Recommendations, Church, Identity, Nature, Theology
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. A theology of leisure: Reagan Rose with an important piece. She says, “Many Christians have unthinkingly adopted a view of leisure that sees rest time as synonymous with me time. But this is a historical anomaly.”

  2. The church’s unsung hero: the persevering Sunday School teacher: Can we get an amen to Trevin Wax’s post? God bless our amazing faithful teachers! “Committed Sunday school teachers are a big part of what makes discipleship effective. Yet how often do we let weeks and years go by without lifting up their example or celebrating their faithfulness?”

This Week's Recommendations
Christian Living, Church, Leadership, Wisdom
John Beeson
The Danger of Driscoll In Me

A few years ago Christianity today released a podcast series entitled “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.” It’s as gripping as it is sobering. In it, Mike Cosper chronicles the history of the formation of Mars Hill Church. The podcast follows Mark Driscoll’s beginnings as a church planter in 1996 when he launched Mars Hill in Seattle to his quick rise to fame to the church’s ultimate collapse. The details are excruciating. It’s heartbreaking that such an influential community could have gone from leading such a huge cultural wave to closing its doors in a matter of years (Mars Hill ceased to exist in 2014).

The Danger of Driscoll In Me
Christian Living, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Resolving To Do Less

I enjoy this time of year. New Year’s resolutions are right up my alley. I love the challenge of improving spiritually, emotionally, and physically. In James Clear’s Atomic Habits, Clear popularized the idea of habit stacking: linking a new habit you want to form with a habit you already faithfully perform. 

In past years, I’ve added the habits of reading through the Bible in a year, memorizing scripture, working out, and other disciplines. This year I will try something different: I’m resolving to do less.

Resolving To Do Less
Christian Living, Generosity, Gratitude, Hospitality, Marriage, Recommendations, Wisdom
John Beeson
The Best of the Bee Hive Honeycomb in 2024

Our is an Esau world. We exchange our birthright for a pot of stew, God’s Word for an endorphin hit, the eternal for the ephemeral.

My hope is that by stewarding my ministry of Words, I can help push back against that tide just a little bit. I blog first to pastor my dear congregation New Life Bible Fellowship through the ministry of the written word. My hope is that the three additional touchpoints during the week allow those God has entrusted to me as an under-shepherd to grow in their love for God, their wisdom, and to foster unity. I’m grateful for the many who read…

The Best of the Bee Hive Honeycomb in 2024
Recommendations, Spiritual Growth, Reading
John Beeson
Books I Read in 2024 (and some you might want ...

Aren’t books the best? Open a cover and adventurer leads you into a new world, or a wise guide directs you further down the path of truth. I love reading books of all sorts.

 

I read 117 books this year: down just a bit from 2023 (not surprising since I went on sabbatical in the summer of 2023). I actually plan on trying to intentionally read fewer books in the coming year. I have been trying to grow in my spiritual disciplines of silence, solitude, and meditation. Input comes naturally to me. I need to grow in my ability to slow down and listen to God. And that has come at the cost of some of my reading time.

Books I Read in 2024 (and some you might want to read in 2025)
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Your Marriage Doesn't Need Better Communication

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Your Marriage Doesn't Need Better Communication

“The biggest problem in our marriage is our communication.” It’s perhaps the most frequent issue that is brought to the table when Angel (my wife and counselor) and I meet with couples. At the core of many marriage seminars and conferences is the issue of how to improve the communication in your marriage.

I don’t buy it. Your marriage doesn’t need better communication.

Alright, alright. I’m overstating that for dramatic effect. Communication is important and often needs work. There are some helpful things you can do to improve communication in your marriage. But the fact remains: I’ve yet to encounter a marriage that the fundamental issue is communication. More serious issues always lurk beneath the surface.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Does Bach’s music prove the existence of God? Trevin Wax thinks so, “The inconsolable longing we feel when we encounter true beauty, when the soaring symphony swells toward a melody’s resolution, is the window to another world, whispering to us, singing to us, ‘There is something more.’”

  2. Lessons from a Job season: Travis reflects, “Whether you have suffered more, suffered less, or your suffering is still to come, none of us lives a life free from the difficulties that are part of a world marred by sin and curse. Sometimes the troubles seem unexplainable, uncontrollable, and unending. Like Job, we may relentlessly call out to God, and, like Job, we may not receive quick relief or quick answers.”

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The Enemy Speaks To You In Your Father's Voice

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The Enemy Speaks To You In Your Father's Voice

Have you ever felt forsaken or rejected by a parent like one of Joseph's brothers? Could you imagine the claws of envy that would clutch at your heart wanting to be loved as deeply as your sibling? Do you hear negative scripts play in your head? "You'll never be as good as him." "Father will never love you like that." Even the names of their moms likely played into the trap of jealousy. Rachel (Joseph’s mother) was the "ewe lamb," but Leah was the "wild cow," and the two maidservants' names also spoke diminishment: Zilpah the "drop," and Bilhah, "trouble."

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How to Navigate Negative Self-Talk

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How to Navigate Negative Self-Talk

Do you struggle with negative self-talk? Do you speak worse to yourself than to others? How do we break these patterns?

I was grateful to have the opportunity to share about negative self-talk at the InDoubt Show. If you struggle with negative self-talk or intrusive thoughts, I pray you find this helpful. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you would like to know some further resources that might help you.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

LGBTQ+ population grows, especially among Gen Z: Aaron Earls reports, “When Gallup first measured LGBTQ+ identification in the U.S., 3.5% claimed a non-straight label in 2012. By 2020, 5.6% identified as such. That jumped to 7.1% in 2021 and has increased incrementally since then—7.2% in 2022 and 7.6% in 2023.”

  1. Can we forgive when the offender doesn’t repent? Mike Wittmer’s response is nuanced and wise, “Forgiveness is excruciating. Who wants to pardon the perpetrator who maliciously wounded us? Forgiveness can also be confusing. What should we do when the person who wronged us doesn’t repent? He doesn’t own what he did, say he’s sorry, and mean it. What then?”

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Wrestling With Rest

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Wrestling With Rest

God made Adam and Eve to have dominion over his creation (Gen. 1:26-27). Plants were planted, cultivated, trimmed, and harvested. Delighted in his work, God rested on the seventh day “and made it holy” (Gen. 2:3). This is God’s rhythm: we are invited to work with him for six days and then rest on the seventh. Which is harder for you? Working the six or resting on the seventh?

Rest has been a consistent challenge in my life. As a type A overachiever, the do’s of Christianity come more naturally than the invitation to rest. Our culture struggles with rest. What passes for rest is usually recreation and entertainment. Good things, but not rest.

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If Only I Had More Time...

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If Only I Had More Time...

Today I hand the reins over to Josh Barella. Josh is a friend and our Worship Director at New Life. Every Sunday morning, I wake up to a devotion that Josh sends to the worship team to prepare them for the day. Here is a recent devotion Josh shared.

My wife Lauren and I are fond of the niche science fiction film In Time, starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried.  Set in a future Ohio, the currency is time, and it’s also everyone’s life force.  Once born, you age until your 25th birthday, and that’s when “your clock” starts and you have one year to live.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The blame game: Casey McCall asks, “What is it about our race that leads us to reflexively—subconsciously even—defer responsibility and search for excuses in the face of blame? I notice it in myself, in my children, and in people I counsel.”

  2. When is a couple considered married? Robby Lashua responds to common questions, “When is a couple considered married? After the ceremony? When they sign the license? After sex? What verses support this?”

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"Beauty Will Save the World"

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"Beauty Will Save the World"

“Beauty will save the world,” the great Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky once wrote. Dostoyevsky was no starry-eyed dreamer. But we must confess that, given the world we live in, Dostoyevsky’s proclamation has the ring of naïvete to it. But is it possible that Dostoyevsky might be right? What if, in these troubled times beauty can save the world?

Fellow Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who lived through the great purge (and likewise would have never been accused of being naïve) wrestled with Dostoyevsky’s proclamation in his 1970 Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

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Jesus the Party Crasher

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Jesus the Party Crasher

A 2020 YouGov poll asked respondents, “What is the most important election of your lifetime?” 69% of respondents said it was the current election of 2020. Surprisingly, that number increased with age, with 82% of respondents over 55 years old agreeing. And the American political machine smiles. 2020 shattered the record in political spending, with an astounding $14.4 billion spent: a near doubling of what had been record spending in the 2016 campaign.

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