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Learning Dependence on the Lord

BARBARANNE KELLY | CONTRIBUTOR I consider myself to be a relatively capable person. I know that I have limits, but I thought my capabilities outweighed them. I used to believe that God wouldn’t give me more than I could handle, until he started giving me more than I could handle. I’m now decades into learning how very weak and dependent—how incapable—I am, and how very strong, faithful, and capable my Lord is. This summer has been a crash course for me in a whole new area of dependence and incapacity. Early in July my husband fell from a tree, and until his broken bones heal, his injuries render him unable to bear weight on either leg. He also needs a brace to support his upper body due to two broken vertebrae. When Jim came home in a wheelchair, we ran smack up against our limits. Life as we knew it turned upside down. Then, just as we thought we had the new routine figured out; a new unbearable pain sent us scrambling for answers. We called 911 and my husband was taken back to the hospital by ambulance—three times in one week—ultimately to discover that his lungs were lined with a constellation of pulmonary emboli. New medications and heightened cautions were added to our new routine. New depths of weakness and dependence were discovered. Peter considered himself to be a relatively capable person too, bless his heart. On the night of the last supper, when Jesus told his disciples that they’d all abandon him, Peter rashly denied that he was capable of such a betrayal. But Jesus, knowing full well not only that he would deny him, but also the devastation it would wreak in his dear friend’s heart and mind, assured Peter that even though “Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, . . . I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail” (Luke 22:31–32)....

Learning Dependence on the Lord2023-09-21T19:37:24+00:00

Pastor Appreciation Month: Show and Tell

TARA GIBBS | CONTRIBUTOR Sometimes church members seek to show their care for their pastor with “helpful” tips and advice like, “Let me tell you how to fix your sermon. You preached too long/too short/too much grace/too much law/ with boring illustrations, etc. etc.” Or, “Let me help you know why I am upset because you didn’t call me enough… fix my marriage… heal my broken family…” And that “helpful” feedback isn’t restricted to the pastor himself. It extends into pastoral families as well with comments like, “Your children are too fidgety in worship. Here’s how to fix that.” Or even insights we share with one another and not to our pastoral family’s faces like, “Did you see his wife’s sweater has a stain on it?” Or “Did you see the length of his daughter’s skirt?” Or “Is that too nice of a car for a pastor’s family?” As a longtime pastor’s wife, I have a bookshelf filled with titles ranging from Windows in a Glass House to Help! I’m Married to My Pastor! to She Can’t Even Play the Piano, and perhaps most eye-catching of them all: I Quit! All four of our children offered concerned queries when they saw me reading that last title! What does it mean to care for those who live in glass houses, don’t always preach perfect sermons, and perhaps have fidgety kids, but who are nonetheless called to shepherd the flock? We know our pastoral families are frail humans in need of grace and support just like we are. But in daily practice, it can be easy to start applying a different scale to ministry families. Perhaps Pastor Appreciation Month is a good time to prayerfully consider how to apply Paul’s words in Hebrews 13:17, “Obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning...”...

Pastor Appreciation Month: Show and Tell2023-09-21T19:32:08+00:00

Dear Church: There’s Hope for the Next Generation

KRISTEN THOMPSON | GUEST Do you ever get the sense that all hope is lost for the coming generations? After all, the percentage of people who claim to be a Christian is decreasing, especially for those between the ages of 15 and 29. Increasingly, people in this age group are walking away from the faith in which they were raised. (Read this article for some sobering statistics.) For those of us sitting in the church pews week after week, we wonder why more of the youth we’ve watched grow up aren’t coming back to the church in their adult years. For parents, sending their kids off to college seems scarier than ever before, and maybe that fear is justified if all we look at is the statistics. But regardless of what the studies say or what we see taking place in our culture, the Church must not forget who holds the future. God has not ceased to be sovereign. He is just as omnipotent today as He was 2,000 years ago when He raised Jesus from the dead. That same resurrection power is at work renewing this earth and sanctifying the heart of His children. I’ve been working in college campus ministry for the past 9 years. I work with Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) which is the campus ministry of the PCA. And while the church often looks at college-aged students with angst and anxiety, I want to encourage you that God is at work building His Kingdom among the next generation. I’m not saying the statistics are wrong rather, I want to show you the other side of the coin—the stories that don’t get published as widely. Be Encouraged, God is at Work Be encouraged by the student from the west coast who came to faith in Jesus in college, learned to love Scripture, and now as a post-grad student, seeks a church where she can use her gifts to serve the kingdom. Be encouraged by the churched student who experienced true Christian community for the first time in college and now seeks to be a connecting point for others in her local church. Be encouraged by the young man who spent his first semester partying and drinking, was on the brink of suicide, but then his eyes were opened to the love of his Father and now tells the whole campus of this love. Be encouraged by the student raised Catholic who came to understand deeper truths of the gospel through reading Scripture with her campus ministry staff and who now invites her non-Christian friend to join them as they read. Be encouraged by the student who was non-religious and same-sex attracted but whose heart God pulled to Himself, drew to saving faith, and who now clearly articulates a Biblical worldview regarding sexuality. I could keep going and others in campus ministry could tell even more stories. There is hope for the next generation and that hope is a person—our faithful, loving, sustaining Savior Jesus Christ. He will not let His people see destruction, and He will not stop building His Kingdom until He returns to be with His bride forever. As Jesus told Peter in Matthew 16:18, “on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” ...

Dear Church: There’s Hope for the Next Generation2023-09-14T16:27:49+00:00

Working Together Across Gender in the Church

HOLLY MACKLE|CONTRIBUTOR When my pastor, Bob Flayhart, asked me to help adapt his life sermon into a book, my immediate wash of excitement quickly turned to a flood of fear. In my experience, it’s hard not to dignify any relational conflicts that arise in inter-gender work with a weight they should never carry. This feels especially constraining in the body of Christ, where an often unspoken sense of higher stakes in working together betrays an underlying level of disunity in the church. As such, I imagined all the ways working alongside Bob could go terribly wrong—all the scenarios in which I could disappoint, frustrate, or annoy him. I spoke my hesitation to a friend who wisely didn’t quash it, but rather turned the tables to the what if. “What if one or all of those things do happen?” she pressed. “I don’t knoooow,” I whined. “What would I do?” Instead of looking at me like I had three eyeballs, in a level, somehow non-judgmental tone she replied with the answer whose obviousness still stuns me to this day: “You waltz.” Oh right. Got it. It seemed my wash of fear would be a good place to employ the very framework Bob asked me to help adapt from sermon into book form, which he termed the Gospel Waltz. It also happens to be the precise skill to which I am witness number one as to its transformative power. Yet how quickly I forget. I am a writer who works largely in collaborative contexts, sometimes alongside the men of our church, which means this is hardly the first time this fear has flared. And I know I’m not alone, as so many women in the church labor alongside men in ministry and service contexts. The questions of what to do if I disappoint him or annoy him aren’t unique to me, and the truth is they barely scratch the surface of the deep-seated fear. It strikes me that the real question as we seek to work together across gender is: how do we do this well? How do we honor the Lord in our projects, planning, and partnership both within the church and out into the larger world?...

Working Together Across Gender in the Church2023-11-15T22:00:50+00:00

The Blessings That Come With Forgiveness

LEAH JONES | GUEST “Birds fly. Fish swim. Christians forgive.” My husband made this statement in a sermon on forgiveness a few weeks ago and it resonated with me. With all the authority and confidence that could only be rooted in Scripture, he proceeded to explain how forgiveness is as necessary to the Christian as breathing. If forgiveness is free, good, and necessary, then we should be quick to forgive. There should be no withholding it. In The Miracle of Forgiveness, C.S. Lewis speaks of forgiveness as mortifying our resentment. It’s a practice we have to set on repeat. In fact, we may have to walk the same path of forgiveness 490 times (see Matt. 18-21). Forgiveness is a journey with many steps along the way—so we may as well get started. As I’ve studied and meditated on forgiveness, here are four things I’ve learned: #1: Forgiveness is Mandatory We must forgive. It is never optional. A lack of forgiveness settles in and festers. Bitterness takes root and anger turns to rage; hurt morphs into hatred. We begin to only see the difficulty in life and miss God’s goodness. Hebrews warns us to remember the grace of God, “lest the root of bitterness rise up” and cause great destruction (Heb. 12:15). These ramifications never stay isolated to one relationship. They creep in unnoticed and wreak havoc throughout our relational landscape...

The Blessings That Come With Forgiveness2023-09-23T13:21:26+00:00

Treasure in Jars of Clay

KIM CHURCH | GUEST It was science experiment day. My kids were buzzing with excitement about what they would get to do and see for this week’s experiment. As we opened our garage door that morning, we were welcomed by the equatorial sun and heat of the dry season in Uganda. With too many helping hands, we got our experiment ready to go. I made sure everyone’s eyes were on the set-up because we had one shot at this. I didn’t have extra supplies, and we didn’t have the ability to get more. I counted down… three, two, one. Just as I let go of the clip that would set the reaction in motion, there was loud banging and shouting at the gate to our compound. We all instinctively looked out the garage door to see my neighbor happily banging on my gate as she greeted us. Almost as quickly as we looked away, we looked back at the experiment to see that we had missed the entire split-second reaction. I instantly felt anger rising from deep within me towards my neighbor. I struggled to find the patience I needed to navigate my three crying children because they didn’t really understand why I couldn’t just do it again so they could see it. My neighbor continued banging on my gate expecting me to come let her in so she could visit. Again. Just like she had done the day before. And the day before that. And most days for the past 2 months. I went to the gate and begrudgingly let her in without properly greeting her because I was fuming, and I wanted her to know how much she inconvenienced me that morning. I went to get my husband to entertain her because I still had a garage of disappointed children that needed my attention. My husband, unaware of the science experiment mishap, warmly greeted her and welcomed her into our home. My anger was just about to explode like a pressure cooker that ran out of water, and I knew I needed to get out of there. I made a beeline for my bedroom at the back of the house and somehow managed to not slam my door and throw things around like I so desperately felt like doing. Like the self-controlled adult I tried to convince myself I was, I took deep breaths for several minutes as I regained my composure. When I felt like I had released enough pressure, I went back out to the front of the house where my husband and my neighbor were freely bantering back and forth. I sat down like a pouting child and refused to participate in the conversation. Sensing my frustration, my husband skillfully brought the visit to an end a short time later...

Treasure in Jars of Clay2023-09-07T13:48:08+00:00

A Bible Study for Mature Audiences

SUSAN TYNER|CONTRIBUTOR What do cannibalism, child sacrifice, and church people all have in common? To answer, open the Book of Kings. Strange to combine those three in the same sentence, yet the writer of 1 & 2 Kings shows how God’s people can sink into the worst kinds of sin. But how can a family of four sitting in the pew every Sunday possibly be in the same category as Hannibal Lector? Find out by grabbing some friends to study Kings. Between Moses’s burning bush and the Christmas angels’ song, you’ll discover stories of kings and prophets, miracles and murder, and a tragedy on display for all who care to read it. But why would such a shocking book make a good Bible study? How can Israel’s degeneration impact one’s spiritual walk today?  I offer three ways they’ve helped me in mine. You see how sin creeps in. Kings starts off so well. As King David passed his scepter to his son Solomon, Israel was poised for greatness. She thrived under Solomon’s rule. However, underneath all the gold and glitter, the crown was cracking. Nine hundred wives plus three hundred concubines can do that to a man. Did they bring a lot of credit card debt into the marriage? Maybe PMS on a grand scale? No, they brought their false gods. And, by the end of Solomon’s life, his heart had fallen out of love with the LORD and in love with their foreign gods. Lesson? Close associations can steer your heart. Choose ones who have the same soul-spirations as you do. Solomon wasn’t the only king who was disloyal to the LORD. We see this sort of creep in—marrying those outside their faith, welcoming other faith traditions, and living a life less in line with God’s law and more in line with the world—all along the way in Kings. This flirtation with sin happened back then—and now. You see where sin can take you. By the end of 2 Kings, we meet Manasseh. During his rule, Jerusalem, God’s favorite city—the place where He put His name—was overrun by foreign religions. In God’s own temple stood an Asherah pole and in His court were altars ready for astral worship. This is tantamount to a husband inviting his mistress into his wife’s bedroom to wear her lingerie, try out her perfume, and sleep in her bed. In this case, God is the one betrayed. Ezekiel 6:9 states plainly how that made their God feel, “how I have been broken over their whoring heart that has departed from me and over their eyes that go whoring after their idols.” Whoring? Can we say that word in a Bible study? We need to because we may be as guilty as Israel was then. Kings challenges us to ask, who are our Asherahs, our Molechs, and our Baals today? We may not bow down to the sun, but do we bow before people’s opinions? Do we overcommit to please family or to impress co-workers? A church leader may not offer child sacrifices but would she drive her daughter to get an abortion to cover up a teenage pregnancy, serving the god of her reputation? While an Asherah pole isn’t front and center in our living room, do we look at our bank balance or God’s word more?...

A Bible Study for Mature Audiences2023-11-15T22:01:50+00:00

Engaging with Christian Community

JAMYE DOERFLER | GUEST On July 1, 2017, our family of five pulled up to our new home in a new city with a 27-foot U-Haul and two cars packed to the max. Within an hour, five adults were helping us unload the truck. Mind you, we’d met most of these people only once before. One man, we’d never even seen in person—we’d only had a single Skype conversation. Yet here they were, near-strangers sweating and struggling to carry our heavy furniture and boxes of books. The night before, when we’d loaded the truck four hours east, about 15 people had helped—some inside the truck packing it tightly, others carrying the boxes and furniture, and still others cleaning the house. The week prior, women had helped me pack up the kitchen and dining room. Once the kitchen was packed and cooking became difficult, various friends provided dinner for us every night as we visited and said goodbye to those with whom we’d spent the last eleven years. As I walked through that week, I was struck by God’s wisdom in putting Christians in community with one another. All of these people who served us in such a tangible way? They were our church family, our brothers and sisters in Christ. We’d spent a decade with some of them; others, we had only just met—but we were already bound by the fellowship of the Church. Created for Community I have met Christians for whom church attendance and participation is considered optional. “I can be a Christian but not go to church all the time,” they reason. Or, “I just like to go on Sundays and get in and out,” as though church is like a stop at the dry cleaners. This isn’t what God intended for Christians. Consider these Scriptures: Hebrews 10:24-25: "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." 1 Thessalonians 5:11: "Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing." Galatians 6:2: "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." On June 30 and July 1 of 2107, our brothers and sisters were quite literally bearing our burdens...

Engaging with Christian Community2023-08-28T15:45:32+00:00

You Can Run But You Cannot Hide

NEYSA NOVAK | GUEST Have you ever felt like the pressure from life has pushed you to a breaking point? As women, we tend to have a lot on our plate. Many of us care deeply for those around us. We raise children, work hard, and are involved in our communities. Balancing all these demands can be hard, but if you add in strained relationships, it can feel impossible. Outside of Eden, the struggle is real. I once found myself in what felt like a hopeless situation and chose my own way. On the Run from God I'm a public high school guidance counselor and work stress was taking a toll on me. In addition, my three kids played on three different sport teams, I'm a pastor's wife, and a women's ministry leader. One Saturday evening, my husband and I got into an argument—it’s classic spiritual warfare before the Sunday sermon. But I took the bait and came out of the argument feeling like he didn't appreciate my efforts at church. The next morning, I woke up early before the rest of my family and instead of praying, decided to go to a coffee shop to do some work. I know that willful disobedience to God never goes well, so I don't know why I found working on the Sabbath so appealing. I thought that if I could just get one hour of work in, I would feel better about my situation. I soon discovered that the entire student information system was shut down. This never happens without notice. My plans to work were thwarted, so I decided to go to a park instead. I thought it would be peaceful to sit in the car and shut my eyes for a few minutes of quiet. I heard worship music and realized I had parked near an outdoor worship service. Psalm 139:7 says, "Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?" God reminded me that I can't escape Him. I should have repented and headed home to ride with my family to Sunday School, but I was frustrated and didn't want to give in; I found myself in a battle of my will...

You Can Run But You Cannot Hide2023-09-02T16:59:54+00:00

Work: Is it More Than Boney Fingers?

TARA GIBBS | CONTRIBUTOR Work, what is it good for? Dolly Parton sings of the drudgery in “9-5.” “Tumble out of bed, and I stumble to the kitchen. Pour myself a cup of ambition, and yawn and stretch and try to come to life. Jump in the shower and the blood starts pumpin'. Out on the street, the traffic starts jumpin' with folks like me on the job from 9 to 5.” Hoyt Axton expresses it even more succinctly in his 1974 hit Boney Fingers. “Work your fingers to the bone; what do you get? Boney Fingers. Boney Fingers!” Henry Wordsworth Longfellow provides a noble counter-point of view in The Blacksmith, … Toiling,—rejoicing,—sorrowing,      Onward through life he goes; Each morning sees some task begin,      Each evening sees it close; Something attempted, something done,      Has earned a night's repose. Songs about the drudgery of work and boney fingers tell my heart one story about work while Longfellow tells another. This Labor Day I cannot help but wonder, “What story does God tell me about work, and how much are my thoughts about work shaped by His story?” God Works and God Gave Us Work The story God tells about work begins in Genesis 1, and guess who is doing the very first work? God. Is work good? God worked. Not only that, while still in the Bible’s first chapter, we see God crafting image bearers to serve as His working ambassadors. “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth,” (Gen. 1:28). God made birds and fish and animals and plants, and then He made us and charged us to take care of all He had crafted. Genesis 2:15 goes on, “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it,” and we see God bringing every creature to the man to be named “and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name,” (Gen. 2:19b). When you and I work as God’s image-bearing ambassadors to His creation, we are doing what He created us to do. Our work is dignifying to us, glorifying to God, and a blessing to this world.  When things got all messed up in Genesis 3, and work became something we had to fight thorns and thistles to do, it did not remove the foundational goodness of work...

Work: Is it More Than Boney Fingers?2023-08-30T14:54:38+00:00
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