Aaron Armstrong

bloggingtheologically.com

accountability

Links I like

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Links

Kindle deals for Christian readers

My friend Barnabas’ new book is available for pre-order now at Amazon. You can get Help My Unbelief for $7.99 now. This is one I’m looking forward to checking out. Also on sale:

The free book of the month from Logos is Esther by Anthony Tomasino from the Evangelical Exegetical Commentary series. Christian Audio’s free audiobook is Being a Dad Who Leads by John MacArthur.

Who Are Leaders Accountable To?

Matt Perman:

The necessity of leaders being accountable to those that they lead follows from the fact that all people are in the image of God and equal. Because all people are equal, no person can lord it over another. Which is the same as saying, anyone in a position of leadership is accountable to those that they lead. Nothing else reflects that equality.

You Can Almost Always Trace Legalism Back To This

Stephen Altrogge:

Because life is complicated, there are times when I want someone to spell things out for me. Just tell me what to do. Tell me how God wants me to teach my children. Tell me how I’m supposed to eat. Tell me whether or not it’s okay to watch “Mad Men”. Tell me if I’m supposed to give exactly 10% to my church. Just make it black and white for me.

The problem with this approach is that it almost always creates legalism.

The State of Evangelicalism in Canada

If you were ever wondering how to pray for Christians in Canada, this might help.

Ordinary Christian Work

Tim Challies:

Yet that old tradition is never far off, and if we do not constantly return to God’s Word and allow it to correct us, we will soon drift back. It is encouraging that today we find many Christian pastors and authors exploring what it means to be ordinary Christians doing ordinary work as part of their ordinary lives. It is encouraging to see these leaders affirming the worth of all vocations. The questions every Christian faces at one time or another are these: Are Christian plumbers, cooks, doctors, and businessmen lesser Christians because they are not in “full-time” ministry? And what of Christian mothers and homemakers? Can they honor God even through very ordinary lives? Can we honor God through ordinary lives without tacitly promoting a dangerous kind of spiritual complacency? What does it mean to avoid being conformed to this world and to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:2) in this area of vocation?

Brothers, We Are Not Managers

Andrew Wilson:

I suspect we autocorrect eldership to leadership for two reasons. First, especially in larger churches, we think of ourselves in organizational terms, as a firm rather than a family, let alone a flock. So we look for vision-casters and managers instead of fathers and shepherds. Second, most of us don’t understand what elders are or what they are supposed to do. Are they like tribal chieftains? Advisers? Beard-stroking sages?

Links I like

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Free eBook: An Essential Guide to Christian Accountability

My friend Jacob Abshire’s put together a terrific free eBook discussing “the concept of teaming up to kill sin and practical ways to thrive in it.” Head over to Jacob’s blog to download your copy.

Steve Jobs on Leadership and the Idol of Approval

Eric Geiger:

Jony Ive is the senior vice president of design at Apple and is known as the great design mind behind the products at Apple. In a rare interview, Jony shares some lessons he learned from working with Steve Jobs. In the interview, he recounts a conversation with Steve where Steve rebukes him for leading to be approved, for wanting approval from his team more than anything else.

What Millennials Misunderstand About Marriage

Aaron Earls:

Millennials, perhaps more than any other generation, grew up with the reality of broken homes and divorced parents. But in their efforts to avoid those mistakes, they often go in the wrong direction and end up in the same situation.

In the NPR story, “For More Millennials, It’s Kids First, Maybe Marriage,” we meet Michelle Sheridan, her boyfriend Phillip Underwood, and their children. Their lives were characterized by scraping by with low income jobs and government assistance as well as having no real desire to get married.

Their reasoning continuing to live together without the rings sounds like many other millennials and the common misunderstandings they have about marriage. Here are four things Sheridan, Underwood and millennials in general miss about living together and getting married.

Faith To Keep Praying For Your Unsaved Children

Mark Altrogge:

Nothing concerns Christian parents more than the salvation of their children. And God is concerned even more than we are.

God created the institution of family to reflect his own desire and love for his family. He sent his Son to bring us into his family.  When God saves us he adopts us as his children. He becomes our heavenly Father. He loves us as his precious children and makes us joint-heirs with Christ. Scripture is filled with his promises to parents.

The “S” Word: Three Models of Submission

David Murray:

These words, especially the “S” word, sound horrendous to most modern ears and also to many Christian ears. That’s partly because most people’s idea of marriage comes from Hollywood. But it’s also partly because we may have had awful experiences or seen terrible examples of this biblical principle being abused.

That’s why it’s so important to begin any consideration of submission with the husband’s duty to be a Christ-like leader and a Christ-like lover in a complementary relationship, and also with confession and repentance over our past failures in these areas.

Laboring that Vancouver Might Reflect the Beauty of Christ

Alastair Sterne:

The city is crying out for renewal, yet it is also becoming more and more irreligious. Statistics Canada projects that by 2031, almost 33 percent of people living in Vancouver will not align themselves with any religion. And those who currently checkmark “no religion” in Vancouver already exceed any other metropolitan area in Canada. Religion, and Christianity in particular, has been relegated to the corridors of personal opinion. Religion is seen as deludedly useful for self-help but useless for anything else. People are welcome to believe whatever they wish, but they should not be so mistaken as to think their beliefs have any usefulness in the public sphere, or accuracy about how things really operate in the universe. This is deeply problematic because the issues that plague Vancouver find their ultimate resolution in the very place they’ve determined to be deluded and useless.

What does accountability look like for Christian bloggers?

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word-balloons

One of the great dangers of the Internet is also one of its great strengths: the ability to communicate to a (potentially) large group of people with few (if any) barriers. While much good can come from this, it also represents a great risk to those who write if we don’t have any sort of accountability.

As Christians, we understand that we don’t live our lives in isolation. We live in mutual submission to one another. So, what does this look like for Christian bloggers—or at least, this one? Here are three forms of accountability I have in place:

1. The elders of our church. I believe one of the most dangerous places for a Christian to be is outside of the authority of their local church (insomuch as they are modelling Christlikeness in exercising it). So, when we joined our church, one of the first requests I made of our elders was for them to have oversight over this blog.

This doesn’t mean they spend all their time reading this blog since they have much more important things to do. But it does mean they’re aware of what’s going on. So, if they see something they’re concerned about in a post, they can ask me to clarify or remove it, depending on the degree of concern. If they are see an unhealthy pattern in my writing (for example, unnecessarily chasing controversy or using words sinfully), they can ask me to either take a hiatus or stop altogether. And to date, I can count the number of times I’ve had a concern raised on one hand.

2. My wife. Emily actually reads or hears almost every post I write. She’s a good gauge for whether or not the content is actually helpful, and because she is slightly more in touch with people’s feelings, she can give me a better sense of a reader’s response. The number of times she’s asked me to rewrite something or not publish cannot be counted; the number is far too great.

3. Trusted fellow bloggers. There are a few fellow bloggers I seek out feedback from on a semi-regular basis, particularly when writing on a sensitive subject. If, for example, I’m writing a critical review (such as this one), or addressing a controversial topic or person, a number of people will almost certainly have read the post before it ever gets published. This group of writers has given me a great deal of sharpening critique, pushed me to drop certain arguments or add new ones, and, every so often, let me know when something’s not worth writing about at all.

That, in a nutshell is what accountability looks like for me. Mind blowing? Probably not. Helpful? You bet.

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