Volume 32 · Issue 1 · Winter 2026
Theology/
Covenant Theology, Eschatology, Sermon

A Surprising Hope: Barren Wombs and Unexpected Fruitfulness

Billings preaches the biblical pattern of barren wombs becoming the very means by which God brings forth promise, from Sarah through Hannah to Elizabeth. A talk about waiting, hope, and the kind of fruitfulness that resists every category we try to put around it.

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An Invitation to Combat

Ray opens with a Boy Scout sea voyage to Austria as a fifteen-year-old, the moment a curious kid first met big questions. The address builds from that memory toward an invitation: theology as combat in the best sense, the place where serious questions actually get fought through.

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Marriage on Trial

A Q&A summary from Stanton and Maier's book Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting. The piece walks through why no society has allowed a 'suit yourself' approach to family, and what natural marriage between a man and woman accomplishes that nothing else does.

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Reformed Accents

What makes a Reformed church Reformed? Small begins with Peter DeVries's wry novelistic portrait of a Calvinist boyhood and works toward a serious answer: shared Protestant emphases, yes, but with distinctive accents on Scripture, election, the priesthood of all believers, and worship as covenant response.

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Ministry During a Time of Great Change

COVID-era ministry left pastors asking questions they'd never had to ask before. Brown sets the pandemic alongside cultural upheavals over identity, race, and politics, and offers practical reminders for ministry that hold up no matter which kind of change is washing over the room.

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Is Theology Practical?

Three months into pastoral ministry, Nixon noticed that her seminary theology courses turned out to be more practical than the courses labeled 'practical theology.' This conference address asks why, and what congregations lose when academic theology gets quietly dismissed as impractical.

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