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A La Carte (December 15)

A La Carte Collection cover image

Good morning. Grace and peace to you.

If all goes well, today’s Kindle deals will include some top-tier titles from Crossway, including the excellent Good News for Parents—the first time it has been on sale. (Unfortunately, several of the other scheduled deals did not go live.)

Don’t Be Duped by This Year’s Biggest Religious Trend

Missy Speir writes about the biggest religious trend of the year and warns you not to be duped by it.

Blood Soaks Into the Sands of Bondi Beach

Murray Campbell writes from Australia and tries to process the horror that unfolded at Bondi Beach.

No Matter the Challenges This Christmas Season, Remember That God Is With You

Randy Alcorn: “This season can be a painful reminder of who is and isn’t in the room and at the table. One who was with us last year may now be gone from this world. Another may have chosen not to join the family to celebrate Christmas. They may be in pain, and the rest of the family may be experiencing pain and confusion or dismay.”

Best Christian Folk & Worship of 2025 Music Review

Tim Briggs offers his take on the best Christian folk and worship songs of 2025. I’m sure you’ll find something on the list that you appreciate!

On Micromanaging Your Habits

Alan Noble: “Habits shape us and yet we can choose to shape our habits. We have agency. Too many of us believe that we lack agency to affect our own lives. But once you accept that you do have the ability to practice what the Bible calls the Fruit of the Spirit of ‘self control,’ another danger arises: you can make the goal of self-control into the goal of self-mastery and fail to accept God’s grace for your humanity.”

Christmas at the Crossroads

This post begins with a story and ends with a companion essay. Dr. Justin Poythress reflects on how Christmas often brings the sharpest sense of disillusionment, and points to the Antidote and Answer for our sense of disappointment and loss.

Flashback: One Man’s Honor Is Another Man’s Shame

We need to show honor in ways that are appropriate to our culture and meaningful to our parents while still remaining faithful to Scripture. Thus the way I show honor to my parents may look very different from the Ghanian or Cuban friend sitting next to me at Grace Fellowship Church.

God’s grace is so powerful that it has the capacity to overcome our natural resistance to it.

—R.C. Sproul

  • Weekend A La Carte (November 7)

    The Hutterites’ guide to technology / Searching for jobs, Gen Z feels like it’s staring into ‘the void’ / The gospel according to Peter (Thiel) / Scientism and the allure of control / Can science explain sparkling rivers? / What led to Christianity Today’s crisis?

  • I Regret to Inform You That Heaven Tourism Is Back

    I Regret to Inform You That Heaven Tourism Is Back

    I regret to inform you, dear reader, that heaven tourism is back. The genre possibly never went away entirely, but it did at least disappear from the bestseller lists for several years. Sadly, it has returned in Gabe Poirot’s 18 Days in Heaven.

  • A La Carte (November 6)

    Don’t despise the red flags / Your thoughts are shaping your life / Can’t you just love everyone? / Selfies are not the self: forming embodied youth in a disembodied age / Effective altruists and the spreadsheet gospel / 4 Applications for the order of love—from the home to the ends of the earth /…

  • A La Carte (November 5)

    When you feel guilty about your giving / The missing piece in John Mark Comer’s quiet time / A manifesto for phone-free church / The pull of Rome / 4 Misconceptions about spiritual warfare / Slouching toward Narnia / Kindle deals, and more

  • A Daring Suggestion for Netflix

    A Daring Suggestion for Netflix

    Netflix appears to have fallen on hard times and I have some suggestions that I’d like to think would help it: cut the sex, nudity, and profanity, and gain back the viewers it’s long been alienating.

  • A La Carte (November 4)

    Can I love my enemies while addressing wrongs and protecting myself? / Is missions too costly for kids? / Don’t stock the pantry with temptation / Churches face a shortage of worship leaders / AI brought a mathematician to Ecclesiastes / Discerning between godly and worldly grief / Harvest in fearful times / and more.