CHRISTIAN STANDARD”s contributing editors will enjoy their annual retreat January 16-18, a meeting that is a highlight of the year for many of us who attend it.
The discussions each meeting focus on the magazine”s and this website”s content and appearance. What are the topics and who are the writers that must be included in coming issues? Which are the events and trends that our readers want to read more about?
This is all very serious stuff, but in the midst of it there”s plenty of laughter, an abundance of good-natured kidding, and the brand of hilarious true stories that ministers tell best.
Look at our list of contributing editors, and you”ll see that it”s a diverse group. In a committee of just 12 leaders, we”ve managed to recruit men, women, younger, older, and representatives from all over the country and many of the ideological niches that characterize our fellowship. Their varied viewpoints give us invaluable help as we try to provide a ministry that serves the broad range of perspectives and experiences among Christian churches.
A sample of the quality represented by this group popped up on the web in a posting totally independent of CHRISTIAN STANDARD. One of our contributing editors, Jennifer Johnson, posted her interview with Jeff Faull, another of our contributing editors, at her blog, www.seejenwrite.com. The interview had first been written for Reignited, the quarterly publication from Impact Canada, the dynamic ministry led by another of our contributing editors, Jim Tune.
You”ll want to go to Jennifer”s site and read the whole interview. Here are a couple of quotes from Jeff to whet your appetite:
One young leader I talked to recently tried to explain to me some of the reservations he has about the movement. He said his motive was a purist approach to faith and Christianity and that associating with the movement muddied the clarity of that approach. And while I certainly respect his goal, I contend that the principles and DNA of the Restoration Movement provide the biblical and philosophical framework with which to pursue that purity.
With David Platt speaking of the dangers of asking Jesus into your heart, with Francis Chan distancing himself from the sinner”s prayer, with Frank Viola suggesting baptism is the normative New Testament response to Christ, with the ongoing disappearance of denominational loyalty and many churches minimizing their affiliations with their denominations, what should we who have historically championed all of these things do?
I think we are headed to a theology of personal preference rather than biblical authority. [And] I think we are headed to a theology of celebrity evangelicals. There”s more of a desire to be cutting-edge than cutting conviction, and theologically I think that”s dangerous.
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