Daniel Darling's Blog, page 51

The Way Home Episode 27 featuring Jon Acuff

Today’s workforce is increasingly more mobile. People are facing career transitions at younger ages and are being forced to adapted to changing environments. So how do pastors and church leaders help their people facing new careers? Today’s podcast features Jon Acuff, blogger, best-selling author, and speaker. He was recently profiled in Christianity Today. Jon first burst on the scene as the very funny proprietor of the Stuff Christians Like blog. He’s since written several books on career and calling and is a great voice on applying the gospel to work life. His latest book is Do Over. Jon and I discuss career transitions, calling, and his own recent career do over.

Listen to this week’s episode

Show Notes:

On the podcast I mentioned our new resource, The Weekly. This is a weekly email newsletter, written by our staff, that curates the most important news stories and offers some brief explanation. Most of us are incredibly busy with our families and our jobs and don’t time to digest the news from a distinctly Christian worldview. The Weekly is a quick, but informative read that will show up in your inbox every week. You will want tosign up for this email.
Jon Acuff on Twitter: @jonacuff
Jon’s website: acuff.me
Jon’s new book:  Do Over

A Moving Speech by Senator James Lankford

This is a powerful and moving speech by Senator James Lankford on the subject of Planned Parenthood. I’ve had the privilege to meet Sen. Lankford, a faithful follower of Christ. I really hope you take 8 minutes or so and watch. I pray this stirs the hearts of American consciences to protect the life of the unborn.

The Way Home – Episode 26: Tony Evans and Jim Daly

Why is orphan care so important for the church? I ask Jim Daly, President of Focus on the Family. Daly’s life story is unique, as told in his powerful memoir, Finding Home. Bounced around in the foster care system, Jim experienced so much family dysfunction before a dramatic conversion to Christianity as a teen. Today he leads Focus on the Family and has used his life experiences to encourage the church to care for orphans. He joins me on the podcast along with Tony Evans, pastor, author, and founder of The Urban Alternative. Evans is a longtime radio pastor and has published numerous best-selling books. Dr. Evans talks to me about the importance of racial reconciliation and his own experience as an African American evangelical leader.

Listen to this week’s episode:

Show Notes

Both of these interviews came from our new series of training courses offered through Ministry Grid. ERLC is offering ten courses on difficult moral ethical issues featuring well-known Christian leaders such as Jim Daly, Tony Evans, JD Greear, Russell Moore, Dennis Rainey, Trillia Newbell and many others.
 Twitter: @dalyfocus @tonyevans
Website: focusonthefamily.org; tonyevans.org
Books: Oneness Embraced by Tony Evans; Finding Home by Jim Daly

Outraged at Planned Parenthood? Here are 6 Things You Can Do Now

I hope you are, like me, outraged and sickened by the macabre Planned Parenthood practice of selling the body parts of aborted babies (let’s call them babies and not fetuses, shall we?). The gospel of Christ demands that we adopt a prolife ethic. We see every human soul as created in the image of its Creator God. Every soul deserves dignity and respect.

But what should you do with the outrage you feel at the abortion industrial complex, the wicked conglomerate, Planned Parenthood, that targets vulnerable young women for profit? Here are five things we can do, right now:

1) Speak out for the sanctity of human life. Despite how it has been politicized, the dignity of human life is not a political issue, it’s a gospel issue. Use your voice and your influence to winsomely express your disgust and outrage over this terrible practice. Don’t be silent. Speak up for those who can’t speak up for themselves. Remember to model Christian civility, to speak with grace and truth.

2) Commit to engaging and voting to protect the unique dignity of human life. As citizens of a representative republic, we have a unique stewardship of our government. We should be involved in electing officials who commit to protecting the dignity of human life. Politics isn’t our only answer to reducing the number of abortions in America, but studies have shown that enacting prolife laws at the local and national level has led to a drop in the number of abortions. Christians should seek the welfare of the cities in which they live, working and praying for just laws.

3) Get involved in your local pregnancy resource center. Public policy is not the only way to protect the unborn. The most immediate way is to donate time and money to a local pregnancy resource center. I’ve had the privilege of being involved with a number of PRC’s and have seen, firsthand, the vital, lifesaving, gospel ministry they do, often on a shoestring budget. ERLC has a program that annually grants a life-saving ultrasound machine to a pregnancy resource center. You can donate here. And if you are looking for a center in your neighborhood, please visit Care-Net’s directory or Focus on the Family’s Operation Ultrasound. If there isn’t one in your neighborhood, maybe God is calling you to start one. Prolife is more than being mad on Facebook every four years at election time. It’s about saving the babies in front of you, right now.

4) Support and get involved with the growing Adoption Movement. My boss, Dr. Russell Moore, has written, perhaps, the seminal book on adoption, Adopted for Life. He has personally adopted two children from Russia. Today in America, thousands of young children are waiting for a home and yours might be the one they need. The people of God are called to serve the widows and orphans among us. A great place to start getting information is either Christian Alliance for Orphans or Focus on the Family. You should also read Jim Daly’s book, Finding Home.

5) Join us next year in Washington, D.C. for our first Evangelicals For Life. ERLC is partnering with The March for Life and Focus on the Family to gather thousands of young people on the National Mall to stand up for the dignity of human life. Not only will you get equipped to become a champion for life, you will hear about what it means to adopt a whole-life/pro-life ethic. You will understand what it means to see the image of God in every person. Join us next February at Evangelicals for Life.

6) Pray, support, and get involved in the mission of your local church. This is the last item on this list, but it should be the first. Your prolife ethic begins by joining yourself as a member to your local expression of the body of Christ. The most subversive weapon against the enemy, who plots the death and destruction of human life, is the gospel story. Today, as in every age, the Spirit of God is busy turning former enemies into friends through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Don’t ever forget that some of the most vocal supporters of abortion on demand today maybe your brothers and sisters in Christ tomorrow. Christ is active today turning Sauls into Pauls. And he’s calling you and me to be the vessels through which this message is proclaimed.

The Way Home – Episode 25 featuring J.D. Greear

Can a church really grow if they give away their members? This seems to fly in the face of church growth methodology. And yet, this is exactly what my friend J.D. Greear is saying churches should do. They should give away their people to mission. J.D. Greear is the lead pastor of The Summit Church, in Raleigh-Durham, N.C. He’s a well-known author and speaker. I especially appreciated his recent book, Jesus Continued on the work of the Holy Spirit. Today I’m talking with him about his latest work, Gaining by Losing. We also discuss racial reconciliation and the church and . . . whether Lebron is really better than Michael.

Listen to this week’s episode of The Way Home

 
Show Notes


On the podcast I mentioned our new resource, The Weekly. This is a weekly email newsletter, written by our staff, that curates the most important news stories and offers some brief explanation. Most of us are incredibly busy with our families and our jobs and don’t time to digest the news from a distinctly Christian worldview. The Weekly is a quick, but informative read that will show up in your inbox every week. You will want to sign up for this email.
Twitter: @jdgreear
Website: jdgreear.com
Book: Gaining By Losing: Why the Future Belongs to Churches that Send

The Way Home – Episode 24 featuring Os Guinness

Today I have the honor of talking with Os Guinness, one of the foremost intellectuals in the evangelical world. Os is a longtime social critic, commentator, and author. Os has quite a story. From the bio on his website:

Great-great grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer, he was born in China in World War II where both his parents and grandparents were medical missionaries – his grandfather having had the privilege of treating the Empress Dowager, the Last Emperor and the Imperial family. A survivor of the terrible Henan famine of 1943, in which five million died in three months, including his two brothers, Os was a witness to the climax of the Chinese revolution in 1949 and the beginning of the reign of terror under Mao Tse Tung. He was expelled with many other foreigners in 1951 and returned to Europe where he was educated in England. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of London and his D.Phil in the social sciences from Oriel College, Oxford.

Os, has written many books and is an outspoken advocate for religious liberty in America and abroad. We talk about his latest project, Fool’s Talk where he encourages Christians to recover the lost art of persuasion. I will also press him on the important topic of what he labels the “civil public square.”

Listen to this week’s episode of The Way Home

 
Show Notes


On the podcast I mentioned our new resource, The Weekly. This is a weekly email newsletter, written by our staff, that curates the most important news stories and offers some brief explanation. Most of us are incredibly busy with our families and our jobs and don’t time to digest the news from a distinctly Christian worldview. The Weekly is a quick, but informative read that will show up in your inbox every week. You will want to sign up for this email.Twitter: @osguinness
Website: osguinness.com
Book: The Global Public Square: Religious Freedom and the Making of a World Safe for Diversity

How to preach on race

Today, at the Lifeway Pastors blog, I have an article encouraging white pastors to preach on racial reconciliation. It’s not a subject we’ve often addressed from the pulpit, for a variety of reasons. I also give three ways to do this. The first is the most obvious: preach on race when the biblical text in front of you addresses it:

The best way, in my view, to embed the priority of racial reconciliation into the everyday lives of our people is through the faithful application of the text. By this I mean through expository preaching. I’m a firm believer in the systematic, Jesus-centered preaching of whole counsel of God. The task of a pastor is to declare what God has already said in His Word.

Racial reconciliation is not something that has to be forced onto the text. In fact, if you are preaching systematically through Scripture and you do not preach on it, you might be skipping it. The thrust of God’s promise to Abraham and the promises to Israel are His desire to be made known among all nations. And almost every New Testament book embeds its presentation of the gospel with its unifying, reconciling power.

 

You can’t faithfully preach the Great Commission passages without stopping to acknowledge them as the fulfillment of Christ’s promise to build His church from every nation, tribe, and tongue.
You can’t preach Galatians without preaching on the racial divisions that flared within the early church.
You can’t exposit Ephesians without spending time on the gospel’s bringing together of diverse people into “one new humanity” (Ephesians 2:15).
You can’t preach through Acts 1:8 without seeing the ingathering of the peoples of God as a sign of God’s promise to call a people to himself from every nation, tribe, and tongue.
You can’t do a series on the book of Revelation and not behold the majestic beauty of the diversity around God’s throne in Revelation 7 and 9.

Sadly, I’ve heard many messages from many “New Testament churches” that never touched on the priority of racial reconciliation found in Scripture. Why is this? It could be that we, as white evangelicals, don’t see it as a priority because we don’t see the problem of racial tension in our midst. It’s time pastors start seeing and preaching what is already there in the text. The heart of God’s people must be stirred to make this as much a gospel priority as Christ has in His inspired Word.

Read the rest of the article here:

Here We Stand: An Evangelical Statement on Marriage

Today the Supreme Court issued its ruling, making same-sex marriage legal in all fifty states. I am honored join a broad coalition of evangelicals to sign my name to this statement in dissent:

As evangelical Christians, we dissent from the court’s ruling that redefines marriage. The state did not create the family, and should not try to recreate the family in its own image. We will not capitulate on marriage because biblical authority requires that we cannot. The outcome of the Supreme Court’s ruling to redefine marriage represents what seems like the result of a half-century of witnessing marriage’s decline through divorce, cohabitation, and a worldview of almost limitless sexual freedom. The Supreme Court’s actions pose incalculable risks to an already volatile social fabric by alienating those whose beliefs about marriage are motivated by deep biblical convictions and concern for the common good.

The Bible clearly teaches the enduring truth that marriage consists of one man and one woman. From Genesis to Revelation, the authority of Scripture witnesses to the nature of biblical marriage as uniquely bound to the complementarity of man and woman. This truth is not negotiable. The Lord Jesus himself said that marriage is from the beginning (Matt. 19:4-6), so no human institution has the authority to redefine marriage any more than a human institution has the authority to redefine the gospel, which marriage mysteriously reflects (Eph. 5:32). The Supreme Court’s ruling to redefine marriage demonstrates mistaken judgment by disregarding what history and countless civilizations have passed on to us, but it also represents an aftermath that evangelicals themselves, sadly, are not guiltless in contributing to. Too often, professing evangelicals have failed to model the ideals we so dearly cherish and believe are central to gospel proclamation.

Evangelical churches must be faithful to the biblical witness on marriage regardless of the cultural shift. Evangelical churches in America now find themselves in a new moral landscape that calls us to minister in a context growing more hostile to a biblical sexual ethic. This is not new in the history of the church. From its earliest beginnings, whether on the margins of society or in a place of influence, the church is defined by the gospel. We insist that the gospel brings good news to all people, regardless of whether the culture considers the news good or not.

The gospel must inform our approach to public witness. As evangelicals animated by the good news that God offers reconciliation through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus, we commit to:

Respect and pray for our governing authorities even as we work through the democratic process to rebuild a culture of marriage (Rom. 13:1-7);

teach the truth about biblical marriage in a way that brings healing to a sexually broken culture;

affirm the biblical mandate that all persons, including LGBT persons, are created in the image of God and deserve dignity and respect;

love our neighbors regardless of whatever disagreements arise as a result of conflicting beliefs about marriage;

live respectfully and civilly alongside those who may disagree with us for the sake of the common good;

cultivate a common culture of religious liberty that allows the freedom to live and believe differently to prosper.

The redefinition of marriage should not entail the erosion of religious liberty. In the coming years, evangelical institutions could be pressed to sacrifice their sacred beliefs about marriage and sexuality in order to accommodate whatever demands the culture and law require. We do not have the option to meet those demands without violating our consciences and surrendering the gospel. We will not allow the government to coerce or infringe upon the rights of institutions to live by the sacred belief that only men and women can enter into marriage.

The gospel of Jesus Christ determines the shape and tone of our ministry. Christian theology considers its teachings about marriage both timeless and unchanging, and therefore we must stand firm in this belief. Outrage and panic are not the responses of those confident in the promises of a reigning Christ Jesus. While we believe the Supreme Court has erred in its ruling, we pledge to stand steadfastly, faithfully witnessing to the biblical teaching that marriage is the chief cornerstone of society, designed to unite men, women, and children. We promise to proclaim and live this truth at all costs, with convictions that are communicated with kindness and love.

A Primer on Southern Baptists

Just who are the Southern Baptists? When I did ministry in the Chicago area (not an SBC stronghold), I often heard evangelicals talk about Southern Baptists in ways that I knew were either caricatures or just plain wrong. This is why I was so glad my boss, Dr. Russell Moore, penned this great piece for OnFaith on 10 Things I Wish Everyone Knew about Southern Baptists. 

One of the things he wishes people knew (and I wish people knew) is about the growing diversity in the SBC. He says this:

We’re more ethnically diverse than you might think. Among the fastest growing demographics in the Southern Baptist life are African-American, Hispanic, and Asian-American congregations. The most vibrant of our churches often include many languages and ethnic groups.Though positive steps have happened, it’s not good enough for many of us, since we believe the church is designed to be a preview of the coming kingdom of God, a kingdom that is made up of those from every tribe, tongue, nation, and language. Most of the Body of Christ, on earth as well is in heaven, isn’t white and has never spoken English.We celebrate our growing diversity, including seminary programs intentionally training the next generation of ethnic minority leadership, even as we note that we have far yet to go. With every year that passes, we have more and more salsa at our church potlucks, and we like it that way.

Do yourself a favor and read this whole piece: 10 Things I Wish Everyone Knew About Southern Baptists – OnFaith

What Dad taught Me: 5 Invaluable Principles I Use Every Day

My dad is a quiet man, more comfortable working with his hands than delivering a speech or writing an essay. But this doesn’t mean Dad wasn’t a teacher. Dad’s life spoke to me in ways that I still think of today. Most of these lessons were simply by following his example.

My father grew up in a broken home. He didn’t know his real father until he was fourteen years old. He dealt with the devastating effects of alcoholism and was forced to grow up fast. While still in high-school, he got up early to work at a bakery, using this income to support his mother (my grandmother) as she helped raise six children with my father’s step-dad.

While in his late teens, my father came to faith in Christ through the ministry of Billy Graham. He later met my mother, a Jewish girl who converted to Christianity, and they got married. I’m the oldest of three children.

Dad was a blue-collar guy, a licensed plumber, who has always been known for the quality of his work. It wasn’t the specific job he did but the way Dad carried himself that taught me the most about life, about manhood, and about living out the gospel. These five lessons are ones I’ve adopted as I seek to honor the Lord with my life:

1. A real man acknowledges his dependence on God. Even though my father is a rugged, hardworking, “man’s man”, he has always been unafraid to admit his weakness and need for Christ. I remember getting up every morning and seeing my father, up early, reading his Bible.

Now to be sure, I’m not a morning person, so my kids don’t find me up early reading the Bible. I do my Bible reading at other times, mostly at night. But I have tried to carry Dad’s dependence on the Word with me. Dad taught me the value of making Scripture the center of a family’s life. I think this is why all three of his children are actively following Christ to this day.

2. A real man takes his family to church every week. I guess I didn’t realize the importance of this until I became a father and had my own children. It was just assumed that every Sunday we went to church. There was never a question. No matter what was going on that week, no matter how tired Dad was, no matter who was playing whom that Sunday, we were in church. Dad had a pretty iron-clad policy: if you stayed home sick, then you were sick that whole day. You didn’t play hooky, pretend to be sick, and then play outside on Sunday.

For a young man, this is an important visual statement. Kids need to see their fathers faithfully leading them to church every week. This tells the family that worship of the risen Christ matters so much so that we voluntarily set aside a day each week in worship. What’s more, a real man invests and is involved in the work of a Bible-believing church. Dad gave himself, his time, his money, and his talents to the work of the Kingdom. I hope that one day my kids will say the same thing about me.

3. A real man works hard to provide for his family. Again, I didn’t realize how rare this is until I grew older and observed the sad lack of purpose and vision among contemporary men. Dad modeled what it looks like to get up every day, whether he liked it or not, and go to work for the family. Plumbing is a hard job. It’s physically demanding and requires focus and discipline. But Dad never wavered in his commitment to provide for us.

I remember asking Dad, “Dad, do you ever get tired of doing this every single day?” His reply, “Son, yes. I do. But then I remember that I don’t get tired of eating. I don’t get tired of having a house. I don’t get tired of seeing my kids’ needs taken care of. So I quickly get ‘untired’ of working.”

Great answer. Not every day at work, even in your chosen vocation where you are working in your giftedness, is a day at the beach. Many days are mundane. Some are frustrating. Some days you want to quit, even in the best of jobs. But a real man, a man of God, labors to provide for the ones God has called him to love and serve. By God’s grace, I’ve tried to carry on this work ethic, and it will benefit me my entire life.

4. A real man loves his wife unconditionally, in good times and bad. My parents have been married for thirty eight years. There have been many hardships along the way. My mother endured seven miscarriages. She’s been afflicted by illness. Dad has seen his own share of health challenges and, lately, unemployment struggles as the housing industry in the Chicago area has suffered. Dad has taught me, through it all, the value of simple, everyday faithfulness. Not all of life is easy. Many seasons are hard and difficult and make you want to get up and walk away. Dad’s faithfulness in good and bad seasons has shown me what a real man does: he endures.

I pray it’s said of me that I have the same character and faithfulness Dad exhibited. He isn’t perfect and neither am I. We are both in need of God’s amazing grace to cover our many sins. But if I could be half the man Dad has been in his life, that would be enough for me.

5. A real man is a living witness of the gospel in the daily grind of life. This is related to point #3. Dad not only worked hard, he took pride in his work. I remember asking Dad when I was working alongside him at 14 years old why he cared that the drain pipes we were installing inside the walls had to be so straight. “Nobody will see them,” I said. “But, Son, I will see them. God sees them. That matters.” Dad did his work with excellence, even staying an extra hour to get that one thing right that didn’t much matter to me. But it does matter, because the work we do with our hands reflects the Creator. He’s given us a job to do, and we should do it well–to His glory.

Dad’s work was his witness to an unsaved and watching world. The construction trades are not exactly a haven of clean-living. Dad never heard of the words missional and incarnational. He just got up every day and did the very best job he could. And this work was a witness. He was unafraid to vocally share his faith on the job, even though those opportunities were rare. I can tell you, however, that everyone who worked with my father knew he was a Christian, mostly because of the quality work he did.

Too many people in our day and age don’t know the treasure of a great father. I’m grateful, by God’s grace, that I do. In fact, my father is one of my heroes because he showed me what it looks like for a Christian man to live out his faith in the nitty-gritty, daily grind of life, among a lost and sinful people. And I’ll never, ever forget it.

Originally published on June 13th, 2014