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Gospel Coalition Live Blogs ON AIR June 27-29!
I’m SO enjoying seeing all of you on the automatic email reminder lists that are starting to be generated for my upcoming Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference LiveBlogs. Paige Benton Brown’s teaching on Nehemiah 5-6 (“Fearing God in a Fallen World”) is leading the pack with the greatest number of e-reminders, but all of the general sessions are enjoying a wonderful number of pre-conference hits. I can’t wait to serve you on the LiveBlogs! If you’re at the conference, please be sure to stop by and say hello in person. And if you’re lurking away online, don’t forget that you can say a PRIVATE hello to just me if you’d like. My…
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ESV Women’s Devotional Bible
I recently had the joy of reading a pre-release copy of The ESV Women’s Devotional Bible for potential endorsement and I thought you might enjoy hearing what I shared with its publishers at Crossway … Having spent the last few weeks steeped in hours of lectures and hundreds of pages of seminary material on the doctrines of grace, I was particularly honored to be asked to serve in this way. Oh, how grateful I am for Sola Scriptura! (And Sola Gratia, Sola fide, Solus Christus too of course. All for God’s glory alone.) I will be doing another Barthel family WIN FREE (BIBLICAL & PRACTICAL) STUFF (No Risk of SPAM!) GIVEAWAY when…
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Let your tiredness be an occasion to increase your joy in the Lord!
When preparing for our summer women’s study on disordered affections this week, I came across this classic essay by our family’s dear friend, Ajith Fernando. If you are feeling weary tonight (as I am!), I hope it is a blessing and help to you as it has been to me. G’nite, Tara B. **** COMBATING WEARINESS WITH ALTERNATE FORMS OF EXERCISE (Written after a short visit to Ukraine when I preached 13 times in four days) by Ajith Fernando A few decades ago the cricket-loving world was shocked when a popular and brilliant English cricketer said that the pressure of having to perform according to people’s expectations and the resulting stress often…
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It is naive to deny that professing Christians are quite capable of gossip, innuendo, spin and outright lies when engaged in conflict …
Many thanks to our friend, Dr. Tim Lane (formerly of Westminster/CCEF, currently serving as President of the Institute for Pastoral Care) for his insights and endorsements of Redeeming Church Conflicts: Redeeming Group Conflicts I particularly appreciated this note: “It goes without saying that Christians are quite capable of gossip, innuendo, spin and outright lies when engaged in conflict. To deny that professing Christians are capable of this is naive. When you combine group conflict with perceived hurt, character scrutiny or doctrinal rectitude, the terrain can be challenging to navigate …” Amen, brother. And thanks again! Tara B. PS If you’re not yet familiar with Tim Lane, I hope you will click through to his website…
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Why do adults throw tantrums over seemingly trivial provocations?
There is an excellent article by my friend, spiritual father, and co-author, Dave Edling, over on our Redeeming Church Conflicts blog: What Rules Govern Your Interactions with Others? (Especially in Your Church Conflict) In it, he cites some (perfectly fine) ideas from a Wall Street Journal article about business communication. But then he goes further—just as the gospel calls us to do. Let me tempt you with just a brief excerpt … “If your goal is to simply not feel so bad about yourself following your behavior the researchers have some good coping tips for you: Picture a scenario that is likely to trigger your anger, and imagine a calm…
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Specific Resources for Teaching Children Logic
In response to a question on Facebook (Hi, EH! 🙂 !), I was trying to think through exactly what resources I have used for teaching logic to children. For my 5th and 6th graders this year, I was basically winging it (creating handouts and outlines based on where our discussions took us each week and based on old logic textbooks that a college professor gave me in the late 1980’s—does that make me sound ancient or what?!). But we were also helped by: This (wonderful! free!) “Thou Shalt Not Commit Logical Fallacies” poster. (The creator of which contacted me this spring because he is doing a TED Talk on teaching…
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An introductory course on logic could really serve the cause of the gospel among younger generations …
If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that I love to discuss, well, pretty much anything with young people. I love to get to know them, listen to them, ask questions of them (and then listen to their responses). I also enjoy challenging them (once relationship is established)—especially re: why they believe what they believe. I hope that the young people in my life would all say that I love them and I am genuinely interested in them in persons (because I do and I am). I also hope that they would say that I dearly hold to certain beliefs—I would even die for them. And because I…
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Shouldn’t we pause, remember, and say thank you?
I am grateful for another Memorial Day; another year of freedom, paid for at the highest price. Sophia is helping Fred and me to teach Ella all about Memorial Day: And this year Sophie even had the opportunity to specifically thank some military families in our local community through an essay contest that one one of our local American Legion posts (The Andrew Pearson Post 117) sponsored to try to encourage greater participation in Memorial Day services. This is Sophia’s essay (she is nine years old): And this is her conclusion: “Even though I’m a little scared when the trumpet plays “Taps” and then the loud guns go off, I am…
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Analyzing the Logic on the Bag of Rainbow Goldfish Crackers
I cringed as I read it, but I was grateful when a friend linked to this excellent article by Alastair Roberts: Rob Bell and Don Draper — The Ad Man’s Gospel I cringed because it was true and thus, it made me sad: “If the theologian of the 16th century was a lawyer, the theologian of the 21st century is an ad man.” “The ad man doesn’t persuade his customer by making a carefully reasoned and developed argument, but by subtly deflecting objections, evoking feelings and impressions, and directing those feelings and harnessing those impressions in a way that serves his interests. Where the lawyer argues, the ad man massages.” I was grateful…
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Please Don’t Make My Funeral About Me
Since my “How to Write a Eulogy for a Bad Mom” article continues to be one of my most-read articles ever, I can only assume that this topic is a hot one. It is also, I would guess, a painful one for many of us who are not buying Mother’s Day cards this year because we are missing our moms (both “good” and “bad” moms and aren’t all moms both? just in different ways? I know I am!). I actually had the most realistic dream about my mother recently. It was so sweet. We were just talking like normal, like we used to do pretty much every day. And then I…
