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A La Carte (October 7)

thursday

Grace and peace to you this morning.

Westminster Books has a deal on some excellent little books meant to help Christians through hard times.

(Yesterday on the blog: Why Domestic Abuse Is So Very Evil)

Cultural Christianity Gave Us the Golden Age of CCM

This is an interesting one from Samuel James: “Cultural Christianity creates a tension. As an evangelical, I confess the need for conversion, regeneration, and a purified local church membership. But there are many things worth preserving in society that do not meet this criteria. Cultural Christianity is at its best when it creates and preserves imprints of the gospel in society, even if those imprints are themselves insufficient for total absorption by the church. CCM is an artifact of cultural Christianity.”

Are We The Baddies?

“France has been rocked by the news that over 300,000 children were abused by clergy and lay people in the Catholic Church over a 70 year period. While acknowledging the horror of this news, we might be tempted to comfort ourselves by saying that it doesn’t affect us because we are neither French nor Catholic. Sadly, however, that won’t wash.” Eddie Arthur explains why.

Lessons from Kabul

“Those images from Kabul will be seared into the American consciousness, much like the fall of Saigon over four decades earlier. And there are doubtless many political lessons to be learned. Nevertheless, today I want to ask the question, what missionary lessons might we learn from Kabul?”

Wisdom and Principles of Complementarianism

“What seems to be surprisingly absent in many recent discussions about complementarianism in the home is a treatment of what the roles between husbands and wives in the marital relationship should look like in a biblically principled fashion without personal applications of those principles.” This is important…

Three Things Bible School Didn’t Teach Me

My pal Chopo Mwanza lists three things Bible school didn’t teach him.

Bitter Roots

Sylvia Schroeder: “Each of our stories would be, could be, maybe even should be different had people or situations not altered our path. In society, in families, and as my husband’s father knew, even in ministry we might be richer, own more, have risen higher. We can choose to replay wrong and rewind hurt. But when I read God’s Word, I come back time and time again to this.”

The “Bad Math” of Derailing Spiritually

“C.S. Lewis famously said that when we read history, we find that those who did the most for the present world are also the ones who thought the most of the next. In other words, the more heavenly minded we are—the more our heads and hearts are fixed on Jesus, his kingdom, and his purposes—the more earthly good we will be. And the more happy and healthy and whole we will be as well.”

Flashback: The Servers and the Servicers in Every Church

Servers are people who tend to feel closest to God when they are serving others; servicers are people who tend to feel closest to God when they are in the worship service.

It is much easier to get a text of Scripture fastened in our memory than to get the lesson of the text wrought into our life!

—J.R. Miller

  • Prayer

    Spread Too Thin

    With so much to do, we can easily begin to wonder whether prayer is an appropriate use of scarce time. Wouldn’t it be better to give my attention to something that would let me cross something off my to-do list?

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    Weekend A La Carte (July 12)

    A La Carte: Where art thou Rob Bell? / The case against in vitro fertilization / Praying and weeping for those suffering in Texas / Greet each other with a holy hug / The example of Jimmy Swaggart / and more.

  • Thriving Marriage

    Thriving Marriage

    I have often wondered about the best time to write a book about marriage. When a couple is young, there is so much about marriage they have not yet experienced. They can still impart wisdom and teach lessons, of course, but there is so much of marriage that remains unknown to them. Yet when a…

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    A La Carte (July 11)

    A La Carte: Falling out of repentance / Tattoos as confession / The Epstein List and secret sins / Teaching generosity / Lessons from a former youth pastor / Bedbugs in the bowels of the city.

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    A La Carte (July 10)

    A La Carte: Questions for a maturing marriage / The lesbian seagulls that weren’t / But mommy, why? / A time to be tired / The modern rise of Stoicism / and more.

  • The Stranger

    The Stranger: A Short Film For You

    Based on a true story and inspired by the truth that character comes before competence, “The Stranger” is an honest, light-hearted and meaningful picture of what it means to truly serve others.