Welcome to Weekend A La Carte! These weekend editions focus on long-form content and think pieces. There’s a lot of good material here, so I’m sure you’ll find something that’s of interest.
For some of the articles, I have provided gift links, which should get you around any paywalls. Note, however, that these gift links may expire in a few days or weeks.
Sales & Deals
Today’s Kindle deals include several that will expire in just a day or two. You may do well to scroll down the list to make sure you saw all of this week’s other bargains.
Recommended Reading
Fifteen Questions to Help You Grow in Corporate Worship. Here’s an article that will help you prepare for the Lord’s Day tomorrow. “Rich Penix offers fifteen diagnostic questions to help us see where we need to grow in terms of corporate worship. These questions deal with three areas: how we prepare for corporate worship, how we participate in corporate worship, and how we depart from corporate worship. By answering these questions thoughtfully and honestly, we can identify ways we need to grow in this crucial area of discipleship.”
The Unretirement. This article from the National Post explains some of the ways retirement is changing now that both wealth and life expectancies have increased—something I have been writing about as well (and hope to share soon). Sadly, the article has no examples of Christians who are using their retirement years to bless and serve their local church, though I know many are doing so. Still, it shows that retirement as we have understood it for the last generation or two is quickly being displaced by something new.
Nihilism with a Business Model. Speaking of a changing world, Dr. John Seel wrote an article for Aaron Renn’s Substack about the rise of gig addictions. “One of the defining features of modern economic life is the rise of the gig economy. The gig economy is an economic system built around short-term, flexible, and often digitally mediated work in which individuals earn income through temporary tasks, freelance labor, side hustles, or platform-based services rather than stable long-term employment. Increasingly, younger generations no longer imagine work through the older categories of vocation, profession, institution, or long-term career. Instead, work is experienced as fragmented, temporary, transactional, and endlessly flexible. Drive for Uber. Deliver for DoorDash. Sell products online. Build a personal brand. Monetize your following. Create content. Manage multiple side hustles simultaneously.”
Larger Than Life: 10 Guideposts for Young Men. Nicholas McDonald offers a thoughtful answer to a pair of questions: What does it mean to be a man, and what does it mean to be a good man? I’ll give you the essence of it and leave you to read the whole thing. “I … think the essence of being a man is essentially this: men are people who know what they want, and they go get it. Sometimes bad men want evil things and go get those things – that’s bad masculinity. But good men want good things, and they go get those things – that’s good masculinity.”
The Great Stork Derby Divided Canadians During the Great Depression. Here’s some stranger-than-fiction history about a man who left a part of his fortune to whoever could have the most babies. Not surprisingly, he was something of an eccentric: “Millar himself described his will as ‘necessarily uncommon and capricious.’ In it, he left brewery shares to seven Protestant ministers who supported Prohibition; joint ownership of a vacation home in Jamaica to three local lawyers who detested one another; and shares in the Ontario Jockey Club to a few of the city’s most steadfast opponents of horse racing. In the final clause of his will, Millar promised the remainder of his fortune to the mother who ‘has since my death given birth in Toronto to the greatest number of children, as shown by the registrations under the Vital Statistics Act,’ a measure mandating the uniform recording of births, deaths and marriages in Ontario.” The article is bizarre but fascinating.
Labour and Legacy. Ponders life, ministry, and legacy as he stands where a great pastor once stood. “I confess that as I left the village, it was with something of a weight on my soul. The fruits of Beddome’s ministry seem to have all but disappeared, at least in terms of present gospel substance. Having pastored the same congregation for over twenty years, I was pondering on the lessons I should learn.”
Quick Links
The Typo Vibe Shift. Why are people now adding typos to their text rather than labor to eliminate them? This article at The Atlantic will explain it.
Influencers No More. It wasn’t long ago that many young people dreamed of being influencers and content creators, but now many are looking elsewhere for career aspirations. The Wall Street Journal tells why.
Gen Z and Belonging to the Church. Alan Noble interacts with a fascinating article by Freya India. Both consider why young people today seem to have a new interest in church.
Flashback
To Surprise Us At the Last Day. Perhaps God has kept secret from our eyes the salvation of some of his people. Perhaps he called them to himself after we lost track of them—we assumed their hardened rebellion against Christ continued indefinitely, while only God knows it eventually gave way to the sweetest submission.
We naturally love smooth things, but, alas, we have so much roughness in us that we must have rough things to smooth us.
—Anne Dutton
