Articles for tag: Cultural Exegesis

July 1, 2023

Spiritual Formation 101: Three Guidelines for Meeting Our Moment

By Tyler McKenzie Spiritual formation has become a buzz phrase. It sounds sophisticated, all the influencers use it, and it’s a way to signal my friends that I am one of those neo-monastic types who reads poetry and welcomes strangers into my home. But what does it actually mean, and why does it matter? I believe this is an important discussion in our cultural environment. A spiritual formation mindset can help us reframe the discipleship conversations we are having in our churches to meet our moment. When I’m asked to talk about spiritual formation, I boil it down to three

June 19, 2017

Christian Standard

Church & Ministry Church Growth

Large Church . . . Small Town?

By Jim Estep It”s easy to understand why small towns have small churches. We can visit a town of 3,500 and find several congregations with fewer than 100 people in each. In fact, some would say that small towns like small churches. Bristow, Iowa, for example (population 160), boasts of having “The Smallest Church in Iowa.” One can readily explain a large church being in a large city. Finding a church of 1,000 in a city of 200,000 people””that”s reasonable. Most megachurches are in “mega” cities. But, what happens when we encounter a church of 1,200 in a town with

February 27, 2016

Christian Standard

Book Reviews Reviews

Finding the Right Answers

By Matt Johnson Everyday Theology, as its subtitle promises, tells us How to Read Cultural Texts andÂ Interpret Trends.Â How does your faith speak to human rights, pop music, or designer funerals? Is there any benefit to buying a ticket for the latest Hollywood blockbuster? When should we embrace the hurry of modern American culture, and when should we slow down? What does the proliferation of the blogosphere mean to our culture and the church? Complicated questions have complicated answers, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something less than the gospel. So I appreciated Everyday Theology (Grand Rapids: