EWP Talks on Culture: The Context for Transformation

Reprinted from the Oikonomia Network. Our collection of EWP Talks on Culture will help your students understand the social structures that shape them as human beings, for good and for ill, and how we can act to strengthen what is right and challenge what is wrong in those structures. The gospel is not spoken into a vacuum, but into the dynamic world…

Holistic Approaches to Development

Reprinted from the Chalmers Center. Material poverty is complex and not reducible to a single cause. Healthy, sustainable poverty alleviation ministries need to address all five root causes of material poverty – individual brokenness, systemic brokenness, false stories of change, broken and destructive formative practices, and demonic forces. Over the last few weeks, we’ve looked at Ministry Design Principles that contribute…

The Church as Gym

By Pam Tinsley, reprinted from Living God’s Mission. Several months ago, I returned to the gym for the first time since the pandemic started. It wasn’t easy. Not because I was physically incapable of resuming regular exercise, but because working out at the gym was no longer a daily practice. I made excuses not to go. However, as I eased…

The Stories We Live By

Reprinted from Eternity. The Importance of Learning about Worldviews We have just celebrated Easter, such a significant plot twist in the Christian story. It is a key component of the Christian worldview. A friend of mine describes worldviews as “the stories we live by.” I love that definition because it makes it more tangible and less scary. The reality is…

Workplace Discipleship: Free Video Study Series

Reprinted from Workplace 313. Workplace 313 is excited to offer churches and study groups a 12-part series of 18-20-minute videos with Dr. David W. Gill—plus a downloadable Study Guide—on the basics of workplace discipleship (“faith at work”). Our churches help members with the basics of prayer, Bible study, evangelism, and church and family life. But there is usually a gaping hole when…

Guiding Planes for God’s Glory

By Sophie Sanders, reprinted from the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. Shape tracking. Sequential memory. Reactive avoidance. Most of us don’t even know what these words mean, let alone use them in our daily lives. But John Archer does both. He loves his job as a trainee air traffic controller and uses these incredibly specialised skills to direct and divert…

EWP Talks on History: God’s Mighty Works

Reprinted from the Oikonomia Network. Our collection of EWP Talks on History will help your students see that they are part of a much bigger story – the story of the mighty works of God done among us, his people, across the centuries since the coming of the Word and Spirit. From a 4th century witness against slavery to the social witness…

Why We Need Ministry Design Principles

Reprinted from the Chalmers Center. Ministry focused on addressing poverty is fundamentally about promoting change. It’s about helping people and communities move to a better situation than their present one.  Effective poverty alleviation requires us to know where we are trying to go and how we can get there. In other words, we need a “story of change” – or as it…

Going beyond the Sanctuary

By Pam Tinsley, reprinted from Living God’s Mission. “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’” (John 20:21). This verse, from the Gospel reading for the Second Sunday of Easter, has been my earworm this past week. Jesus appears to his disciples after his resurrection as they huddle together…