Church, Leadership
John Beeson
How Church Abuse Reveals the Lies We Tell ...

Three years ago an atomic bomb hit the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, with an estimated 14 million members across more than 47,000 churches. An in-depth investigative report demonstrated that the Executive Committee of the SBC was aware of pervasive sexual malfeasance in their ranks over the past fifteen years and refused to act. The Executive Committee swept sexual abuse allegations under the rug, perpetrators were moved from one congregation to another to hide their abuse, and earnest appeals for reform were denied.

How Church Abuse Reveals the Lies We Tell Ourselves
Christian Living
John Beeson
How Christian Border Patrol Agents Think About ...

“I have to make sure I’m never in uniform in public.” I sat down over pizza with two border patrol agents and chatted about their experience as Christian agents. Living near the border, we have a number of Border Patrol Agents who attend at our church. I wanted to hear from them what their experience was and hear how their experience could shape the church’s thoughts concerning illegal immigration.  

Over the course of three meetings, I met with four agents and listened as they shared their perspective on serving as Border Patrol Agents. All of them share an unbending commitment to uphold the law of the land and protect our borders and to care for the people they engage

How Christian Border Patrol Agents Think About the Border
Recommendations, Christian Living, History
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. How do I help someone see their anger when they can’t see it themselves? Ed Welch answers, “It’s difficult for at least two reasons. One is that angry people tend not to see their anger as a problem, because anger tends to feel like a righteous reaction against some kind of injustice. Another is that angry people, they can combust in a moment.” 

  2. How were the biblical Psalms originally performed? Marek Dospel asks, “How much do we really know about how biblical psalms were originally performed? What might a psalm performance have looked like in the First Temple period, around 900 B.C.E.?” 

This Week's Recommendations
Christian Living, Church, Consumerism
John Beeson
Can't We Just Be the Church?

“Don’t go to church, be the church,” urged an influential Christian leader whom I respect.

I understand his call to action. If you must choose between attending a weekly service or demonstrating Christ through service, you might want to opt for the latter. It’s better to joyfully steward our God-given gifts rather than sliding in and out of the back row every Sunday. Caring for the orphan, widow, and the jobless outweighs downing an (admittedly delicious) New Life Bible Fellowship donut and coffee.

But God doesn’t ask us to choose between going or being! In fact, making a choice to be the church without going to church robs us of the power Christ has offered us as he calls us outward to serve.

Can't We Just Be the Church?
Family, Parenting
John Beeson
Who Wants to Play!?

“I’ll sleep when I die,” a type-A friend of ours joked. They laughed. I pondered.

The joke squirreled its way into my heart. I was 21 and already had tasted the first fruits of my labor. It was sweet. My hard work had earned me esteem from my college professors. Their glowing comments were my drug. Late nights in the library were my payment.

“Who wants to play?” was the refrain of my school-teacher dad when I was a kid. My sister and I leaped when my dad arrived home from work and joined us for a football game with our neighborhood friends.

Who Wants to Play!?

Consumerism

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Can't We Just Be the Church?

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Can't We Just Be the Church?

“Don’t go to church, be the church,” urged an influential Christian leader whom I respect.

I understand his call to action. If you must choose between attending a weekly service or demonstrating Christ through service, you might want to opt for the latter. It’s better to joyfully steward our God-given gifts rather than sliding in and out of the back row every Sunday. Caring for the orphan, widow, and the jobless outweighs downing an (admittedly delicious) New Life Bible Fellowship donut and coffee.

But God doesn’t ask us to choose between going or being! In fact, making a choice to be the church without going to church robs us of the power Christ has offered us as he calls us outward to serve.

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My Wandering Eye and Jesus' Single Eye

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My Wandering Eye and Jesus' Single Eye

Who among us, if given the possibility, wouldn’t take an extra hour in the day or an extra day in the week?

We stuff life to the fullest and then sprinkle more on the top. Why put your kid in one club when you can put them in a club and a sport? Why follow one sport, when you can follow all the major sports? Why be smart, when you can be smart and healthy? Our flesh tempts us to pack more in; Jesus tells us to live with single priority.

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Living on a Single Income

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Living on a Single Income

I respect my sister and brother-in-law for many reasons. One of those reasons is their wise financial stewardship. With eight kids (you can read the story of why they have eight kids here), they are able to live on a single income, and they managed to pay off the mortgage on their previous house several years ago. That financial flexibility allowed them to purchase a home with my parents two years ago so they could help my dad whose mobility suffered after a series of strokes.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Many Americans are more consumers than contended: Lifeway research’s new poll offers some disconcerting news to Christians, “Religious service attendance is correlated to embracing a consumeristic mindset. Those who attend more than once a week are the most likely to say shopping makes them feel worthwhile (61%) and they know they are getting ahead when they have nice things (56%). They are also among the most likely to say they are driven to accumulate nice things (61%) and like to have the latest technology (55%).”

  2. Ministers of Loneliness: Jacob Crouch reflects on the world’s response to the problem of loneliness, “What the world offers to the lonely is merely an anesthetic. It merely numbs the pain and ignores the real problem. It attempts to provide new remedies for a problem that has an ancient solution.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

    1. Suicide—when hope runs out:Jonathan Noyes, “Suicide rates have climbed 36 percent in the last 20 years, according to the Center for Disease Control.[4] Recent studies show that 13.6 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds have seriously contemplated ending their lives.”

    2. The real reason the unchurched do not attend (and what you can do about it):Sam Rainer with an article that ought to spur us to action, “The unchurched start attending regularly because of spiritual prompts: growing spiritually (32%) and God told me to go (20%). The spiritual prompt is coupled with the personal prompt. The unchurched also start attending regularly because someone invited them (22%) and a spouse wants them to go (17%).”

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Should We Give Up On the Church?

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Should We Give Up On the Church?

How important is church, really? A few years back, author Jen Hatmaker shared about a conversation she had with her therapist where she came to the realization that “Church for me right now feels like my best friends, my porch bed, my children, and my parents and my siblings. It feels like meditation and all these leaves on my 12 pecan trees. It feels like Ben Rector on repeat. It feels like my kitchen, and my table, and my porch. It feels like Jesus who never asked me to meet him anywhere but in my heart.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. A sickness in pursuing health: Trevin Wax considers some of the excesses of the movement toward long and healthy living. “If this life is all there is, then the pressure to optimize your body and extend your life as long as possible makes sense. But if there’s more to life than this existence and more to “making the most” of life than physical prowess, then the pursuit of longevity and health can sabotage itself.”

  2. When God takes his time: I love everything Glenna Marshall writes. This is so filled with wisdom, “The problem is this: we rarely assume that God is purposeful and kind in his long game.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The internal contradiction in transgender theories: Trevin Wax explains, “It doesn’t take long to recognize the internal inconsistency between these two narratives. The first depends on maleness and femaleness being something real, for a binary must exist for it to be transgressed or transcended. The second questions reality altogether, falling for a radical skepticism that reimagines the world in terms of linguistic power plays.”

  2. Tasting heaven now: Casey McCall asks, “But what if I told you the Bible presents the resurrection as something you begin experiencing now in this life?

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Chasing the Rabbit

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Chasing the Rabbit

Bob Buford tells a story about dog races in his book Finishing Well that rattled my heart when I first read it and continues to shake me:

“One of my favorite stories is about the dog races in Florida. They train these dogs to chase an electric rabbit, and one night the rabbit broke down and the dogs caught it. But they didn’t know what to do with it. They were just leaping around, yelping and biting one another, totally confused about what was happening. I think that’s a picture of what happens to all sorts of people who catch the rabbit in their life

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Strange Questions to Ask Your (future) Pastor

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Strange Questions to Ask Your (future) Pastor

I hope you’ve considered why you’ve left your former church (I’ve written on the ten reasons to leave a church here).

 

You’ve already watched a service online, read the church’s doctrinal statement, and visited the church. What comes next?

 

“What does a church believe?” When Angel and I were first married and looking for a home church, I was laser-focused on the prospective churches’ theology and denomination. Those things matter. You will likely also ask, “How solid is the worship ministry?” And, if you have kids, you will definitely ask, “Is the children’s ministry biblically grounded, safe, and engaging?”

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