Daniel Darling's Blog, page 67

Saying Goodbye

Five years ago, I was honored to be chosen as the Senior Pastor for Gages Lake Bible Church. I was 29 years old and had little leadership experience. I had served on staff at a large church and had experience writing and editing, but had never been a pastor. Yet GLBC not only affirmed my call to the ministry, they opened up their arms and allowed me to grow as a father, a husband, and a Christian leader. In these five years I learned much about church ministry, theology, and life. Three of our four children were born during our time in Gages Lake. And some of our best friends are at Gages Lake. I owe much to this church. I am excited about my new future with the ERLC and Dr. Moore, but I will miss GLBC.

I will miss the long talks I had with good friends. I will miss preaching to the same people every week. I will miss seeing the gospel grow in the lives of people every week.

This church and these people were so generous to us. They were gracious. They were a refuge during very difficult seasons. They stood with us when we faced unfair attacks. They treated our children like family. They hungered for good preaching and teaching and loved the gospel with us. We were given infinitely more by Gages Lake Bible Church than we gave out.

So leaving is hard for us. Even though we are absolutely convinced of God’s direction in our new position at ERLC, saying goodbye to people you love is always difficult. This is how it should be. God’s purpose and plan for this age is the Church and specifically the local church. The Holy Spirit unites you to your fellow brothers and sisters as family. I believe that what happens on Sundays at Bible-preaching, gospel-centered churches is the most important thing happening in the world at that moment.

But here is the good news. Though we are leaving Gages Lake geographically, we’re not really leaving at all. We are still united forever in the family of God and we’ll spend all of eternity reveling in the goodness of the gospel toward us. And this work at Gages Lake was not my work, but God’s work. It was there when I arrived and will continue on after I’m gone.

I have no doubt that Gages Lake will continue to grow and prosper. There is great, great leadership in place and I couldn’t be prouder of the man God has called to take my place as Senior Pastor, Jay Lovelace. In God’s providence, He brought Jay and Cheyenne and their two boys, Jack and Cody to us so that when we left, Gages Lake would be in good hands. Jay is a first-rate preacher, he’s a great leader, a man of integrity and grace. He’s fun. He’s well-loved. And, he’s a Bears fan.

As we move forward in this new season of life, we will always be grateful for God’s good gift of Gages Lake Bible Church to us. You have enriched our lives in ways that only eternity will reveal. Thank you.

From Chicago To Nashville

So today I’m announcing a big new change my life and in the life of our family. I’ve stepped down as Senior Pastor of Gages Lake Bible Church and have accepted a position with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention as Vice President of Communications. To make your life easier, let’s just call it ERLC.

This is a decision I did not take lightly. For one thing, I dearly love the good people at Gages Lake Bible Church. I’ve been privileged to serve there for five years and have formed deep and lasting friendships. We were prepared to continue serving there for a good long time. But alas, God’s plans are higher than ours. Tomorrow I will share about our experience at Gages Lake.

Today I want to talk about serving at the ERLC. In July, Dr. Russell Moore, the new President, reached out to me about serving on his team. After much prayer and counsel, God led Angela and I through the decision to go to Nashville.

I have long admired Dr. Moore. As a pastor, I learned much from his teaching and preaching that has impacted my life and ministry. I’ve been particularly impressed by his application of Scripture to big cultural questions. His tone of “convictional kindness” is one our generation of the Church needs as it assesses it’s role in an increasingly post-Christian age. He is a first-rate preacher, scholar, and ethicist and to join him in serving Southern Baptists and the wider evangelical world is an honor.

My role will be Vice-President of Communications. This will be a great and fun challenge. We have great talent on our team, with folks like Andrew Walker, Daniel Patterson, Philip Bethancourt, Barrett Duke, Trillia Newbell, Joe Carter and others. Our job is to craft a 21st century communications strategy that helps equip the Church to live out the gospel.

So this is a big life-change for our family as we move to Nashville from Chicago, a city I have known and loved for all of my 35 years. For Angela, this is a chance to return to her roots below the Mason-Dixon line. For me, an opportunity to embrace a new city and make new friends. We look forward to what God will do in us and through us in this next season of life.

Finding God in the Mundane

I interviewed Michael Kelley this week for Leadership Journal. Michael is one of my favorite writers and teachers. His book, as I’ve said numerous times, Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal is a fantastic, raw, journey of faith.

Well, Michael is out with a new and interesting book, Boring. I like this idea, because it’s the kind of counter-cultural message Christians need to hear. His premise is that consistent, ordinary faithfulness in service of God can, in it’s own way, be radical. One of the questions I asked him was this:

Do you think many faithful Christians feel a twinge of guilt because they are not headline-making world-changers?

I think they do, mainly because of conversations I’ve had with people very close to me. I think about the stay at home mom who spends a bulk of her day changing diapers and wrangling kids. I think of the office job guy who commutes the same route every single day. The temptation in those people is, because of what seems like drudgery, to escape. I wanted to encourage those people with the book by saying that meaning and significance isn’t found outside those ordinary arenas; it’s found inside when we begin to see the constant presence and work of God in the mundane.

Read the entire article here:

Guest Post: Finding Grace in the Ordinary by Michael Kelley

Michael Kelley is one of my favorite writers and speakers. He’s the Director of Discipleship for Lifeway Christian Resources. He wrote one of the most raw and poignant books on faith and suffering I have ever read: Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal, about this journey through his son’s rare form of cancer. Now he’s back with another fantastic book, Boring, Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life. You can follow Michael at @_MichaelKelley . 

I’ve asked Michael to share a guest post with us about this new book. At the end, find out how you can win one of two copies he’s generously agreed to give away. 

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I’ve never met a president. Or saved a child from a burning building. Or climbed Everest. I don’t run in powerful circles or tweet nuggets of wisdom adored by millions. My office walls don’t have pictures with me and the Queen of England or medals from my wins at the Olympic Games. Perhaps if I were an international man of mystery, I’d look over and see a picture of me standing next to a world leader at that ceremony when I was awarded some token for my bravery. Then I could turn and see another wall full of mementos and trinkets collected from my adventures. Instead I’m looking at four family pictures, a calendar, and a particularly fierce-looking rendering of a black and yellow fire- breathing dragon laying waste to a castle.

Ah, parenthood.

A regular life isn’t bad, necessarily. In fact, a certain kind of bliss accompanies the “normal” life. There aren’t a lot of surprises, and for a guy who has a to-do list for every day (with the last item on that list being “Make tomorrow’s list”), a lack of surprises can be very comforting. What is more, an ordinary life actually affords an opportunity to love things like pictures from an eight-year-old of dragons and castles. In an ordinary life, your existence becomes papered with moments like these.

And yet . . .

And yet there are those days that just feel boring. The routine becomes monotony, and you find yourself refreshing your e-mail over and over again, waiting for something—anything—to break up the ticking of the clock. You feel something inside of you, something that appreciates the life you have, but at the same time wonders if there’s something more. Something that you’re missing. I feel that way sometimes.

The truth is that we will all spend 90 percent of our time here on earth just doing life. Just being ordinary. If I were writing a self-help book, I might follow that realistic, slightly demotivating statement up with something like: “Break out of the ordinary. Pursue your bliss. Go skydiving. Do something important. Carpe diem.” The same motivation, in Christian terms, might read: “God’s will is that you have a life of adventure. Get out there and make an eternal difference. Do something big for God.”

All of those statements are true in a sense; all of them can be appropriate. What those statements communicate is that we should be focused on Jesus and expanding His kingdom. That should be our priority. Those statements challenge us to recognize that we only have a limited time here on earth, so we need to make sure we spend our time doing things that matter. However, implicit in an exhortation like “do something big for God” is the notion that we are currently not doing stuff that matters, and we have to abandon that insignificant stuff to break out of the rut—chase the dream . . . be the man . . . overcome obscurity . . . all that stuff.

Chasing dreams isn’t the problem. Neither is maximizing what you have to make a difference in the world for the sake of Christ. The problem is in our definition of significance.

People tend to believe that the pathway to significance is paved with the big, the showy, and the grand. The people who are most often lauded as influential are the ones doing the big, impressive things with their lives. Consequently, those same people cannot involve themselves in these mundane details of life. Indeed, the mundane details are like anchors that weigh a person down from the bigger and the better. So moving toward a life that matters involves moving past the details that don’t.

But what if we’re wrong? What if “bigness” is not an accurate measure of significance? What if the whole idea of “ordinary” is a myth? And what if a life of great importance isn’t found by escaping the details but embracing them? What if God actually doesn’t want you to escape from the ordinary, but to find significance and meaning inside of it?

That’s what this book is about. This book is for the stay-at-home mom and the office job dad. It’s for the regular church member and the ordinary citizen. It’s for the person who has ever looked at the seemingly mundane details of life and wondered if they are really doing anything that’s worthwhile. It’s for all of us ordinary people who are following an extraordinary God. My hope, as you read the first half of this book, is that you would be awakened to the myth of the ordinary as you see and extraordinary God who is constantly moving and working. Then, as you move into the second half of this book, I pray that you might see the greater purposes in a few specific, but often ordinary, areas of life that we tend to push to the margin. And maybe, when we get to the end, we will have begun to see God, and life, in a whole new way. Perhaps we will have begun to see that there really is no such thing as ordinary when you are following an extraordinary God.

Michael is giving away two copies of Boring to the first two people to comment on this post (not counting trackbacks or spam). 

5 Important Attitudes About Work

Today is Labor Day and good opportunity to think about our views of work. I wrote this article for Homelife Magazine on five important attitudes about work. Here is an excerpt:

American Christians have a rather uneasy relationship with work. On Sunday, the lay person hears an impassioned message about sacrifice, self-denial, and the mission of God. He might be treated to a stirring testimony of a wealthy CEO who gave up a promising career to enter “full-time” ministry.

Then, Monday morning happens. He takes his place on the factory line, at a desk, in a garage, or behind the wheel. The guilt and shame surge up inside of him, for he thinks that if he were truly committed to Jesus, if he were part of the A-team of Christians in the world, he wouldn’t get a check from a “secular” corporation or small business, but from a Christian company such as a church or a parachurch organization.

I’ve lived on both sides of this secular-sacred divide. My dad is a plumber. He’s a committed husband and father who’s given himself in service to his church. But still he’s … just a plumber. He’s not a pastor or missionary or worship leader. At times, I’ve felt that Dad was made to feel as if he were on God’s junior varsity. As if his entrance into glory won’t be met with the same applause as those who delivered the sermons on Sunday.

I’m also a pastor and have had to guard against unwittingly shaming the hardworking lay people I serve, simply because I’m privileged to work, full-time, in the business of church. Some pastors might consider themselves more dedicated and more like Jesus than those who sling it in the real world, getting their hands dirty in jobs that seem less than sacred. Although the pastoral and missionary callings are sober, serious endeavors, they don’t ascribe any more glory to the sinners who occupy them. Moreover, if faithfulness is God’s measure of success, everywhere you serve is God’s theater.

This divide between secular and sacred is an unhealthy one. I believe it stems from an incomplete theology of vocation. So I offer five important attitudes when it comes to the arena in which we spend the majority of our lives: the workplace.

Read the rest of the article here:

Every Member Has a Role

Today, for Leadership Journal, I talk to Thom Rainer, CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources. I always enjoy Thom’s insights on leadership and church life. His podcast Rainer on Leadership is a great listen and his blog is a go-to source for leadership content.

I asked Thom about this latest book, I Am a Church Member where he challenges Christians to take their local church involvement seriously:

In your latest book, I Am A Church Member, you give guidelines for what “faithful church membership” looks like. Does the average Christian understand his or her responsibility as a church member?

No. We have failed to communicate the biblical tenets of church membership. For the typical church member, membership means rights and perks. But the biblical concept of membership means that we serve, we forsake our preferences, and we seek unity in the body. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul reminds us that every member has a role, and every member is to function and serve. In 1 Corinthians 13, he reminds us that we offer this service on the basis of sacrificial and unconditional love.

Read more of the interview here:

The God (little “g”) in Your Pocket

I was talking to my mother last week about the readily available technology we have in our smart phones. She was telling me, half-joking, “I can always Google something. So if I’m in a conversation and I don’t know what they are talking about, I can quietly Google it and sound smart.” We laughed, because we have all been there. And perhaps with Google glasses we won’t even have to figure out ways to inconspicuously look down and type it in our phones.

It’s sure nice to have Google with us. In the middle of the night when my kid is sick and exhibiting symptoms I’m not familiar with, I can quickly google, “Coughing and fever, plus a rash” and get results. If I’m on a trip to Denver for business, I can google, “weather in Denver tomorrow.” Or if we are wandering about and looking for a McDonald’s with a Playplace, I can Google (not while driving, of course!), “McDonald’s with a Playplace near me.” I can actually speak it into Google and it comes up with info. The same goes for hours for my favorite barber shop, the closest Starbucks, or how to change the headlight in a Chevy Blazer (my brother did that and it saved my parents lots of money on repairs).

But as much as I like all of this technology and as much as I really don’t want to back to the 1950′s where you actually had to know stuff and read maps and be satisfied with looking dumb in conversations, I wonder if we are tempted to replace God with Google. I’m not trying to #JesusJuke you here. I’m speaking honestly about a very real temptation I face, particularly when I’m in trouble.

See, my inclination, when something bad comes up, when I’m uncertain, is not to get on my knees in prayer. It’s to grab my phone and type or speak and expect an answer. Sometimes this is helpful. But sometimes it’s a dangerous crutch, a rabbit trail for answers that Google can’t produce. Worse yet, the little god in my pocket gives me the illusion of being in control. I can solve this. I’m smart. I have tools that can give me answers. 

This is why the words, Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10) should hit our hearts with a thud. Be still means to stop thinking, processing, figuring out, wondering, scheming, and yes, Googling (that’s the Greek translation) for answers. Be still means to stop phoning friends, stop texting, stop panicking and to just be quiet and listen to God. Oh if we could learn this in our generation. I fear that we are so dependent, so given to the illusion of being our own little gods that we have forgotten the art of silence, solitude and worship. I struggle with this mightily.

Why must we be still to know God? Because the act of silence, of prayer, of not creating our own answers is in and of itself an act of humble, subservient, worship. We’re saying, “Yep, I’m really not in charge here. I’m not God. He is.” And in that moment of despair, of weakness, we find God. We know Him. That’s why Paul says that when we are weak, we are strong (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Imagine the folly of God’s own people, redeemed by His grace in Christ, running around with their smart phones acting as if they can run their own lives. From a theological and logical standpoint, it’s pretty silly. And yet that’s the life we subscribe to. That’s the life I often live.

So we must pray, Lord, help me to be still. Help me to resist the idolatry of technology, to stop, listen, and learn. Help me to query you first for answers, not Google. 

Teaching Civility

Today I interview the fascinating Mark DeMoss, president and founder of The DeMoss Group, the leading public relations firm for Christian organizations. DeMoss has represented organizations such as The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Prison Fellowship, and The American Bible Society.

A few years ago, Mark launched The Civility Project, aimed at shaping a more civil public discourse. The idea was to get public leaders to at least agree to be civil with each other, even as they disagree. But after two years, hardly any signed up for the pledge.

I asked Mark if he thought Christian leaders should teach civility. As a pastor, I’ve tried to do this, but I often get pushback from Christians who think being civil equals being a compromiser. Mark disagrees.

Should pastors and church leaders make the teaching of civility a priority?

Yes! There are plenty of Scriptures to support that answer. For example, “In lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself.” Phil. 2:3 “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.” Col. 4:5 And then, “Let all that you do be done in love.” 1 Cor. 16:14 I strongly believe it is never an option for me to claim Jesus Christ as Savior and behave in an uncivil manner with anyone, under any circumstance. Never.

Read the whole interview here:

The Lord’s Prayer and the Self-Made Man

In America, we pride ourselves on our rugged independence. We’re a self-made people. There is much good in this kind of pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps way of life. Hard work and ingenuity are hard-wired into the Creation mandate by a God who gave man the gift of work in the garden and who commanded him to “subdue” the earth. When man works hard with his hands and his mind, when he takes the raw materials God has given him and makes something, he images God. God creates. And God created special creatures to create.

But man is not self-made in any way. Man begins with the earth’s substance that God provides. Man is born into a world not of his choosing, a time and place ordained by a sovereign God. The social structures, educational opportunities, parentage, even the obstacles you overcome on your rags-to-riches journey–these were all ordered by a God. You did not conceive yourself nor build the world into which you were created.

This reality–acknowledging our dependence on God even as we work hard and advance–seems important to Jesus. When offering the disciples a theological template for prayer, he used the words, “Give us this day our daily bread.” That phrase, so oft-repeated in the 2,000 years since they first came off Jesus’ lips, are at the heart of what it means to live by faith.

Yes, we work hard. We toil. We demonstrate integrity. We move against obstacles. But in all of our activity, we are not our own providers. We are not our own creators. We are not our own gods. We need daily bread to be given to us.

We are dependent on God. This is why prayer, while simple, is such a revolutionary act. To bow the knee and request something from God, something as simple as bread, acknowledges that He is God and that you are not. It reminds that there is a King, a Sovereign, a Lord of all. It reminds us of our humanity, our dependence, our gratitude for the Giver of all things.

We pray before our meals, not because if we don’t, we’ll choke on the steak or that somehow the calories in the casserole will magically disappear. We don’t pray for protection from poisoning or out of fear that if we forget, God will strike us.

We pray before meals as a simple act of faith and a bold declaration that there is a King who provides for His people. We pray before meals as an act of humility, recognizing that for all of our effort, the food only got to the table, primarily, because God in His Fatherly goodness, willed it to be there.

So Americans who work hard and pay their bills and put food on the table are best served by recognizing that there is really no such thing as a self-made man or woman. We’re all under the mercy and care of the only One who can make something out of nothing.

On Writing: “Strap Yourself to a Desk and Grind.”

I enjoy good sportswriters, mainly because I absolutely love sports, but also because I think sportswriting is among the best writing on the planet. Guys like Thomas Lake at SI, Bill Simmons, Rick Reilly, Gene Wojciechowski and the Grantland guys at ESPN, Jason Whitlock at Fox Sports, David Haugh at the Chicago Tribune–these guys are among my favorites and there are many more I read.

Sportswriters have to write quickly, on deadline, and have to write in a very tight fashion. They write for a very critical crowd: passionate sports fans. They have to be serious and funny and creative all at the same time, all without being too cute. Even if you don’t like sports (and if so, I’ll get on my knees and pray for your soul), you might appreciate sportswriting for the sheer value and quality of the writing.

Which leads me to a quote I heard on an edition of the Bill Simmons podcast. He was interviewing Jason Whitlock of Fox Sports (who is now moving to ESPN) about the nature of writing, his career, and getting published. Whitlock said a phrase that I think every aspiring writer/blogger/author needs to hear. He said that good writers succeed because they “strap themselves to a desk and grind.” In other words, good writers work hard at regularly, daily, grinding out content, working on their craft, laboring often in obscurity until they are good enough to be noticed.

This is a really, really good principle for today’s generation of writers. We live in an age of instant fame. And while sometimes something you write may go viral and make you instantly famous, mostly the way to success is to just work hard at producing good content while nobody is looking. The best sportswriters in America started somewhere obscure, in a small town grinding out columns about the local bowling league or something. The people whose work is being read, heard, digested are the ones who were willing to “strap themselves to a desk and grind.” There are no shortcuts to real, lasting, genuine success.

There is a connection here to Scripture. God has sovereignly bestowed on each of us good gifts and talents. It’s part of the Creation mandate to use our gifts to create things, to produce good work. We should work hard, not simply as an angle to fame and fortune, but because we take pride in our work. We want to do things well, to the glory of God. And any success we experience should come as the fruit of our labors. So let’s get busy and write well and put aside fleeting dreams of quick and easy fame.

*I feel I need a disclaimer here to say that I don’t always agree with all the content from guys like Simmons and Whitlock. Sometimes sports guys can be provocative. Christians should be discerning, picking the fruit from the rest.