I’ve been blogging for five and a half years, and this post is the 250th blog post written for my website. That’s a lot of posts. Thanks for letting me invade your inbox.

In 2019, I wrote more guest posts for other websites than I ever have before. If you count the podcast interviews, I hit twenty-two in all. But I stopped telling you about them because I feared wearing you out with updates. Inbox fatigue is a blogger’s constant fear.

As we close the year, I’ll risk sharing recaps of my guest posts, because if you haven’t read it, it’s new to you.

Thanks,
Benjamin

“When Self-Preservation Becomes Our God,” For The Church, June 5, 2019

Safety is a good thing. Antilock brakes and side-impact airbags are good things. Hand sanitizer is a good thing. Tying one’s shoelaces is a good thing. Walking, not running, with scissors and getting flu shots are good things. They all arise from our desire for safety. And behind the desire for safety lies the desire for self-preservation, which is also a good thing. We are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27; James 3:9). Therefore, our lives matter. In Ephesians 5, Paul assumes that “no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it,” a truism Paul then uses to help build his argument about caring for one’s spouse. Self-preservation is not a bad thing. In fact, when men and women act heroically, despite a certain danger to themselves, we are not saying that they didn’t care about their own lives. Of course they care about their lives. What we celebrate is that they valued something more than self-preservation; we celebrate that they put something ahead of their own safety.

“Book Review: Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy by Mark Vroegop,” 9Marks, June 6, 2019

When tragedy strikes, we often don’t know what to do next. Yet, when the Lord’s hand of judgment fell on Israel; when the temple was leveled by pagans; and when the most tender and refined of women resorted to cannibalism (cf. Deut. 28:56–57), Jeremiah knew what to do. He sat in ash and wrote an acrostic poem. Let that sink in. When all around his soul gave way, Jeremiah penned the book we call Lamentations, a series of highly structured and theologically dense poems. That response to tragedy might strike us as odd. But Jeremiah’s response is a gift to posterity. His laments illuminate the way out of the dark jungle of despair. He gives us a path to walk toward life, healing, and toward God himself.

“Was I Betraying My Church by Interviewing Elsewhere?” CTpastors.com, June 13, 2019

This below paragraph is probably my favorite paragraph I wrote all year.

The Qoheleth tells us in Ecclesiastes that there is a season for everything, a time for every matter under heaven. That doesn’t mean transitions won’t be lonely and full of conflicting desires. Seasons of pastoral transition feel antithetical to pastoral ministry in the same way engagements are antithetical to marriages. Engagements are meant to end; marriages are not. Pastoral transition is about yanking up roots; pastoring involves putting roots down. Engagements are filled with frenetic activity and wedding-day planning; marriages thrive on the slow burn of love anchored in vows. Pastoral transition implies movement; pastoring requires standing with both feet in one neighborhood among one flock.

“Summertime and the Lust Comes Easy,” EDA MOVE, Evangelical Free Church of America, Eastern District Blog, June 19, 2019. (An audio reading of this post by me appeared on the EDA Move Podcast, here.)

In other words, as pastors and ministry leaders — for all the relaxing changes during summertime — we must remember to encourage each other and the people we shepherd to not take a break from fighting against lust.

“Three Big Surprises When Interviewing for Missions,” ABWE International Blog, June 25, 2019

It seems like blog posts with catchy titles and practical tips make the best viral posts. You know what I mean, articles with titles like, 7 Interview Hacks to *Crush* Your Next Ministry Interview. But I don’t want to write that kind of post. And I’m not even sure we should aspire to crush a ministry interview anyway.

“Don’t Just Send a Resume to a Church—Or a Missions Agency,” The Missions Podcast Interview, June 30, 2019

Too often in pursuit of full-time ministry abroad or at home, ministry applicants simply email a church or missions agency their resume and leave the rest of the hiring process to chance. Whether you’re fresh out of seminary or transitioning to ministry after a full career in the outside workforce, such a haphazard approach is bound to fail. Maybe we need to learn more about how to conduct ourselves professionally during the onboarding processes into pastoral or cross-cultural ministry.

“Two Ways Every Christian Can Be Pastoral,” Unlocking the Bible, July 15, 2019

Almost no one read this article, but I loved writing it and was happy with how it turned out.

The last time I saw my grandfather alive he made fun of me for being a pastor. You’ve probably heard the jokes or even made them yourself. “What does a pastor do all week anyway? You only work like one hour.” I wanted to tell my grandpa we have two worship services on Sunday morning, and they go for three hours by themselves. But I didn’t think arguing would help. That’s one extreme view, the view of a pastor who works little. The other extreme is a pastor who works all the time, like 80 hours a week, and no one else in the congregation does anything because “real ministry” only counts as such when done by professionals. Yet there is no way most churches, my own church included, could exist if only a handful of pastors did all the pastoring.

* Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash