Recommendations, Abortion, Culture, Nature, Sexuality
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. What to do in conflict: Benjamin Vrbicek says, “Rarely do interpersonal struggles get better until the people involved move up what I call the ‘Hierarchy of Communication Ladder.’”

  2. Five ways AI is impacting the next generation: Shelly Melia reports, “According to Common Sense Media, half of teenagers use AI companions regularly, while almost 75% of teens have experimented with them. Another study found almost 1 in 5 students have used their back-and-forth conversations with AI to have a romantic relationship.”

This Week's Recommendations
Family, Forgiveness, Marriage, Parenting
John Beeson
How Motherhood Changed Me

Today I have the privilege of having my wife, Angel, share her thoughts on motherhood and her spiritual journey. You’re in for a treat. Angel is a counselor at Whole Hope Christian Counseling

 I am a type A, firstborn. By the time I was twenty, I had my life planned out. After marriage, John would work to get me through college, and then I would work as an elementary school teacher to get John through seminary without debt. Then he would graduate, we would move into our white-picket-fence dream home, start our family, and begin a life of ministry together.

I feel like you went through marriage, education, and childbearing at such a young age.  Would you please consider adding your age at various stages?  You’ll see my clues, lol.

How Motherhood Changed Me
Christian Living, Church, Evangelism, Leadership, Suffering, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Sheep Without a Shepherd

You see it, don’t you? A co-worker quietly losing their battle with alcoholism. A cousin whose marriage and family are unraveling. A friend struggling under the weight of a debilitating eating disorder. Pain is everywhere. People are hurting all around us.

If we are able to glimpse even a fraction of the world’s pain, can you imagine what Jesus saw? For any one of us, such suffering would be overwhelming. Yet, what was Jesus’ response to a world filled with the “harassed and helpless”?

Recently, while reading through the gospel of Matthew, I returned to the well-worn passage where Jesus tells his disciples,

Sheep Without a Shepherd
Recommendations, Church, Evangelism, Finance, Nature, Sexuality, Science
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. A scientist produced a monogamy study, including us: The most monogamous animal will likely surprise you (six animals rank higher than humans!). But this won’t surprise you, “Overall, less than 10% of mammals are monogamous, according to Dyble.”

  2. Don’t overthink your problems: Wyatt Graham begins, “When we face criticism or feel uncertain about our actions, our natural tendency is to analyze every detail, replay every conversation, and search for what we might have done wrong. But Scripture offers us a surprisingly liberating approach: acknowledge clear sin, but don’t lose yourself in endless rumination over unclear accusations. Instead, trust that God knows your heart better than you do.”

This Week's Recommendations
Christian Living, Prayer, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
The Questions Jesus Asked

We ask God a lot of questions.

·        “Why do bad things happen?”

·        “Why is there only one way to heaven?”

·        “Why are some people who follow you hypocrites?”

·        “Why don’t you make it more obvious that you are God?”

God invites questions. These questions haunt some. For others, the questions create confusion and stall their faith journey. For others, these questions deepen their faith as they wrestle them through with God.

But the line between us and heaven is not one way.

Did you ever consider that God might have questions for you?

The Questions Jesus Asked
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How to Bring a Fresh Pow to Prayer Together

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How to Bring a Fresh Pow to Prayer Together

You look at the clock. Your discussion on the study has gone long again. What are you going to do? Go long again? Skip group prayer and tie things up with a prayer yourself?

You look at the clock. You started with prayer requests this time and now you’re an hour in and you haven’t even begun praying for each other.

What does healthy corporate prayer look like? How can you infuse it with dynamism? With purpose? With freshness?

I recently came back from a Pastors’ Prayer Summit. It’s the second Prayer Summit I’ve been to in my time back in Tucson. Both have been incredibly encouraging experiences. I’ve learned most about corporate prayer through my time with Christian Union, where we prayed an hour a day as a staff, and as well through the Prayer Summit and the leader of the summit, Dennis Fuqua.[i]

I am still a student with so much to learn about corporate prayer, but below are four things I’ve learned that I believe will add a fresh dynamism to group prayer. My hope is not only would they add new energy, but that they would direct your prayers with a purposefulness of praise go to our holy God.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Avengers' Infinity War and the Gospel: Aaron Wilson with a thoughtful reflection on Marvel's newest addition: "Thanos is an inverted version of Christ—a villain willing to save the world, but only through the sacrifice of others... Thanos tells another character it cost him everything to save the world. However, unlike Christ who emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, Thanos’ “sacrifice” has him seeking ultimate power by assuming the form of a God."

2.       What Every Passenger on Southwest Flight 1380 Forgot: Stephen McAlpine makes a connection between our inability to remember lifesaving practices with the gospel in our life, “In other words we prove that, despite our casualness when the flight is on the ground, despite our “Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know that!” before turning to look at the dinner menu, we don’t have what we call “unconscious competence” when it comes to such a vital, life saving practice.”

3.       Reasons Not To Go To Church: Tara Beth Leach chastens, "Don't attend church if you're looking for a place to always and only be filled up, and never pour out. If you're coming to only consume, you're going to be sorely disappointed."

4.       9 Facts About John Calvin You Probably Don't Know: This is fun. Among the facts: "Calvin wrote the first edition of Institutes of the Christian Religion at age 25. He was converted at age 24."

5.       What Parts of the Country Are Religiously Engaged and Disengaged? It is surprising to see this visually. The West, Southwest, and Northeast are particularly disengaged. Arizona's disengagement might surprise some, but it doesn't surprise me, both from the numbers I've seen and anecdotally.

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The Lure of Sensuality

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The Lure of Sensuality

Perhaps the most uncomfortable thing about Christianity is not that God exists, and not that God sent his Son to the earth. It’s not the miracles: did God really make the universe out of nothing? Did Jesus really rise from the dead? It’s not even that its ethical stance on sexuality feels behind the times.

The most uncomfortable thing about Christianity is unequivocally our call to not just believe in, but to grant God authority in our lives and live faithfully and righteously.

In 2 Peter 2, Peter admonishes the church to beware of those who are false teachers and prophets. He says, “And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.” It’s interesting that he uses the word sensuality here. He doesn’t say, “And many will follow their false beliefs,” he says, “And many will follow their sensuality.”[i]

The result, not the cause, of our sensual desires is believing in false teaching.

The hook of false beliefs is rarely the beliefs themselves. Atheism, frankly, isn’t a very attractive belief system on its own merits. By its very definition, life contains no meaning: the brutal and blind hand of the natural world is all that is. It raises more questions than it solve: from the question of creation to the problem of evil to ethics. The hook of atheism is sensuality. If there is no God, there is no one you have to cede authority of your life to.

It’s why agnosticism is much more popular than atheism[ii] You get the same freedom and don’t have to swallow nearly as bitter a pill.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Will You Still Know Me? One of the most beautiful pieces I've read in some time, Sylvia Shroeder shares the story of the removal of her daughter's birthmark and the earnest question her daughter asks her, "Will you still know me?" Shroeder concludes, "Jesus wrote my name in the pages of eternity. He inscribed me on hands wounded by the weight of the sin of humankind. I am bookmarked chosen. When Heidi comes back, a white bandage covers what used to be a brown birthmark. Her eyes are open, searching for me. I lean down, kiss her forehead and whisper, “I know you.”" Read the whole thing, you'll be glad you did. 

2.       When Christians Began Speaking of "The" Antichrist: Did you know that for centuries, Christians spoke of "antichrist" much more frequently than "the antichrist?" Why is that important? Thomas Kidd explains, " For these theologians, antichrist was a power, rather than a single individual, although a single individual might certainly be at the head of world antichristian power."

3.       Does the Bible Teach Generational Curses? Roger Skepple says no. " In Exodus 20:4-6 the subject is idolatry. Regarding those who commit idolatry, we learn that God would visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Him. Notice, the text says “generations of those who hate Me.” Therefore, we see that God would punish those who imitate their fathers’ idolatrous actions."

4.       Farewell Bible Readers, Hello Bible Quoters: Russell Moore reflects on a growing problem, "Here’s the end-result according to Nienhuis: 'They have the capacity to recall a relevant biblical text in support of a particular doctrinal point, or in opposition to a hot spot in the cultural wars, or in hope of emotional support when times get tough. They approach the Bible as a sort of reference book, a collection of useful God-quotes that can be looked up as one would locate words in a dictionary or an entry in an encyclopedia.'"

5.       The Amazing Story of Kipchoge Keino "Kipchoge Keino or... just Kip, is a retired athlete who ran for the country of Kenya. Throughout his career, Kip earned almost a dozen medals, half of which were gold, for being an amazing middle to long distance runner... [Once] Kip was almost late for his own race and had to (literally) run to get there, then won a gold medal anyway, despite major adversity in that race. "

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Who We Pray We Will Be

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Who We Pray We Will Be

In this brief series I have shared how significant the process of creating our staff culture document was for our staff. The document represents who we are when we are at our best. In that sense, it is a hope, it is a prayer we have lifted up to God. “Lord, by your grace, shape us to be this kind of team,” we have offered up to God.

My wife and I were recently doing couples counseling with a couple who had experienced such a series of letdowns in their marriage they were fearful to commit to even the most modest of changes for fear of failure. But, whether it is physical health, or your organization, there is no hope for change without the risk of the offering of prayers and dreams for what you want to become.

Below is our staff’s prayer for who we desire that God would shape us to be. You will see the value stated first, then a brief statement of what we believe that value is, and then ways we can measure that value. We are working on a longer document currently where we want to share stories of ways our staff has watched that value lived out as a team. This is a living document and likely will look different in six months than it does today. We see that as a good thing.

By his grace, we have already begun to see the small works of his transformative power among us. We have worked hard to press this into our lives and work together. I encourage you to take that risk with the team God has placed you on. If you have a staff culture document, I would love it if you would share yours as well.

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Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance

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Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance

If you want to see just how entrenched our political ideologies are to our identity, meander over to the reviews of JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy over at Goodreads. If you prefer to retain your sanity, stay with me here. Vance’s book was timely. Released in 2016, for many it became a window into understanding the Rust Belt that propelled Donald Trump to victory. Vance, while a Republican himself, doesn’t write the book as a defense of conservative Rust Belt politics (he’s quite critical at times) and certainly it is not written with Donald Trump in mind. And yet, in our politically overheated climate, this is certainly how many have read Vance’s book.

Vance’s book was about something much smaller and much bigger than explaining the 2016 election. He writes the book to provide a window into an area of the country that, while large, is largely anonymous to many Americans, myself included. “Americans call them hillbillies, rednecks, or white trash,” Vance says, “I call them neighbors, friends and family.” 

Vance, who hails from Middletown, Ohio, and has roots in Eastern Kentucky invites us into his Appalachian world. These are the descendants of the Scotch-Irish, who dug America’s coal, forged America’s steel and built America’s automobiles. They were faithful churchgoers and fiercely patriotic. But with the shuttering of coal mines and the decline of industrial America, it’s a people who have struggled to enter the 21st century and whose self-perception as hard working and devout Christians has been hollowed out. The data shows a people who are, despite how they project themselves, deeply reliant on government assistance, and AWOL from the church. As opportunity has vanished, so has church attendance and belief in the American Dream. It has been replaced by broken families, liquor, painkillers, and heroin.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       White Evangelicals Also Want Stricter Gun Laws: Surprising findings from Pew. Rob Schenck says, “The perception that all evangelicals have a kind of bloodlust for firearms, that’s not true, particularly when it comes to under-40 evangelicals and their pastors.”

2.       Stop Delegating! Shawn Lovejoy argues that delegation isn't true leadership. " Empowerment, on the other hand, has everything to do with the benefit of the other person and the entire organization." 

3.       Why It Was Not Good to Be Alone: Mike Leake argues that the primary reason it wasn't good for Adam to be alone wasn't physical or emotional, it was theological, " So the fundamental reason why it was not good for Adam to be alone was not because of a need to fulfilled within Adam, but rather because of a deficiency in his ability to accurately image God. He couldn’t make the invisible kingdom visible while he was alone because the invisible kingdom is a community. Adam needed Eve to accurately reflect God."

4.       Why Do I Believe in Credobaptism? Stephen Kneale makes a succinct argument for why we should baptize believers, not infants. One of his arguments is, " The Great Commission is that portion of scripture in which Jesus tells his followers to ‘go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ This same command, the order of which seems significant, is picked up by the disciples who insist that their hearers ‘repent and be baptised’."

5.       Folegandros Island, Greece: A drone flies over the beautiful island. 

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Choosing Our Values

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Choosing Our Values

Like individuals, every organization has a unique beauty. But like individuals, no organization is without warts. The sooner you can look your organization in the mirror and make an honest appraisal of your beauty and your warts, the better. It’s a dead end to either become obsessed by your warts or to become infatuated by your beauty.

By God’s grace, New Life’s staff culture is more beautiful than when I arrived two years ago. There are lots of reasons for that, but none more significant than the process we went through a year ago to create a staff culture document and then to begin to invest time and energy toward making strides toward our staff culture document.

The process of choosing those values was messy, but the mess was important. Ultimately the process took just less than three months. I share our process not because I think we navigated the process perfectly or that we’ve arrived or that I would recommend the same exact process for another organization, but because there were important points of learning along the way for us that I hope can benefit you.

1.       We committed to a process

Not everyone was thrilled that we were taking a significant amount of time to walk through developing a document that, to some, either didn’t seem to offer much hope for change, or was so obvious it didn't seem to need to be stated with a document. But everyone agreed that for it to truly be our staff's document, we all needed to take ownership. Furthermore, we agreed with the simple ground rules that our staff culture values would be those which represented “who we are at our best.” That spoke to the pessimists in the room, who might be tempted in such a document to focus on the warts.  And it spoke to the optimists in the room, who might be tempted to include values that are great, but aren’t reflective of who we are.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Three Predictors of Porn Use: Jay Stringer explains, "Perhaps you’ve found yourself not able to turn off your allure to porn. If so, a far more beneficial approach to recovery than combating lust is to focus on the themes that drive and necessitate your use of pornography. Until these themes are transformed, you will find yourself in the same, pernicious cycle of pornography use."

2.       How to Heal the Damage Caused by Family Conflict: Mark Gregston wisely reflects, " Not following up on hurtful actions of confrontations to either correct the mistakes you’ve made or affirm the relationship is what allows conflict to cause damage to your relationship with your child.   Remember that you’re not only resolving issues that you have with your child, but, more importantly you are setting the example of conflict resolution and teaching your child how to admit fault, assume a position of humility, and ask for forgiveness for any wrongdoing; all characteristics in a person’s life that are more caught than taught."

3.       5 Honest Struggles Church Leaders Don't Want to Admit: Carey Nieuwhof with a good reminder of the lies leaders can easily get entrapped by, "Greater faithfulness should result in greater impact in ministry. Pursue God, and pursue a great mission. Both are critical. But God doesn’t reward the most faithful with the best results."

4.       The Best Preacher in the World: David Murray says, " Every church needs two preachers. We need a human preacher, one who is visible, audible, tangible. But we also need a divine preacher, one that is invisible, inaudible, and intangible. I’m speaking of the Holy Spirit, without whom the work of the human preacher is in vain."

5.       Girl Scout Marketing Meeting: Jon Crist will have you laughing at the silliness of the Girl Scout's marketing plan.

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Breakfast is Served

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Breakfast is Served

Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

Just about a year ago we went through an exercise as a staff that has proved one of the most important things I’ve done on staff at any organization. It was messy and it took way longer than we thought it would take (about two months), and the end result wasn’t shocking or ground-breaking, but despite all of that, the exercise was a fulcrum point for us as a staff and as an organization.

What did we do? We created a staff culture document, which named our values as a staff. In the third post, I will share the full document, but in this post, I will share the values we chose and why I am convinced staff values are so important. In the next post I will share what the process looked like.

Our values are:

  1. Humble
  2. Loving
  3. Prayerful
  4. Hard Working
  5. Fun
  6. Collaborative
  7. Trustworthy

We are far from the first organization to create a staff culture document and our values are not unique. In fact, there may be organizations out there who might share our exact seven values. But the process of putting the document together was invaluable for us as a staff. And the values themselves have become anchoring points for who we are and who we aspire to be.

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