Last week my wife and I got all of our Christmas shopping done—in one day. This blitzkrieg approach has become a tradition for us. It’s like pulling a tooth; better to have the whole thing out at once. In the evening we treated ourselves to a victory dinner at a restaurant. While savoring my accomplishment and my meal, I watched A Charlie Brown Christmas on the television above the bar. Ah, Christmas in America—spend all day battling the crowds at the mall and have Luke chapter 2 recited to you by a cartoon character at night.

Many have lamented the way our culture has “taken Christ out of Christmas,” and in recent years we’ve heard conservative pundits freak out when retailers wish customers a “Happy Holiday” rather than “Merry…

Last year I met with a team of leaders from my church. Our task: to rethink and rearticulate the guiding values of our congregation. The work was relatively easy. Upon investigation we determined that most of our core values hadn’t shifted. We still believed in the centrality of relationships to ministry, our bent toward creativity, and the importance of participation. But then we came to “excellence.”

To its credit the seeker movement has made church leaders everywhere more sensitive to the presence of non-Christians in our congregations. But, as the epoch of the seeker-church continues to wane, what enduring lessons will we carry with us into the future? Curt Coffield, a worship leader at Shoreline Community Church in Monterey, California, and former worship leader at Willow Creek, notes that newcomers have changed. “People aren’t coming as much to be convinced of the relevance of Christianity as they are coming with a hunger for God.”

As the church moves further away from familiar cultural paradigms, the paradigms that gave rise to seeker-churches, we need to seriously rethink the assumptions behind “seeker-sensitive” ministry.

At my church we are resurrecting the ancient language of hospitality to understand our call…

We live in a dark world. Our hearts long for goodness, beauty, justice, and peace, but they are often hidden behind the shadow cast by evil and sin. This is why preaching is so necessary. Whenever the kingdom of God is proclaimed, it is like a bright burst of light. In those brief moments, the shadows recede and we are given a glimpse of a world behind the darkness. It is a sublime vision that reorders our perception of reality and leaves us hungry for more.

This understanding of preaching, the unveiling of an inspiring vision of God’s kingdom, is not the one I’ve always held. I was formed to think that the primary purpose of preaching was instruction. This view of preaching expects the informed, articulate person behind…