It’s been a great joy these last two months to serve New Wineskins e-zine as guest editor of the January-February edition, themed “Restoration & Transformation.”

Early in the year, Senior Editor Greg Taylor and I discussed the possibility of recruiting a guest editor for each issue of the e-zine this year while he is shouldering the tremendous responsibility as lead minister at Garnett Church of Christ in Tulsa, OK (see his recent article segment in Christianity Today’s sister magazine Leadership Journal). Greg is also trying to arrange a return visit to Africa for his family, where they served as missionaries about a decade ago. That, on top of several other projects he has in the works!

I volunteered to helm the first issue while he has been leaning on some of our mutual friends and past writing contributors to serve as guest editors this year. I have to say, the response has been excellent and I am excited about the themes that they have proposed!

“Restoration and Transformation” is a compilation of some of the best blog posts, articles and other works that I could find on the subject of putting Christ first as the goal of restoring the church through the transformation of its people. Some – but not all! While there’s no limit on the number of pages or pixels I can squeeze into an issue, there is a limit on the amount of time I can spend toward it.

It’s been exciting to post works from Wineskins and New Wineskins contributors like Edward Fudge, K. Rex Butts, and Founding Co-Editor Rubel Shelly as well as bringing aboard some fresh, new talent like Ben Overby, Brian Mashburn, Tim Woodroof, Matt Dabbs and others. (I don’t want to spoil the surprise of articles yet to “go live” by naming them all!)

I hope you’ll lend an eye to each of these advocates for the kind of change churches need – restoration by way of transformation.