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Pastor of new Grand Rapids church to lead Jesus Wins forum series as a response to Love Wins conversation
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PASTOR OF NEW GRAND RAPIDS CHURCH TO LEAD JESUS WINS FORUM SERIES
AS A RESPONSE TO LOVE WINS CONVERSATION
Local Grand Rapids author and pastor, Jeremy Bouma, will teach and moderate a deeply Scriptural and historic response to the controversial conversation surrounding New York Times Bestselling book Love Wins. This 8-week series will explore the grand, sweeping, magical, revolutionary Story of God’s rescue to help people discover why it matters that Jesus wins, instead of just merely that love wins.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI (May 11, 2011): Jeremy Bouma, planting pastor of a new church forming in Grand Rapids,Church of the Resurrection, will teach and moderate a forum series on the Christian faith in response to the conversation being generated by the controversial New York Times Bestselling book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. These free public events will be held at GVSU’s Eberhard Center from 7:00pm to 8:00pm starting June 2 through October 13. The series is calledJESUS WINS: A Story of Hope.
“My response is not so much to the book Love Wins—or even its author—but to the conversation it has generated,” says Jeremy Bouma, planting pastor of Church of the Resurrection. “This conversation has left many confused about God, Jesus, salvation, and the afterlife. We hope this response will help bring clarity to this conversation by pushing back, as well as being honest about the teachings of the Holy Scriptures and the historic Christian faith.”
“Our goal is to push back and be honest. Push back against the idea that everyone, regardless of their beliefs or behavior, are simply ‘in’ and will experience heaven. Push back against the idea that everyone will have endless chances to choose Jesus after death. And be honest about the need to totally commit one’s life to Jesus in faith in this life, honest about the reality of judgment without that faith.”
Bouma wrote a widely viewed blog review of the book and has already appeared in local news media in response to Love Wins. In these responses, Bouma has called people to rediscover a Christian faith that is rooted in historic Christian beliefs and reflects the Holy Scriptures, while creating space for questions along the way.
“I understand people have real questions about whether hell is for real and forever, questions about what happens to people of other religions and those who’ve never heard about Jesus. I get that for many these questions are deeply personal. While I appreciate the questions, as a pastor I want to say, ‘Where in Scripture can we find these answers? How has the Christian faith always understood and answered these questions?’”
Each forum will explore one aspect of the Christian faith to help people understand the major ʻactsʼ of Godʼs Story of Rescue: creation, rebellion, rescue, and re-creation. Attendees can expect some teaching and interactive dialogue, covering such topics as creation, human nature, the person of Jesus, other religious faiths, and, of course, heaven and hell.
“We want to honestly look at what Scripture and the Church have said about who we are, why we’re so busted, and how we can be put back together again. Because Jesus wins so can every person on the planet. That’s what this is about.”
Full information on JESUS WINS: A Story of Hope, including forum dates, can be found atwww.jesuswinsevent.com and www.facebook.com/jesuswins.
About the Sponsoring Church and Forum Teacher/Moderator
Church of the Resurrection (www.therezchurch.org), is a new expression of the church in Grand Rapids that is forming in Alger Heights. It is part of the Evangelical Covenant Church (www.covchurch.org), a rapidly growing multiethnic denomination in the United States and Canada with ministries on five continents of the world and five existing churches in the Grand Rapids area. Church of the Resurrection exists to help people explore and find new life together in Jesus Christ. As it forms it is interested in inviting people into the mission of God through Christ, being rooted in the historic Christian faith, and taking every ounce of the Scriptures seriously. The church expects to launch services later in 2011.
Jeremy Bouma is the planting pastor of Church of the Resurrection. Bouma spent 5 years working in Washington D.C. on Capitol Hill, first for a U.S. Senator and later as a pastor leading discussions on spirituality and mentoring congressional staffers in the way of Jesus. In May 2010 he earned the Master of Divinity from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and is completing the Master of Theology in Historical Theology at the same institution. He is the author of the the (un)offensive gospel of Jesus and a new forth-coming book on God’s Story of Rescue. He lives in Grand Rapids with his wife, Melinda.
CONTACT: Jeremy Bouma
Mobile: 616.990.7500
Email: [email protected]
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