I remember when I first heard a woman in my church explain to her children how to do spiritual battle—that their “swords” were actually their memory verses. She reminded them of how Christian battled Apollyon in the children’s version of Pilgrim’s Progress they were reading. And years later, that image still sticks in my mind. (As I assume it does in theirs too.) This post by Kevin DeYoung was a great reminder of these truths: Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices Let me tempt you to read the entire entry by quoting just a few lines: “Satan is an accuser and a deceiver. In both cases his weapons are words, which is…

Dave Edling and I heard great news from Baker Books yesterday: their acquisitions and publications board has accepted our book proposal (“Redeeming Church Conflicts”) for publication (!). The details are still to be worked out, but it looks like we really need to hunker down and write this thing now. THANKS for your prayers and your encouragement too! Happy Thursday,  Tara B.  

Kevin DeYoung hits it out of the park with this post: Advice for Theological Students and Young Pastors The only clarification I would add is to remove the word “young” because it is so applicable to ALL pastors. I can’t tell you how many examples Dave and I have in our (still-in-process) book on “Redeeming Church Conflicts” that involve even seasoned pastors and could have been avoided (or dealt with much earlier and without the help of a conciliation team) if the pastors had followed even just a few of these 20 pieces of advice. Here are my favorites from Pastor DeYoung’s list: “2. Beware of closing your heart to…

Just in case you’re not in the mood to read another (long) entry re: my repenting of sin and unbelief (I’m seriously thinking about deleting my previous entry. I used to just journal privately, you know?) … Here’s a relatively quick, but meaty and substantive read that I think will bless you, especially if you never knew this about C.S. Lewis: C.S. Lewis, Reluctant Churchman    

SGM is spot on in this post (referencing Kevin DeYoung): Plodding Visionaries and the Church Consider just a snippet: “It is easy to blast the church for all her failures. It is harder to live in the church day after day, year after year, with all of the ho hum, hum drum, and to slowly and consistently make a difference. What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more plodding visionaries. We need to ask the right questions, we need to have the right expectations, and we need to establish the right vision … If you are a visionary, you don’t have your head in the sand. You are…

Kevin DeYoung has a great post today on preaching the whole counsel of Scripture by being mindful of the variances of people in your church: Preaching to the Whole Choir In it, he talks about four categories of people: “The Weary, The Wandering, The Lazy, The Lost.” As I read it, I appreciated its (intended) application of pastors and sermons. But I also couldn’t help but think of its application even as a layperson: – What happens when I am overly confrontational with someone who is weary, wounded, fearful, hurt? I crush the bruised reed. But what if I fail to have the courage to be confrontational with a Christian…

“Telling people that being part of the local church is optional for the health of the Christian, is like telling a married couple they  can replace living together with being friends on Facebook to grow closer and become One as God intends.” Carlos Griego (HT: TakeYourVitaminZ)  

Practical Shepherding has a great post that I encourage you to read: What is one of the best ways for a  pastor to gain evagelistic opportunities? (If you read the comments, you’ll see in my comment why this post was particularly meaningful to me.)  

One of the heroes of my faith is preachin’ it in this interview over at byFaith: Our Biggest Threat is Shallow Relationships: Our Conversation with Ligon Duncan So many great points, but listen to just a few: “The PCA’s polity, history, and present practice allow us to be independent of one another. ‘We can admit people into our presbyteries,’ Duncan says, ‘but we never have to cooperate with them; we never have to work shoulder-to-shoulder with them.’ As a result there’s no cause to think about other churches and pastors until we become suspicious of their opinions or their approach to ministry. A second factor, Duncan says, is that, ‘We…

Hooray for this GREAT post from Pastor Anyabwile: Preventing Church Splits It is so good. Truly. And it’s about far more than “just” preventing church splits—it’s really about all of the “one anothering” commands of Scripture. (Love one another. Serve one another. Pray for one another. Forgive one another. Bear one another’s burdens, etc.) If you love the Church and would like to know how to love your local church better, take a few moments to read this. And then? Print it out (or give yourself a task and archive it electronically 😉 ) and spend some TIME with it in the coming weeks. It’s that good. Let me share…