Christian Living, Culture, Politics, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Vulgar Authenticity

Who is your favorite celebrity? Your favorite political pundit? Your favorite politician?

Why are you drawn to these individuals? Maybe it is their personality. Perhaps it is because you respect their convictions. Possibly, it is because of their unique style.

Taylor Swift might be the most beloved celebrity in the world. Many have commented that one of the reasons that Swift has cultivated such a devoted following is her accessibility and down-to-earth qualities, from what she wears to the love stories she writes about in her music.

Vulgar Authenticity
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

Leadership

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Always Looking, Never Wanting to Find: Mark Loughridge considers a reality for us in our cultural moment, "It’s cool to search for God, but uncool to find him. People talk about wanting to find spiritual reality and deeper meaning, about wanting to get in touch with God. The idea of looking for him sounds good—the search, the journey—but the reality of actually finding him is too much."

2.       Ordinary Beauty: Melissa Edgington shares an ordinary story of God's grace, "At the cash register stood a young girl with a nose ring. Her hair was pulled back, but long blonde ringlets framed her face. There is no telling how many hours she had been on her feet in that store, but still she smiled and asked how my night was going. And then, while I fished in my gigantic black hole of a purse for my wallet, she told me that I look pretty tonight. Just like that. She handed me that grace. That generous gift to a tired mama who almost certainly doesn’t look pretty tonight. And I was surprised by how shocked I was."

3.       Accept Your Leadership: Tim Challies with a call to men, "Your family needs to be led. Your wife and children need you to be the leader God calls you to be. He calls you to lead in love, to study the life and character of Jesus Christ, and to imitate him. Do that and God will be pleased. Do that and your family will be blessed. Run to win by accepting and embracing your leadership."

4.    When Should a Church Address a Current Event: In light of the recent outbreak of racist events, Trevin Wax processes whether or not a church ought to publicly address a given issue. He begins by sharing the online response from a certain quarter regarding the Charlottesville protest, "On social media, multiple people counseled churches on how to respond the next morning. Some called for condemning white supremacy and Neo-Nazis by name. Others offered prayer for pastors who were revising their sermons or penning statements to read before the church. This sentiment popped up a few times: If your church doesn't address this tomorrow, find another congregation. The social media fever implied that failing to speak on the issue indicated you were taking the side of white supremacists."

5.       Is that Hate Speech? I encourage you to take this New York Times baffling quiz on what and what does not qualify as hate speech on Facebook.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.    Almost No One in the US Believes in a Consistent Ethic of Life:This requires a much longer conversation and I respect those who disagree, but I find the Catholic ethic of life to be compelling:"one of the distinctive features of Catholic theology is what’s been described as a “consistent ethic of life.” In other words, protection and preservation at all stages of life. That’s why the Catholic church’s “seamless garment” condemns abortion, the death penalty, assisted suicide, and embryonic stem cell research."

2.    Advent and Teaching Children to Wait: Scott James reflects, “If we allow ourselves to be shaped by a culture that views waiting as a vice and being made to wait an unpardonable offense, we’ll run contrary to the path Christ calls us to walk. To push back against this on-demand mindset, here are two ways you can cultivate a more measured approach this Christmas.”

3.    Children Need Close Pals, Not Popularity: A recent study proves what we would intuit: "Chasing after popularity can be stressful for children—and for their parents. A growing body of research suggests that they should give a different focus to their social energies. Having intimate friendships, it turns out, brings more long-term benefits, such as higher self-esteem and lower levels of anxiety and depression."

4.    How Do We Become More Effective At Outreach: Ed Stetzer reflects on the changing tide of what outreach means for us in America, " Using attractional elements is not bad or wrong; I believe they are quite useful, and in many contexts, contextual. However, if more and more people are skeptical about coming to a place, then we must teach and train our people to ‘be’ the church—the incarnational presence of Christ in the places they occupy. In essence, teaching and equipping our people about the implications of the gospel lived out in real life is the true attraction." 

5.    Strength in Brokenness: Frank Viola's words are so true: " It’s not hard to spot a Christian in ministry who isn’t broken. Unbroken people don’t know how to lay their lives down and lose. They only know how to try to win. If they’re criticized, they retaliate. If they’re attacked, they return fire. If misunderstood, they defend in anger. They are capable of doing all sorts of damage to others in order to save their own ministries and keep their reputations."

6.    Time Travel Dietician: A hilarious spoof on how the rules of dieting keep changing.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.     Safety is Not the Antidote to Fear: A brief video by Gary Haugen that shakes our expectations of what God wants to do in the midst of our fears.

2.    Learning About the Wolves: Kevin DeYoung reflects on who are wolves in the church and how we should respond to them.

3.    How Our Churches Can Grow in Diversity: We have so far to go in this. I'm grateful for Greg Morse presenting not just the seriousness of the issue: "The father of lies devours minority souls, barring them from the gospel of grace and eternal life, simply by whispering, 'Christianity isn’t for you. Whites only.' When Christianity is whitewashed, when the church becomes associated with suburban country clubs, when our celebrated leaders and theologians throughout time have almost exclusively white faces... minority souls close their ears to the gospel and die in their sins." Morse also calls us forward. Among his admonitions he asks us to re-evaluate our stance on justice issues: " Social justice is not the gospel — but it is a result of the true gospel, and can be instrumental in directing souls to the true gospel." 

4.     Why the End of Marriage in Eternity is Good News: John Piper shares hard to believes news, " If the age to come is not only an improvement over the worst of this world, but over the best, then the end of marriage is spectacularly good news. Do you see this? Marriage in this age, at its best, offers some of life’s most intense pleasures, and sweetest intimacies. If you have ever tasted these, or have ever dreamed of tasting them, then you can feel the astonishing force of the promise that marriage will be no more because it was too weak to carry God’s best eternal pleasures."

5.     Match Made in Marrow: Radiolab is one of my favorite podcasts, it is also done from a secular scientific worldview that is atheistic in slant. I was shocked when they made the story of a man who came to faith in God because of his atheist bone marrow donor the centerpiece of their podcast last week. It is a fantastic listen.

6.       Penguins Don’t Belong in Antactica: Kellen Erskine is too funny: “Have you ever seen the way penguins walk? They walk the same way you would, if you were wearing cold, wet pants.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.      Pastor, Fall on the Sword Before You Wield It: Trevin Wax with a piercing exhortation: "'Rightly handling' this sword means we should teach it correctly, and the pastor must experience the piercing of this sword before he wields it in battle."

2.      How to be a Friend to those who are Same-Sex Attracted: Bekah Mason provides sage advice birthed through her own story: "In the end, both legalistic condemnation and progressive license left me seeking more contentment and completeness than either could offer. One group had fallen short of acknowledging the genuine nature of my feelings and the other had overlooked the very real conviction I held about human sexuality by explaining it away as 'residual guilt from my legalistic childhood.'" Side note: I dislike the title that the editors gave this article. Please don't be put off by it.

3.      31 Questions to Help You Be a Better Parent: Some gems in this list, like these: "3. When I’m honest, what top five values do I feel most compelled to instill in my children? Would those line up with the top five values God would want my children to have? 8. How do I believe other people see each of my children? How do I feel about that? What portion of others’ opinions could I learn from, and what should I set aside? 9. Are my children developing more into givers than takers? 11. What are the events on the timeline of my children’s lives that have the most impact? 19. In what areas are my children most vulnerable? 28. How am I doing on teaching them biblical conflict resolution? Am I teaching them to be true peace-makers … or peace-fakers, or peace-breakers?"

4.      12 Pastoral Commitments (Or, How to Pray for Your Pastor): Kevin DeYoung's list is spot on. May God shape us into pastors like this!

5.      This Octopus Hunts... on Ground: Yikes. I think I might find another beach if I witness this in person.

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Crucial Conversations by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler

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Crucial Conversations by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler

I didn’t know what I was stepping into. Strained voices were raised. Pointed accusations flew like snowballs across the narrow distance between the parties. Trying to scramble for control of the situation I treaded water verbally, first succeeding, then flailing, and then failing monumentally, shifting from mediator to combatant in one fell swoop. It was one of my most significant moments of failure as a pastor and a man.

Your failure in the midst of crucial conversations might not be as dramatic. In fact, maybe you failed by turning tail and running. That’s what is so difficult about these turning-point moments: failure is easy, success is hard.

Crucial Conversations is aimed at equipping the reader with a number of tools to use to navigate high pressure and high consequence conversations. Who couldn't improve in their ability to navigate these conversations? Unlike a lot of books in a similar genre, the authors present several different tools in the course of the book to help navigate these conversations. The book is therefore very content rich and not easy to reduce to a simple technique or phrase. Here is the most concise summary I can come up with: in the midst of crucial conversations, check your heart, listen well, and respond thoughtfully.

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Why I'm Not Giving Up on Social Media

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Why I'm Not Giving Up on Social Media

There are plenty who lament the impact social media has had on our lives and relationships. The ripples are real[i]: the dilution of relationships, envy, and loss of time are all undeniable side-effects.

In reaction, more than a few of my friends have unplugged. I know several of my pastor friends who intentionally sideline social media from their lives. They might have accounts, but for the most part, they lie dormant. They have chosen to protect themselves from the negative impact of social media on their lives. I understand the decision and, in terms of personal emotional health, I think it’s actually a wise choice.

I’m unwilling to give up social media, though.

It’s not because I’m addicted (although maybe I am) or in order to use it to build a platform (I’m pretty squeamish about that word).

It’s because social media is an indispensable part of my pastoral leadership. I don’t think I could minister as effectively if I was disconnected.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       How to Talk to a Child You're Disciplining: Simple but important advice. " Words like these will reassure your children of their value to you. They will underscore that the foundation of your relationship is bigger and stronger than any wrong act they could perform. Words like these mirror how God the Father loves you."

2.       7 Questions to Ask Your Staff on a Bi-Annual Basis: These are great questions from David Fantin. I especially like #1 and #3: "how is work affecting your soul?" and "are you being utilized to the best of your abilities?"

3.       Do You Regret Your Dating History?  Marshall Segal reflects, "Nearly two thirds of not-yet-married Christians express regret over previous relationships. That means the critical questions in dating are not just whom to date, how to date, and when to wed, but what to do when we get it wrong. And the reality is most of us get it wrong at some point along the way."

4.        I Am Not a Pirate: The first story about how the worst pirate in the world met the best pirate in the world is especially good. 

5.       How Geography Made the US a Superpower: This is such a unique way to read the history of the United States. Beyond discussing how geography made us a superpower, the video talks about why cities ended up where they did and how those cities were shaped as well. 

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Won't You Be My Neighbor?

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Won't You Be My Neighbor?

This past weekend we finished a brief sermon series on neighboring. Neighboring, as we see it in Luke 10 is at the heart of God and ought to drive our hearts. 

The bad news is that it's hard to be a good neighbor today. The good news is that there are so few good neighbors, when you neighbor well it stands out. 

Here are a couple of resources to help encourage us to take simple steps toward neighboring with God's heart.

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Lessons from an Anti-Hero: Go

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Lessons from an Anti-Hero: Go

Jonah was the only prophet called to people out of Israel.[i] That fact makes it easier to sympathize with Jonah’s resistance to God’s call to go to Nineveh. “I didn’t sign up for this,” Jonah must have thought. “No one else has ever been asked to do this!”

In his own book, Jonah is the anti-hero, a reminder of what we are not to do. God gives Jonah four directives in his book and Jonah (initially at least) rejects all four. The first two calls are coupled together. “Arise and go!” God twice tells Jonah. Last week we examined God’s call for Jonah and us to arise and we reflected just how difficult it is to swim against the cultural current and arise. But arise we must.

And Go. We must go into the mess. We’re called to step into the entanglements of lives around us. It’s easier to keep the lids on the trash cans, but you can’t get into the lives of those around you unless you start taking off some lids.

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Lessons from an Anti-Hero: Arise

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Lessons from an Anti-Hero: Arise

The Anti-Hero isn’t a modern invention, thousands of years ago Jonah was the Anti-Hero of his own story. An inspired story in the pages of scripture, no less! Jonah’s story is in the Bible to hold up a mirror to ourselves and ask if our hearts reflect Jonah’s twisted heart for the world or God’s compassionate heart.

God, the Hero, speaks first in Jonah’s tale. “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me,”[i] God directs Jonah. “But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish”[ii] (in the exact opposite direction, over sea instead of over land).

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