Speaker B discusses theological foundations of identity and how they shape church membership requirements at City Temple, then introduces their new book Freed to Flourish Together, which grew from work in a polycultural church setting and explores how to build congregations rooted in freedom and unity.
Chapters
Let's bring it back to kind of the present here with your congregation. Part of what you've done, and you talked about the identity, our identity, which is a huge concept that the world is very confused about nowadays, right?
And you talked about we're all created in God's image.
Scripture is crystal clear. We're all created in God's image.
We are all male or female, and then we are all in Adam or in Christ.
And then ethnicities and cultures, those are other dimensions to our identity, less central to being created in God's image, being in Adam or in Christ, and yet essential, but also our unity in Christ causes Paul to write, "Now there's no Gentile or Jew, slave or free, male or female. We are one in Christ Jesus." So I have a two-part question here for you, and I'll let you address both of them, but one is that our Freedom in Christ course addresses our new identity in Christ and what that means practically for the sanctification process of living out our salvation day to day. And again, it's critical for all of us to understand those biblical concepts and put them into practice. So my first part of my question is, why have you made that a requirement for membership at City Temple? The second part of my question is, um, I want to get us to the actual subject of our conversation today, which is your new book, Freed to Flourish Together.
Together.
And it makes sense that this would come out of some of your experience here at City Temple in a polycultural church, right?
The subtitle to the book being Growing a Healthy Church in Freedom and Unity, at least on the preliminary copy I have.
But how has Freed to Flourish Together come about through your experiences there, and what's your passion behind that book. So part 1, Freedom in Christ courses membership. Part 2, free discourse together.
