Evangelism
Why does the word evangelism make so many mainline Christians anxious? Raymond Hylton turns to the Great Commission in Galilee, arguing that witness rests on Christ’s authority, not on our management of outcomes.
Category
Discipleship
70 articles from 60 issues, 1995 to 2026
The Good Deposit of the Gospel
Reflecting on Paul’s final letter, Douglas Pratt traces the word “entrust” in 2 Timothy and asks whether the church is investing in the next generation of pastors and leaders to whom the gospel will be handed on.
Perseverance
Spiritual autobiographies remind us how the Spirit sustains faith through the long road. Drawing on Schweitzer, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Douglas F. Fletcher names ten weapons against evil and reflects on perseverance as a gift God himself secures.
A Devotional Reflection on George Herbert’s Poem, Love III
Herbert's most famous poem stages a soul drawing back from divine love and the patient persistence with which Love draws it forward anyway. McDonald reads the poem alongside Herbert's pastoral writings, finding the same Reformed conviction running through both: only refusal can shut us out.
Living East of Eden – Pastoral Reflections on How Theology Matters
Miller takes Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi as the question that follows every pastor home: who do you say that I am? A conference address mixing personal story with theological seriousness, reflecting on living and ministering east of Eden, between hell's gates and the keys of the kingdom.
The Foundation of Our Calling
Burnett opens Ephesians 1 and finds Paul piling blessing on blessing: chosen before the foundation of the world, predestined in love, sealed for an inheritance. The piece sits with the dizzying generosity of Paul's grammar and asks what it means that our calling is grounded that deep.
Encouragement for the Journey
Parish ministry is one of the most demanding journeys a person can take. Ray writes to encourage those discerning the call, and the older ministers who tend them, with a reminder that the calling is never private: it is always the church's gift to one of its own.
Spiritual Friendship – The Evangelical Brotherhood in Colonial America
Princeton was founded in 1746 by a group of Presbyterian clergy and laymen bound together by what they called spiritual friendship. Longfield traces that brotherhood through Belcher and Edwards into the eighteenth-century awakening, and asks what kept the network theologically coherent across distance and time.
“That’s The Spirit!” Or, What Exactly Does Spiritual Formation Form?
Pastors run spiritual formation programs without often pausing to ask what 'spirit' actually means. Vanhoozer treats that question as a load-bearing one for ministry: what we think the human spirit is shapes everything we do to form it. He follows the biblical words to a working answer.
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.
Six Observations about Presbyterian Theological Education: The View from My Window
Forty years into ministry, Bullock offers six observations about how Presbyterians have trained their pastors and where the model has thinned out. Stewardship of time, the witness of unlikely converts, and the irreplaceability of mentors all show up on his list.
Theological Mystery of Words
Ray opens with himself as a fifteen-year-old on a weather-beaten ship bound for Austria, the journey on which he first noticed how much words could carry. The piece works toward a theology of language: words as one of the gifts that lets us think God's thoughts after him.