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

Culture

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All In Orphan Care by Jason Johnson

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All In Orphan Care by Jason Johnson

There is a unique beauty in orphan care. Jason Johnson in All In Orphan Care puts it this way: “Caring for the marginalized, oppressed and orphaned is not only one of the clearest expressions of the heart of God but also one of the most tangible demonstrations of the gospel this world will ever see.” I’m so grateful that God has allowed our family to get a taste of experiencing our Heavenly Father’s love anew through our own journey in orphan care. And as we launch our first Orphan Weekend this weekend, I’m so excited to see others at our church get a taste of God’s love through this lens.

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Every Good Endeavor by Tim Keller

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Every Good Endeavor by Tim Keller

"In the beginning, then, God worked.” It’s from this simple platform that pastor and author Tim Keller begins his project of redeeming the goodness of work. It’s a simple platform, but its implications are far-reaching. Keller continues, “Work was not a necessary evil that came into the picture later, or something human beings were created to do but that was beneath the great God himself. No, God worked for the sheer joy of it. Work could not have a more exalted inauguration" (pp.34-35). Everything flows out this profound reality. Work did not come after the fall; no, humans were given the task of work before there was sin. And, in fact, our work uniquely mirrors back our God's perfect work from eternity.

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Consuming Worship

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Consuming Worship

Last week we took a more positive turn as we considered how our identity as consumers impacts our devotional lives. We continue in that positive direction as we consider our experience as corporate and individual worshipers in today’s consumeristic environment.

Throughout this series I have tried to provide a broader comparative historic context. The inclusion of songs in worship was present from the earliest days of the church. Paul incorporates what appear to be familiar songs in his writing, John shares songs in Revelation, and of course the Psalms provided a hymn book for the early church. The earliest house church discovered in Syria dates to the early 3rd century AD and is covered with beautiful frescoes. The church from the very beginning was worshiping artistically.

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Bad Religion by Ross Douthat

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Bad Religion by Ross Douthat

I was really surprised by this book. I wasn't expecting something as thoughtful and constructive in tone, but should have known better given Douthat's strong portfolio.

The first half of the book is a post-WWII history of American Christendom. In dealing with such a broad scope (Douthat carefully divides the history into three camps: evangelical, mainline, and Catholic) in such a small space, Douthat has to make some choices in winnowing the story down. There are some that I took exception to, but overall, I he writes a compelling history and even in his editorializing, he usually hits the target.

In the second half of the book Douthat takes on various heresies that have crept into all three of the camps in various ways (the gnostic gospel, the prosperity gospel, the gospel of self, the politicized gospel, etc).

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The Art of Neighboring by Jay Pathak

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The Art of Neighboring by Jay Pathak

A book on how to be a good neighbor? Seriously? What next? A book on how to pour a bowl of cereal?

But we need it. As simple and intuitive Jesus's simple command: "love your neighbor as yourself" seems, there is a huge gap between us agreeing with it and us living it out. That has certainly been the case for us. Of the eight places my wife and I have lived in our sixteen years of marriage, four of those locations we were flat out bad neighbors -- completely absent, and only two of those locations I can say we've been good neighbors.

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The Cost of Dreams: La La Land Review

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The Cost of Dreams: La La Land Review

I confess, I enjoy musicals, and not just because they make my wife happy. From “Singing in the Rain” to “Moulin Rouge” musicals that are done well are often able to punch a unique emotional punch. La La Land is no exception. But beyond being a movie that is profoundly successful in landing an emotional punch, La La Land also manages to deftly challenge the contemporary uncontested truth that following one’s dreams leads to happiness.

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