Culture

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. I’m Not Hateful, You Are: David French shares one of the consequences of our “you-can’t-judge-me-culture” is the perception that those in the other political party are more extreme than they actually are. He says, “This mutual loathing translates into other misperceptions, such as completely misjudging the extremism of your political opponents.”

2. A Day for Lament at the Supreme Court: Marvin Olasky explains John Roberts’s convoluted reasoning for now allowing even the most modest protection for moms and unborn children at abortion clinics. Christianity Today provides its own analysis, including more background on the lack of safety in Louisiana abortion clinics.

3. How Often Do Churchgoers Read Their Bibles? Lifeway’s study is relevant for this week’s blog post on the Bible.

4. How Many Reasons May Christians Divorce For? Wayne Grudem shares why his thinking has changed. He begins, “Until 2019, I held the common, historic Protestant view of divorce, namely, that adultery and desertion were the only two legitimate grounds for divorce allowed by Scripture.”

5. A King Proximate to Pain: Chris Thomas with a short reflection on the powerful lies of pain and the gift of a Savior who is present in our pain. He begins, “As pain levels intensify, so does my sense of isolation. As the ache sets in, so does loneliness. I wake in the night with torment whispering sweet nothings in my ear, ‘No one understands. No one feels. No one knows. You’re alone.’”

6. Stand Up! So beautiful and powerful.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. Why Social Media is Not Wise for Middle School Kids: Psychologist Victoria Dunckley begins, "Social media was not designed for them. A tween's underdeveloped frontal cortex can’t manage the distraction nor the temptations that come with social media use. While you start teaching responsible use of tech now, know that you will not be able to teach the maturity that social media requires."

2. Losing Freedoms and Finding Renewal: My friend John Starke with an important question in light of our restrained freedoms with COVID-19, “But if we cannot follow our desires, what will lead us? There will be lots of competing voices directing us and telling us how to live, for sure. For Christians, it’s an opportunity instead to follow the more subtle callings of Christ.”

3. Church Hopping and Shopping: Paul Tripp with a familiar story of our American church experience… and what is concerning about that. He closes with three areas of spiritual weakness that lead to this.

4. George Floyd and Me: Christian hip-hop artist Shai Linne reflects on George Floyd, “For me, “life as usual” means recognizing some people perceive me as a threat based solely on the color of my skin. For me, “life as usual” means preparing my sons for the coming time when they’re no longer perceived as cute little boys, but teenage “thugs.” Long after George Floyd disappears from the headlines, I will still be a black man in America.”

5. Why I’m Religious, Not Just Spiritual: Jim Witteveen explains why the common trope, “I’m spiritual, not religious,” ought to be flipped. He explains, “When it comes right down to it, he believes that he’ll be okay with God because he has, in his mind, created a god that he can feel comfortable with – a god that doesn’t demand too much, a god that doesn’t ask for things that will take him out of his comfort zone, a god who won’t judge him.”

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. Why I Stopped Playing Video Games: Reagan Rose explains, “Gaming had become an idol for me, so I had to smash it. For you, it might be sports, politics, social media, or something else. As Christians, we must be willing to lay aside anything that keeps us from full-hearted obedience to our Master, Jesus Christ, even especially if that thing is something we really love. For me, that was video games.”

2. “Obedience Will Make You Miserable”: Scott Hubbard reflects on this tired lie Satan loves to tell us. He shares that, “Like the elder son in Jesus’s parable, such people follow the Father’s rules with a sigh (Luke 15:29). Their holiness is all pursed lips and sober glances. “Such is the cost of righteousness,” they remind themselves. “We must relinquish pleasure on the path to heaven, you know. Holiness, not happiness, is the true good.”

3. Two Ways Every Christian Can Be Pastoral: My friend Benjamin Vrbicek offers two great ways every Christian can pastor. He concludes, "Paul writes that when each part of the body of Christ works properly, the body “builds itself up in love.” I often think of this as a beautiful reversal of the game of Jenga. When you play Jenga, as the wooden structure gets taller, the whole thing becomes less stable. But that’s not the way Paul says it should be in local churches. When each part engages in pastoral ministry, the church gets more stable, not less."

4. 4 Ways to Get Students to Be Ready to Be Adults in Church: Josh Hussung provides sound advice for a serious problem--young adults leaving the church after high school. He says, "I’m convinced that at least part of the awkwardness of that transition has to do with students not fully being integrated with the broader church body before they leave."

5. Building the Perfect Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder: Here is a twenty-minute (!) video of silliness that I loved. Mark Rober builds what amounts to an America Ninja course for squirrels. Rober’s delight and ingenuity is infectious.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. Visualize the Entire World's Wealth Inequality: Howmuch.net reports, "The Swiss are the richest with median wealth per adult at $227.9K. Haiti is the poorest country in the world with an estimated median wealth of only $214 per adult."

2. Nearly Half of Men Say They Do Most of the Home Schooling. 3 Percent of Women Agree: Ruh, roh. I smell marital trouble brewing. A recent Morning Consult survey revealed that 45 percent of men say they were carrying the bulk of the load for homeschooling—but only 3 percent of women actually said their partners were taking care of most of it.

3. Fandom Proves We Need Community: Eric Geiger shares, "Eric Simons quotes scientists, researchers, and psychologists who have studied what motivates a sports fan. The conclusion is a longing for community."

4. Why Our Modern World Can’t Stop Guilt: My friend John Starke considers why it is that a modern world that has seemed to throw everything it has to get rid of the outdated concept of guilt can’t seem to shake it. Starke concludes, “As Rich Plass has said, the soul will always find its way out. It’s true. Modern people try to bury their guilt before it’s dead, and like a zombie, it comes back to the surface in a more dangerous and wild version than before.”

5. A Husband's Perspective on His Wife's Postpartum Body: Tim Challies with a loving reflection on what a postpartum body means. He concludes that the husband considers his wife's body, "With gratitude, acknowledging that she has sacrificed her body so they could enjoy the thrill of pregnancy, the joy of children, and the blessings of family. And with desire, still longing to experience and increase the intimacy that has bound them together for all these years. He treasures each mark and each line as if they are his own. For in the sacred oneness of marriage, they are his own."

6. I Miss Baseball: Me too, Kevin James, me too.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. My Son Did Not Live One Day More or Less Than God Planned: Erik Reed shares the powerful story of grieving over his 15-year-old son's death and holding onto the truth of God's sovereignty. He shares, "Before Kaleb existed in the womb, he existed in the mind of God. From the foundation of the world, God determined that Kaleb Reed be born on March 8, 2004. Not only is this true, but He wrote the days of Kaleb’s life in His book, before one single day came to pass. God wrote the days of his life in His book and He didn’t write it in pencil."

2. Medical Ethics, Gender Identity, and Children: Robert George and Ryan Anderson weigh in on this complicated issue. They conclude, "Prudent legislation is needed to prevent adults from interfering with a child’s normal, natural bodily development. “Gender affirmation” procedures violate sound medical ethics. It is profoundly unethical to intervene in the normal physical development of a child as part of “affirming” a “gender identity” at odds with bodily sex."

3. Come to Me All Who Have COVID Weariness: My friend Benjamin Vrbicek with a timely and poignant post. He says, “The flowing current of COVID sadness can drown the strongest swimmer. You might already be gasping for air. If you feel this way, come to Jesus. Pray to him. Read his word. Belong to his church... Come and enjoy the freedom found in being loved by the Savior, not controlled by a harsh slave master.”

4. Navigating Different COVID-19 Recovery Convictions: I have felt the heat of different convictions and share Costi Hinn’s concern that “one of the ways the enemy will seek to divide our ranks within the church is tempting us to use our opinions against each other. IF the Devil has his way, we’ll be throwing stones of accusation from all sides, calling the cautious people ‘soft,’ labeling the optimists of being ‘reckless.’”

5. Do We Really Want to Go Back to Normal: Trevin Wax considers some of the ways he hopes that COVID-19 re-shapes us. He says, “What if this period of forced isolation can help us see the end result of radical individualism’s trajectory, so that in the end we come out of our enclaves and homes with a stronger commitment to our communities, our churches, and our country?”

6. Behind the Scenes of One of the World’s Top Nature Photographers: I love the combination of skill, creativity, and perseverance Yarrow demonstrates in his craft.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. The Problem with 'Spiritual But Not Religious': This phrase actually masks what the person is trying to say, David Qaoud asserts. His argument is simple and helpful.

2. Think Maturity Rather Than Change: My friend John Starke offers wise counsel. He begins, "Many Christians want to change. We do not like what we are prone to do or the behavioral impulses we display. We long to be different. The New Testament gives us good reason to think we can. “Transformation” is the imagery it often uses."

3. Possibilities and Preferences as We Adjust Our New Normal: My friend Jeff Johnson tells the story of how the chicory root made its way into coffee and how that changed the taste of a long line of coffee drinkers. He concludes, “A crisis induces variation – which is the first step in a successful innovation process. Maybe necessity is not the mother of invention, but the mother of variation. It reshuffles the raw ingredients you have to work with, and the present crisis is doing just that. Not returning to the way things looked before, but to a better version, informed by what we’ve learned – we can hope that that becomes true along many dimensions of our society.”

4. The Handshake: A Eulogy: Tyler Grant believes that the handshake will be one of the victims of COVID-19: a social custom that may never return. He considers what a handshake meant, “There was an intimacy engrained in a handshake — one between people that was culturally acceptable, before now, and allowed you to look someone in the eye while skin-to-skin. This brief touch had always been instructive. Who exudes gravitas. Who projects safety. Who hasn’t worked with their hands.”

5. The Amazing Hummingbird: The engineering of the hummingbird defies the imagination.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. The Virus Changed the Way We Internet: Unsurprisingly, since COVID-19 changed our lives a month ago, our internet habits have changed significantly. The NY Times looks into the data including the fact that Zoom usage is up over 300% and visits to ESPN.com are down over 40%.

2. What Skeptical Scholars Admit About the Resurrection Appearances of Jesus: New Testament scholar Justin Bass says that even cynical scholars admit that the followers of Jesus saw something. One scholar says it this way, “I know in their own terms what they saw was the raised Jesus. That’s what they say, and then all the historic evidence we have afterwards attest to their conviction that that’s what they saw. I’m not saying that they really did see the raised Jesus. I wasn’t there. I don’t know what they saw. But I do know that as a historian that they must have seen something.”

3. When Loneliness is Your Closest Companion: Kimberly Wagner talks about a chance encounter with a widow. It began, “I don’t cook much anymore, my husband past away a year ago, and my life is so different now. So very different . . .” Her voice trailed off to a past era of joy and companionship. My voice went soft, “I’m so very sorry.” And those four small words invited her to share more."

4. Historical Objects that Tell the Story of Easter: This is a great post by Tim Challies that grounds the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth in archaeological findings. The Alexamenos graffiti is so cool.

5. Stories of God’s Rescue: We were able to celebrate baptism at New Life this Easter. Here are the tear-inducing stories of those who God rescued.

Crisis and the Creativity of God’s Church

Crisis and the Creativity of God’s Church

If you were to list your top three most creative people, who would be on that list? Maybe Vincent van Gogh? Walt Disney? JK Rowling? Thomas Edison? Leonardo DaVinci? Marie Curie?

What would the world be without creatives in our midst? Creativity takes the mundane and makes it special. Creativity solves seemingly intractable problems. Creativity causes smiles, surprise, and thinking.

There was a time that Christians were those on the cutting edge of creativity. Take a look at a medieval cathedral and you can’t help but be impressed. Dig a little deeper at the imbedded symbolism and mathematic artistry in its design and your jaw will drop.

Today’s church doesn’t have a great reputation for its creativity. That is partially its fault (the offerings of Christian movie makers and mainstream visual artists, for instance, have been, for the most part, weak in their creative merits). This is not as it should be. Christians’ thinking ought to be characterized not by its safety, nor by its sentimentality, nor by its predictability.

Whoever tops your list of the most creative people in history is dramatically eclipsed by God. In the beginning, the source of all creativity was. And there was nothing else. And then, with a word, God formed electrons and stars and Loriciferans (look them up!) and Venus Flytraps and Baobab trees and Filbert Weevils and platypuses, and sunsets.

Undoubtedly, part of the way in which we image our creator is in our creativity. While God creates ex nihilo, we create from God’s creation and within the parameters of his order. And it delights him when we do so.

The church is often at her best in crisis. And I believe that the church has been at her creative best in the midst of this COVID-19 outbreak.

When All You Have is Facebook: Why Social Media Should be Part of our Response to COVID-19

When All You Have is Facebook: Why Social Media Should be Part of our Response to COVID-19

Social media has received plenty of negative attention over the past several years. More than a few of my friends have sworn off Facebook and Twitter. They are not without reason. Beyond draining time and productivity, it’s well documented that social media has been linked to depression.

There have been more than a few times I’ve considered deleting my Facebook and Twitter accounts. In the end, I’ve decided that in a social media age, I shouldn’t stay on these platforms: it’s my responsibility as a pastor to connect with those in my care where they are (I wrote more about that here).

Now, more than ever this is true.

Church, I encourage you to engage online.

In this new world of social distancing and (in some locations) shelter-in-place, there are more reasons than ever to utilize social media. Here are four:

  1. Others are using social media more than ever.

    Anecdotally, our church social media engagement has been through the roof in the past week. Our page views are up over 280%, our post reach is up over 570% and our post engagement is up over 840%. My hunch is that many churches are experiencing the same uptick in engagement.

  2. Most are feeling the loss of relationships.

    With schools closed and many businesses closed or having their employees working remotely, we don’t have nearly the amount of social interaction we had just a couple of weeks ago.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. Entitlement is Poisoning the Church: Noe Garcia with a timely observation, "There is an attitude that slowly creeps in and begins to create an underlying culture of everyone wanting it their way or wanting special treatment because of who they are and what they have done for the church. It’s the attitude of privilege and prestige that goes against the very essence of James 2."

2. State of Health Report Shows Growing Despair Among American Men: This is concerning. Alexandre Tanzi from Bloomberg reports that not only is male life expectancy decreasing, but that the reasons for that decrease are concerning, "The decline in life expectancy is occurring in part due to deaths from despair. From 2007 to 2017, the mortality rate from drug overdoses increased 82%, to 21.7 deaths from 11.9 per 100,000. Over the same 10-year period, suicide rates increased 24%, to 14.0 deaths from 11.3 per 100,000 resident population."

3. How Do I Know If I Have Been Predestined to be Saved? I hear this question often. Jesse Johnson answers it well. He begins with this simple statement, and then expands, "How does a person know if they have been predestined by God for heaven? The shortest answer to the question is also the best: Do you love Jesus? If so, then you have been predestined."

4. 10 Things You Should Know About Demons and Satan: Graham Cole with a concise theology of demons. His tenth is that "We may have a blind spot: ...many western Christians may have an espoused theology affirming angels and demons, but in practice have an operational theology that lives as though God and ourselves were the only intelligences."

5. Who is Under Your Roof: New research shows dramatic changes in the living situation of the average 26 year old. More and more cross-generational homes are becoming the norm.