Theology on Mission

In the aftermath of the Ashley Madison hack, churches begin picking up the pieces after their pastors fall. But David Fitch and Geoff Holsclaw ask, "What should have been happening BEFORE these pastoral scandals happen?" They talk about the need for evangelicals to have a more robust understanding and process of sanctification, not just for pastors, but for everyone.

A worship "experience"? A time for "teaching"? Is the time on Sundays for our heads or our hearts, or something else? Fitch and Holsclaw talk cast a different vision for the worship gathering as a time of corporate spiritual formation.

What is leadership? And how does it look in the church? Beyond Hierarchy (one on top) and Democracy (all on bottom) is a Spirit-guided leadership through gifts and calling. Fitch and Holsclaw discuss the theological and personal reasons we tend toward unhealthy leadership structures, the difference between vision-casting and consensus-building, and the foundations of being led in Christ by the Spirit.

Check out "The Mission of Preaching", Missional Learning Commons on Nov. 6-7 (http://guestli.st/344433). In an image driven culture, why do we still have sermons? What good can a Sunday sermon have when everyone is bombarded by other messages all week long? What is preaching for anyway? David Fitch and Geoff Holsclaw talk about what preaching is and how the "imagination" is essential for it.

Worldwide, the victims of oppressive patriarchy are not just women, but men too. Carolyn Custis James, author of "Malestrom: Manhood swept into the Currents of a Changing World", sits down with Geoff Holsclaw to discuss the challenges of being a man in the 21st century.

How should the church relate to culture? What is 'culture' for that matter? And is power a bad thing? Dave and Geoff talk about different ways of thinking about church and culture(s), from H. Richard Niebuhr to James Davison Hunter, and why this matters to the local church.

Even if the Bible is inerrant, who is going to interpret it? And how? These and other questions are tackled by Fitch and Holsclaw in this new episode. Beyond a book of facts or a library of experiences, beyond the conservative/progressive divide, God speaks to us through Scripture, interpreting us as we try to interpret it.

Is being "missional" merely adding something to "church", something like justice? Geoff and Dave discuss how adding a "justice" ministry, but keeping everything about your church the same, is not missional and doesn't help much with justice as Jesus knows it. Justice is too relational to be a program added to a church.

Deepening the previous episode on moving beyond the conservative/progressive divide, Geoff Holsclaw and David Fitch talk about the "Gospel" beyond personal vs. social salvation, beyond getting to heaven vs saving the earth. The Gospel is not a plan of salvation, but the PERSON who saves, Jesus, the Son of God. And this changes everything.

“A justification for our own sorry existence as evangelicals.” Or, why they don’t fit in anywhere. Dave Fitch and Geoff Holsclaw make a first attempt at articulating another way, a third way, for theology and mission for evangelicals, beyond the conservative/progressive dichotomy. Dave and Geoff talk about some historical roots for this dichotomy and hint toward an alternative life in community. The next two episodes will flesh out this third way farther by exploring the topics of “Gospel” and then “Scripture”, showing how our theological commitments make a really missional difference (subscribe so you don’t miss them). If you don’t fit in as an conservative evangelical, but don’t feel drawn to progressive framework, then check out this episode.