The Less We Use This, the More Relevant It Will Become.
I predict that the Bible is going to increase in its relevance in the near future. To explain, I’d like to tell two boat stories. Boat #1 – A Disposable Raft The founder of Buddhism was a man named Gautama who found enlightenment. He then gathered together a group of monks and nuns to help...
Daniel McCoy
Disciple Making Shift #5 – From Competing Goals to One End Goal
This article on shifting to a singular end goal is Part 5 in a 5-Part series on Jesus-style disciple making. Here’s the Intro, Shift #1, #2, #3, and #4. In our final article, we arrive at question 3: What is Our End Goal? Once again, here’s the passage we’ve been going through: “All authority in heaven and...
Preston Conder
Lessons from the Church in Eastern Canada: Get Creative
*Editor’s Note: Tim Cook is a RENEW.org regional director in Nova Scotia, Canada. As a church planter in a heavily post-Christian context, he has much to teach us all about how to keep focus and maintain joy despite societal shifts away from Christianity. I recently caught up with Tim and picked his brain about making...
Tim Cook
Youth Suicide Prevention: Risk and Response
Once you confirm that a young person is at risk, you must act immediately. Dr. Paul Quinnett has designed a very simple, but very effective, procedure to follow if you believe someone may be suicidal. The procedure is referred to as “QPR: Ask a Question—Save a Life.”[1] The initials QPR stand for: Question, Persuade, and...
Gary Zustiak
End Times: Five Essentials and Five Views
We at RENEW.org believe that Jesus is coming back to earth in order to bring this age to an end. Jesus will reward the saved and punish the wicked, and finally destroy God’s last enemy, death (1 Cor. 15:26). He will put all things under the Father, so that God may be all in all...
Bobby Harrington
Letter to Someone Struggling with an Anxious Heart
I am writing to you from the midst of my own struggle with an anxious heart in the hope that God can use what I’ve learned to help you. We are in a season that many of us have never experienced before. Some of us were already struggling in some form or fashion and the...
Holli Turner
Lessons from the Church in Eastern Canada: Success in a Post-Christian World
*Editor’s Note: Tim Cook is a RENEW.org regional director in Nova Scotia, Canada. As a church planter in a heavily post-Christian context, he has much to teach us all about how to keep focus and maintain joy despite societal shifts away from Christianity. I recently caught up with Tim and picked his brain about making...
Tim Cook
Worship Leader Q&A: Can I Worship God in My PJ’s?
*Editor’s Note: Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many churches found themselves needing to livestream church services for weeks and months at a time. Entire church staffs worked hard to make this happen, but for many churches a tremendous weight of responsibility fell on the worship minister. I was able to recently catch up with four...
Disciple Making Shift #4 – From Teaching Information to Teaching Obedience
This article on shifting to teaching obedience is Part 4 in a series on Jesus-style disciple making. Here’s the Intro, Shift #1, #2, and #3. We teach information. We preach inspiring sermons with information. We teach Bible classes with information in original languages. We sit in our homes for organic conversations discussing how we feel...
Preston Conder
Youth Suicide Prevention: Dos and Don’ts
Most of the crisis intervention experts will maintain that in approximately 80% of all suicide attempts, the person who took their life gave definite, identifiable clues as to their intention. With this insight, youth workers can take a significant step towards suicide prevention by learning the warning signs. The concerned youth worker needs to be...
Gary Zustiak
Disciple Making Shift #3 – From Professionals to Everyone Reaching the Lost
In our last post, we discovered the second shift to Jesus-style disciple making: from going to church to going to lost people. In this post, we’re going to discover Shift #3. And whereas the first shift asked, Who are we? here, we continue exploring the question, How do we live? As disciples of Jesus, we...
Preston Conder
6 Lies That Sink Marriages
At RENEW.org, we want to encourage faithful, healthy marriages. Decaying marriages can often be directly traced back to a lie that someone believed to be true. Here are six common lies which—if you find yourself buying into them—can sink your marriage. #1 – The grass is greener on the other side of the fence. This...
When the Foundations Are Being Destroyed
An Axios-Ipsos poll this week found that 79% of people surveyed say that America is falling apart, a view shared by a fairly equal number of Democrats and Republicans. According to Mike Allen at Axios, this pessimism “reflects the collision of crises besetting the country – the backdrop of a pandemic, recession, decoupling of red/blue...
Matt Stafford
Disciple Making Shift #2 – From Going to Church to Going to Lost People
In our last post, we discovered the first shift to Jesus-style disciple making: from seeing our identity as church members to seeing our identity as disciple makers. In this post, we’re going to discover Shift 2. And whereas the first shift asked, Who are we? Shift #2 explores the question, How do we live? Let’s reread...
Preston Conder
Losing My Faith…in Progressive Christianity (Part 1)
This is Part 1 in a series on leaving progressive Christianity by Dave Stovall, worship leader and former lead singer of Wavorly and band member of Audio Adrenaline. He describes how his journey into progressive Christianity left him dissatisfied and how he found the road to a more sustainable, faithful faith. Here’s Part 2 and...
Dave Stovall
Disciple Making Shift #1: From Church Members to Disciple Makers
Here’s the introduction to this series on 5 shifts to return to Jesus-style disciple making. First, here’s our problem: We want to make disciples but we have a problem. We aren’t making disciples who make disciples. Thankfully, we have a guide. We have someone who can teach us: the Master Disciple Maker, Jesus. Here’s Jesus’...
Preston Conder