Best of the Week for June 26
In Best of the Week we link to a handful of the best articles, videos, books, etc. that we have come across in the last week. We hope this will point you to some of the right places and give you gospel-rich tools and thoughts for life and mission.
Making Maturity Our Mission
“As followers of Christ, we long to make a difference in the lives of those around us. As we live on mission, share our faith and serve others we discover that missional living is very rewarding, but we also discover another truth. Evangelism and being on mission as a Christian is hard.”
Logan Gentry talks about how important it is to keep our spiritual maturity and our level of missional responsibility in step with each other. When we focus on spiritual maturity as a central part of our mission, the rest of the mission will fall into line. The problem for most is that we really only give lip-service to spiritual maturity.
Learning a “Different World”: Loving Families With Special Needs
“Any parent of a child with special needs would agree. This “different world” can at times feel isolating, limiting and exhausting. Parents with typical children can’t understand this world completely, but as the church, we must try.”
This one hit close to home for me. There is a (slowly) growing movement in many churches to both acknowledge our families with unique needs and deliberately think through how to best serve them without separating them out. We’re thankful for many in our church family and want to continue the conversation.
Learn to Recognize an Idol Before it Rules Your Life
“The sad fact is then that if you are not worshipping God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, you are most likely worshipping something else.”
This article points out some simple ways to both recognize idols and deal with them. Most idols will be subtle for us Americans, so we will have to do some heart-searching to identify them. And then, we must act decisively against them. One step I would add to her list is COMMUNITY. Life following Jesus is a communal thing. Lone Rangers don’t often fair well.
Seven Prayers for Christian Dating
“We wonder why we make the same mistakes and fall into sin over and over again, while we leave the King sitting on the bench. We may talk about praying, but we rarely actually talk to God. We read articles, text friends, listen to podcasts, even ask for advice, but put off kneeling at the feet of our Father in heaven.”
I have seen several articles recently fromMarshall Segal leading toward his book on singleness and dating. All of them have been very good. This one is great because it gives seven very practical points and prayers attached that every single person deeply needs to heed. There is a marriage equivalent to all of them, as well, if all you hitched folks will make the application.
Here’s another good article from Marshall.
And that leads me to…
Not Yet Married
“If you follow Jesus, the search for a spouse is no longer a pursuit of perfection, but a mutually flawed pursuit of him. He will likely write a love story for you different than the one you would have written for yourself, but that’s because he loves you and knows how to write a better story.”
This is Marshall Segal’s book on singleness and dating. I have not read it, but I have read multiple articles from him on the topic, and I have high confidence that this book will be a great read. May all of our days, married or not, be a flawed, yet holy, pursuit of Jesus.
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