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.
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.
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.
In 2003, Bart Millard still mourning his father’s recent death, penned the lyrics for “I Can Only Imagine,” a song that would go on to be the most-played song in the history of Christian radio.
Can you imagine what heaven is going to be like?
There are lots of different views of heaven out there. A couple of decades ago a cottage industry developed, selling stories of those who said they had been to heaven while on death’s doorstep. We’re told of bright lights, lives re-played, and a warm glow. Others might daydream of harps and clouds, when asked to imagine heaven.
On October 17, 2023, we (my wife Angel and I) released our first book, Trading Faces. With around four million books published annually (one for every resident of Oklahoma!), an author can feel as though they’re contributing a grain of sand to a beach. And there is truth to that! As the Preacher wisely reminds us in Ecclesiastes,
Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us. (Eccl. 1:10)
Why do I have to keep forgiving him?
I’ve heard it many times as a pastor. It’s said with weariness and hurt, or bitterness and anger, or confusion and longing. It can mean at least four things.
“It hurts too much to keep forgiving him for repeated sins.”
“Can’t I just overlook her sin against me?”
“He hurt me so deeply that he doesn’t deserve forgiveness.”
“Why am I still hurting over an offense when I said I forgave her?”
What does God’s Word have to say about each of these situations?
Trauma is everywhere. One in four women and one in six men will be sexually abused. At least one in seven children have experienced abuse or neglect in the past year. More than one in four abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children.
Psychological research continues to demonstrate the tentacle-like nature of the impact of trauma. Effects include dissociation, panic attacks, hyperarousal, loss of sleep, low self-esteem, grief, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and substance abuse.
It’s that time of year, when transitions happen: seasons close and new seasons begin. Maybe you’re a student who just headed off to college. Maybe you got a new job. Maybe your employer transitioned you. Those are some of the many natural reasons that you might have just left or might be leaving your church in the coming weeks.
Maybe you’ve left or are planning on leaving your church for entirely different reasons, though. Maybe your pastor is in a rut. Maybe the worship grates on you. Maybe you feel like you just don’t know anyone there any longer. Maybe you were injured by someone at the church and you tense up at the awkwardness of returning. Maybe you feel like you’re not getting spiritually fed there any longer. Maybe you are frustrated with how your church has handled Covid-19.
In this four-part series we will explore appropriate reasons for leaving a church, how to leave a church, how to choose a church, and how to join a church.
Let’s explore some of the most common reasons[i] people leave the church and reflect whether they are appropriate or not.
1) I feel disconnected
“The church doesn’t feel like home any longer. My friends have left and I feel like I’m at someone else’s church when I arrive.”
It’s not appropriate to leave: losing friends is hard, but we shouldn’t leave a church because our friends have left. Part of the joy of the church is that God brings together strangers into community. Do the hard work of starting a new small group or serving in a new ministry and God will surely bring about new relationships.
1. According to Research People With "Too Many Interests" Are More Likely to Be Successful: This is really interesting and runs against the prevailing wisdom, "The warning against being a generalist has persisted for hundreds of years in dozens of languages. 'Equipped with knives all over, yet none is sharp,' warn people in China. In Estonia, it goes, 'Nine trades, the tenth one — hunger.' If being a generalist is an ineffective career path, why do 10+ academic studies find a correlation between the number of interests/competencies someone develops and their creative impact?"
2. How to Move from Bitterness to Forgiveness: Roger Barrier responds to an important question that plagues so many. He begins his post with this advice, "Don’t minimize the hurts in your life. Mourn your hurts. Express them to a trusted friend or spouse and allow you to be comforted. Jesus died for those hurts. Talk honestly about them. Who has hurt you the most? With whom have you not reconciled? Who does the Holy Spirit bring to your mind when you think hurtful thoughts? Jesus said, "Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted."
3. What Does it Mean to Be Baptized in the Spirit? Clear and helpful post by Adriel Sanchez. He reflects, "Understandably, people typically focus on the miraculous signs that accompanied the Baptism of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. In doing so they often miss the big picture the Bible gives us with regard to this significant event in the history of salvation. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is not primarily about speaking in tongues but about the beginning of a new creation, the advancement of a new temple, the giving of a new law, and the commissioning of a new group of prophets."
4. How History's Revivals Teach us How to Pray: This is inspiring. Davis Thomas reflects on a very different sort of prayer than most of us are accustomed to, "I was confronted with how the Bible appears utterly unfamiliar with casual prayer, prayer of the mouth and not the heart. Travailing prayer—the kind of burdened, focused pressing my friends in the Hebrides described—seemed closer to the heart of prayer in Scripture. A stream of this manner of praying flows from the early church all the way through the Reformation."
5. The Best Weapon is an Open Door: Rosaria Butterfield on just how significant hospitality is. She concludes, "Perhaps our everyday lives would reveal that the hand of God reaches into the hardest situations imaginable and that nothing is impossible with God. Hospitality is the ground zero of the Christian life."
1. This is About That: That Great video on the true meaning of marriage by Andrew Wilson.
2. What Does Evangelism Look Like in Your Day-to-Day Life? Phil Miglioratti with a call to show and tell the gospel as we go.
3. 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You: Excerpt from Tony Reinke’s new book.
4. Coptic Christians Do the Unimaginable: The incredible testimony of the forgiveness of the Egyptian Christians.
5. Marriage Wounds: Melissa Edgington with a compelling reflection on marriage, scars and beauty: "But, a few days ago I looked down and realized that somehow in the course of my work, my ring had gotten knocked against my finger and had left a small cut there, hidden underneath the beautiful gold, a scar on the delicate-looking redhead’s fair flesh of my left hand. I was surprised to see it there, because in all of these years of dealing with babies and a mother’s work, I never remember my ring doing such a thing. But, there it was. A wound inflicted by the very symbol of never-ending love between a man and a woman."
It’s that time of year, when transitions happen: seasons close and new seasons begin. Maybe you’re a student who will be headed off to college in couple months. Maybe you got a new job. Maybe your employer transitioned you. Those are some of the many natural reasons that you might be leaving your church in the coming weeks.
Maybe you’ve left or are planning on leaving your church for entirely different reasons, though. Maybe your pastor is in a rut. Maybe the worship grates on you. Maybe you feel like you just don’t know anyone there any longer. Maybe you were injured by someone at the church and you tense up at the awkwardness of returning. Maybe you feel like you’re not getting spiritually fed there any longer.
In this four part series we will explore appropriate reasons for leaving a church, how to leave a church, how to choose a church, and how to join a church.
Let’s explore some of the most common reasons[i] people leave the church and reflect whether they are appropriate or not.
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