John Beeson

June 27, 2019

Christian Living, Culture, Family, Parenting

This Week's Recommendations

John Beeson

June 27, 2019

Christian Living, Culture, Family, Parenting

1. 5 Christian Cliches That Need to Go: Matt Smethurst considers the issues of when we say, "When God closes a door, he opens a window, " "You're never more safe than when you're in God's will," Let go and let God," and others.

2. Why You Can't Have Friends Without Conflict: Eric Geiger on the cost of God-intended relationships: " We can live with the absence of conflict. Or we can live in relationships. We cannot have both friends and the absence of conflict. If we desire to be in community, we will have conflict."

3. Religiously Unaffiliated Surge in Latest Study: The so-called "Nones" continue to grow according to the General Social Survey. Aaron Earl reports: "What’s the largest religious group in America? For the first time in more than 30 years, it’s not Catholics or evangelicals. Evangelicals and Catholics remain slightly less than a quarter of the American population, and now so are the religiously unaffiliated."

4. In Their Own Words: Parents of Kids Who Think They are Trans Speak Out: These are heartbreaking stories from five anonymous moms. One shares, "Parents like me must remain anonymous to maintain our children’s privacy, and because we face legal repercussions if our names are revealed. Parents who do not support their child’s gender identity risk being reported to Child Protective Services and losing custody of their children. In New Jersey, the Department of Education officially encourages schools to report such parents. Meanwhile, the media glamorize and celebrate trans-identified children while ignoring stories like mine. I have written to well over 100 journalists, begging them to write about what is happening to kids. I wrote to my representative and senators, but have been ignored by their staff."

5. Pro-Life Letter Campaign: I plan on joining this grassroots letter campaign with letters going on July 2. You might want to consider doing so as well.

6. What Happens in an Internet Minute in 2019? Take note especially of the dramatic increase in Instagram and Netflix hours watched and those which have tailed off: Snapchat stands out.

John Beeson

March 1, 2018

Recommendations, Christian Living, Politics, Culture, Leadership

This Week's Recommendations

John Beeson

March 1, 2018

Recommendations, Christian Living, Politics, Culture, Leadership

1. Netflix Thinks You're Bored and Lonely: Trevin Wax pushes back on the way our culture thinks about boredom, "The entertainment industry expects us to see boredom as bad, which is why advertisers, sponsors, filmmakers, and game-makers collaborate to create shows, movies, and games that will capture our attention and keep us preoccupied. There’s money to be made in eliminating boredom. But is boredom always a problem, or could it be a possibility? Talk to people whose job it is to make things with their hands or create things in their head, and they’ll tell you that great things happen when your mind runs free."

2. Ruth Graham Didn’t Waste Her Life: Dave Boehi reflects on the lessons we can learn from the beautiful marriage of Ruth and Billy Graham. He reflects on Ruth’s sacrifice, “One writer for The Washington Post wrote, ‘What a sign of those times, one might say. Or, how sad. The world will never know what else Ruth Graham … could have accomplished …’ What the world often fails to understand is that God often calls people to set aside their own plans in order to follow Him … and then He uses them in greater ways as a result.”

3. Evidence of Evangelical Political Pragmatism: A discouraging survey I recently came across. Self-described evangelicals' position on how important a politician's morality is has shifted dramatically since the 1990s. And not in a good way.

4. High-Stakes Leadership: This Read to Lead podcast with Constance Derickx is loaded with good stuff. Derickx definition of courageous impatience and patience particularly struck me.

5. Why (almost) No One Wants to Host the Olympics Anymore: The 2004 games garnered 12 bids from around the world. Zeeshan Aleem reports that the next two summer and winter Olympics received a total of two bids each. Why? Former cities who hosted the Olympics are littered with unsightly abandoned facilities and a huge price tag for the honor: "Pyeongchang, South Korea, built a brand new Olympic stadium to host the Winter Games this year. The 35,000-seat stadium cost $109 million to build. And it will be used just four times before it’s demolished."

John Beeson

June 1, 2017

Leadership, Recommendations, Christian Living

This Week's Recommendations

John Beeson

June 1, 2017

Leadership, Recommendations, Christian Living

1. Why Leaders Need to be Vulnerable: Patrick Lencioni with a great story of how to poorly ask for feedback and the benefits of real vulnerability.

2. Netflix’s Real Competitor: Tim Challies shares the haunting quote from the Netflix CEO that Amazon and HBO aren't their competition -- sleep is. “When you watch a show from Netflix and you get addicted to it, you stay up late at night. You really — we’re competing with sleep, on the margin. And so, it’s a very large pool of time.”

3. A Word of Encouragement About Your Labor: Michael Kruger takes on an often misunderstood verse and explains that, then empowered by the Spirit, our good works are not "filthy rags."

4. Don’t Spiritualize Ministry Mediocrity: David Prince on how some churches explain away their lack of excellence: "To put it another way, one who says that their commitment to the primacy of preaching, leads them to have little regard for the music, parking, greeting, signage, aesthetics, friendliness, hands-on ministry, evangelism, outreach, care-giving, announcements, and so on, is simply theologizing their laziness and apathy."

5. Darwin Was a Slacker and You Should Be Too: Long but thought-provoking article by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, which weaves anecdotes of prodigiously productive workers with scientific studies on productivity and concludes that schedules that include shorter, focused hours with time of rest make the most productive schedules.