Volume 32 · Issue 1 · Winter 2026
Tag

Ecclesiology

Showing 34 articles
Photo By Alvin Mahmudov On UnsplashTheology

The Greatest Love Story Ever Lived

Cyre traces the wedding scene that runs from Eden through the prophets to Revelation: the Father giving his Bride to the Son, Christ vowing eternal faithfulness to his Church. Every human marriage is an echo of that union, and our identity flows from being part of it.

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A Firm Foundation

A sermon on Matthew 16, where Peter recognizes Jesus as the Christ. Small preaches against the language of dying churches, hearing in Christ's promise to Peter the foundation that no rate of decline can shake: the gates of hell will not prevail against the church Christ is building.

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The Grace of Theological Friendships: Augustine

Augustine is loved for the introspective Confessions, but Andrews argues he was never alone. This chapter follows Augustine's circle in Hippo, his theology of friendship, and the sometimes-uncomfortable question it puts to pastors today: who walks with you, and what are you actually accountable to one another for?

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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.

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Pastoral Ministry and Scholarship

Why insist that pastors be trained as scholars? La Montagne separates the Reformed tradition's actual answer from the modern research-university definition that's quietly replaced it, and shows how the original conception still serves congregations better than the institutional one.

Brett Jordan | UnsplashSuffering

Moses, Death, and the Continuation of Ministry

The Pentateuch ends with Moses dying outside the promised land. Dearman reads that anticlimax theologically, finding in it a pattern: ministry passes from one hand to another, the work continues without us, and the inheritance belongs to those who come next, all by God's design.

Theology

From Christ to Christianity

If we could time-travel to first-century Galilee and look for Jesus, what would we find? Edwards uses the thought experiment to trace the leap from a small itinerant Jewish movement to the church Ignatius wrote to seventy years later, and what survived intact in the transition.

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Why and How Theology Matters

If the church's calling is to be stewards of the mysteries of God, theology is the work that keeps us trustworthy with what's been entrusted. Small unfolds Paul's image and asks what theological stewardship looks like in session meetings, confirmation classes, and Sunday worship.

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Why We Exist

A conference talk from Lorenzo Small on the church's reason for being. Not its programs, not its buildings, not its institutional momentum, but the underlying calling that holds every congregation accountable: the gospel its existence is meant to bear witness to.

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