Making Sure Children Actually Hear the Gospel and Not Just a Bunch of Bible Stories

This is from anglicansablaze.blogspot.com which you can find here:

“We must not only teach children the stories of Scripture. We must teach them the Story of Scripture.

Children have a faith that is ready to go. Let’s not waste that opportunity by delivering a humanistic Gospel.

We talk a lot about contextualization Gospel communication. How do we share the eternal truth of God in specific locations for specific people who have a specific shared experience?

The Gospel does not change. So the message should remain the same, even as the methods are adjusted for effectiveness.

But how well do we proclaim the Gospel to children? I’m not asking how well we teach children Bible stories, or how well we have taught the moral truths of Scripture.

Are we contextualizing our Gospel communication for children as well as we are for the hipsters in Brooklyn or the tribes in Tanzania? ”

You can learn more about this issue here.

The Incarnation: Its Relevance

This is from anglicansablaze.blogspot.com which you can find here:

“To call the incarnation “relevant” almost sounds patronizing. But we need to recognize the intimate connection between this important doctrine and personal piety.”

You can learn more about this issue here.

Three Questions, Three Fault Lines in America’s Churches

This is from anglicansablaze.blogspot.com which you can find here:

“If the goal was to map the evolving landscape of American religion, the late George Gallup Jr. once told me, it was crucial to keep asking two kinds of questions.

The first kind attempted to document things that never seemed to change, or that were changing very, very slowly. Thus, Gallup urged his team to keep using the old questions his father and others in the family business began asking in the 1940s and ’50s, such as how often people attended worship services, how often they prayed and whether they believed in God.

The second kind of question, he said, tested whether these alleged beliefs and practices affected daily life.”

You can learn more about this issue here.

 

American theology in disarray, survey shows

This is from anglicansablaze.blogspot.com which you can find here:

“A recent survey by Ligonier Ministries shows how inexact the label “Christian” can be. Among Americans, 77 percent say they are Christian. But what does that mean?

To try to answer that question, Ligonier Ministries, the teaching fellowship of popular theologian R.C. Sproul, conducted a benchmark study to try to discern “The State of Theology” in the United States.

Ligonier notes that, while more than two-thirds of Americans agree on a few biblical truths, often more than half of Americans disagree with many statements expressing orthodox Christian doctrine. One such statement is the scriptural belief that humans are, by nature, sinful and under the judgment of God for sin. Read more

From a historic Anglican viewpoint as well as an Anglican Reformed perspective the theology of the Anglican Church in North America is also in disarray–at odds with the Scriptures and the Anglican confessional formularies in a number of key areas.”

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Unchurched America

This is from anglicansablaze.blogspot.com which you can find here:

“They pray, own Bibles and are ‘spiritual’ but nearly half still see no value in attending church

New research by the Barna group paints an interesting picture of those who are aware of the church and even think positively of the Christian faith, but who, for whatever reason, feel that actively being a part of church is not for them.

‘Churchless’ is the title of Barna’s latest research into understanding today’s unchurched and how to connect with them.

The research reveals that the number of churchless Americans has risen sharply since the early 1990s, when only around two out of 10 adults were churchless.”

You can learn more about this issue here.

Ministers Can Continue Using the Housing Allowance Per Court Ruling

This is from anglicansablaze.blogspot.com which you can find here:

“A federal appeals court has upheld the tax provision that allows ministers of all faiths to continue receiving housing allowances. As many had predicted, the court rejected an atheist group’s lawsuit seeking to strike down the law that had been in effect for 60 years.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago said the atheist group lacked standing, the legal right to sue, because they were not seeking an allowance for themselves. The court panel did not address the constitutionality of the housing allowance since the plaintiffs did not legally qualify to bring the suit.”

You can learn more about this issue here.

A Supreme Court Case to Watch

This is from anglicansablaze.blogspot.com which you can find here:

“New York mayor Bill de Blasio campaigned on the promise of letting churches rent school space. Now he’s asking the Supreme Court to prohibit it.

When Bill de Blasio campaigned against Michael Bloomberg in 2013 to become mayor of New York City, he promised to reverse a highly contested city policy that prohibited churches from renting public schools for worship services. In response, religious voters helped de Blasio trounce his opposition with 73 percent of the vote.

But after de Blasio took office in January 2014, he didn’t make the change, even though it could be done executively. Keep reading

A Supreme Court ruling banning churches from renting school space would be a major setback for new church plants. It could be interpreted to include fire station community rooms, community centers, park shelters, and other public buildings that church plants use as meeting places.”

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The War on Christmas is over. Jesus won.

This is from anglicansablaze.blogspot.com which you can find here:

“Kirk Cameron can breathe easy: the War on Christmas is over. Jesus won.

That’s the implication of a new Pew Research Center survey that finds nearly three-quarters of Americans — 73 percent — believe that Jesus was literally born to a virgin. This is especially surprising when you consider that only one third of Americans say that the Bible is the word of God and should be understood literally.

In other words, about 40 percent of Americans say the Bible should, in general, not be taken literally, but they nevertheless believe in the virgin birth. In addition, 81 percent say Jesus was laid in a manger, 75 percent say that the three wise men brought him gifts of frankincense, gold and myrrh, and 74 percent say that his birth was announced by an angel to the shepherds.”

You can learn more about this issue here.

5 Reasons Why There Are No Millennials in Your Church

This is from anglicansablaze.blogspot.com which you can find here:

“As fewer and fewer Millennials (or maybe just white Millennials) attend a local church with regularity, pastors frantically read books and blogs about how to keep young people in the pews. Few pastors and churches are attracting Millennials in droves, and most pastors are simply frustrated by the fact that they can’t seem to get young people to walk through the doors, take off their coats, and stay a while.

I’m not a pastor. I’m not a missiologist. There are probably plenty of people reading this blog post that are a whole lot smarter than me and more qualified to write regularly about reaching people and getting people in church. I’m not an expert, but based on my conversations and interactions with a number of my peers, I’ve gathered a general idea for what keeps young people from the church (outside of the whole homosexuality debate and other similar issues).”

You can learn more about this issue here.

Idolatry Is Alive Today: Why Modern Church Leaders Still Fight an Old Battle

This is from anglicansablaze.blogspot.com which you can find here:

An excerpt of the Anglicans Ablaze post is as follows:  “Some readers likely saw the headline on this blog and decided they didn’t need to read an article about the Old Testament, perhaps opting to read a blog on leadership instead.

After all, you probably don’t have a carved stone statue in your house, and you’ve never traveled to Asia and purchased a totem or some other representation of a false god. So why would a conversation about idolatry be of any importance to you, right?”

You can learn more about this issue here.