Darryl Dash's Blog, page 34

Younger Christians Are Looking for Older Saints

I suppose there’s such a thing as the sins of the young: impetuousness, impatience, anger, and lust, for instance. Left alone, these weeds will grow and make for an ugly and joyless life.

But I also suppose there are sins of age. Perhaps these are just the sins of the young left to grow for a very long time. Older adults can become bitter, critical, and withdrawn.

I have a theory that we can, to some extent, hide our sinful tendencies when we’re younger. We’re able to wear a mask, and it can take ...

What the Church Looks Like on Mission (Acts 8:1-25)

Big Idea: The church on mission often begins reluctantly, sometimes encounters surprising success, and is messy.

A few years ago, God unsettled my family. I’d been pastoring at a church in the inner suburbs of Toronto, but things began to unravel there a little.

To my surprise, we ended up moving into downtown Toronto into a young, professional, transient community. A friend of mine told me that it would be impossible to start a new church there. But we said, “Let’s see what happens,” and we just ...

Saturday Links

Curated links for your weekend reading:

The Beatific Vision

One doctrine that you may never have heard of (but one that you really should know about) is the beatific vision.

Too Busy for Beauty

Productivity is good, but our souls long for something greater.

Midlife and the Striver's Curse

I have unknowingly believed some lies. While always susceptible to them, they have a tendency to creep up with intensity in midlife.

Simple Ways to Cultivate Awe and Lower Your Stress

I’d like to consider some simple s...

Pray for Gospel Boldness

Ephesians is breathtaking. I don’t know of a better exposition of the gospel than the one we find in its pages. Paul articulates the gospel better than any of us could hope to do. He gives us a glimpse of God’s eternal purpose, and then applies that gospel to people who need to know what it means for how they live.

Reading Ephesians, I might think that Paul has nailed the skill of articulating the gospel.

Given this, I’m surprised to read these words at the end of his letter to the Ephesians:

Ephes...

Never Underestimate Sin or Grace (2 Samuel 11-12)

Big Idea: Never underestimate the power of sin, our ability to rationalize sin, or the consequences of sin. But never underestimate God’s grace.

If you boil down David’s life — his 70-year life — down to just a few events, you’d probably pick these:

First: David killed the giant Goliath with five smooth stones. It seems like almost everyone has heard this story. Malcolm Gladwell even wrote a book about it. We frequently talk about David and Goliath when it comes to the little guy beating the big g...

Saturday Links

Curated links for your weekend reading:

Read the Bible in Bigger Chunks Too

Most approaches encourage reading and studying in a very short period of time. But do we miss something if we exclusively read in bite-size chunks?

Future Faith and ChatGPT

How can believers think clearly about the issues of faith and AI? Below I suggest two things that we will need to navigate the unknown path before us.

5 Steps to Break Free from To-Do List Overwhelm

More important than getting things done is ensuring you ar...

Think Little

In 1970, the author Wendell Berry wrote an essay called “Think Little.”

Addressing the green movement, Berry argues that we tend to focus too much on making plans and making laws. “For most of the history of this country our motto, implied or spoken, has been Think Big,” Berry writes. But there’s a better way, and it begins on a much smaller scale.

But the citizen who is willing to Think Little, and, accepting the discipline of that, to go ahead on his own, is already solving the problem. A man wh...

Who Builds Whose House? (2 Samuel 7)

Big Idea: God takes the initiative in providing what we need. We simply respond.

It’s amazing how much of the Bible comes in the form of a story.

I used to think that these stories were pretty inefficient. God could have saved us a lot of trouble by giving us the main points that he wanted us to know.

But that was before I realized the genius of God’s plan. We don’t need bullet points. We need stories. In fact, literary scholars and neuroscientists are discovering the impact that stories have on th...

Saturday Links

Curated links for your weekend reading:

4 Benefits of Developing Position Papers in a Ministry Context and 2 Inabilities of Position Papers in a Ministry Context

Going through the process of developing position papers increased our clarity, confidence, compassion, and consistency.

Pornography Poisons Everything

Pornography, especially in the digital age, is an unmitigated disaster for every level of society.

Truthful Witness and the Transgender Debate

How can we expect the next generation to be biblic...

Four Kinds of Books I Love

There are so many books out there. We’ll never have time to read even the great books. We’ve got to prioritize.

Here are four kinds of books I love.

Deep Books

The first kind of books I love to read are the deep ones. These are the ones that are work to read: joyful work but work nonetheless. These books are best read slowly, with a pencil, and with lots of time. Some are the kinds of books that should also be re-read.

In his excellent book The Art of Pastoring, David Hansen writes:

I stopped reading...