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Weekend A La Carte (October 11)

A La Carte Collection cover image

I’m grateful to Boyce College for sponsoring the blog this week. They want to help young Christians answer this question: How Do You Know If God Is Calling You?.

Today’s Kindle deals include a whole collection of excellent works by Derek Kidner.

Yesterday on the blog, I shared a review of Christopher Ash’s new book Not Old, Not Young, Not Done. If you’re in (or near) your 50s or 60s, I highly recommend it. Meanwhile, Westminster Books has a deal on a book meant to help you better understand trauma.

Why Dads Still Matter

J. Warner Wallace: “During my years working the gang detail in Los Angeles County, I met countless young men and women caught up in the world of gangs. Over time, a single theme emerged—one that cut across backgrounds, neighborhoods, and stories. Nearly every gang member I encountered suffered from the same affliction: a profound lack of dad.”

Character in Absurd Times

I appreciate how Joshua Heavin draws upon our favorite characters in LOTR in this article about character.

Don’t Take the Supper at Youth Camp or Get Baptized in the Jordan

It’s important to consider why it would be unwise to take Lord’s Supper at youth camp or get baptized in the Jordan (despite so many Christians doing so).

How Can I Increase My Love for God’s Word?

Kenneth Berding offers a whole list of practical, biblically-based ways to increase your love for God’s Word.

Gen Z Is Spiritually Hungry. Let’s Get Ready to Feed Them.

“The anxious generation needs what the church has to offer—hope, embodied connection, and stability in a tumultuous time. Thankfully, it also appears to be what they want.”

Welcome Them in: Extending Gospel Hospitality to Our Children

This is an interesting way to think about children remaining in worship services rather than attending programs: Putting it under the banner of hospitality.

Flashback: Positive Purity

Sexual purity has two components to it: the turning away and the turning toward, the stopping of one kind of behavior and the beginning of another. 

It is a sweet mercy to have to go through the floods, if some filthiness may thereby be removed.

—C.H. Spurgeon

  • 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.