John Beeson

October 13, 2022

Recommendations, Christian Living, Nature, Church, Finance, Generosity, Leadership, Science, Wisdom

This Week's Recommendations

John Beeson

October 13, 2022

Recommendations, Christian Living, Nature, Church, Finance, Generosity, Leadership, Science, Wisdom

1. Money is Not the Problem: Paul Tripp with some important but hard truth about our relationship with money, "Money sanity does not begin with a budget but with humble, honest, and heart-level confession that is without excuse or shifting the blame. Where, when it comes to your money, is God calling you to honest confession of heart and hands?"

2. Pastors Identify What Idols Their Congregations Struggle With: Marissa Postell shares recent research in which "[M]ore than half of U.S. Protestant pastors believe comfort (67%), control or security (56%), money (55%) and approval (51%) are idols that have significant influence on their congregations." Parenthetically, perhaps most alarming to me was that the numbers were as low as they were… and that 14% of pastors said their congregations don't struggle with any (!) of these idols.

3. Five Questions I Wish My Accountability Partner Would Ask Me: This is surprisingly good, and I encourage you to incorporate it with your close friends. Brad Hambrick begins by explaining that he doesn't like the term "accountability partner." He says, "Can I contradict the title of this post in the first sentence? I don't like the word "accountability partner" any more than I like the word "diet," and I dislike them both for the same reason. They sound like an exception and a punishment rather than a lifestyle and a gift."

4. Ashamed Sinner, Unashamed Savior: Erik Raymond encourages us, "When you're in the midst of guilt and shame—which we should rightly feel in the midst of sin—we have to take all that he has done and his promises to God and see that he's actually not ashamed of us. It's not that he excuses sin, but he welcomes sinners."

5. Terrestrials: The Mastermind: This NPR podcast examining the intelligence of octopi is aimed at kids, but I had so much fun listening to it, and I bet you will also.

John Beeson

April 28, 2022

Recommendations, Christian Living, Church, Culture, Religion, Abortion, Family, Relationships, Sexuality

This Week's Recommendations

John Beeson

April 28, 2022

Recommendations, Christian Living, Church, Culture, Religion, Abortion, Family, Relationships, Sexuality

As LGBTQ Identification Rise, Conversations More Important: Aaron Earls reports, “Today, 10.5% of millennial adults identify as LGBTQ, whereas 5.8% did so 2017.”

Young Adults Have Complicated Relationship with Money: Marissa Postell reports that, “The typical Christian young adult donates more than three times as much as non-Christians over the course of a year ($1,820 v. $556).”
How to Work With a Domineering Boss: Joseph Grenny at Crucial Conversations responds to this question in a surprising way, “I have a domineering boss who micromanages everything I do. He has no filter when speaking to me and often is just outright rude. Whenever I send out a piece of work, he finds fault with it and tries to undermine my confidence. Having read online about his characteristics, I truly believe he suffers from narcissism. The sad fact is that he gets results and senior management love him, so he is untouchable. How can I deal with this aside from leaving the company?”
No, Christianity is Not as Bad as You Think: Josh Howerton responds to five cultural narratives. He begins with this one, “Cultural narrative #1: Christians aren’t really pro-life; they’re just pro-birth. Christians are sometimes accused of being pro-birth more than pro-life. They pretend to be passionate about the lives of the unborn as a political weapon, the argument goes, but they don’t really care about children once they’re born. But the data tells a different story.
The Liturgy of Powers: Carl Trueman begins, “The trans revolution reached new heights of absurdity last week when the BBC asked Anneliese Dodds, the Labour party’s shadow secretary for women and equalities, to define “woman.” Dodds proved singularly incapable of doing so; after saying that “it does depend what the context is,” she equivocated for several minutes and refused to give a direct answer

John Beeson

April 26, 2022

Parenting, Culture, Christian Living, Consumerism, Education, Family, Identity, Leadership, Vocation

Johnny Depp and a Few Degrees Off Course

John Beeson

April 26, 2022

Parenting, Culture, Christian Living, Consumerism, Education, Family, Identity, Leadership, Vocation

Johnny Depp and a Few Degrees Off Course

Who wouldn’t want to be Johnny Depp?

And yet, all it takes is a quick scroll through the news to see that this man’s life inspires more pity than envy. Johnny Depp’s ex-wife, Amber Heard has accused Depp of domestic abuse. Depp has fought back with a lawsuit charging Heard with abuse. Whatever the truth of who initiated the violence, one can’t help but be sad for Heard and Depp. Physical endangerment, drug and alcohol abuse, and violent, vulgar words marked their toxic and tumultuous relationship.

It has also been reported that Depp managed to blow through $650 million of his $800+ million net worth. One can’t help but scratch your head and wonder how spending that kind of money in a decade is even possible. One gets the sense that Depp has become the living version of his big screen caricature: intoxicated and unmoored.

Who would want to be Johnny Depp?

I think of my daughter and her friends in the final months of their senior year. These are days where they are peppered with questions about their future, “What are your plans?” “Where are you going?” “What are you going to do next?”

Setting one’s sights even slightly off course can result in significant error down the path. Air navigation experts refer to the one in sixty rule, which means that for every degree a plane veers off course initially it will miss its target destination by one mile for every sixty miles flown. The results can be fatal.