The God of peace be with you on this fine day.
(Yesterday on the blog: The Danger of Being a Sermon Critic)
Notes on Staying Sane in an Election Year
With the U.S. entering into an election year, Jake Meador has some notes on staying sane through it all. “Participation in electoral politics in a system such as the United States’s is quite complicated and virtually always involves making compromises. If you find yourself conversing with a Christian brother or sister who has voted in a way that offends or perplexes you, the best thing to do is simply ask them about their decision and then listen to their response without becoming triggered or cutting them off mid-sentence so you can say something offensive and unnecessary.”
We Need Leaders Calling the Church to Faithfulness Out of Love, Not Resentment Disguised as Courage
Daniel Darling reflects on some of the recent polemics meant to slam evangelicalism. “Some have had good but hard words we need to hear. But most suffer from the same problems which make their attempt at being prophetic fall on deaf ears…”
Looking for God in All the Wrong Places
Lara considers the human tendency to look for God in all the wrong places. “I watched an Instagram Reel a few weeks ago that chronicled a Christian influencer’s journey to finding God, and it ended with a picture of her and the words, ‘And I found You in me.’”
Marriage as a Covenant
Robert Jones writes about marriage as a covenant and what is bound up in that kind of relationship. “In a day when this kind of marital commitment dwindles, God has given us as Christians fresh opportunities to show the world a different kind of marriage, one formed by a covenant, one that can last forty years and even beyond.”
A Distant Country
Andrea has a sweet reflection (and lament, I suppose) about Christmas.
And What Are You Doing the Rest of the Year?
As the holiday season gives way to normalcy, Stephen asks an important question. “For all ours posts about what we’re doing for Christmas and how we’re going to take the seasonal opportunity, now the festivities are over, it seems worth asking a new question: what are you going to do the rest of the year to take advantage of the evangelistic opportunities in your community?”
Flashback: I Want Him Back (But Not The Old Me Back)
Sorrow does not always lead to advances in holiness, but it always can and always should, for the Spirit is present in our sorrows, ready and eager to sanctify them to his precious purposes.
Pastors are not appointed to a church primarily to lead in the instruction of skills and the dissemination of information; they are appointed to a church primarily to lead in Christ-following.
—Jared C. Wilson
