Episode 212: Drew Dyck on Christian Publishing, Part 2

By / May 24

On this episode of the FTC Podcast, author and Moody Publishers editor Drew Dyck returns to talk about the ins and outs of Christian publishing, including plagiarism, ghostwriting, and more.



Cynicism Isn’t a Spiritual Gift

By / May 23

One of my favorite verses in the New Testament is a bit of an odd one. James, writing about prayer and dependence on God, makes this statement: Elijah was a man like us (James 5:17).

Now, I’ve gone to church my whole life and have learned a lot about Elijah. He’s the wild wilderness dude who called out a wicked king in Israel, Ahab, and his equally wicked wife, Jezebel. Think about this. To this day, in 2023, Jezebel is a euphemism for wickedness. There is even a trashy magazine with this name!

Not only did Elijah have the courage to call out wicked rulers—at a time when doing so usually meant you would die—but he challenged the false religious leaders of his day to a special kind of duel. He called down fire from heaven on Mount Carmel in an epic display of God’s power. As a kid this was always a favorite story in Sunday school and vacation Bible school and summer camp. Elijah was an example of boldness and courage, almost like a Bible superhero. He even made flannel graph exciting.1

So, when James says, “Yeah, Elijah was like us,” I do a double take. I’ve built a nice bonfire in my back yard, but I’ve never called down fire from heaven. I’ve written some pretty snarky social media posts, but I’ve never stood in the court of a king who could cut my head off and told him he was wrong. I had to walk half a mile to the showers at camp, but I never lived in the wilderness like Elijah. I’ve prayed that it wouldn’t rain, especially when we lived in Nashville, where rain is its own season, but I’ve never prayed a prayer that stopped all precipitation for three and a half years. So how is Elijah like me?

Well, to see the humanity of this superhero, we have to go to a passage of 1 Kings that is usually left off the flannel graph. Here, Elijah kind of does look like us. He’s burned out. He’s tired. And he’s pretty cynical about the people of God.

You might say that if he had social media, he’d be complaining about being the one person standing for truth. Or he might be the person who stays home on Sunday because “no church is preaching the gospel right.” Or he might be the guy at the office who grew up in church and now says that Christians are a bunch of hypocrites.

Elijah, in one chapter, has turned from prophet to cynic. Fresh off an epic battle where he called out the false prophets and God sent rain again after a famine, Elijah fled to the wilderness because Jezebel still wouldn’t repent.

God’s messenger is discouraged and defeated. He’s weak and vulnerable. His heart is crusted over with layers of suspicion and contempt. “I’m the only one,” Elijah complains to God. “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too” (1 Kings 19:14).

What’s strange about Elijah here is that he has just come off a spiritual victory where he witnessed the power of God to move the hearts of Israel from idolatry to true worship. And yet all he can see is the one person in Israel who refuses to worship God: Jezebel.

Elijah was a prophet of God. Prophets are often called to do hard things, to stir up the people of God away from sin and toward righteousness. It’s often a lonely task to say hard things. We need prophets in our day, gifted and godly men and women willing to say things that are hard to be said, to call out wickedness.

And yet there is a difference between being prophetic and being cynical. Prophets wrap hard words in hope. If you read Isaiah and Jeremiah and John the Baptist and Micah and others, you’ll read rebukes, but you will also read words of hope and comfort, a path forward from sin to salvation. Cynics aren’t interested in salvation or transformation. They’re only interested in an endless self-loathing ministry of doom.

A prophet speaks to people he loves with tears. A cynic disdains the people he is called to confront. A prophet’s desire is to see transformation. A cynic’s desire is to bring attention to himself.

Today, cynicism is contagious. It has become a movement, a niche lifestyle, a way of being.

God’s words to Elijah are sobering. “Seven thousand men have not bowed the knee to Baal” (v. 17). In other words, “Elijah, you are not the only one doing the right thing.” In plain English, God is telling his servant to get over himself. What’s more, God tells Elijah to get up and prepare to meet his successor. What a humbling moment.

God is telling this prophet that not only is he not the only one following Yahweh but also someone will come after him who will carry on his ministry. Elijah, by yielding to cynicism, lost his voice.

And so do we. We think we are telling it like it is to other Christians. We get up in the morning, look in the mirror, and see a spiritual hero. But God’s word to Elijah and to us is this: “You are not the only one following the right path. I have many others. This is not about you.”

Nonprophet Ministry

God’s word to Elijah wasn’t that God’s people don’t need prophetic voices. Throughout Scripture, we see the Lord raise up leaders to speak hard words to stir God’s people away from sin and lethargy. In the Old Testament, the words of the prophets to wayward Israel are words we should read today and take to heart. And in the New Testament, Jesus and the apostles were unsparing in their denunciations of sin and calls to repentance.

And yet there is a way that prophetic words should be delivered. They are words designed to build up and not destroy and are to be delivered not with glee but with humility. Consider the way Paul urges young Timothy to engage the church with hard words. In the midst of his urging Timothy to be bold against the incursion of false doctrine and sin in the church (1 Tim. 1:3–11, 18–20), he is transparent about his own fallenness. Paul remembers that before he was the apostle who wrote much of the New Testament, planted churches around the world, and was persecuted for his faith, he was “once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man.” But “I was shown mercy,” he writes of his conversion, “and the grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly” (vv. 12–13).

Paul’s prophetic ministry was born of his brokenness, of his love for the people of God. He wasn’t coming in hot, trying to score rhetorical points or speak hard words for the sake of speaking hard words. Paul resisted the urge to make himself the center of things. Writing to the church at Corinth, which was steeped in carnality and sensuality, Paul’s spirit was of a humble, almost reluctant prophet: “And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling” (1 Cor. 2:1–5).

The apostle wasn’t spoiling for a fight. His aim wasn’t more notoriety but repentance and the building up of the people of God. Paul saw the church the way Jesus sees the church, as the bride of Christ. So even as he penned tearful letters of rebuke, he wrote from a place of love.

Today, loathing seems more in vogue than love. Some prophets are worth listening to, but I find much critical commentary on the church today to be dripping with disdain. And the digital algorithms on social media reward this negativity.

In my experience, when I write something positive about the church or about a local church, I get negative feedback. But if I write something critical about the church, especially a wide, sweeping condemnation (I am writing fewer of these lately), it almost always goes viral.

Ironically, I find that the Christians who fight each other the most in public seem to share a cynical outlook. Either these would-be Elijahs see themselves as mighty warriors for justice, rooting out racism and sexism and every other bad ism from among deplorable Christians, or they see themselves as righteous guardians of orthodoxy, more courageous than those soft compromisers. In their minds, the church is either drifting toward heresy or embracing injustice.

How easy it is for us to lament, whether in our online discussions or in our conversations with fellow Christians, “the state of the church” than to talk about the good things God might be doing among his people. It’s easier to think that every church in town is weak or doesn’t preach the gospel or doesn’t do enough in the community than to roll up our sleeves and get involved and to lift our eyes to see the Spirit at work.

There is little market for the reality that the church is both messy and beautiful, sinful and sanctified, wonderful and wayward. Pastor Jon Tyson said it best recently: “There is a fine line between the prophetic and the cynical. One brings needed critique, the other brings unneeded criticism.” 2

1 – Read the complete epic story in 1 Kings 18:16–46.
2 – Jon Tyson (@JonTyson), “There is a fine line,” Twitter, March 12, 2022, twitter.com/JonTyson/status/1502743230537994247.

This excerpt reprinted with permission from Agents of Grace: How to Bridge Divides and Love as Jesus Loves. Pick up your copy using the link below.



Thousands of Happy, Unwitting Plagiarists: The Shaping Legacy of Tim Keller

By / May 22

I had not heard of Tim Keller at the point of my “gospel wakefulness.” It was sometime in 2005 when the Lord broke through my depression and thoughts of suicide and arrested my attention to the glory of Jesus in a way I’d never experienced before. Everything changed for me, but it was not the result of someone pointing me to a gospelly website or taking me to a gospelly conference. Those things didn’t really exist yet.

But they would soon enough, and as I was trying, like Bambi on the ice, to get my feet under me with a “new” paradigm for life and ministry, someone down the road said, “You have to listen to Tim Keller.”

I’m pretty sure it was Steve McCoy. This was in the heyday of the blogosphere, which was a smallish pond back then, with a few of us splashing around in it quite dramatically. A couple of years out of my grace awakening, I was leading a young adult ministry at an attractional megachurch west of Nashville, Tennessee and by God’s kind providence had connected online with a handful of fellow Gen-Xer’s also trying to figure out how to do “this gospel stuff” in pragmatic, consumeristic, or otherwise “traditional” church spaces. We weren’t buying what the emergent church was selling. Steve had a page on his blog compiling all kinds of resources, written and audio from this Presbyterian guy in New York City. If you wanted to be “gospel-centered,” Tim Keller was Yoda.

Despite being a prolific blogger, I was (and am) a techno-moron, so I didn’t know how to listen to podcasts or other online audio on an iPod or anything like that. Somebody — my brother? my friend Bill? I’m not sure — burned me a CD of Keller’s talk at the inaugural Gospel Coalition Conference (2007) called “What is Gospel-Centered Ministry?” A couple of different edits of this talk have appeared online over the last 16 years, and there was not video available back when I first heard it. The version I listened to included the introduction of Keller, in which it was said he was becoming “a household name.” In response, in his opening remarks, Keller made some kind of dad-joke about a husband and wife being in the kitchen and things being mentioned like “salt . . . cumin . . . Tim Keller.” (That bit has been excised from the existing audio now available.)

It was a lame joke but showed his awkwardness with the idea of “celebrity,” I think. And this was 2007. He was not even close to the celebrity he would become.

I wore that CD out. I still revisit that talk, probably every 18 months or so. In 2007 it was like the opposite effect Pandora’s Box for ministry. You opened it up, and a million blessings were unleashed into the world. Jonathan Edwards and preaching to the heart? It’s in that talk. Law and gospel distinction? It’s in that talk. Idolatry as the root of every sin? It’s in that talk. The pastoral counseling application of the gospel “on audio” but not “on video?” It’s in that talk.

The now-famous “Jesus is the true and better . . .?” It’s in that talk.

That conference talk became a kind of Rosetta stone for me, and I’m sure I ripped off at least a dozen quotables from it for my own work. More importantly, it gave me a framework for gospel-centered ministry that nobody had given me. I grew up in a vanilla SBC church, later cutting my ministry teeth in the “contemporary service” climate and finding what little training anybody thought to offer in the midst of the seeker church phenomenon. I had come to Reformed soteriology before that, independent of my church, thanks to the influence of some Christian friends, but my ecclesiology was terrible, my hermeneutic was self-centered, and my philosophy of ministry was shallow. With the rising influence of the gospel-centered ecosystem, that was beginning to change.

I read a lot of Keller white papers on gospel ministry and church planting. I must admit that in the planting of a church in Nashville, I was heavily influenced by “the vibe” of Mark Driscoll, but all the stuff that had hand-holds came from Keller. When the man himself came to Nashville to speak one evening at Christ Presbyterian Church, a few of us from the church planting team were in attendance. And we made the drive to Chicago in 2009 for the second Gospel Coalition Conference.

In that same year, I moved from suburban Nashville to rural Vermont, assuming the pastorate of a 200-plus year old church in a very little town. By that time, I was neck deep in Kellerisms. The Prodigal God had recently released, and having personally experienced the “prodigal grace” of Christ in my own life, I was further inspired to ladle grace on thick with my new congregation.

We used his Gospel in Life study in our small groups. When The Reason for God came out, some in my flock were really excited. Christians are a distinct minority in irreligious Vermont, and my people had friends who were not only unbelievers, but in some respects hostile to the exclusivist ideas of Christian theism. Several of us read the book. I bought the video series and we used it in a small group. We watched weekly as Keller sat with a small group of his own made up of skeptics and non-Christians, listening to their questions and navigating their doubts and criticisms. What did it teach us about Keller’s approach to evangelism and apologetics? First, to listen as one who’s genuinely interested in the soul of another person. Secondly, to always bring your response back to Jesus.

As the years went on, I noticed as more and more of my gospelly tribesmen seemed to grow disillusioned with the stuff. Scandal after scandal might do that to you. A waning interest among publishers and marketers might do that too. Just getting older can do that too. We lose the energy of our youth and its attendant infatuations. I would probably be among them if it weren’t for what happened to me in that Nashville guest bedroom in 2005.

So I kept on keepin’ on. And what I discovered is that those who also kept in step with the truth of gospel-centrality tended to be those who had not just adopted it as a ministry paradigm or a cultural movement but who had been in some sense hijacked by it before they knew about paradigms or movements! Keller’s “conversion” to gospel-centrality was similar. So while some of the other leading voices gradually changed their tunes, shifting emphases with the shifting times, he was still holding the line for grace over law. There is almost nothing in that 2007 talk that he wasn’t emphasizing ten years prior and that he wasn’t emphasizing til the day he died.

I only got to meet Keller two or three times. The only meeting of any substance was a few years ago in Memphis where we were speaking at the same event. Mark Dever and a couple of others were there too. We’d each been given ten minutes or so to give a talk on an assigned topic. The stage was arranged for us to sit on a couple of couches during the other presentations, and Keller and I shared a couch. As he got up to speak — without notes, intelligently, with authority and great insight — I sat behind him and thought, “I can’t believe I’m here.” If you had told me in 2007 I’d be sharing a stage with Yoda, I wouldn’t have believed you. It was humbling. And terrifying. Because I still had to take my turn.

There’s a great photo someone took of my standing at the lectern giving my talk, Keller seated on the couch behind me, staring at the side of my head with a look of . . . what? It’s hard to say. It’s amusement, I think. My read on the image is that it was yet another moment, among many in his life, I’m sure, where Keller had to listen to someone regurgitate several years’ worth of his own material. He might have been seated on a couch behind me, but I was standing on his shoulders.

He may have entered into his reward, but I’ll still be standing on his shoulders, riding his gospelly coattails, and recycling all his best stuff forever and ever, Amen.

Earlier at the event I had lunch in a break room with Keller and a couple of men who had traveled with him. It wasn’t a deep conversation. He asked me about my role at Midwestern Seminary and about my family. It wasn’t a long conversation. A little later, we found ourselves standing in a darkened hallway outside the room, I think preparing for mic checks or something. I don’t remember all the details about that conversation either, but I do remember he asked me about why people online are so mean. I’m sure he asked it in a more intelligent way, but that was the gist of it. (This actually isn’t the first time an elder statesman in the gospel-centered tribe has asked me this question.) I don’t know exactly what I said in response, but it amounted to “I don’t know.” And that was basically it.

I had nothing of substance to offer the man who had given me over many years nothing but substance!

I’m sure whatever answers he had come up with to the question would be better than mine anyway. And when I find out what they are, I’ll rip those off too. I don’t think he’ll mind. I imagine him now looking down from that big couch in the sky with a pleasant bemusement on his face. The Kellerisms have reached the bloodstream, for heaven’s sake.

What the man has crafted for so many of us is a framework and a vocabulary, a translatable Reformation theology that fits any context. Like Tolkien’s Elvish, he created a language for us to speak, and not just for kicks, but to give real expression to the real work of grace in our real lives.

In some ways, the real measure of a great leader’s legacy is not in his production of books and sermons or in the planting of a big church or the building of some great organizations or of anything like that. It’s likely in the way the impression of him, the influence of him shapes those left behind. What I mean is, plenty of people like The Prodigal God or The Reason for God, but plenty more are saying things like “The gospel isn’t the ABC’s of the Christian life, but the A to Z” without even knowing they’re quoting Tim Keller. And there are multiple dozen more quotables just like that now just existing in the evangelical aether. Because of Keller. He has left behind great works, yes, but he’s also left behind thousands of happy, unwitting plagiarists, and as a man who cared more about the gospel than his own reputation, I think he’d be perfectly fine with that.



What is the Spirituality of God?

By / May 17

Editor’s Note: The Theology in the Everyday series seeks to introduce and explain theological concepts in 500 words or less, with a 200-word section helping explain the doctrine to kids. At For The Church, we believe that theology should not be designated to the academy alone but lived out by faith in everyday life. We hope this series will present theology in such a way as to make it enjoyable, connecting theological ideas to everyday experience and encouraging believers to study theology for the glory of God and the good of the Church. This week, the Spirituality of God.

How often do you think of the spirituality of God? After all, Jesus upheld God’s spirituality when he told the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well that “God is spirit” (John 4:24). But do we know what that means? For many, the term ‘spirituality’ has become a vague and perhaps fearsome notion used by new-agey folk to describe their ever-elusive conception of God or ‘the divine’. Others hear the word and recall the famous (though just as vague) phrase, “I’m spiritual but not religious.” All the while, the biblical and time-tested doctrine of God’s spirituality fades into the fog of misconception, leaving us in desperate need of what Lewis called ‘the clean sea breeze of the centuries’1 to blow through our minds and re-awaken us to the beauty of this doctrine.

One strong sea breeze, called the Westminster Confession of Faith, upholds God’s spirituality in this way: “There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions. . .” (2.1.). Notice the logic: the spirituality of God—His being a ‘most pure spirit’—necessitates that He is ‘invisible’ and ‘without body, parts, or passions’. The former characteristic is somewhat easier to grasp, for it lines up well with our everyday experience of faith in Christ: “Though you have not seen him, you love him… and believe in him” (1 Pet 1:8). The latter are slightly more dicult to grasp, for they beckon us beyond human experience by reminding us that God is not confined to such tiny things as space and time and physicality. Instead, God “exceeds all in the nature of being… [having] nothing gross, heavy or material in his essence.”2 Thus, to uphold the spirituality of God is to bask in wonder at His infinite perfections and eternal glory. To deny God’s spirituality is to “exchange the truth about God for a lie, and to worship and serve what has been created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever” (Rom 1:25).

The spirituality of God reminds us that we—created, physical, and finite beings—must continually remember two things as we ponder His majesty. First, we must let our thoughts of the One who is an infinite and eternal spirit rise above all that we can see, taste, touch, hear, and smell. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, we must never grow dull to the reality that this same infinite, invisible, and immaterial God “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).

For the Kids

Hey kids! The spirituality of God is another way of talking about the invisible bigness of God. As part of God’s creation, you and I are small and fragile and made up of (rather funny!) things like arms and legs and fingers and toes. We even get mad and upset and angry from time to time. Thankfully, God is not like us.

Since God is the Creator and not a creature, there was never a time in the beginning when someone said, “Let there be God!” As amazing as it sounds, God already was, and since He already was, He is not made up of anything in the whole world. This is why God tells Moses, “I am who I am” (Ex 3:14). There’s simply nobody like our invisible, big God!

So, when we say that God is ‘a spiritual Being’ we are saying that God is [kind of] like the wind. Think about it: you can feel the wind on your skin; you can hear the wind in your ears; and you can see the effects of the wind on things like trees, leaves, and dirty dusty streets! But at the end of the day, you can’t actually see the wind, can you?

The same is true of God. We can’t see Him with our eyes, and we can’t hear Him with our ears. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t know God with our minds or feel God in our hearts or see God at work in the world around us! In fact, because God is a spiritual Being, He can be anywhere He wants to be and do anything He wants to do, whenever and wherever He wants. Our God simply has no limits!

So, kiddo, the next time you go outside and feel the wind blowing all around you, remember: you worship an amazing, invisible God!

1. C.S. Lewis, On the Incarnation.
2. Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Vol. I), 271.



Five Reasons Why Pastors Should Share Their Pulpit

By / May 17

Every bad church story happens either at a business meeting or a deacon’s meeting. This was a deacon’s meeting—circa, Spring of 2011. I was a 25-year-old youth leader who desperately want to learn and grow as a pastor—particularly in preaching. Our church just lost its pastor and hired an interim—Pastor Don. God bless him. Pastor Don (at the time) was 82 years old. He’d been serving the Lord for many years, and he wasn’t too fond of me wanting to preach. In fact, in the deacon’s meeting, he looked at me and said, “Brandon, it’s not your job to preach. That’s not why the church hired you.” I won’t lie. Those words hurt. But they also helped me, because in that moment, I determined that if I ever had the opportunity to preach regularly, I would share my pulpit with up-and-coming preachers.

Pastors may be hesitant to do this for several reasons.

  1. They’re worried about what the congregation will think. In small churches, especially, people think the main pastor should be preaching every week. That’s why they pay him. The pastor, then, is afraid to let another person preach (unless he’s on vacation), because he doesn’t want to make people mad.
  2. He’s worried the younger preacher be better than him. This shouldn’t happen, but it does. Pastors can be some of the most insecure people in the world. They certainly don’t want a young man making them look bad.
  3. The young man is inexperienced. Preachers who haven’t preached much are, by definition, inexperienced. This discourages the main pastor from putting him into the pulpit too quickly.

But pastors should not hesitate to train young preachers despite the challenges. Here are five reasons why.

  1. Training preachers is biblical. Paul told Timothy: “what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2nd Timothy 2:2). Paul trained Timothy. Timothy was to train the next generation of Bible teachers who could then train more Bible teachers. That’s four generations of preachers.
  2. Training preachers is a ministry in itself. Every church should do this, but if you’re in a normative size church (75-250), and perhaps you’re being tactically patient in terms of how fast you change things, finding a young preacher to train is very rewarding work. You don’t need leadership or congregational approval to disciple someone. Plus, the impact you could make in this man’s life, who will then impact others, is immeasurable.
  3. Training preachers encourages the congregation in a unique way. When a young man preaches, even if he’s not very good, godly saints will be encouraged. You can even encourage this encouragement by saying things like, “Isn’t it nice to see a young person training for the ministry.” Trust me. Senior saints love that.
  4. Training preachers proves the pastor is humble and fearless. As stated before, a lot of pastors won’t allow another preacher in their pulpit because they’re insecure. When you train preachers, you show that your teaching ministry is not about you, and you’re not afraid. Who cares if he’s better. You should hope he is! Do we not need more great preachers?
  5. Training preachers creates more preachers. Good preaching begets good preachers. John Piper wanted to be a doctor. But then he got sick and laid idle in a hospital bed. That’s when he heard a compelling sermon that made him say, “I want to do that with my life.” Only God can call his preachers, but he often does it through preaching. Give guys opportunities and you will create a culture of training men for ministry.

Pastor, don’t be afraid to share your pulpit. It’s your job to train the next generation of preachers and shepherds. In doing so, you will not only be blessed yourself, but you will also encourage your church, show you aren’t afraid and raise up more preachers for the ministry.



Episode 211: Books Every Christian Should Own

By / May 17

Get a pen and paper handy! You’ll want to write these recommendations down. On this episode of the FTC Podcast, Jared Wilson and Ross Ferguson discuss what ought to be included on every Christian family bookshelf.



Finding Rest on the Road

By / May 16

Where Are We Going?

They say that when you have young kids, you don’t take vacations. Instead, you take trips. I don’t want to fight over the semantics of these two words, but I understand the sentiment.

When you have young children on vacation, the experience is rarely two beach chairs, toes in the water, and bliss in the sand. Don’t get me wrong, some of life’s greatest moments have come on family vacations. We can relax as we unplug and detox from bright screens and endless work. But there’s a reason some people use the trip/vacation distinction.

Even though you’re removed from the stress of one world, similar tensions and challenges exist as you travel with your family. If you’re like me, you lose your wallet and spend the entire first day of vacation searching for it. You break up fights between siblings, build the day’s fun around nap schedules, and test your family’s patience as you try to snap the perfect golden hour photo.

With that long list of potential family vacation pain points, I want to encourage you to add one more potentially stressful activity to your vacation plans – attending a church service. I know, you’re rolling your eyes just like my wife did when I first proposed this idea en route to our vacation destination. She came around, and I’m hoping you will too.

New Adventures

On our most recent trip to Oklahoma we went to a service where our friend was doing church revitalization work. It was an adventure. As we do almost every Sunday, we arrived a few minutes late. Our late arrival resulted in a wild goose chase through their old 1920s church building, trying to find the auditorium. After cracking a few doors open inside, and a walk around the building on the outside, we finally made it to our seats. Our daughter, who isn’t afraid to say what’s on her mind, whispered, “This is the best Sunday ever!” She loved the adventure!

When it came time to pass the offering plate, something we’re not used to in our home church context, I encouraged our daughter to give some of her money to the church. I thought she’d put a dollar in, but she pulled a twenty out of her wallet. Before I could stop her, she’d dropped it into the plate. No turning back. When my wife praised her for her generosity, she stated bluntly, “They need it.” After her trip through the creaky old church, she wanted to help. We finished out the morning listening to a great sermon on Amos, chatting with some old friends, and watching our kids take a second lap through the old church.

I want to clarify that I’m not arguing for visiting a church on vacation as a mandate, rule, or requirement. This isn’t a legalistic guilt trip or me boasting about what we do. It’s meant as an invitation. An idea. More than that, we’ve seen some big picture lessons for my children (and me) from this new rhythm I’ve sprung on our family.

Teachable Moments

It teaches them that our need for grace in hearing the word preached, taking communion, fellowshipping with other Christians, and singing spiritual songs doesn’t stay at home.

One of the most popular family ministry Bible verses is Deuteronomy 6:4-9. The Lord instructs his people to teach his laws to their children in everyday life moments – when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, and when you lie down and get up. I’ve found attending church as a family on vacation can be a natural way to live out this text in a few different ways.

  1. Taking Our Faith With Us: The rhythm of visiting a church on vacation implicitly communicates to our children that our faith goes with us wherever we go. It teaches them that our need for grace in hearing the word preached, taking communion, fellowshipping with other Christians, and singing spiritual songs doesn’t stay at home. The songs, prayers, liturgies, and faces may be different from place to place, but it helps remind them that Christian faith is full of rich variety. We travel with burdens and fears and sins and pain. The church, ours or one we may visit, is a harbor for us to seek safety, forgiveness, and renewal.

  2. Teaching Them as We Go: Visiting a church on vacation also brings about explicit teachable moments referenced in Deut 6:4-9. If your kids are anything like mine, they’ll ask why in the world they are going to church on vacation. That question in itself is a teachable moment. It’s an opportunity to explain our identity as Christ’s followers and the importance of the fellowship of the saints for our Christ-like formation. It allows us to teach our children the nature of the local church where “the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 3:8-10).

    3. In addition to teachable moments on the Christian life and the church, I’ve noticed that this exercise prepares my children to learn and engage in Sunday morning worship. There’s something refreshing about visiting a new church. You see new people, and experience new church rhythms. I’ve noticed that I’m a little less distracted and find it easier to take in the experience. I think the same is true for my kids. This leads to conversations after church about what we learned, who we met, and what looked or sounded different. My wife and I make sure to throw in a few ways the sermon impacted our hearts and pointed us to Christ. Visiting church on vacation presents a natural way to share the same gospel truths we teach at home, but maybe to a more attentive audience.

  3. Seeing the “Global” Body of Christ: Visiting a church on vacation exposes our children to the diversity and expansive nature of the church. It teaches them that our faith, though very much lived out locally in our everyday lives, is part of a much bigger story than they know. In case they think that the Christian faith is a tradition only for their family and friends, these visits help them see that the gospel brings life to people of different ages, ethnicities, and economic backgrounds in all sorts of places. They experience the effects of Christ’s commission to his disciples and the fruit of the saints who have gone before us. Seeing the global nature of the church and the expansion of the gospel contributes, if only in a small way, to our children realizing that Christ’s blessings of salvation extend as far as the curse is found.

Vacations and Rest

Back to my daughter. One of the questions she asked me before getting ready for church on our last trip was something like, “Daddy, why do we have to go to church on vacation? Isn’t vacation about rest and doing fun things?” Notice the difference in our definitions of the getaway (trip vs. vacation). She’s right about vacation. It is absolutely about rest and doing fun things. What she doesn’t know yet, but is hopefully beginning to learn, is that our souls need a greater rest than any vacation could ever offer. As Augustine puts it, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” And those who have rested in Christ deepen that rest in the local church, with their spiritual brothers and sisters and mothers (Matthew 12:50), where they’re reminded of the gospel, use their gifts to serve others, and grow as disciples.

If vacation is about rest, then why not seek it at the place that points us to the one in whom it’s found? The church gathered is supposed to be restful and joyous. While it might not feel very restful to drag our kids to church on vacation, my hope is that they (and me) remember where our true rest is found – in Christ alone. I have no evidence that it’s working this way yet, but I’m banking that this new tradition will bear fruit in the long run. I’d encourage you to join us in giving it a try. If you’re planning your next vacation and would like to find a church to visit, I recommend the 9Marks or the Gospel Coalition church directories.

This article was originally published by Gospel-Centered Family and can be read here.



To the Soon-To-Be Pastor

By / May 11

As I packed up my office and prepared to enter into my first full-time ministry opportunity, my boss came in with a book as a parting gift. “The First 90 Days” by Michael D. Watkins. The premise of the book is simple: “The actions you take during your first few months in a new role will largely determine whether you succeed or fail” (page 1). Admittedly, I don’t think it’s wise for pastors to be building their goals and strategies solely from the wisdom of secular books about the workforce like this one. However, getting started on the right foot as a pastor will pay dividends for your service to the flock in the long run, and because of this, I chose to read it. As I read the book and began serving my new church family I regularly found myself exactly where Watkins wrote that I would be and felt the pressure he said I would feel. I came to appreciate the reality that the first 90 days of a new job are important, and hard, whether you are a CEO or a new minister.

With the semester coming to an end this spring, many seminary students across the country have their eyes toward the horizon that is graduation. And with that graduation will come ministry opportunities for many young alumni. These opportunities will be an answer to prayer and the start of an exciting journey for the glory of God. They will also be hard, especially those first few months! So for the soon-to-be vocational pastor, here are some exhortations to guide you in those first crucial months:

If you’re in seminary reading this, chances are you’ve heard the stereotypes about new pastors fresh out of school. Naïve and ambitious, filled with head knowledge from the rigorous theological study but with hands and hearts that haven’t quite caught up. You may think you won’t fall victim to these stereotypes, but then again so did everyone else! So how can you serve in your new post for those first 90 days and guard yourself against these tropes?

First, your earliest days in ministry need to be marked by a posture of clarifying and defining expectations every day. What do your elders want to see you do in these first few months? What do you want to see happen? The closer those answers can align, the better it will be for you! Most pastors are hired to do more than one thing at their church. Some expectations of the job cannot be fulfilled immediately. Do you and your elders agree on which things need to wait and which things can be done from day one? You can never over-clarify what is expected of you those first few months but a lack of clarity can cause conflict and division that takes more time to resolve and holds back ministry.

Second, in your first three months garner as many easy wins as you can. A word of caution here: a proper definition of “win,” is essential to this being effective. An easy win is not a major change or philosophical shift that requires a plethora of time and energy. An easy win is fixing the leaky faucet in the bathroom. An easy win is updating the website if there are some outdated events posted on the homepage. Ask the elders if there are any younger men eager to be discipled and take them out to coffee, or serve on the greeting team. If you’re really eager for an easy win, volunteer to run slides on Sunday mornings! Easy wins serve the church, give you easy confidence boosts, and help you assimilate into the community. Many people will have a healthy dose of skepticism about a new pastor. Finding easy ways to build credit and express your love and service to them is an easy way to honor them and the Lord. Maybe most important, you are not too special to run slides on Sunday and easy wins put us back into a righteous humility.

Third, remember that swinging for the fences raises your chances of striking out. Seldom does a church need an all-star, especially when they hardly know the guy. Let your first 90 days be marked by hitting singles. The allure of the home run in ministry never goes away, and sometimes God calls people to swing for it, but I can almost guarantee God has not called you to hit home runs right away. Preach the Word, pray for people, attend your new small group, and be ready to fulfill the normal duties and responsibilities of ministry. The more you try to impress people or change things in the name of growth or improvement the more you may actually convey pride and a demeaning attitude toward them and the prior pastor. If God has called you to the ministry, He will have you there long enough to see the home runs 5 years from now.

Ultimately, if you are called by God to enter into a new church as a shepherd, let your first 90 days be marked by prayer and praise. Consider the way Paul models prayer for churches as he begins many of his Epistles and urges Timothy to pray for all people (1 Tim. 2:1). Those examples are a good reminder for us that elders are meant to be devoted to prayer (Acts. 6:4). In those first few months you’ll be learning simple things like small group schedules, which children go to what classroom on Sunday morning, and your schedule will be packed with lunches and coffees as you acclimate. It’s easy to forget to come before the Lord on behalf of your flock during the transition. In your first 90 days, don’t wait until you know their names to pray for them. Learn their names by praying for them! Carve out some time and begin praying through the membership rolls the minute you arrive. It will always be tempting to do something other than pray.

In the same way, it will often be tempting to wallow in discouragement early on. We must be grateful for the opportunity. Even when early problems arise, don’t lose sight of the fact that God has put you there and that the people you serve are trusting you with serious aspects of their spiritual formation. Likewise, be grateful for the grunt work you never daydream about in your seminary courses. Filling out an expense report is much better than having no money! Ultimately, praise the Lord for giving us that Savior on the cross, Jesus, the true and great shepherd who you now get to model in your ministry through the grace He offers. Truly there is no better feeling knowing that regardless of these first 90 days, eternity with God is sealed now and forever.



Jonah’s Audience Unlocks Our Preaching

By / May 10

I don’t remember a lot from Sunday School as a kid, but one picture that remains clear in my mind was coloring the picture of Jonah in the belly of the fish. That picture, which so beautifully engages imaginations young and old, makes the Book of Jonah exciting and difficult to preach.

With a familiar story like Jonah, I have had to fight the temptation to skip exegetical work because I think I know what is going on already. This familiarity makes preaching the first two chapters easy but the last two quite puzzling. In case you need a reminder in the first two chapters, Jonah heads the opposite way on a boat from the mission that God gave him. God sends a storm and the sailors, after trying everything else, listen to Jonah and throw him overboard. God appoints a fish to swallow Jonah. In the depths of the sea, Jonah cries out to God and the fish spits him onto shore. In chapters 3 and 4, Jonah goes to Nineveh. After a rather short sermon, the city repents and God does not destroy them. The story concludes with an angry prophet outside of the city who does not understand God’s mercy. It ends with a final question from God to Jonah: will the prophet begrudge God’s grace? The preacher is left with a different question. What do you do with an ending like that? The whole book becomes clearer when we consider the audience to whom the book of Jonah was written.

Jonah’s Audience

This is the spot where familiarity can really hinder clarity. We know the story, so we don’t take the time to dive into the context. Think about it. Jonah was written at a particular time for a particular people. That’s true of every book. Jonah was not written to the prophet; he is the main character! Jonah was also not written to the Ninevites. If it were for the Ninevites, then it would not have ended up in the Hebrew Scriptures. Jonah was originally intended for the people of Israel. It was for the Northern Kingdom who saw a great enemy named Assyria casting a shadow over their land whose capitol was Nineveh. Understanding the audience of Jonah helps us answer the question of Jonah. Namely, trust God when what he appointed is different than what you expected.

Appointed vs. Expected

From the beginning of the story until the end, God is doing something different than what Jonah and the original audience would have expected. The call to go to a rival nation is not expected. The storm that frightens the sailors was appointed by God but was far greater than anyone expected. The fish was appointed by God and saved the rebellious prophet. The prophet proclaimed God’s Word and the Ninevites (of all people!) unexpectedly repent. Finally, the Lord speaks to Jonah after showing His mercy to the Ninevites and we don’t expect Jonah’s reaction. All of it is about expectations and reality, what the prophet expects and what God appoints. Jonah expected destruction. He wanted to sit and watch God destroy the enemy of God’s people. Yet God was merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. God had one last thing to appoint for Jonah and the people of Israel to understand. The Lord appointed the plant, the sun, and the worm to give Jonah relief and take it away. God appointed the plant to show mercy for a moment in hopes that Jonah would love the mercy more than he hated the Ninevites. But sometimes when what we expect is different than what God appoints, we cannot move beyond it. God wants Jonah to love His character and to desire it for himself.

Loving God’s Character

Jonah knew God’s character. He quotes the familiar refrain in Jonah 4:2 from Exodus 34:6, “I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.” Beyond that, Jonah referenced at least 10 Psalms in his prayer of chapter 2. Jonah knows God’s Word and he know God’s character. The question for Jonah and for us is whether that knowledge will move from our heads to our hearts. Jonah rages at God’s kindness to his enemies. The Israelite audience was confronted with such an unexpected outpouring of grace. So, the question at the end is how we respond to God’s character. God is gracious and merciful, and we cannot despise God for being who He is. Will we let the message of grace and mercy come into our hearts even when it is extended where it is not expected? Will we be amazed by grace or offended by it? God’s grace is truly amazing in that it comes to all who will trust in Christ, a different prophet who sat outside a different city and was in anguish enough to die. His anguish was not anger; it was grief and it was for us. So, let’s love God’s character and be amazed at the grace given to rebels and enemies like you and me.



What is the Hypostatic Union?

By / May 10

Editor’s Note: The Theology in the Everyday series seeks to introduce and explain theological concepts in 500 words or less, with a 200-word section helping explain the doctrine to kids. At For The Church, we believe that theology should not be designated to the academy alone but lived out by faith in everyday life. We hope this series will present theology in such a way as to make it enjoyable, connecting theological ideas to everyday experience and encouraging believers to study theology for the glory of God and the good of the Church. This week, the Hypostatic Union.

“Who do you say that I am?” This question by Jesus is perhaps one of the most important questions we must answer, for life and death depend on it. Our answer is two-fold, as the intent of this series demonstrates. There is a fundamental, dogmatic answer that the Holy Scriptures teach and the Church witnesses through her confessional tradition: Jesus is the second person of the Holy Trinity, the true Word who took on true flesh in time to take away the sin of the world.

But this biblical and dogmatic confession of our Lord Jesus Christ isn’t abstract or ethereal. Rather, it is only because Jesus is the true Word who assumed true flesh that 1) our sins are taken away by grace, 2) we have an objective view on reality through our union with Christ, 3) we are able to imitate God in Christ by His Spirit, and 4) we have God as our treasure and hope forevermore.

The Hypostatic Union

Throughout history, the Church has referred to this reality as the hypostatic union. But why is this doctrine so important? Where is it in the Bible? Is this a new idea? What exactly is the hypostatic union? In 500 words or less (not including historical sources), here’s how I would explain the doctrine of the hypostatic union:

The hypostatic union simply means that Jesus Christ is truly divine[1] and truly human[2] in the most perfect union.[3] In His mysterious incarnation, God the Son, without loss of or change in His complete perfection, now subsists in both a truly divine and human nature, “not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ.”

That last phrase comes from the Chalcedonian Definition where biblical teaching of God the Son incarnate is defined and preserved.[4] After Chalcedon, four theological categories emerged to help to clarify the meaning of the hypostatic union. These four categories (underlined below), alongside the four negations in the Chalcedonian Definition (in parentheses below), aide us to better see and savor the Word made flesh for us and for our salvation.

  1. Enhypostastic (without division): there is no split or division in the Son because the person of the Son, who is the subject of both natures (He is the “who” of the divine and human nature), now subsists in (en-) the two natures (hypostasis).
  2. Extra Calvinisticum (without change): in the incarnation, our Lord Jesus Christ maintained and continued to exert the divine perfections. The assumption of human flesh did not alter or affect the divine nature; nor was the divine nature set aside.
  3. Communicatio Idiomatum (without confusion): there is no mixture of divine and human natures. As the natures remain distinct, they retain their particular attributes (e.g., divinity in John 1:1-4; 8:58 and humanity in Luke 2:52; Heb. 2:11-17) and those attributes can be predicated of the Son since he is the person or subject of both natures.
  4. Dyothelitism (without separation): in the person of the Son, there is a real union of the divine and human natures. As such, there are two real wills of Christ (dyo, two; thelema, will) located in each nature for us and for our salvation. This preserves our Lord as having a human will (e.g., Heb. 2:17) and denies three wills in the Holy Trinity.

In this magnificent hypostatic union, God the Son incarnate as the second Adam reconciled those who were alienated from God and made peace by the blood of His cross.[5] As our New Covenant head, only God the Son incarnate could reconcile God and humans through His sinless life, substitutionary sacrifice, and victorious resurrection. Therefore, not only do we owe our Lord right reverence and obedience, but we’re given the powers and capabilities to do so in our union and participation in Him.[6] As such, we have a sure hope that is undefiled and unfading in the blessed vision of our Lord.[7]

For the Kids:

Hi, kids! While there’s no perfect comparison, we should NOT say that the hypostatic union is like putting a banana and a strawberry in a blender for your smoothie; nor is it like adding your car seat to the car. We can simply say, Jesus, who has always been God, was born and continues to be a human just like you and me. Though, when he was born, he did not stop being God since God cannot change. It’s important that Jesus is truly human because God’s justice requires human obedience and punishment for sin. It’s also important that Jesus is truly divine so that he could “earn for us and restore to us righteousness and life.” (Heidelberg Catechism, Questions 16-17. For fun and memorable songs, see Shai Linne’s “The Hypostatic Union” and New City Catechism’s Q20-23.)

[1] Mark 2:3-12; John 1:1-4; 8:58; Col. 1:15-20; 2:9; Heb. 1:1-4

[2] Matt. 1:18-25; 26:38; Luke 2:52; John 1:14-18; Heb. 2:11-17; 4:15

[3] Rom. 9:5; Gal. 4:4-5; Phil. 2:6-11

[4] To read the Chalcedon Definition in full, visit here.

[5] Rom. 5; Col. 1:15-22

[6] Eph. 1:3-14; 2:13; 2 Peter 1:3-11

[7] 1 John 3:3