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A La Carte (June 25)

A La Carte Collection cover image

Called to Be Uncool Christians – N.D. Wilson: “Cows like to turn their backs to the wind. At least, all the cows I know do. Slowly, awkwardly, eventually, all that beef will run parallel to the breeze. People aren’t too different. We align ourselves safely into herds, comforted by the hot breath of others breaking on the backs of our necks and ears. Then we huff and we puff and we blow at the fools turned in the wrong direction.”

A Plea to Come Forward – Paul Levy takes on one of those issues that every churches faces: Getting people to move to the front.

Potshots Are Not a Spiritual Gift – “This sounds like a no-brainer, but in our social media age, it’s not a given…” Indeed.

Naming the New Calvinism – Timothy Paul Jones takes a shot at coming up with a better name than “New Calvinism” or “Young, Restless, Reformed.”

The First 10 Minutes of Your Day – How do you spend the first ten minutes of your workday? Here’s some sound counsel on spending it well.

Cool at 13, Adrift at 23 – “At 13, they were viewed by classmates with envy, admiration and not a little awe. … They were cool. They were good-looking. They were so not you.” But it looks like they didn’t turn out so well in the end.

Charles

Passion is not a substitute for clarity. Volume is not a substitute for content. Emotion is not a substitute for conviction.

—H.B. Charles Jr

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    New and Notable Christian Books for April 2024

    It is surprisingly difficult to find a list of Christian books that have been released in any given month—especially if you want that list to be filtered by books released through particular publishers. That’s one of the reasons why I close each month by coming up with my list of New and Notable books. I…

  • A La Carte Friday 2

    A La Carte (April 26)

    A La Carte: The parable of Kanye West / Biden’s new regulation reinforces transgender “orthodoxy” / 12 wonderful responsibilities God has given to women / Slow happiness / What I wish the church would understand about disability / Discerning true repentance from fake / Book and Kindle deals / and more.

  • A La Carte Thursday 1

    A La Carte (April 25)

    A La Carte: For everything there is a seasoning / Influencer culture is toxic for teenagers / The death of attention and loss of our ability to listen / Evangelism in ordinary life / On using wine in communion / And more.

  • Optimistic Denominationalism

    Optimistic Denominationalism

    It is one of the realities of the Christian faith that people love to criticize—the reality that there are a host of different denominations and a multitude of different expressions of Christian worship. We hear it from skeptics: If Christianity is true and if it really changes people, then why can’t you get along? We…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (April 24)

    A La Carte: Growing in hospitality / What happens when the governing authorities are the wrongdoers? / Transgender meds for kids? / 100 facets to the diamond of Christ / Spiritual mothers point us to Christ / and more.