Inalienable ? How Marginalized Kingdom Voices Can Help Save the American Church

Outreach Resource of the Year

The American church is at a critical crossroads. Our witness has been compromised, our numbers are down, and our reputation has been sullied, due largely to our own faults and fears. The church's ethnocentrism, consumerism, and syncretism have blurred the lines between discipleship and partisanship.

Pastor Eric Costanzo, missiologist Daniel Yang, and nonprofit leader Matthew Soerens find that for the church to returnto health, we must decenter ourselves from our American idols and recenter on the undeniable, inalienable core reality of the global, transcultural kingdom of God. Our guides in this process are global Christians and the poor, who offer hope from themargins, and the ancient church, which survived through the ages amid temptations of power and corruption. Their witness points us to refocus on the kingdom of God, the image of God, the Word of God, and the mission of God.

The path to the future takes us away from ourselves in unlikely directions. By learning from the global church and marginalized voices, we can return to our roots of being kingdom-focused, loving our neighbor, and giving of ourselves in missional service to the world.

Eric Costanzo (PhD) is a pastor and teacher from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who writes about biblical, cultural, and historical topics along with global issues affecting the church. Eric is executive director for RisingVillage.org, an organization with initiatives to help marginalized people become full participants in their communities. He is also the author of Harbor for the Poor. Eric and his wife, Rebecca, have four children who have wonderfully compassionate hearts for others.

Daniel Yang is the director of the Church Multiplication Institute at the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center, a think tank for evangelism and church planting. He has pastored and helped plant churches in Detroit, Dallas-Fort Worth, Toronto, and Chicago. He earned an MDiv from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, a BS in computer science from the University of Michigan, and is currently a PhD student in intercultural studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

Matthew Soerens is the US director of church mobilization and advocacy for World Relief and the national coordinator of the Evangelical Immigration Table. Previously Matthew served as a Department of Justice–accredited legal counselor with World Relief's local office in Wheaton, Illinois. He is the coauthor of Welcoming the Stranger and Seeking Refuge.