Aaron Armstrong's Blog, page 16

What I’m excited for kids to experience outside of kids ministry

With rare exception, kids ministry has been a constant for the last 15 years. Signing our kids into and picking them up from their classes has been a constant. But this past Sunday,1 represented a milestone for us: It was our family’s first Sunday without a child in one of the kids ministry classes as a participant.

We knew it was going to happen, of course. It’s a consequence of children growing up. Eventually they are ready to move on to the next phase of life in the church. For some churc...

The unglamorous side of writing

One year ago today, I finished writing what will be my next book. I hit the send button, closing a tab in my brain that had been open for over six years. The initial work was complete. The book, the one that I’d been trying to write since 2015, was finally finished.

44,444 words written in 4 months. Crazy.

And then the next phase(s) began. Completing the developmental editing process. Sharpening what needed to be sharpened. Killing more than a few of my darlings, in that way Stephen King ...

Why you should choose clarity over cleverness

A number of years ago, I was working on a book intended to introduce (or reintroduce) readers to some of the core beliefs of the Christian faith. (Perhaps you read it if you went to a conference in 2018 or 2019.) It was a book of theology and it needed to be accessible—to be clear. And clarity isn’t always easily achieved when you’re dealing with complex subjects.

Y’know, like the Trinity or the divine and human natures of Jesus. Little things like that.

Recently, I started working on ano...

Rooted in the Present through the Past

I tend to hold onto dates in a way that no one else in my family does. I connect them to the key events in our lives (as well as some of the more mundane ones). It’s not uncommon for me to say over dinner, “So this is what we were doing on this day such-and-such years ago…”

My family doesn’t really get it, but they humor me in this.

I also tend to get very reflective around this time of year, as it’s the anniversary of one of the biggest changes in our family’s lives: our immigration to t...

Yes, it’s Good News that the Bible is True

If there’s one thing that makes me grateful that the Bible is true, it’s big conversations with our kids. We have a lot of those in our family. It comes with the territory when you’ve got teen and tween kids, I suppose. These conversations usually come up at entirely unexpected times but we embrace them when they do. We’ve talked about abortion, same-sex relationships, human rights violations, sexual abuse… Basically anything and everything that makes a parent run away screaming.

While these...

What does it mean to be human?

What does it mean to be human? There is much discussion in society about gender and defining what it means to be male or female. Yet this question, the starting point to any discussion of identity, is given little honest thought. And when it does come around, discussion typically revolves around potential or utility. To be a human is based on what we might become, or what we actually do.

When someone asks us what we do for a living, for example, we say “I am a [fill in the blank].” When we t...

How do we respond thoughtfully to the Dobbs opinion?

When rumors of a decision to overturn Roe V Wade surfaced earlier in 2022, I was skeptical. This decision is one pro-life advocates had been hoping, praying, and advocating for since 1972. But I didn’t think it would happen. (Though I have hoped it would since before I moved to the United States.)

And then it did.

2022’s Court has decided that regulating abortion is the responsibility of the individual states, and falls outside of constitutional rights. The entire decision can be read here...

3 ways God protects his people

Does God protect his people? Whenever a tragic event occurs—and they seem to be coming at an ever increasing rate—it’s hard not to wonder if God really cares. But God does care, and he wants us to know it. That’s why Psalm 91 is such a strong comfort. It describes God’s deeply personal concern with the trials his people face—and he wants them to know that they have reason to hope. And the psalm does it in three ways:

Reminding us of God’s protection in our common temptationsPointing to his pr...

Summer reading ideas for families

Summer break is either in full swing or nearly upon families all across North America. Our kids have been out of school for about three weeks now. For the most part, it’s been uneventful, which is what happens when you have young people who can mostly entertain themselves. The older two mostly read and make art throughout the day. The youngest plays outside, reads, and plays videos games.

Reading has always been a big part of our kids’ lives. It’s primarily how Emily and I entertain ourselve...

Three practices to know God better

One of the many reasons I love the Psalms is because of the intimacy they show between God and His people. And by intimacy, I don’t mean the syrupy, saccharine stuff that fits the CCM caricature. I mean, true, deep intimacy of the kind that can say, “Oh Lord, how majestic is your name” while also saying, “My God, why have you forsaken me”. The kind of intimacy that characterizes David’s trust in Psalm 23, and the anonymous psalmist’s in Psalm 91. The kind that allows us to say “I say this about ...