Blogs

Minimize Student Debt, Maximize Christian Mission | Desiring God
“How many current (and incoming) students are making decisions today that will put them in even deeper debt? What is clear is that thousands upon thousands of students need help assessing the largest investment they’ve ever made.”

Using Technology Wisely: When Remote Counseling is the Only Option| Biblical Counseling Coalition Blogs
“There are a number of valid reasons why counseling may be sought remotely.”

What Paul Can Teach the Christian Counselor | Thinking Christianly…In a Therapeutic Culture
“Christian counselors can learn much from reflecting on the New Testament epistles. ”

Four things most wives want from their husbands | Urban Faith
“Most wives look to their husbands for at least four things: 1) open, honest, and consistent communication; 2) physical, emotional, and financial protection; 3) quality and quantity time; and 4) continuous pursuit-that is, don’t let romance fade as the marriage matures.”

7 Steps to a Sustainable Schedule | Lifeway: Mark Dance
“Most pastors I talk to are aspiring for some sanity in their schedules. Today I will share my typical work-day ministry schedule, which you will want to customize according to your particular life-stage and ministry.”

Vacation as Preparation for Vocation
This sums up what I just experienced in Florida.

3 Reasons Millennials Are Getting Fired | Inc.com
“A backlash to Milllennials’ mindsets at work is causing some to get fired. Here’s why.”

Kindle Books

On This Day: 365 Amazing and Inspiring Stories about Saints, Martyrs and Heroes $0.99. Bit of a mixture but a treasure trove of sermon illustrations.

Awe: Why It Matters for Everything We Think, Say, and Do by Paul Tripp $4.99.

Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message $1.99.

Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the Upward Spiral That Will Change Your Life $1.99. Not a Christian book but a wealth of fascinating research and stories. The kind of “weekend book” I’m always looking for on a Friday. As usual, read through lens of Scripture – but be amazed at how science is increasingly confirming Scripture too.

Video

I am happy to be me
Just stunned. Notice how far down the list of “I ams” comes “I am disabled.”

Ron Friedman invited 26 bestselling science and productivity writers to share their insights for achieving top performance and identified nine overarching themes that encapsulate their advice for peak work performance. Here’s a summary of the seven that I’ve found the most helpful.

1. Own your time. Block and protect time every day to work on your own projects instead of responding to everybody else’s requests.

2. Recognize busyness as a lack of focus. Despite the rush of feeling needed, busyness blurs our focus and slows progress on the most important work. As one scientist put it: “Busyness is not a marker of intelligence, importance, or success. Taken to an extreme, it is much more likely a marker of conformity or powerlessness or fear.”

3. The ideal worker recognizes physical limitations. Instead of pushing harder and longer, which is ultimately counter-productive, they take time to exercise, sleep, disconnect from email, and they alternate between 90 minute bursts of work and short breaks.

4. Make a habit of stepping back. Insight, problem-solving, and creativity requires time off work and time away from tasks.

5. Help others strategically. We cannot help everybody with everything but we should specialize in one or two forms of helping that we genuinely enjoy and excel at.

6. Have a plan for saying no. Instead of having to stop and think about how to say “No” to requests, create an email template, or write out a script that you can use when doing it in person.

7. Make important behaviors measurable. Track behavior to make progress. This example is way over the top but one well-known executive daily reviews a 40-item spreadsheet consisting of every important behavior he hopes to achieve. Among the items: the number of words he wrote, the distance he walked, and the number of nice things he said to his wife, daughter, and grandchildren.

You can read the whole article here.

Blogs

Nine Questions to Help You Steward All of Your Life for God’s Glory | Biblical Counseling Coalition
Simple and straightforward advice on guidance.

We love routine | Aaron Armstrong
Aaron argues that we need more routine not more radical.

Burning and Yearning | Tim Challies
“The Bible allows us to distinguish between two kinds of sexual desire, a pure and sinless sexual desire and an impure, sinful one. We can term these yearning and burning. Yearning is a legitimate sexual desire, the desire to explore and experience sexuality with a God-given spouse. Burning is an illegitimate form of sexual desire, the desire to explore and experience sexuality with someone who is not a God-given spouse”

Deacons and the Poor in the Church | Feeding on Christ
“Currently, we are in the process of training and electing our first deacons at New Covenant. Consequently, I’ve had the privilege of studying, in a focused way, the nature and function of this important office. I have found careful biblical and historical research on this branch of ecclesiology to be exceedingly beneficial.”

Pushing Back the Darkness | En Route
“My son’s days will come to an end sooner than later. And no matter how much I wish I hadn’t even gotten a virus, I did. The darkness has had its victory, but not the final say. I will spend every day thanking God for the gift of Calvin’s life. My family will rejoice that we get to discover beauty and meaning in places few have ventured. The darkness is just a few turns away but I’m not going back. There’s way too much here.”

New Book

Theodore Beza: The Man and the Myth

Kindle Books

When I read books like the next two, I’m not expecting to agree with everything in them, but I am looking for a couple of key tips that could have a significant beneficial impact. Read through the lens of Scripture.

Slowing Down to the Speed of Life: How To Create a Peaceful, Simpler Life by Richard Karlson $1.99.

Effortless Reading: The Simple Way to Read and Guarantee Remarkable Results $2.99.

Video

Running The Race of Life
Pastor Mike Williams’ testimony about God’s all-sufficient grace as he faces terminal cancer.

In a study that examined the link between relationships and health across all age groups, researchers at the University of North Carolina have found that feeling lonely can ‘vastly elevate’ a person’s risk of heart disease, stroke and cancer. A lack of friends or family is as dangerous to your health as a lack of physical inactivity in youth or diabetes in old age, their research found.

Conversely, people who have the support of loved ones are less likely to develop health conditions – and more likely to have a longer life expectancy. The more social ties people have at an early age, the better their health is at the beginnings and ends of their lives. Not surprisingly it was the quality rather than the quantity of relationships that mattered most.

The author’s conclusions are that “doctors, clinicians, and other health workers should redouble their efforts to help the public understand how important strong social bonds are throughout the course of all of our lives.”

Also, “it should be as important to encourage adolescents and young adults to build broad social relationships and social skills for interacting with others as it is to eat healthy and be physically active.”

As Matthew Edlund points out in his book, The Power of Rest: Why Sleep Alone is Not Enough, social support also decreases rates of depression, perhaps partly because “oxytocin, the hormone that increases one’s sense of warmth and emotional connectedness, is itself increased through social support. Animals that have more support from their fellows have better immune responses and less nasty responses to infection.”

In The Friendship Factor, psychotherapist Alan McGinnis goes so far as to say that “I have become more convinced than ever that a restoring and renewing power resides in friendship. If people availed themselves of the love available to them, many therapists like me could close up shop.”

How much health and strength are we sacrificing because we are not prepared to sacrifice the time and energy needed to build true friendships?

But if supportive human relationships can do this for our bodies and minds, how much more can Jesus Christ do for our souls! Jesus didn’t need the University of North Carolina to teach Him the connection between intimate relationships and a flourishing life.”This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3).

Blogs

How the Laments Speak to Our Fears | The Christward Collective
“How do we live in a broken and fallen world where fears surround us on every side? How do we turn to God in the midst of such fears? …One of the most profitable parts of His word–often overlooked, yet full of instruction for the life of faith–are the Psalms of Lament. Most of us have turned to the Psalms when we are overwhelmed by the cares of this life–and, for good reason. ”

Too Much Bible? | The Proclamation Trust
Tim Ward notes that we live in an age in which we are deluged with information, and then asks if, for the Christian, the deluge can include Bible information?

‘Married At First Sight’ Explains Why Americans Can’t Commit
“Finding love is hard. Making love deepen and last is even harder. If reality TV is any indication, love has gone off the rails in America.”

Obama’s Legacy Will Be Executive Overreach
“Obama can’t do much on guns, but he has mainstreamed a dangerous idea about governing.”

The top 10 risks to the world in 2016 — the ailing trans-Atlantic partnership is number one | Daily Telegraph
“The top 10 risks to the world in 2016 – the ailing trans-Atlantic partnership is number one”

In-house or Plugged In? The Advantages and Drawbacks of Cyber-Counseling | Biblical Counseling Coalition
The case for and against counseling through video chat (or over the phone) and a few pointers to make sessions as profitable as possible.

A Child Was Bored in the Service | Banner of Truth
“Many consider the worst sin a church can commit is to bore children.”

P& R’s Top-selling Books of 2015

New Book

Spreading the Feast: Instruction and Meditations for Ministry at the Lord’s Table by Howard Griffth.

Kindle Books

100 Days of Real Food: How We Did It, What We Learned, and 100 Easy, Wholesome Recipes Your Family Will Love $1.99. This and the next one might change not just your physical life, but your mental, emotional, and spiritual life too. I just bought both of them.

Sugar Free: The Complete Guide to Quit Sugar & Lose Weight Naturally $0.99.

Laser-Sharp Focus. A No-Fluff Guide to Improved Concentration, Maximised Productivity and Fast-Track to Success $0.99.

Videos

Church Leaders: Focus on the Big Picture

The average student debt of 2015 graduates was $35,051.

40 percent of Americans under the age of 30 have some student debt and the average amount they carry is about $23,300

Little wonder that student debt is cited in polls as one of the greatest sources of stress for students and their parents, especially middle-class families who earn too much to qualify for scholarships, yet earn too little to pay the tuition without large loans.

Numerous academic studies have linked student debt to lower grades, dropping out, financial recklessness, insomnia, anxiety, depression, and a range of other illnesses like high blood pressure, psoriasis, and so on.

Enter Christian College Professor, Alex Chediak, with his latest book, Beating the College Debt Trap: Getting a Degree without Going Broke.

My endorsement sums up my view of this excellent book:

“Alex has given us an indispensable field guide to escaping the insanity of the current college debt problem. A treasure trove of practical wisdom and tactics. This is going on my ‘must read’ list for our church’s youth and parent ministry.”

Watch the video below or click through to Youtube if it doesn’t show. Buy the book here.