Spring 2023

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Lemonade on the Porch (Part 1): The Gospel in a Post-Christendom Society

For almost twenty years after the end of WWII church attendance surged to its highest levels in history, and Christianity seemed to be thriving in the U.S. But it was in the last 15 years that what Kuyper foresaw and what Europe experienced seems to have begun here. Church attendance began to decline across the board, especially among younger people. And the cultural institutions began to take an overtly hostile and adversarial stance toward traditional Christian faith.

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Ginny Owens is Singing in the Dark

As I began to go into shock, I heard a shot close by and felt a body collapse on top of me. Blood ran over me, and I tried to crawl out from underneath it. When I got free, I looked back and could see it was an old man who the police had killed. Then I passed out. When word of the violence spread, my relatives raced to every clinic and hospital searching for me (Xolani had made it out ok). They couldn’t find me, and assumed I’d been killed.

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My Life is in His Hands

Suddenly, I felt him grip my arm and yank me off the path, crying out, “Attention: serpent!” Look out, a snake! As he pulled me back, he lunged himself forward, and in one swift stomp, Sidiki crushed the snake’s head under his heel. Snakes in this region are deadly poisonous, and the nearest hospital was many miles away. So, on my first night in his village, Sidiki saved me from certain death.

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How I Discovered the True “Need Meeter” of My Soul

I reached a point where I did not know how to live as a Christian anymore. I became suicidal, thinking my only two options for my future were death or to come out as a lesbian atheist. The former option was birthed out of a summation of the church’s language around this conversation. Sinners were welcome, certainly, but only the heterosexual kind. I did not know how to become more Christian in order to be heterosexual. So, to appease the church crowd, I thought the Christ-following answer was to kill the gay out of me.

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In Memoriam — Rev. Dr. Dick Kaufmann

After a long illness our dear friend and colleague Dick Kaufmann died and was united with his Savior on February 18th, 2023. Dick served as executive pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church from 1994 to 1999. He then moved to San Diego California where he planted a network of churches.

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The Resurrection Is Historically Verifiable or Our Faith Is Nothing

…Increasingly the culture doesn’t believe in facts or truth. It believes that people create their own truth, they create their own facts. There’s no certainty on what the right take on reality is. And so here we have the Christian church of all things being the center of emphasis on the idea that there are historical facts that can be verified.

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New Episode: Discovering the Gospel in Joshua

In this new video series Tim Keller looks at each book of the Bible and finds threads of the story of the gospel.

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A Long Awaited Change!

It has always been my goal to one day make all of our sermons available for free at gospelinlife.com. Now with the generous and faithful support of our Gospel in Life listeners from our podcast, YouTube and radio ministries, we are in a position to do just that!

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The Bible and Race

Next to sex and gender, the subject of race is the most discussed topic in our culture today. Storms of rhetoric and conflict swirl around it every day in politics, the arts, business, the media, and especially social media. It is natural and right for Christians to speak in these conversations out of their personal experience, but since we believe that the Bible has the right to interpret our experience and to critique every culture, we must look to it as our final authority.

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Taste and See

How did you first become a follower of Christ or interested in Christianity? For most, if not all of us, someone said something, did something or brought us somewhere, and a process began.

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Facing the Death of a Spouse with the Hope of the Gospel

Dear Dr. Keller, In my husband’s passing, I have run into so many people that tell me they wished they would have told my husband what he meant to them. It has made me more aware of those who have had an impact on me. I wanted to reach out and let you know the…

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How God Is Making Me Into Who I’m Meant to Be

My story begins in the summer of 1975 when I was 22 years old. I had graduated from High School in southeastern Virginia four years earlier and since that time had been floundering, trying to figure out life. I wished I had gone to college. For three summers I had seen high school classmates come home for the summer and then go back to school in the fall. If I had gone to college right after graduation, I would almost be done, I reasoned.

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RTS NYC Is Training Women to Serve the Urban Church

Since 2015, Reformed Theological Seminary has partnered with Redeemer City to City to raise up leaders for ministry in New York City. Approximately 40% of those leaders are women whose lives and communities are being influenced by their theological education. Part of the vision of RTS New York City was to keep New Yorkers in…

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Church Planting in China During the Coronavirus Outbreak

In an unassuming corner of one of China’s most important cities, 20 people, all wearing face masks, recently met for the first time in a rented room. In the corner an open laptop showed 30 faces calling in. This was the launch of Pastor Hu’s new church.

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Interview: Rebecca McLaughlin

In this interview Rebecca McLaughlin talks about some of the inspiration for writing her book Confronting Christianity and some of the insight she’s gained in her life that led her to address the hardest questions that Christians face today. As she talks about her experiences you will learn how and why she believes that Christianity is objectively the best hope for the modern world.

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The Sin of Racism

Biblically, sin is anything that falls short of God’s will and glory, that violates his law and his character (1 John 3:4; Romans 3:23). There are at least four ways in which what we will be calling racism is a violation of God’s glory and therefore is a sin. It is sin.

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Interview: Irwyn Ince, Jr. on Diversity in the Church that Stems from the Gospel

Irwyn Ince discusses his work with churches and their leaders to bring about multi ethnic gospel communities like we see in the Bible and how he is working to help bridge racial divides in the church. As he talks about his work, you will learn why he is hopeful that the gospel can bring unity to the Christian community and more ethnically diverse churches.

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How God Works in a Data and Efficiency-Driven World

I’m a data and analytics consultant, involved in various types of work, most recently advising companies on what data to track and how to personalize people’s experiences with it. If anyone understands the gravity of privacy, it is the people who synthesize and use data in their line of work. The cultural mandate to “be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” has emphasized the responsibility I have to continually research, question and advise either for or against methods of tracking, technology and usability.

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The Gospel Is Teaching Cuban Pastors How to Love the LGBTQ+ Community

Unfortunately, many churches did not voice their opinions in a respectful way, but instead became militant in their stance, insulting the dignity of anyone from the LGBTQ+ community. It was during this period that I received an invitation from Pachy Quesada, president of Los Pinos Nuevos association of churches, asking me to come to Cuba…

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No Longer Wondering What It’s All For

Just one hour after I was dancing on stage in front of an audience of 2,400 with a live orchestra, I found myself alone, sitting on my bed in my apartment. I wanted to feel that after-performance high; I wanted to enjoy the fulfillment of something I had spent two decades training for. Securing an…

This Month's Featured Book

Seven Cultural Myths That Fail Us and the Story That Never Will

In this new book by Tim Keller and his son Michael Keller, you’ll discover what our culture's stories promise and whether they actually deliver. It will help you to see them through the lens of the gospel story—the only story where deep hope, true meaning and lasting joy can be found.