Christian Living, Evangelism
John Beeson
Open Dumpster Living

Along the route from my house to the church is an undeveloped intersection on three of its four corners. Two medium-trafficked two-lane roads converge at a stop sign. A while ago, inexplicably, two massive forty-yard dumpsters showed up on one of the undeveloped corners. They sat empty for a few days, and then some observant neighbors, likely determining that the dumpster didn’t have another purpose, dumped a ragged armchair in the dumpster.

The proverbial floodgates opened. Old TV sets, broken dressers, bikes, and couches filled the two dumpsters to overflowing. Over the next two months, the dumpsters were emptied multiple times and then quickly filled.

Open Dumpster Living
Recommendations, Church, Counseling, Culture
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Understanding therapy culture from different generations: This article from Sheryl Jacob resonates with my experience in the counseling room with different generations. “Millennials (born 1981-1996) grew up with therapy as mainstream - encouraged to talk about trauma, set boundaries, process their inner child, and name anxiety. While this openness is good, this generation also normalised many struggles the Church should have addressed long ago.”

  2. Be drunk with love: J.A. Medders encourages, “We get filled with the Spirit—when bottles (barrels) of the vintage gospel hit our bloodstream, our Blood Gospel Content rises above the legalistic limit.”

This Week's Recommendations
Suffering
John Beeson
Ducking Suffering

"Forgive me for all the times I needed to suffer and I ran from it, I numbed it.” The prayer caught me off guard. I looked up. Aspens bent in the wind outside the window. A small group of pastors gathered in the small community center in the tiny town of Summerhaven, located near the summit of Mount Lemmon, 5,000 feet above Tucson.

Who hasn’t avoided suffering? I’ve avoided suffering in countless ways: I’ve dodged difficult conversations, evaded serving, neglected the spiritual disciplines of fasting and silence, overspent our budget, and skipped leg day. But how often have I prayed for forgiveness for shirking suffering?

Ducking Suffering
Christian Living, Culture, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Grieving God's Heart

Six chapters into the Bible and only three chapters after Adam and Eve committed the first sin against God, the hearts of humanity have turned in on themselves. They desire to please themselves alone. God’s heart is broken. Listen to the narrative in Genesis 6. It’s a remarkable glimpse into God’s emotional life,

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart….

Grieving God's Heart
Recommendations, History, Nature, Religion, Wisdom
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. When God says now: Christopher Cook says, “I understand the hesitation, but you and I need discernment for this hour. We are being called to submit. Our job is not to assess our readiness (according to our perspective). It is to step forward with clean hands, a yielded spirit, and a heart tethered to the will of the Father.”

  2. The secret things: Andrea Sanborn concludes, “Someday we’ll know the secret things that our mortality can’t fathom. “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known”, as the Apostle Paul explained it. But for now, it’s okay to rest in wonder. Because wonder, in the end, is worship.”

This Week's Recommendations

Church

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Why I Need Your Help to Be the Pastor I'm Supposed to Be

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Why I Need Your Help to Be the Pastor I'm Supposed to Be

Moses was crushing it. The people loved him. He had lines out the doors for those who were hoping to hear a word from God or a word of wisdom from Moses.[i] Then his father-in-law, Jethro, showed up and told him he was leading poorly, not well.

Moses had every reason to not listen to Jethro’s advice. There were no real indicators Moses’s leadership style wasn’t working. And yet Moses heard Jethro’s advice and humbly heeded it.

In his letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul makes it clear that this is no mere stylistic choice for a godly leader. Healthy leadership is characterized by “equip[ing] the saints for the work of the ministry.”[ii] Did you catch that? Healthy leadership isn’t characterized by doing “the work of the ministry” but rather by equipping the congregation to do the work of the ministry.

That doesn’t exempt pastors from doing ministry. In fact, part of the way that we equip is by modeling ministry. But it does mean that our primary responsibility is equipping others to do ministry. It means that part of every pastor’s role should be mentoring and discipling, equipping and deploying. That means that in Dustin’s role in charge of connections at New Life, his primary role is to equip others to connect in our congregation, not be the one-stop connection shop for our church.

When we are equipping, our congregations are healthier, more unified places. Paul says in Ephesians that the outcome of leaders equipping the saints is twofold: unity of heart and spiritual growth and maturity. Who doesn’t want their congregation to grow in unity and maturity?

And yet, almost every impulse of the pastor and of the congregant fights against this biblical model.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

A Church of Suspicious Minds: Trevin Wax’s post on the devastating impact on the seeds of suspicion is important. He says, “Once suspicion pervades a society, the slightest disagreements—even among people who generally share the same beliefs—get interpreted as signs of betrayal. Seeds of doubt are sown into every interaction, and often it’s the people closest to you who become the subject of your suspicions.”

  1. Hope Has to Be Learned: I love this post from TM Suffield. He begins, “Hope is not an emotion, as though we summon it up and have a bright day looking at the future. We can certainly feel hopeful, but that is not the hope the Bible is talking about.”

  2. 7 Practical Ways to Counter the Wave of Deconstruction: There are a lot of wisdom in Carey Nieuwhof’s post on how leaders (and everyone else, I would add) can speak to those deconstructing their faith. For instance, “Be forewarned: Being more open to people’s doubts and questions may lead you into unfamiliar territory. And that’s okay. You may need to become more comfortable with saying, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘That’s a great question I’ve never considered.’ But never view humility or empathy as a weakness—it’s an undeniable strength.”

  3. Shame is a Cruel Taskmaster: Brianna Lambert reflects on her relationship with her body. She says, “I realized the years of shame I inflicted hadn’t done anything but crush me. Shame may have felt like a good idea at the time to get my body in line, but its roots were too weak to sustain any real fruit in my life.”

  4. Is ‘Woke Church’ a Stepping Stone to Theological Compromise: The second in The Gospel Coalition’s series of debates, both Sean DeMars and Rebecca McLaughlin make important points.

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God's Promise that 80% of Christians Miss Out On

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God's Promise that 80% of Christians Miss Out On

600 years ago a church service looked far different than it does today.

The Medieval mass truly was a performance. The priest turned away from the congregation for most of the congregation and spoke (by some reports, “mumbled” is a more apt description) the service in Latin, a language the commoners didn’t speak and often the priests themselves didn’t speak.[i] The congregants observed the mass in silence. There was no participation.

600 years later much has changed. And yet much remains the same.

In the American evangelical church, our liturgy looks about as different from the liturgy of the church of the Middle Ages as you could imagine (and yes, while we don’t have a formalized liturgy, we share a collective informal liturgy – you can go to just about any evangelical church in America this weekend and expect a similar service). But church, as much as ever, is an experience those who attend come to watch. Like the church in the Middle Ages, attendance is declining, with a faithful churchgoer now coming to service once every three weeks or so.[ii] That has been exacerbated by Covid, which pushed many regular church attenders online.

Perhaps even more importantly, most Christians remain on the sidelines when it comes to service. Approximately 20% of those who attend church are engaged in service

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. How to Lose the Abortion Debate While Winning It: Russell Moore says, “What the world needs most from evangelical America is that we be a people who really believe what we say. Whether the world agrees or disagrees with us on abortion, or any other matter, they need to see us love vulnerable children—whether in the womb, in abusive homes, in foster care, or in our own pews.”

  2. Jesus, Friend of Sinners: Adriel Sanchez begins, “’How many prostitutes do you know?’ I once sat with a theologian who recommended asking that question to gauge a pastoral candidate’s qualification for ministry. Our conversation took place shortly before my ordination exam. Of all the questions I’d anticipated, this wasn’t one of them. He didn’t mean, ‘Have you ever visited a prostitute?’ He meant, ‘Are sinners drawn to you like they were drawn to Jesus?’ His point was that if we’re going to ordain men to represent Jesus as ministers of the word, they should know and love sinners as Jesus did.”

  3. Christ Conquered Death. He Didn’t Cancel It: Jennifer Rosner considers how Jewish traditions link death and life and what that means about the cross and the resurrection. She says, “Death, in all its insidious forms, still pervades our daily lives. Even after Jesus’ glorious resurrection, we continue to wrestle with the disquieting dimensions of our humanity: the traumas we relive, the losses we endure, the disappointments we amass, the anxieties we are paralyzed by.”

  4. The Ten Minutes After Church Ends: Andy Huette offers simple but impactful advice. The first is, “Don’t talk to your besties…Don’t miss that opportunity to experience the fullness of the body of Christ by getting to know those who are unlike you or from different life stages and interests.”

  5. How Should Christians Think About Gun Control: Excellent debate between Bob Thune and Andrew Wilson.

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Praying for Women with Unwanted Pregnancies

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Praying for Women with Unwanted Pregnancies

Several weeks ago I offered a prayer in the wake of the leaked decision that will likely overturn Roe v. Wade and send the determination of the limitations of abortion back to each state. I also pray for the many women who are fearful as they navigate unexpected and perhaps unwanted pregnancies. I pray for men who selfishly coerce their girlfriends and wives to have abortions. I pray for abusive men to repent and seek help. I pray for protection women who are in abusive relationships. Below is a slightly amended prayer for women who are struggling right now with these types of pregnancies. Would you continue to join me in prayer?

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Church Abuse and the Lies We Tell Ourselves About the Dark

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Church Abuse and the Lies We Tell Ourselves About the Dark

Last week 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.

What is the reputation of a denomination when the reputation of Christ is at stake? What is the world's perception worth when the hearts of the vulnerable are on the line?

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Not Enough Wisdom

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Not Enough Wisdom

“What is your best wisdom for my college years?” Camille asks.

What more wisdom can I offer? What bullets are left in the chamber? What gold nuggets are left in the chest? I search and come up empty.

I’ve given you everything I have, Camille. I don’t have anything left. I’ve poured my heart into yours. You already know the best of what I know. I’ve taught you from the heights of my proudest achievements and from the valleys of my most profound failures. Looking back, those vantage points seem desperately inadequate.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Why Are So Many Kids Rejecting Christianity? Look at Their Parents: Pamela Danzinger considers on what startling new survey data tells us, “The Cultural Research Center (CRC) is out with a new study comparing the number of American parents of children under age 13 who hold a biblical Christian worldview with those who adhere to competing secular alternatives. The results are a damning indictment of Americans’ rejection of or simple indifference to a biblical worldview. Across all parents of pre-teens, only 2 percent hold a biblical worldview, which is defined as “consistently interpreting and responding to life situations based on biblical principles and teachings.” Those with a biblical worldview believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God containing all moral truths.”

  2. Why ‘Consent’ Isn’t Enough for a Sexual Ethic: I think Trevin Wax’s observation here is important. He begins, “Perusing various magazines and news sites in recent months, I’ve noticed a growing number of commentators who recommend we reexamine our society’s norms surrounding sexuality. Casual sexual encounters bring more misery than happiness, they say, and “consent” isn’t a high enough standard to bring about sexual fulfillment and freedom.”

  3. 40 Random Pieces of Advice for the Christian Life: Tim Challies loads tons of wisdom in this post. I love this one, “Open your home to other people often. Help foster a culture of hospitality within your local church by being the one who invites people over on a regular basis. The living room is one of the best contexts in the world for friendship, discipleship, and evangelism.”

  4. Zombie Sins: My friend Chris Thomas consider zombie movies and sin, “Zombie sins thrive in darkness, like the Orcs of Mordor they gather in the gloom beyond the Black Gates. To fight them in the dark watches of the night, alone against the throng, our hopes fade. But we look to the East.”

  5. Well, THAT was Magic! Seth Lewis shares the story of his three-year-old son’s amazement at the automatic doors. In response he asks, “Somewhere along the way, we seem to have picked up the idea that once we can explain how something works, the magic and wonder disappear. But why should that be?”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The Manna is Always There: Glenna Marshall is one of my favorite bloggers and this might be my favorite post she’s written. It leveled my heart. She shares, “Sometimes, the manna is found when others help me look for it. It’s always there if you have eyes to see it. I am coming to terms with the fact that life with an incurable disease will ebb and flow between seasons of healing and seasons of illness. What I really want is full trust in God’s daily provision of grace. I want it to be enough.”

  2. I Am Proud of You: Craig concludes, “Death and life are in the power fo the tongue,” according to Proverbs 18:21. So, give life with your words. Find a young person today, look them in the eye, and pronounce your life-giving blessing: I am proud of you.”

  3. Please Waste Some of Your Prayers: I love this simple admonition from George Sinclair. He concludes, “Do not say ‘God’s No’ for God. Pray for the salvation of the unlikely. ‘Waste’ your prayers on them. Oh yes, please pray for me that I will do the same.”

  4. Does Predestination Mean God is the Author of Sin? Michael Horton handles this challenging question with clarity and simplicity. He explains, “God created Lucifer, but he didn’t create Satan. He didn’t create an evil opponent; he created a wonderful, beautiful, godly, righteous, and just servant, who then of his own free will turned away.”

  5. What a Tangled Web: Carl Trueman points out where we’ve become culturally confused regarding life and gender. He begins, “Confusion over what it means to be human continues to dog public life in the West. Soon after Anneliese Dodds, the Labour party shadow secretary for women, revealed that she does not know what a woman is, U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson deferred the same question to biologists.”

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