Worship

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations
  1. The Worshipper: Jeremy Walker begins a post that comes with a twist, “He is a worshipper. His life revolves around his worship. Nothing stops him.”

  2. The Serious Business of Laughing at Myself: Seth Lewis tells a very funny story about himself and concludes, “If I can’t embrace my own smallness, my own humiliations, and my total dependence on the God who made me, then my pride has grown out of control. That’s a serious problem.”

  3. Unborn Images Matter: Alan Shlemon begins, “Abortionist Dr. Joan Fleischman says she sometimes shows her patients the pregnancy tissue she removes after an abortion. She says that post-abortive women are “stunned by what it actually looks like,” and the women “feel they’ve been deceived.””

  4. 16 Passages to Read to Fight Lust: These are worth memorizing.

  5. A Spiritual MRI of the Heart: Warren Peel explains, “In Scripture, the word ‘heart’ is used more than 1000 times, but it almost never refers to the physical organ inside our chests. The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament sums up all the usages of the term in this way: it is ‘the richest, most all-encompassing biblical term for the totality of a man’s inner nature.’ The heart is said to do a wide range of things in the Bible, but all its many activities fall into one of the three main faculties of the soul: the mind, the affections and the will. It includes the mind—our thoughts, imagination, fantasies, judgments and attitudes. It encompasses the affections—our emotions, our desires and longings, our revulsions. And it describes the will—our choices, decisions and motivations.”

Would You Receive Him?

Would You Receive Him?

Have you ever shown up to a new friend’s house and knocked on the wrong door? The last time this happened to me, I didn’t have any idea that the door I was knocking on might have been the wrong door. I parked (in what turned out to be the wrong driveway), strode up to the door and knocked. A man I had never seen hesitantly opened the door and we both stared at each other quizzically. He probably thought the stranger in front of him was about to sell him something or convince him to sign a petition. Meanwhile, I couldn’t figure out why this stranger was opening my friend’s door. Several seconds of silence passed before I awkwardly asked if this was my friend’s home. He kindly let me know that I wasn’t at the right house so I turned around and shuffled back to my car where I realized that my friend’s house was one door down. Oops.

Fasting for Thanksgiving

Fasting for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is almost here! While not a biblical holiday, Thanksgiving is a gift to the Christian. It is an opportunity to grow in gratitude. A heart of gratitude is a heart of worship. In the belly of the fish, Jonah sings to God, “But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord’” (Jonah 2:9). Jonah’s hardened heart is softened in thanksgiving.

This Thanksgiving, God invites us to align our hearts in praise.

Would you like to maximize your gratitude this Thanksgiving? I encourage you to consider fasting. Fasting?! That’s right. Would you consider joining me tomorrow in a day of prayer and fasting so that we may prepare our hearts for the joy of worshipful gratitude?

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations
  1. Why Pastors Must Talk About Race: Derwin Gray reminds us, “Our ethnicity is a gift from God reflecting his multifaceted wisdom. Biblical characters are not colorless or cultureless. They were people situated in real places, with real, image-bearing ethnicities, in particular cultures and times—just as we are.

  2. An Open Letter to a Distressed Sufferer: Mike Emlet offers gentle word to those who are hurting. He concludes, “I’ll close for now. Please know that your burden is my burden and I am privileged to walk alongside you. That’s another way in which you are not alone, embedded as you are in the body of Christ.”

  3. How the Gospel is Good News for Every Story: Scott McConnell with an insightful article on how the gospel speaks to every cultural worldview. He begins, “Missiologists often describe three worldviews different cultures exhibit: innocence-guilt, power-fear, and honor-shame. The innocence-guilt worldview believes being and doing right is what matters most. Much of what is considered right in these cultures has been codified in law, so following the law is very important. The power-fear worldview says overcoming fear by tapping into power matters most. Typically, that power is believed to be accessed from the spirit world. The honor-shame worldview says the honor and wellbeing of your group, tribe, or extended family matters most.

  4. Sing Your Heart Out at Church (Even if You Hate the Music): Brett McCracken begins, “I love church pipe organs and classical music. I prefer Victorian hymns and Stuart Townend songs over Hillsong and Bethel. I dislike “modern renditions” of old hymns, where the melody is slightly tweaked or a new chorus is added in between original verses. A simple piano, organ, or acoustic guitar accompaniment to “Be Thou My Vision” will do just fine.”

  5. Does God Love Me Just the Way I Am? Ligon Duncan answers the question.

What I Read in 2021 (and Maybe What You Should Read in 2022)

What I Read in 2021 (and Maybe What You Should Read in 2022)

I’ve been able to hit the 100-plateau of books the past few years. This year I read 111 books (the symmetry of that number made me smile). If you wonder how I read that much, this post might help spur you on and provide some practical pointers in your reading journey in 2022. I love reading for many reasons. It’s a gift to be in conversation with a multitude of wise voices, to be invited into the imaginative worlds of some of the best minds of our time, and to grow in empathy and understanding as I step into the shoes of those very different from myself.

I love the gift of reading books with friends. Most of the books I read are recommended by friends and I love it when friends read a book I recommend. If you read any of the books recommended below, I would love to hear what you think. And I would love to hear what your favorite books of 2021 were. If you want fuller reviews on any of the books listed above or just want to connect on an ongoing basis about reading, I encourage you to friend me on Goodreads.

Let me start with my three favorite books of 2021, and then we will get to the rest of the action:

This Christmas Week's Recs

This Christmas Week's Recs
  1. My Christmas Gift Bought With a Child’s Heart: Sylvia Shroeder has a beautiful post. Of the wise men she says, “What greater treasure could they bestow than to fall down at the feet of the divine Christ and worship? The true gifts of the magi didn’t come because of the place they acquired them or the amount they spent. The glint of gold or fragrant scented air could never have equaled the response of their hearts. In an obscure village, to a child lacking world’s fame or prestige, they fell down and worshipped.”

  2. When the Soul Feels Its Worth: Andrea Sanborn reflects, “Jesus was born to a simple girl, lived in humility and sacrificed Himself to find me at my kitchen sink; to find you where you are, meeting us in our obscurity and our wondering.”

  3. 5 Major Concerns About the State of the Bible in the US: Eric Geiger concludes this list with this discouraging fact, “According to the research, only 9% of youth in Gen-Z are engaged with the Scripture. And the youth in Gen-Z are significantly less engaged with the Scripture than Millennials.”

  4. Vaccines, Mandates, and Disagreements: Justin Hale responds to this question, “I have a close friend who recently told me their views on vaccines, mandates, and masks, and now I see them differently. They were vocal and opinionated. I would be lying if I said it hasn’t affected our interactions. I really like my friend, but I feel they aren’t being reasonable or rational on this topic. And every time I think about talking with them, I get annoyed and irritated. What can I do?”

  5. The Spiritual Choir: 4 Carols 4 Christmas: You’ll love this.

This Week’s Recommendations

This Week’s Recommendations
  1. How Parents Can Help Kids Navigate Transgender Ideology: Maria Baer packs lots of wisdom into this post. She says, “This is a complicated calling for Christian parents. But whatever else we do in response to the normalization of transgender ideology, we can’t not talk about it with our kids. Make no mistake: they are hearing about it—in entertainment, online, at school, and from their friends.”

  2. My 30 Second Sermon as We Prepared for a Crash Landing: Kyle Donn shares his brief, but harrowing story. He begins, “Last Sunday I thought I was going to die. ‘Brace! Brace! Brace!’ The flight attendants prepared us for impact. The pilot of American Airlines Flight 2775—which had just taken off from Charlotte and was heading to Seattle—announced moments earlier that our plane was experiencing engine failure and that we needed to prepare for a crash landing. The attendants ran frantically up and down the cabin, preparing us.”

  3. Does Your Prayer Life Need to Change: Forrest McPhail’s article is loaded with helpful practical tips. He concludes, “Prayerlessness is not an option for one of God’s children. Find a way. Be creative. Worship God by maintaining fellowship with Him in prayer.”

  4. A Hidden Beauty: Chris Thomas invites us to see beauty as God sees it. He begins by considering the beauty of his native Australia, “The stone is clothed in ochre red, a brilliant protest against the azure sky that casts a blanket of suppression over the land and is stitched seamlessly into an unbroken line where the two meet. Below the ancient stone, a throne of fissured rock falls away in fearful wonder to jade depths of tepid water rich with life.”

  5. We Keep Stumbling Forward: How cute is this? And how true is this of our faith?

The Dust Mite and the Spider

The Dust Mite and the Spider

One day the spider and the dust mite met in the cool of the underside of a misshapen pillow.

Out of the pleasantries, an awkward silence grew. Intimidated by the size of the spider, the dust mite boasted, “Have you ever noticed how similar I am to an eagle?”

“You? Like an eagle?” the spider questioned.

“Oh yes,” the dust mite responded, gaining confidence. “An eagle. Like an eagle, I have a head, legs, and I lay eggs.”

A condescending smile grew across the spider’s jaws.

“Foolish, mite,” chuckled the spider. “You are nothing like an eagle! I am the one like an eagle.”

Top Posts of 2019

Top Posts of 2019

I’ve always written for others. Whether it was creative writing in elementary school where I was excited to share my stories with my teacher and classmates or college when I came home and shared my writing projects with my patient parents.

When I started The Bee Hive, I started it in part because I felt that I needed to steward the gift of writing God had given me. But gifts are stewarded not for our own sake, primarily, but for the sake of the recipient (1 Corinthians 12). My desire was to expand my pastoral reach beyond Sunday morning to serve the church.

If I were to be faithful in stewarding my writing gift but no one were to show up, it would be a struggle to feel the impact of that faithfulness. In my first year of blogging, 2017, I was so encouraged to have 1,767 unique visitors to my website with 3,939 page views. I was so glad that my writing was being read and hopeful that it was helpful. I was concerned, though, that maybe after an acquaintance reading a couple times, maybe the interest would diminish and the impact would wane.

That fear was answered in 2018, when I saw the first year’s numbers nearly double, with 3,463 unique visitors and 6,398 page views. This year I was shocked to have those numbers double again with 8,500 unique visitors and over 13,600 page views. On top of that are my faithful subscribers (thank you!) who read via email. This past year over 10,800 posts via email were read.

My five most-read posts of 2019 follow.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas friends!

I’m praying that you experience the rescue of the light who has come in the darkness in a special way today.

As you celebrate the coming of the King, enjoy this new worship song by New Life’s worship team (Sonorous Worship) that points to the profound truths at the heart of Advent.

God’s blessing to you this Christmas!

John