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Foster: The problem today is that evangelism has reached the point of diminishing returns. I talk with people and they say, "What am I to be converted to? I look at Christians and statistically they aren't any different." You want to be able to point to people who are really different. Willard: … and people who are running a bank or a school, or functioning in government, maybe even in the military. What we need is more examples of people who actually have character that is Christlike. Isaiah brought up this problem of people whose lips are "near me" but...

I never thought I'd listen to Marilyn Manson. Last night I did. It happened while I was driving my friend Lena to her house. Lena is a high school senior and 10 years younger than me, but we're still friends. I didn't set out to disciple someone, but when I met Lena five years ago something clicked. God put her on my heart. We began getting together once a week to work out at the Y and then go to Starbucks to replace every calorie. After a year, we quit the Y but continued our weekly visits to Starbucks. Over...

Radio evangelist Chuck Baldwin, WorldNetDaily, and Whistleblower magazine have recently revisited findings by Christian opinion researcher George Barna that only 9% of born-again Christians have a Biblical perspective on life. “The problem with America’s Christianity today is that, for the most part, it doesn’t exist!” Baldwin said, in a June 1 broadcast. We should revisit these figures too. They first appeared in a Barna Update December 1, 2003: “A Biblical Worldview Has a Radical Effect on a Person’s Life.”[1] Barna defined a Biblical worldview as belief in eight propositions: Absolute moral truths exist. The Bible defines moral truth. Jesus Christ...

“Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, God will honor.” Jesus (John 12:26) In July, 2002, Dallas Willard spoke at the Washington, D.C. Servant Leadership School. In conversation over lunch one day, Gordon Cosby asked Dallas, “Why do churches and ministries so often lose the essence of their founding vision, to the point that the resulting institution, years later, is quite unlike the original dream? What happens along the way?” This essay is Dallas’s response to that question. We are grateful to him for his gift of words...

To Abide or To Abound? The disciple's dilemma: sit at His feet or serve in His name? By John Ortberg My daughter Mallory loves Greek mythology. I once bet her that she did not know the twelve tasks of Hercules off the top of her head. I lost. One of her favorite parts of The Odyssey is when Odysseus navigates a narrow passage with a lethal rock on one side and a fatal whirlpool on the other. Steering between Scylla and Charybdis has been part of our vocabulary ever since. In pastoral ministry I have my own Scylla and Charybdis...

If we are Christians simply by believing that Jesus died for our sins, then that is all it takes to have sins forgiven and go to heaven when we die. Why, then, do some people keep insisting that something more than this is desirable? Lordship, discipleship, spiritual formation, and the like? What more could one want than to be sure of their eternal destiny and enjoy life among others who profess the same faith as they do. Of course everyone wants to be a good person. But that does not require that you actually do what Jesus himself said and...

Interviewed by Andy Peck for Christianity + Renewal magazine, a United Kingdom publication, May 2002. Kingdom Living AP: In your first book, Spirit of the Disciplines, you pose the question "are we disciples of Jesus or merely Christians by modern standards?" Clearly you are concerned about the state of discipleship in the American Church. What alarms you most? DW: That the issue of discipleship is thought of as totally irrelevant to being a Christian which carries over to obedience to Christ’s teaching. The basic question ‘will I obey Christ ’s teaching?’ is rarely taken as a serious issue. For example,...

SUBVERSIVE INTERVIEW - DALLAS WILLARD PART 1 Dallas Willard has spent the best part of his life getting down to business. That has meant stepping down from a pastorate involved in trying to attract people to his church, and immersing himself into the culture around him armed only with a Bible and a desire to make his faith more real. Having spent over 30 years as a professor of Philosophy at USC, Willard has become known as something of a controversial figure in Christian circles. Not for any overtly radical teachings or practices, but simply because of his call for...

Nothing to lose With no eternal risk, Christians are called to continual temporal riskBy John PiperLast month President Bush reflected on the national effect of 9/11. "We are a different nation today—sadder and stronger, less innocent and more courageous, more appreciative of life, and for many who serve our country, more willing to risk life in a great cause." Yes, and how much more true for those who are Christians first and Americans second? They serve the greatest cause in history, spreading allegiance to Jesus Christ for the joy of all people. Missionary Martin Burnham, dying in the Philippines, last...

Over the course of Church history change within the Church has been a slow and at times agonizingly slow, process. Despite the great strides the Church has made since the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in 1517 A.D. in ridding false teaching, more yet remains. And, false doctrine is far from being the innocuous matter it is veiwed as being by many professing believers today. Erroneous, that is to say, unbiblical, teaching or doctrine, though it is rarely seen as such, is in fact spiritual idolatry. Unfortunately, the prevailing attitude today in many sectors of Churchdom is that sound doctrine...

Discipline Is The Only Way To FreedomBy Dr. Douglas A. Rehberg, Senior Pastor, Hebron U.P. Church, Pittsburgh, PAEnglish journalist and author, G.K. Chesterton once wrote, "Christianity has not so much been tried and found wanting as it has been found difficult and left untried." When one looks around the church of Jesus Christ these days, one sees the truth of these words.I am continually running into people who wish that they were more mature in their faith, more understanding of the Scriptures, more pious in their behavior. But what they don't realize is their unsatisfactory state is the result...