THE GOSPEL FOR SHIFTING SOCIETIES

1. Corporate Personality: community vs. individualism
2. Holding the Ground: remaining single-minded in a multi-religious world
3. Ethics: past and present ethical battles for the Church
4. Modesty and Eroticism: Wendy Shaleet, author of A Return to Modesty, Discovering the Lost Virtue, on the recovery of modesty as an important social defense mechanism for young women.
5. Statistical Morality: how 'what is' is now shaping our ideas of 'what should be' and the disastrous effects of this shift on millions of people

PEOPLE OF FAITH THEN & NOW

1. Jonathan Edwards: George Marsden's biography brings this key character of the Great Awakening to life as a husband and father and describes how this spiritual revival shaped his theology of revival, global mission, and eschatology.
2. Wesley and the Treadmill: A look at John Wesley's health inventions and his heart for the poor.
3. Goree Island: Bishops of the Catholic Church in Africa meet on Senegal's notorious Goree Island where slaves were shipped off to the New World to repent for the role Africans played in the selling and enslaving of their own people.

THE GOD OF THE OPPRESSED

1. Moltmann, The Crucified God: On the cross God is forsaken by God so that he can become the God of the godforsaken.
2. Jonah: God's answer to the cry of the oppressed.
3. Hagar Revisited: The angel of the Lord appears first in the Bible narrative to Hagar, whose story demonstrates God's concern for the powerless, the outcast, the hopeless, and the marginalized.
4. Women as Israel: Portraits of 8 women in Biblical history who demonstrate that “women best represent the people of Israel and their history. They are not powerful in the eyes of society; they are weak, marginal, and abused. But as such, they are authentic representatives of the pilgrim people of God."

THEOLOGY & MISSIONS

1. Revival, Jonathon Edwards: Edward's theology of revival, mission, and eschatology and its impact on evangelism.
2. Resurrection as Revolution, NT Wright: How the resurrection should be changing the church and the world.
3. Mechanisms of Mission, Ralph Winter: Ralph Winter's 'come' and 'go' missions models.
4. Proceeding from the Son: The Nicene Creed was the fruit of the conflict in the church over the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son. What difference does it make for the church and the world whether or not the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son?
5. Beauty and Apologetics, Hans Urs von Balthasar: What does the beauty of God have to do with our communication of the gospel?
6. Return from Exile, N. T. Wright: The Jews had very specific expectation regarding God's promises for their return from exile. Wright demonstrates that Jesus, as the representative Israelite and the last Adam, brings back not just Israel but the whole human race from "exile". All God's promises are fulfilled in the Gospel. (Also, how to use Wright's template to understand the prophets.).
7. The Church Fathers and Gospel Picnics: Our familiarity with gospel stories, such as the feedings of the 5000 and the 4000, may hinder, rather than help, a deeper understanding of the text. The Church Fathers were skilled at uncovering the hidden treasures in Scripture. Learning from their ancient approach to biblical interpretation can benefit our teaching and evangelism.

THE WORD & THE WORLD

1. On Bicycles and Bi-Planes: Using what you know to create a new future.
2. Chronicles for Postmodern People: Chronicles as an interpretive framework for the Old Testament.
3. Boredom with Language: The lost art of reading the Scriptures aloud in the church - and why it matters.
4. Man as Microcosm and Mediator: Eastern Orthodox theologians Dumitru Staniloae and Kallistos on humanity's unique role in creation and before God.
5. Omnipotence Revisited, Colin Gunton: The life and death of Jesus is the template by which we can understand how God chooses to exercise his omnipotence in the world.
6. The Anvil, the Hammer, and the Stirrup: God is a public speaker and Jesus Christ is what He sounds like. As those called to communicate the good news of Jesus Christ, we, too, are to be public speakers.

THE CHURCH

1. Creation and New Creation, NT Wright: Lectures on the resurrection of Jesus as the beginning of the new creation.
2. Prophetic Brokenness: Personal wellness is not the message of the gospel. The prophetic task of the Church is to incarnate brokenness so that the poor and oppressed can be comforted.
3. Day of Atonement: The parallel between the Day of Atonement and the ministry of Jesus from the book, Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace, by the Scottish theologian James Torrence.
4. Restoring Holy Saturday: Alan Lewis, in Between Cross and Resurrection, calls us to recapture the importance of Holy Saturday as an important theological vantage to adequately grasp the tragedy of Good Friday and triumph of Easter Sunday.
5. The War Tent of Rameses II: Its relevance to the Tabernacle of Israel and spiritual warfare. Descriptions of the military dimension of Israel's tabernacle, temple, priesthood, and Levites.

CREATED for GOD

1. Creative Limitations: The Incarnation as the template of true personhood through which we discover that it is our limitations that define who we are.
2. Identity Markers: The narrative of Genesis 17 regarding circumcision gives us understanding of radical discipleship then and now.
3. The Lament: The Psalms of lament are given to us by God to legitimate our grief and loss in his presence.
4. The Dialogue of the Gift: The Romanian Eastern Orthodox theologians, Dumitru Staniloae and Staniloae discuss the exchange of love between God and humanity in the gift of creation.
5. Genesis Trajectory: Genesis chapter 2 as a guide for responding the incredible love gift of creation in Genesis one.
6. The Face of the Holy Spirit: The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that we see the face of the Father in the Son, the face of the Son in (or by) the Holy Spirit and we see the face of the Spirit in the Church. Recovering this perspective provides a way to develop a relationship with the Spirit as a Person in the same intimate way as we relate with the Persons of the Father and the Son.