Mark VanDyke

Maybe Mike Pence has serious struggles with a temptation towards infidelity and this is what he has to do to remain "pure and blameless." I applaud his actions to do this in the face of mockery from non-believers (SNL and Bill Maher have had their fun with it). This article speculates about his motives by accusing him of holding to a caricatured Augustinianism instead of showing the charity that a brother in Christ deserves.

This might sound crazy, but I think our denominational approach to renewal has been too direct. 

Growth, renewal, even revival are the result of prayer, preaching of the Word, repentance for sin and worship. That's not just my opinion, it's what happened in the Bible (Pentecost and it's Paul's "Ministry Plan" wherever he goes) and throughout history (the Reformation, the Methodist revival and the Great Awakenings). Following God's command to pray, preach, repent and worship doesn't guarantee revival, but it's safe to say real revival doesn't happen without believers who are passionately devoted to Christ through prayer, preaching, repentance and worship.

If the goal is denominational renewal, we'll never get there. If the goal is to become more zealous prayers, preachers, repenters and worshipers, God might respond and renew our denomination. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, "Aim for earth and you'll never get it. Aim for heaven and you'll get earth thrown in."

How about instead of another organizational shake-up or denominational report on sexuality we do some research on how much devotion our members have to prayer, preaching, real repentance (not the word-smithed kind you find in Mainline litanies) and worship? Based on that research, we might find we're doing well and the Lord just hasn't willed that we grow in the organizational sense. Or we might learn that these fundamental components of Christian life are missing. In that case our Ministry Plan will write itself.