Church, Evangelism, Gratitude, Mission
John Beeson
Partners in the Gospel

“We won!” If you’re a sports fan, you might have bellowed those words when your favorite team emerged victorious from an epic showdown.

But of course, we know that we didn’t win at all. I sat on my couch and cheered for my Chiefs. But it was Andy Reid who drew up the play, Patrick Maholmes who threw the pass, and Travis Kelce who caught it.

They, not we, won.

Many of us have come to believe the opposite lie regarding the church. It’s easy to think they are doing the work of the gospel. In a celebrity culture, it’s easy to get sucked into thinking that pastors do ministry and preachers do gospel work.

Partners in the Gospel
Christian Living, Consumerism, Culture, Finance, Relationships, Wisdom
John Beeson
Harmless Fun? Don't Bet On It.

“Download this app!” I urged my family, “You’ll get $200 free to bet!” Five years ago sports betting became legal across most of the United States. From 2019 to 2023, sports betting downloads increased from 6 million to 33 million. In 2021 alone, the percentage of Americans who regularly bet on sports more than doubled jumping from 5% to 12%.

By 2024, the sports betting market reached an estimated size of $70 billion, generating $13.7 billion in revenue. Analysts predict the industry will continue its skyrocketing growth, projecting it to reach $187 billion by 2030.

Harmless Fun? Don't Bet On It.
Recommendations, Abortion, Culture, Nature, Sexuality
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. What to do in conflict: Benjamin Vrbicek says, “Rarely do interpersonal struggles get better until the people involved move up what I call the ‘Hierarchy of Communication Ladder.’”

  2. Five ways AI is impacting the next generation: Shelly Melia reports, “According to Common Sense Media, half of teenagers use AI companions regularly, while almost 75% of teens have experimented with them. Another study found almost 1 in 5 students have used their back-and-forth conversations with AI to have a romantic relationship.”

This Week's Recommendations
Family, Forgiveness, Marriage, Parenting
John Beeson
How Motherhood Changed Me

Today I have the privilege of having my wife, Angel, share her thoughts on motherhood and her spiritual journey. You’re in for a treat. Angel is a counselor at Whole Hope Christian Counseling

 I am a type A, firstborn. By the time I was twenty, I had my life planned out. After marriage, John would work to get me through college, and then I would work as an elementary school teacher to get John through seminary without debt. Then he would graduate, we would move into our white-picket-fence dream home, start our family, and begin a life of ministry together.

I feel like you went through marriage, education, and childbearing at such a young age.  Would you please consider adding your age at various stages?  You’ll see my clues, lol.

How Motherhood Changed Me
Christian Living, Church, Evangelism, Leadership, Suffering, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Sheep Without a Shepherd

You see it, don’t you? A co-worker quietly losing their battle with alcoholism. A cousin whose marriage and family are unraveling. A friend struggling under the weight of a debilitating eating disorder. Pain is everywhere. People are hurting all around us.

If we are able to glimpse even a fraction of the world’s pain, can you imagine what Jesus saw? For any one of us, such suffering would be overwhelming. Yet, what was Jesus’ response to a world filled with the “harassed and helpless”?

Recently, while reading through the gospel of Matthew, I returned to the well-worn passage where Jesus tells his disciples,

Sheep Without a Shepherd

Church

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Partners in the Gospel

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Partners in the Gospel

“We won!” If you’re a sports fan, you might have bellowed those words when your favorite team emerged victorious from an epic showdown.

But of course, we know that we didn’t win at all. I sat on my couch and cheered for my Chiefs. But it was Andy Reid who drew up the play, Patrick Maholmes who threw the pass, and Travis Kelce who caught it.

They, not we, won.

Many of us have come to believe the opposite lie regarding the church. It’s easy to think they are doing the work of the gospel. In a celebrity culture, it’s easy to get sucked into thinking that pastors do ministry and preachers do gospel work.

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Sheep Without a Shepherd

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Sheep Without a Shepherd

You see it, don’t you? A co-worker quietly losing their battle with alcoholism. A cousin whose marriage and family are unraveling. A friend struggling under the weight of a debilitating eating disorder. Pain is everywhere. People are hurting all around us.

If we are able to glimpse even a fraction of the world’s pain, can you imagine what Jesus saw? For any one of us, such suffering would be overwhelming. Yet, what was Jesus’ response to a world filled with the “harassed and helpless”?

Recently, while reading through the gospel of Matthew, I returned to the well-worn passage where Jesus tells his disciples,

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. A scientist produced a monogamy study, including us: The most monogamous animal will likely surprise you (six animals rank higher than humans!). But this won’t surprise you, “Overall, less than 10% of mammals are monogamous, according to Dyble.”

  2. Don’t overthink your problems: Wyatt Graham begins, “When we face criticism or feel uncertain about our actions, our natural tendency is to analyze every detail, replay every conversation, and search for what we might have done wrong. But Scripture offers us a surprisingly liberating approach: acknowledge clear sin, but don’t lose yourself in endless rumination over unclear accusations. Instead, trust that God knows your heart better than you do.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The dignity of ordinary work: Alastair Herd says, “When researchers examined what actually predicts whether workers feel their jobs are useless, they discovered something profound. The strongest correlation was with a single factor: whether workers felt respected by their immediate manager.”

  2. What Martha’s problem really was: Cindy Matson asks, “But what if Martha’s problem didn’t have anything to do with hospitality or domestic chores? And what if you and I struggle like Martha far more often than we think?”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Sex, virtue, technology: Marc Sims with an important article on the impact of technology on sexuality, “Imagine a world of thorns and thistles and serpents and porn and affairs and divorce. (Shouldn’t be too hard for you). It is a world that has attempted to peel sex out of the context of covenant and commitment—even out of relationship itself—and pursue the physical pleasure as an end of itself.”

  2. Stay put and make disciples: David Mathis begins, “This is a plea for aging Christians not to follow millions of your peers in making a tragic mistake: leaving the place, and especially the local church, where you have built up years, if not decades, of relational capital.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Three ways attending church could extend your life: Rebecca McLaughlin says, “What you almost certainly won’t hear is that weekly church attendance is one of the very best things you can do for both your body and your mind. But that’s what researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health have found. In fact, they have discovered that going to church can add multiple years to your life.”

  2. K-12 workers have highest burnout rate in US: Stephanie Marken and Sangeeta Agrawal report, “More than four in 10 K-12 workers in the U.S. (44%) say they "always" or "very often" feel burned out…

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. When bitterness becomes your religion, healing becomes heresy: Christopher Cook says, “But here’s the fruit of that belief system: the most anxious, entitled, bitter, and emotionally fragile generation in history. The world is not freer. It is more fractured. The culture of curated authenticity has not led us to peace, but to exhaustion.”

  2. Mortifying our desire: Keith Evans begins, “A young man once told me, “I never chose to feel this way. These attractions seem to have always been part of my life.” His honesty captures what so many experience—same-sex attraction often feels unchosen, even natural. But when we look to Scripture, we discover even that which may feel natural is not always good.”

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Semper Reformanda

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Semper Reformanda

This week, while many celebrate Halloween, Protestants reflect on a much more significant holiday: the start of the Reformation. In commemorating the Reformation, we don’t merely look back at an event that took place 500 years ago, but consider the spirit of reformation that we pray remains in us as followers of Jesus Christ. Ecclesia semper reformanda est: “The church must always be reformed.” It is the unofficial motto of the Protestant church.

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his document, the 95 Theses, to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg. For that reason, October 31st is still celebrated as Reformation Day by Protestants.

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Pray As You Ought

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Pray As You Ought

I was in the service, away at Boot Camp, and I'd discovered that the only place I could gain some reprieve from the grindstone was at church on Sunday mornings.  Much like the rest of the troop who figured it out, I squeezed into the pews, one bald head in fatigues among a throng of bald heads in fatigues.  The chaplain sermonized over the importance of perseverance, and at the end of the service, slapped a Bible in each of our hands. I took to reading that Bible every night after lights out—the first time I ever opened one intentionally in my life.

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How Church Abuse Reveals the Lies We Tell Ourselves

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How Church Abuse Reveals the Lies We Tell Ourselves

Three years ago an atomic bomb hit the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, with an estimated 14 million members across more than 47,000 churches. An in-depth investigative report demonstrated that the Executive Committee of the SBC was aware of pervasive sexual malfeasance in their ranks over the past fifteen years and refused to act. The Executive Committee swept sexual abuse allegations under the rug, perpetrators were moved from one congregation to another to hide their abuse, and earnest appeals for reform were denied.

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