Christian Living, Culture, Politics
John Beeson
Uprooting Our Political Identity

Happy election day!

In 2016, data scientists Eitan Hersh and Yair Ghitza analyzed data among registered voters to determine how often Democrats and Republicans married. They learned that 9% of marriages had the spouses registered in the two parties. Over the next four years that meager number would drop precipitously, down to 4%.

 As Jonathan Haidt and others have successfully argued, the ideological disparity between FOX News and CNBC are child’s play compared to the engineered social media algorithms that create hermetically sealed echo chambers for our political views.

Uprooting Our Political Identity
Abortion, Christian Living, Culture, Politics
John Beeson
Protecting the Voice of the Voiceless

The tide of public opinion on abortion has ebbed dramatically over the past two years. On Friday, June 22, the Supreme Court handed down one of the most critical decisions in our lifetime: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Forty-nine years of nationally enshrined abortion rights were pushed down to the states. The battle was not over, but had just begun. Pro-lifers who thought this was the beginning of a new pro-life era were in for a disappointment. The reaction from the pro-choice community was strong and their response led to a wave of support for their cause leaving many pro-lifers flat-footed.

Protecting the Voice of the Voiceless
Christian Living, Culture, Death, Fear
John Beeson
What Spooks You?

Across the street from our home is the holiday house. You probably have one in your neighborhood. They go all out for every holiday. On Saturday, cars stacked up on the main road leading into the neighborhood as families drove by slowly, taking in the massive display that must have cost the owners thousands of dollars.

 

Last week I drove by a home whose Halloween decorations weren’t as massive or ostentatious, but the lawn display was undoubtedly the eeriest I’ve ever seen. A life-like severed head hung from a tree limb. A decapitated corpse with a visible spinal cord jutting out between slumped shoulders sat underneath.

What Spooks You?
Christian Living, Culture, Fear, Wisdom
John Beeson
The Temptation of Temptation

In 2023, 46 horror movies were released. 75 million tickets were sold, and the industry made $798 million in domestic revenue alone. It’s been argued that horror movies remain a draw for many in the contemporary West because there is so little actual danger in most of our lives.

 

Atheist Steven Pinker in The Better Angels of Our Nature argues that we live in the most peaceful era of human existence: wars have decreased, human rights have expanded, and rates of starvation and lifespans have improved. Drawn to conflict, we now have access to global news coverage, which gives us the dopamine hit of feeling like we are in conflict.

The Temptation of Temptation
Christian Living, Fear, Spiritual Growth, Wisdom
John Beeson
Night

What attracts us so much to the dark?

In the story of Swan Lake, a ballet by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Prince Siegfried falls in love with Odette (who has been cursed by the evil magician, Von Rothbart), after happening upon her at the lake one night during a hunting trip.  As a result of Von Rothbart's curse, Odette is human only at nightfall, for at daybreak she transforms into a swan.  True and faithful love is the only thing that can break the curse, and Siegfried aims to marry Odette, proclaiming such love, at a ball his mother is throwing for his birthday. 

Night

humble

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4 Questions to Ask When You Shop for a Church

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4 Questions to Ask When You Shop for a Church

After Angel and I were married, we moved to Phoenix, a town new to both of us. We began a several-month-long journey of finding a church that would be repeated again in two-and-a-half years when we moved to New Jersey. I have vivid memories of both church shopping experiences: of the sweet little Anglican church in Phoenix where we were the youngest in attendance by at least four decades and mobbed afterward by kindly congregants who begged us to stay for coffee and cookies; of the 1,000 square foot church on the Jersey shore where our friends and we doubled the size of the congregation and the accompaniment was played by means of a 1980s style boom box which the pastor turned around to push the button at the beginning and end of every song.

It wasn’t long ago that the idea of having more than one church in your lifetime would have been completely foreign. Virtually the entire world died where they were born and rarely left their hometown.[i] In contrast, the average US citizen today is expected to move 11.4 times in his or her lifetime.[ii] Even if you never leave a church for another reason, you will most likely look for a church roughly a dozen times in your life.

Shopping Well

No one likes to church shop.[iii] I certainly hope you don’t enjoy church shopping. Church shopping is a dangerous activity. By its very nature, it places the shopper in the position of being an observer and a critic and not a participant and member. The faster you can shift from critic to member, the healthier it will be for you spiritually and the healthier it will be for the body of Christ.

And yet, sometimes it is necessary. When you look for a church, here are four questions you should ask.

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6 Things You Should Do Before You Leave Your Church

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6 Things You Should Do Before You Leave Your Church

So, you’ve decided to leave your church: you’re moving, or you’ve come to a doctrinal impasse, or there has been conflict that you’ve tried to navigate, but the church has been unwilling to biblically walk through a peacemaking process to bring about reconciliation.

As a pastor, every person who leaves the church hurts. As a pastor of ten years, there have been hundreds that have left the churches I’ve served at and I can only think of a very small handful that I was glad to see go. Every goodbye is painful.

But, as we discussed last week, there are times to say goodbye (although a lot fewer than we are encultured to believe). When you say goodbye, say goodbye well. Sadly, in today’s culture, most of us say goodbye very poorly (usually by not saying goodbye at all, just slipping away). We’re called to say goodbye in a harder, but better, way.

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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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4 Questions to Ask When You Church Shop

, ,
4 Questions to Ask When You Church Shop

After Angel and I were married, we moved to a town new to both of us: Phoenix. Thus began a several month journey of finding a church that would be repeated again in two and a half years when we moved to New Jersey. I have vivid memories of both church shopping experiences: of the sweet little Anglican church in Phoenix where we were the youngest in attendance by at least four decades and mobbed afterwards by kindly congregants who begged us to stay for coffee and cookies; of the 1,000 square foot church on the Jersey shore where we and our friends doubled the size of the congregation and the accompaniment was played by means of a 1980s style boom box which the pastor turned around to push the button at the beginning and end of every song.

It wasn’t long ago that the idea of having more than one church in your lifetime would have been completely foreign. Virtually the entire world died where they were born and rarely left their hometown.[i] In contrast, the average US citizen today is expected to move 11.4 times in his or her lifetime.[ii] Even if you never leave a church for another reason, you will most likely look for a church ten times in your life.

, , ,

6 Things to Do Before You Leave Your Church

, , ,
6 Things to Do Before You Leave Your Church

So, you’ve decided to leave your church: you’re moving, or you’ve come to a doctrinal impasse, or there has been conflict that you’ve tried to navigate, but the church has been unwilling to biblically walk through a peacemaking process to bring about reconciliation.

As a pastor, every person who leaves the church hurts. As a pastor of ten years, there have been hundreds that have left the churches I’ve served at and I can only think of a very small handful that I was glad to see go. Every goodbye is painful.

But, as we discussed last week, there are times to say goodbye (although a lot fewer than we are encultured to believe). When you say goodbye, say goodbye well. Sadly, in today’s culture, most of us say goodbye very poorly (usually by not saying goodbye at all, just slipping away). We’re called to say goodbye in a harder, but better, way.

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