Rural Ministry in Conversation:
An Interview with the Authors

We had a video call with the three pastors whose books were featured in this symposium on the rural church. Our conversation highlighted themes that arose in the series, things like: misconceptions of rural society, the nature of abiding, success in ministry, and the gifts that the rural church can offer to the wider church….
For the Sake of Effective Ministry: A Rejoinder

Well, this is a very encouraging development for small-town ministry and for all who long to enliven, enrichen, and extend it through reflection and discussion about its theology and praxis. When did you last see a book on rural ministry (let alone two books on rural ministry) receiving extended critique from top-notch practitioners and scholars?…
Good News for Small Places:
Introducing A Big Gospel

Ministry in urban areas has been heavily prioritized in recent years. Partly in response to this, Stephen Witmer’s A Big Gospel in Small Places: Why Ministry in Forgotten Communities Matters provides a theological framework for ministry in smaller/rural areas. Witmer doesn’t suggest that such ministry is more important than urban or suburban ministry, or that…
Abiding in Departure

On a Saturday evening at the end of July, I found myself preaching at a congregation so rural that Google Maps couldn’t tell me how to get there. This small white-framed church was part of a tri-point parish. They were currently without a pastor and were at the mercy of other pastors nearby to fill…
Reflections on Miraculous Divine Activity by a Christian Anthropologist

Christians understand God to work in various ways. God created and sustains the universe, an ordered universe. The fact that gravity works in consistent, rather than capricious, ways is God’s good gift. As with sunshine and rain (Mt. 5:45), gravity is given through providence both to the just and unjust. When, through science, we study…
Cultural Worldview and Spiritual Dynamics

The topic to be discussed in the present Areopagite is quite intriguing: why do Christians outside the West experience God’s miraculous activities more than Western Christians? This question can be crucial to understanding the quintessence of Christian faith. Before trying to answer it, I would like to define the popular word “miracle” first in light…
The Sacraments: Lord’s Supper

The reformers rejected the sacramental doctrine that many of them inherited from the Roman Catholic Church, which taught that the elements of the ceremony infused grace into the recipient, working independent of their faith, or lack of faith. Instead, Reformed theologians such as Zurich pastor Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531) taught that the sacrament was the sign…
On Harmonizing Science and Scripture

Can Science and Scripture be Harmonized? The past history of a question often reveals it to be more complicated than we first imagined. So it is with the seemingly simple idea of fitting together, or “harmonizing,” the truths of science with the truths of scripture. Three Options for Harmonizing “All truth is God’s truth,” we rightly…
Elder Affirmations about Creation & Evolution

In a previous post I mentioned that I drafted an “Elder Affirmations about Creation & Evolution” to articulate for the leadership of our church a set of convictions that we share in common and that might provide an outline for a teaching position for our church. I received several inquiries about this document and thus…
Members of a Lively Tradition

As our Reformation Commentary feature nears the end of the Historical Books series, Sapientia asked Derek Cooper and Martin Lohrmann, editors of our source volume, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, 1-2 Chronicles (published by InterVarsity in April), a few questions about working on the project. Martin Lohrmann, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Lutheran Confessions and Heritage at Wartburg Theological Seminary….
To Be Fishers of People

Johann Spangenberg (1484–1550), a Lutheran pastor, authored one of the best selling postils1 of the sixteenth century, the Postilla Teütsch, which helped to prepare children to understand the lectionary readings. In this post on Luke 5:1-11 for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity, Spangenberg asserts that Christ’s words penetrated the hearts of the disciples—not merely their…
David Takes Refuge in God

John Calvin (1509–1564) knew suffering. He was an outlaw in his beloved France; the magistrates of Geneva exiled him—only to beg him to return to “that cross on which I should have to die a thousand times each day.” His son died in infancy. He was a widower. And throughout the course of his career…