Darryl Dash's Blog, page 78
June 8, 2019
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
Old Books, New Books, and Trends That Fade Away
What can be learned from these books that are called “life changing,” “must reads,” and “instant classics” that are then quickly forgotten and good for nothing but scrap?
David Powlison’s Commencement Address: Be Unafraid to Be Publicly Weak
My deepest hope for you is that in both your personal life and your ministry to others, you would be unafraid to be publicly weak as the doorway to the strength of God...
June 4, 2019
My First Days As a Pastor
I’ve had three first days as a pastor in three different churches.
Day OneOn my first day ever I was 24. I moved into my office, arranged my books, and sat down at my desk. I had longed for this day and couldn’t believe it had arrived. The church was small, but I had big plans. I’d already begun to redesign the logo, and I’d started plans to blitz the community to tell them a new pastor was in town.
Where to begin?
I couldn’t believe that a church trusted me enough to call me as pastor. I ha...
June 1, 2019
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
John Stott’s Simple Secret for Spiritual Productivity
Following the preacher’s practical suggestion gave Stott the spiritual and mental quiet he needed for ministry, and it can help you as well.
Want an Extraordinary Marriage? Be an Ordinary Christian.
Every extraordinary Christian marriage is built on the everyday actions and attitudes that ought to characterize the life of every believer, even though we’re imperfect sinners making gradual progress in...
May 28, 2019
The Time Has Come for True Comfort
Eight days ago my sister-in-law’s house was hit by lightning. A fire started in the attic and threatened to burn the entire house down.
The week before that a friend died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 61. As we prepared to attend her funeral last Saturday, we got word that another friend just died of cancer. There was no hint of any sickness when we visited her last summer.
These, my friends, are days that we need comfort only God can provide.
Thin SoupI’m depressed sometimes when...
May 25, 2019
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
Regular exercise is worth so much more than a flat stomach or a smaller waist size. It can be a pathway toward deeper love and joy in our heavenly Father.
We Need Leaders Alert to Dangers from More Than One Direction
We need leaders who lean their weight now to one side and then the other, emphasizing a particular theological truth during a particular season and then a different truth in another.
May 21, 2019
Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading
Sometimes one good book leads to another — or, in this case, to a whole series of books.
Last year I read The Positive Organization by Robert Quinn. Quinn mentions a deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan called Zingerman’s. “Zingerman’s is considered the epitome of a positive organization,” he writes.
That got me curious. I looked up their website, saw that they have a training division, and ended up buying Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading written by co-founder Ari Weinzweig. It’s led to some of the m...
May 18, 2019
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
How We Treat the Church Is How We Treat Christ
What does your love for the church say about your love for Christ?
How do we learn to lead meetings in ways that help us relinquish and resist the temptations we face?
4 Questions to Ask the Pastoral Search Team — If You Dare
There are questions every pastoral candidate ought to ask a search committee or hiring team when evaluating possible relocation, and then there are the que...
May 14, 2019
Surprised by Paradox
Jonathan Edwards, the great American theologian, believed in paradox. He believed that in God we see many traits that don’t seem to belong together: infinite greatness and infinite care, infinite justice and infinite mercy, and infinite majesty displaying itself as stunning meekness. So did G.K. Chesterton, who said, “An element of paradox runs through the whole of existence itself.”
I confess I’m not always comfortable with paradox. I like my theology neatly defined. I understand and accept...
May 11, 2019
Saturday Links
Curated links for your weekend reading:
I’m telling you this because I think Jesus needs less empty suits and more Wiersbes. Warren wasn’t flashy, and he wasn’t about himself. He was real—what the kids call “authentic”—and he was funny. He knew who he was, and he loved Jesus in his normal, ordinary way. Warren was a very human saint, which is the best kind of saint. I didn’t appreciate that enough when I first met him, but I do now.
May 7, 2019
In Defense of Funerals
I’ve wanted to write a defense of funerals for a while now.
I notice a trend to call services “celebrations of life” instead of funerals. I understand why. We like to focus on the positive, and many of us — all of us, actually — are uncomfortable with grief.
To be sure, Scripture doesn’t prescribe whether we should call a service a funeral or a celebration of life or anything else, nor does it prescribe exactly what we should do during the service. And I don’t want to make anyone feel bad who...
