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Responses to our May issue.

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A Border Runs Through It

Encouraging to see believers who understand immigration and border issues are not black and white and are doing God’s work in the middle of it!

@EdTechSandyK

“Every teenager I’ve ever walked with is navigating the fallout of this broken world” . . . that is a concept worth some serious consideration.

Annette Johnson

Refocusing on the Great Commission

There may be some problems with the idea of using terms like unreached or unengaged. But the concepts and the actual research to identify those who have not had an opportunity to hear the gospel or who do not have a viable witness has been immensely helpful.

Dave Hyatt

Repenting of Identity Politics

Agree professing Christians should repent of their Christian nationalism. But I don’t fully equate identity politics with Christian nationalism. Just white identity politics. Civil rights aren’t GIVEN to minorities. Minorities demand them. That happens through some form of identity politics.

@socofthesacred

As one brought up in the evangelical tradition who has been utterly baffled and saddened by the severe nationalistic and anti-immigration positions of others who claim to follow after Christ, “Repenting of Identity Politics” clearly states what in my view is wholly consistent with Holy Scripture and the kingdom-building our Lord Jesus taught and modeled. Thanks for your boldness, unmistakable conviction, and the call for repentance. Indeed, God forgive us.

Patricia Long Canton, OH

Christian nationalism is a non-sequitur. There is no such thing. Anyone who joins Christianity with nationalism has already abandoned the former in favor of the latter.

Christopher Adams

Small Groups Anonymous

I require every student in my high school leadership class to attend an AA meeting. While extremely hesitant at first, they come back and proclaim how much they loved attending and why can’t every interaction they have be that genuine and authentic. As technology-addicted young people, they yearn for this type of openness and transparency. Dunnington presents the key aspects of AA in a pragmatic, practical, and concise manner. I too have always yearned to be part of a small group that mimics the environment of an AA meeting, while at the same time I appreciated the honest self-reflection as he ends the article. Once the church reflects the intentionality of AA, its buildings will be standing-room only, just what Jesus wanted.

Rafe Vecere Columbus, NJ

John Wesley’s small “bands” in the early days of the Methodist movement filled this role. In today’s society, the kind of interpersonal trust necessary for such groups to survive in the local church has been lost. People do not want to share deep things in these groups for fear it will end up on the church grapevine or as a sermon illustration.

Mike Stidham

This article shows disturbingly deep insight into the reasons that our home groups generally fail to be radically transformative. This bears much examination and discussion among Christians who are serious about seeing their own lives and the lives of others demonstrably transformed by God’s grace. I will never think about home groups the same way again.

Alan House Spring, TX

As a member of Celebrate Recovery, I can personally attest to the rigorous honesty and true fellowship that occurs in 12-step meetings. People are free to be real and flawed without judgment.

Rich Rodriguez

We Set Off to Reach a Remote Amazon Tribe

I loved how the story shows the missionaries’ obedience was met with God’s providing for them and blessing the people they came to serve by allowing them to serve the missionaries. He knows what we need. All of us—if we just trust him.

Carol Rollo Pensacola, FL

Telling the Wrong Poverty Story

As a worker in an inner-city church, is my job to help lift people out of poverty and help them have money or is it to do life together with them and lead them to abundant life in relationship with Jesus? I was challenged that I have been measuring ministry success by the economic gains that people make, when maybe that should never have been the goal in the first place.

Pauline Dillman Benner

Also in this issue

Seattle business professors Bruce Baker and Tom Parks make the case for a larger dream: that gleaning can not only create space for society's economically marginalized groups but, in doing so, it can also transform the lives of those with economic and cultural power.

Cover Story

The Book of Ruth Can Transform the Way We Do Business Today

Bruce Baker and Tom Parks

Is the World’s Next Missions Movement in Ethiopia?

Jack Bryan

News

Why Muslims Love Mary

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The Key to This Church Planting Network’s Success? Start Big, Stay Big

News

Gleanings: July/August 2019

Staff

When Christians Don’t Get a Second Chance

Bekah McNeel in Detroit

I Befriended Bart Ehrman by Debating Him

Michael R. Licona

Faith Like an Olive Tree

What Billy Graham Taught Me

Our July/August Issue: No Shadow Unlit

Editorial

True Doctrine Doesn’t Wait

Sometimes, God Wants You to Go with Your Gut

John Koessler

Testimony

Meeting Jesus as a Black Woman in a White City

Kim Cash Tate

Paul Says to ‘Be Filled with the Spirit.’ How Do We Obey a Passive Verb?

Proving That God Exists Without Opening a Bible

Interview by Lydia McGrew

A New Recipe for Ending Hunger

Interview by Katie Thompson

Review

The Nazis Persecuted Him. The Soviets Killed Him. Today He’s Barely Known.

Christopher Gehrz

Review

Celibate Gay Christians: Neither Shockingly Conservative nor Worryingly Liberal

Ed Shaw

New & Noteworthy Books

Matt Reynolds

Excerpt

The Apostles Never ‘Shared’ the Gospel, and Neither Should We

Elliot Clark

Excerpt

Praising God with Our Testimonies

Scott W. Sunquist

News

Who Needs Those TPS Reports? Venezuelan Christians

Bekah McNeel

News

Are Christians Too Confident in Their Churches’ Response to Abuse?

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A Rhythm of Silence and Solitude

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Fresh Lifeway research shows Latino pastors are reaching new people and helping members navigate anxiety about immigration enforcement.

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