Christian Living, Biblical Studies, Religion, Spiritual Growth, Theology
John Beeson
The Faith of Unbelief

Bart Ehrman has perhaps done more to undermine the credibility of the Bible than anyone else in my lifetime. But his story didn’t begin that way. Ehrman is a New Testament scholar and skeptic. Ehrman grew up in a Christian home, attended a conservative Bible school, and then found his way to a liberal seminary where his faith in the God of the Bible unraveled. That seminary happens to be the seminary I would attend a couple of decades later.

For Ehrman, everywhere he looks he sees holes in the biblical story. The inconsistencies that he sees have led him to determine that he cannot trust in the God of the Bible.

The Faith of Unbelief
Christian Living, Culture, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Don't Numb Your Feelings

“Don’t listen to your feelings; remember what Jesus did for you!”

“Don’t be guided by your feelings; listen to what God commands you to do!”

In just the past week, I heard both of these warnings. Two very different Christian speakers urged their audiences to shut down their feelings. These admonitions resonate. They contain truth. It is correct that our feelings don’t override truth, nor do our emotions negate what God has done. Neither do our feelings give us an out for what God commands us to do.

Don't Numb Your Feelings
History, Spiritual Growth, Suffering, Wisdom
John Beeson
Lord, Reach Your Justice Down

I had outsized emotions as a child. Games, especially, would get the best of me, whether cards or boardgames or sports. In response to a stroke of bad luck, a hot surge of anger would erupt, followed quickly by tears and then embarrassment.

Emotions are God’s gift to us in many ways. They are one of his kind ways of showing us where our deep attachments lie.

Our son started his freshman year at the University of Arizona this fall. It’s been a great experience for him, but not without its adjustments. The climate of a secular school is quite different than the Christian school he graduated from

Lord, Reach Your Justice Down
Culture, Generosity, Nature, Relationships
John Beeson
Marshmallows and Friends

Most have heard of the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment. In 1970, psychologist Walter Mischel invited kids into his lab. A child was offered a marshmallow that they could eat, or, if they waited until the researcher returned, they were given a second marshmallow. About one-third of the kids waited approximately fifteen minutes for the additional reward.

The study then tracked those children over time and found that children who waited for the second reward tended to have higher SAT scores and lower body mass indexes. Later tests have challenged those outcomes, but it hasn’t stopped parents everywhere from running the experiment on their kids, often with humorous results.

Marshmallows and Friends
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

leadership

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Anger, Retaliation, and My Scion xB

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Anger, Retaliation, and My Scion xB

I drove a little manual 2005 Scion xB for about eight years. It finally gave out after 230,000 miles. I loved that little car. It was fuel-efficient and required minimal maintenance. But it is undeniably close to the least powerful car on the road. I’m pretty sure that on its specs, next to 0-60mph, it says, “Eventually!”

Unless I was lined up against someone from a nearby retirement community, I was the last car to reach the speed limit coming off a stoplight. Unsurprisingly, more aggressive drivers with more powerful vehicles tended to treat my little Scion like a safety cone on the road, more like an obstacle than a fellow traveler.

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The Top Ten Ways to Lead in Your Home (and Organization, Too!)

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The Top Ten Ways to Lead in Your Home (and Organization, Too!)

In the past post we considered the biblical priority of leading in our homes before stepping into leadership callings outside of our home.

When I was asked to speak to our Mom’s Matter group on leading well in the home I was a bit intimidated. I felt far from equipped to speak as a man to women on the topic of leadership. And so, I did the only thing I could think of: I asked wise, godly women who were also great leaders. Starting with my wife, I began to listen to the advice my female friends offered on leadership in the home and beyond.

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Will You Forgive Me for My Cowardice?

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Will You Forgive Me for My Cowardice?

.In the last post I confessed my sin of narcissism. It’s true, I can be a selfish and self-serving leader.

 

If it were only so easy to defend ourselves against sins from one direction. One of my favorite little leadership books to come out in the past few years has been Trevin Wax’s The Multi-Directional Leader. Wax’s thesis is simple: most leaders are only concerned about threats that come from one direction, but any shepherd knows that threats come from all sides. A wise leader is aware not just of one threat from one direction, but many threats from many directions.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. If you use any of these 9 phrases every day, ‘you’re more emotionally secure than most’: 8 of Dr. Cortney Warren’s list of 9 are excellent (I’ll let you spot which one is problematic). Here are two good ones:“Let me think about that before I respond,” and “Am I like that?”

  2. Christian unity is deeper than ‘getting along’: Trevin Wax reflects on the riches of Jesus’ prayer in John 17, “Jesus wants his followers to be one as a way of participating in the oneness of the triune God.”

  3. Social media is causing our children to suffer: Joe Carter reports, “The U.S. surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, has issued a warning about the potential risks of social media on children’s mental health. Here’s why Christian parents should be concerned—and what we can do to protect our kids.”

  4. Gospel-shaped leaders communicate with grace-filled candor: Scott Thomas’s visual is helpful in considering how to move toward Christ-honoring communication. He says, “The goal of grace-filled candor is to find a solution to the conflict while deepening relationships with others.”

  5. The most common dad joke in each US state: This is pretty great. Although, I cry foul on a bunch of aphorisms masquerading as supposed “jokes.” Pennsylvania takes the cake as the most prolific dad-joking state with Oregon and Mississippi taking a strong anti-dad-joke stand.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. See Me: Andrea Sanborn begins, “Mommy, watch!” She twirls through the living room, nightgown billowing around her legs. “Watch me!” she pleads, spinning and dancing in the hope of her mother’s regard.”

  2. Dear Nursery Worker: Lara d’Entremont shares, “I came into your nursery with a lot of baggage. Not just a heavy diaper bag slung over my shoulder and a toddler clinging to my side. I came with grief from miscarriages. I came with sorrow from leaving the church we used to call home. I came with fear and uncertainty if this would be the place we could call our church.”

  3. Know the Difference Between Laziness and Limitations: Tim Shorey, who is battling stage four cancer imparts wisdom, “Losing your job may mean you don’t leave your house every morning. Nursing a newborn may mean you sit in a rocking chair for hours. Struggles with migraines or insomnia may mean you sleep when the rest of the world is busy. These are not matters for guilt. They are limitations.”

  4. There are an Infinite Number of Wheels in God’s Providence: Jacob Crouch asks, “Have you ever seen one of those Rube Goldberg machines? A Rube Goldberg machine is a contraption where someone sets up an incredibly complicated chain reaction in order to accomplish a simple task. (Check out this guy’s amazing basketball one for an example). I’m always amazed at how every little detail has to work out exactly right, or the whole thing falls apart. I’ve even made one before, and the smallest variation in any part can throw the whole thing off. For it to work as it was designed, even the most minute detail must happen exactly at the right place and the right time. God’s providence in our lives is infinitely more complex and amazing.”

  5. The Unconventional Model Behind Chic-fil-A’s Success: Really neat to see just how different Chic-fil-A’s approach is. Lots of leadership lessons here to be learned.

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Letting the Critics Drive the Conversation

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Letting the Critics Drive the Conversation

The atmosphere was lively at our city’s Independence Day celebration. A cover band belted out tributes to classic rock, bouncy houses were extra bouncy, and food trucks lined the field. Under a pop-up tent near the entrance, local politicians shook hands.  

One candidate approached me and pulled me into a conversation. Taking the bait, I asked her about her stance on a local issue. My question spun out into a twenty-minute discussion….

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Biblical Archaeology’s Top Discoveries of 2022: I missed several of these. The monument to Hezekiah is really neat. And so is the new magnetic dating technology.

  2. In the End, There are Yellow Tulips: Madelyn Canada’s post is stunning. Don’t miss this one. ““You look beautiful in ‘lellow,’ Ms. Madelyn.” She was in my arms, had put her little hands on my face and said it with the deepest sincerity. I chuckled and thanked her, setting her back down on the floor so she could join her other friends playing with baby dolls.”

  3. The Five Not-Points of Calvinism: Speaking of TULIP(s) ;), Scott Hubbard shares, “The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) once described Calvinism as a lamb in wolf’s skin: “cruel in the phrases,” but “full of consolation for the suffering individual.” The words unconditional election, for example, can feel rough on the surface; they can seem to snarl and bare their teeth. Yet as countless Christians have discovered, beneath Calvinism’s wolfish exterior is the softness of a lamb.”

  4. Nurturing Emotional Well-being: Betty-Anne Van Rees begins, “One of the great misunderstandings about the human experience in our era is the idea that our emotional state is something that happens to us; that we are powerless to impact it. The truth is we make choices throughout our day that profoundly impact our emotional and mental well-being.”

  5. 5 Things a Leader Always Gets Right: Carey Nieuwhof is right on with this. “Knowing how to handle failure well is essential to success in leadership. But do you know what is harder? How you handle success. You would think success would be harder, but it is, and I’ve seen far more leaders blow success than I have leaders blow failure. Failure is, by nature, humiliating. It crushes pride. Success does the opposite. It naturally inflates a leader’s pride. It’s intoxicating.”

  6. Visualized: the World’s Population at 8 Billion: I love looking at these sorts of infographics. The world just hit 8 billion people: how does that break down over across the globe?

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6 Ways a Pastor Should Respond to a Departing Congregant

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6 Ways a Pastor Should Respond to a Departing Congregant

I sat across the room from the couple, trying to slow down my mind and open my heart to the criticism they were leveling at me. They had been offended by my sermon and had reacted on Facebook, indicating they were leaving the church. I reached out privately and asked if we could meet to talk. They agreed to do so. When we met, he was relatively calm, but she was very upset and I knew that I needed to hold my own emotions in check to be able to listen to the heart of what she was saying and respond in love, not hurt. As I had prayed to prepare for the meeting I genuinely didn’t think I was going to be able to ask for forgiveness for anything as I didn’t think I had done anything wrong. But in the midst of the meeting God opened my heart to see an area of blindness. I was able to ask and receive their forgiveness for the way this blind spot had injured them. I then asked if they would be willing to ask for forgiveness for their slander. They were willing to do so and I forgave them.

These are not the meetings that you anticipate when you sign up to be a pastor, but there are few moments more important in your ministry than these tense conversations.

Over the course of this series, I’ve reflected on a congregant’s responsibility, but pastors and leaders bear a responsibility to help congregants navigate departures well.

One friend wisely said, “I think the pastor needs to do his part in hearing the discord, attempt to reconcile, and when reconciliation is not the solution for continued membership, to ensure a good relocation.” She’s right. Here are six ways a leader should respond to those who are leaving:

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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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The Attacks Don't Only Come from One Side

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The Attacks Don't Only Come from One Side

I grew up in an evangelical church, navigated a mainline seminary, and now pastor an evangelical church. Having inhabited both conservative and liberal worlds, I am aware of the ideological threats on both sides. I have often found myself in rooms where I was the lone conservative and I’ve been in other rooms where I was suspected of being a closet liberal. The Multi-Directional Leader struck home in the challenges I have dealt with as a leader.

Trevin Wax's The Multi-Directional Leader comes in at just under 100 pages. thesis is this: most under-shepherds of God's flock are concerned about threats from only one direction. The faithful under-shepherd, however, is aware of threats to the sheep from all sides. The importance of this simple thesis cannot be understated.

Wax says that the temptation to be one-dimensional comes from within and without. In writing to Timothy, Paul warned preachers of the temptation to scratch itching ears. There will always be those within our congregations who want to hear alarms only of the dangers that come from one side.

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