Blogs

Skip Resolutions in 2019—Make a Rule of Life
Excellent article with which to begin the new year.

“A Rule of Life contains spiritual, relational, and vocational rhythms needed to sustain the life in Christ we’ve been called to, and it doesn’t change much year in and year out. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the Rule or hasn’t created one, January 1 provides the perfect time to establish your own Rule of Life.”

How I Write Sermons
I never recommend copying someone else’s sermon preparation process but there’s always something to learn. Here Russell Moore explains how he prepares sermons.

Join Analog Social Media
“In the spirit of the New Year, that I suggest you make a simple resolution: join analog social media. As I’ve discussed before, analog social media describes organizations, activities and traditions that require you to interact with interesting people and encounter interesting things in the real world.”

25 Non-Christian Press Books from 2018 that Christians Should Read
A list of 25 books published in 2018 that are not “Christian books” and yet in various ways Christian leaders would benefit from reading.

Martin Luther’s Personal Letter to a Close Friend Struggling with Spiritual Despair
“The following is from a letter written in July 1530 to Jerome Weller, a 31-year-old friend who had previously lived in the Luther home, tutored his children, and was now struggling with spiritual despair:”

Lessons from a failed business and trying in the New Year
Brave article from Trillia Newbell:

“It’s the end of the year and I imagine some of you entering in with a bit of fear. You have ideas, goals, and plans but you are afraid to try. I get it. In the past I have been hesitant to set goals or resolutions because of the fear of failure. Why bother? you tell yourself, I’m not going to complete my goals or keep my resolutions anyway. And perhaps that’s true. But I’d like to also encourage you that trying isn’t failing and that failing doesn’t mean trying isn’t worthwhile.”

Book

Here’s a good book to start 2019.

The Money Challenge by Art Rainer $2.99.

Exalting Jesus in Isaiah $2.99.

Remember that list of new resolutions you wrote up a year ago? Did you achieve them?

If you focused only on goals, you probably failed. If you focused on systems and processes you probably succeeded. That’s the argument that habit-expert James Clear makes in Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.

He insists that setting specific actionable goals is not the key to success. Rather, it is to develop systems.

“Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results” (23).

He points to the fact that winners and losers have the same goals. The difference between them is the system or process they are using to achieve that goal. “Goals,” explains Clear, “are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress” (24).

The classic example is dieting. If the goal is to lose ten pounds then happiness is restricted to the moment of attaining that, it is a momentary change, and it’s likely to lead to the “yo-yo effect.”

However, if the focus is more on the process of healthy eating, then happiness can be found in every step and day of the process, the change is more likely to be achieved, and the change is more likely to be permanent.

I think Clear overstates his case here. Goals are still useful. However, he’s right that without a plan for getting there, goals are unlikely to be achieved. He’s right that there needs to be a much greater focus on process.

For example, if we simply set a goal of having a happier marriage in 2019, without any plan, without any thought for the process needed to achieve that, it’s not going to happen. But if that’s broken down into simple, small, daily steps, each day of following the steps will not only give us a motivational boost, but we will be much more likely to achieve the goal and maintain it.

Perhaps you want to preach better sermons in 2019. Very good. How are you going to get there? What process will you use? What books are you going to read? What preachers are you going to listen to? What courses are you going to take? What critique are you going to invite? Who will you ask for feedback? What criteria will you give them?

Clear’s book is called Atomic Habits, not only because of its advocacy for multiple small changes, but because the accumulation of these multiple small changes can eventually explode into a radical new world.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Dear Friend,

Depression is tough at the best of times. Perhaps it’s the best of times, such as holiday times, when it’s especially tough. The thought of mixing with happy people fills you with dread. The thought of remembering lost loved ones fills you with gloom. How can people be so happy when you are so sad? How can people celebrate when you are in mourning? It jars your soul and scrapes your tender wounds, doesn’t it?

You may want to run away and hide from the noisy busyness and the social obligations. Or you may want to lash out at the insensitive and uncaring people who exhort you to “Cheer up!” Or maybe you just want to drown your sorrows with binge drinking, binge eating, or binge TV-watching. But none of these options—running out, lashing out, or pigging out—will improve your depression. Indeed, they will only make it worse.

Let me propose a better way that will enable you to carefully navigate this holiday season while also contributing to your long-term healing.

Pray

I know prayer is perhaps too obvious, but sometimes we miss the obvious. Bring your burden to the Lord, tell him your fears and dreads, and seek his help to push through these daunting days. Lament by saying “Lord, I don’t want to give thanks, I don’t want to celebrate Christmas, and I don’t want to live through another year.” Admit, saying: “God, I can’t stand happiness right now and I can’t abide people.” Confess: “This is wrong and sinful, but I can’t seem to change.” Plead: “Lord, I am weak, I need your power, I need your patience, I need your joy.” Promise: “I will rely on you alone to carry me and even use this time for my help and healing.”

Share

Not everyone among your family and friends understands depression; but some do, as you know. Give them a call, or, better, meet with them, and talk to them about what you dread during this season. Ask them to pray for you and to support you in the coming days. Ask them to stay by your side in social settings, to protect you from those who don’t understand, to accept your silences, and to help you withdraw quietly when you have reached your limits of socializing.

Read the rest of this open letter at the Crossway Website.

Blogs

What Companies Can Do to Help Employees Address Mental Health Issues
“Most employees we surveyed already actively manage their mental health and consider it at least as important as their physical health. Such a positive attitude toward managing mental health suggests that employees, and in particular millennials, are likely to welcome and embrace training and initiatives at work that help them thrive and recognize when they need help. Much remains to be done. As Prince Williams says: “There’s still a stigma about mental health. We are chipping away at it, but that wall needs to be smashed down.”

When Christ Is the Cornerstone of Your Medical Practice
“To be a patient at Cornerstone is to encounter a distinctly different kind of doctor and practice. From the front desk staff all the way to the doctors’ offices, the mission of Cornerstone is to treat people the way Jesus would.”

How to Listen Like a Counselor
We can all learn how to listen better.

Beware Emotional Affairs
“Here are some questions to help discern if your relationship has morphed into an emotional affair:”

Some Kids Barely Survive Christmas: Celebrating the Son with Special Needs
“For children with special needs, the holidays often herald more distress than delight. Kids struggling with autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, and other neurodevelopmental conditions rely upon predictability to feel safe. Any deviation from the routine, no matter how exhilarating, pitches these children into a whirlwind of anxiety.”

Kindle Books

Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations $1.99.

How to Read and Understand the Biblical Prophets $2.99.

Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die $1.99.

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity $3.99.

Have you ever been frustrated at the slow rate of growth in your Christian life? Have you ever complained at how all your efforts to break with sin never seem to pay off? Have you ever been depressed at how, despite all the hours and energy you put into your work, you just don’t see your work improving?

Of course you have. We all have. But the result of no results is not only discouragement; it also depresses our continued effort towards growing in grace and mortifying sin.

Well, let some examples in James Clear’s best-selling book, Atomic Habits, encourage you.

• An ice cube in a room at 25 degrees does not melt. If we turn up the heat one degree at a time, nothing happens at 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31 degrees. But at 32 the ice begins to melt. Just one more degree and a huge transformation occurs.

• Bamboo spends five years underground and then explodes 95 feet into the air in six weeks.

• Cancer spends 80% of its life undetectable and then takes over the body in months.

• Tectonic plates can grind against one another for hundreds of years with no visible results, until one day an earthquake erupts as the plates rupture the earth.

Similarly, says Clear, habits seem to make no difference for ages until a critical threshold is crossed and a new level of performance is achieved:

“Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change” (20).

At times all our work seems wasted because we make no breakthrough. But it’s not wasted. It’s just being stored for release at the moment of breakthrough.

Moreover, the Christian has even more incentive than behavioral science to persevere in our pursuit of growth, holiness, and talent multiplication. We have the power of the Holy Spirit to strengthen us, we have hope in God to encourage us, and we have the almighty sovereignty of God that can effect breakthrough moments far sooner than anyone might expect or predict

So, keep persevering Christian. You may be just one degree away from a life-changing breakthrough in growth, in sanctification, and in usefulness.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Blogs

Suicides have spiked so much that Ron Wyden wants a 3-digit hotline
“In 2016, almost 45,000 suicides took place in the United States, up from about 30,000 in 1999, according to CDC data. Rates rose by more than 30% in half of all U.S. states since then, according to the CDC. Having a single, easy-to-remember phone number for mental health issues could make it easier to remember in a crisis, similar to how people know to call 911 in an emergency”

Christian, you are not the center of the universe
“Next time you feel anxious after watching a cable news broadcast or reading a tweet, remember we worship the same God Daniel did.”

SELF-Control as a Fruit of the SPIRIT and Implications
“I was recently struck by the tension represented in the reality that self-control was a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). Something we can only do by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit is attributed to the self as its means of expression. The Bible gives us a positively-connoted, Spirit-empowered, self-hyphenated word. How does this work? ”

The Number 1 Reason for the Decline in Church Attendance
“The number one reason for the decline in church attendance is that members attend with less frequency than they did just a few years ago.”

Why Your Online “Church” Isn’t Enough
“We don’t see things correctly. The idle often think their weak. The faint-hearted rebuke themselves for idleness. We need another set of loving eyes to come alongside us and properly apply the gospel. And for that you need a local church. And for that to actually “work” and matter and do what it’s supposed to do—you need to pursue being known and to know others.”

The Mentally Afflicted Christian
“If as Christians we are primarily concerned with correcting the woes of others, while conveniently avoiding helping the suffering sinner or giving a reason for hope, who will show this person the love of Christ, if not the Christian?”

New Book

Hitting the Marks: Restoring the Essential Identity of the Church by Barry J. York.

Kindle Books

Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ by John Piper $1.99.

The Story of Reality: How the World Began, How It Ends, and Everything Important that Happens in Between by Gregory Koukl $3.99.

Clear Winter Nights: A Journey into Truth, Doubt, and What Comes After by Trevin Wax $1.99.

The God Who Is There: Finding Your Place in God’s Story by D. A. Carson $1.59.