Entries from Off the Agenda tagged with: culture
September 2, 2009
5 Common Cultural Differences
Things to remember when reaching out across cultural lines.
Our newest download is designed to help you equip yourself and others in your church for outreach to other faiths. Often the barriers we face in doing this aren't just religious—they're cultural. Below are five cultural barriers a Westerner...
Tags used in this post:
culture, evangelism, outreach,
Fred von Kamecke is the author of Busted: Exposing Popular Myths About Christianity. BCL's Drew Dyck asked him a few questions about apologetics and the church. What do you say to Christians who believe that apologetics just alienates unbelievers?...
Tags used in this post:
apologetics, culture,
It's Friday. How about a parody video? The target—consumeristic attitudes toward church—is an easy one. Yet it's also an easy trap to fall into. I'll admit to sometimes being like the character in the video whose excitement for church...
Tags used in this post:
consumerism, culture, video,
One ongoing challenge for youth workers is bridging the gap between their world and the world of the teenagers they serve. I was pointed to a useful resource for addressing this problem as I was working on our newest...
Tags used in this post:
culture, youth pastor,
You've heard it a thousand times. Heck, you've probably even preached or taught it: "True Christian faith is a relationship, not a religion." Religion is shown to be stifling, soul-crushing, and destructive. I used to nod piously at such...
Why come to church if you don't believe in God? Robert Jensen is a self-described "Christian atheist" who just published a memoir, All My Bones Shake, about his experiences at church. Jensen drew attention a few years ago when...
I tend not to pay much attention to sensationalistic titles. The last thing we need, I figure, is another alarmist manifesto on how bad the world is becoming. And that's what I thought David Olson's The American Church in...
Tags used in this post:
book corner, church planting, culture, outreach,
April 27, 2009
BlogSpotting: Ed Stetzer Calls for Great Commission Resurgence
A response to a disappointing year for the SBC.
Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research and friend of BCL, wrote a response last week to the 2008 statistics for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Membership in the denomination dropped 0.2 percent from 2007, and baptisms were down 1.1...
Tags used in this post:
blogspotting, culture, evangelism, missional,
April 22, 2009
The Big Picture in this Recession
What is the opportunity and the challenge for the church?
Our newest resource, Responding to Recession, is designed to help your church sustain its ministry and discern people's needs in this economic climate. The first article is an interview with Kevin McBride, who pastors Raymond (NH) Baptist Church and...
Leadership editor Skye Jethani is visiting over 20 blogs today to talk about his book The Divine Commodity. In it, Skye interacts with both consumerism's grip on American culture as well as the artwork and life of Vincent van...
Tags used in this post:
consumerism, culture,
The first time I heard someone use the word "missional" I was confused. I knew about missions and missionaries, but missional? That was a new one for me. Even as I type this post, "missional" is underlined by a...
March 23, 2009
Small Churches Need a Brand Revival
One answer to our question about how small churches are perceived.
After the presidential election, I read a lot about the Republican "brand." Nearly every living pundit was talking about how the Republicans needed to repair the damage the election had done to it. The word "brand," of course, is...
Tags used in this post:
church attendance, culture, leadership, small church, vision,
There was a time when atheist literature was generally confined to cumbersome college textbooks and dusty classics by David Hume, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Bertrand Russell. How times have changed! Visit your local bookstore and you'll encounter a raft of...
March 6, 2009
Book Corner: Learning from Edwards and Whitefield
What do these 18th-century preachers tell us about our world?
It's important to know where you came from. Here are two biographies I've read in the past few months that I think will encourage you and give you insights into why we do the things we do. The first...
Tags used in this post:
book corner, culture, evangelicalism, history,
March 5, 2009
Porn Okay, Except on Sunday?
Christians aren't committing themselves to sexual purity.
Do Christians buy less online pornography than non-believers? The Associated Baptist Press reports on a recent study suggesting "no"—except, that is, on Sundays. Harvard Business School professor Benjamin Edelman took the zip codes of subscribers to a top-ten porn...
Tags used in this post:
culture, pornography, sexual purity,
February 27, 2009
3 Questions for Lynne Baab
How can churches be smarter with websites, brochures, and other visual media?
Technology is like a teenager: rapidly changing, sometimes frustrating, and full of potential. Lynne Baab, a lecturer in pastoral theology at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, is interested in helping the church and technology get along....
Tags used in this post:
3 questions, culture, images, technology,
February 23, 2009
A Window into Short-Term Missions
Use this new curriculum to prepare your short-term team.
Is your church planning any short-term missions trips for this summer? Round Trip tells the story of two sister churches—one in Nairobi, the other in Chapel Hill—that are committed to opening themselves up to God and his work in...
February 11, 2009
Explainer: The Emerging Church
Some common characteristics of this "conversation."
If you travel in evangelical circles, you've likely heard talk of the "emerging church." But you still might be confused. What exactly is the emerging church? Here's my best attempt to describe a notoriously hard-to-define phenomenon. But first I...
Tags used in this post:
culture, emerging, explainer, postmodernism,
Earlier today I stumbled across a fascinating set of four images—posted here—that were created by The Glue Society, a creative collective. The pictures mimic the satellite photography found on Google Earth and elsewhere, imagining what certain events from the...
Tags used in this post:
culture, images, imagination, reading, technology,
It seems like it is taking my wife and me a long time getting to know each other's parents. I blame cell phones. If Amy's family wants to talk to her, they call her phone; if my parents want...
Tags used in this post:
book corner, culture, technology,
January 30, 2009
BlogSpotting: Internet Monk Predicts Evangelical Collapse!
Causes said to include culture clashes and generational shift.
Prominent blogger Michael Spencer, a.k.a. the Internet Monk, believes "we are on the verge—within 10 years—of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity." Within two generations, says Spencer, the number of evangelicals will be cut in half, and we'll find...
Tags used in this post:
blogspotting, culture, evangelicalism, money,
Note: "Explainer" is our newest addition to the series of features on Off the Agenda. Here editor Drew Dyck will tackle current ideas, movements, or whatever else people are talking about. He doesn't claim to be the definitive expert...
Tags used in this post:
culture, explainer, postmodernism,
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