Barnabas Piper's Blog, page 33

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!

A New Study on Ecclesiastes

Lifeway recently released my new Small Group (or personal) study, Ecclesiastes: Finding Meaning in a World of passing Pursuits.

I remember reading Ecclesiastes in both high school and college and having the same reaction: what is this weird book even doing in here? It was simply twelve chapters of confusion. In my mind it became one of those portions of Scripture reserved for checking boxes on a Bible reading plan.

Years later in the midst of just such a reading plan I found myself staring into the morass of Ecclesiastes again. Only this time, I began to get it.

What had changed? I had.

Ecclesiastes is part of the scriptural genre called wisdom literature. These are the books of the Bible (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon) that most clearly speak into common life experiences. They draw on the grist and grind of everyday life to reveal truths about God, and shine those truths about God onto the grist and grind of everyday life. As I returned to Ecclesiastes a decade or more after that first encounter, I’d lived enough life to have the shine knocked off me. I’d had enough life experiences, both good and bad, to begin to learn what I didn’t know.

Which meant that this time around, Ecclesiastes rang true for me. Here was King Solomon (aka “The Preacher”)—one of the wisest and wealthiest men who ever lived—reflecting in his old age on what his life had come to. Here was a man who had many triumphs and glories, but who also made many moral compromises and sinful choices later in life. It was a context that I could understand (despite not being the wisest or wealthiest anything ever) because it was real—real successes, real enjoyment, real loss, real mistakes, real cost; and I’d had my share of those.

In the years since, I have revisited Ecclesiastes often enough that I am no longer a mere guest. I have my own key and am free to let myself in whenever I need a place to stay. It is a home in the midst of scripture’s 66 books. (All the other books are equally as hospitable, I simply find my way back to Ecclesiastes often.) Through life’s devastations and joys it speaks balance and steadiness. When I am tempted to place my hopes in something that cannot hold them it bluntly tells me just how foolish that would be. When I am inclined to pessimism and frustration it points me to the sincere pleasures and happiness that God has given in this life. Ecclesiastes will neither let me get too high nor too low.

The beauty of a book like this, and all the wisdom literature in Scripture, is that it’s for everyone who will listen. You too can find grounded, happy realism in its pages.

I wrote those words in my book Hoping for Happiness, and they explain as well as I know how why I wrote a study on Ecclesiastes for groups or individuals who want to better understand this rich book and dive deeper into the Bible’s wisdom. Here is what you will find in this study.

Session topics:Vanity Under the SunWisdomWorkWealth, Fame, and PowerJusticeNumber Your DaysEnjoy the Life God Has Given YouFear God and Keep His CommandsFeatures8 small group sessions8 teaching videos and session previews featuring author Barnabas Piper—access included with purchase of Bible Study BookBonus videos on challenging verses in EcclesiastesPersonal study opportunities for ongoing spiritual growthReading plan for the book of Ecclesiastes

E-Book Sale on My Books

Until the end of April my four trade books are on sale for Kindle. Grab one (or four) and spread the word.

Hoping for Happiness: Turning Life’s Most Elusive Feeling into Lasting Reality

$3.99Help My Unbelief: Why Doubt is Not the Enemy of Faith $3.99The Pastor’s Kid: What it’s Like and How to Help $3.99The Curious Christian: How Discovering Wonders Enriches Every Part of Life $5.99

 

Happy Rant Book Preorder Give-Aways

On August 2 of this year Ted Kluck, Ronnie Martin, and I will release The Happy Rant: Wandering To and Fro Through Some Things That Don’t Matter All That Much (and a Few That Really Do). It is a fun book and, I hope, insightful about everything ranging from Christians and money to Christian fiction to manhood. We, along with Harvest House Publishers, want to offer you two awesome giveaways.

Download A Free Chapter

This is chapter 12, in which we discuss the cultures of various Christian conferences as well as the merits (and demerits) of them.

Get a Free Poster

We are offering a free Happy Rant poster to the first 200 people to pre-order the book. Here’s how it works.

You pre-order from anywhere you buy books (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Christianbook.com, Lifeway, etc.).You visit TheHappyRant.com/book and fill out the form with your info.Harvest House sends you this awesome poster designed by Josh Byers, of Visual Theology fame.You put the poster in a place where everyone who sees it will be jealous.Description

Ted Kluck, Ronnie Martin and Barnabas Piper, hosts of the Happy Rant podcast, take their faith-based back-and-forth from the recording booth to the book page with this collection of insightful and often hilarious takedowns of pastor trends, personality tests, political engagement, and more.

The Happy Rant crew have a lot of strong opinions, and occasionally they even agree with each other! Always candid and frequently compelling, Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas tackle everything from the divisive, hot-button issues within the church to more lighthearted fare that reminds us never to take ourselves too seriously.

As entertaining as it is engaging, The Happy Rant will help you to think more critically about the world around you and enjoy a laugh or two (or maybe three) along the way.

 

Reintroducing Happy Rant Sports

For the last several years Ted Kluck and I have been recording sports episodes as part of the Happy Rant podcast. We would release them as part of the over all Happy Rant feed, and we would hear from our non-sports-fan listeners (you know, the ones who use terms like “sportsball”) about their exasperation. And we would hear from our more avid sports fan listeners with questions and suggestions for topics. It has been fun.

Well, it is a new day for Happy Rant Sports. It is now its own show with its own feed. Which means we need all those sports fans to go subscribe (and rate and review and leave five stars and tell your friends). All our previous episodes are still available. Here is the first episode in our newly minted independent sports podcast.

Listen to the most recent episode:

Subscribe Here

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

 

 

 

Tolkien E-Book Deals

Here are are more than a dozen books by J.R.R. Tolkien on sale for $2.99 each on Kindle. There is something here for everyone, from those looking to try out Tolkien for the first time or for the biggest of Tolkien nerds. These deals are for today only.

The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again

 

 

 

 

 

 
The Fellowship Of The Ring

 

 

 

 

 

 
The Two Towers

 

 

 

 

 

 
The Return Of The King

 

 

 

 

 

 
The Silmarillion


 

 

 

 

 

 
 Unfinished Tales Of Numenor And Middle-Earth

 

 

 

 

 

 
The Children Of Húrin

 

 

 

 

 

 
The Fall Of Gondolin

 

 

 

 

 

 
Beren And Lúthien

 

 

 

 

 

 
Sir Gawain And The Green Knight

 

 

 

 

 

 
The Return Of The Shadow

 

 

 

 

 

 
The Treason Of Isengard

 

 

 

 

 

 
The War Of The Ring 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary

 

 

 

 

 

 
The Letters Of J.R.R. Tolkien 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Letters From Father Christmas

New Happy Rant: Keeping up with the Gainses and Matt Damon’s Fashion

In this episode of The Happy Rant Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas wander to and fro through a variety of topics:

Chip and Joanna Gaines are the original influencersPaul Tripp as hipster influencerWriting 4,000 words a dayMatt Damon as youth group mime performerOnly Murders in the Building – thoughts and reflections

Be sure to visit Our Website where you can:Listen to past episodesOrder Happy Rant MerchandiseSponsors

We’re excited to be partnering with Visual Theology. They offer resources for studying, teaching, and better understanding scripture that are of amazing design and quality while being deeply faithful to the Bible. Ranging from books to curriculum to posters to apparel, Visual Theology’s materials are a wonderful way to see realities of God’s Word in a new way. It’s so easy to miss so much of what the Bible says because we can’t envision it, but they offer resources to help you, your kids, your students, and your congregants to do just that. Visit Visual Theology today and be sure to use the code happyrant at checkout to get a 20% discount.

Be sure to check out Dwell Bible App. Dwell is a Bible listening app that we love! If you are looking for a convenient, fresh way of spending more time in God’s word Dwell is ideal. Go to https://dwellapp.io/happyrant to get 10% off your annual subscription or 33% off your lifetime subscription.

Get Your Coffee

We’ve joined forces with Redbud Coffee, based out of Auburn IL, to bring you deliciously roasted and beautifully packaged coffee. Check out their variety of roasts and be sure to use the code HappyRant at checkout to get a 10% discount off your purchase.