When
D. James Kennedy fell asleep in Jesus, Coral Ridge Presbyterian found
itself in a bind. A church with a massive building (dedicated by Billy
Graham), Kennedy was their founding pastor and an icon of American
Christianity. A leader like that is impossible to replace, but the
longer Coral Ridge went without a pastor, the more their attendance
dropped, and the more pressure there was to find someone who could
follow Kennedy.
Meanwhile, only a few miles away, one of Billy Graham’s grandsons was
pastoring a church plant with swelling numbers, and no building. In a
match straight out of E-harmony, the elders from both churches realized
that each congregation was incomplete. One had a building, the other had
none. One was growing, the other not so much. One was famous, the other
unknown. One had a pastor, the other was on the hunt. One was dedicated
in the 1970’s by Graham, the other was pastored by his grandson. You
don’t have to be a Calvinist to see how God was setting this up.
Eventually, Coral Ridge called Tullian Tchividjian to be their
pastor, and the two churches merged. What happened next though, is not
the stuff of fairy tales. To make a long story short, Coral Ridge seemed
to revolt, and after a while the elders called a congregational vote to
consider removing Tchividjian as their pastor. Before the vote,
Tchividjian went away on vacation, and spent his vacation studying
Colossians.
Jesus + Nothing = Everything is
the story of Tchividjian and Coral Ridge, interwoven around a
commentary of Colossians. At the center is the spiritual epiphany he
experienced through his study of that book. Continue at Jesse Johnson
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