6 Ways to Stop Thinking Fearful Thoughts

By

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June 13, 2023

If you grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s as I did, you’re familiar with the idea of mixtapes.

Mixtapes were a way of creating a compilation of music onto one source that played in any Walkman, car stereo, or boombox. To us back then, mixtapes are what playlists are to us today except with about 100 times the effort. If you liked a girl and wanted to give her some music that expressed your deepest feelings, you may have created a mixtape full of Amy Grant songs, maybe a little Backstreet Boys, and some Alanis Morissette. Or, was that just me?

The effort to create a mixtape was a real labor of love. You had to have a duel cassette player that could play the tapes you wanted to record on one side of the player while the blank tape—or reused tape from your last girlfriend—was queued to record on the other side. You had to push play and record at the same time, at just the right time, and stop it dead on when the track was over. By the time you created this dinosaur version of a playlist, it was a few hours of work putting the thing together. Now, do you see why this was such a token of love?

It was not uncommon, in the ‘80s and ‘90s, to be driving down the highway or any sideroad and see the insides of a cassette tape strewn all over. The black, thin, shiny film would catch on the nearby weeds or median for dozens of feet. It was as if that discarded, ruined tape let you know someone’s heart was broken. Another cassette full of music—likely a mixtape—was gutted out and left for dead. Those songs were long gone, just like that couple’s love.

If you’re wondering if I ever drove down the road with the window down unrolling the cassette film with every passing mile marker…you are correct, I did. Destroying a mixtape from a past crush had a sense of finality to it that allowed my healing to begin.

Recording Over the Negative Tracks

If only getting rid of annoying, repeated thoughts was that easy. If only we could get the anxious thoughts plaguing our minds to go away, then maybe our anxiety would stop rearing its restless head. My wife has dealt with her struggles of nagging thoughts that bring about anxiety. I’ve watched her, through tears, say she wishes the thoughts she keeps having would stop so she could go on with normal life. Getting our brain to stop playing certain negative tracks in our mind feels like someone created an awful mixtape of our worst feelings and thoughts, jammed them in the stereo of our mind, cranked the volume to 11, and snapped off all the control buttons. You can’t turn them down or stop hearing the negative tracks if your life depended on it.

The truth is, you can’t stop some of these ‘tracks’ on your own. You have to welcome the power of God to record over these tracks with healthy, fulfilling tracks of love, compassion, grace, and beauty. The Bible implores us to “Take every thought captive to obey Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5) We can only do this by the power of Christ dwelling in us. My mind must be renewed for my motives to be rewired and my actions to change. I have to “put on” Christ, Paul writes in Romans 13:14, to stop the gratifying desires of my flesh that drive me to sin and emotional suffering.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2) Without a doubt, my anxious, worried, fearful thoughts are not “acceptable and perfect”—not by my standards or God’s. Renewing my thinking means I must record over the lies—the negative ‘tracks’—I currently believe with the truth God gives me through His Son, His Word, and His Spirit. When Paul says, “Be renewed in the spirit of your minds” (Ephesians 4:23), He is commanding and promising that our tracks can be recorded over with new thinking that changes our lives.

More than Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)

Many trained counselors, or even simply well-meaning people in our culture and even some churches, will tell us to “Think happy thoughts” and get away from what is bringing us down. This strategy is formally called “Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT).” It is a form of psychological treatment that some claim is effective for bringing about change in someone’s life who is facing depression, anxiety, and grief, as well as situational sadness and overwhelming circumstances. CBT will challenge a person to stop looking at the past and start focusing on their present problems. The goal of CBT is to change feelings and behaviors by thinking better about life’s situations and circumstances. CBT identifies negative thoughts and attempts to replace them with positive thoughts.

While positive thinking may cause a temporary change in emotion and behavior, it does not provide long-term, lasting results. There are minimal side effects to this method of taking care of our problems other than the massive drawback of someone experiencing failure time and again. Our hope is to find a way not to keep falling into the same hole but eventually crawl out of it.

While CBT can look similar to biblical Christianity, let me be clear: CBT is not the same as biblical transformation through the only true change agent, our Savior Jesus Christ, and the power of the Gospel. While the Bible teaches the power of renewing our minds, we do so rooted, not in mere positivity, but biblical truth. (Romans 12:1–12; Ephesians 4:22–24; Colossians 3:1–10) The Bible tells us that biblical thinking will impact our feelings and actions. (John 13:17; James 1:25; Proverbs 29:18) The goal of our thinking is to please God first. Ephesians 5:10 says, “Try and discern what is pleasing to the Lord.” When I change my thinking for Him, His Spirit will give me the power to either change my feelings or perspective. We must recognize that the power of the mind is more than what we think. It forms what we believe in faith and hold as true.

Recording New Tracks for Our Mind to Play

Paul’s encouragement to the Philippians was necessary because they were experiencing suffering for their faith. Their suffering caused them to be anxious, but they were refusing to let the lies of the enemy win. That is why Paul said to them, “I hear that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side in faith for the Gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents.” (Philippians 1:27–28) They are staying strong and sticking together, even when every outside force—and some inside forces—applied significant pressure to compromise or quit altogether.

Likely, the Roman government was pressuring them, and as Christianity rose, so did its unpopularity. The cultural tension would have caused anxiety for a first-century Christian who was trying not to rock the boat on the political landscape yet live out an authentic faith. There was fear of Rome overthrowing the Church and a fear of the Church conforming to Rome. The Church in Rome had to remain close and focus on something much larger than the dooming circumstances before them if they were to survive their panic of outside attack and internal turmoil. (Philippians 2:1–5)

With worry and fear staring them in the face, the Church in Philippi was encouraged to keep their mind focused on what is more excellent to avoid anxiety. Paul gave a list of descriptors of what things will refocus their minds. His admonishment was to stop the repeat tracks of doomsday background music and start listening to what would refresh, renew, and refocus them in Christ.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” – Philippians 4:8

First, Paul said, focus on whatever is true.

Paul starts his list of new thinking by calling their attention to what is true. The word true is defined as “describing something as credible, aligning with reality, reliable, or trustworthy.” Although Paul normally associates truth with the truth about God (Romans 1:18, 25) and truth of the Gospel of Christ (Galatians 2:5, 14; 2 Corinthians 4:2; 11:10), in the context of this list of virtues he affirms whatever is true to be the only proper subject of Christian thought. Satan is the father of lies. Thinking on that which is false is to think the devil’s thoughts, not God’s thoughts.

Noble.

When I think of the word noble, I think of some British dignitary. That image is off but close. Something noble is worthy of respect and honor. It is to be taken seriously and treated properly. Paul uses this word to describe the call or standard for godly older men (Titus 2:2), deacons (1 Timothy 3:8), and women (1 Timothy 3:11).

Just.

When we think about what is just, we need to think about two expressions of justice: God’s actions toward us, and our actions of responsibility for God. ‘Just’ has to do with God’s standard of righteousness, and the outplay of His righteousness among His people (Psalm 11:7).

Pure.

In the original language, this word carries the idea that you are standing in awe of someone. This word is usually only attributed to God and communicates thinking on the holy purity of God. It has nuances of uncompromised integrity, which can only be found in God. When I dwell on what is pure, I am thinking about God’s character—all of which is perfect and holy.

Pleasing.

What pleases your eye is what brings excitement and hope, not simply amusement. A child can be amused with an insect or rainbow, but it’s the anticipation of Christmas Day or a birthday celebration where they truly delight in what they anticipate. Something pleasing is a source of joy for the downcast and is like a fragrance that fills the whole house like a batch of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

Commendable.

That which others look at with admiration is what we may refer to as commendable. These are the respectable things in life that others find joy and pleasure in and want to hear about or be around.

Paul lists these characteristics as the focal point for renewing our minds and giving us fighting power against anxiety. One commentator said, “Those who focus their minds on all that is true and set their minds and wills to do all that Paul has taught by word and example will experience the promise of the presence of the God of peace.” Grasping this kind of peace is the very thing that will move us from living on the defense against Satan and playing for the offense of God’s Kingdom.

Watch Out for Hypervigilance

Police officers deal with the highs and lows that come from a constant state of hypervigilance. Their job demands them to look at life through the lens of defense, always being on the alert. What may be disturbing to us can trigger an internal reaction for them.

Is that guy reaching for his wallet or a weapon?

Is that a sound I hear behind me?

Are those guys following me?

Is she trying to get away with something?

The adage “bad guys don’t wear names tags” causes cops to be on guard constantly. This is, in fact, what we expect them to do for us, but it means that they live a lifestyle of hypervigilance.

Always being on alert can be taxing. In the right context, such as being an officer on duty, it can be energizing and even fun. However, when a hypervigilant person returns to their safe place and no longer has to be on the watch out, they often crash emotionally and even physically. This biological response can express itself as laziness, being downcast, or even angry. Cops are not the only ones that experience this hypervigilance. As a pastor, I feel it often. There are environments in my life—even in the church—where I am hypervigilant. My wife will even say to our kids when I get home, “We know Daddy is home, but Daddy doesn’t know he is home yet,” because my mind is still coming down from the battle I was just in at work.

Hypervigilance may be what you are experiencing because of your racing thoughts. Your mind has you constantly on alert, and you can’t seem to calm down. When you do calm down, your emotions plummet, and you don’t feel like doing much of anything.

A hypervigilant life is no way to live. God meant for us to enjoy this world, not walk around afraid in it. Renewing our minds begins with letting go of all-consuming thoughts that keep our highs high and our lows deeper than we care to admit. When we’re hypervigilant, our body plays into this by causing our heart to race, palms to sweat, blood pressure to rise, and breathing to be shallow. When we come out of hypervigilance, we want to lay down. We can’t go on like this—it’s unhealthy for any period. By fixing our minds on what is worth our attention, we can train our outer bodies and inner souls to be still and trust God, even when fear threatens to disrupt our everyday lives.

Destroy the Negative Tracks

Here are some very practical actions you can take to get the negative tracks to stop playing in your head:

Identify your negative tracks. You may need to write down in long-form or short-form what keeps replaying in your mind. Sometimes by writing them out and seeing them as they are can help you realize how ridiculous they are or the way they may be more imaginary than real.
Flip to the truth. I have taken a stack of 3×5 cards and written one anxious thought on each card. On the opposite side of the card, I write down a Bible verse or a truth that counteracts that anxious thought. Then, I take time each day to flip those cards over, one by one, letting the truth sink in more than the lie. Soon I find that my thinking is renewed and rewired to the truth whenever that anxious thought arises.
Speak them honestly. As we talked about in Chapter 4, sometimes the fresh air of faith must see the darkest thoughts in our minds. We can be brutally honest with God about what’s plaguing us. He can use our honesty as a means of transformation. There is nothing you can say to God that He doesn’t already know or that He doesn’t have the resources to address.
Focus on what is more beautiful. As we looked at earlier, thinking about what is more lovely may help to get over the ugly thoughts that consume us. For me, this comes when I go hold a new baby, walk in the woods, sit on a highpoint and watch the sunset, or savor a beautifully crafted cappuccino. There are a billion overlooked blessings around you in your life right now that could refresh your focus. God’s common graces can provide a way for you to get your eyes off yourself and onto the goodness of God.
Worship in spirit and truth. God made us to worship. Even my dad, who hates to sing (and frankly, is not that good at it), loves it when a room full of people raise their voices to God. My dad would drive in his 1994 Nissan Pathfinder with his Promise Keeper praise album blaring as he sang along. As a kid, I remember his sincere joy from worshiping God through some of our hardest times. On my best days and worst days, there is nothing like listening and singing to music that worships God to get my mind out of the rut it likes to lay in. When we worship in spirit and truth, the lies we believe flee, and God stirs our souls to provide comfort and clarity.
Meditate on Christ. I remember my youth pastor saying, “Thirty seconds of thinking about Christ will cure the worst day and the strongest temptation.” He was right. Simply stopping and thinking about Jesus Christ, His character, His grace, the cross, and His resurrection—these are the most beautiful things to fill our minds. A few seconds of thinking about Christ or reading Scripture about Him has a way of affecting the rest of my day.

Now is the time to roll down the window of your soul and let that mixtape of negative tracks unwind in the wind of God’s truth. It’s time you break up with those thoughts and keep your gaze firmly fixed on the author and perfecter of our faith, Jesus Christ. (Hebrews 12:2)

This article originally appeared here.

Be Prepared: Build Your Dream Ministry Gear List Before You Need It

By

Mike O’Brien

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June 13, 2023

Building a dream ministry gear list starts with this reality: “Most people don’t plan to fail, they just fail to plan.” ~ John L. Beckley

One day a guitarist at my church, someone that I had only met a few weeks prior, showed up to my office and said he had something for [the] church. I went to his car and behold… a beautiful 88-key Mark 1 Rhodes Electric Piano! I asked him how he knew this was a dream of mine for the church stage. He told me he overheard me talking about it with someone else, he saw it in a store and bought it for us. Mind: blown!

A couple of years later an older gentleman who was new to the church asked me about the needs of the church in the area of sound and worship gear. I stuttered. I knew we needed things, but at the moment, I couldn’t think of anything. We had been getting away with what we had for so long it was hard to think on the spot. This guy ended up buying some high-end items for the church in other areas like children’s ministry and hospitality. From that moment on, I decided I was going to be ready for the next philanthropist conversation.

Build Your Dream Ministry Gear List Before You Need It

I suggest every ministry tech leader, at every size, have an ongoing list of technical ministry gear that they need, want and dream of. Is there something that if the church had, could better disciple people, increase the effectiveness of its mission, bring joy to the heart of everyone who sees it?

The Most Important Thing My Parents Did Was to Live Out Their Faith

By

Tim Challies

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June 12, 2023

I’ve been reflecting on the most important thing my parents did for me and my siblings. I grew up in a church culture, a catechizing culture, and a family worship culture. Each of these was a tremendous, immeasurable blessing. I’m convinced that twice-each-Sunday services, memorizing the catechisms, and worshiping as a family marked me deeply.

I doubt I’ll ever forget that my only comfort in life and death is that I am not my own but belong in body and soul, both in life and death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. Or that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. I can still sing many of the psalms and hymns of my youth. And I have precious memories of my family bowing our heads around the kitchen table.

Reflections on the Most Important Thing My Parents Did

What was true of my family was true of many of my friends’ families. They, too, grew up around churches and catechisms and rigid family devotions. In fact, in all the times I visited their homes, I don’t think I ever witnessed a family skip their devotions. It was the custom, it was the expectation, and it was good. Our church had near 100% attendance on Sunday morning and evening. It was just what we did.

But despite all the advantages, many people I befriended as a child have since left the faith. Some have sprinted away, but many more have simply meandered away. An occasionally missed Sunday eventually became a missed month and a missed year. Not all of them, of course. Many are now fine believers who serve in their churches and even lead them. But a lot—too many—are gone.

Why? I ask the question from time to time. Why are all five of my parents’ kids following the Lord, while so many of our friends and their families are not? What is the most important thing my parents did while raising us?

Obviously I have no ability to peer into God’s sovereignty and come to any firm conclusions. But as I think back, I can point to one great difference between my home and my friends’ homes—at least the homes of my friends who have since walked away from the Lord and his church. Though it’s not universally true, it’s generally true.

Living Faith Out Loud

Here’s the difference: I saw my parents living out their faith even when I wasn’t supposed to be watching.

Communion and Kids: 6 Reasons Children Should Wait to Partake

By

John Piper

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June 12, 2023

Read these thoughts on communion and kids from pastor and Bible teacher John Piper.

Sooner or later, a child who is regularly sitting through a Sunday morning worship service is bound to ask something like, “Why can’t I have a ‘snack’ like everyone else?” So it’s not surprising that people often ask me, “When should my child take the Lord’s Supper?” Because that’s such a prevalent question, I want to share some insights on the subject.

A General Response

When people inquire about children taking the Lord’s Supper, I have two perspectives to share. The first is that our communion services are open to all present, including children, who:

trust in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of their sins and the fulfillment of all his promises to us (including eternal life) and
intend to follow him as Lord and obey his commandments.

Therefore, children are welcome to participate in the Lord’s Supper:

when they can understand its significance,
when they are able to give a credible profession of faith in Christ, and
when they consciously intend to follow the Lord in obedience.

Children don’t have to take a test or attend a class to establish their readiness. We simply leave it up to parents to decide when their young disciples are ready.

A Personal Response

My other response to this question is to share how Sally and I dealt with the issue for our two daughters. Our way is certainly not the only acceptable way to handle the issue. Other spiritually wise parents at Bethlehem, including respected colleagues on the staff, have handled it differently. Nevertheless, I commend “our way” to you for your consideration as you lay out a path for your children.

When our girls were small, we explained they would be able to fully participate in the Lord’s Supper sometime after they were 13. Admittedly, this response was somewhat arbitrary and sounds a bit legalistic. But it was a simple response they could grasp, and it was enough to settle the issue for them.

We encouraged our children to wait to take communion for several reasons. Here are six of them.

Why Children Should Wait to Take Communion

1. Wait for Understanding

Probably the most compelling reason for us came out of 1 Corinthians 11:27. Paul warns us of the perils of eating and drinking in an “unworthy manner.” Though both our girls confessed faith in Christ before their sixth birthday, we wanted them to be old enough to contemplate the significance of the Lord’s Supper. We wanted them to understand the meaning of the ordinance and also have enough maturity to do the self-examination that Paul calls for in verse 28.

2. Wait for More Independent Thinking

We decided our girls should come to the Lord’s Table after they were baptized, and we didn’t want them to be baptized before age 13. Although we don’t believe baptism must necessarily precede participation in the Lord’s Supper, it seemed more natural to follow in that order.

Children are thinking more independently as they enter the teen years. Therefore, they’re more likely to embrace the decisions and commitments they make as their own. Our pre-teen decisions and commitments are often suspect in our minds as we get older. They are suspect in that we barely connect with the reason why we made the commitment.

From age 7, I have a vague memory of raising my hand in Sunday school and indicating a desire to follow Jesus. I remember sitting with my Mom, praying and writing the date of my conversion into my Bible. However, I’m at a loss to tell you what was so compelling to me. I don’t know if I understood what I was doing. I simply have no recollection now. Neither did I at age 13. Without that recollection, it was difficult to have confidence in my decision. This is probably why I felt a need to “accept Jesus into my heart” again during my teen years.

It’s not uncommon for those who were baptized as pre-teens to feel a need to be “re-baptized” when they’re older. Therefore, it made sense for us to encourage our children to hold off on baptism until it would be more meaningful to them. When they could more fully embrace the commitment behind this public declaration of faith.

SBC Messengers To Vote on Constitutional Amendment Banning Women Pastors

By

Jessica Lea

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June 12, 2023

sbc executive committee Barber — SBC president Bart Barber addresses the Executive Committee the morning of Monday, June 12. Credit: Jessica Lea.

The Executive Committee (EC) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) decided the morning of Monday, June 12, to give messengers the opportunity to vote on whether to amend the SBC constitution to include a permanent ban on female pastors, as proposed by Virginia pastor Mike Law. After some debate, the SBC Executive Committee decided to bring Law’s amendment to the messengers at the annual meeting in New Orleans, but voiced its opposition to that amendment.

“While the messengers to the 2022 SBC Annual Meeting entrusted the Executive Committee with this motion,” said the EC in its recommendation, “we recognize the significance of the matter, at this given time, and therefore believe it is prudent to place the referred motion before the entire body of messengers, while also expressing our opposition to the suggested amendment to SBC Constitution Article III.”

SBC Executive Committee Approves Recommendation

The SBC’s annual meeting takes place in New Orleans this week from June 13-14, and around 15,000 messengers (i.e., delegates) are expected to attend. One of the hot-button issues on the table is the SBC’s stance on women in positions of church leadership.

Last year, Pastor Mike Law proposed an amendment to the SBC constitution that says, “I move that the Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention be amended to include an enumerated 6th item under Article 3, Paragraph 1, concerning composition. The enumerated 6th item would read: ‘6. Does not affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.’”

Monday morning the EC voted on whether or not to approve an EC recommendation regarding Law’s motion. The EC’s recommendation said that “the Executive Committee strongly affirms Article VI of the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 (BFM), which states, ‘While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.’”

The recommendation continued, “However, the Executive Committee deems that our beliefs are most appropriately stated in our adopted statement of faith rather than in our constitution and therefore opposes a suggested amendment to SBC Constitution, Article III.”

Joshua Hetzler, an EC member from Chester, Virginia, put forward a motion in favor of removing the language in the EC’s recommendation that stated its opposition to Law’s amendment. Instead, Hetzler argued for a “posture of neutrality in handing this to the messengers.”

There have been other times when the SBC’s constitution has restated doctrines already in the BFM, said Hetzler, such as in the examples of discrimination and sexual abuse. “We’re at a cultural moment where this issue…is very confused,” said Hetzler, expressing that a constitutional amendment would empower the SBC Executive Committee in taking action against churches not in cooperation with the SBC’s position on women in church leadership.

Other EC members voiced concern regarding the consequences of embedding Southern Baptist beliefs into the Convention’s constitution and bylaws. “Is it prudent to start putting our statement of faith in our constitutional documents, and have we taken the time to analyze all the ramifications of moving this direction as a denomination and as a convention?” asked EC member Richard Spring, arguing against Hetzler’s motion.

Hetzler’s motion to make the recommendation’s language more neutral failed, and the EC voted by a significant margin to take the recommendation as is to messengers this week.

Other items of business the EC addressed included an update from Neal Hughes, chairman of the new search team for the next EC president and the election of new officers. Dr. Philip Robertson was elected as the new EC chairman and Dr. Tony Dockery as elected vice chairman.

sbc executive committee — SBC Executive Committee members take a standing vote the morning of Monday, June 12. Credit: Jessica Lea.

Christian Actor Neal McDonough Reflects on ‘How Blessed I Really Am’ After Playing the Devil in ‘The Shift’

By

Janna Firestone

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June 12, 2023

Known for his roles as “Buck” in “Band of Brothers” and as “Dave Williams” in Season 5 of “Desperate Housewives,” Neal McDonough has filled his share of the big screen roles as various villains. However, in real life, this “villain” publicly proclaims being a Christian. McDonough credits his most recent role of playing the devil in the upcoming action film “The Shift” with learning even more about his relationship with God.

Neal McDonough Plays the Devil in ‘The Shift’

While he has played plenty of villains through his acting career, McDonough told The Christian Post, “‘The Shift’ is the first time I’ve actually played the devil.”

When the role of the devil was initially offered to McDonough, he decided it wasn’t for him. However, McDonough’s wife, Ruvé, noticed something was off and asked him about it. After he explained the role, his hesitancy, and his assumption that another guy should get the role, Ruvé replied, “What guy, like you, who’s a villain, also has an amazing relationship with God?”

So McDonough accepted the role. “I’m so grateful that she convinced me to do it because when you play characters like this, you learn so much about yourself and how blessed I am to have [God’s] backing in everything that I do, to have all the gifts that God’s given me in my life,” McDonough said. “My amazing wife, five kids, the movies and TV shows, everything!”

Playing the devil gave McDonough a different perspective on life, both on and off the screen. He reflected, “We all at times have a very mean person in us, all of us; we’re all human. There was only one person who was perfect, and everyone else has been trying. And the harder you try, the more the devil will tempt you with stuff.”

“When I get to play a character like this, that’s the devil, I got to learn so much about myself, about how blessed I really am in my life,” he mentioned.

McDonough, along with the film’s director and staff, tried to make the devil “as human as possible.” The actor continued, “We made him this 8-year-old spoiled little kid who didn’t get that candy bar, and then by doing so, there’s a moment at the end of the film where you see how crushed the devil is that he can’t understand the love that Kris has for God.”

McDonough concluded, “You see, ‘aw, that poor dude, he’s all messed up.’ We all have that every day. We all have that ‘poor guy, that guy’s messed up.’ But it’s how you come back from it. It’s how you dust yourself off after you do something that isn’t really a great thing.”

The actor credits Angel Studios with much of the character development and holistic approach to movie making. McDonough shared, “What Angel does, no one else is doing. And thank the Lord that they’re doing it because it gives us all as viewers a place to go see content that we feel comfortable watching.”

This Isn’t the First Time Neal McDonough Has Shared His Faith

For years, McDonough has been bold in his faith in God. The actor claims that, due to his faith, he has been blacklisted by Hollywood. His relationship with God is so important that he has set boundaries of what he will and will not do on screen.

“I won’t do kissing scenes,” McDonough said in an interview with actor and podcaster Michael Rosenbaum. “I’ve never wanted to do it, and you know, I got crucified about 10 years ago, where they thought I was this religious zealot that I wouldn’t do sex scenes. It was really because I love my wife more than I love my craft, and people couldn’t understand that.”

Progressive Christian Author Jen Hatmaker Offers Online Course for Parenting LGBTQ+ Kids

By

Stephanie Martin

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June 12, 2023

Christian author Jen Hatmaker, who has publicly affirmed same-sex relationships, released a new online “Me Course” about parenting LGBTQ+ tweens and teens. The six-session video course, currently offered for a discounted price of $41, is billed as a “roadmap” for parents and guardians. It’s also “for those reexamining what they’ve always been taught in the church, for those asking new questions, for allies and friends, for pastors and faith leaders, and more.”

Hatmaker, who shared in 2020 that one of her children is gay, states on her website: “One of my greatest sadnesses in my life is that I did not do my own work early enough so that my own daughter, Sydney, felt safe and beloved in her journey to discovering herself and who she was beautifully made to be.”

Jen Hatmaker: Course Is ‘Near and Dear to My Heart’

In a June 2 Instagram post, Hatmaker, wearing a rainbow T-shirt and earrings, described the course as “obviously near and dear to my heart.” The sessions are “packed with everything you’ve ever asked me” about parenting LGBTQ kids, she said, including terminology, how to handle a child coming out, how to keep LGBTQ kids safe, the current landscape, and “how we navigate this as people of faith.”

By signing up for the course, people could participate in a live June 8 Q&A session between Hatmaker and therapist Isaac Archuleta, one of the course’s guest experts. Archuleta, CEO of I Am Clinic in Denver, grew up in a conservative Assemblies of God household with two ministers as parents. After coming out as gay at age 22, he went through years of conversion therapy, attended seminary, and then established a therapy practice “of queer people for queer people.” Because Archuleta had no resources to help him during his own journey, he said he felt damaged and dirty, leading to anxiety and depression.

Hatmaker and Archuleta both emphasized the importance of providing safe spaces for LGBTQ kids. The Me Course, Hatmaker said, helps parents “keep our kids not just safe but thriving.” Her daughter has “talked very candidly about what her experience was like in our home, in our church,” and as a mother Hatmaker wishes she could “go back and teach myself sooner what it would’ve meant to truly be a home of safety for her, that she wasn’t having to figure out so much alone.”

Another guest expert for the course is Sara Cunningham, who founded Free Mom Hugs after coming to terms with her son’s sexual orientation.

Reactions to Hatmaker’s Course Announcement

In the comments of Hatmaker’s Instagram post, people are debating whether homosexuality is biblical or sinful. “As Christians, we should accept and love all people, as Jesus did,” someone wrote, “but why would we embrace, promote, and be prideful in what the Bible speaks against?” Another person commented, “Pride month [is] weeding out all the people I’m unfollowing. Thanks.”

Christian Leaders Criticize Biden as Pride Flag Flies at White House

By

Dale Chamberlain

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June 12, 2023

Biden White House Pride Event Equality Act — American flags and a pride flag hang from the White House during a Pride Month celebration on the South Lawn, Saturday, June 10, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

On Saturday (June 10), President Joe Biden presided over the largest LGTBQ+ Pride celebration ever to be hosted at the White House.

While Biden used the event to emphasize his continued support for the passage of the controversial Equality Act, what more sharply raised the ire of many Christians online was an image of a Pride flag flying between two American flags on the Truman Balcony.

The Equality Act, which was first introduced in February 2021, seeks to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to add protections against discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. However, conservatives have argued that the act, as written, poses a grave danger to the religious liberty of churches and religious institutions that maintain a traditional view of marriage and sexuality.

The LGBTQ+ Pride event on Saturday was attended by more than a thousand guests and featured a number of high profile individuals from the LGBTQ+ community, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is the first openly LGBTQ+ person to hold a Cabinet position, and Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Admiral Rachel Levine, the first openly transgender person to be confirmed by the Senate.

Survivors of the mass shootings at gay night clubs in Colorado Springs and Orlando were also invited.

In his address, Biden urged Congress to pass the Equality Act, saying, “When families across the country face excruciating decisions to relocate to a different state to protect their child from dangerous anti-LGTBQ laws, we have to act.”

“We need to push back against the hundreds of callous and cynical bills introduced in states targeting transgender children, terrifying families and criminalizing doctors and nurses,” Biden continued. “These bills and laws attack the most basic values and freedoms we have as Americans.”

Later that evening, the president tweeted a picture from the White House, in which a Pride flag could be seen flying over the South Lawn.

“Today, the People’s House—your house—sends a clear message to the country and to the world,” Biden said. “America is a nation of pride.”

A number of Christian leaders responded to the tweet with frustration.

Three Years After George Floyd’s Death, Faith Groups Quietly Advance Racial Healing

By

Adelle M Banks

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June 12, 2023

racial reconciliation — Visitors with a Let’s Talk initiative pose together at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Sept. 13, 2022, in Washington. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks

(RNS) — Three years after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis brought crowds into the streets for a summer of protests, Christian groups are quietly launching initiatives that address the still-fraught racial divisions among their members and in the wider society.

In New Orleans next week, leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, which has been roiled by unrest over critical race theory and other racial issues in recent years, will hold a forum on racial reconciliation. Beginning Friday (June 9), meanwhile, representatives of mainline and historic Black Protestant denominations will discuss their plans for “eradicating racism,” in the words of a session planned for a three-day meeting in Philadelphia.

“We need to have honest conversations with people who don’t look like us to find out why we have these differences,” said Fred Luter, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention and the first African American to lead the nation’s largest Protestant group. “We need to talk about it, we need to discuss it and we should be able to discuss it in a Christian-like manner and hopefully come up with simple steps of what we can do to bring about unity among the races in the SBC.”

On Monday, as delegates to the SBC’s annual meeting gather, Luter said he expects about 300 people at the racial reconciliation event organized by the Unify Project, a campaign Luter founded with another former SBC president, Ed Litton, with the advice of Dallas megachurch pastor Tony Evans. The Unify Project aims to bring pastors and churches together for meals and to help them speak out and jointly provide community service.

In 2018, in Memphis, Tennessee, the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, then headed by Russell Moore, co-sponsored an event on racism timed to the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., in an attempt to advance the racial history of a denomination that supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. But since then race has again become a sore point for the SBC.

Luter said he hopes the gathering, which is co-hosted by the ERLC, will turn the SBC to a new direction. “All we can do is hope,” he said. “That’s my hope, personally.”

In Philadelphia, the 10 denominations that comprise the 21-year-old Churches Uniting in Christ have convened to address how its member groups can work on “a shared mission to combat racism,” one part of an eight-point agenda that also includes commitments to promoting unity, celebrating the Eucharist together and continuing theological dialogue.

“Our hope is to set some goals for the next three years that will focus on how we can continue to work on racial equity together and how we can continue to dialogue with each other,” said the Rev. Jean Hawxhurst, a United Methodist ecumenist and vice president of CUIC.

Bishop Jeffrey Leath of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a member of the CUIC Coordinating Council, said the gathering will consider how their work fits with that of other ecumenical groups working on race issues and how their representatives can address a range of forms of biases.

“Black and brown communities should be committed to working on issues of anti-bias as we work along with our white brothers and sisters on anti-racism,” said Leath, who also is the ecumenical officer of the AME Church. “The African American and various Black and brown communities are plagued with classism, colorism and xenophobia in ways that are just as egregious as racism.”

Pope Benedict XVI’s Cousins Stand To Inherit His Money. None of Them Want It.

By

Tom Heneghan

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June 12, 2023

(RNS) — The surviving relatives of the late Pope Benedict XVI stand to inherit money from his legacy, according to the executor of his last will and testament. None of these relatives seem willing to touch it.

One cousin has already refused to accept the inheritance; four others have not yet responded. If they are smart, they will turn it down as well.

The problem is that, by accepting the money, an heir also takes over any legal claims against the deceased, according to estate laws in Germany, where the cousins all live. Joseph Ratzinger, as he was known before adopting his papal name, is a defendant in one of the most-watched cases of clerical sexual abuse in the country.

“We didn’t expect this inheritance, and our lives are just fine without it,” said Martina Holzinger, the daughter and legal guardian of a now 88-year-old Ratzinger cousin who has refused the unexpected gift.

When the retired pope died at age 95 on December 31, 2022, his longtime assistant, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, got to work as executor of the will. “Gorgeous George,” as the Clooney-double was known among Vatican journalists, duly went about contacting the few first cousins still alive.

Without even knowing how much the inheritance would be, the prospect of taking on the scandal that darkened Ratzinger’s legacy was too much. “I could get the shakes just thinking about how much I would have to pay out,” she told Bavarian Radio.

With the towers of the cathedral in the background, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, bids farewell to the Bavarian believers in downtown Munich, Germany, Feb. 28, 1982. The Vatican on Jan. 26, 2022, strongly defended Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s record in fighting clergy sexual abuse and cautioned against looking for “easy scapegoats and summary judgments,” after an independent report faulted his handling of four cases of abuse when he was archbishop of Munich. (AP Photo/Dieter Endlicher, File)

The former pope’s problems began in 1980, when he was archbishop of Munich, and the Rev. Peter Hullermann was transferred to the Bavarian state capital from Essen. Hullermann had been accused of eight cases of abusing children in Essen, but while Munich was informed of his record, the public was not.

After some therapy — the church’s accepted response at the time — Hullermann was sent back into normal ministry near Munich, with no mention of his past problems. That gave him access to minors once again, and by 1986 he received an 18-month suspended sentence from a local court for sexually abusing 11 boys.

Then the priest was sent to Garching an der Alz, near the Austrian border, and the abuse continued. In 2008, he was transferred again, to Bad Tölz, a spa town south of Munich. There, in 2010, he was suspended as a priest and finally defrocked in 2022.

The former pope denied knowing about Hullermann until January 2022, when a report on sexual abuse in the Munich archdiocese showed he had attended a 1980 meeting about Hullermann’s transfer and approved it.

The report, ordered by the archdiocese itself, accused him of probably lying to the investigators. They concluded Ratzinger had failed to act in four separate abuse cases.

Days later, his personal secretary, Gänswein, said Ratzinger now remembered attending the Hullermann meeting and blamed the omission on “an oversight in the editing of the statement.”

Doomed or Sign of Hope? Pope Francis’ Mission for Peace in Ukraine Is Underway

By

Claire Giangrave

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June 12, 2023

Streets are flooded in Kherson, Ukraine, Wednesday, June 7, 2023 after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam led to massive flooding in southern Ukraine. (AP Photo/Libkos)

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Sent on a papal mission for peace, Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi returned from Kyiv on Tuesday amid mixed reactions from the champions and skeptics of Pope Francis’ efforts to mediate in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

Pope Francis sent Zuppi, who heads the Italian Bishops’ Conference and has extensive experience in peace-building projects, to the Ukrainian capital June 5-6 where he met with religious and political representatives, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The objective of the mission, the Vatican said, was to listen to parties involved in order to promote a “just peace.”

What a “just peace” means to Kyiv and Moscow, let alone the West and other stakeholders, may be very different things, and many question whether the Vatican can wield enough influence to bring the opposing sides to any common ground.

After his meeting with Zuppi, Zelenskyy wrote on the messaging app Telegram that “only united efforts, diplomatic isolation and pressure on Russia” can “bring a just peace to the Ukrainian land.”

For Pope Francis, bringing about peace cannot happen without dialogue between all parties involved, including Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. The pope has avoided explicitly calling out Russia as the aggressor or condemning the Kremlin for its actions in the war in hopes of keeping the door open for the Vatican to act as a negotiator.

Many Ukrainians have expressed disappointment in the pope’s unwillingness to take their side in the conflict, while Zelenskyy made it clear after his meeting with Zuppi that, while Ukraine “welcomes the readiness of other states and partners to find ways to peace,” ultimately it will be up to Ukraine to determine the “algorithm for achieving peace.”

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, head of the CEI (Italian Conference of Bishops) speaks during a press conference at the Vatican, Thursday, May 25, 2023, at the end of the 77th CEI general assembly. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, head of the CEI (Italian Conference of Bishops) speaks during a press conference at the Vatican, Thursday, May 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)

Zuppi’s peace mission in Ukraine occurred shortly before the 25th anniversary of the death of another Vatican diplomat from Italy who grappled with the aftermath of the Cold War, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli. Known as the “father of Ostpolitik,” he carried out the Vatican’s 1970s diplomacy policy with countries in the Soviet bloc in a similar manner, aimed at not condemning communism in exchange for protection of Catholics living behind the Iron Curtain. Casaroli greatly influenced the church’s international profile today.

While speaking before newly minted cardinals in August of last year, Pope Francis praised Casaroli for “supporting, with wise dialogue, the new horizons of Europe after the Cold War,” and warned against the political blindness that risks closing those horizons once more.

A large part of how the Vatican handles its diplomatic efforts is by offering charitable support for those who are affected the most by the crisis. In Kyiv, Zuppi met with the parliamentary commissioner for human rights, Dmytro Lubinets, to address the question of the many Ukrainian children who have gone missing since the onset of the war.

“Russia has already abducted over 19,000 children, and those are just the cases we know of — we know the Russians also deliberately change their names and birth dates so their parents cannot find them,” alleged Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Sviatoslav Shevchuk on Monday.

Shevchuk has been a strong advocate for Ukrainians on the ground since the beginning of the conflict, urging the international community to take Russia to task for its human rights violations in the war.

As Christian Reformed Synod Opens, One Church Awaits Its Fate

By

Yonat Shimron

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June 12, 2023

(RNS) — By all accounts, Neland Avenue Christian Reformed Church is doing well.

This past year, the church completed a $4.4 million renovation, adding a street-level lobby encased in glass, with a new kitchen and new bathrooms. It renovated the sanctuary and installed a wheelchair ramp and a new stage. It added an elevator.

But this Grand Rapids, Michigan, congregation, with a membership of about 650, is at the center of a maelstrom sweeping the denomination to which it belongs, the Christian Reformed Church in North America.

Like so many other congregations across the country, Neland Avenue took a step too far for the denomination of about 200,000 members when it ordained as a deacon a woman in a same-sex marriage.

Last June, delegates to the Christian Reformed Church’s annual meeting — called a synod — ordered the congregation to immediately rescind the ordination.

The church refused.

On Friday (June 9), as it begins its 2023 Synod, 184 delegates from the United States and Canada will convene on the campus of Calvin University, the denomination’s flagship school, less than four miles from the church, to decide what steps to take in response to Neland Avenue’s intransigence.

The synod meets amid a growing backlash to LGBTQ gains across the nation and ongoing decadeslong divisions among theologically conservative denominations over sexuality.

Last year, the synod tightened its teachings on human sexuality, voting to declare sexually active gays and lesbians “unchaste” and to elevate its ban on gay sex to the status of confession, or proclamation of faith.

The Christian Reformed Church annual synod meets at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, June 14, 2022. Video screen grab

The vote, following hours of debate, was contentious. This year’s synod, which concludes on June 15, is expected to revisit the issue. About 50 of the 76 overtures, or requests, submitted to the synod ask either that delegates undo last year’s actions or build on them and go further in disciplining churches that dissent.

The synod will also consider Neland Avenue’s appeal of last year’s directive to recall the deacon as well as a recommendation from a committee that met with Neland Avenue to require the church to immediately “rescind” and “nullify” any current or future office bearers in a same-sex relationship.

“We believe that the actions of Neland Avenue CRC have disrespected and disregarded the deliberation and decisions of our corporate body and therefore are a breaking of covenant,” the committee’s report said.

5 Church Trends That Deserve Our Attention

By

Gavin Adams

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June 12, 2023

How is your church adjusting to new church trends?

If your answer is, “We aren’t worried about trends?”, I get it.

And I hate to say this to you, but your church may not make it if you don’t pay attention. If you do survive, it will be on the backs of the remnant of insiders who also refuse to adjust or acknowledge a changing world.

The Gospel Isn’t a “Trend,” Gavin!

I agree. At the core of the Good News is only good news. No more and no less.

The Gospel never changes. God never changes. Salvation by faith never changes. In summary, our core theology is unchanging. Yet our ministry models must be flexible.

This is a massively important reality for successful church leaders: Ministry and theology differ.

Theology is studying God. Ministry is loving and leading others to God.

Theology is systematic, but ministry is automatic. Theology is interpretive, but ministry is expressive.

Theology informs ministry, but they are different. When we attempt to make them the same, we ruin one or the other, and at times, both.

This isn’t a new topic for my blog. If you’d like to read more, this may be of interest: Don’t Allow Theology to Stall Ministry

There is more to unpack here, but for this post, let’s get back to trends.

Since ministry is malleable, trends, culture, and our changing community should affect how we implement ministry. Again, and I cannot say this strongly enough, your theology may not change, but how you execute that theology in the real world of your church and community must adjust over time.

Think of it like clothing trends. Which, as I type that, seems mighty trite. But hang with me. When I became a pastor, I left most of my marketplace attire in the closet and donned a less businesslike look. I wore jeans and button-up shirts, which sounds normal. However, in 2005, these jeans were massively baggy. My shirts did button up, but I rarely used the top several buttons, and I preferred the inside of the cuffs to have a different fabric as to be seen when slightly rolled up. And there may or may not have been an occasional embroidered pattern. While I see now that should have NEVER been a trend, it was, and it worked for me (although some may argue otherwise).

Fast forward five to ten years, and we find skinny jeans. Half the fabric at twice the cost. If nothing else, we don’t see suits in most churches because we don’t see suits in most communities.

God informs our theology, but people determine our ministry.

Therefore, church leaders must always understand their broader community and adjust in kind. We change our clothing styles and should be just as willing to change our ministry models.

What Trends Are the Most Challenging for Your Church?

I’ve been working in the church for 15 years. That’s shorter than some of you, but it’s long enough to see a few trends come and go. And not just clothing ones!

For the past two years, I’ve consulted with church leaders and worked with churches on ministry model overhauls, funding systems, volunteer engagement, and the like. Like you, I’m also a student of the church.

As I’ve surveyed and synthesized, it is clear that some trends in and around the church have emerged. Some were happening pre-pandemic, but all have accelerated during and following the pandemic.

Christian Songwriters Beware!

By

Don Chapman

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June 12, 2023

I have a tale of horror that will terrify all Christian songwriters! Songwriters, if you ever get to the point in your career when publishers are interested in your music: beware.

A few weeks ago, I received a royalty statement in the mail from Universal Music Group that brought back a lot of bad memories. It was for a song I co-wrote years ago, and somehow, it had made a total of three cents.

I co-wrote this worship song in the late ’90s when I lived in Nashville, and it generated a little buzz—a few publishers were interested in it.

Christian Songwriters Beware!

One very renowned and reputable man wanted to sign it to his catalog. This guy was well known throughout the industry and had signed some of the biggest songs in Christian music that went on to be sung by some of the biggest artists in Christian music.

It seemed like this was our “big break” as songwriters.

But, ever on the cautious side, I said to my co-writer, “Maybe he’ll agree to a deal—if he can’t get the song cut in two years, the publishing reverts back to us.” This is a fairly typical agreement in Nashville.

The guy refused. “I never sign a song unless I know I can get it cut.”

And of course, he never got it cut.

How to Lose First Time Guests in 10 Minutes

By

Carey Nieuwhof

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June 12, 2023

It’s hard to believe, but according to people who study these things, first time guests to your church make up their minds whether they’re coming back or not in the first 10 minutes of their visit. Think about that. Before they hear the first note of music, before they hear the first word of a sermon or before anyone stands up and says “welcome” in the service, most first-time guests have already made a conscious or subconscious decision about whether they’re coming back.

What might be hanging in the balance is someone’s opportunity to embrace Jesus.

On Episode 132 of my Leadership Podcast I had a far-ranging conversation on a guest’s first 10 minutes at a church with Greg Atkinson, author of Secrets of a Secret Church Shopper. In the interview, Greg outlines the factors that determine whether or not a first-time guest is likely to return.

First Time Guests Decide if They’ll Return in the First 10 Minutes

What’s surprising to me about the factors Greg outlines is that they’re actually simple hospitality, people and facility-related things. Conclusion? Often the barrier to Christ isn’t spiritual—it’s us.

From the way you park cars, to how you greet people, to their cleanliness of the facility, the factors that determine whether a guest returns are all within our control. The problem is, too many church leaders either don’t know or don’t care about what drives people away or keeps them coming back.

Does that mean there are no spiritual barriers to first time guests return to church or to Christ? Of course not. And we could get into a long discussion about whether God draws people to himself and the futility of human effort, but we won’t.

Is God in control? He most certainly is. God is in control. But you have a role. So steward it well.

At Connexus, where I serve, we constantly remind ourselves that every Sunday is someone’s first Sunday. We’re thankful that God sends people (as you are)…and we want to make sure that we’re not the barrier to someone coming to Christ.

That said, it’s so easy for us to miss the things that become barriers.

How to lose first time guests in 10 minutes

1. Have a Bad Online Presence

When was the last time you bought a new product, went to a new restaurant or even took a vacation without checking things out online first?

Right: never.

Ditto with people who are thinking of visiting your church. There’s a high probability that they’ll check you out online long before they’ll ever check-in their kids on their first Sunday.

It’s not 1987 anymore, so why act like it in your church?

When was the last time you thought about your website from the perspective of a first-time guest? Same for your social media accounts or pages.

First time guests will check out a church online long before they check out a church in real life. It doesn’t matter whether you live-stream your services or not, a simple website with basic information for a first-time guest is helpful. (Here’s an example from our site at Connexus Church.)

Your site doesn’t have to be perfect, cost $10,000 or even be totally what you want it to be. You just need to let the guest know you’ve been thinking of them and give them the basic information they need.

Here’s a basic question. Did you build your site mostly for your attenders, or for your first time guests? If it’s only for your attenders, why?

When Churches Want a Pastor Who Can “Bring in Young Families”

By

Jan Edmiston

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June 12, 2023

Almost every church I’ve ever known has wanted to reach young families. The reasoning behind this includes the following:

If we don’t regenerate, everyone will eventually get old and die.
It’s energizing to have young people around.
Younger members can do the work that older members can’t/won’t do anymore.
Older members tend to be on fixed incomes and younger working members are needed for their pledges.
Young families (i.e., mom, dad and kids) remind us of church when we were (or wish we were) part of young families.

There are a few things wrong with this reasoning, including the fact that “attracting” people in general feels manipulative—as if people are “targets” to be used for our own purposes. Yuck.

Why Do We Want Young Families?

Let’s be honest about the “why“ when we want to reach young families. Are we saying that we want these rare and valuable young families for what they can give to us? What if—instead—the “why” of this demographic quest was about feeding souls and sharing authentic community? I always hoped—as a young mom—that church would provide adults that could help me nurture my children. I always wanted to know that—if my kids couldn’t come to me or HH with a problem—they would have other trustworthy adults to whom they could go (and they did).

Young families are great. Old families are great. Families made up of child-free couples are great. Families of single people are great. Imagine if every church simply wanted a Pastor Who Could Bring in Broken People. Now that’s a church.

Also, the days are gone when young families were present in worship every Sunday. The statistics are in about how the definition of “regular worship” has changed since the 1950s. (“Regular” used to mean weekly. Now it means once or twice a month.)

R.C. Sproul: Explaining Anomalies

By

R.C. Sproul

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June 10, 2023

Unbelievers often allege that the Bible is “full of contradictions.” I’ve noted in many places over the years, however, that most of the contradictions people suggest really do not qualify as contradictions but merely reflect the difference in perspective we get when several eyewitnesses describe the same event but give different details. In such cases, the accounts do not contradict one another; rather, each account may emphasize different aspects of the same event, such that we get a fuller picture when we see how the details can be harmonized. Variations in perspective are exactly what we should expect even in a divinely inspired text, for the Holy Spirit did not override the personalities and styles of the individual authors when they wrote. Instead, the Spirit worked through their concerns to give us an inerrant record of what happened even as each writer focuses on some details and not others.

The vast majority of supposed “contradictions” in Scripture are relatively easy to reconcile. However, for the sake of honesty, I must acknowledge that there are a handful of problems in Scripture that are exceedingly difficult. For instance, it’s hard at times to square 1 and 2 Chronicles with 1 and 2 Kings, particularly with respect to when certain kings reigned, how long they ruled, and when they took the throne. Some have done the yeoman’s work of figuring out how these accounts fit together, which requires detailed knowledge of how ancient Near Eastern peoples recorded dates, periods of co-regency when two kings ruled at the same time, and other such things. No universally accepted solution has yet been found for every problem, but the work continues, and there’s every reason to believe we will have better answers as we learn more about how ancient Near Eastern writers, including the authors of Kings and Chronicles, did their work.

I’m confident such problems will eventually be solved because we serve a God who speaks truthfully and consistently, and because archaeological discoveries continue to confirm the biblical account. As an example, for many years all we knew about Pontius Pilate came from the Bible and a few other extrabiblical documents, so some people questioned whether Pilate ever existed. But in 1961, an ancient inscription mentioning Pilate was found in what was once the city Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean coast, thereby confirming that Pilate was indeed procurator of Judea during Jesus’ time. Another formerly “assured result of higher criticism” that “disproved” the Bible relates to the story of Abraham. For a long time, there was no archaeological evidence that camels had been domesticated in the patriarchal period, and many people said that proved the Genesis account to be fictional because the Abraham story includes domesticated camels. But eventually, archaeological discoveries pushed back the domestication of camels hundreds of years—well into the patriarchal period.

The more I study alleged biblical difficulties and see their resolutions, the more I back away from the text in utter amazement that the Bible can be so coherent and so consistent and so unified at the tiniest level of the fine details.

Other discrepancies in the biblical account have yet to be resolved, but that doesn’t mean we should doubt Scripture’s truthfulness. Here, I’m simply following the course of ordinary science. Every so often, we see massive changes in scientific theory, paradigm shifts in which there is a change in the overarching model adopted to make sense of the data. Scientific paradigms are structural theories that explain reality, but every scientific paradigm has had to deal with anomalies, for every paradigm suffers from the presence of details that it cannot neatly explain. But you don’t throw out the paradigm the first time you find an anomaly the paradigm cannot explain. You wait, you study, you get more data, and so on.

The paradigm doesn’t shift until you get enough of these anomalies challenging the system. Copernican astronomy did not replace Ptolemaic astronomy because there were only a few details Ptolemy’s system couldn’t explain. The Ptolemaic system worked for many centuries until too many anomalies were discovered. The Copernican model was then adopted because it better explains the data and has fewer anomalies.

Overall, the trend with respect to apparent biblical discrepancies is that the number of them is decreasing. If maybe there were once a hundred such difficulties, that list has been pared down to a handful. At this point, we don’t throw the Bible out based on a handful of unresolved difficulties when everything indicates a greater confidence in Scripture’s truthfulness than we had before.

We tend to be too quick in accusing normal people, let alone the Bible, of contradictions. Now, we’re all capable of inconsistence, incoherency, and contradiction. But common courtesy requires at least that we give others the benefit of a second glance. We should strive to figure out how someone can consistently affirm two seemingly contradictory positions. In giving that second glance, we often find that what others are saying is not as contradictory as it first seemed. If we extend this courtesy to others, how much more do we owe it to the Apostles? Before we accuse Paul of a contradiction, we ought to have enough respect for his importance to see if what he says in Ephesians really contradicts what he says in Galatians.

One of the most satisfying and faith-increasing exercises in my own lifetime has involved giving focused attention to alleged biblical difficulties. That’s because the more I study them and see their resolutions, the more I back away from the text in utter amazement that the Bible can be so coherent and so consistent and so unified at the tiniest level of the fine details. Its symmetry, its complexity, and its harmony are astonishing.

This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.

That’s Just Your Interpretation

By

James Emery White

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June 10, 2023

It’s all too common for someone to point out something the Bible says and have somebody respond, “Well, that’s just your interpretation,” as if when it comes to what the Bible says there’s nothing more than personal opinion. But is that true? Is interpreting the Bible just the reader’s opinion, completely subjective, so that when it comes to the Bible it’s a free-for-all? Believe what you want, read it how you wish, because it doesn’t say anything definitive?

I’m afraid that’s a cultural myth. There’s an actual field of study for interpretation called hermeneutics defined as “the science of interpretation.” And it is a science—a series of steps, practices, disciplines and rules that apply to interpretation.

But make no mistake—99% of the Bible doesn’t take any heavy lifting in regard to interpretation. Here’s some quick reading. In the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy it says, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (6:4, NIV). So is there one God or two? One! In the Old Testament book of Exodus it says, “You shall not steal” (20:15, NIV). Is it okay to steal or not? It’s not! In the New Testament book of I Thessalonians it says, “… Jesus died and rose again” (4:14, NIV). Did Jesus die and rise again or not? The Bible says that He did. So is the Bible obscure in its meaning? No.

So why do so many claim that the Bible is difficult to understand? For some, it’s not in trying to grasp the most obvious reading, but in accepting the implications of that reading. It’s interesting how when you don’t like something you read, you can suddenly find yourself having a hard time understanding.

Lee Strobel says to pretend that your daughter and her boyfriend are going out for a Coke on a school night. You say to her, “You must be home before 11.” Now suppose it gets to be 10:45 and the two of them are still having a great time. They don’t want the evening to end, so suddenly they begin to have difficulty interpreting your instructions. They say: “What did he really mean when he said, ‘You must be home before 11?’ Did he literally mean us or was he talking about you in a general sense, like people in general? Was he saying, in effect, ‘As a general rule, people must be home before 11?’ Or was he just making the observation that generally, people are in their homes before 11? I mean, he wasn’t very clear, was he?

“And what did he mean by, ‘You must be home before 11?’ Would a loving father be so adamant and inflexible? He probably meant it as a suggestion. I know he loves me, so isn’t it implicit that he wants me to have a good time? And I am having fun, so he wouldn’t want me to end the evening so soon.

“And what did he mean by, ‘You must be home before 11?’ He didn’t specify whose home. It could be anybody’s home. Maybe he meant it figuratively. Remember the old saying, ‘Home is where the heart is?’ My heart is right here, out having a Coke, so doesn’t that mean I’m already home?

11 Problems With Church Parking Lots

By

Chuck Lawless

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June 10, 2023

In these days of COVID, church parking lots have become more important; in fact, they’re where the worship service takes place in some cases. Here are some general parking lot problems I’ve seen, listed in no particular order.

The parking lot entrance is not easily visible. Sometimes the location of the church building itself isn’t the best. At other times, the location is not poor, but the entrance to the parking lot is difficult to see from the road.
The landscaping is poorly tended. Uncontrolled weeds, dying flowers, uncut grass, and old mulch are not a good witness to the community.
Not enough parking is available. Generally, the 80% rule about church facilities applies to parking as well: when 80% of the parking spaces are full, it is likely that attendance will plateau until more space is available.
No guest parking is available. The church that has no marked guest parking is inadvertently saying (a) we do not expect guests, or (b) we see no reason to treat guests in a special way.
Guest parking is available, but it’s hard to see. Unless someone directs to that parking or those spaces are immediately obvious, guests are likely to miss that benefit. Visitors aren’t typically looking for guest parking.
No greeters are in the parking lot. Without being overly intrusive, parking lot greeters can welcome guests, direct them to an entrance, answer questions they might have, provide umbrellas when it’s raining, assist families with children, and help the elderly.
The church has parking lot greeters, but they’re not easily identified. Because the parking lot typically has a large number of people wandering around, greeters should be clearly identified by something like a vest.
The traffic flow is poor, and no one is directing it. This problem is often more acute in congregations that have worshippers from multiple services entering and exiting at the same time. Parking lot attendants who direct the traffic can make a big difference.
The walk from much of the lot to the front door is long, and the church provides no shuttle option. Those arriving later than others frequently find open spaces only in the distant areas of the lot, and the walk is long. A golf cart might be a wise investment for this church.
The church provides no security in the parking lot. An unattended parking lot during a worship service is regrettably an open invitation for thieves.
No one is praying for this ministry. This work is just that – a ministry – and churches should prayerfully and wisely recruit workers to do these tasks. Moreover, they should commission these workers and pray weekly for them as they serve God in the parking lot.

Does your church have a parking lot ministry? What other problems have you seen? What effective ministry ideas might you share?

This article originally appeared here.

The Church and Mental Illness

By

Ed Stetzer

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June 9, 2023

Let’s talk about mental health and the church. With frequent high-profile tragedies connected with mental illness, many people, Christians and non-Christians alike, are talking about the challenges of mental health.

While some stories garner much media attention, beneath the surface this issue touches many of us deeply. We all have friends and family members who suffer with mental illness, and many of us are struggling.

Last week I spoke at “The Struggle Is Real” Mental Health and the Church Summit at Seacoast Church on the subject of the Church and Mental Illness.

As I see the widespread presence and pain of mental illness, another reality confronts me: Oftentimes Christians struggle with talking about and understanding mental illness.

Mental Health and the Church

When it comes to mental health and the church, there are three points that I want to lay out to encourage all of us to confront effectively the stigma and issues of mental illness. More importantly, let’s seek training to care for our brothers, sisters and even ourselves who suffer with these challenges.

We struggle with how to struggle

The first glaring issue is that Christians struggle with how to struggle with mental illness. In many ways, the church, the supposed haven for sufferers, is not a safe place for those who struggle with mental illness.

Throughout church history, people have written about the “dark times” and how they trusted the Lord in the midst of a trial. But in our churches today, we often feel like we can’t talk about our problems, and so we can’t effectively deal with our suffering.

This truth stretches from the top down. The sad reality of our present church culture is that if a pastor were to talk about the mental illness with which they’re struggling, the next church or organization to which they apply will likely choose another candidate.

How can we, the church, expect to offer the hope of Christ and life-changing help to those suffering if our churches are not a safe place for us to own our brokenness?

We first have to take off our masks and recreate the culture in our homes, churches and organizations. We don’t know how to struggle with mental illness because the church is not a safe place to struggle.

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Recording New Tracks for Our Mind to Play

First, Paul said, focus on whatever is true.

Noble.

Just.

Pure.

Pleasing.

Commendable.

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Destroy the Negative Tracks

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Mental Health and the Church

We struggle with how to struggle

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