Darryl Dash's Blog, page 49
May 14, 2022
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
Ecclesial Theology — The Missing Theology in an Age of Individualism
The church in its corporate assembly is a liturgical re-training for all those catechized by the social imaginary of modern individualism.
What was once an outlier culture because it was a city centre – the city centre – is now downtown mall-rat thinking in the backwater towns of not just the USA, but the rest of the Western world.
May 10, 2022
The Relentlessness of God’s Grace
I’m amazed — stunned, actually — at the relentlessness of God’s grace.
In my seven-year Bible reading plan, I’m currently in Numbers. The literary and theological center of the book starts around Numbers 16. It’s not pretty. But it reveals a repeated pattern that shows us the severity of sin and the abundance of God’s grace.
A Repeated PatternA bunch of well-known leaders rebel against both Moses and Aaron.
Read the chapter and you realize how ugly things got. Accusations, defiance,...
May 7, 2022
Saturday Links
Podcast: I enjoyed talking to Jamie Strickland about discipleship in the local church on the Gospel for Life podcast.
Curated links for your weekend reading:
There is one specific kind of undiscerned spiritual pride that I think is not often discussed and is especially hard to recognize—the danger of doctrinal righteousness.
Five Rules for Living Faithfully in the Digital Age
I want to commend five practices that will help us live faithfully in a screen-...
May 3, 2022
Older Saints Wanted
I’d heard him preach and teach before. He’s written books, and his sermons are all over YouTube. He’s not a household name, but he has influence. God has used him.
But the best thing about him isn’t his work. It’s who he is, or rather, who God has made him to be.
Jared Wilson talks about meeting somebody like the man I’m describing, a veteran who seems to keep getting better. “It became very clear that Ray actually knows Jesus. Like, he actually hangs out with him.”
When someone like th...
April 30, 2022
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
In Praise of the Boring, Uncool Church
Maybe a Christianity that doesn’t appeal to my consumer preferences and take its cues from Twitter is exactly the sort of faith I need.
In 45 years of ordained ministry, I’ve never walked with as many weary leaders. So, what do you do when darkness begins to hide the lovely face, voice, and hand of Jesus?
Pastor, You’ll Burnout If Your Idea Of Hard Work Is Worldly
Burning out b...
April 26, 2022
The Life We’re Looking For
Something’s wrong.
We’re powerful. We’re technologically advanced. By most standards, we’re rich. We can get almost anything we want delivered to our door in hours.
And yet loneliness is rampant. The happiness we were promised seems elusive, always out of grasp, perhaps even farther away than before.
The problem, according to Andy Crouch in his new book The Life We’re Looking For, is that the promises of the modern technological world are built on “a false understanding of what huma...
April 23, 2022
Saturday Links
Podcast: I enjoyed talking to Dr. Greg Gifford about his book Heart & Habits on the Gospel for Life podcast.
Curated links for your weekend reading:
The Decline and Renewal of the American Church: Part 3 – The Path to Renewal
We need a revival that only God can provide, and a new movement to capture the fruit of that revival for the renewal of the American church.
Bible Reading in an Age of Double Literacy Loss
If you knew the only engagement most of your people will have with the...
April 19, 2022
The Main Reason Your Ministry Matters
I know some pastors of large churches. I know pastors of small ones. I know people who pastor healthy and unhealthy congregations, urban, suburban, and rural ones. I know people who serve in churches in the Bible Belt and others who serve where Christianity is scorned.
None of the factors makes your ministry significant.
They may make your ministry more prominent or obscure. Some are easier than others, although I suspect none of them could realistically be called easy. Each ministry will ...
April 16, 2022
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
40 Random Pieces of Advice for the Christian Life
This article contains a long list of brief, random (and unsolicited) pieces of advice for living the Christian life, most of which I’ve gleaned from others over the course of the past 45 years.
More than Doing: Categories for Applying God’s Word
Bible application is far more than doing. I have found the following categories helpful in applying God’s Word to daily life.
April 12, 2022
Don’t Lose the Plot
We don’t watch a lot of TV, but we do enjoy watching some British crime dramas like Shetland. The shows are enjoyable, with likable characters, beautiful scenery, pleasant accents, and interesting plot lines.
But I need to stop watching them late at night.
I get tired at night and I’m known to doze off. The makers of these crime shows throw so many storylines at the viewer that it’s easy to miss not only the details but the overall plot. It’s easy to lose the plot.
Just like in life. Ju...
