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 Counselor Is Not Your Referee

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Your Counselor Is Not Your Referee

"Keep your feet shoulder-width apart, move your dominant foot a little closer to the basket, loosen your hips and shoulders, and let it go!" I coached my kids' basketball teams for years and tweaked dozens of kids' jump shots. Nothing is more fun for a coach than watching a kid start to get it. I remember watching one of the girls I coached who couldn't get the ball to the rim with her two-handed shove-shot at the beginning of her first year, hit three-pointers in a game just a couple of years later. That is the ultimate rush for a coach!

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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. Waiting pushes our limits—and that is part of God’s design: Mark Vroegop muses, “I think it’s safe to say that most people dislike waiting. Do you know anyone who celebrates it? “Oh good, we get to wait.” That feels weird or fake, doesn’t it? Imagine meeting a friend and asking about her weekend. What would be your immediate response if she said, “I spent three hours waiting on Saturday”? You’d probably groan, right? Waiting feels like a gap in time that’s annoying at best and aggravating at worst.”

  2. Savoring the moment takes time: Brianna Lambert with a lovely piece. “Maybe the older woman in the grocery store knows how precious this season is precisely because she’s had 10,000 more days to fully enjoy its memory.

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Why Did They Ghost Me?

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Why Did They Ghost Me?

I love gardening. I love helping bring something to life, nurturing it, and watching it flourish.

I am not particularly great at gardening, though. Any improvement I’ve had has come through the school of hard knocks: a plant I put in the wrong soil, a plant placed in the incorrect amount of sunlight, or not giving a plant the right amount of water (my default is always that more must be better—it isn’t).

Relationships are like plants, aren’t they? They are fragile. They are challenging.

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Mom & Dad: Show Your Need

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Mom & Dad: Show Your Need

“I have one regret of how I parented,” my friend told me. I leaned forward. My friend is a godly man married to a godly wife. He’s kind and gentle and wise. As an educator, he’s witnessed a lot of parenting, good and bad, in his day. His adult children have had their struggles but are good people. I would ask him for parenting advice in a second. What was his greatest regret?

“I wish I would’ve shown my kids my need for Christ more. I worked so hard to show them my godliness that I didn’t show them my need. I should have been more transparent. I should have shown them just how much I needed Jesus.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The Lord sees: Trevin Wax shares, “’El Roi’ is a name given to God in the Old Testament, a source of comfort and peace in times of distress. It first falls from the trembling lips of Hagar, the enslaved woman driven into the wilderness after being caught up in the sinful designs of her master and his wife. There she kneels, despondent and despairing, ready for life to come to an end. And there in that desert of sorrow, the Lord sees.”

  2. How to be an elder on Sunday morning: Great advice for elders… and for all of us. David Gunderson says, “Elders provide fatherly leadership, care, and protection for God’s family. Thinking like a father on Sundays should warm your heart, clarify your focus, and make you more alert as you care for God’s family.”

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The Blessing of Praying Together

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The Blessing of Praying Together

Every Sunday at 7:30 am I join a small group for prayer before the day’s activities begin. It’s such a great way to start a Sunday morning. There is something special about praying together. I love praying on my own, but I have found that in the presence of others, God often blesses me with focus that I lack on my own, with a sense of his presence that I sometimes miss on my own.

Many have had negative experiences with corporate prayer. Perhaps people droned on about distant relatives’ needs, and little time was spent in prayer. Or maybe you experienced an emotionally manipulative prayer gathering.

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Paul's Advice To a College Freshman

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Paul's Advice To a College Freshman

Today, I hand this space over to my daughter, Camille, a rising junior in college. I asked Camille what advice she would offer to those who are making the jump from high school to college. Even if it doesn’t apply to you, I bet you’ll be interested in what she has to say.

-John

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Why the world’s greatest athletes don’t get paid like it: Most Olympic athletes truly do it for the love of the game. Mark Dent reports, “26.5% of the surveyed athletes had a total income of less than $15k per year, and another study from the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee found 59% of Olympic hopefuls make less than $25k during Olympic years.”

  2. How to counter the forces that malform your soul: John Mark Comer explains how spiritual formation happens in this brief video.

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Neither Forward Nor Backward

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Neither Forward Nor Backward

Are you progressive or conservative? It seems like a simple enough question, but let me complicate it for you. The terms are both tethered to time. The term progressive looks forward. Progressives believe that the best is yet to come. We are growing, evolving and our policies ought to reflect our progressive enlightenment. Conservatives, on the other hand, preserve that which is good from the past. It is our job to aspire to and embody the charter set forth by our founding fathers.

Our politics have forced us to two sides of ring: those looking back and those looking forward. These totalizing lenses have robbed us of a fully orbed biblical ethical vision that directs our eyes forward, and backward, and straight down.

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