Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is a term associated with the work of Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton in Soul Searching: The Religious Lives of American Teenagers.  Smith and Denton use these terms (MTD) to describe the common religious beliefs of American Youth. The essence of MTD includes the belief that 1) A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth. 2) God wants people to be good, nice, and...

Any Word informed and Holy Spirit motivated burden for a great commission initiative seeks expression.  Despite the desire to just do something, I believe the “something” must be cautiously done with biblical intentionality.  My interest at this point is how a Christian Liberal Arts College should invest in the Great Commission.  Do we recruit students to travel the world to preach, to sing, to pass out tracts, and to hold Bible...

Recently I heard a marketing phrase for Colorado Technical Institute that caught my attention.  The phrase that resonated with me was, “connecting your education to the market place.”  CTI has aptly discerned the buzz of the market as well as the challenge for those of us committed to liberals arts education. How does a liberal arts education equip your for market place survival? In this post, I attempt to identify three skills that...

What goes on in a Christian College classroom that is distinct from the public university?  Course content always comes with some perspective and some persuasion.  In this post, I attempt to describe the Christ-centered classroom perspective and persuasion.  Although I take responsibility for what I write, I must acknowledge that I have been significantly helped by the writings of Gene Fant and D. A. Carson.  In addition, my friend and...

Up to this point in my life and ministry I have been involved in Word centered ministries.  I moved from a pastorate to a church based bible institute to a church based seminary to a bible college to a local church pastorate to a liberal arts college.  In my current liberal arts assignment I have had to think deeply about the value and the use of this type of education.  This task was and is complicated by the fact that many question the place...