Aaron Armstrong

bloggingtheologically.com

Small Groups

Links I like (9/14)

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Links I like

Should We Pull the Plug on Cable News?

Trevin asks a great question:

I used to be a cable subscriber for one year out of four: election year. As a political junkie, I found the up-to-the-minute news of a presidential campaign thrilling. I loved the drama.

Election 2016 changed that. It wasn’t because, this time around, I was unable to enthusiastically support either candidate. It was a growing concern with the toxic atmosphere of the cable news channels and the worrisome trends they reveal about our society.

8 Reasons to Cling to Scripture in Suffering

Kristen Wetherell:

Recently, a friend and I were interviewed on a radio show about the book we’d written on suffering. One of the host’s questions struck me: In the midst of the refiner’s fire, how do we keep from going through the motions? How do we have a sense of the abundance God promises us?

I immediately thought of Psalm 119:50: “This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.” And so I responded, “I have to be in God’s Word every day.”

Pray Like You Know the God That Can Shake the Earth

JD Greear:

But that sense of vulnerable weakness is actually the context within which God moves. Consider the first disciples. Early in the book of Acts, Luke points out that not only the political leaders (Herod and Pontius Pilate) but most of the culture had gathered against the message of the gospel. The religious rulers of the day were so threatened by the gospel that they arrested Peter and John, demanding they stop “proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead” (Acts 4:1-2). It felt like the forces of darkness were winning. Every power in the world was aligned to stop the gospel from spreading.

Except the greatest of all powers—that of Jesus himself.

The Greatest Burden of Leadership

Tim Challies:

But I believe the greatest difficulty of all is the knowledge that I am leading poorly. It’s the knowledge that I am not leading as well as I could or as well as I wish I would. The burden of responsibility is light compared to the burden of insufficiency, inability, or just plain failure. If all those other weights are heavy, this is the one that threatens to be crushing.

Four Types of Questions NOT to Ask in Your Small Group Bible Study

Melissa Kruger shares questions that will stifle discussion rather than encourage it.

Entitlement Will Rob You of Rest

Chelsea Patterson Sobolik:

I’m in my mid-twenties, and my generation is notorious for our attitudes of entitlement. We think we deserve more than we do, and when we don’t get it, our entitlement siren starts blaring. And when it does, we often act irrationally — in a way that looks foolish from the outside.

So how can we recognize our own sense of entitlement, and take steps to surrender it to God? First, we need to understand what entitlement truly is.

The least victorious praise song ever might be the most glorifying

A favorite from the archives:

What is it about this song that is so captivating for me? I think a lot of it has to do with how it resonates with my own experience.

All throughout this song, we find the cry of a heart that knows its own proneness to drift away from the Lord. From its first lines—”Come Thou Fount of every blessing / Tune my heart to sing Thy grace”—to its last—”Here’s my heart, O take and seal it / Seal it for Thy courts above.”

Links I like (7/11)

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Links I like

13 Books to Read with Your Kids This Summer

I love lists like this.

5 Reasons We Struggle to Rest

Eric Geiger:

July is often a time many ministry leaders rest. For years it has been a time when I have taken some extra time to slow down, read more, vacation with my girls, and not go to the office as much. Whether you rest in July or not, you do need to rest. Rest is not an option; it is a command. When the Lord instituted the Sabbath in the Old Testament, He was declaring that His people must rest. Their resting was commanded so they would remember His rescue of them, that they were slaves in Egypt but the Lord brought them out of there “with a strong hand and an outstretched arm” (Deuteronomy 5:15). In the same away, as we rest, we are able to reflect on His goodness to us as He has rescued us from the captivity of our sin and foolishness.

Keys to Understanding Jesus’s Life and Ministry

Brandon Smith:

When we read Scripture, we’ll notice a ton of ways that Jesus is described. Some have to do with his nature (who he is) and some have to do with his ministry (what he does). To understand the most crucial aspects of Jesus’s life and ministry, we have to understand five things about him.

8 Ways to Miss the Point of Small Group

Kristen Wetherell:

Small group. Home group. Life group. Missional community. Whatever you call the gathering of an intimate number of believers outside of corporate worship, the goal is the same: fellowship and encouragement around God’s Word.

Yet we can easily miss the mark. Despite our best intentions, we often get sidetracked and forget the reason we’ve gathered. Sometimes we’d rather pursue what’s easier and more comfortable, but this approach lacks transforming power to draw us nearer to God and each other.

Small group has a goal, and we’d do well not to miss it. Here are eight ways we often miss the point of small groups.

Sloth Doesn’t Just Mean Sleep

Mike Leake:

When I think of a sluggard or a slothful person I typically picture a scraggly-bearded dude passed out on the couch in his mustard stained sleeveless with remote in hand. I’m not alone in this either. Do an image search for sluggard and you are going to find a similar image. Even good ol’ Ben Franklin had the sluggard sleeping as well when he said, “Up, sluggard, and waste not life; in the grave will be sleeping enough.”

Talking about sex with your kids: 5 things I’m learning

John Powell:

I can still remember what feelings ran through me as I stared out the window trying not to cry.  My mom was gently telling me how the kid in my class who told me how babies were made was technically right, but not in the way I was thinking. I recall my mom being angry at that kid for giving me information I wasn’t ready for yet. Even to this day, if I say his name, she sits up straight and has to calm herself down.

I understand why she was so mad now that I have kids. If a child told my kids the same thing, I’m not sure I could restrain my anger. So, I decided to do something about that and tell my children before the world could. We should establish ourselves as experts on the subject matter and need to be the ones our kids go to when they have questions about sex. We can do this by giving them the information before anyone else can get to them. I just had the sex talk with my oldest son. Here’s what I discovered.

What makes for a good illustration?

A favorite from the archives:

Illustrations are funny things. Some people absolutely hate them. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, for example, comes down pretty hard on them in Preaching and Preachers. Others absolutely love them. A number of preachers seem to spend almost more time putting together illustrations than explaining their text.

Personally, I really appreciate good illustrations. A good illustration connects with the hearer; but don’t find it terribly interesting when a message is basically a long series of them that don’t really have a lot to do with the text being preached. They really can make or break people’s understanding of your message.

So what makes for a good illustration?

Weekend reading (10/01)

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Weekend Reading at Blogging Theologically

Welcome to October! It’s officially fall here in Tennessee, which means it’s around 70 instead of 102 (that’s 20s to 40s for all of us who don’t really understand Fahrenheit). With a new month comes a new free audiobook at Christian Audio: The Poverty of Nations by Wayne Grudem and Barry Asmus. Logos users may enjoy What is a Healthy Church Member by Thabiti Anyabwile as their free title of the month. Now, enjoy!

You Know You’re Really Preaching the Gospel When…

Dave Harvey:

Before you can preach the gospel to others, you’ve got to be able to preach it to yourself first. You can’t lead others to drink from a stream you haven’t yet discovered yourself. How do you know if you’re preaching the gospel to yourself? One sign is that you’re less impressed with yourself than you used to be.

How To Sing Psalms That Are Not True for You

David Murray shares valuable advice.

Eat, Drink, and Self-Control

Austin Burgard:

We often assume that there isn’t necessarily a correlation between nutritious eating, exercise, and spiritual discipline. But what if there is? If I had been working out and eating well, I would have slept better, which would have allowed me to wake up early in the mornings, which I enjoy. If I would have been in the Word and prayer in the mornings, I would have been more effective, humanly speaking, at killing sin. If I were killing sin, my communion with Christ would have intensified. If I were sleeping well and eating better, I would have had more energy throughout my days. On and on the cycle goes.

How Christianity Flourishes

Jared Wilson:

Christian mission has always thrived by surging in the margins and under the radar. When we somehow get into positions of power, the wheels always come off. This is pretty much the way it’s always been. I once heard Steve Brown relate this story on the radio: “A Muslim scholar once said to a Christian, ‘I cannot find anywhere in the Qur’an that it teaches Muslims how to be a minority presence in the world. And I cannot find anywhere in the New Testament where it teaches Christians how to be a majority presence in the world.’”

When Your Spouse Doesn’t Want to be a Group Leader

Scarlet Hiltibidal:

For every ministry wife with an M.Div. and a personal, passionate discipleship strategy, there’s another one who’s just trying to love her husband and survive ministry life without picking up a smoking habit. I’m not a Marlboro girl, but I did spend many years struggling to find my place as the wife of someone called to ministry.

3 Reasons to “Go and do Likewise.”

Michael Kelley:

Jesus, the great knower of hearts, launches into a story with the most unexpected of heroes. A half-breed. A throw away kind of person. An unclean untouchable. The kind of people you would specifically go out of the way just so you didn’t have to even pass through the country they occupied. He was the one, according to the story, that the followers of Jesus should emulate.

4 Warning Signs Your Church Isn’t Developing Leaders

Eric Geiger:

Effective organizations build their own leaders instead of only buying them. Effective organizations develop people to deploy against their mission, that is to say, they take the people they have, develop their capacity, and hand increasing amounts of responsibility to them. Much more than any organization, a local church should excel at developing and deploying people. And they must be developed and deployed for the mission of God. Embedded in the Christian faith is a history of multiplying, a command to make disciples, and a promise that our mission will not be thwarted. Sadly, many churches struggle to develop leaders.

The kind of fundamentalist I want to be

A favorite from the archives:

With the exception of a few “badge of honor” types, no one really likes to be called a fundamentalist these days. But that’s really just because we use it as the dirtiest Christian cuss-word we can think of—as a pejorative or conversation killer. There’s an image of the fundamentalist as a joyless, angry, fire-and-brimstone preaching, King James reading, hymns-only singing cranky pants who has his tie just a bit too tight on Sunday mornings.

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