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Rising From The Ashes is an unusual look at the emerging church/alternative worship, church planting and church development scene, presented entirely as short articles, emails, interviews and even instant message conversations. Becky Garrison, a writer for the Wittenberg Door magazine, and author of Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church, asks the questions and […]

You know a book is different when it starts with the question of whether you need to buy the book at all.
In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis talks about the spiritual values of simple pleasures. There are a world of things, Screwtape says, that the “enemy” doesn’t mind humans doing at all: sleeping, eating, making […]

Is there a compelling reason to read Brian Sanders’ version of “Why so many of us are leaving the traditional churches for emerging churches?”
Maybe. Life After Church is a book many of my readers will appreciate.
I think Sanders gets many things right. I certainly appreciated his emphasis on scripture; a gift to all of us, […]

This is the season of “Best of” lists, and I’m sure Pierced For Our Transgressions by Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey and Andrew Sach will be on more than a few lists. In the past year, Pierced For Our Transgressions may be the best-reviewed, highest recommended book in the Reformed blogosphere.
It was also one of the […]

UPDATE: Rev. Dowd has graciously joined the comment thread.
Thank God For Evolution! is available as a free pdf download. If you haven’t read the book and don’t plan on it, please keep your comments about the book and the author appropriately humble. Don’t expect a creationist debate in the comments of this post. Also, I […]

I finally read a book by Leonard Sweet. That’s a pretty big deal for me, as this was something like the fifth one I’ve started, failing to finish -or even get three chapters done in- the other four.
Sweet is a futurist, professor of evangelism, church renewal advocate and sometimes part of the emerging conversation. His […]

When I first received Neil Livingstone’s book Picturing the Gospel, I flipped through it and said “This won’t be good.” I put it on the bottom of my book pile and didn’t read it for several weeks.
This week, I’ve read the book. Several chapters twice. Not just a good book….it’s an outstanding book. So outstanding […]

Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches: Five Perspectives. General Editor: Robert Webber. Contributors: Mark Driscoll, John Burke, Dan Kimball, Doug Padgitt, Karen Ward. Zondervan, 2007.
What is it about the emerging church that makes it so difficult for Christians to talk about it?
Probably because there is no emerging church. There are a collection of pastors, […]

“Roger” is a co-worker who asked several questions about my review of Dr. John MacArthur’s “The Truth War.”
I’d like commenters to suggest good books on postmodernism and the emerging church. Thanks.
Roger asked me for complete definitions of postmodernism and the emerging church.
That’s a lot of reading, listening and work, Roger. There are no shorthand, quickie […]

UPDATE: Lifeway was kind enough to send me this link to an “Author Interview” with Dr. MacArthur regarding this book.
UPDATE II: Macarthur’s takedown of John Armstrong is critiqued by Andrew Sandlin.
I would like to thank Phenix and Phenix Literary Publicists for providing a review copy of this book.
There are two ways I could write this […]

I’d like to thank Campbellsville University for hosting this conference. It’s been great and I hope they have many other similar events.
At his third session on “Lament,” Michael Card spoke about Jesus the Lamenter. These are a few thoughts I wrote down in my notebook as I listened.
Scripture reading: Isaiah 53. Then he read an […]

I want to run through some of the highlights of Michael Card’s teaching sessions on “The Lost Language of Lament.” These are all short summaries from my notebook.
On 9-11, Calvin Seerveld called Michael and said, “See….you have no songs to sing.”
The language of Lament is the lost language of worship, and that loss leaves many […]

I’m going to try and blog the conference a bit.
(Thursday morning, 9:09 a.m.) I’m at the “Worship and Arts” conference sponsored by Campbellsvile University. (Actually at a local church) Small crowd. Michael Card is the main teacher. John Mark Macmillan- who I’ve never heard of- is leading worship. He brought a band. It’s pretty obvious […]

UPDATE III: Joel Hunter has written a massive substantial response to the podcasts that go along with the ads.
UPDATE II: The pastor whose church produced the ads has a blog that is full of provocative ideas. If you want a glimpse into what the emerging church growth culture looks like, this is a very good […]

Wayne Grudem is accumulating an impressive collection of credentials as an influential theologian within conservative evangelicalism. Grudem’s Systematic Theology is as close to a standard evangelical theology as you can find today. His writing on Biblical prophecy is standard reading for anyone interested in issues debated among charismatic and cessationist evangelicals. His work on gender […]