Tim Keller: 5 big issues facing the western church

In a brief but incisive article, Pastor Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church New York identifies 5 big issues that we in the western Christian church should consider. Here are the headings, and some of the key questions:

1. The opportunity for extensive culture-making
The challenges faced by Christians going into the arts, business, government, the media, and film....and what will their response be?

2. The rise of Islam
How can Christians be at the very same time a) good neighbors, seeking their good whether they convert or not, and still b) attractively and effectively invite Muslims to consider the gospel?

3. The new non-Western Global Christianity
What should the relationship of the older Western churches be to the new non-Western church, as the demographic center of Christian gravity shifts from the West to Asia, Latin America, and Africa?

4. The growing cultural remoteness of the gospel
How do we make the gospel culturally accessible without compromising it? How can we communicate it and live it in a way that is comprehensible to people who lack the basic 'mental furniture' to even understand the essential truths of the Bible?

5. The end of prosperity?
How will the Western church adjust to the economic meltdown, and perhaps to relatively flat for many years to come?

Read the full article here.