Daniel Darling's Blog, page 73

A Commitment to Holiness and Humility

I had the privilege of interviewing Rev. Samuel Rodriquez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. Rodriquez is a well-known speaker who represents the growing Hispanic evangelical population. I asked him about a recent honor he received:

You were the first Latino leader to give a commemorative address at Dr. Martin Luther King’s annual commemorative event. Was that opportunity a dream come true?

Beyond a dream come true, the opportunity graciously rendered serves as a testimony to the purpose and promise of God for each of our lives. When I was 14 years of age, I saw a television special on Dr. King when a still small voice in my heart prompted me to write, “One day, God will enable me to connect with Dr. King’s family as I serve our communities.” With a commitment to holiness and humility, all things are possible.

I also asked Rodriquez about immigration reform and the misconceptions white evangelicals often have about Hispanics. You can the rest  of the interview here:

7 Steps to Get Started Writing

I have a lot of people who are interested in launching a writing career, but don’t know how to get started. It seems a bit overwhelming. So I decided to try and write a post with seven sort of first-steps on writing. I hope this helps those who feel this call.

1) Take a Long View. This is less of a practical step and more of a vision thing. But I think it’s importnat to not get too caught up, right away, in that big book project or thinking that you’re going to make a ton of money so you can retire. You need to think of writing less as a way to make money (which in the future can happen, at least in a side-business kind of way) and more of a calling to communicate and use your gifts to lift people. Don’t take an all-or-nothing approach with the idea that “God told me to write this ONE book and if it doesn’t get published, that publishing house isn’t following God.” Take the long view and think of it as a progressive development of your gifts and your platform. Ok, with that out of the way, some practical steps:

2) Start a Blog. It used to be that to get started writing, you needed to get published somewhere, some kind of byline. Otherwise, where would you have an outlet to publish your stuff? Not anymore. I still think its important to get started writing in a various outlets (see step 3 below), however the internet has flattened the publishing world in that you can begin to write right away. My advice is to create a blog using a free service like WordPress or Blogspot and establish a regular rhythm of writing. Set a reasonable schedule for yourself, perhaps two to three times a week, and commit to it. It’s important for you to start writing even when you have an audience of nobody. You need to find your voice and work those writing muscles. Starting a blog is not as scary as it seems. I highly recommend Michael Hyatt’s book, Platform and his website to get going. One word of caution: don’t think you have to do everything Mike recommends right away with your blog (He says this as much). Just get your blog going, figure out a theme for your writing, and start writing. Don’t spend all your time with gizmos and gadgets and sacrifice your time writing. 

3) Start publishing in smaller markets. Besides getting a regular blog schedule going, it’s important for you to start getting published in other publications. This is important for several reasons. First, it helps get used to working with an editor and being edited. Second, working on a deadline forces you to produce something. Third, it establishes some credits for future work. Editors at publications and book publishers like to see you’ve been published elsewhere. My advice is to start small. Do yourself a favor and invest in The Christian Writer’s Market Guide. This book is filled with hundreds, if not thousands of big and small Christian publications needing articles. There are lots of opportunities with publications such as Sunday School take-home curricula, denominational papers, niche Christian magazines, Christian websites, devotional magazines, etc. And here’s a really cool thing. Let’s say you have an idea. You can spin that idea in a variety of ways depending on the needs of the publication you’re pursuing. This is a great, great way to break into publishing and establish a bit of a name for yourself and to get used to writing professionally.The best way to query these publications is usually with a short email pitching your idea (though you’ll want to pay attention to the guidelines in the Market Guide or on their website). I also encourage you to begin pursuing guest posts on popular blogs in the area where you’d like to write. Unlike most print publications, blogs typically don’t pay in dollars, but they pay in traffic and exposure for your own blog and help you establish a reputation. Jeff Goins has a great blog on how to write a good guest post here. Typically the more popular blogs will have a section outlining their guidelines for guest posts. If there isn’t one, then you’ll simply want to email the proprietor and pitch your idea in a short email.

4) Get some professional training. I highly recommend you get some professional training and feedback on your writing. If you can afford it, I highly recommend attending a good Christian writer’s conference. The Christian Writer’s Market Guide should have a list of the popular conferences. I’ve attended and spoke at a number of them. If you’re in the Chicago area, I can’t recommend Write to Publish any higher. Others around the country are ones like Glorietta, ACFW, Write His Answer, and others. There are also one-day conferences. Really, Google “christian writer’s conferences.” Now, some words of advice. Not all of these are the same. I would look at the faculty teaching and the classes–does it fit what you want to do? And are do the faculty have substantial publishing credits? Also, see if there are editors attending and if they give time. This is one of the key benefits of attending a conference–you get to meet editors and build relationships that can sustain your writing career. If you can’t attend a conference due to costs, travel, etc, there are other options. I recommend taking a short course such as Jeff Goins’ Tribe Writers course. It’s relatively inexpensive and is packed with good stuff. Also, Mary DeMuth has some great resources as well. My writing mentor, Cecil Murphey has a terrific website with some really good, practical writing stuff. You want to grow in your craft. You want to improve.

5) Network. Writing can be a solitary calling–you and the laptop, so you need to work hard to find a community of writers who can strengthen you. You also need to build relationships with people in publishing. Relationships are everything. I highly recommend you join a Christian writer’s group either in your area or online. This is also why attending a conference is good as well. A few pieces of advice: Never burn bridges. Christian publishing is a small, small world. Editors move around. They talk. So if you become known as a prima dona or someone with very think skin when it comes to your work, well, you’ll have a harder time getting published. Never publicly bash editors or writers. Never gossip about editors to other editors, etc. You should do this, not only for your future career, but because you are a Christian called to “love one another.”

6) Get active on social media. I mentioned this last because there is a temptation to get active on social media without actually putting in the grunt work of writing. Don’t do this. Start writing and commit to some kind of schedule or deadline. But, I will say this, in this day and age, it’s vital to build a platform via social media. And here’s how to use it. You’ll want to use your social media accounts to leverage your writing. I typically use Bufferapp to send people to my blog posts. I also do this to send folks to my writing on other sites and, when a book comes out, to send them to my book. A tip here. I’ve found that using Buffer to schedule a “tweetable” quote from your work seems to work better at driving traffic than simply tweeting something like, “New blog . . . .” Another tip: find a few networks that work for you and use them regularly. You can’t employ every network. Twitter and Facebook work for me, but I’m going to explore using Pinterest this summer (and thereby sacrifice my mancard).

7) Read a lot. Good writers are active readers. Reading helps stimulate creative ideas and it also fills your well. Nourish your soul with good books from a variety of genres. I also recommend you take in content in other ways, such as sermon podcasts, online videos, etc. But you must regularly, regularly add to your creative reservoir.

The Rhythm of Forgiveness and Repentance

This past Sunday, in our sermon series Teach us to Pray, we looked at this phrase in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

Now this phrase of this prayer would be really wonderful if it stopped at “Forgive us our debts.” That’s how most of us pray, if we’re honest. The Bible tells us we enter life with a debt–a massive gap between us and God (Romans 3:23; Romans 5:12, among others). Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection erased paid that debt and offers reconciliation with God. Anyone who has put their faith in Christ can pray this prayer with hope, knowing his debt has been forgiven.

But the prayer doesn’t stop there. Jesus says that we’re to pray “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” This word “as” is not just a fill-in word here. It’s a real Greek word, hos that means , wait for it, . . .  as. So Jesus is saying exactly what we think He is saying, “Forgive us our debts in proportion to the way we forgive our debtors.” And just to be sure we understood what Jesus is saying, Jesus comments on this verse in verse 14—the only additional commentary he offered on any of these requests in the Lord’s Prayer—with this:

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, Matthew 6:14 (ESV)

Jesus talked like this over and over again. He is communicating some very hard truths here. They are difficult to swallow. He seems to be saying to us this: you are only forgiven as much as you forgive. Augustine called this a “terrible petition” because in this, we are really praying for God to withhold his forgiveness of us in proportion to how we forgive others. Charles Spurgeon said of this passage that to pray this, without practicing forgiveness is to “sign your own death warrant.”

What exactly does this passage mean? I think it can have several implications.

First, it can mean that if you have no ability, no desire to forgive others, perhaps you have not been forgiven yourself. One of the effects of the gospel is that it softens our heart and causes us to forgive, to let go of grudges. Jesus said in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” The mark of a true believer is his ability to forgive. Not that you’re not struggling with forgiveness. Not that you don’t wrestle with it. I like what Kent Hughes says by way of explanation in his Preaching the Word commentary on Matthew:

I am not referring to those who find that bitterness and hatred recur even though they have forgiven the offender. The fact that you have forgiven and continue to forgive is a sign of grace. We are not talking about people who are struggling with forgiveness. It is those who have no desire to forgive who are in soul danger. There may also be some who have been recently offended and are still in emotional shock and so have not been able to properly respond with forgiveness. The point is: If we are Christians, we can and will forgive!

These are hard words by Jesus, but words needed for those who perhaps may act religious, who have gone through the motions and think they are close to God yet have not been truly regenerated. One way to test your heart is to see if you are willing, able to forgive. This was the case of the Pharisees. They were religious. They kept the moral law. They were the conservatives of their generation. And yet Jesus said their hearts were like open graves. They couldn’t forgive.

And yet we know it can’t be saying that the way to get to Heaven, the way to earn God’s forgiveness of us is by forgiving. It’s not teaching a “works-based” salvation. It’s not saying, to earn favor with God, go forgive people. The point of this passage really is saying that as you are forgiven, so you forgive. A great parallel passage is in Matthew 18 and the parable Jesus shared of a king who forgave a man who owed a tremendous debt and then could not forgive the man who owed him a little one. To quote my friend, Ray Pritchard, “it was the king who first forgave.”

This is how the gospel begins in us. First, we’re forgiven by the king and then we forgive. We can’t ever forget the ordering of these two things. If we are to believe the gospel, we have to say that we can’t truly forgive until we’ve been forgiven. We don’t have the power. Romans reminds us that God “sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts by faith.” The gospel is the wellspring of forgiveness. This is what Paul means when he tells the Ephesians in 4:32: “Even as Christ forgave you, so also do you.” You forgive as you’ve been forgiven.

Secondly, this is a diagnosis of a Christian’s heart. We know Jesus’ primary audience is his disciples, who, by virtue of faith in Christ’s coming death and resurrection, will receive forgiveness. This is why they can call God abba to begin with. The gospel restores us to that intimate relationship with God. So in this phrase He asks us to pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” He is saying that we will feel and understand the full weight of God’s forgiveness of us as we forgive others.

In other words, God has forgiven us in Christ, but we often don’t fully enjoy that grace, we can’t rest in it, because we are committing the sin of unforgiveness.

At the same time, this prayer diagnoses the reason Christians hold grudges and can’t forgive. Why? Because they’ve forgotten the debts they’ve been forgiven of God. It again relates to Jesus’ parable in Matthew 18 about the King who forgave an enormous debt of one man, who then couldn’t forgive a smaller debt. Jesus is speaking to us, saying, “I’ve forgiven you the equivalent of trillions of dollars, say several times the national debt and you can’t forgive your brother five bucks.”

The reason we don’t forgive, the reason we harbor it in our hearts, is simple: We’ve forgotten the gospel. Forgiven people forgive. The problem is that we, like the Pharisees, often think God forgave us because we were already pretty good to start with. This pride keeps from forgiving others. This is especially a problem of longtime Christians. We hear the gospel and get converted and then we think we have to “move past it.” We don’t see ourselves the way God saw us before we came to Christ. We see ourselves as deserving of His mercy and grace. We don’t realize the great huge debt God forgave us.

That’s why I love Paul’s declaration that he was the “chief of sinners.” In other words, Paul looked around and said this, “As bad as others are, I’m worse. I’m the worst. God needed more grace for me than anyone else.” And that attitude kept Paul in the flow of God’s rich grace and able to forgive others.

You will not experience the full weight of God’s forgiveness of you until you learn how to forgive others. And you will not learn how to forgive others until you understand the full weight of Gods’ forgiveness of you.

Our forgiveness of others demonstrates how much we understand how much God has forgiven us. Our ability to forgive others tells God what we think of the gospel. If we think it was cheap, then we’ll forgive others cheaply. But if we see the cost, then we’ll forgive deeply

To pray and to live out this prayer is to be in the rhythm of repentance and forgiveness of the Christian life. We are constantly in need of repentance and constantly called to forgive. You will find this spiritual rhythm over and over in the Scriptures. It is the way of grace. And every relationship we have depends on this: repentance and forgiveness are the oil of human relationships.

This concept can radically change your marriage. If you recognize that you are a sinner in need of your spouses’ forgiveness and that your spouse is a sinner in need of forgiveness. So often Christians forget this principle and they let their relationships sort of harden and calcify. They’ve forgotten the gospel in their marriage and this is why there is bitterness, anger, and detachment. Marital intimacy depends on the gospel, this life cycle of repentance and forgiveness.

This concept also radically can alter your parenting. You as a parent must constantly ask your children for forgiveness and you must constantly forgive them. And on and on it goers throughout all of our relationships. This is why Jesus mentions this in the same context as our need for bread. Because a tranquil heart, right with God and man, is as vital as bread.

The Political Idol

Okay, I had a terrific interview with cultural commentator and author, Eric Metaxas about a wide-range of things including civic engagement, the role of the Church in culture, evangelical subcultures, and the controversial White House Prayer Breakfast. It was brought to my attention that the section of the interview I had previously highlighted might have been controversial in the sense that it didn’t give the full context of Eric’s remarks and given the impression that I agree with the idea that Christians generally create “subpart art.” Alas, that’s not my intention at all. So rather than stoke a controversy, I decided to highlight another portion. In this section I asked Eric about the tension Christians face between civility and courage:

To be merely and nakedly political and to say things and advocate for issues in an uncivil manner will create an idol of politics and results. To worship that idol is to deny the gospel in another way.

You can read the entire interview here:

How NOT to grow spiritually

How does a person grow? Specifically, for followers of Jesus, how does a person grow spiritually? Another word for growth is sanctification–that supernatural process by which the Holy Spirit takes the Word of God and forms us into Christ’s image. Growth is primarily a work that God does in us–I can’t, essentially, make myself grow.

And yet you can’t escape the New Testament’s overwhelming pulse that God commands us to intentionally pursue Him, that growth is, in some ways, our job as Christians. There are quite a few texts that illuminate this, but 1 Timothy 4:7 comes to mind. Paul here tells us to “discipline ourselves to godliness.” In other words, yes the Holy Spirit does the work in us, but we also will not grow if our Christian life consists of us sitting on the couch and waiting for growth to happen.

So how do we grow? What are the tools God uses? That question could fill up a year’s worth of blog posts. It certainly has motivated the writing of many books, sermons, etc. But maybe a better question is this: what are some ways to ensure that we DON’T grow spiritually? I’ve got five ways to ensure that you, as a Christian, do NOT grow spiritually:

1) Don’t Be Intentional About Your Spiritual Life. I’m amazed at how little Christians prioritize their spiritual growth. If you treat church as something you do if you can feel like it, then don’t be surprised if you don’t “get fed” at the place you worship. If you don’t intentionally pursue knowledge about God through reading of good books and listening to good podcasts, don’t be surprised at a lack of spiritual fruit. If you don’t prioritize a study of God’s Word, prayer, and the spiritual disciplines, you will not see continued growth. You will stay the same. If you don’t want to grow in Christ, make sure your spiritual life is something that gets the leftovers of your times and energy and effort. Make sure you never read a book that makes you get out a dictionary. Feed your soul on the light fare and the junk food.

2) Always Hang Out With People Just Like You. One of the ways God stretches us is by placing us with people who are radically different from us. We live in a world of radical individualization and, if you are not careful, this can creep into your life, especially as you get older and more secure in your worldview. You’ll be tempted to hang out only with people who agree with you and reinforce your own biases. This will ensure that you have the exact same opinion on every single issue as you did five years ago. It will also keep you from being exposed to people from differing cultures, tribes, and perspectives. If you don’t want to grow, keep looking for friends, churches, associations, blogs, books that just tell you what you like to hear all the time. Make sure you never have conversations with people who disagree with you, radically. Yeah, do that. This is a real growth killer.

3) Never take any risks. If you want to ensure that you are the same exact person you were five years ago, be so conservative in everything you do that you don’t take any risks. But here’s the thing, if you construct a life with minimal risk, you’re essentially editing out the need for faith. I heard this last week from a talk by Bryan Lorits. He essentially said that faith assumes risk. Imagine if Abraham stayed in Ur, because Ur was more secure. Would he have experienced all the richness of God’s love? Would he have grown into the mighty man of faith we see in Hebrews 11? No, he wouldn’t have. We probably wouldn’t have heard of him, would we? Take some risks in life. Put yourself in some situations, relationships, job assignments–that are completely and totally foreign, that will require maximum effort and knee-knocking faith.

4) Keep patting yourself on the back. There is a reason that the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). You only grow and you only find wisdom for life when you realize that you need to grow and that you need wisdom for life. Lot of young guys do this. They don’t read, study, ask questions, because they think they’ve got it figured out. This was me until I became a father of four and realized I have no clue about life and I need God to pour wisdom into me. I find this dynamic in my role as a pastor. The most humble, searching, digging-into-the-Scriptures guys are the ones who have lots of responsibility (family, job, etc). They know they are in need of divine guidance. If you don’t want to really grow spiritually, keep thinking you know stuff. Wisdom only comes after you’ve bowed your knee in humility to the God who knows all things. As long as you think you are the master of your universe and that you don’t need any help with anything, you will ensure that you will not grow.

5) Chase trends and dis faithfulness. If you want to have a life of unfruitfulness, keep chasing new trends and paradigms. Keep looking for the easy way out, the shortcut. People who stay the same are people who don’t like to work hard at growth, who don’t want to put in the blood, sweat, and tears of a life of impact. My generation–we love to talk big about how we are going to change the world–but I wonder if we value faithfulness and steadiness like previous generations. If you want an insignificant life of spurts and starts and stops, keep chasing the next big thing, keep avoiding the hard choices, the sweat, the grind of daily life. Keeping your hand at the wheel, year after year, ensures a life of depth, of weight, of character.

5 Ways Adult Children Can Honor Their Parents

How should an adult grown (presumably married, but not necessarily) child relate to his or her parents? There is a tension in Scripture between obeying the Scripture which says to “leave and cleave” in forming your own adult identity and family (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:5) and obeying the Scripture which says to “honor your father and mother” (Exodus 20:12; Ephesians 6:2).

Every family has it’s own rhythm. Every family has its own share of circumstances, from abusive to permissive to annoying, etc. So how one adult child handles his or her parents isn’t necessarily a blueprint for another. Still, the Scriptures seem to indicate an intentional approach to the way we love our parents as adults.

This is a journey I’ve travelled in the last few years. I seem to have endured the typical cycle: being cared for and nurtured by my parents as a child, distancing and forming my own identity as a teen (though still wanting their money and food), thinking my generation will solve all the mistakes my parents made, and finally where I am today: appreciating my parents and figuring out how I can love them better. I’m guessing you’ve travelled a similar road.

As I’ve pondered this important relationships, I’ve come up with five general guidelines for the way adult children should handle their parents. Like most of my lists, this is not exhaustive and I know that after reading this some outraged and enterprising blogger will create a response. So be it. Here’s the list:

1) Always respect your parents, even when it is difficult. By honoring, I think the Bible is saying more than simple respect. But it’s not saying less. I’m amazed at how I hear otherwise good, godly people treat their parents. I’ve been in nursing homes where kids are literally yelling and berating their parents. I realize that sometimes parents are not the easiest people to love, but this is why love is something we do and is not something we feel. Your parents, regardless of their flaws, brought you into the world. They nurtured and cared for you and loved you the best way they can. Give them some respect, treat them with kindness and deference, and realize that one day you’ll be the one with the walker and the really bad elastic pants. You don’t want your kids yelling at you that way, do you?

2) Find ways to affirm the good things they did in your childhood. I’m not sure there is a generation with more childhood angst than mine. We really think our parents messed everything up so badly and that we’ll get it just right. I thought this way right up until I became a father and realized just how difficult parenting could be. I understand the need for cartharsis and fleshing out past hurts and using your past as context for your future. Yes, I get it. But do we have to start every negative conversation with, “Growing up . . . .” I’m speaking to myself here. Let’s instead find ways to affirm the good our parents gave us–which is likely a lot more than we think. Let’s tell them to their faces how much we appreciate their care, their love, their goodness. Parents, especially as they age, can be incredibly reflective. They question themselves, Did I do the right thing? They have regrets, some even have shame. So be an encouragement to your parents. Do this often and do it with intentionality.

3) Find ways to bless them in physical ways. Sometimes this simply means going out for coffee and shutting up and letting them talk. Let them tell those same stories they’ve told before. It’s good for them and good for you. Sometimes this means lending financial support if your parents fall on hard times (and please, save the lectures on wise money management. You should not be Dave Ramsey to your parents. Just help them if you can). Sometimes this means doing physical things, helping them clean out their home, taking them to doctor appointments, the airport, or anything they need. Sometimes this means allowing them, in advanced age, to stay in your home and care for them. All of this, I think, is in the spirit of what the Scripture says when it says to “honor your father and mother.” It means to make sure they are always well-cared for as best you can. It’s ironic how the life cycle goes, is it not? Our parents spend their most productive years caring for us and now we get to return the favor and care for them.

4) Set healthy boundaries. You need to set healthy boundaries with your parents so they know where the lines are between your family and them. They don’t always know this and sometimes if the distance is too big, they think they are imposing every time they come over. If the distance is too small, it can suffocate your own family. You need to “leave” your parents in the sense that you need to be financially and physically separate as best you can. You’ll have to have some frank conversations at times. Again, every situation is different, so no judgement here, just some general wisdom. In setting boundaries, always, always, always do it with grace and respect (see #1 above). Make sure you are making your own decisions in your family, but don’t hesitate to ask your parents advice. You don’t have to take it but you just might learn something from it and it will make them feel good as well.

5) Don’t try to change your parents. The real way to love and honor your parents is to simply just love and honor them, despite their flaws, despite the annoying things you disliked when you were a kid. Put up with whatever it is they do that annoys you. Do it, not because you’ll get a tangible benefit, but because they are your parents and you are to love them. Let them know they are welcome in your home, that you enjoy having them around, that they don’t have to walk on eggshells around you. Yes, you’re way of doing family may be different (that’s okay), yes they will probably give your kids candy before dinner (that’s okay, too), yes you wish they were a little more this way or a tad more that way. But hey, they are your parents, they brought you into the world, and if you are serious about obeying and following Jesus, you’ll honor them and love them.

 

My 5 Rules of Writing

I’ve been working with words, in one way or another, since I was in high-school and it has been work with words that has formed the majority of my adult working life, both as a writer, editor and now in my role as a pastor. Writing is one of my loves and one of the few things I think I can do reasonably well, though I’m a long, long way from good.

Lots of people ask me what my “method” is for writing. I haven’t given much thought about it, but perhaps it’s worth a blog post. So here are my five rules of writing, if you are interested:

1) Don’t despise small things. Most people start with a book idea, the magnum opus of their lives. But if you start with that, your book won’t be very good. Better to start with small projects for lesser-known publications. Do this for two reasons: 1) To cut your teeth writing and get experience and 2) to build a resume of credits. Magazine editors and book publishers like to see that you’ve been published before. Blogging is starting to flatten that a bit. Still, it’s important to start blogging when only your mother and your wife reads what you write.

2) Above all, keep writing. The best way to get better at writing is to . . . well, write. So to piggyback off of #1, start writing when you’re a nobody and keep writing when you have no audience. For almost 8 years I wrote in total obscurity for a Christian organization, managing their publications, converting sermons into devotionals, articles, and books. This, as I look back, was one of the most important seasons of my life. It taught me to write fast and to produce something.

3) Be editable. Hold your words and ideas loosely. I recently had someone tell me their first draft was ready for publishing. This was the first draft of anything they’d ever written before. It’s not ready for publication. It needs a trained eye, some seasoning, some polishing. The best writing is collaborative. That is to say that you write the very best you can at that moment (a lesson Cecil Murphey taught me) and then allow others to heavily criticize it and edit it. Those red marks are not your enemy, but your best friend. If you’ve read a good book recently that inspired you its because the author had a few unseen eyes polish it. Be grateful for editors. This is God’s way of keeping you humble. In the immortal words of one of my editors, “You’re not Hemingway, so you need an editor.” Yes, yes. The older you get, the more you will actually seek out good editors to look at your stuff. I have two or three folks who do this for major book projects.

4) Find your voice. The thing about writing and getting more and more experience writing–is that you find your voice. Don’t strive to be the next ______. To quote Jon Acuff, that slot is already taken. Be you. And your voice will mature and grow as you mature and grow. Fill up your soul with good reading, life experiences, faith, and love. Drink deeply from a variety of sources and allow your ideas to be shaped and formed. This, more than anything, will make your writing sparkle and grow and inspire. The words I wrote as a young college student probably would inspire nobody now, mainly because I was writing from a position of perceived knowledge, but had not endured any of the real rhythms of life in a fallen world.

5) Find your own method. Some more disciplined writers get up every day at 5 am and crank out 5,000 words, regardless if they have a project. For many years I beat myself up, thinking that needed to be me. Then I realized that this just doesn’t work for me. I’m a deadline guy. I need a deadline to produce. So what I do is continually seek new projects and new ideas which give me new deadlines. Blogging makes this a bit more challenging, however, I’ve committed myself to two or three blogs a week. What’s really cool about this is that I simply write a blog whenever I’m inspired with a short idea that won’t be suitable for an article or a chapter. Then I just sit down and write it and schedule it. So this blog here came right before I was to work on a chapter. I scheduled it to post today. Interestingly, I don’t have a set time that works best for me. I can write at night, in the morning, late at night. Typically with a book project, I do this: I sit down for a large chunk of time and do the writing and I write until I absolutely can’t write anymore. Then I put it to rest for a few days and go back and start editing and then start writing again. Works for me.

A few other thoughts on finding my own method. I tend to work best with music on. For some that distracts. For me, it inspires. I have a hymns playlist that really gets me in the mood for deep reflection. Another key thing for me, is to have a pad of paper handy to write down key thoughts for that chapter or book–to sort of frame a loose outline. For some unexplainable reason, a pen in my hand and paper is better for capturing first seed thoughts. For a while I felt bad that perhaps I should have a more digital tool for this–Evernote or something. But then I remembered that it’s really okay to use a pen and paper. Sometimes digital tools make life more complicated. Lastly, I tend to like to do a bunch of research first, online or in books, and mark it up and organize it before I do my chapter (I do this with my sermons as well). Then I print out the online stuff. I know I could easily just read it online, but again, something about paper and pen here that serves well. I do use Evernote for online articles–just to have one place to keep them for going back and doing footnotes. By the way, I hate footnoting, I hate this work, but it’s important and publishers really keep you on your toes about sources. And as a reader I enjoy being able to see the sources for folks in their books. Still, I hate footnoting. Cool feature of Heaven, btw? No footnoting.

Out of Ur: Friday Five Interview: D.A. Carson

My first Friday Five interview for Leadership Journal posts today. First up?  Bible scholar and author, DA Carson:

You recently released a book, Jesus, the Son of God. Why the emphasis on son-ship for pastors and theologians today?

The title “the Son of God” is one that is repeatedly applied to the Lord Jesus, so there is a perennial responsibility to understand it. There are two factors that make this responsibility more urgent at the present time. First, sometimes the world of biblical interpretation and the world of systematic theology do not mesh very well. In this instance, how do we move from the various uses of “Son of God” in the Bible to the meaning of “Son of God” in Trinitarian theology? There are important ways of making the connections, but not many Christians these days have thought them through. To restore such knowledge is a stabilizing thing, and an incentive to worship. Second, certain voices are suggesting that we can do away with “Son of God” and other familial terms in new translations for Muslim converts. In my view this is both bad linguistics and bad theology, and needs to be challenged.

To read the rest, click here: Out of Ur: Friday Five Interview: D.A. Carson.

Christians and Online Engagement: Some Great Links

How should Christians engage online? What should inform the words we use the debates we engage?

I’ve been studying this question for a particular project (more on that whenever there is more on that). In my study, I’ve come across some terrific articles. I thought I’d pass them along:

“An Open Letter to My Politically Outspoken Facebook Friend”  - Jeremy Writebol at Gospel Centered Discipleship

“Consider Yourself” – Burk Parsons at Ligonier

“Honoring Christ Online” an interview with Tim Challies

“Why Christians are Jerks Online” – Jon Acuff at CNN.com

“Defined by Who We Aren’t” – Barnabas Piper at World Magazine

“A Word to Christians – Be Nice” – John S. Dickerson

The Best Kind of Protest

Last week, on the way home from classes at TEDS, I listened in on a radio conversation on Moody Radio (90.1 FM). The host was my friend, Chris Fabry. Chris told the story of a listener who write in to express his appreciation for Christian radio. The man had come across Moody in a roundabout way. His car was in the shop for repair and the mechanic had not done the work in the time the customer thought appropriate. So he berated the mechanic quite forcefully.

What caught this angry customer off guard was the response of the mechanic, a Christian. He didn’t return fire. He responded with kindness. This unusual display of love completely threw the customer off guard. Upon leaving, he noticed a “fish symbol” somewhere in the shop. And after starting up his car to go home, he heard Moody Radio playing on the stereo. Somewhere after this time (I wasn’t clear from Chris’ telling of the story), this angry customer, who berated and verbally abused a Christian businessman, put his faith in Christ.

This story made me think long and hard about my response to injustice done to me. It particularly made me think about the current brouhaha over gay marriage. Like most evangelicals, I hold to the biblical position of marriage and am offended when those who disagree consider me a bigot or hateful. I am offended by the words of Starbuck’s CEO Howard Schultz, who essentially told us we can “take our money elsewhere.” Starbucks is a company and a brand that prides itself in diversity, a biblical, kingdom value, so I’m curious about the intolerance toward conservative Christians.

But there’s another side to this we need to consider before we take up a protest against Starbucks. I respect those who will say, “I choose to invest my money elsewhere.” That’s a perfectly legitimate and biblically defensible position. I’ve done this with some of my investment choices over the years. But here’s the rub: however we handle Starbucks and other such controversies, we have to ask ourselves the questions: how does the Great Commission inform our public engagement.

Somewhere at a Starbucks is a lonely, seeking, hurting employee whom God just may want you or me to love into the Kingdom. Perhaps there is a family member struggling with same-sex attraction who is looking for someone to walk him through these struggles–with both truth and grace. Somewhere there is an unbeliever watching our public pronunciations and asking himself, “I wonder what Christianity is about.”

There is a place for firm resistance to unbiblical values. You can oppose gay marriage because in loving your city and community and country, you hope for a culture that embraces the family unit. And yet, we must ask ourselves the question, always, “How does what I’m doing fit the mission of God to seek and save those who are far from Him?”

I think this informs the way we engage. Personally I’m choosing not to boycott Starbucks. You may choose differently. We can disagree on that charitably. But what we must not do is allow our protest against values with wich we disagree overshadow our responsibility to show Christ’s love for the world. Our posture, when offended and maligned, should be like Jesus’ response. “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). It should not be to “return evil for evil” (1 Peter 3:9) and seek to win short-term cultural skirmishes that surrender the long-term battle for someone’s heart.

Like Jesus we must hold truth and grace in tension (John 1:14). We must be both courageous and civil (1 Peter 3:15). Because it may very well be the person who offends us the most in that moment whom God is in the process of saving. And our gracious response might be the bridge that the Spirit uses to usher him from death to life.