Browse articles on various topics below.
The missional church movement has significantly influenced the evangelical church in recent years, especially their philosophy of evangelism and worship (see my recent series on… Read More »The Missional Church and Culture
Last October I wrapped up my eight-part series on Biblical discernment (parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and 8), and I thought I would now, in retrospect, add a brief postscript… Read More »A postscript on Biblical discernment
“Being real” is all the rage in Christianity now, and some folks are sure that no one had thought of it before they did. As… Read More »Sincerity or Profanity?
In a striking work published a century ago the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce pointed to a radical distinction, as he saw it, between art properly… Read More »Worship: Effective or Affective
“Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!”—Phillips Brooks. That there were in the world multiplied millions who had never heard of Christmas did not matter to our poet… Read More »Christmas Thought from Tozer
There is little doubt that the missional church movement has been influential in evangelical churches, and that it continues to grow. Having surveyed the history… Read More »The Good and the Bad of Missional Worship
Paul Gerhardt (1606-1676) is regarded by some as Germany’s greatest hymn writer. His near-absence from many modern hymnals surely stands as testimony to our chronological… Read More »Lesser-Known Incarnation Hymnody – 2
With regard to the missional movement’s understanding of Christendom, it is important to recognize that they saw what happened during this period as little more… Read More »The Incarnational Mode of Missional Worship
Some of us deeply appreciate A.W. Tozer’s writings on, well, just about anything. Tozer also wrote some poetry, which while not masterful, is a good… Read More »Lesser-Known Incarnation Hymnody
“And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3, ESV). The knowledge of… Read More »Communion with the Triune God by John Owen
According to missional authors, the Christendom model significantly affects how the average 21st century American church practices worship. During the Christendom period, the church dominated… Read More »Twenty-first Century Western Post-Modernism as Missional Worship Context
A while back I stumbled across Charles Wesley’s Christmas hymn, “Glory Be to God on High.” This is a superb text on the incarnation of… Read More »“Glory Be to God on High” by Charles Wesley
In his answer to the first question in this interview, poet and editor Justin Evans advances the idea that it is a sense of… Read More »The Poetry of Ron Rash
Part of the difficulty in attempting to synthesize a philosophy of missional worship is that many different groups have adopted the term missional to describe… Read More »The Missionary Imperative of Missional Worship
This is a brief series recommending good, conservative sacred music recordings. I began the series with several introductory remarks and a list of good albums of… Read More »Recordings: Instrumental Hymns
All cultures and subcultures move through stages, and evangelicalism is, among other things, a distinct subculture of Christianity. In cultural terms, a classical period is… Read More »Why Church Feels The Way It Does
Inherent in the missional church’s insistence upon incarnation and contextualization is the idea that no aspect of culture is inherently sinful, or at very least… Read More »The Missional Philosophy of Culture
I’m writing a brief series recommending different recordings of excellent sacred music in English. Last time I introduced several thoughts and recommended more than a… Read More »Recordings: Choral Psalms
Richard Weaver’s book Ideas Have Consequences is one of the more demanding reads you’ll encounter. I’ll confess it took me more than one reading to begin to… Read More »Unformed Expression
If the “why” of mission is the fact that God sends the church, and if the “where” of mission is post-Christendom Western culture, then for… Read More »The Incarnational Mode of the Missional Church