Immigration Reform Used to Unite Faith Groups—Not Anymore

February 7, 2022

(RNS) — Back in 2013, creating a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. was the rare issue that virtually all major American religious groups could agree on. The cause was so unifying that conservative evangelicals joined liberal leaders from other faiths that year to muster an unsuccessful but vibrant faith-based campaign to push Congress to pass immigration reform.

But according to a new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute, that united religious front on the issue may be a thing of the past.

In a survey released on Thursday (Feb. 3), PRRI found that, while overall support for a pathway to citizenship has remained virtually unchanged between 2013 and 2021 (63% to 62%), some faith groups have undergone notable shifts. Support among white Catholics dropped from 62% to 54%, for example, and those who claim a non-Christian religion dipped from 68% to 55%.

The most notable shift occurred among white evangelicals: In 2013, most of them (56%) backed a pathway to citizenship in 2013, but now only 47% say they support it today. That makes white evangelicals the only religious group without a majority who support a pathway to citizenship, a difference that widens when limited to those who attend religious services weekly or more (58% to 45%).

“Support for a Pathway to Citizenship for Undocumented Immigrants, 2013-2021, by Religious Affiliation” Graphic courtesy of PRRI

But while small downward shifts also occurred among white mainline Protestants (61% to 59%) and Hispanic Catholics (74% to 70%), some faith communities trended in the opposite direction. Black Protestants are now the most supportive religious group regarding a pathway to citizenship, rising from 70% in 2013 to 75% in 2021. Support among religiously unaffiliated Americans also increased to 69% from 64%.

Meanwhile, several major groups are now more likely to describe immigration as a “critical issue.” In 2013, it was a minority position among white evangelicals (38%), white Catholics (36%) and white mainline Protestants (32%). But last year, majorities of all three said they see the issue as critical, with white Catholics topping the list (57%).

Religiously unaffiliated groups barely changed how they gauge the importance of the issue in that same period, rising only two percentage points to 32%.

“Americans’ Views of Immigration as a Critical Issue, 2013-2021, by White Christian Groups and Religiously Unaffiliated Americans” Graphic courtesy of PRRI

Among white evangelicals who do view immigration as a critical issue, only 34% expressed support for allowing undocumented immigrants to become citizens provided they meet certain requirements. They were more receptive (41%) to allowing immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children to gain legal status, a policy known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.

Former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and hardline policies regarding immigrants were widely decried by religious liberals but often embraced by evangelical Protestants, who were some of his most stalwart supporters.

Trump’s attempt to “wind down” DACA, for instance, was condemned by myriad faith groups in 2017 but drew praise from some of his evangelical advisers.

In some ways, white evangelicals have remained the same, such as whether those surveyed agreed that “the growing number of newcomers from other countries strengthens American society.” White evangelicals remain the group least likely to say yes, barely shifting from 38% to 35% from 2011 to 2021.

The religiously unaffiliated, meanwhile, saw a marked shift and are now the group most likely to say immigrants strengthen society: Support shot up from 65% to 74%. An even more dramatic change took place among Black Protestants: While only 48% agreed in 2011, 69% do now.

This article originally appeared here.

Marks of Manhood

Nicholas Batzig

February 7, 2022

thank you notes for children’s ministry volunteers

At a time when there is more confusion in the culture about gender and role relations, it would help us to take a step back and consider what Scripture sets forth as the model of manhood, namely, the Lord Jesus. Much of what passes as a call to manhood from certain quarters of the church today is nothing other than a parading of machismo austerity, whereas so much of what passes as a critique of “patriarchalism” is nothing other than a sophisticatedly repackaged egalitarianism. The biblical picture of manhood is much more complex and dynamic than most of the models with which we are presented.

No one reveals true manhood more than Jesus. The Christ who boldly threw tables over in the Temple and faithfully rebuked evil religious leaders, is the same Jesus who compassionately dealt with the sick and the sinful, loving laid down His life for His people, and affectionately allowed Himself to be leaned upon by the Apostle John. Jesus teaches us that manhood is not first and foremost a sort of grizzly outdoorsmanship. Rather, in Christ we find the complexity of characteristics that God intended for Adam to embody at creation. Jesus is the Last Adam, the head of a redeemed humanity. Jesus was more fully human, and more fully man, than any other man who has ever lived.

While there is no particular order in which we can set forth the characteristics of true manhood as embodied by Jesus, Scripture places His gentleness and humility front and center. A cameo of Jesus in the gospels reveals One who was supremely marked by gentleness and humility. As B.B. Warfield once explained,

[Jesus] himself, on a great occasion, sums up his individual character (in express contrast with other individuals) in the declaration, ‘I am meek and lowly of heart.’ And no impression was left by his life-manifestation more deeply imprinted upon the consciousness of his followers than that of the noble humility of his bearing. It was by the ‘meekness and gentleness of Christ’ that they encouraged one another to a life becoming a Christian man’s profession (2 Cor. 10:1); for ‘the patience of Christ’ that they prayed in behalf of one another as a blessing worthy to be set in their aspirations by the side of the “love of God” (2 Thess. 3:5); to the imitation of Christ’s meek acceptance of undeserved outrages that they exhorted one another in persecution — ‘because Christ also suffered for sin, leaving you an example, that ye should follow in his steps; who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not; but committed himself to him that judges righteously’ (1 Pet. 2:21-23).

The complexity of true manhood embodied by Jesus is seen in the way in which His holy meekness resulted in righteous angry toward evil. Warfield again explained,

Meekness in our Lord was not a weak bearing of evils, but a strong forbearance in the presence of evil. It was not so much a fundamental characteristic of a nature constitutionally averse to asserting itself, as a voluntary submission of a strong person bent on an end. It did not, therefore, so much give way before indignation when the tension became too great for it to bear up against it, as coexist with a burning indignation at all that was evil, in a perfect equipoise which knew no wavering to this side or that.

This aspect of the manhood of Christ is evident in His act of purifying the place of His Father’s worship (John 2:13-22), and in His anger over the effects of death when He stood at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:33, 38). At the tomb of Lazarus, John tells us that Jesus was literally “moved with indignation” (the force of language is not captured in many of our English translations). There is no conflict between the meekness of Christ and His righteous anger. The two characteristics work together in perfect harmony. The righteous anger of Jesus toward death and its effects at the tomb of Lazarus led Him to weep with Mary (John 11:37).

Though Jesus’ righteous anger led him to weep with Mary, it was love that led Him to rebuke the religious leaders in Israel for the spiritual harm they were causing the people. Wherever He saw the truth of God perverted in the teaching and lives of the Pharisees, Scribes, Chief Priests, and Sadducees, he confronted it was a directness and righteous anger. The Savior did not refute the religious leaders in order to parade His boldness, as so many do in our day. He did so out of a desire to see people come to a knowledge of the truth. He did so out of love for God and men.

How to Develop Your Worship Ministry Vision

John White

February 7, 2022

As I drove home from church the other night, the question hit me, “What is my worship ministry vision?” As I pondered, I realized my vision was too nebulous and incoherent to write down, even though I previously thought I was clear and concise. I am writing this article because I assume that some of you, like myself, are equally challenged in gaining, casting and executing worship vision in tangible ways.

Samples of Worship Ministry Vision

1. Twenty five percent of the people in the congregation will be arriving early to assure they don’t miss worship.

2. During worship, Christ will be revealed with such clarity that 25 people this year will make decisions for Christ by the witness of the worship alone.

3. As a worship leader, I will create a mature congregation of worshippers, so that there will be five fewer notes to the pastor regarding the musical genre.

4. Our worship ministry will write original music for the congregation and produce a CD of our 10 most influential original songs.

Here is a test to see if you should keep reading this article: Write down your worship ministry vision in its tangible expressions, how you will get there and what help you will need in less than one or two paragraphs. OK then, if you are still reading, we are alike—both needing to sharpen our spiritual leadership.

Let’s define godly vision as a compelling image of a better future that goes beyond our abilities and available resources that is empowered and directed by God. There are two important principles in this statement. First, vision compels. The difference between a slogan and vision is that while a slogan states something in a catchy phrase, it lacks the power to compel people to strive toward a goal. Vision does just that. Martin Luther King’s statement is rather unimpressive, but when he said “I have a dream today…” people thrust themselves behind his vision. Today, nearly 30 years later, people still do. His vision is empowered by people wishing to see civil reform in the United States of America. How much more powerful and compelling is vision when God empowers it?

The second important principle of vision is it goes beyond our current abilities and resources. A good example is Joseph. He was the least in his family, yet had big dreams that exceeded all expectations and certainly his resources and abilities. When we consider vision, we must remember we serve a God who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above what we ask or think in accordance to the power that works within us. There are limitless possibilities with God, but we tend to limit what we are willing to commit to when it come to vision. Have you ever downplayed your expectations to guard against possible failure? Most of us have. What does this say about us? When we downplay a God-given goal, we should realize that we are revealing our fear that God won’t come through or our fear we will be considered unspiritual if it does not happen like we expect. If we learn anything from David, it is spiritual maturity and leadership is not the lack of mistakes, but the commitment to believe God and reveal what He promises to do through us. Risky—yes. Faith building—you bet! Scriptural? Absolutely. We can have confidence in what God promises, as Ez. 12:25 says, “For I am the Lord: I will speak, and the word that I shall speak shall come to pass; it shall be no more prolonged for in your days… I will say the word, and will perform it, saith the Lord God” (KJV). Let’s ask ourselves if our confession of the future magnifies (a Greek origin word for worships) God.

How to Develop Your Worship Ministry Vision

Getting started

Worship leaders must first accept the responsibility to lead. If Proverbs 29:18 is true, “Where there is no vision, the people perish,” then we must take the responsibility to gain vision for our ministries. Since most of us do not have revelatory gifts where vision comes quickly, we must be strategically purposeful with our vision-seeking time. Do whatever it takes to get alone with God and put yourself in the spiritual environment and attitude to receive input for your worship ministry vision. There is probably little need to warn you of an overactive imagination, yet you must consider thoughts that are much bigger than yourself. Gaining vision can take a long time, as Hab 2:3 suggests: “Though it (God’s vision) tarries, wait for it.” Let me emphasize that gaining a worship ministry vision may be the single most important part of your ministry if it is to flourish and bear fruit.

Write down your worship ministry vision

Hab 2:2: “Then the Lord answered me and said: ‘Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.'” As you receive the vision, write it down. Few people are gifted or graced with a complete revelation at one time. Therefore, write down as many details as you can. Sometimes vision comes in spurts, and we must allow it to unfold over time. Don’t be surprised if you gain more vision while writing…write that revelation/inspiration down, too. If God’s hand can appear and write on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast (Dan. 5), then we should allow Him the opportunity to use our hand to write on paper. Don’t worry about forming complete sentences or good grammar; simply take notes of what is revealed. Sometimes it is useful to make special notations of what is revealed prior and during writing.

Carey Neiuwhof: 5 Surprising Truths About the Enneagram Tritype Test

Carey Nieuwhof

February 7, 2022

So many leaders have asked me about the Enneagram tritype test. And while I’m a little late to the Enneagram bandwagon, after reading The Road Back to You by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile, I now totally get what the fuss is all about. If you haven’t read the book, done the Enneagram test and don’t know your Enneagram number, here’s a link to the test that will help you discover more about your natural personality type.

So…what’s the big deal about the Enneagram tritype test?

Well, like a Myers Briggs or Strengthfinders assessment, it helps you discover your natural personality type, which in the world of leadership, means your default approach to leadership (and life). It’s another key to self-awareness, but also to an awareness of how everyone else on your team (or personally, even in your family) is wired.

For convenience’s sake, here’s a list of the nine Enneagram personality types:

Type One – The Perfectionist

Type Two – The Helper

Type Three – The Performer

Type Four – The Romantic

Type Five – The Investigator

Type Six – The Loyalist

Type Seven – The Enthusiast

Type Eight – The Challenger

Type Nine – The Mediator

If you’re curious, it turns out I’m an Eight—a challenger (with a Seven-wing). But I almost scored as a One as well (a Perfectionist). Funny, because most friends guessed me as a Three or a Seven.

20 Hurtful Misconceptions About Missionaries

Chuck Lawless

February 7, 2022

On behalf of my missionary brothers and sisters, I plead with you to read this article. A missionary friend encouraged me to write a post about misconceptions about missionaries, so I did some research among missionaries. After many conversations, here are some major misconceptions about missionaries:

20 Misconceptions About Missionaries

1. “We are saints.”

They’re not, they told me. They’re regular people answering God’s call to do work across cultures. They struggle with sin. Their families have arguments. Their kids drive them crazy some days. Missionaries don’t want to be heroes (though they often appreciate the affirmation they get).

2. “We all live in a hut in Africa.”

This one of the major misconceptions about missionaries. Missionaries live all over the world, many in megacities where millions of people live.

3. “When we come to America, we’re coming home.”

Home for missionaries is where they live. The place they reside, and the people they’re seeking to reach, become part of them. Coming to the United States can, in fact, be stressful. I’ll always remember one missionary who called me from Walmart, completely stressed because the vast numbers of cereal options overwhelmed him.

4. “We understand U.S. culture.”

This misperception relates to #3 above. Missionaries come back to churches that are often more elaborate, supermarkets that are much more “super” and missionary homes that are much bigger than what they have where they live. Often, they don’t know the newest praise choruses or recognize the latest sermon illustrations. Reverse culture shock is real for them.

5. “Your short-term mission trip is a great blessing to us.”

It can be, but not always. If your team doesn’t work with the missionary from the beginning—or if you ignore the missionary on the ground to form your own plans—you can make the missionary’s task much harder. Ask how you can help the missionaries rather than telling them what you plan to do.

6. “Our life is just a longer short-term mission trip.”

One missionary put it this way: “On a short-term mission trip, you basically do ministry from sun up to sun down. You don’t negotiate with a landlord, struggle with buying groceries and cooking food, homeschool your kids, or stand in long lines to pay a $2.00 bill. Living overseas requires a lot of effort just to live.”

To read all 20 misconceptions about missionaries, please go to the next page.

You Were Created to Get Creative

Brandon Cox

February 5, 2022

God is quite creative. All you have to do is look up and around you and you’ll see a world filled with wonder, with color, in mesmerizing detail.

Often when people express themselves creatively, even when they aren’t producing specifically “Christian” art, they’re still glorifying God because they’re doing so as a reflection of his creative touch upon their lives.

The thing about art is that some of us just don’t “get” it. We wonder why someone would pay millions of dollars for a painting or spend countless hours listening to musical performances. Art isn’t very practical, after all.

In ancient Greece, there were two cities of global renown. Sparta was famous for their fighters and became the seat of the Greek military. Athens was the center of thought and artistic expression. Both were essential to the ongoing flourishing of the culture.

God wired us to be expressive. He designed us to employ our talents and abilities to show off his glory, sometimes with art and sometimes with engineering and innovation.

Why is God so interested in worship, anyway? It doesn’t seem to feed the hungry or heal the sick. What’s the purpose of praise? The one hundredth psalm gives us a clue:

Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.

~ Psalm 100:1-5 NIV

Shout… worship… sing… know… enter with thanksgiving and praise… these are all commands. And the why?

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever. His faithfulness continues.

We sing and shout and praise God simply on the basis of his worthiness. And when we do, we reach out and touch the heart of our Creator, and he responds by touching our hearts in return.

Praise is God-glorifying. And praise is life-changing. Let it overflow in your life right now. What do you have to praise him for today?

This article originally appeared here.

10 Ways to Start the Day Well for God

Chuck Lawless

February 5, 2022

I’ll be honest—I’m faithful to read and pray each day, but I don’t have a set time to accomplish these tasks. That doesn’t mean, though, that I don’t think about how I start the day. Maybe these suggestions will help you.

Review the day the night before, and pray through your schedule. I look at my calendar each night so I have some sense of what tomorrow will bring. Praying over each event that night helps prepare my mind for a good day tomorrow.
Pray as soon as you awaken. Your prayer may sound different, but here’s mine: “Lord, thank You for this day. Use me for Your glory, and deliver me from the evil one this day.” The latter part of that petition helps me start the day with a focus on holiness.
Get up immediately after you pray. Frankly, just lying in bed is a waste of time for most and an invitation to sin for others. Get up, and start the day the Lord has given you.
Get a daily scripture via email. I have one sent to me long before I get up. That way, I see the Word of God as soon as I pick up my phone and run to my email each morning (which I do far too quickly). I start the day with the Word even though my deeper study time takes place later.
Pray systematically for others. To be honest, I use my shower time for intercession to pray for my wife and the guys I mentor. I want them to have a good day in the Lord, too.
Turn on some Christian music as you get ready for the day. Even one song can turn your mind toward the things of God. Shower time is also a good time for this task.
Eat some breakfast. I’m not good at this, but I’ve learned that even a small bite is good for you. Take care of the body God has given you.
Take a few minutes to pray with your spouse and children. The prayer might be short (and some of your family members might still be half asleep as you pray), but you need to set that pattern.
Each morning, thank God for something. We have so much to be thankful for, but we take so much for granted, too. Every morning, thank God for something different.
Pray for your community as you drive to work. Look at your community with the eyes of God, and pray for people you pass as you drive. You might even try “drive-by” praying I’ve described in another post.

What do you do to start the day well for God? Let us hear what works for you.

This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.

Lecrae Opens Up About ‘Painful’ Situation With Musician GAWVI

Stephanie Martin

February 4, 2022

After Reach Records cut professional ties earlier this week with Dove Award-winning rap and hip-hop artist GAWVI, label co-founder Lecrae is speaking out about the “painful” situation and the road forward. The label announced the decision Monday, citing “behavior that is inconsistent with our core values.”

GAWVI (Gabriel Alberto Azucena) had recently shared that his marriage ended in 2020, adding there was “no scandal to gossip about.” Then Cataphant, a designer who’s made album artwork for GAWVI, accused him of sexual harassment—adding that “everyone” knew about “his actions for at least a year.” The allegations against GAWVI include sending unsolicited explicit photos to women.

GAWVI, and Lecrae’s Year of Processing

In a video posted to YouTube, Lecrae admits it’s “really difficult for me to talk about” this. It’s not just a circumstance or news item to him, he says, but “real people that I know.” So it “grieves” him and has “rocked our community.”

On the Relevant Magazine podcast this week, Lecrae and artist Trip Lee respond to questions about what Lee calls “a heartbreaking situation.” Lecrae says “all we knew” was that GAWVI was dealing with marital struggles, and they tried to “get him to just be transparent with us.” Label staff had been “trying to process the character deficiencies” they’d “seen over the last year” in GAWVI, Lecrae notes. He adds, “We had already stopped putting out his music and stopped doing stuff…but this was the hammer that drove the nail in.”

GAWVI appears on one of the new singles released last month for 116 Day (referencing Romans 1:16). And he was scheduled to appear on the upcoming “We Are Unashamed” tour this spring. But Reach Record senior vice president of marketing, Marcus Hollinger, explains that the single and tour promo had already been in the works.

GAWVI’s statement on Saturday, January 29, made label staff realize “there wasn’t a commitment to truth,” Hollinger tells ChurchLeaders, so Reach Records decided on the next business day, February 1, to cut ties. The label worked quickly, he says, to discover as much information as it could, seek legal counsel, and care for staff members. Hollinger declined to address how GAWVI reacted to the label’s decision.

Reach Records says the upcoming tour, which will take place mostly in churches, is being realigned and “turned into a unifier for the label and its artists.”

In a video posted to Instagram Friday, Amanda “Butta P” Smalls, GAWVI’s former manager, assures listeners that the people involved went through a biblical process privately, trying to walk people they loved through a tough situation. “The label did what the label could do,” she says of Reach Records. “But accountability and community is only as good as your vulnerability,” and if someone continues to “blame shift” and doesn’t “take responsibility,” then “you can’t blame community for not walking alongside you.”

Lecrae, Trip Lee Speak of Restoration, Protecting Women

On the Relevant podcast, Lecrae and Lee emphasize they’re not “throwing GAWVI away” but want “restoration” in his life and relationships. “Restoration is only as powerful as you’re transparent and humble to allow it to have its effect on you, to allow the Lord to work on you and transform you in repentance and in humility,” says Lecrae. “[God] uses broken people to paint a picture of his goodness and his grace, so that’s all I can hope for.”

‘You Are Never Defeated’: Stephen Colbert Discusses Connection Between His Faith and His Comedy

Dale Chamberlain

February 4, 2022

Stephen Colbert — Screengrab from YouTube.

While interviewing (and then subsequently being interviewed by) Grammy Award winning singer Dua Lipa on a recent episode of the Late Show, Stephen Colbert opened up about the connection between his faith and his comedy.

Colbert, who is widely known for his previous work on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and Colbert Report and who succeeded David Letterman as host of the Late Show on CBS in 2015, has often been open about his Catholic faith. He has even been known to quote Thomas Aquinas while being interviewed and has discussed the sovereignty of God in grief with Anderson Cooper.

During his interview with Dua Lipa, Colbert asked Lipa about her album “Future Nostalgia,” her rise in popularity during the pandemic, her 2022 world tour, her recent collaboration with Elton John, and her new podcast. In discussing her podcast, Colbert asked how Lipa was enjoying interviewing others. Lipa said that she enjoyed researching for conversations and learning about other people.

Colbert then smiled and asked, “Is there anything you would like to ask me?”

After some laughter and joking about being put on the spot, Lipa obliged.

“So I think something that your viewers connect with in your comedy and your hosting skills, especially in the past few years, is how open and honest and authentic you are about the role your faith plays in your life,” Lipa said. “And I was wondering…does your faith and your comedy ever overlap, and does one ever win out?”

“I think, ultimately, us all being mortal, the faith will win out in the end,” Colbert replied, and the crowd chuckled. “But I certainly hope when I get to heaven, Jesus has a sense of humor.”

“But I will say this,” Colbert continued. “This relates to faith, because my faith is involved—I’m a Christian, I’m a Catholic—and that’s always connected to the idea of love and sacrifice being somehow related, and giving yourself to other people. And that death is not defeat, if you can see where I’m getting at there.”

“Someone was asking me earlier, ‘What movie did I really enjoy this year?’ And I said ‘Well I really liked Belfast,” Colbert said, referring to the 2021 semi-autobiographical film directed by Kenneth Branagh about a working class family living in Northern Ireland in the 1960s. “And one of the reasons that I love it is that I’m Irish—Irish-American—and it’s such an Irish movie. And I think this is also a Catholic thing, because it’s funny, and it’s sad, and it’s funny about being sad.”

“In the same way, that sadness is like a little bit of an emotional death, but not a defeat if you can find a way to laugh about it,” Colbert explained. “Because that laughter keeps you from having fear of it. And fear is the thing that [causes you to turn] to evil devices to save you from the sadness.”

‘Making of Biblical Womanhood’ Author Responds to Accusations She Supports ‘Child Abandonment’

Jessica Lea

February 4, 2022

Beth Allison Barr, author of “The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth,” is once again in a dispute with leaders from the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW). This time, the altercation concerns a passage from Barr’s book about a medieval Christian woman named Saint Paula.

“Y’all, I’m a kind person,” said Barr. “‘But I’m also a fighter. And I have hit my limit with @DennyBurk & @colinsmo. [Their] behavior toward me has been despicable. They failed trying to smear my orthodoxy; they failed trying [to] smear my church; so now they are trying to smear me as a mother. All because they are afraid of #MakingBiblicalWomanhood. Telling.”

Beth Allison Barr: ‘Enough Is Enough’

In “The Making of Biblical Womanhood,” Beth Allison Barr seeks to demonstrate that the concept of “biblical womanhood” is not inherent to the Bible, but “arose from a series of clearly definable historical moments,” according to a description on the back of the book.

On Wednesday, Feb. 2, CBMW executive director Colin Smothers tweeted several screenshots of a review of Barr’s book by the London Lyceum’s Jordan Steffaniak.

On my own trek through the book, this was when my jaw hit the floor. Does Barr really commend *child abandonment*?? Yes, yes she does. pic.twitter.com/jg8j621X95

— Colin Smothers (@colinsmo) February 2, 2022

Smothers commented on one screenshot, saying, “On my own trek through the book, this was when my jaw hit the floor. Does Barr really commend *child abandonment*?? Yes, yes she does.” CBMW president Denny Burk responded, “Me too. Couldn’t believe it.”

Smothers’ statement pertains to a chapter of Barr’s book titled, “Our Selective Medieval Memory” where Barr takes a paragraph to describe a woman named Saint Paula. Barr contrasts the perspective of Christian women in medieval times with a view of womanhood she encountered at a women’s retreat. The retreat’s speaker “had one message,” says Barr. “Women are divinely called to be stay-at-home moms dedicated to childrearing and keeping the home.”

Barr then explains that many medieval women believed their first calling was to follow God, not to pursue marriage and families. She goes on to provide examples of such women in the chapter. The section on Saint Paula reads as follows:

I wondered what the speaker would think of women like Saint Paula, who abandoned her children for the higher purpose of following God’s call on her life. Paula’s story tells of how she set sail for Jerusalem—after the death of her husband—on a pilgrimage, leaving three of her children alone, crying on the shore. Maybe the speaker would have claimed that Paula was not following biblical womanhood, as she did not exemplify Titus 2. But Paula seemed to believe she was practicing biblical womanhood, drawing strength from Jesus’s statement that “whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). Saint Jerome, her biographer, tells us that as the ship drew away from the shore, Paula “held her eyes to heaven . . . ignoring her children and putting her trust in God. . . . In that rejoicing, her courage coveted the love of her children as the greatest of its kind, yet she left them all for the love of God.” Paula founded a monastery in Bethlehem and worked alongside Jerome to translate the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. The Bible she helped translate became the Vulgate, the first major translation of the Bible into an everyday language outside of Greek and Hebrew. It became the most commonly used Bible throughout the medieval era.

Steffaniak, along with Smothers and Burk, takes this passage as Barr endorsing Saint Paula’s actions. He says, “Barr holds up Saint Paula as an exemplar….To think that this is even remotely near a positive example is extremely concerning. Quite honestly, it’s disturbing. So, to be frank: I don’t care if Paula helped translate a Bible. The ends never justify the means. We are not utilitarians.”

Big Daddy Weave Performs Emotional Concert, the First Since Death of Jay Weaver

Dale Chamberlain

February 4, 2022

Pictured: (left, photo via Christian Post) Mike Weaver giving an emotional address to crowd in Orlando, FL over the weekend; (right, photo via Instagram) brothers Mike and Jay Weaver.

An emotional Big Daddy Weave performed over the weekend at the “Rock the Universe” Christian music festival in Orlando, Florida. The concert was the first the band had played since the death of Jay Weaver, founding member of the Dove Award winning Christian band and brother to the group’s lead vocalist, Mike Weaver.

Last month, Jay Weaver passed away at the age of 42 due to complications related to COVID-19. He had been admitted to the hospital about a week earlier, during which time family and fans alike prayed for his recovery.

On January 2, Mike Weaver announced via Instagram that Jay had passed, saying, “You have walked with him through a huge fight. I’m so sorry to bring this news, but I’m also excited to celebrate where he is right now—my brother Jay went to be with Jesus just a couple hours ago due to complications with COVID-19 on top of everything else that he already had going on.”

Diabetes was a pre-existing condition for Jay, which he had battled with for two decades. In 2016, both of his feet were amputated as a life saving measure. As his condition worsened in the summer of 2020, Jay stopped performing with the band to seek treatment.

During their performance in Orlando, Mike Weaver paused to reflect on the significance of that night’s performance, both for the band and for him personally. In a video captured by The Christian Post, it appears that the band had experienced some unexpected technical challenges during the show, which Weaver used as a lead-in to an emotional address.

“I’ve been really scared about this show, actually,” Weaver said, and some in the audience offered cheers of support. “This is the first show that we have played this year, but the first show, specifically, since my brother, Jay, who played bass with us for 23 years, went to Heaven to be with Jesus. He had this really long health battle, and we just saw Jesus carry him through so much.”

“And a lot of that was because of people just like you, praying for him,” Weaver continued. “I’m telling you, man, there is such a power when the church comes together, and we’re not against each other but we’re for the Kingdom.”

“We were just singing that song ‘My Story,’” Weaver went on to say. “And, man, I’m telling you the story of Jay’s life continues to just blow us away—how Jesus had used him in the lives of people. And it wasn’t by some, you know, like he was some Olympic medalist of something, you know what I mean? It was through him just getting through every day.”

“And in the midst of a great amount of pain, God was just shining through him so brightly,” Weaver said. “It was pretty incredible.”

Two Years Later, Beth Moore Addresses John MacArthur Telling Her To ‘Go Home’

Jesse T. Jackson

February 4, 2022

Beth Moore wrote on Twitter recently that she is baffled by how seldom some Christian leaders feel the need to apologize, whether in public or private, when they spread misinformation.

The Living Proof Ministries founder said she was speaking on the behalf of someone else. “It seems, if you’re a watchdog for the church, you get to bite at will. You’re somehow above the ethics of Jesus,” Moore said. “You will answer to the Lord for spreading misinformation. I am concerned about your spiritual condition because here is what I know: the Holy Spirit convicts of sin. If you walk in the Spirit, have an active prayer life and spend time in the holy Scriptures, you can’t go on and on and live with not asking forgiveness. I say this as one who has sinned grievously. If you walk with God, the time between sin & repentance is miserable.”

“Slander, cyber stalking, and smearing people’s reputations are sins,” Moore said. “If you don’t have conviction of sin, it is not because your wrongs are alright with God. It is because something is awry inside of you.”

Moore then shifted her Twitter thread to address something said about her by a well-respected evangelical pastor at a conference in October 2019.

“I’m going to tell y’all a story because I think this is important and enough time is gone by that I hope it will be obvious it’s not meant to be self-serving,” she wrote.

John MacArthur Tells Beth Moore To ‘Go Home’

Moore was referring to comments made by three of Grace Community Church’s (GCC) elders at a 2019 conference session hosted by the church.

During GCC’s 2019 “Truth Matters Conference,” Todd Friel, host of Wretched TV and Radio, played a word association game with GCC’s pastor-teacher, John MacArthur, GCC elder and “Grace to You”’s executive director, Phil Johnson, and GCC’s pastor of local outreach and elder, Mike Riccardi, during one of their Q&A’s. Voddie Bauchman was supposed to attend the panel but needed to rest instead; Friel joked that he was too weak.

Friel explained that he would say a word and then let each of them give a one word or short answer response to that word. MacArthur joked that he felt like he was being set up before giving his answer to Friel’s first word “Beth Moore.” The well-respected pastor responded, “Go home.” A chorus of laughter and gasps filled the room.

“There’s no case that can be made biblically for a woman preacher,” MacArthur said after the room quieted down. “Period, paragraph, end of discussion.”

Phil Johnson Calls Beth Moore a ‘Narcissist’

Johnson’s word was “narcissistic.” He said, “I think the first time that I saw her, I thought she is what it looks like to preach yourself rather than Christ.” Elaborating on his answer, Johnson said, “In fact, she has said that. She said ‘I read the Bible and I try to find myself in the narrative—I put myself in the narrative’ and that is exactly what she does.”

Riccardi’s responded, “I heard John MacArthur say, ‘Period, paragraph, end of story.’”

MacArthur Blasts Women Preachers; SBC

MacArthur then said he would like to add one more thing to his comment regarding Beth Moore, comparing her to a Home Shopping Network jewelry salesperson.

“Just because you have the skill to sell jewelry on the tv sales channel doesn’t mean you should be preaching,” MacArthur said. “There are people who have certain hawking skills—natural abilities to sell—they have energy and personality and all of that—umm, that doesn’t qualify you to preach.”

“I think that the church is caving into women preachers,” MacArthur said. He expressed that he is very troubled by the trend, citing the support that some evangelicals lended to Paula White’s book. “She’s a heretic and a prosperity preacher…When leaders of evangelicalism roll over for women preachers, feminists have really won the battle.”

Christian Activist Lisa Sharon Harper’s ‘Fortune’ Uncovers America’s Racial Roots in Family Stories

Kathryn Post

February 4, 2022

Christian Activist Lisa Sharon Harper’s ‘Fortune’ Uncovers America’s Racial Roots in Family Stories — Author Lisa Sharon Harper. Photo by Joy Guion Bailey

(RNS) — Days into writing her new book, Lisa Sharon Harper stumbled across a Zillow listing for a house in South Philadelphia that had been her grandmother’s home. Though at the time she had no intention of leaving Washington, D.C., the author and Christian activist surprised herself by moving close to the place her family resided for 70 years.

But the neighborhood barely resembles the thriving Black community her grandmother knew. Ravaged by drug wars, then chewed up and spit out by urban renewal projects, the area today has been gentrified — “dogs and lattes and white folks everywhere,” as Harper put it.

But as she writes in “Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World and How to Repair It All,” she felt her ancestors calling her back to reclaim the place. “Perhaps the layered trauma of this land is the same layered trauma that has lived in my body,” she writes.

The book traces her family history to tell the story of America, pulling together three decades of Harper’s research into her family to examine how the decisions (and religion) of those in power deprived Black Americans of homes, prosperity, history and humanity. Yet the book, set to be released by Brazos Press on Tuesday (Feb. 8), is also written with an eye toward redemption.

Harper spoke with Religion News Service about how race corrupted America and Christianity, and her belief that truth-telling, repentance and forgiveness can repair what is broken. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Fortune, your ancestor, is just one of many family members you write about. Why did you choose her name for the title of your new book?

Fortune is likely my seventh-times great-grandmother. She was born in Maryland in 1687, only 23 years after the colony’s very first race law. Her life, her body, her spirit, it all absorbed the wrath of those first laws, those laws that shaped the possibilities and the fortunes of her descendants forever. Her mother was a white woman who had a child by a Senegalese man named Sambo Game, and after living the first 18 years of her life free, she was hauled into court and sentenced to indenture until the age of 31.

As I was researching her and her descendants, and realizing that we were connected, it struck me that this is much more than family research. I’m actually discovering how America was made. I’m discovering the racial roots of America. And one of the things that I realized in my research is that none of these laws just — “poof” — came into being. They came from choices that the legislators made in that era that were always to benefit them and their economic standing.

You write: “Any attempt to repair what race broke in our nation must contend with what race broke in our faith.” Why can’t we effectively pursue racial justice without reckoning with the corruption of Christian faith?

Seventy-percent of Americans claim to be Christians. If you don’t address their broken faith, then you cannot convince them of their need for repair. A central way that race broke the world was through the partnership of the church. Churches became the theological justifiers for slavery. It has been the rare but mighty cases that have revolted from that inertia and mounted a countermovement.

Jesus himself was a brown colonized man, who came from a brown colonized people who were serially enslaved. The faith was corrupted by the construct of race and racial hierarchy. So there’s no way for us to repair what race broke in the world without addressing both the laws and the religious worldviews that underpin those laws.

You argue that reparations are key to repentance. Can you say more about the connection between repentance and reparations?

Reparation literally comes from the root “repair.” Reparations exist to repair not only the peoples who were broken by oppression, but the relationship between the oppressing people in government and those they oppressed. There are layers upon layers of injustice that have never fully been repented of. Repentance is turning and walking in another direction. It’s not saying “I’m sorry” — that’s confession. Repentance is to “do” sorry, to do things differently. That’s why reparations is repentance. It’s our nation choosing to do differently, to order ourselves differently.

Vatican on Rapper’s Mock Baptism: ‘They Don’t Make Provocateurs Like They Used To’

Claire Giangrave

February 4, 2022

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — It’s been some years since a singer posing as the Virgin Mary on an album cover or cavorting with a priest in a music video could get a rise out of the Vatican. Even a 2019 Netflix series dramatizing what Vatican insiders call a nonexistent rivalry between two popes was largely shrugged off.

The latest to poke Catholic sensibilities is Italian rapper Achille Lauro, born Lauro De Marinis. Already known for his attention-grabbing shenanigans — his stage name is taken from a fatal ship highjacking in the 1980s — Lauro opened Italy’s annual music film festival of Sanremo on Tuesday (Feb. 1) by mimicking the sacrament of baptism in front of a cheering crowd.

At the end of his new hit song “Domenica” (Sunday in Italian), Lauro knelt in prayer and used a baptismal shell to pour water over his face and bare, tattoo-covered chest. The Harlem Gospel Choir from New York accompanied his performance, which was broadcast on Italy’s national television channel RAI, as Lauro moaned and grabbed the crotch of his leather pants.

The reaction among Italy’s Catholic majority was outrage, and the local bishop, Antonio Suetta, claimed Lauro’s mock baptism was “not just offensive to religion, but to human dignity.”

Even the head of the Italian exorcists association, the Rev. Paolo Carlin, jumped into the fray and suggested “an act of reparation” — a prayer to expiate the sins of others — be done, even as viewers “get drunk on emptiness and triviality,” the priest said.

But amid the general indignation, the Vatican stayed quiet, until comedians and media commentators began speculating about the official silence. Finally, in a statement on Wednesday, Andrea Monda, editor of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, offered what he characterized as a “tiptoed” response.

“We limit ourselves to observing that, in wanting to be transgressive at all costs, the singer fell back on Catholic imagery,” Monda wrote. While borrowing Catholic tropes to take whacks at the church is “nothing new,” he noted, others have done it better.

The Vatican “can never forget” David Bowie’s 1992 stunt, Monda wrote by way of example, when “a great rock artist” knelt in prayer before 72,000 fans to recite the Our Father at London’s Wembley Stadium to honor rock icon Freddie Mercury, who had died of an AIDS-related illness months before.

“They don’t make provocateurs like they used to,” Monda said.

Lauro is only the most recent in a long list of artists who have violated Catholic sensibilities, incurring backlash. In 1992, the Irish singer Sinead O’Connor tore up a picture of now St. John Paul II during a performance on “Saturday Night Live.”

Pop icon Madonna borrowed generously from Catholicism. Italians were shocked when she posed as a crucified Christ while performing in Rome during her 2006 Confessions tour. That same year, rapper Kanye West posed with a crown of thorns on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.

Francis Collins on COVID-19 Politics: ‘The Culture War Is Literally Killing People’

Adelle M Banks

February 4, 2022

(RNS) — Former National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins said he is “heartbroken” that more of his fellow white evangelicals have not received the COVID-19 vaccines.

“I am just basically heartbroken in a circumstance where, as an answer to prayer, vaccines have been developed that turned out to be much better than we dared to hope for,” he said in an interview with Religion News Service on Wednesday (Feb. 2).

“And yet they are still not seen as something that a lot of white evangelicals are interested in taking part in and, as a result, people are dying. I just didn’t see that happening and certainly not at this scale.”

Collins is the founder and senior fellow of BioLogos, an organization that seeks to foster the integration of “rigorous science” with Christian faith. He and BioLogos President Deborah Haarsma, an astronomer, spoke to journalists at a Faith Angle Forum/BioLogos webinar on Wednesday titled “Faith and Science in an Age of Tribalism.”

Haarsma said on the webinar that the country’s divisions have reshaped views of science.

“The world has become so aggressively polarized that it seems like every issue has to land in a red camp or a blue camp, and when you view the world that way, somehow Christian faith gets assigned to red and science gets assigned to blue,” she said. “And for scientists who are Christians, like myself and Francis Collins, this just doesn’t make any sense to us.”

Collins stepped down in December after 12 years as the NIH director and still runs a government research lab so spoke as a private citizen.

He tied “this red-blue situation” — including social media, political messages and words heard in churches — directly to the COVID-19 pandemic. He said it includes white evangelicals who are resistant to or disinterested in pursuing vaccines — some 30% to 40%, according to PRRI and Pew Research Center.

“The culture war is literally killing people,” added Collins, citing estimates that more than 100,000 people have died unnecessarily due to vaccine resistance and hesitancy even as “hundreds of thousands of lives” were saved.

Collins said in an interview after the webinar that many white evangelicals have been “victimized by the misinformation and lies and conspiracies that are floating around, particularly on social media and some of it in cable news.”

But he also wondered about his success in conveying the lessons from the science he has watched develop over the last two years.

Italy Court Definitively Annuls Warrant for Vatican Suspect

Nicole Winfield

February 4, 2022

ROME (AP) — An Italian appeals court has definitively annulled the pre-trial arrest warrant for the prime suspect in the Vatican’s big fraud and embezzlement trial, signaling an end to extradition procedures in Britain for now, his legal team said Wednesday.

The decision by Rome’s Tribunal of Review is a blow to Italian prosecutors but also to Vatican prosecutors, who had been trying to bring Gianluigi Torzi back to Italy to eventually stand trial in the Vatican for his role in the Holy See’s costly London real estate deal.

The Vatican doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Britain. But the city state’s prosecutors provided evidence to their Italian counterparts who launched their own investigation into Torzi’s finances and sought his arrest on an international warrant to stand trial in Italy on charges including tax evasion and money laundering.

The London-based Torzi denies wrongdoing in both the Italian and Vatican cases, which will nevertheless proceed in his absence.

The case in Italy was launched after Vatican prosecutors had already been investigating Torzi for his role in the Holy See’s bungled 350 million-euro investment in a London residential property. Vatican prosecutors have accused Torzi of trying to extort the Vatican of 15 million euros to turn over full ownership of the property.

The Vatican tribunal indicted him in July, but his status in the trial has been in limbo because of the extradition proceedings between Italy and Britain and the legitimacy of the Italian arrest warrant that launched them.

Italy’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, had annulled the warrant in October and sent the case back to the appeals court on the grounds that Italian prosecutors hadn’t provided full documentation beneficial to Torzi’s defense when the judge was deciding whether to issue the warrant. After evaluating that missing evidence, the Tribunal for Review definitively annulled the warrant, said a statement from Torzi’s lawyers Marco Franco and Ambra Giovene.

“Finally, justice has been done concerning an arrest warrant that had no juridical or logical sense,” the statement said. The lawyers said they would now fight both the Italian and the Vatican cases “with the necessary serenity.”

The preliminary phase of the Vatican trial has been dominated by defense motions demanding access to the full scope of evidence gathered by prosecutors, including forensic copies of data from seized cellphones, computers and other electronic devices.

During the last hearing, Judge Giuseppe Pignatone ordered Vatican prosecutors turn over the material by Jan. 31 after defense lawyers complained they only had copies of 16 of the 255 devices seized.

In a Jan. 31 filing obtained Wednesday, prosecutors refused to hand over any more, saying what had been turned over to date “reproduces in full the documentary compendium” of material necessary for the trial. Defense lawyers say they have the right to all the material seized.

Pignatone will likely take up the matter when the trial reconvenes on Feb. 18, but legal experts say there’s no disciplinary recourse in the Vatican’s legal system when prosecutors refuse to implement a court order.

This article originally appeared here.

At National Prayer Breakfast, Biden Calls for Unity

Jack Jenkins

February 4, 2022

Biden National Prayer Breakfast — President Joe Biden speaks at the National Prayer Breakfast, Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Appealing to a form of camaraderie increasingly rare on Capitol Hill, President Joe Biden lauded the power of faith in his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday (Feb. 3), calling for unity at an unusually intimate iteration of the annual religious gathering.

Speaking in an auditorium in the visitors center of the U.S. Capitol, Biden singled out those in the room who had recently lost loved ones, recalled with frustration the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack and lamented the waves of death spurred by the ongoing pandemic.

Amid such difficulties and division, Biden told the audience comprising mostly members of Congress that his Christian faith reminded him of the importance of service. “In a moment of a great division, our democracy is at grave risk. I pray that we follow what Jesus taught us: to serve rather than be served,” he said.

Biden added: “Rather than drive us apart, faith can move us together. Because all the great confessional faiths share the same fundamental basic beliefs: not just faith in a higher power, but faith to see each other as we should. Not as enemies but as neighbors. Not as adversaries but as fellow Americans, as leaders of this nation who work and pray together.”

Faith, the president said, comes in many forms, which include faith in American values. “I pray to keep the faith (in) the very promise of America: believing that there’s nothing we can’t do, where every person is created equal in the image of God, no matter where we come from, who we are, what our color or how we choose to pray — or whether or not we choose to pray — (we) deserve to be treated equally throughout their lives.”

Thursday’s prayer breakfast was smaller than before the pandemic, a byproduct of COVID-19 restrictions and an effort by organizers to refocus the gathering. In recent years the now 70-year-old event had become a sprawling series of assemblies with an international roster of more than 3,000 attendees, typically held at the Washington Hilton hotel.

In 2018, a woman was accused of attempting to exploit the event as an agent of Russia, and two years later President Donald Trump, celebrating his acquittal at the prayer breakfast after his first impeachment, suggested House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was a liar for saying she prayed for him.

Organizers suggested this year was meant to shift the focus of the National Prayer Breakfast: Its keynote speaker was Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer and longtime advocate for criminal justice reform and racial equality. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of the bestselling book “Just Mercy,” Stevenson was instrumental in creating the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the Alabama memorial to the 4,400 victims of lynchings in the U.S.

Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat and Presbyterian who spoke at the prayer breakfast and was one of its chief organizers for several years, told Religion News Service this week the gathering’s small size was partly due to an effort to “reset” the event by framing it as a “narrower engagement between Congress, the president, and some inspirational singers and speakers.”

The prayer breakfast was co-chaired by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, and Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, who also spoke, along with other leaders from both parties.

Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat and pastor of a historic Black church in Georgia, opened the event with a prayer, noting that “Justice is what love looks like in public.” He was accompanied by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Washington state, who read from Proverbs. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York read from Deuteronomy and Leviticus, occasionally slipping into Hebrew as he did so. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell read next, reciting a passage from Matthew.

Poured Out, Not Burned Out

Jonathan Master

February 4, 2022

One of the most notable aspects of Paul’s ministry was his commitment to hard work and sacrifice. Paul worked hard—harder than most of his peers. In 1 Corinthians 15, he writes,

“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Cor 15:10).

While he was careful to attribute all of his effort and results to the grace of God, he finished his life by invoking a vivid image from the Old Testament sacrificial system: “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand” (2 Tim 4:6).

This should serve as a challenge to those of us in Christ’s service today. The trend today is to look out for our own preservation in order to avoid the symptoms normally associated with burnout in ministry. Terms like “self-care” are often employed. Many involved in ministry divide their day or week into sections with a certain percentage reserved for their own care, and a certain percentage reserved for the help of others. But Paul seems to view his whole life as being given for others, and ultimately for Christ. For Paul, “To live is Christ.” How did Paul avoid burning out while still being poured out?

First, it is worth noting that Paul sought the ultimate approval of God, not of other people. He says this clearly in 1 Corinthians, when he writes, “Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God… but He who judges me is the Lord” (1 Cor 4:1, 5). Paul worked tirelessly on behalf of others, yet he did not seek their approval or acclaim.

If we were entirely honest with ourselves, how many of us could say this? How many pastors enter into service in order to see results in other people? This can easily slip into looking for approval from people. How many tasks in ministry are undertaken to appear spiritual—to receive praise from men rather than from God? This is a sure way to burn out. The approval of people will never satisfy. It is never enough. It often keeps us from doing the necessary things, and it ebbs and flows depending on circumstances. If our sense of satisfaction and fulfillment is based on something as fluid as human approval, we will inevitably lose heart entirely. By seeking the approval of the Lord, Paul was free to minister boldly and to ignore the pressure of expectations imposed by other people.

Second, it is no accident that Paul frequently ministered alongside others. This does not mean that there were not times of deep loneliness for Paul. Near the end of his life, he reminded Timothy of a moment when he was on trial and “At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me” (2 Tim 4:16a). But Paul’s normal pattern when not imprisoned was to work with others – Aristarchus; Barnabus; Epaphrus; Gaius; Jason; John Mark; Luke; Onesimus; Silas; Sosthenes; Trophimus; Tychichus; Priscilla and Quila; Lydia; and of course, Titus and Paul’s dear friend, Timothy. And there were others as well. Simply reading through the last chapter of Romans will give us a sense of the scope of Paul’s friendships. Paul did not minister alone. He was corrected by others; he was upheld and encouraged by others; And he regularly spoke of people who are “useful” to him and to the Gospel. He was not a lone ranger, and he deeply valued his partners in ministry.

Finally, Paul knew that his ministry and his hard work was ultimately a testimony to God’s grace (1 Cor 3:6). And because it was a work of grace, Paul was careful to observe the means of grace that are outlined in the Scriptures. He prayed regularly and fervently for the churches and individuals among whom he ministered. He admitted that he did not always know exactly what or how to pray, but he was comforted in this by the ministry of the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:26). Because his ministry was so grounded in prayer, he pled with the churches to pray as well: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17); “Continue earnestly in prayer” (Col 4:2). With this dedication to regular prayer came diligent study. Even at the end of his life, he asked Timothy to bring his books and parchments, in order that he might study more (2 Tim 4:13). Beyond prayer and study, Paul was always faithful in attending to public worship – even when there was no congregation of Christians or synagogue of Jews. In Acts 16, we read, “And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made” (Acts 16:13). Prayer, the study of scripture, and the weekly pattern of Sabbath rest and worship ordained by God were each non-negotiable parts of life for Paul. Because Paul’s work was a result of grace alone, Paul gave attention to the means of grace ordained by God.

Paul did not divide his life into times for himself and times for others. Every moment was dedicated to the Lord. But in the midst of this single-mindedness, Paul demonstrated a biblical perspective on life and a grace-based approach to himself and his work. He was indeed “poured out” entirely. But he fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith.

This article originally appeared here.

R.C. Sproul: What Does ‘Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread’ Mean?

R.C. Sproul

February 4, 2022

Jesus teaches us to pray that God would give us daily bread (Matthew 6:11). Obviously Jesus was not telling His disciples to pray only for bread. But bread was a staple in the diet of the Jews, and had been so for many years. Furthermore, bread was a powerful symbol of God’s provision for His people in the Old Testament. We remember how God cared for the Israelites when they were in the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt. Life in the wilderness was hard, and soon the people began to complain that it would be better to be back in Egypt, where they had wonderful food to eat. In response to these complaints, God promised to “rain bread from heaven” (Ex. 16:4). The next morning, when the dew lifted, there remained behind on the ground “a small round substance, as fine as frost. . . . It was like white coriander seed, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey” (vv. 14, 31). When God miraculously fed His people from heaven, he did so by giving them bread.

It’s interesting to me that in the language of Western culture, we sometimes speak of one partner in a marriage (it used to be almost exclusively the husband, but not so much these days) as the wage earner of the home. But more colloquially, we call that partner “the breadwinner.” Even in our slang, we use the word bread as a synonym for “money.” Bread remains, at least in our language, as a powerful symbol of the rudimentary basis of provision for our needs.

After the Korean War ended, South Korea was left with a large number of children who had been orphaned by the war. We’ve seen the same thing in the Vietnam conflict, in Bosnia, and in other places. In the case of Korea, relief agencies came in to deal with all the problems that arose in connection with having so many orphan children. One of the people involved in this relief effort told me about a problem they encountered with the children who were in the orphanages. Even though the children had three meals a day provided for them, they were restless and anxious at night and had difficulty sleeping. As they talked to the children, they soon discovered that the children had great anxiety about whether they would have food the next day. To help resolve this problem, the relief workers in one particular orphanage decided that each night when the children were put to bed, the nurses there would place a single piece of bread in each child’s hand. The bread wasn’t intended to be eaten; it was simply intended to be held by the children as they went to sleep. It was a “security blanket” for them, reminding them that there would be provision for their daily needs. Sure enough, the bread calmed the children’s anxieties and helped them sleep. Likewise, we take comfort in knowing that our physical needs are met, that we have food, or “bread,” for our needs.

This petition of the Lord’s Prayer, then, teaches us to come to God in a spirit of humble dependence, asking Him to provide what we need and to sustain us from day to day. We are not given license to ask for great riches, but we are encouraged to make our needs known to Him, trusting that He will provide.

If we find that God’s hand seems to be invisible to us and that we cannot discern His providential intrusion into our lives, that may be due partly to the way we pray. We have a tendency to pray in general. When we pray in general, the only way we will see the hand of God’s providence is in general. As we enter into prayer, this conversation and communion with God, and put our petitions before Him, pouring out our souls and our needs specifically, we see specific answers to our prayers. Our Father has invited us to go to Him and ask Him for our daily bread. He will not fail to provide it.

This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.

7 Easy Ways to Miss a Childhood

Andrew Linder

February 4, 2022

I love how my friend Jon Acuff so humorously describes the seasons of childhood… “Never tell the parent of a toddler that childhood goes by so fast. Toddler days are 97 hours long. And daylight savings time is the devil, because your kids don’t know. Now, elementary school speeds up a little bit. Middle school starts to sprint. And high school is a blur. But the toddler years are slooooow.”

In reality, all of childhood goes by fast, but different seasons do feel like they go by at different speeds. And all too often, we don’t realize that we’ve missed some of life’s most important things until they’re gone, and we’re looking back with regret through the rearview mirror.

Just as the seasons change before we know it, so do our children. It’s no parent’s goal to intentionally miss the quickly passing years of their kid’s childhood. However, if you were trying, here’s some really easy ways that you could make sure to do it.

1. Pick up the phone every time you hear it ring or ding, regardless of what you are doing with your family. Mealtimes when you’re sitting down at the dinner table are definitely the best. Always make sure to have your phone on you 24/7, within arms reach. Never take intentional time away from your phone so that it can continue to take your intentional time away from your kids.

2. Choose to watch your favorite tv show over playing outside with your kids. And don’t forget to demand that they stay outside during the show so that you can watch it without interruption. Years from now, you’ll definitely be glad to be able to look back and know who won that round of the reality show, or how that suspenseful episode ended.

3. If overtime at work is available, always take it. Your family is sure to understand that why you’re rarely home at night is because you want to be able to afford to give them bigger and better things. Besides, they love those things more than you anyway, right?

4. When you’ve got a free night or a little free cash, make sure to live it up with your friends. In fact, do this as many nights of the week as possible. Even though your kids may not see you all day, they’ll certainly be okay staying at home playing video games and watching movies instead of spending more time with you.

5. Save up lots of money to buy the most expensive house, car, or things that you can. Better yet, buy it all before you have the money so that you can work your tail off trying to pay for it all while your kids are still young and living at home, that way it can all be paid off when they leave the house and you’ll have the extra time on your hands to enjoy it all. Remember, the size of house you live in and the price of the car you drive is what your kids will definitely remember for years to come.

6. Involve your kids in every single activity you can possibly find for them to be involved in. In fact, the more the better. You want to fill up as many nights of your week as possible with sports practices and other activities, so that you don’t have to spend anytime being bored at home with nothing to do. Also, allow these activities to keep you away from home and church as much as possible. Because who knows, they might make it to the pros. You’ll probably have time to invest into them spiritually later. And they have the rest of their lives that they can prioritize going to church.

Samples of Worship Ministry Vision

How to Develop Your Worship Ministry Vision

Getting started

Write down your worship ministry vision

Type One – The Perfectionist

Type Two – The Helper

Type Three – The Performer

Type Four – The Romantic

Type Five – The Investigator

Type Six – The Loyalist

Type Seven – The Enthusiast

Type Eight – The Challenger

Type Nine – The Mediator

20 Misconceptions About Missionaries

1. “We are saints.”

2. “We all live in a hut in Africa.”

3. “When we come to America, we’re coming home.”

4. “We understand U.S. culture.”

5. “Your short-term mission trip is a great blessing to us.”

6. “Our life is just a longer short-term mission trip.”

GAWVI, and Lecrae’s Year of Processing

Lecrae, Trip Lee Speak of Restoration, Protecting Women

Beth Allison Barr: ‘Enough Is Enough’

John MacArthur Tells Beth Moore To ‘Go Home’

Phil Johnson Calls Beth Moore a ‘Narcissist’

MacArthur Blasts Women Preachers; SBC

Fortune, your ancestor, is just one of many family members you write about. Why did you choose her name for the title of your new book?

You write: “Any attempt to repair what race broke in our nation must contend with what race broke in our faith.” Why can’t we effectively pursue racial justice without reckoning with the corruption of Christian faith?

You argue that reparations are key to repentance. Can you say more about the connection between repentance and reparations?

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