Reimagining Faith
Ministers of Reconciliation
The Elijah message = relational reconciliation. That’s our true mission.
Shawn Brace
December 23, 2025
How To Reach the Secular Mind (and Heart)
I was recently invited by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Canada to present at their annual meetings on how to reach the secular mind. As is well-documented, Canada has become extremely secular, with a mere 11 percent of the population attending religious services each week. And although my ministry context isn’t quite as bleak, I … Continued
Shawn Brace
May 22, 2024
The Sermons We Don’t Preach
One of the more sobering episodes I’ve come across in my doctoral research took place more than two centuries ago in a Congregational church in Massachusetts. As heirs of the Puritans, Congregationalists were heavily steeped in strict Calvinism, with its emphasis on humanity’s utter depravity and God’s irresistible and sovereign will. But beginning in the … Continued
Shawn Brace
February 14, 2024
The Same, But Different
Why do some religions succeed while others fail?
Shawn Brace
January 17, 2024
“And the Word became flesh . . .”
I often take the incarnation of Jesus for granted, yet it’s perhaps the most profound act in universal history. That the infinite God, almighty and everlasting, took on human flesh, became a helpless babe, and limited Himself to our frail and finite condition—it’s truly a thought that’s beyond comprehension and demands our highest and humblest … Continued
Shawn Brace
December 28, 2023
What Good Is Truth?
It’s a double-edged sword
Shawn Brace
September 20, 2023
The Limits of Excarnational Truth
Christians have long debated the tension between right belief and right action. Protestants, since the Reformation, have largely emphasized the former to a greater degree, rightly pushing back against a Catholicism that focused primarily on ritual and superstitious action. For Protestants, who have spilled much ink creating various confessions of faith (and then persecuted those … Continued
Shawn Brace
October 3, 2022
What Does It Mean to be Conservative?
A few months ago I was getting acquainted with a new colleague, talking about our ministry passions and theological perspectives, and suddenly, with an understated sense of confidence, he said to me, “You’re a conservative.” His statement caught me off guard—partly because I was wondering what gave him such confidence to say that about me, … Continued
Shawn Brace
September 22, 2022
The One Thing the Church Needs?
I recently asked my congregation what they thought the one thing was that the Seventh-day Adventist Church needed in order to fulfill its mission. One young man, who isn’t a member, raised his hand and, to my utter surprise, gave a one-word answer: humility. I asked the question because it had been informally posed to … Continued
Shawn Brace
September 4, 2022
The Binary That Turned My World Upside Down
Sometimes you hear a concept or see an image that completely turns your world upside down. Such was the case with a graphic I saw back in 2016 that compared two ways of “doing” church. Most of Christendom does it the first way, which some have called the “attractional” model. In this understanding , church … Continued
Shawn Brace
June 2, 2022
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