new york city

Keller on Church: Four Fronts & Three Goals

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Keller City Street

In Tim Keller's book, Center Church, he discusses four ministry fronts...

  1. Connecting People to God (through evangelism and worship)
  2. Connecting People to One Another (through community and discipleship)
  3. Connecting People to the City (through mercy and justice)
  4. Connecting People to the Culture (through the integration of faith and work)

Center Church, pg 293

In the same section Keller explains three goals of ministry and their comprehensive scope as taught by Edmund Clowney...

In his biblical-theological work on the church, Clowney speaks of the biblical "goals of ministry" as threefold: (1) we are called to minister and serve God through worship (Rom 15:8-16; 1 Pet 2:9); (2) we are to minister and serve one another through Christian nurture (Eph 4:12-26); and (3) we are to minister and serve the world through witness (Matt 28:18-20; Luke 24:28; Acts 5:32).

Center Church, pg 294

I reproduce these here simply because they are ringing in my ears as I rework some of the groundwork of my church. Keller does such an excellent job keeping things simple, and yet puts them in one of the great new books on the complexities of church and ministry in our day. This is Keller's great service to the church. If you don't have Center Church, get it (WTS | Amazon | Kindle).

If you have a nice, short list like some Keller gives to explain the church, I'd love to see some in the comments. Or feel free to blog about it and share a link here. 

Also, please check out my Tim Keller Resources page.

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Tim Keller: "Losing My Religion" Open Forum

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Keller open forum

If you want to listen to what Tim Keller does when he holds Open Forums for non-Christians, skeptics, seekers, etc...listen to "Losing My Religion: Why Christians Should Drop Their Religion." Redeemer has audio from 44 Open Forums, though I haven't checked if audio for others is offered free like this one. MP3s are typically $2.50, but this one is free.

I listened today. Instructive for us as missionaries and preachers, evangelists and apologists, disciples and strugglers with religiosity. He confronts religion, truths, psychology, philosophy, and truth-claims respectfully, yet still directly. 

How can we as pastors and ministers speak to our city, our culture, with intellect, wisdom, courage, and charity? Keller's example helps me, and I hope it will help you too.

Tim Keller: Dealing With Evil

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Keller

Tim Keller on how liberals and conservatives deal with the reality of evil in his sermon on Spiritual Warfare...

The Gospel is the only approach that truly is not simplistic, that looks at the messed up families, looks at messed up hearts, looks at messed up neighborhoods and says, "There's biological problems, there's sociological problems, there's psychological problems, there's moral problems, there's spiritual problems, there's demonological problems...we're going to look at all of those things, we're going to deal with all of them. All of them!" ... Until you embrace the Christian understanding of evil, you are reductionistic, you are simplistic. You'll either make the liberal mistake of underestimating cosmic evil, or the conservative mistake, frankly sometimes of just saying we can't do a thing.

Challies Reviews Keller's The Meaning of Marriage

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Meaning of Marriage

Tim Challies provides an excellent review of Tim Keller's newest book, The Meaning of Marriage. Below is his strong conclusion, but go and read the whole review and buy the book.

This is a powerful book; it is my new favorite book on marriage and the best of all the books I read in 2011. The Meaning of Marriage elevates marriage, making it something beautiful and holy and lovely. And with it comes friendship and companionship and sex and everything else God has packaged into the marriage relationship. This book celebrates it all and it does it within the greatest context of all—the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Having read the book through two times, I’ve found myself wondering how to best measure or evaluate it, but perhaps these criteria are useful: Would I want to read it with my wife or would I encourage her to read it on her own? Would I recommend it to the people in my church? In both cases the answer is an unreserved yes. In fact, I bought the audio book and listened to it with my wife and her assessment is the same as mine: Though there are many great books on marriage, this is the one we will recommend first.

Tim Keller | The Meaning of Marriage Q&A

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Meaningofmarriage

Karen Swallow Prior interviews Tim Keller on his new book, The Meaning of Marriage. A blurb...

What does your book contributes to the conversation about marriage that other books have not?

It's not simply a how-to manual. Many Christian marriage books are "here's how to work on your problems." On the other hand, the book is not just theological on "here's the biblical view of marriage." The most recent and the best-selling Christian books on marriage from the last few years were either theological, polemical, or absolutely practical. This is a combination of those.  Most books I know on the subject recently have not been written by pastors; they've been written by counselors or theologians or people like that. This book was originally a series of sermons. When you preach, the sermon usually goes from the theological to the more polemical and into the practical.

Read the entire interview.

Support NYC Mission | VBS Offering

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My friend, Freddy Wyatt, leads Gallery Church in New York City. Is your church doing the 2011 Big Apple Adventure Vacation Bible School? You can support this new work in NYC through your VBS Missions Offering. Would love if some of my readers' churches could help out this good brother and good work in the Big Apple! Check out their videos, starting with the one below...