Darryl Dash's Blog, page 73
October 22, 2019
Not “How Can I Lead?” but “How Can I Serve?”
A guest post by Ashley Hibbard
There are many unhealthy aspects of the Christian “celebrity culture” that has infiltrated almost every corner of the church, but one of the most deadly may be one of the least addressed: the need to be noticed. It seems to me that all too often, the need to be noticed masquerades as leadership.
I once heard an individual go a struggling church leader and offer help if he needed “someone to lead things or run things.” I knew of another, more mature individual who offered his help...
October 19, 2019
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading: God Is on His Throne, Everything Is Going His Way, and He Loves Me
I had a friend who used to answer a common question in an uncommon way. He has since moved to another city, but his response has never left me. For a long time, when I would ask how he was, he gave a three-fold response.
Christianity Is Not a Frowning Contest
G. K. Chesterton is widely credited with saying, “Jesus promised his disciples three things: that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy,...
October 15, 2019
The Almost Invisible Church
I love this paragraph from James K.A. Smith’s new book On the Road With Saint Augustine:
Let your eyes skate past the megachurch industrial complex and take note of the almost invisible church in your neighborhood that you’ve driven past a thousand times without noticing. Check on it some Tuesday night, and see if there aren’t lights on in the basement. Maybe the food pantry is open. Or the congregation is offering financial management classes or marital counseling for couples who are struggl...
October 12, 2019
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
Open Your Bible, Bless Your Church
Of course, studying God’s Word is always better than not studying his Word. But the best place to do this is with fellow members from your local church.
I am not one of those anti-tech, your phone is changing you in dangerous ways types. But for the couple of hours or so that we are meeting together as God’s people, we really should be able to put them away.
October 8, 2019
Radically Ordinary Hospitality
It’s there, right in the middle of the character qualifications of eldership:
Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable… (1 Timothy 3:2)
He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. (Titus 1:7-8)
The word hospitable isn’t hard to understand. It means “to be disposed to treat guests and str...
October 5, 2019
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
‘Yesterday’ and the Forgotten Gospel
Let’s play the song, brethren. Every week. Every day. Again and again. Those who’ve never heard will be amazed, and those who have forgotten will be refreshed.
Recovering the Priority of Personal Holiness
Many ministers are often nowadays more concerned with visual growth and success than with cultivating personal purity.
7 Key Concepts for Biblical Preaching
Identify the big idea from Haddon Robinson Discern the fal...
October 1, 2019
The Brokenhearted Pastor
I thought I could pastor without it. No more. If you’re a pastor, you’re going to have to learn pastor sometimes with a broken heart.
I remember meeting a congregation member in the aisles of Costco. I spoke of the funeral service I had just led for a dear old saint in our church. I described how hard it was to bury her. “It never occurred to me that you would feel that way,” she said. It had never occurred to her that pastors who read Scriptures at gravesides are reminding themselves, as wel...
September 28, 2019
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
8 Ways to Battle ‘Comfort Idolatry’
One of Christianity’s greatest idolatries today is also one of the most subtle and insidious: the idolatry of comfort.
Here are eight additional ways a churchgoing Christian can proactively attack, or preventatively avoid, comfort idolatry in the Christian life.
Modern Research About Happiness Repeatedly Parallels Biblical Principles
People can borrow certain values from a Christian worldview, but without faith in Chr...
September 24, 2019
You Can’t Be Present and Busy
I rushed to a conference last week. I was leading a workshop the next day and didn’t want to be that guy: the guy who only shows up for his workshop but skips everything else. Truthfully, though, I didn’t have the time. I wished I could have skipped the evening and stayed at home.
But I was there and started to listen. It turns out that I needed to hear what the main speaker, Karen Reed, had to say.
Reed spoke about her ministry in East Vancouver. She spoke about living faithfully in a commun...
September 21, 2019
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
The local church doesn’t need people of outsized talents or rare abilities as much as it needs normal people with full-out commitment. Your church and my church can thrive only when there is a dedicated core who make it their mission to be there, to make their main ministry the ministry of presence.
Four Contemporary Threats to Scripture’s Sufficiency
I’m suggesting that it’s possible for us to be so focused on the speck in the...
