Church, Culture, Book Reviews
John Beeson
The Long Journey of Self-Knowledge in a Culture ...

“We are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in US history. It is greater than the First and Second Great Awakening and every revival in our country combined...but in the opposite direction.” This is the conclusion of the largest and most comprehensive study of dechurching in America by sociologists Ryan Burge and Paul Djupe. In The Great DeChurching, pastors Jim Davis and Michael Graham unpack why and how over the past twenty-five years, forty million of those who formerly attended church no longer do so.

The Long Journey of Self-Knowledge in a Culture of Confusion
Christian Living, Prayer
John Beeson
The Air Raid Siren

Jerusalem, Israel

3:15 am, April 13

 

I sat up in bed to a wailing sound I had never heard before, but knew immediately: an air raid siren. Our building rattled to the booms of interceptors from Israel’s missile defense system hitting their inbound targets. I pulled back the curtains and watched as sprays of light streaked the sky.

 Iran launched 170 drones, 20 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s purported attack on an Iranian embassy in Syria.

The Air Raid Siren
Christian Living, Nature
John Beeson
The Ground Where Saguaros Thrive

Nothing is more iconic to the Tucson landscape than the saguaro. The emblematic cactus is to the Sonoran Desert what the palm tree is to Miami: hard to imagine without it. Saguaros typically live between one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five years, not sprouting its trademark arms until around thirty to seventy years of its life and growing to around fifty feet tall.

For those Sonoran Desert natives, we intuitively know where saguaros thrive. They love the rocky (both granite and volcanic) soil at the foothills of the five beautiful mountain ranges that surround Tucson.

The Ground Where Saguaros Thrive
Leadership, Wisdom, Vocation
John Beeson
Anger, Retaliation, and My Scion xB

I drove a little manual 2005 Scion xB for about eight years. It finally gave out after 230,000 miles. I loved that little car. It was fuel-efficient and required minimal maintenance. But it is undeniably close to the least powerful car on the road. I’m pretty sure that on its specs, next to 0-60mph, it says, “Eventually!”

Unless I was lined up against someone from a nearby retirement community, I was the last car to reach the speed limit coming off a stoplight. Unsurprisingly, more aggressive drivers with more powerful vehicles tended to treat my little Scion like a safety cone on the road, more like an obstacle than a fellow traveler.

Anger, Retaliation, and My Scion xB
Family, Leadership, Parenting, Marriage
John Beeson
The Top Ten Ways to Lead in Your Home (and ...

In the past post we considered the biblical priority of leading in our homes before stepping into leadership callings outside of our home.

When I was asked to speak to our Mom’s Matter group on leading well in the home I was a bit intimidated. I felt far from equipped to speak as a man to women on the topic of leadership. And so, I did the only thing I could think of: I asked wise, godly women who were also great leaders. Starting with my wife, I began to listen to the advice my female friends offered on leadership in the home and beyond.

The Top Ten Ways to Lead in Your Home (and Organization, Too!)

Kevin Halloran

, , , , ,

This Week's Recommendations

, , , , ,
This Week's Recommendations

  1. The Most Dangerous Type of Parenting: Aaron Earls explains, “Reputation parenting is primarily concerned with the spiritual reputation of the parent. We do what we do as a parent with the goal of having others see us as a respectable Christian parent.”

  2. Why Do Christians Make Such a Big Deal About Sex? Rebecca McLaughlin responds, “Whenever people ask me why Christians are so weird about sex, I first point out that we’re weirder than they think. The fundamental reason why Christians believe that sex belongs only in the permanent bond of male-female marriage is because of the metaphor of Jesus’s love for his church.”

  3. What does “the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” mean? Kevin Halloran asks, “But what exactly does this phrase from James mean? Does it mean that we will receive everything we pray for, or that holiness strengthens our prayers?”

  4. My Broken Engagement: Olivia Davis begins, “Has God forgotten me? No, my heart said. But it wasn’t a statement of faith. It was a cry of sorrow: I wish that he had. Because if he had forgotten me, it would mean that he didn’t know about my broken engagement, that he wasn’t an indifferent observer watching me sprawled out on my living room rug like a dead spider, sobbing until I had to run to the bathroom and vomit.”

  5. Does Jesus Still Sympathize with Sinners? Mark Jones with a rich reflection concludes, “we can rejoice that his compassion to us is not mere sentiment, but a powerful compassion whereby he can supply us with his grace in our times of need, just as the Father supplied Christ with the Spirit in his time of need.”

, , , , , , , , ,

What I Read in 2021 (and Maybe What You Should Read in 2022)

, , , , , , , , ,
What I Read in 2021 (and Maybe What You Should Read in 2022)

I’ve been able to hit the 100-plateau of books the past few years. This year I read 111 books (the symmetry of that number made me smile). If you wonder how I read that much, this post might help spur you on and provide some practical pointers in your reading journey in 2022. I love reading for many reasons. It’s a gift to be in conversation with a multitude of wise voices, to be invited into the imaginative worlds of some of the best minds of our time, and to grow in empathy and understanding as I step into the shoes of those very different from myself.

I love the gift of reading books with friends. Most of the books I read are recommended by friends and I love it when friends read a book I recommend. If you read any of the books recommended below, I would love to hear what you think. And I would love to hear what your favorite books of 2021 were. If you want fuller reviews on any of the books listed above or just want to connect on an ongoing basis about reading, I encourage you to friend me on Goodreads.

Let me start with my three favorite books of 2021, and then we will get to the rest of the action:

,

Do You Struggle With Prayer?

,
Do You Struggle With Prayer?

Whose prayer life is what they want it to be? Mine certainly isn’t what I hope it will be one day. Just this morning I decided that I would take out my earbuds during my workout and use the time for prayer. Minutes later I found my mind wandering, counting my reps, and even checking my phone for incoming messages. Why would I deny listening to and talk with my Creator and Savior? And yet I refuse this opportunity more frequently than I would care to admit. I want to say yes, but I say no. How do we improve our prayer lives? This is the question that Kevin Halloran tackles in his practical book, When Prayer is a Struggle.

Halloran invites us to experience the life of prayer God longs for us to have with him. Halloran reminds us that our prayer life and our faith are interrelated. The health of my prayer life is directly connected to the strength of my faith. He says, “Prayer is the natural overflow of a growing faith.” We don’t pray as we ought because we struggle with our faith. Does my life depend on the active work of God today, or is it mere intellectual assent to his existence? My prayer life reveals it is too often the latter.

Halloran encourages us to lean into our prayer life with God not trying to get it “right,” but to engage God and grow our faith. I love the quote from Jared Wilson he shares, “You may think your prayers are nothing to write home about. That’s fine. You are not writing home, but heaven. God is merciful. He accepts your lame prayers. What he wants is not your eloquence but your heart.” Our prayer life isn’t meant to be a demonstration of our eloquence or intelligence or spirituality, but the expression of a vibrant relationship with the Caretaker of our souls.

Halloran wants us to utilize the Bible in our prayer life. Scripture ought to feed our prayer life. It gives us words to say to God when we don’t know what to say, it directs us to God’s heart when we feel distant from him. If you want to dive into this particular topic more, I would encourage you to read Praying the Bible by Donald Whitney alongside Halloran’s book.

My favorite chapter is probably Chapter 4 where Halloran engages the question, “Why doesn’t God listen?”

, , , , ,

This Week's Recommendations

, , , , ,
This Week's Recommendations

1.       Please Stop Saying Christianity is a Relationship, Not a Religion: Kevin Halloran responds to the claim that Christianity is a relationship, not a religion, "Christianity isn’t a dead religion of boredom at church, life as a hypocrite, and trying to be better than everyone else. It’s having the God of the Universe who was once my enemy as my loving Heavenly Father. It’s having my sins forgiven through Christ’s blood and communion with God by His Spirit. It’s living hope for this broken world and the promise of restoration. And, oh yeah, I have an eternal inheritance that no man, demon, or trial can EVER snatch away from me. Now that is a religion and relationship worth pursuing religiously.”

2.       Why Your Child's Feelings Shouldn't Be the Final Arbiter for How You Parent: Melissa Edgington with this counter-cultural truth: "We have been taught to pay special attention to our kids’ feelings and to validate them as much as we can. I’m not saying this is a terrible practice. I mean, it’s never bad to consider someone’s feelings. But can I say with all honesty that about 85% of a kid’s feelings about things are irrelevant? Kids feel 147 different ways before lunchtime. They get upset if their graham cracker is broken. They cry like their heart is broken because a dog licked their elbow. Worse than that, they will kick and scream like you’re murdering them because you’re trying to buckle them into a carseat or keep them from grabbing a hot burner or stop them from running into the street. If we pay attention to every feeling that a kid has, we will be paralyzed and completely ineffective as parents."

3.       10 Common but Illegitimate Reasons to Get a Divorce: Tim Challies shares from Jim Newheiser's new book on marriage helpful responses to these ten common reasons given for divorce.

4.       They Shall Know Us by Our Clutter: Kristin Du Mez reports, "I recently came across the results of this anthropological study, published in 2012: Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors... the authors analyzed and cataloged the visible possessions in each and every room of the 32 households—counting, documenting, examining, and coding artifacts in situ, in their place. Devoting thousands of hours to data collection, they hoped to glean insights on the acquisition and organization of material artifacts, and on how families interacted with their possessions, and with one another. The results of the study are at once illuminating and devastating. Their most striking findings concern the sheer magnitude of our material possessions."

5.       Yosemite: Range of Light: The whole earth is full of his glory!

Sign up to get The Bee Hive delivered to your inbox and receive a free 50 Books That Changed My Life (and Might Change Yours, Too) download!