There are an estimated 10 million Christians in the U.S. who tithe more than $50 billion annually, according to a press release for the annual State of the Plate report. The report encompasses survey responses from 4,413 tithers from all 50 states and a variety of different churches and income levels. The fifth annual study reveals that 97 percent of tithers make giving to their local church a priority, and 63 percent started tithing between their childhood and their twenties. It also found that 70 percent give based on their gross income rather than their net income, and 77 percent give more than the traditional 10 percent.Read the rest.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Christians Who Tithe Have Healthier Finances Than Those Who Don't
The Christian Post:
Ministry is Not For The Superhuman
Mike Emlet reflects on Zack Eswine's book on pastoral ministry, Sensing Jesus, and our tendency to want to be omnipotent and omnipresent.
So what does it look like to lean against the temptation to be “everywhere-for-all”?
- Frame your day with pauses that remind you of your absolute dependency on God and ground you in the present. Eswine suggests using the time-honored tradition of breaking the day into four portions—morning, noon, evening, night—and pausing at the beginning and end of each period of time to pray and read Scripture for a few minutes. Although my consistency in this discipline waxes and wanes, I can attest to how it acts as a speed bump to what would otherwise be a frenetic, prayerless, and unreflective day.
- Focus on the here and now as you meet with people. Truly attend to the people in front of you—their words, smiles, grimaces, and furrowed brows. So much of interpersonal ministry is being with a person, not arriving at a destination. We are like children on a long car ride who whine, “Are we there yet?” while missing the glory of the ordinary passing scenery, not to mention the blessing (OK, sometimes!) of being together as a family.
- Learn to value the ordinary, “exult in monotony” (66). If you don’t do this, you miss much of daily life! Without those eyes to see and ears to hear, it’s no wonder the here and now feels insufficient and the whisper to be somewhere else for someone else beckons. Can you smell the sautéed asparagus? Feel the warmth of your child’s hand? See the impish grin of one of the preschoolers in your Sunday School class? Taste the bitter goodness of that first swallow of morning coffee? Savoring these ordinary moments, gifts from God for a given place and time, reminds us that he will give us what is needful for the moments of ministry as well.
- Go to bed! “Sleep is a Sabbath-like act. We rest from it all and leave it all for God’s keeping while we lie motionless in the world for a while” (80). Honestly, this is hard for me. While I don’t have the stamina of twenty years ago, I still am often driven by an everywhere-for-all mentality that trades sleep for the diminishing returns of working late.
What Day Changed the Course of Christian History?
Interesting responses from several Christian historians.
On topic, this primer on church history is really solid and cheap for a limited time.
On topic, this primer on church history is really solid and cheap for a limited time.
Can You Articulate The Gospel?
The term "gospel" is, as Matt Chandler likes to say, becoming a "junk drawer" term for anything and everything in Christianity. It is very important that we don't implicitly teach our people to enable this dysfunction. This article will help immensely. Don't use the word "gospel" without helping people know what it really means.
A New Category of "Dating"?
From Sex, Dating, and Relationships:
Think of a dating friendship as a precursor to a marriage proposal but without all the romantic, sexual overtones that so often accompany a dating relationship. A couple in a dating friendship, regardless of their attraction to each other, doesn't pretend there is more to the relationship than is warranted. They consciously refrain from sexual and overtly romantic activity and don't become naively optimistic about the commitment level of their friendship. Thus, the main goal of a dating friendship is to explore the viability of marriage while preserving the guidelines of sexual and romantic purity required by the neighbor relationship.Read Challies' review of this book here.
Noteworthy New Titles From Crossway Books
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by J. I. Packer
“If you, like me, struggle with discouragement over your weaknesses, you need to read this book. We all long to be admired for our strengths, yet we all find ourselves, ‘beset with weakness’ (Heb. 5:2). Does this mean we’re stuck living with discouragement? No! There is an escape to joyful freedom. Dr. Packer knows the way. Walking us through 2 Corinthians, he shows it to us so that we, like Paul, can ‘boast all the more gladly of [our] weaknesses.’”
—Jon Bloom, President, Desiring God Ministries; author, Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith
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Cheap eBook Alert
The Expositor's Bible Commentary - Luke and Acts
John, Acts: Volume Two: 002 (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary)
Clinton E. Arnold
Hitler in the Crosshairs
Maurice Possley, John Woodbridge
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Colbert Spars With Gwen Moore of Wisconsin
No matter your politics you have to admit this is pretty funny. Colbert is brilliant.
One Ministry, Two Kingdoms
Extremely helpful.
Books by Paul Tripp:
Paul Tripp:
It took God employing hardship for me to embrace the inescapable reality that everything I did in ministry was done in allegiance to, and in pursuit of, either the kingdom of self or the kingdom of God. This truth is best exegeted for us in Matthew 6:19-34.Read the rest.
I'm convinced that this passage elaborately unpacks the thoughts, desires, and actions of the kingdom of self. Notice the turn in Matthew 6:33, where Jesus says, "But seek first the kingdom of God." The word BUT tells us this verse is the transition point of the passage. Everything before it explains the operation of another kingdom, the kingdom of self. This makes the passage a very helpful lens on the struggle between these two kingdoms in everyone's heart.
I want to examine four treasure principles that emerge from this passage that I find helpful as I seek to examine the motivations of my own heart in ministry. I have included plenty of personal reflection questions for you to consider, and since you don't always see yourself with accuracy, you could use this as a small group/devotional resource with your fellow pastors or elders or ministry leaders.
Books by Paul Tripp:
- Sex and Money: Pleasures That Leave You Empty and Grace That Satisfies
- Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry
- Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change (Resources for Changing Lives)
- What Did You Expect?: Redeeming the Realities of Marriage
- Broken-Down House
Missional! Radical! Legalistic!
The conclusion of Ed Stetzer:
Books by Ed Stetzer:
In other words, let's be missional and radical. Let's be careful about making it legalistic. But let's not be afraid to tell a consumer-driven church that has commodified the gospel that the Christian life is rooted in much more than personal comfort.Read the rest.
Books by Ed Stetzer:
- Planting Missional Churches
- Compelled: Living the Mission of God
- Subversive Kingdom: Living as Agents of Gospel Transformation
- Transformational Church: Creating a New Scorecard for Congregations
- Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches that Reach Them
- Comeback Churches: How 300 Churches Turned Around and Yours Can, Too
- Breaking the Missional Code: Your Church Can Become a Missionary in Your Community
- Viral Churches: Helping Church Planters Become Movement Makers (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series)
If Your Complementarian Culture Boarding on Crazy?
Trevin Wax offers some diagnostic questions.
Books by Trevin Wax:
- a reticence or hesitance to affirm and celebrate women’s contributions in local church ministry, particularly contributions that are more up-front and visible.=
- a warped vision of manhood that focuses on calloused hands and physical labor and ignores other kinds of work.
- the assumption that marriage is always better than singleness, so that singles feel like their identity is wrapped up in not having a spouse.
- unwillingness to celebrate any evidence of gospel ministry or fruit among those with a more egalitarian viewpoint.
- an unexpressed expectation that the godliest women have quiet and introverted personality types, and cannot be assertive and outgoing.
- a competitive tendency that leads to unhealthy individual comparisons and rushed judgments, rather than extending grace to one another.
Read the rest of his post that touched on some larger issues.
- a spectrum of “holy” and “holier” choices with regard to a child’s education (from public school all the way to homeschooling).
Books by Trevin Wax:
Cheap eBook Alert
Holman Bible Atlas
Trophy Child
Ted Cunningham
Which Bible Translation Should I Use?
Andreas J. Köstenberger, David A. Croteau
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
How To Be Good at Failure
Dave Kraft:
Get Dave's leadership books:
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” - Thomas A. EdisonRead the rest.
Nobody likes to fail. But if we’re honest, we understand that failure is a part of life. There is no success without some amount of failure. Great inventors like Thomas Edison experience a lot of failures on the way to a successful invention. Even the best baseball players strike out much more often than they hit a home run. Anyone pursuing a goal of value will make mistakes and wrong decisions. So the key is to expect failure, to prepare for it, to be ready turn it into a lesson and a stepping stone to success. There is such a thing as a successful failure.
Get Dave's leadership books:
A Helpful Perspective on "Do Unto Others..."
Read this helpful post for communication and conflict here.
Don't Blame Social Media For Your Issues
Adam Jeske:
Get Adam's new book that he co-wrote with his wife here.
You often hear about the dangers of social media, including: narcissism, wasted time, envy of the lives of others, lack of integrity or the temptation to restart unhealthy relationships.Read the rest.
Of course, these are all concerns, and you need to consider them in terms of what role social media has in your life.
But I don’t think social media is dangerous. I think we are dangerous.
We don’t need social media to sin. Social media, in fact, reveals our character. If I think too highly of myself, lack self-control, or lack integrity, these will be visible in my Facebook posts.
So don’t blame social media for your issues. Too often Christians are the laggards, fearful and unsure about new opportunities. We are also the ones quick to call out the implications of sin and temptation in realms of human advance. But what if we thought carefully and constructively from the get-go?
Get Adam's new book that he co-wrote with his wife here.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
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