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A La Carte (January 30)

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The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Today’s Kindle deals include the first volume in several of the Green Ember series—books your kids will love. We’ve also got Josh Moody’s book on holiness, Stacy Reaoch’s book for women, and others along with them.

Small Injustices

“If we aren’t careful, we can allow the small injustices to make us spiritually blind. It’s like staring at the sun. If we focus on the small injustices, that’s all we’ll be able to see, and then pretty soon, we won’t see anything at all. We’ll live in the darkness of woe-is-me, and we will be completely incapable of thinking of others, being grateful, seeing God’s goodness in all that comes our way.”

Is Joining a Church as a Member Actually Necessary?

Is it necessary for a healthy Christian to join a church as a member? Here’s the case for answering in the affirmative.

How to Make Friends in College (Or Anywhere)

Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra did some digging to help young people make friends at college (or anywhere else). Why? Because “as I’ve talked with youth leaders and campus pastors, some tell me that Gen Z struggles so much with social interactions that older generations almost need to reverse engineer their friendships, figure out what makes them work, and teach that to young people.”

Questions to Deepen Fellowship

On a somewhat related note, here are some questions that can be useful for deepening fellowship. (If you want to go deeper still, David Powlison’s “X-Ray Questions” are bound to help.)

My Letter to a Headmistress About a Transgender Teacher

“After four years of gender-bending madness in the White House, and in every other seat of government in the Western world, this was breathtaking. It’s not the end of course: a truly sane society would outlaw gender transition for adults, and embrace the obvious truth that ‘trans’ people are either mentally ill, sexually perverted, or both. But, considering the past several years, this is quite a start.”

Prayerless Theologians

This is a valid consideration: “As you watch theological interactions online, and even in some churches, have you ever wondered how many strong assertions come from prayerless theologians?”

Flashback: The Decay of the World and the Love of God

God’s love for his people is so great that he will continue to tolerate all of this sin and rebellion, all of this hatred toward him, until the last of his chosen and beloved children has been born, has heard the gospel, and has been saved.

Grace must raise the temptation to think we can sin as we please; if it does not, we have not understood the true extent of grace.

—Derek Thomas

  • Are You Binding the Wound or Aggravating It

    Are You Binding the Wound or Aggravating It?

    One of the privileges we have as Christians is the privilege of caring for one another—of blessing one another in our difficulties and comforting one another in our sorrows. In such “one another” ministry we represent God and extend love and mercy on his behalf. This is a precious and sacred ministry that falls to…

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    A La Carte (March 26)

    A La Carte: The Jesus Geezers and Gene Hackman / Prayer is our fuel / John Mark Comer / On failure / Get grace, give grace / Book and Kindle deals / and more.

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    A La Carte (March 25)

    A La Carte: Gen Z’s spiritual anxiety / Would you sell out Jesus for $4.37 billion? / Men need friendship, not just accountability / Building healthy relationships with your teens / The pastor’s wife / Sales and deals / and more.

  • Crash and Burn

    When Christians Crash and Burn

    The pictures quickly made their way around the world—pictures of an aircraft lying upside down in the snow just beyond runway 23 at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. On February 17, Delta flight 4819 landed hard, shearing off the right wing and flipping over before finally sliding to a stop. Remarkably, despite the crash and subsequent…

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    A La Carte (March 24)

    A La Carte: Wokeness as a tax / The religion of wellness / Freckles, thigh gaps, and beauty / The 50 most edifying films / If I have matching dishes but not love / The Bible and sexuality / Kindle deals / and more.

  • Pastoral Prayer

    A Pastoral Prayer

    Every now and again I like to share an example of a pastoral prayer from Grace Fellowship Church. I do this because there are few examples of pastoral prayers online and I thought these may serve to inspire themes, passages, or ideas as other pastors and elders prepare to lead their churches in prayer. Please…