Darryl Dash's Blog, page 70
February 15, 2020
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
When the Church Apologizes for Its Beliefs
In recent years, it’s become commonplace to see Christian leaders take an apologetic stand on a controversial issue. Not apologetic in the “defend the faith” sense of the word, but “apologetic” as if to say, I wish this was different, but here’s what we believe.
Looking For a Church? Here’s What to Look For
My list doesn’t include a gymnasium or a youth group that does a lot of fun things, since the Bible doesn...
February 11, 2020
Feels Like Home
When I leave a hotel — not a budget hotel, but a place where I’ve found some rest and renewal — I feel like I’m being uprooted. “I’ll never be back here again,” I think to myself. “I liked it here.”
Crazy. I have a home. I don’t need to feel homesick when I’m leaving a temporary abode to return to where I live.
But I get it. In Keeping Place, Jen Pollock Michel writes about our longing for home. Home is our most fundamental longing, she writes. And for many of us, homesickness is a nagging...
February 8, 2020
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
Subversive Habits and Your Primary Story
We do well to consider what regular practices will best help us resist conformity with the world, keep the Scriptural Story at the forefront, and chip away at the lesser stories that would capture our imaginations.
Whenever I see pole dancing in movies and when I saw yours in the clips that I watched of your performance, I am always taken back to a young lady I once had the privilege of meeting who...
February 4, 2020
On Obstacles and the Weight of Leadership
It’s a passage that’s bothered, even troubled me for years.
When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come.” (Joshua 5:13-14)
I would have expected the man — the commander of the LORD’s army — to answer, “Of course I’m on your side!” After...
February 2, 2020
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
Identifying Your Primary Story: 6 Diagnostic Questions
Trevin is doing a great job with this series of posts.
Here are a few questions intended to help you see if a story other than the Scriptural one has grown dominant in your imagination.
Eight Tips for Veteran Preachers
I find myself at a different stage of life and ministry, with a different set of concerns and observations than when I was a beginner preacher. Today, as a more veteran preacher, I...
January 28, 2020
Superhuman: A Review for Pastors
Email overwhelms me.
I’ve tried everything. I tried asking an assistant to process my emails. I’ve used plugins. I’ve tried batching my emails. Up until now, nothing has worked.
This bothers me. I don’t want to spend my life reacting to emails, but as one of my friends (a pastor) points out, it’s reasonable for people to expect a response, ordinarily, to their emails within 24 hours. Jen Pollock Michel wrote about answering emails recently: “answering texts, emails, and direct-contact...
January 25, 2020
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
Planting Churches with a Lasting Gospel Legacy
Here are four suggestions for planting churches with a lasting gospel legacy.
Should Missionaries Expect Rapid Growth?
Strategies promoting rapid growth are sometimes built on faulty assumptions that create unhealthy expectations.
The Problem of Having No Defined Membership
I want to look at the problems that ensue if we don’t have meaningful membership.
If there is one area in which...
January 21, 2020
It’s Not Up to You
“You’re just the kind of pastor this church needs,” we hear. “With your gifts I can’t see how this church won’t double in the next few years.”
As pastors, we love to hear this. Our gifts will make the difference. We have what it takes. Our personality, our leadership abilities will make a difference.
The most effective lies contain some truth. God chooses to use people, and God seems to use some pastors in more visible ways than others.
But it’s still a lie. It’s not up to you. You don’t have...
January 18, 2020
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
A major new EFC survey suggests half of Canadians are either agnostic, atheist or unreligious. And only a tenth attend religious services weekly. How will the church respond?
What churches and pastors need more than anything else is a great big vision of a great big God.
This Leftie Is Right About Church
In a fascinating article in The Canberra Times, climate activist, Michael Bones, writes about how progressives need...
January 14, 2020
The Word of God Is Not Bound
Paul sits in prison. Prison was familiar to Paul, and conditions varied from the relative comfort of house arrest to much harsher conditions.
This time is not good. Paul sits in Rome surrounded by soldiers of the elite Praetorian Guard. He expects that he will soon be executed by the government. He has no freedom and no future.
In that context, Paul writes: “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with...
