Spelling out the aim of the CBA-sponsored It's a New Day! event Wednesday evening, CBA President Bill Anderson said that it was for the purpose of "ministering to you who minister in His name."

Fernando Ortega performed at the piano songs from his upcoming album The Shadow of Your Wings (Curb Records) and some old favorites, as well as leading the crowd in the singing of hymns.

Introduced by Anderson as "a prophet for our time," Chuck Colson lived up to that description. The best-selling author and founder of Prison Fellowship addressed the state of the church, which he said is beset by sins similar to those the Old Testament prophets decried-idolatry, false worship, debauchery-and asked, "Why hasn't God judged us sooner?"

Noting that in a recent Pew poll 57% of evangelicals said all roads lead to heaven, Colson said the church has become "schizophrenic." Believers are "not able to defend what we know and believe to be true," he said, calling on Christians to correct one another in love and speak out against heresy.

Colson's forthcoming release, The Faith (Zondervan), hones in on the "non-negotiables," key doctrines including the fall of man and the incarnation of Christ, with the book's title coming from Jude's New Testament exhortation to "contend for the faith."

Colson said that believers are to "make disciples, not converts," and challenged the church to "get away from this giddy, silly, foolish Christianity."

Lupy Vanyo of Noah's Ark Distribution in Temecula, Calif., appreciated Colson's message: "We need to hear that, and we need to go deeper in the Word … be ready to defend our faith," she said.

"The message we have has to make a difference," said Gail Nordskog of Nordskog Publishing in Ventura, Calif. "We need to know what we believe. We cannot compromise."

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