Barnabas Piper's Blog, page 26

Wisdom from One of My Favorite Authors

Dan Taylor, a literature professor at Bethel University in MN has written several books including a few that have been particularly shaping and helpful to me: Tell Me A Story: The Life Shaping Power of Our Stories, Letters to My Children: A Father Passes On His Values, and The Myth of Certainty: The Reflective Christian & The Risk of Commitment, and The Skeptical Believer: Telling Stories to Your Inner Atheist. Few authors have done as much as Taylor to enhance and enrich my love for the written word and its significance. Reading his books took the lid off literature so I could see more than just the pretty stories and get past “fun” and “boring” as descriptors. He taught me to see the truth in fiction. Taylor’s books are so good that I wanted to share a few of my favorite quotes with you.

On Stories:

“Stories turn mere chronology, one thing after another, into the purposeful action of plot, and thereby into meaning.” (TMAS, p. 2)

“. . .we are, when under the spell of stories, willing to believe that good is more powerful than evil, that death is preferable to dishonour, that perseverance pays, that truth is more than a word and justice more than a definition of the powerful, that love exists – if only in the cracks. And if we believe all this, and much more, while the story is being told, we do not abandon that belief entirely when we return to our own personal stories.” (TMAS, p. 16-17)

“A good story is one that makes you good, or at least better.” (TMAS, p.55)

On Truth:

“True does not mean factual (though it may be factual); true means accurately reflecting human experience.” (TMAS, p. 116)

On The Power of Words:

“Words have an almost unlimited power to destroy and to heal. Nothing is more false than the implication of the phrase ‘words, words, words – nothing but words’.” (TMAS p. 119)

“A primary interment of oppression is silence.” (TMAS, p.119)

“Through words flows the energy of the universe to create and destroy. Words have done more to shape the human experience than all the swords, guns, bombs, and missiles ever made. Words are infinitely more important than money in our lives.” (LTMC, p.104)

On Death:

“We die because we have lived. We live in order to know and love the God who made us. In dying we become more real than we ever can be while part of this sorrowful world.” (LTMC p.28)

On Right and Wrong:

“People talk about breaking a law. In one sense you never really break a law – the law stays the same no matter what you do. What you can do is break yourself by ignoring the fact of the law. If you step off a cliff, the law of gravity is not broken, but you may be.” (LTMC, p. 48)

These are just a tiny sampling of the insights Dan Taylor offers. His books are a wealth of “pause and reflect” moments. Buy them. Savor them. They are full of wisdom that is not easy to find.

10 Reflections Upon Turning 40

Today I turn 40. I’m not one to make much of birthdays, but I’ve been made to believe by friends and family that this round number is of particular significance (despite the fact that reaching it is not a statistically impressive achievement). At the very least, milestone birthdays are timely opportunities to pause and reflect. Here are 10 reflections upon turning 40.

1. In all likelihood, my life is half over. I suppose this could be ominous or anxiety-inducing. But it mostly makes me thankful for the life God has given me up until now and even greater anticipation for the life still in front of me. I feel the kindness of God much more than the pressure or fear of aging. I guess you could say I am more of a life half full kind of person than a life half empty type.

2. I have eulogized athleticism. I am saying a long goodbye to my metabolism. But I never could have anticipated being where I am in my faith, my marriage, parenting, or ministry. Life is better than it ever has been in all the areas that matter most. At various points over the decades I could not have even anticipated having faith, being married, or serving in pastoral ministry. So I am profoundly grateful.

3. The old trope is that 40 is “over the hill.” Ok, I’ll accept that so long as it means that I am only gaining momentum. So many people I admire and respect have been or are being more fruitful and more joyful in the second half of their lives. I desire to be one of them. The future is brighter than I ever thought possible. 

4. Gray hair is nothing to hide. I fully embrace growing into my “crown of glory.” (I may need to revisit my thoughts on aging and hair if/when I begin to lose mine.)

5. More than ever in my life I am aware of how little I know, how little my reach is, and how little power I actually have. Which means I find it much easier to focus on the things I must do instead of those things I once dreamed about doing–those things God has given me to do. 

6. I’ve learned that there are two ways to learn wisdom: by listening to the wise or through pain. As you might imagine, I learned this the hard way. But I anticipate the back half of life being significantly better because of it.

7. Somehow, with age has come a depth of feeling I never anticipated. I cry more than any point in life since  infancy—not out of sadness but out of substance. So many things mean much more to me than they ever have. 

8. It’s weird being at an age where people I respect look up to me. I am older than my senior pastor. I am older than half the elders at our church. I am well over the median age in our church. I don’t feel old enough to be respected or respectable, and maybe I never will. But here I am, nearer to “father figure” than up and comer.

9. I’ve been an aspiring curmudgeon for a long time with the dream of being a grumpy old man. But I’ve come to realize there’s a big difference between a grumpy old guy and an angry old guy. I want to be the former (and probably won’t be able to help it) but I definitely don’t want to become the latter. So I think a lot these days about what trajectory will aim me toward being an old man with a foundation of faith and sense of humor underneath a crusty exterior.

10. Among my most common prayers for myself these days is the prayer “fill me.” Fill me with joy, with energy, with compassion, with wisdom, with devotion to Jesus, with affection for Jesus. I think this is because I have learned much about my own limitations and general emptiness apart from God’s grace. 

30 Important Quotes from “Belong”

My book, Belong: Loving Your Church by Reflecting Christ to One Another ,recently released. I wrote it in the hopes that it might invite those wondering if being part of a church is worth to experience God’s wonderful purpose for them in a local church and that it would would encourage those already in church to invest more deeply. Here are thirty of the most significant quotes from it–quotes that, I hope, will give you a sense of the message and heart of the book.

That’s who this book is for—the person figuring out what it means to belong to a church and whether it is worth it.

I’m inviting you to see the church, in its local expressions, as God sees it. It’s an invitation to see his plan and his heart’s desire for it, and to step into your place in that plan.

God’s plan for his church is strategic, sure, but part of his perfect strategy is offering hurting, tired, worn-out, needy sinners like you and me a place to belong, a place to identify, a place to encounter the profound, transformative, healing, restoring grace of Jesus Christ.

Belonging, then, is not defined by where we feel most comfortable, most at ease, or by where we have the most in common with others. Belonging is defined by where God intends us to be, and therefore where he intends us to find true life and deepest satisfaction and joy.

In fact, this is the truest reality of belonging: we belong to Christ as part of his church.

When we are adopted through the work of Jesus Christ into the family of God, we receive unconditional, immovable, eternal love as God’s children. We could not be more loved. This is what adoption is supposed to look like.

Even if following Jesus separated you from your family of origin (and following Jesus can be that costly) or if you do not have family with whom you are close, for whatever reason, in t

he church you gain a family exponentially, what Jesus called “a hundredfold.” You become part of a family marked by the sacrifice and humility and love of Jesus Christ.

In a physical body if there is disunity, animosity, or infighting we call that illness, like a cancer or an autoimmune disease. If a church is marked by disunity, animosity, or infighting it is just as ill and cancerous.

Unlike the amputation of a hand or a toe or an ear, which is forcibly done by someone else, we often voluntarily amputate ourselves from the church.

God’s plan is not coldly strategic or mechanical. It is relational, loving, full of heart and life, and designed for closeness.

A checklist doesn’t belonging create. A church could have great preaching, powerful music, top notch children’s ministry, and an airtight discipleship program and it still not be a true family or a healthy body. For the weary and wary, pristine ministry programming isn’t the answer. Culture is.

In the same way “friend of sinners” described Jesus, it describes a church truly shaped by his gospel.

True honesty, moving from the darkness of withdrawal and withholding into the light of Christ, moves us into true belonging. We encounter the healing of Jesus Christ as he cleanses us from the filth and infection of sin and we encounter joyful unity with other Christians who have also entered the light.

There is no room for ego or hierarchy or smugness in the family of God.

We tend to excel at noticing and recalling all the ways we bear with others, while completely missing the ways they have borne with us.

A simple way to define Christian fellowship is a gathering of believers where the Bible’s ‘one-another’ commands are lived out with joy.

Being defined by what we are opposed to means that we are not setting a course but rather having our course dictated to us.

We don’t belong at churches that disguise disunity behind friendliness or that unify around causes and issues that aren’t Jesus. We don’t belong at churches that are openly contentious. And we don’t belong at churches that make the gospel of Jesus Christ second to anything.

Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers,” because peace doesn’t just happen, it must be made, fought for, defended, and clung to like our lives depend on it.

The ‘one another’ commands in Scripture . . . are two-way streets. You cannot truly belong to a body if you expect to receive these but are unwilling to give them, or keep score and then scale back when you feel you’re giving more than you’re getting.

It is problematic when we make our preferences the righteous standard for a church.

Unity cannot happen if we all die on the hills of our preferences.

The Bible may not change our preferences but it will change our hearts—and that will change how much we cling to preferences.

While we are all likely aware of explosive, divisive situations of abuse and wrongdoing in churches, hurt in the church is not generally headline-grabbing. Usually it is the result of pride, selfishness, gossip, or some other quiet sin.

The church is the only place we can heal from the hurt we’ve encountered in church.

One church’s failure is not the failure of Christ’s gospel or his plan, nor does it reflect Christ’s heart for you. He has a place for you among his people where you can belong.

The friendship of Jesus is not merely something we accept and benefit from. It is transformative, turning us into Christ-reflecting friends for one another.

[Jesus] didn’t die for those who were close to him. He died so that we could be close to him. He laid down his life to make us friends, not because we deserved it as friends.

The purpose of the Church is to proclaim and exhibit the reality of Jesus Christ to the world. It is where and how people encounter the real Jesus.

This, then, is how to belong: follow in Jesus’s  footsteps, with the help of His Holy Spirit, by laying down your life for the benefit of your church and giving yourself joyfully and wholeheartedly to loving Jesus and His people.

Belong explores how you can help to create a church where everybody feels at home: a place where fellow believers build genuine, honest, meaningful Christian relationships and enjoy deep fellowship as a community of believers. Whatever your experience of church has been, this book will help you to see that belonging to a church is a good gift from God, the outworking of our identity as brothers and sisters in Christ, and worth your time, love, and commitment.

You can find a FREE small group kit (study guide and video teaching) here along with bulk discounts for your group or church.

Created for Belonging: Ray Ortlund’s Foreword to “Belong”

This is the foreword, written by Ray Ortlund, to my new book,  Belong: Loving Your Church by Reflecting Christ to One Another.

You belong to Christ (Mark 9:41)

God created us to belong, both to him and to one another. But our pride drove us far away, both from him and from one another. Now Jesus is bringing us back, both to him and to one another.

Belonging is an adjustment for every one of us. Maybe there was a time when we felt so superior that belonging was beneath us. Or maybe we felt safer in our own guarded aloofness. Or maybe we feared that belonging might pull us into commitments we couldn’t live up to. But if you have picked up this book, you are at least open to go back to belonging. This book will help you see your options more clearly and make your decisions more confidently.

Here’s why your future will get better by bravely jumping in. Jesus is not out to save isolated individuals scattered here and there. He is creating and gathering a new community where everyone deeply belongs, both to him and to one another. And when we finally belong, really belong, to a group of people we respect and enjoy, it feels so good. We’ve come home.

I admit, it isn’t easy to get there. It can be even harder to stay there. If the belonging we all desire was simple and formulaic, the experience would be common. In fact, for me, it can be difficult to stop and think about belonging. The topic stirs painful memories. I know what it’s like to discover that I did not belong. I thought I did. But I was wrong. And it hurt. Maybe you too? Churches can make belonging hard and even risky. Which is to say, churches can make it hard to experience Jesus. And that is not okay.

Barnabas Piper has written this wonderful book, because he understands from personal experience both how hard and how glorious belonging can be. He is qualified to help the rest of us think it through. I believe you will find in Barnabas a trustworthy guide, because his experience is deep and his conclusions are honest. Most importantly, Barnabas is a faithful follower of Jesus. The Lord gently led him from the outer margins all the way to the deepest heart of Immanuel Church in Nashville. I watched Barnabas walk that journey. Sometimes it was painful. Other times it was joyful. Always it was Jesus leading Barnabas closer to his heart. From his early cautious explorations all the way to his eventual glad commitments, Barnabas kept on saying “Yes” to Jesus. And now he is helping us make Immanuel a safe place for still others to belong. His story looks to me like the newness of life that Jesus died and rose again to create.

Barnabas wisely counsels us, “The church is the only place we can heal from the hurt we’ve encountered in church.” If he’s right – and he is – then this book might open a door for you to heal in surprising ways.

So, I commend to you this book by my friend Barnabas. He is a man who can truly say, “Follow me, as I follow Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1).

Ray Ortlund
Pastor to Pastors
Immanuel Church

My book, Belong: Loving Your Church by Reflecting Life to One Another, is now available from The Good Book Company. It is part of the Love Your Church Series along with volumes from Tony Merida and Jen Oshman. Free discussion guides and video teaching is available with each book as well to help your church or small group.

What Does it Mean to Belong to a Church?

This is the preface from my new book,  Belong: Loving Your Church by Reflecting Christ to One Another.

In the summer of 2017 I walked through the doors of Immanuel Church in Nashville for the first time. I was a few months removed from a painful divorce and a few months into searching for a new church home. Both experiences had left me exhausted spiritually and emotionally discouraged, uncertain of my future, and uncomfortable in church.

I grew up in the church—quite literally, as I’m a pastor’s kid. I had been part of churches for my entire life, sometimes feeling joyfully at home, sometimes feeling like I was in the middle of a family feud on steroids, and other times feeling like the outsider. I was intimately familiar with the best and worst the church had to offer, and I knew I needed to be part of one.

But I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to be.

I sat in the furthest back corner of the service that day and did my best to meet nobody (my usual strategy when visiting churches, even now). When the service began, a pastor stood up and welcomed the congregation warmly. Probably phony, I thought. Then he proceeded to say these words:

To all who are weary and need rest;
To all who mourn and long for comfort;
To all who fail and need strength;
To all who sin and need a savior;
This church opens wide her doors and her heart with a welcome from Jesus Christ.

Beautiful words, comforting words, welcoming words, words I desperately wanted to believe… but words I instinctively rejected. I didn’t think the pastor was lying, per se. I just thought it was aspirational nonsense. In my experience churches usually declare what they want to be, not what they are. They advertise their mission and vision, but are less clear on their present state. If only a church actually welcomed people like that, I might find a home, I thought. I had enough self-awareness to know that I was particularly cynical about churches, so rather than walk away with an eye roll and a snarky tweet, I decided to let the church prove itself to me either as a place of welcome or as a place of hypocrisy.

What I found in the two years following that first cynical Sunday was a place of belonging. It was a place of safety for the weary and broken. Honesty was upheld as a value, speaking the truth about our lives and our spiritual state and our needs. People were treated with the God-given dignity they deserved, even as they were honest about ugliness in their lives. And it all worked because it was done in humility before God and in dependence on Jesus.

The pastors and leaders exemplified this, but it was the members who embodied honesty, safety, honor, and humility week in and week out to me, so that God could work in my life. It was in conversations over drinks, in living rooms on Sunday afternoons, and in weeknight Bible study and prayer with other men that my heart was thawed and my eyes were opened to what church could be. I had found a church home, a place of belonging to the family of God. Out of this belonging God healed and restored me, gave me strength, tempered my cynicism, and eventually called me to full-time pastoral ministry.

So it is, that in what to me is the unlikeliest turn of events, I have the privilege of serving as a pastor at Immanuel now. When I stand in front of the congregation on Sunday mornings and welcome people, I think of where I was in 2017. Each time I open my mouth to say those words, “To all who are weary and need rest…” I pray that the people in that room will find belonging in that welcome from Jesus.

That’s who this book is for—the person figuring out what it means to belong to a church and whether it is worth it. You may love the church and desire to commit more deeply and serve better. You may be skeptical and reluctant because of past experiences, but you believe God wants you in His church. You may be wounded and cautious, fearful even, because of damage inflicted on you through the church. You may be a brand-new believer, unsure what to think about church. Or you may be uprooted, having relocated from a place of familiarity to be dropped in a new town and new church where you hope to find a home.

My hope is that this book shows what it looks like to belong in church, really and truly, and what it looks like to help others to do the same.

My book, Belong: Loving Your Church by Reflecting Life to One Another, is now available from The Good Book Company. It is part of the Love Your Church Series along with volumes from Tony Merida and Jen Oshman. Free discussion guides and video teaching is available with each book as well to help your church or small group.

Free Chapters of The Happy Rant Audiobook

In this episode of The Happy Rant podcast we do something a little different. Instead of our normal wandering to and fro through a variety of topics we give you three free chapters of The Happy Rant audiobook. Listen in.

Chapter 1: Evangelical Fame (We do weird stuff with Christian celebrity.)
Chapter 8: Evangelical Money Guilt (Why are Christians so weird about money?)
Chapter 14: Manly Men (What is manhood? What makes a good man?)

For more ranting, conversation, and cultural analysis check out our book, The Happy Rant: Wandering To and Fro Through Some Things That Don’t Matter All That Much (and a Few That Really Do) at https://thehappyrant.com/book/

Visit our show store where you can find shirts, notebooks, bags, and more. Our merchandise makes great gifts and is an ideal way to look cooler than all your friends too at https://thehappyrant.com/shop/

Be sure to check out our show store where you can find shirts, notebooks, bags, and more. Our merchandise makes great gifts and is an ideal way to look cooler than all your friends too.

Check out our sponsor:

Visual Theology, and use the code “happyrant” at checkout for a 20% discount!

E-Book Sale on My Books

For the next week four of my books are on sale for $3.99 on Kindle (or other ebook platforms if you prefer those). Grab one or all four and spread the word.

Help My Unbelief: Why Doubt is Not the Enemy of Faith $3.99The Curious Christian: How Discovering Wonders Enriches Every Part of Life $3.99Hoping for Happiness: Turning Life’s Most Elusive Feeling into Lasting Reality

$3.99The Pastor’s Kid: What it’s Like and How to Help $3.99

 

Family Discipleship Is More Than Family Devotions

As a pastor, the son of a pastor, and the parent of two pastor’s kids (PKs), I often find myself pulled by competing desires. On one hand, I have a deep desire to disciple my kids well and to raise them in such a manner that they find it easy and compelling to love Jesus and His Word.

On the other hand, I want to avoid the unhelpful pastoral-parent impulse toward biblical overkill. That sounds impossible, you might think. But I assure you, there is a way to use the Bible so often and so intensely that it turns PKs off to it and makes Scripture more burdensome than life-giving.

What can we do to avoid this tragedy and engage in spiritually meaningful and vibrant family discipleship instead? I am not a parenting expert, because there is no such thing. We’re all just doing our best to be faithful. But here are five family discipleship rhythms I’ve discovered that help me faithfully point my children to Jesus without burdening them.

1. Skip family devotions

Before you close your web browser and send the site administrator an angry message, hear me out. No child has more exposure to Scripture than the child of a faithful pastor. Church attendance isn’t only mandatory but frequent. Conversations in the home revolve around things of a biblical nature often. When you have people to the house or visit someone else’s house, it is often for counsel or prayer or serious discussion. So to add a regularly scheduled time of Bible reading/teaching as a family can actually be overkill.

It can be exhausting and exasperating to your kids, the exact opposite of how you want them to feel toward God’s Word. I’m not saying to never read the Bible with your kids (then you could send that angry message). I’m encouraging you to be more discerning than stubbornly dedicated to a habit or schedule in your family discipleship.

2. Pray with and over them

This may seem obvious, and if so, good. But let me clarify that I am not talking about praying over meals (especially not long prayers over meals; everyone hates those). I’m not talking about prayers for traveling mercies or hedges of protection. I’m talking about pointing your kids to God in the normal hard moments of life—anxiety, nightmares, conflict between friends, breakups, illness, big games, school tests, bad attitudes. And then pointing them to God in the normal joyful moments of life—beautiful weather, fun days at the lake, laughter, safe and peaceful travel, delicious dinners.

All of these are opportunities to ask for God’s help or to acknowledge His goodness. And all of them are opportunities to connect a big God who might seem distant or ethereal to the real, tangible, everyday stuff. And then you get to point to answered prayers so they can really see His hand at work.

3. Confess and repent to them

I can’t think of many things that exemplify the reality of the gospel more than confessing sin to a child and then repenting to them. It is humble. It is needy. And it is upside down because the one with the power (and who is often perceived as the spiritual authority) is putting himself at the mercy of the young and weak.

I don’t just mean to confess that you are a sinner. I mean to confess sins and repent of them–losing your temper, harsh words, not listening, failing to keep your word. Show your kids your need and you are showing them your faith in God to forgive and be merciful. You are showing them the whole economy of God’s grace and that you really believe what you preach. It will draw them closer to you and to God.

See also  Reaching the Unchurched Generations4. Show them your warts and weaknesses

Like most kids, mine don’t naturally gravitate toward daily Bible reading. I can order them to do so, and I’ve tried it. I can lecture them on the necessity of it. Tried that too. And both of those things make them even less inclined to do it. But when I say, “You know what? I don’t usually want to read my Bible either,” it actually helps.

When they are mad at a jerk at school and I tell them about the times I lost my temper, it helps. When I’m warning them about the seriousness of lying and I tell them about how much dishonesty has cost me, it helps. Then it opens the door to talk about my need for God’s help, for forgiveness, and to teach them in an eye-to-eye way. Instead of hearing “you should,” they can hopefully hear “I’ve been there, and I understand.”

5. Look for the seams

Like most pastors, I love to teach and preach. Do you know who doesn’t love being taught and preached at? My kids. (At least not by me.) It bores and frustrates them, just like it bored and frustrated me when I was their age. Instead, I am learning to find the seams in life that create openings for gospel truth. When they are going through hard things, there is a seam for gospel compassion and hope. When they are celebrating and joyful there is a seam for gratitude. And when they are pursuing goals, there is a seam to talk about godly ambition and motivations. These are seams that allow us to see into their hearts a bit and inject a little bit of biblical beauty and truth at a time.

This is not a complete list, and these are not foolproof strategies for family discipleship. There is no five-step process to saving your child’s soul. They are in God’s hands, and the Holy Spirit is the one who breathes life into them. Our job is to walk them into the way of the Spirit and to do so with joy and tenderness so that the gospel of Jesus Christ looks lovely to them. I pray these five steps will help you do that.

6 Times to Be a Parent, Not a Pastor

I spent the first thirty years of my life as a pastor’s kid (PK). Then, rather unexpectedly, God called me to pastoral ministry in my mid-thirties. So, this is both written from the perspective of a PK and a pastor, an interesting tension in my life. I speak from personal experience as someone who wanted these things from my dad when I was growing up. I also write for myself as a pastor and dad now, as a sort of accountability.

One of the most important (and most difficult) things to do as a pastor is to know when to remove your pastor hat and put on your parent hat instead. We spend so much time, energy, focus, and emotional and spiritual investment in pastoring a congregation we can forget to change out of our “work clothes” when we get home.

But the reality is our children want a parent, not a pastor. They need a parent at home, and that’s what God called us to first. So, here are six times we often forget to parent instead of pastor.

1. Dinner time

It’s easy for dinner time to become a conversation between you and your spouse about how things are going in the church, who’s up to what in the church, or what’s coming up at the church. Even if this isn’t negative or complaining, it’s a net negative. The church just invaded your home and sucked all the air out of the room. It seated itself at the head of the table and made everyone take notice. You don’t want your kids to see the church that way or to see your ministry that way.

Make dinner time fun. Make it full of laughs. Ask questions to draw your kids out. Tell stories. Spend time talking about the ups and downs of each person’s day. If you are going to talk about church, talk about their interactions with church—friends, classes, learning, retreats, camps. Help them to see their place in the body of Christ and to love it, not resent it because it’s an uninvited dinner guest.

2. Playtime

This is simple. Your kids need to have fun with you. This can be rowdy or nerdy or quiet or raucous or athletic or crafty or whatever. You all need to experience the silly joy of playing. When they’re little, be their horse to ride or the monster who chases them. As they grow, play catch or teach them card games. Lose at Mario Kart (or win, even better). Compete with some vigor. Talk some trash. Be a good loser when they finally beat you at something. This is where memories are made. Your kids will absorb what you say, and they will have crystal clear memories in their minds and hearts of playtime.

3. Discipline

Your children don’t need a sermon when they sin (or really any time other than Sunday morning). They need correction and consequences. They need reconciliation and assurance of forgiveness. And sometimes they need you to look them in the eye and tell them how much of a screw-up you are and how often you got in trouble as a kid.

Disciplining children is awful—for all parties involved—but it’s a magnificent opportunity to show the loving heart of Jesus. And if you get it wrong–you’re too harsh or lose your temper–you have an even clearer opportunity to display the gospel by asking for forgiveness and showing your need for God’s mercy. It’s hard to imagine anything in public ministry that could shape your children’s relationships with you or understanding of the gospel like loving, fatherly discipline.

See also  7 Aspects of Healthy Church Leadership 4. Heartbreak

When your child is heartbroken, they need a hug and to be held more than they need a Bible verse. When a boy dumps your daughter, she may need you to mutter some … um … strong words about that little such-and-such under your breath just loud enough for her to hear.

And when they’re overwhelmed, they need a listening ear, not a list of reasons it’ll all be OK (even if it absolutely will all be OK). They need to see you as close, as human, as with them. Yes, Scripture informs your hope and gives you strength, and there will be time for that. But in the midst of the rawest emotions, they need a present father—and maybe some ice cream.

5. Storytime

Not every story needs to be an allegory, a biography, or have its redemptive themes drawn out. Despite what you may think, great stories were not invented for your sermon illustrations. Some stories are just rollicking good times. Help your kids love great stories. Read to them. Watch movies and shows with them.

If the stories are dumb or have questionable aspects, sure, talk about that. But also, “Did you see that explosion? Wasn’t that fight scene amazing?” Sharing enjoyment of something with your kids, for no other reason than enjoyment, is powerful. It’s teaching them more than you can measure, so you don’t need to make it a lesson.

6. Preaching

You’re still a dad when you’re in the pulpit. Speak carefully about your children—only in ways they’re comfortable with and only in ways that honor them. They know all the dirt on you. So why pretend to be anything you’re not? If you’ve been fun, merciful, honest, and present for them, they’ll want to hear what you have to say (or at least they’ll stay awake for most of it).

This is your chance to preach the sermon you didn’t at the dinner table or when you were disciplining them. So preach sermons you want them to hear—from the heart—pointing them to Jesus.

Originally published by Lifeway Research, used with permission.

The Most Fun Book I’ve Written

This week, The Happy Rant: Wandering To and Fro Through Some Things That Don’t Matter All That Much (and a Few That Really Do), the book I co-authored with Ronnie Martin and Ted Kluck, released from Harvest House Publishers. It is a collection of written conversations about topics ranging from personality tests to money to manhood. Ronnie, Ted, and I have co-hosted The Happy Rant podcast for eight years, so we have some rapport, but we’ve never written together. Turns out it was a blast.

In each chapter Ted, the book host, nee podcast host, kicks off the topic with a story or an opinion or a list of thoughts then we riff. We are irreverent and sarcastic. We aspire to be iconoclastic and insightful. We attempt to be self-effacing and humorous. And we do our best to be thoughtful throughout. Most of all we take very little seriously except Jesus and our faith in Him. Everything and everyone else, including ourselves, is on the firing line for jokes, ribbing, satire, and analysis.

We wrote this book for the sheer fun of it, the same reason we do the podcast. But we’ve learned over the years that fun with a dose of thoughtfulness is good medicine. Shooting some sacred cows, tipping some altars, and burning poking some idols in the eye with humor is good for us. Learning to laugh at our goofy church culture is good for us. It seems all too rare in the church world even though it doesn’t come at the expense of honoring Jesus. So our hope is that this book will make readers laugh, make them talk back, make them argue with the pages, make them think a little, and lift some spirits. And hopefully we give some uptight evangelicals permission to laugh and take things a little less seriously.

If you read it, we would be much obliged if you would share about it on social media and rate/review it (even if you hate it) on Amazon/Goodreads/etc. There is no podcast or publishing without listeners and readers, so thank you!