Barnabas Piper's Blog, page 80

Video: Why Doubt Is Not the Enemy of Faith

Doubt and faith seem like opposites, but are they really? In this short video, recorded at the Legacy conference in Chicago, I do my best to explain how the two are not always in opposition. In fact, doubt can even strengthen faith and that means that our questions are not off limits and mystery is an invitation to believe.

For more about the relationship  between faith and doubt, how to ask questions well, and how our questions can lead us into deeper faith check out my book, Help My Unbelief: Why Doubt is Not the Enemy of Faith.

New Happy Rant: Charlottesville, God Things, and Self Care

In this episode of The Happy Rant Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas cover a huge range from the most (genuinely) serious to the ranty and absurd.

The church’s response the events in Charlottesville, both good and bad
How should we respond to racial conflict and overt racism?
What exactly is a “God thing” and why to Christians insist on using this phrase?
Is “self-care” a good thing? Is it just another excuse to be self-absorbed?

Visit HappyRantPodcast.com to get your Happy Rant signature roast coffee from Lagares Roasters AND to sign up for Live in Louisville, coming this October. It’s really happening, and we’d love to see you there! While supplies last you can get a free copy of Hello, I love You: Adventures in Adoptive Fatherhood by Ted when you place an order with Lagares Roasters too!

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #156

New Happy Rant:

In this episode of The Happy Rant Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas cover a huge range from the most (genuinely) serious to the ranty and absurd.

The church’s response the events in Charlottesville, both good and bad
How should we respond to racial conflict and overt racism?
What exactly is a “God thing” and why to Christians insist on using this phrase?
Is “self-care” a good thing? Is it just another excuse to be self-absorbed?

Visit HappyRantPodcast.com to get your Happy Rant signature roast coffee from Lagares Roasters AND to sign up for Live in Louisville, coming this October. It’s really happening, and we’d love to see you there! While supplies last you can get a free copy of Hello, I love You: Adventures in Adoptive Fatherhood by Ted when you place an order with Lagares Roasters too!

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #156

5 Temptations I Face as a Public Speaker

Several times a year I get invited to speak various places ranging from local churches to high school chapels to conferences to youth retreats. I enjoy speaking and view these invitations as real opportunities, but with these opportunities come temptations. Each of the five temptations I list below is something I struggle with, often times all at once. I am not positive all speakers wrestle with these, but I know human nature well enough to guess they do in one way or another.

1) I believe I need to hit a home run.

Swing for the fences. That’s what my ego says. Crush it. Leave them dazzled and dazed. But here’s the thing: I am not a very dazzling speaker, and neither are most speakers. To continue the metaphor, I am a singles and doubles hitter (and so are most speakers). If I try to hit a homer I will swing and miss as often as not. I need to resist this temptation and simply do what I am capable of as well as I can do it. I need to be faithful, to be clear, to be truthful. I need to put a good swing on it and make solid contact – that’s what God gave me the ability to do. Maybe God will carry the ball over the fence, but I should not swing for that.

2) I believe I need to reflect my audience.

They are students, so be relevant and cool. They are pastors, so be knowledgeable. They are artists so be creative. It’s one thing, a good thing, to be conscientious about whom I speak to, but I cannot let that change who I am. Within reason, I can change my language or my jokes or my terminology to connect with an audience. But connecting and reflecting aren’t the same. I am not my audience. If I lose myself, my style, and my gifts trying to reflect them I will lose them too.

3) I believe I need to impress my fellow speakers.

Sometimes I get to share the stage with impressive people – authors, pastors, artists – which means they’re in the audience when I get up to speak. It is incredibly tempting to keep an eye on their head nods and note-taking for affirmation. As if they matter more than the listener in the sixth row. It is incredibly tempting to gauge the “success” of a message by the adulation of stage-mates rather than the faithfulness and clarity of the message itself. And it is incredibly tempting to feel proud or validated simply because my name appeared in the same speaker lineup as theirs. None of this has any bearing on the words, the truth, the benefit of a message I give, and to be caught up in it is to aim at the wrong target.

4) I believe I don’t belong.

The imposter syndrome is something most speakers, authors, performers, or artists wrestle with at some level. I do all the time. It is the fear that I will be “found out” – that we were invited by mistake, and if they really knew who I was or what I was (and wasn’t) capable of they would be horrified. I’m not talented enough. I’m too inexperienced. I’m too sinful. I simply don’t belong, especially not alongside all these super gifted, godly people.

This fear will deflate a speaker and a message. It will steal vitality and hope. And it will heighten the first three temptations to gargantuan size because I feel the need to make up for my lack of belonging. The reality is, I was invited for a reason – something I wrote or said gave them reason to believe I could help this audience. God put me on that stage in front of those people, so I simply need to go serve, to speak as well as I can in the time I am given. If He wants me there then it is not a mistake.

5) I believe I do belong.

Just as tempting as it is to feel like an imposter it may be more tempting to feel legitimate – like I am a bona fide speaker. I do belong alongside these talented people. This audience needs me. These event planners made a grand choice by inviting me.

The moment I stop being a little surprised and thankful for being invited to speak is the moment I should stop accepting invitations. It means I think I belong, like I deserve to be asked, like I have something to offer. It means that I have begun seeing myself as a half step above my audience as if I live on a stage and they live below. This temptation is real. Pride is insidious, even in ministry. No one is worthy of the stage; God has given some the ability and opportunity to speak from it. And when we are done we should step down and re-take our place on the ground where we belong.

He Reads Truth – Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

I have the privilege of contributing to He Reads Truth, a website of whose purpose is “To help men become who we were made to be, by doing what we were made to do, by the power and provision that God has given us to do it, for the glory of Jesus Christ.” They do this by providing scripture reading plans accompanied by reflections that can be accessed for free online or purchased as print books. For those of you looking to engage scripture in a fresh way – either because you are dried up or have been away from it, these studies/plans will refresh your soul and engage your mind.

What follows is one of the pieces I wrote on The Beatitudes. You can find the full plan HERE.

Matthew 5:4, Isaiah 61:1-3, Romans 7:21-25, 2 Corinthians 7:8-10

Nothing is more frustrating than a problem we cannot fix. I can think of about seven billion of these problems: people. We can’t fix people. Yet we try with blood, sweat, and tears. We try to solve their hearts and their sin and their pain. Sometimes we help. Often we are fruitless. Instead of a tidy resolution we are left with the residue and detritus sin leaves behind in all its acidity and stink.

And none of this touches on the misery of trying to solve ourselves. Just as we cannot fix the sin of others, we cannot fix our own hearts either. Each day we wake up and realize we must live another day as the same person who went to bed the night before. And each day that person is just barely bearable. By distraction and grit, we make it. And then the next day we start again.

Left to itself, this reality would exhibit the laws of spiritual inertia—a decline to death, decay, and rot. Without an outside force good enough and powerful enough to solve these problems, they are condemnation. We are left with no hope, nothing but sadness. But we have such a force, and He spoke a few simple words a few thousand years ago to a few thousand people on the side of a mountain: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).

Jesus was not offering trite promises of happiness. He wasn’t merely giving out hugs and smiles to make people forget their unsolvable sin (though I am sure He did not lack those for the needy). Neither was He setting up mourning as an aspiration—“blessed are those of you who can maintain a certain level of moroseness and misery”—as some Christians seem to believe. Jesus was offering hope to resolve the unresolvable. He was the hope.

All the way back in Isaiah, God promised One who would come to “heal the brokenhearted” and “comfort all who mourn” (Isaiah 61:1-2). Like us, the people then would have heard that as someone to rescue them from circumstances and make life all better. Jesus fulfilled Isaiah’s promise by doing both much more and much less. He did make life all better by crucifying sin and death. He did rescue us from the worst of our circumstances: our own sinfulness.

But Jesus did not fix our daily circumstances. Not yet at least. We still live in the pain of sin’s effect, but we know with certainty that our mourning will be comforted in full when Jesus comes again. Because our lives and hope and happiness depend on this comfort, our thanks run deep. We are thankful for the rescue that has already happened and for the one yet to come—the present comfort and the future comfort too.

New Happy Rant: New Tattoos, Smartphones Ruining Kids, and Overrated Actors

In this episode of the Happy Rant podcast Ted and Barnabas manage sans Ronnie and discuss the following:

The joys of minor league baseball
Their new tattoos and the stories behind them (Don’t worry – it’s PG)
Are smart phones really ruining kids or are we being doomsday and overwrought about this?
Overrated and underrated actors and some who are properly rated too.

Visit HappyRantPodcast.com to get your Happy Rant signature roast coffee from Lagares s Roasters AND to sign up for Live in Louisville, coming this October. It’s really happening, and we’d love to see you there! While supplies last you can get a free copy of Hello, I love You: Adventures in Adoptive Fatherhood by Ted when you place an order with Lagares Roasters too!

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #155

Why Churches and Church Leaders Need Curiosity

Humans are unique. God did not make anything else in His image. No other mammal is an image bearer. Even the angels are not even made in God’s image.

Author Joe Rigney explains the most significant implication this way: “Being made in God’s image is a vocation, something that we are called by God to do and to be.” A vocation, a calling, a work we are to dedicate out lives to. That means it is on purpose and with a purpose, not just a state of being. Our vocation will not be done by accident or with passivity any more than your to-do list at work will complete itself while you take a nap or your infant will feed himself while you watch TV. We must reflect God intentionally each day.

The Curious Vocation of the Church

What this means for the Church, and for churches, is profound. We are a community of image-bearers, each uniquely gifted and tasked to reflect something particular of God. Curiosity is how we do this.

God is an eternal, infinite being with a nature and characteristics we can never emulate, but our reflection of God is not passive. Our echoing is not inactive. We do not echo like a canyon wall, still and static while noise bounces off of us. We echo like town criers, taking up the message and passing it along clearly and loudly. We reflect on purpose, with intention, by taking action.

One of those actions is discovery – about God Himself. In order to represent God to the world we must know Him, and to do that we must learn. We must search for truth about His nature, His character, and His work. We must explore both His Word and His world. We absolutely must be curious if we are Christians. Without it we cease to grow and we become incapable of fulfilling our purpose in life.

If we start by growing in this divine curiosity we will then be prepared to begin exploring and impacting this weird, complicated messy world. Together. As a church.

How Church Leaders Model Curiosity

For most Christians curiosity is either merely a nice concept or a frightening one, either nebulous or questionable. We need someone to teach us and show us what it means to live in godly curiosity. That is the job of church leaders.

It starts with being curious. Are you fascinated with the depths of God and the breadth of His world? Do the people you lead see you exploring big questions and significant relationships? Do they see you trying new things to grow in faith and to strengthen your ministry? Do you step outside the mundanity of your daily life to engage needs or encounter cultures and experiences other than your own? Are you modeling curiosity? After all, behaviors are caught much more than taught.

But this isn’t one of those “strong silent type” situations. You must teach curiosity and explain it. People will see what you model and will catch it, but you must teach them the why and the how. Teach them what you have discovered in your explorations of God and His world. Teach them what you have learned from your failings in relationships and crossing cultures. Teach them what is true and what the standard is for their curiosity – scripture. And give them a vision of where curiosity can take them – deeper into relationship with God and people and further than they ever imagined in knowledge and care for the world.

When church leaders model and teach curiosity, built on the profound truths of scripture, the culture of an entire local church can change. When the culture changes, even subtly, the impact of that church changes too.

A Curious Church and Its World

Likely the church would be a more caring place, deeply aware of people’s needs and challenges. It would be a safe place for those struggling because people would take the time and ask the questions to understand their difficulties. Tension and infighting would diminish because people would be curious enough to learn what others really said and really meant instead of construing meaning and creating drama or conflict.

It would move toward being more diverse racially, socioeconomically, and educationally because people would be deeply interested in those different than themselves instead of frightened of them or intimidated by them. And more than anything it would be a church full of people in rich relationship with God because they would be searching and asking and looking for what more there is about His character and person and work and word. They would be seeking truth, reality as God intends it to be.

Church members will connect with neighbors and co-workers by being genuinely curious about their lives, so those people will have a chance to see something of Jesus in their lives because of how they ask questions and learn and care. People in that community might begin to see Christianity as a belief system that changes lives and loves deeply – not just old time religion or bigoted conservatism – because it clings to and reflects a God who changes lives and loves deeply.

The fruit of godly curiosity is a bold, bright, clear image of God shown to the world. It is visible in individuals and unmistakable in a body of believers. Curiosity is not a mere trait that some quirky people have but rather the fuel that should drive spiritual disciplines, relationships, mission, and all forms of ministry. It brings vivacity to spiritual life and that makes our lives attractive to the world around us, inviting them to find out more about this infinite, majestic object of our curiosity.

For more on curiosity, ministry, life, and faith check out my latest book, The Curious Christian: How Discovering Wonder Enriches Every Part of Life.

If you would like to take a short (FREE) evaluation of your own curiosity visit CuriousChristianBook.com.

New Happy Rant: Pastors as Candy Bars, Hip Hop Beef, and Personality Tests

In this episode of The Happy Rant Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas do as they always do – suss  out a random variety of church and culture topics of questionable importance.

Which pastor is which candy bar – Tim Keller, Matt Chandler, Don Carson, Mark Dever?
Shai Lynne and Lecrae are having a Christian hip hop beef. It’s like Biggie and Tupac but way nicer. Of course we weighed in.
What do we think of personality evaluations like Myers-Briggs, Strengths Finder, and the Enneagram?

Big thank you to our sponsor, Union University. If you are a student, are raising a future college student, or are in a position to give advice to prospective college students please Check Union out for a wonderful Christian liberal arts education.

Visit HappyRantPodcast.com to get your Happy Rant signature roast coffee from Lagares s Roasters AND to sign up for Live in Louisville, coming this October. It’s really happening, and we’d love to see you there! While supplies last you can get a free copy of The Pastor’s Kid when you place an order with Lagares Roasters too!

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #154

He Reads Truth – When Jesus Wept

I have the privilege of contributing to He Reads Truth, a website of whose purpose is “To help men become who we were made to be, by doing what we were made to do, by the power and provision that God has given us to do it, for the glory of Jesus Christ.” They do this by providing scripture reading plans accompanied by reflections that can be accessed for free online or purchased as print books. For those of you looking to engage scripture in a fresh way – either because you are dried up or have been away from it, these studies/plans will refresh your soul and engage your mind.

What follows is one of the pieces I wrote on the book of John. You can find the full plan HERE.

John 11:1-57, Daniel 12:2-3, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

So. So is a word that indicates purpose. I am tired, so I take a nap. I am hungry, so I get a snack. My daughter is talking, so I listen (sometimes—she talks a lot).

John 11 turns on the word so. People brought Jesus word that His close friend Lazarus was deathly ill. You’d expect Him to drop everything and rush to Lazarus’s home, especially because Jesus could heal any illness. But He didn’t. The passage says, “so when He heard Lazarus was sick He stayed two more days.” What? Why? That seems insane or negligent or insanely negligent—even more so when Jesus said that the sickness would not lead to death. Of course it would if nobody healed him. But Jesus waited on purpose.

“This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:4). Those are Jesus’ words. Except Lazarus did die. And dead is dead, final, life over. Jesus could have stopped it, and Lazarus’s sisters knew it. Yet He intentionally waited to show up and then had the audacity to say Lazarus had “fallen asleep.”

What was Jesus getting at? What did all this add up to? A display of both His full humanity and full deity, His deep connection to His friends and His power over all.

When Jesus arrived in the town where Lazarus had lived, He walked into the pain of loss. Martha and Mary, Lazarus’s sisters, met Him and—as people do when they are overcome with pain and are grasping for answers—asked why Jesus hadn’t been there to heal their brother. “If you had been here,” they said. If. Jesus had stayed away on purpose. He had let Lazarus die.

But Jesus wept. How could He weep when He had allowed the pain to happen? Jesus wept over the loss of a friend and over the pain of death. He wept over the pervasive evil that steals life from everyone and the devastating effects of sin on the world. He wept for the pain of Martha and Mary. He wept because He was a man who deeply hurt.

Then He showed why He’d waited, what that so was all about. “Lazarus, come forth,” He commanded. (John 11:43). Jesus gave death an order to depart, and it did. For a moment He pulled back the curtain and gave a glimpse into the resurrection to come, the impending death of death He would bring about by laying down His own life.

In that moment, in the midst of mourning, Jesus proved the hope that all His followers have, a hope greater than death.

New Happy Rant: Bieber the Church Planter, Worst Sermons, and Altar Calls

In this episode of The Happy Rant Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas riff on the following:

Feedback from kind fans
Justin Bieber cancelling a tour for the sake of planting a church
What kind of church planter would Bieber be?
The worst messages we’ve ever preached.
The awkwardness of altar calls (especially at messages we’ve preached)

Don’t forget to visit HappyRantPodcast.com to order your Happy Rant Signature roast coffee and to gt your tickets for our forthcoming Live in Louisville event (October 22)!

Visit HappyRantPodcast.com to get your Happy Rant signature roast coffee from Lagares s Roasters AND to sign up for Live in Louisville, coming this October. It’s really happening, and we’d love to see you there!

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #153