Darryl Dash's Blog, page 43

As Long As You Know You're Nobody Very Special

I need the story of a talking horse named Bree to remind me that I’m nobody special.

The story comes from The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis.

Bree has pretended to be a normal horse for a long time. Captured as a foal, Bree has had to hide his identity for a long time in order to survive. It’s hard to be great but then be forced to hide one’s greatness.

Bree finally gets his chance to return to Narnia but reveals a lack of courage on the way back. Perhaps Bree isn’t such a special horse after all....

Saturday Links

Curated links for your weekend reading:

An Outpouring of God’s Grace in Saskatoon

There’s only a small number of Christians in this country, and there are whole areas where there's no gospel-centered church at all.

Why There Are No Insignificant Christians

The person sitting in the other pew at church is more glorious than you realize.

Will We Have Regrets at the Judgment Seat of Christ?

Just as there are eternal consequences to our faith, so there are eternal consequences to our works.

Things for Chri...

Redeeming Productivity

I’m a sucker for a certain kind of book: one that’s practical, but deeply rooted in God’s truth.

Some books are practical but lack depth. They tell you what to do without grounding their advice in anything deeper. Other books are deeply theological but don’t tell you how to live. My favorite books begin with God’s truth, and then tease out what that truth means for our lives.

One such book is Redeeming Productivity: Getting More Done for the Glory of God by Reagan Rose.

Theological Truths

Rose bases...

The Constant Danger of False Teaching (Colossians 2:16-23)

Big Idea: Cling to Jesus and reject false teaching.

Have you ever been part of a conversation that left you feeling like you were missing something?

I have, one a long time ago, and one more recently.

The first was asking someone an important question a long time ago. The response was a story, a fable. I understood every word, but at the end of it didn’t have a clue what the answer was. I felt like the longer we talked, the less I knew what we were talking about. I was missing the subtext of the co...

Saturday Links

Curated links for your weekend reading:

Extraordinarily Ordinary

The exceptional things we should exemplify to our people are – well, they are very ordinary. Ordinary but not common. Exceptional but not spectacular. Earth shattering but not newsworthy. But extraordinary all the same. Extraordinarily ordinary.

Make It Your Ambition Not to Be Ambitious

I learned, in the university of the cross, the joy of an unaccomplished life. The happiness of being normal. The immeasurable contentment that comes fr...

The Thrill of Orthodoxy

I hear the comments all the time: “Doctrine divides.” “What really matters is not what the church believes, but how it lives.” “Scripture isn’t clear on many issues, so it’s best to make room to disagree.”

To many, orthodoxy — holding the central truths believed by Christians throughout the centuries — seems like an extravagant luxury we can no longer afford, and one that no longer looks desirable anyway.

As Trevin Wax writes in his new book The Thrill of Orthodoxy, we’ve lost “confidence in the t...

Saturday Links

Curated links for your weekend reading:

The Four Quadrants of Church Life in the Gray Zone

A pastor needs a plan- a program– for discipleship, and in our church we’ve been feeling like we needed a different approach for some time.

Lost Art of Attentive Sermon Listening

What if an undiagnosed problem in our churches is that many in the pews are poor listeners?

Stop Throwing Pastors Under the Bus

Don’t throw pastors under the bus. Get on the bus with them. Help them repair flat tires and avoid potholes....

Random Reminders for Pastors

I regularly need these reminders. You may too.

The Lesser Place is a Good Place

If I had my way, every pastor would read The Lord's Work in the Lord's Way and No Little People by Francis Schaeffer once a year. And then I’d have them underline these words. “The Scripture emphasizes that much can come from little if the little is truly consecrated to God. There are no little people and no big people in the true spiritual sense, but only consecrated and unconsecrated people.”

And then, if I had my way...

Saturday Links

Curated links for your weekend reading:

What to Say to Someone Suffering like Job

Although doubtless our words will vary from person to person, the following can be helpful to keep in mind.

What Does It Mean To Be Winsomely Reformed?

While every branch of evangelical Christianity needs to be winsome, I think it is fair to say that Reformed folks certainly need that reminder as much as anyone.

5 Things You Should Know about Creeds

There is a lot of misunderstanding about the nature, history, and purpos...

May the Lord Make Me Truly Thankful

We just finished Thanksgiving weekend up here in Canada. Yes, we celebrate Thanksgiving earlier than Americans, perhaps because the harvest ends a little earlier up here, or because we’re greedy and want to celebrate our Thanksgiving and the American one later too.

When we were kids, we’d recite grace by memory:

For what we’re about to receive
May the Lord make us truly thankful.
Amen.

We were hungry and didn’t have time to waste. We said this prayer so often that we slurred the words together, compr...