Life2gether

Here’s a conversation between Justin Taylor and Nancy Guthrie about her new book that she’s edited—a collection of classic and contemporary essays, called Be Still, My Soul: Embracing God’s Purpose and Provision in Suffering .  She also tells her own story of suffering here.

(HT: JT)

Thabiti Anyabwile, from his post, The Redundancy of “Radical Discipleship”:

I think my walk with Christ took a step in a more radical direction when I began to live actively in a church community.  When the local church really became a family I was committed to, nominalism simply ceased to be a viable option.  You can’t walk together with other saints, commit yourself to the cross-carrying “one anothers” of Scripture, and remain a lukewarm disciple.

(HT: Mark Peterson)

Recently I had the opportunity to teach a group of preschoolers.  The whole experience opened my eyes to how much pastors would benefit from teaching a preschool class.

7 Reasons Why All Pastors Should Teach a Preschool Class

1. Preparation – You better be well-prepared when you teach little ones.  Every moment counts.  Knowing ahead of time where you’re going (your aim) and how you transition from one thing to another makes all the difference.  It’s true in sermon-planning as well.

2. Introduction – You must connect with little kids right away or you’ll lose them.  The same holds true for adults.  Our introduction should make our people say, “Hey, I need to hear this.”

3. Repetition – When teaching preschoolers, you must repeat, repeat, repeat one main point.  It’s even better when you can connect an action to your main point (e.g. God is powerful — have everyone flex their muscles!).  As pastors we too must strive to preach with one main point and repeat it throughout the sermon.

4. Illustration – In order to capture the minds of young children, you must engage their senses by using vivid pictures and stories.  Once again, adults are no different.  Think about Spurgeon.  He preached images that made the truth tangible for his people.  So should we.

5. Interaction – Good teachers get their students involved in the learning process.  Even though the classroom is a different setting than ”the pulpit” we pastors would do well to interact with the text and with our people in a way that draws them into the Scriptures and into each other’s lives. 

6. Retention – Preschoolers have short attention spans and can only retain so much.  Similarly, our people can only take in so much in one sitting.  Consequently, we pastors don’t have to say it all in one sermon.  Thus, we need to leave out the irrelevant and remember that less is usually more.

7. Condescension – Like Christ, we must come down and meet little children (and adults) where they are at.  Spurgeon once said, “Blessed is he who can so speak as to be understood by a child!”  How true.

Back in my college years God used a man named Dave Busby to radically affect my faith and life.  Perhaps more than anyone, Dave taught me to see God as a compassionate Savior instead of a disappointed taskmaster.  His deeply penetrating and brutally honest messages encouraged me to rest in God’s grace and taste and see that He truly is good.

Awhile ago I ordered some of Dave’s messages on CD, and just recently I’ve been listening to them again.  In one series of messages entitled Oh Taste and See, Dave invites us to experience Jesus as our Forgiver.  I love what he says here:

The safest place in all the world to be totally exposed is in the presence of Jesus. Why? Because He has a forgiver’s heart. He loves to forgive you… And remember it’s not the quality of your repentance, but the quality of His sacrifice. So will you let him forgive you? Will you let him love you?

I enjoy reading books with my wife.  There’s something sweet about ending the day with a short devotional to set our hearts at rest in God.  This month during Lent we are reading through Nancy Guthrie’s book, Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross: Experiencing the Passion and Power of Easter.  Here are some of her opening words: 

Too many years I’ve found that I have rushed from Palm Sunday into Easter morning, from palm branches to the empty tomb, without giving my mind and my heart over to thoughtful contemplation of the cross. If you can relate to my lament, then I hope you will join me as we turn our gaze toward the cross through the pages of this book.

You can read online for free Guthrie’s preface, as well as Martin Luther’s “True Contemplation of the Cross” and John Piper’s “He Set His Face to Go to Jerusalem.”  Here are the other chapters.

This morning I got up early and felt pretty tired as I started my day.  On the way to work, a couple hymns came into my mind and before long I found myself singing them out loud in the car.  It was a great way to wake up and wake my soul up to the beauty of the gospel that I need so desperately.  Here’s a couple lines that really stayed with me from the hymn, Crown Him With Many Crowns:

Crown him with many crowns
The Lamb upon his throne
Hark how the heavenly anthem drowns
All music but its own
Awake my soul and sing
Of him who died for thee
And hail him as thy matchless king
Throughout eternity

Tullian Tchividjian:

Christian growth doesn’t happen by working hard to get something you don’t have. Christian growth happens by working hard to live in the reality of what you do have.

I used to think that when the Bible tells us to work out our salvation, it meant go out and get what you don’t have-get more patience, get more strength, get more joy, get more love, and so on. But after reading the Bible more carefully I now understand that real gospel fruit happens, not as we “work harder” but only as we continually rediscover the gospel. You could put it this way: rediscovering the gospel is the hard work we’re called to.

Jared Kennedy lists some traps that keep us from a real biblical vision for our kids.

As a pastor for children and families, sometimes it’s hard to see if you’re really making a difference.  But once in awhile God gives you a little glimpse.

On Tuesday I met with an 8 year old boy in my office.  He had been eager to set up a time to talk with me.  I always enjoy talking with kids and their parents and leaving them with a prayer and a piece of candy from Pastor Doug.  But little did I know that on this particular day, I would be the one who was handed the greater gift.

After a few minutes, his mom finally coaxed him to say what he had come to talk to me about.  So sitting there with a big smile on his face, this little boy looked right at me and said, “I want to be a Children’s Pastor when I grow up!”  I smiled big.  In fact, I’m sure it was bigger than the smile on his face.  Then I asked him WHY he wanted to be a Children’s Pastor.  And his simple answer was basically this: “I love God.  I like kids.  And I want to teach them.”  Cool.  How great is that, huh?!  Needless to say I was happy.  But thankfully God showed me this was also a golden opportunity. 

Instead of thinking so much about his future dreams (sounds funny to say it that way!) that obviously could change, I’m focusing on the present.  So, with his mom and dad’s blessing, we’ve decided to set up a discipleship time twice a month to get together and talk about how to grow in our understanding of the gospel.  I look forward to these conversations and the HOMEwork assignments that follow.  And I thank God for this little glimpse of the gospel at work in children.

Dr. Eric Johnson recently spoke at SEEDS on what he called, Parent Theology.  This quote is worth meditating on:

Christian parents have to build their self-understanding on who they are in Christ, not on the quality of their parenting.  This is more important than learning child-rearing techniques, because it changes entirely the framework of our child-rearing, moving us from performance-based living into grace-based living.

The great challenge of Christian parenting is learning to rest in our perfection in Christ and not be consumed with our performance or the performance of our children.