Sara Billups: Orphaned Believers

Orphaned Believers
Baker Books, 2023
By Sara Billups

WHO: Sara Billups, a Seattle-based writer and cultural commentator.

SHE SAYS: “No affliction can overcome the Spirit of God in us.”

THE BIG IDEA: This book explores how the experiences of Christians growing up in the 1980s and 1990s led to many of them leaving the faith, and what can draw them back. 

THE PROGRESSION: In three parts the author guides those who have left the church to see a new expression of faith that is motivated to make the world a better place.

“I stayed a Christian because I came to believe, and experience, that Jesus’s promise to not leave us as orphans holds true.”

Fight Church: A Fighting Chance

“Here was a people group that wasn’t being served by any form of chaplaincy like many major sports have,” says Pastor Joshua Boyd, of the local MMA community. “And they needed care just like anyone else.”

Perfectly Imperfect Churches

Most of the great breakthroughs and innovative ideas are a result of problems being viewed not as a problem to solve, but an opportunity to make things better.

Nigerian Church Promotes a Deeper Christian Life

A. Larry Ross, who traveled the world for nearly 34 years as personal media spokesman for evangelist Billy Graham, says the new epicenter for evangelism is the Global South and Nigerian evangelist William Kumuyi as the pastor of “the largest church of which most American Christians have never heard.”