Getting people to the “next level”

Read part 1 Is Salvational Transactional? Read part 2 Unpacking the Story No one is born with a fully-developed set of values. We’ve seen—through the story of Nicodemus—that as values develop, so does a depth of faith. We use a value development scale to delineate the 5-stage series an individual moves through as they strengthen […]

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Nicodemus : Unpacking the Story

Read part 1 Is Salvational Transactional? I’ve been scrutinizing my epistemology through the lens of Nicodemus and his question of, “what does it mean to be born again?” This is one of the best definitions of born again: When translator Des Oatridge, working in Papua New Guinea, came to the words “born again” in John’s […]

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Nicodemus: Is Salvation transactional?

John 3 is a very familiar passage, but recently it got me thinking about salvation through the character Nicodemus. Nicodemus is best known for being the first to brazenly ask Jesus, “What does it mean to be born again?” A question we ought to be asking ourselves anew today. The phrase born again has devolved […]

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conclusion: be effective

Previous: Connection in ministry In order to prevent losing an entire generation, the Church needs to assert itself and strategize how to be effective in reaching its youth. In our Egypt scenario, there was a dire need to develop a national plan to reach and disciple youth, conduct youth leadership training programs, and ensure collaboration […]

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con· nec· tion

Previous post What we discovered placed us at an operational crossroads. We had to decide whether to simply maintain our ministry using our current programs and products as they were or whether we needed to take steps to overhaul… just about everything. If we committed to an overhaul, that would mean adding a mechanism to […]

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Family and dis·con·nec·tion

In her book Almost Christian, Kenda Creasy Dean reveals that American youth are ‘almost Christian – but perhaps not fully, at least not in terms of theology or practice.’  They are “almost Christian” in that they generally adhere to Christian principles but don’t live out a thought-through faith that affects their day-to-day living. OneHope’s ABY study —which, […]

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