Perimeters of Light: Biblical Boundaries for the Emerging Church

Product Description

How far do we go to connect with our culture? Can we “sell” the Gospel like the world sells soft drinks? Where are the boundaries? The church today is walking a tightrope. On the one hand, we need to proclaim, and more importantly, live the Gospel in such a way that it connects with both seekers and younger people looking for community and authenticity. Yet at what point does this fall into “feel good” ministry at the expense of biblical truth? These are issues that God’s people are now beginning to wrestle with. Elmer Towns and Edward Stetzer provide an intergenerational perspective that sheds biblical light on some tough challenges facing the church.

Review

Illuminating, fascinating, provocative!  Towns and Stetzer help identify the challenges of postmodernism and its impact on global Christianity.-Ed Hinson, Assistant to the Chancellor, Liberty University, Lynchburg, VirginiaWhether you are a Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, charismatic or independent, this book will help you and help your church answer the difficult questions about how to biblically interact with culture.  A solid read for college and seminary students.  A must read for pastors and pew dwellers.-Howard A. Eyrich, President, Birmingham Theological SeminaryA great tool for helping churches that want to reach out in a contemporary culture make sure they stay “. . . in the world, but not of the world.”-Charles Arn, President, Church Growth Inc., Monrovia, California

About the Author

ELMER TOWNS (Northwestern College; Southern Methodist University; Dallas Theological Seminary; Garrett Theological Seminary; Fuller Theological Seminary) is a Vice President and Dean of the School of Religion at Liberty University, which he co-founded with Jerry Falwell in 1971. He is the editor of two encyclopedias and author of more than 50 popular and scholarly works, including the 1995 Gold Medallion winner and Book of the Year,
The Names of the Holy Spirit. He and his wife of over 50 years, Ruth, have three children and ten grandchildren and live in Forest, Virginia.

ED STETZER holds two masters degrees and two doctorates and is currently the Director of Lifeway Research and Lifeway’s Missiologist in Residence. He previously directed the Nehemiah Project of the North American Mission Board. He has trained pastors and church planters on five continents and has planted churches in New York and Pennsylvania. He also served as a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he received his second doctorate, as well as at 10 other seminaries. He is the author of a number of books including
Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age and co-author of
Perimeters of Light: Biblical Boundaries for the Emerging Church. Stetzer lives in Cumming, Georgia, with his wife, Donna, and two daughters.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The edge of light between Christianity and the world is not a distinct boundary line that can always be easily seen. It is a perimeter. Even though we see gray areas in Christianity, nothing is gray to God. We don’t see things the way God sees them. God knows what is Christian and what is not Christian, even when it’s blurry to us. Christianity is not a religion, like joining a movement. Being a Christian means having a relationship with Christ. Christianity is about that relationship between God and His people. Christianity is not about rules; it’s about a person. It’s about Jesus Christ, and if you are properly related to Him by faith, you’re a Christian. The light is Jesus, and the edge determines tells how close to Jesus you live. The perimeter is not a boundary where the traveler passes from total light to total darkness. A perimeter is a “twilight zone,” where it’s not completely light, nor is it completely black. Sometimes it’s hard to see clearly at the edge of the zone-it’s hard to see the edge itself. God knows where Christianity leaves off and the world takes over. Even whe