Matt McCullough
Church Plants Need Pastors, Not Entrepreneurs
By Matt McCullough | 9Marks Journal: Church Mergers and Plants | 06.20.2017We often assume church planting requires more entrepreneurial skills than other pastoral contexts. Is that a fair assumption?
Hope for the Melancholy Preacher
By Matt McCullough | 9Marks Journal: Expositional Preaching | 06.10.2015How do we learn to live with the fact that no sermon will ever measure up to the depths of our text, to the needs of our people, or to our ideal images of ourselves? What does success look like when you know your preaching will never be good enough?
The American Jeremiad: A Bit of Perspective on the Rhetoric of Decline
By Matt McCullough | 9Marks Journal: Vanishing Church? | 10.23.2014We must guard against responses to cultural decline that appeal to a past that never existed or a future God hasn’t promised.
Book Review: Homespun Gospel, by Todd Brenneman
Review by Matt McCullough | 9Marks Journal: Vanishing Church? | 10.13.2014This book criticizes Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, and Max Lucado for their sentimentality. Is the critique convincing?
Book Review: The Twilight of the American Enlightenment, by George Marsden
Review by Matt McCullough | 09.16.2014George Marsden offers us a window into a lost world and, to some extent, the story of how that world was lost.
Steve Jobs and the Goal of Preaching
By Matt McCullough | 08.28.2014Jobs said it’s not enough to offer customers what they already think they need. He wanted Apple to be a transformational influence, exposing and then meeting needs that customers didn’t realize they had.
Wendell Berry and the Beauty of Membership
By Matt McCullough | 08.22.2014Berry’s stories bring to life truths at the heart of the community we’re aiming for when we emphasize church membership.
Book Review: An Anxious Age, by Joseph Bottum
Review by Matt McCullough | 9Marks Journal: The Church Singing | 03.25.2014An Anxious Age is an enjoyable and engaging read, thought provoking even where it isn’t fully convincing.
Book Review: The Great Evangelical Recession, by John Dickerson
Review by Matt McCullough | 9Marks Journal: Is Scripture Enough? | 06.24.2013I found Dickerson’s information convincing overall: evangelical ministries are losing money, people, and the favor of the American public.
Book Review: Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, by Ross Douthat
Review by Matt McCullough | 9Marks Journal: Lay Elders: A User's Guide - Part 1 | 11.13.2012This book is a call for a renewed, robust, public confidence in the power of Christian orthodoxy. All faithful pastors should resonate with this plea.
Book Review: Almost Christian, by Kenda Dean
Review by Matt McCullough | 9Marks Journal: Church and Parachurch: Friends or Foes? | 02.18.2011This book is worth your time as a penetrating indictment of quasi-Christianity and a source of some helpful advice about how to fight back.
Book Review: After the Baby Boomers, Robert Wuthnow
Review by Matt McCullough | 9Marks Journal: Multi-site Churches | 03.02.2010You can either shape your ministry to address the needs and desires of young adults, or you can shape your prophetic challenge to the specific weaknesses of your context.
