Darryl Dash's Blog, page 38
February 4, 2023
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
Brothers and Sisters, We Are All Apologists Now
Cultural and societal changes have turned apologetics into an unavoidable consequence of living publicly as a Christian.
Preach the Gospel, Die, and Be Remembered
Preach the gospel, die, and rest assured, you will be remembered. God preserves the memory of the faithful.
Good Leaders Are Easy to Follow
Dutiful, dour, and begrudging shepherding serves no one — not the sheep and not the shepherd.
January 31, 2023
Secular Liturgies Leave Me Longing for More
I attended a meeting for creatives in downtown Toronto last Friday.
Get a group of people together — sixty or so in this case — and it’s fascinating to watch what happens. I was reminded of how James K.A. Smith describes cultural practices that serve as rival liturgies, forming us to see the world in a particular way without being aware of the ways in which we’re being influenced.
We have to learn to exegete the rituals we’re immersed in. We need to become anthropologists who try, in some way, to ...
January 29, 2023
Job’s Monsters (Job 40:15-41:34)
Big Idea: We face supernatural danger, but these evil supernatural forces are no match for God.
We’re zooming through the Bible this year. So far we’ve covered Genesis and Job, and we’re not even out of January yet.
Once in a while, though, we’ll have a chance to slow down a bit and linger a little. And I thought that today’s passage may be a good place to stop for a couple of reasons:
First, because the passage is so unusual.Second, because I think this passage is so relevant to our lives.What am ...
January 28, 2023
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
“What is this church like?” asked the little old couple as they shuffled in the doors of church.
A tall, slim church greeter with silver hair smiled and asked, “What was your last church like?”
Discipling Your Congregation to Understand the Importance of the Church
Most Americans say worshiping alone is a valid replacement for regularly attending church. How do you teach the importance of the church?
Spurgeon on Livestreaming Church
How ...
January 24, 2023
If We Do Not Give Up
I love how Galatians 6:9 ends: “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”
Without that qualifying phrase, we’d puzzle. When a farmer sows, the crop follows a predictable pattern. The “due season” isn’t a mystery: alfalfa sprouts sprout in just 3 to 5 days; corn takes 60 to 100 days to reach maturity. A farmer gets to know what to expect.
The Christian life’s not like that. How long must a wife bear witness to Christ before her unbelieving husba...
January 22, 2023
Making Sense of Suffering (Job)
Big Idea: You are going to suffer. You may not be able to understand it, and you should be careful about how to explain it. But you can trust God because God is good and powerful.
Today we’re looking at a book in the Bible that we often don’t know how to process, and yet it’s a book that we desperately need.
It’s the book of Job. It’s a book many Christians don’t know very well, but one whose story mirrors many of our own stories. Ray Ortlund once preached on this book and said:
I used to think tha...
January 21, 2023
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
The Spiritual Power of Staying Put
Lasting fruit usually comes from lasting presence.
My hunch is that most people with this vision of Christianity are not disengaged because it is really difficult. Rather, people disengage because this version of Christianity seems boring.
I Did Not Sign-Up for This: The Fourth P of Pastoral Ministry
Platform relates to the “trellis” work mentioned in Trellis and the Vine — the structure, programs e...
January 17, 2023
Eyes Wide Open Into the Beautiful Truths That We've Been Given
I love books. I suppose I’m sometimes prone to think that a particular book I’ve read recently is one of the most important books and that everyone needs to read it.
But I’m not exaggerating when I say that about The Thrill of Orthodoxy by Trevin Wax. It really is one of the most important books written in the past couple of years.
We live in an atheological age. Many think that theology is boring, irrelevant, and divisive. I’ve heard church leaders say we need to pay less attention to what we bel...
January 15, 2023
When God’s People Disappoint (Genesis 30-50)
Big Idea: God accomplishes his purposes through his people despite their sins.
If God is good, why are his people often so disappointing?
That’s the question all of us have to answer. We answer it personally when we’re hurt by other Christians or by the church. But we also have to answer it when we look at the many blemishes in church history, and many of the scandals that rock the church today.
In 2008, John Dickson, the Founding Director of the Centre for Public Christianity, was part of a debate...
January 14, 2023
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
The prevailing sin of our age is we have misplaced the center of all authority.
Our key task is not to survey people to find out what it will take to get them back in and it’s not to inquire what they might find spiritually meaningful. Our key task is to search the Scriptures to see what God tells us a church ought to be and ought to do.
There are ways in which one can leave the congre...
