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!)

football

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       In Stores, Secret Surveillance Tracks Your Every Move: Well, this NY Times article by Michael Kwet certainly is disconcerting. He explains Bluetooth beacons, " ...are small, inobtrusive electronic devices that are hidden throughout the grocery store; an app on your phone that communicates with them informed the company not only that you had entered the building, but that you had lingered for two minutes in front of the low-fat Chobanis."

2.        Armchair Quarterbacks and Armchair Leaders: Eric Geiger reflects on a missed kick by Chicago's field goal kicker and the danger of Monday morning quarterbacking: " Whenever we evaluate a quarterback or a kicker, we typically evaluate them without understanding the whole context. For example, fans roasted Parkey before they discovered the kick was actually tipped off course by a defender. People often judge a leader’s decisions or actions without full understanding of the context surrounding those decisions. If the context were known, the armchair leader would likely make the same call."

3.       You've Heard of Cultural Marxism, Here is a Better Word to Call it: Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer with a dense, but thoughtful and helpful article on critical theory. They say that "critical theory claims that members of oppressed groups have special access to truth because of their “lived experience” of oppression. Such insight is unavailable to members of oppressor groups, who are blinded by their privilege."

4.       Are you Quarrelsome? The platform of social media seems to have unleashed a wave of quarrelsome people. Kevin DeYoung provides some helpful markers for us to consider. The first is " 1. You defend every conviction with the same degree of intensity. There are no secondary or tertiary issues. Everything is primary. You’ve never met a hill you wouldn’t die on."

5.       Stop Changing Your Oil Every 3,000 Miles: Edmunds on why you should be changing your oil closer to 7,500 to 10,000 miles.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Every Interview with Every Football Coach in 90 Seconds: Football season is upon us. Jon Crist nails every word ever spoken by a football coach. In a minute and a half.

2.       How Do I Stop Worrying? David Powlison offers sage advice. Third of his six steps is that we ask ourselves, "Why am I anxious? Worry always has its inner logic. Anxious people are “you of little faith.” If I’ve forgotten God, who or what has edged Him out of my mind and started to rule in His place? Identify the hijacker. Anxious people have fallen into one of the subsets of “every form of greed.” What do I want, need, crave, expect, demand, lust after? Or, since we fear losing the things we crave getting, what do I fear either losing or never getting? Identify the specific lust of the flesh. Anxious people “eagerly seek” the gifts more than the Giver. They bank treasure in the wrong place. What is preoccupying me, so that I pursue it with all my heart? Identify the object of your affections."

3.       Offer Thanks: Josh Buice: Paul offered thanks and appreciation to others, so should we.

4.       Hope in the Midst of a Recidivism Nightmare: Whatever your political stripe, we all must agree that the situation of imprisonment in America needs to be fixed. Marian Hatcher tells briefly about her hopeful story in Cook County and shares, " Among the nation’s 2,700 drug courts, Cook County is considered in the 10 model programs for prisoners. The jail has seen an 81 percent drop in felony convictions three years following prisoner release for those who have gone through their drug court program."

5.       The Problem of Nice and the Promise of New: Michael Lawrence on the allure of nice, "These days, there are lots of different kinds of nice. There’s the polite but detached tolerance of “live and let live” nice. There’s the socially conscious and politically engaged nice. There’s religious nice in many different denominational and faith-community forms. There’s “spiritual but not religious” nice. There’s even what’s known in my town as “Portland nice,” a sort of non-confrontational, “let’s not make anyone feel uncomfortable, even though we’re silently judging and dismissing you in our minds” nice. But for all the different kinds of nice, the appeal of nice hasn’t changed much in the last two thousand years. To be a nice person, a good person, a person who’s becoming a better person, is to feel good about yourself."

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