Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran’s Statement on Being Terminated
Religious leaders gather outside of the Georgia State Capitol to protest a decision by Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed to terminate Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran. Supporters believe the decision was based on religion, while the Mayor contends the decision was about judgement and protocol. The chief’s statement begins at 1:20.56.

Joni Erikson Tada On How She Went From Despair to Hope

Beautiful Precision Woodworking

Order The Happy Christian Now For $100 Of Free Resources

January 14, 2015 David Murray

Free Resources Graphic

“Happy is a cheap word nowadays, hardly strong enough to describe the realistic, joyful, triumphant Christian life into which David Murray labors to lead us. His book overflows with earthy, deep-rooted biblical wisdom that many miss but all of us need.” J I Packer, Professor of Theology, Regent College.

Want to spread some happiness? Here’s a special offer you might want to share with your friends.

If you buy or pre-order The Happy Christian before February 24 you’ll get over $100 of free books and films.

Here’s a quick description of what you’ll get.

Free Study Guide

The Happy Christian Study Guide.
Why not read The Happy Christian in your Bible Study or Small Group and use these questions to help you get the most happiness out of the book and into your heart and life!

Six Free Ebooks (EPUB, MOBI, and PDF)

1000 Happy Quotes: A History of Happiness
1000 quotes from a selection of Christian leaders through the centuries, including Augustine, Martin Luther, Thomas Manton, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Hodge, Charles Spurgeon, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, etc., and right up to the present day with a selection from R. C. Sproul, John Macarthur, John Piper, and others.

100 Days of Happiness: A Daily Diet of Nourishing Joy
Put The Happy Christian into practice by snacking on these short and instructive devotionals, and watch as your happiness expands, deepens, and grows into a healthy habit for the rest of your life.

The Happy Leader: Leading for Spiritual Profit
As the happiest Christian leaders model biblical leadership and thereby produce the most spiritual profit for the Christians and churches they lead, here’s a practical study of 14 biblical models of leadership including servant, shepherd, leader, steward, captain, etc.

The Happy Church: Holy, Healthy, Happy Churches
As we cannot be healthy and happy Christians without being in a healthy and happy church, this book explains seven marks of holy, healthy, and happy churches.

The Happy Student: Happiness and Success at School
What makes for student happiness and success? Here are my seven answers after 30+ years of studying, pastoring, professoring, and parenting.

The Happy Family: God’s Guide To Family Flourishing
As God has designed the family for our good, if we want to get the maximum good out of it, we need to obey His instructions for all the different family roles and relationships. This book will help Christian families function more biblically, more happily, and therefore more persuasively in an anti-family age.

Six Free Films

God’s Technology + Study Guide
God’s Technology is a 40 minute film download that many families and churches have used to train their children to use technology in a God-glorifying way.

Christians Get Depressed Too Films + Study Guide
Recognizing that for many Christians it is a tough battle to get to a place of happiness, I wrote Christians Get Depressed Too, to give hope and help to the depressed. We’ve now followed that up with five (35 minute) films for download, featuring five different Christians telling five very different stories of how God gave them hope and help through depression.

Happy App

By the end of January, the Happy Christian App will also be available free of charge in the Apple App Store, Google Play store, and the Kindle Fire app store. This App will deliver daily articles, devotionals, quotes, and news items to generate and maintain Christian joy.

Next Steps

Step 1. Order The Happy Christian from your favorite retailer like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your local Christian bookstore before the book releases on February 24.

Step 2. Email your receipt or proof of payment to TheHappyChristianBook@gmail.com

That’s it! You will then immediately receive links to your free downloads in your inbox.

Step 3. Share with your friends and followers.

HappyChristian.net

World View

December 24, 2014 David Murray

The Marvel Of American Resilience

Fracking is making the U.S. the world’s leading oil and gas producer. How did this happen?

Not because of any great advantage in geology—many countries have larger recoverable shale gas reserves.
Not because America’s big energy companies are uniquely skilled or smart or deep-pocketed:
Not because enlightened mandarins in the federal bureaucracy and national labs saw the future potential.

It happened:

Because Americans, almost uniquely in the world, have property rights to the minerals under their yards.
Because the federal government wasn’t really paying attention.
Because federalism allows states to do their own thing.
Because against-the-grain entrepreneurs like George Mitchell and Harold Hamm couldn’t be made to bow to the consensus of experts.
Because our deep capital markets were willing to bet against those experts.
Because of freedom, optimism, flexibility, and resilience.

The article concludes:

We are larger than our leaders. We are better than our politics. We are wiser than our culture. We are smarter than our ideas. Enjoy the holiday.

If you can’t get access to the Wall Street Journal article that celebrates this American triumph, click on the top Google article here.

The Death Of The American Family Dinner Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Across the United States, roughly 88 percent of Americans still say they frequently eat dinner with other members of their household, according to a new study by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

The survey found that the average family eats dinner together more than 5 times a week, and nearly 60 percent of households with children younger than 18 sit down to supper six or seven nights a week.

Some of the benefits of eating regularly together include:

Teenagers who frequently ate with their families tended to use drugs less often.
Students who ate less often with their loved ones were more likely to be truant at school.
Children who eat group meals at home demonstrate fewer signs of depression.

The Unbelievable Rise Of Single Motherhood In America Over The Last 50 years

More women are having their children later in life.
And they’re doing so in less traditional ways: before marriage, without marriage, or with unmarried partners.
Half of all children will live with a single mom at some point before the age of 18.
Children with two parents fare better in many ways — in school, in their own relationships — than children with only one at home.
A black child today is much more likely to be born to a single mom than a white child, or the child of a mom with a college degree.
More than 70 percent of all black children today are born to an unmarried mom, a three-fold increase in that rate since the 1960s

Private Colleges Are A Waste Of Time For White Middle Class Kids

A Gallup survey asked graduates how they were doing across five different metrics, including financially, physically and socially. The summary finding: for kids with well educated parents, what matters is getting a college degree, not where it came from. Some of the other findings:

Eleven percent of graduates of public universities and private universities said they were “thriving” across all five metrics.
Twelve percent of graduates of U.S. News & World Report’s top 100 schools were thriving, essentially the same as the rest.
The biggest predictor of whether a graduate wasn’t thriving was whether he or she had student loans. Fourteen percent of those without any debt said they were thriving, compared to 2 percent of those with more than $40,000 of debt.
The happiest students, in general, were the ones who developed a relationship with a mentor, participated in extracurricular activities or took on a major academic project — all things you can do at any school.
Students with more potential made more money as adults, and the students with less made less — no matter where they went to school.
Conclusion: how much you make depends on you, not where you get in.

Check Out

December 19, 2014 David Murray

Best Kindle Deals

Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus by D. A. Carson ($0.99)

What Is the Gospel? by Greg Gilbert ($0.99)

Note to Self: The Discipline of Preaching to Yourself by Joe Thorn ($4.99)

Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World by Michael S. Horton ($3.99)

The Great Exchange: My Sin for His Righteousness by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington ($1.99)

The Power of Suffering: Strengthening Your Faith in the Refiner’s Fire by John MacArthur ($2.51)

How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart ($3.99)

The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name by Sally Lloyd Jones ($1.99)

The Money Saving Mom’s Budget by Crystal Paine ($1.99)

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman ($2.99)

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain ($2.99)

Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand ($3.00)

Best Blogs

Pyromaniacs: Short Christmas sermon: How not to find Jesus

BibleX: Why Preachers Struggle with Sermon Application

The State of Theology: Worshiping Alone by Stephen Nichols | Ligonier Ministries Blog

Best Books on the Best Sermon | TGC

Preempt The Next Newsflash: Reflections on #ATimeTo Speak

How to Use the Back of a Napkin to Prove to a Jehovah’s Witness That Jesus Is God | TGC

5 of the Best Free Bible Study Tools | Free Daily Bible Study

What Changes for a Church when Counseling Becomes Formal? | Brad Hambrick

14 Top Biblical Counseling Books of 2014

Sorrow, Depression, and the Holidays | The Cripplegate

How Do You Sleep?

How to beat the forces that keep low-income students from graduating | The Washington Post

Jesus and Moses - Reformation21 Blog

Best Videos

A Time to Speak Webcast Replay
We’ve heard and seen lots of secular pundits pontificate racial issues over the past few weeks. Here’s our opportunity to listen to a number of Christians discussing the same issues in a Christian spirit, with biblical content, and a Gospel focus. You may also wish to read John Piper’s reflections on this important event.
kainos