not just ministry to but ministry by marginalized groups seeking justice. Ministry at the Margins is an important Christian ethicist's rousing call to "find grace to articulate a theology of inclusion and to establish inclusive practices and multicultural perspectives that harmonize with the gospel we preach and honor the Christ we proclaim." Essential reading for pastors, church leaders, students, urban missionaries, and campus ministers.