A nine-month old brain child concerning Beauty and many of its components is finally done being birthed on a blog.  Come see…

by Paul Burkhart

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In about January of this past year, I received word that seven months from then, in August, I would be giving a message at Epiphany Fellowship on the topic of Beauty, of all things. This terrified me and I immediately began listening to every lecture, reading every article, and checking out every book in the library on the topic to prepare. Then I began working on the manuscript for this message. By the time I finished, I had produced a 43-page manuscript for a 40-minute message.  The message answers several questions: Why we long for Beauty?  What is Beauty? What Things are Beautiful? and How do we respond to Beauty?

The message went really well, but of course, a lot was cut out of the full manuscript for the sake of time. For that reason, a couple of months ago, I started a series on my blog that went through the various sections of the manuscript in bite-sized chunks, so that others could read it. Well, yesterday, three months after the original message was given, I finished that series on my personal blog and I wanted to plug it to the readers of this site. Below, you’ll find a complete directory of the fourteen parts of the series, along with links to the full audio and original manuscript that the message was based upon. I hope this is helpful and edifying to all of you. Be sure to send feedback, as I hope to build this out even more in the future, perhaps into a book-length project. We’ll see. Enjoy.

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by David Schrott

It burns in my soul like few other things. And it has for as long as I can remember. In kindergarten, while all the other boys were afraid of cooties, I was tackling girls on the playground so I could kiss them despite the fact that they did not, for one second, care [...]

Max Lucado, a Christian publishing powerhouse, releases his new book today to millions of struggling Evangelicals needing real theology applied to real problems.  Does this book address that need?
by Paul Burkhart
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Imagine Your Life Without Fear.
That’s the subtitle of Max Lucado’s new book Fearless. A daunting call indeed – sensationalist, even (or that’s the fear, at [...]

Can the classic Five-Points of Calvinism, notorious for inspiring complacency and judgmentalism, actually cause relationships that are gracious, self-sacrificing, and long-suffering?
by Stephen Hess
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[Editor's Note: For those unfamiliar with the historical Five-Points of Calvinism (a.k.a. "TULIP"), click here for a quick guide, or here for a full article on it]
At Chapel time recently (every Tuesday and [...]

Can the common man understand this health care debate? Is there a particularly Christian perspective on health care?  Also, a curious and unexpected memorial to Ted Kennedy.  Read on.
by Paul Burkhart
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Below is a series of illustrations by Dan Roam and Dr. Tony Jones of Digital Roam explaining the current Health Care system and proposed reforms [...]

Given just the “Core Doctrines” of a Church, can we evaluate its true Orthodoxy and faithfulness?
by Paul Burkhart
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Okay, we’re going to a play a little game I like to call “Guess Whose Doctrinal Statement.” I’ll give you the doctrinal statement of a popular American Church and you all try and think whose it is. [...]

Does an ever increasingly secular and post-Christian America necessarily mean a smaller and weaker Evangelical Church?
by Daniel F. Wells
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Christianity is growing numerically around the world! With books such as The Next Christendom and Theology in the Context of World Christianity we are reminded of the work of the Holy Spirit in communions in third-world countries [...]