Persevering in Ministry and Publishing: A Podcast Interview
I know you want to run the race God has for you. I want to run that race too. However, we often find perseverance difficult because life and ministry can be so challenging.
Every so often, I share a post on my blog about a recent podcast interview. This spring, my friends Josh Ott and Emily Gardner invited me to be on their show Church Chat. The three of us have known each other for the last twelve years because we are part of the same region in our church denomination, the Evangelical Free Church of America.
You can listen to the podcast episode here, “Persevering in Ministry and Publishing with Benjamin Vrbicek” (Apple, Spotify, and YouTube).
Their Church Chat podcast can be, admittedly, a little goofy. I actually like that about them. They started the interview with an extended game of “two truths and a lie.” This might give you the impression we never get to a more substantive conversation. But that would be wrong. We explored some of the hardest questions in ministry. For example, how do you keep going in life and ministry when you don’t think you can?
Many of my worst ministry challenges occurred in the first summer of Covid. Thankfully, nearly five years have passed since that difficult season. I did not realize the extent to which Josh, one of the co-hosts, had faced hardships in his church, which even led him to wrestle with his call to pastoral ministry. On one fateful Christmas Eve, Josh’s wife looked at him and said something like, “Why aren’t you getting ready?” Josh told his wife, “Because I’m not going.” He was supposed to preach at that service, by the way.
Josh did go to church and he did preach. But after that night, he took drastic steps over the next few months to pursue health.
If there is a common thread in each of our experiences of struggle and perseverance in ministry, it is the importance of churches having godly, volunteer pastor-elders. Were it not for the humility, kindness, and wisdom of the leaders at each of our churches, those seasons might have unfolded differently, and perhaps neither of us would be pastoring.
In the interview, I mention several ways my friend Mike Grenier helped me, a volunteer pastor at our church at the time. I did not get to mention it in the interview, but there were also several long phone calls with my dad during those seasons. He kept bringing up the ministry metaphor of an ox with too much weight on his shoulders. “The problem isn’t with the ox or the work of plowing,” he said. “It’s just there is way too much load on the kart.” The metaphor helped me and our leadership team reevaluate what a pastor should do amid all the work he could do.
In the interview, I also discuss writing and publishing, sharing my perspective on “starting small in publishing.” I affectionately, though typically only privately, refer to starting small as guerrilla warfare. The metaphor sorta works, sorta doesn’t. I’ll let you parse it out.
Before concluding this post, I would like to share a brief collection of other life and writing updates.
The last six weeks have been some of the most intense yet also meaningful times in recent years. My oldest daughter just graduated from high school; my wife and I completed another successful season of coaching track and field; three staffing roles changed at our church as we commissioned one associate pastor to take a new position elsewhere; I finished writing the first draft of my book; and in a few days, it’s our twentieth wedding anniversary. A lot of normal things occurred too, like cars visiting the mechanic, and another attempt by me to explore once again the chronic, mysterious pain I experience with food, this time with a new doctor.
Speaking of the book, I am incredibly grateful that after five years of hard work, I submitted my manuscript on the hope of Christ’s return. This will be my first traditionally published book. The manuscript is currently with the acquisition editor, and the initial feedback has been encouraging. I have already finished my part in supporting the marketing team, and they have begun developing the official title and cover. Sometime this winter, Baker Books will open the book for pre-order, and, Lord willing, you can have the book in the summer of 2026. Publishing has a long arc.
In the meantime, I am taking the month of June to reboot my website and email system. More on that later. I will also be giving away a short ebook that I’m calling Lord, Haste the Day: 49 Bible Passages to Fill You with Hope about the Return of Christ. During the research process, I had compiled a list of nearly one hundred passages related to the end times, and it was a blessing to spend a few months reading over them in my morning devotionals. I hope sharing the ebook will help others eagerly await his second coming (Heb. 9:28).
* Photo by John Nupp on Unsplash
Book Launch: Broken but Beautiful
I worked with Gospel-Centered Discipleship to collect a team of gifted writers to reflect on the beauty of the bride of Christ. The book launches today.
People have been pointing out church-hurt for a long time. Over fifty years ago, Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “With much of this criticism of the Church one has, of course, to agree. There is so much that is wrong with the Church—traditionalism, formality and lifelessness and so on—and it would be idle and utterly foolish to deny this” (Preaching and Preachers, 8). I suppose we could grab similar quotes from the Reformation era or any era in church history. We can even find similar sentiments in the New Testament itself. “But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together,” Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, “it is not for the better but for the worse” (1 Cor. 11:17). Indeed, over two and a half thousand years ago, God told his people, “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies” (Amos 5:21).
Certainly, there is a lot of junk that happens in the local church. But please also remember that God still uses the church to bless the world in beautiful ways. He may discipline his church to make her more holy, but he loves his church. His sons and daughters are always his sons and daughters. God even calls the church his bride, dying to purchase her and make her radiant. And one day we will see her in all her splendor.
I worked with Gospel-Centered Discipleship to bundle some of our favorite essays about the beauty of the bride of Christ and put them into a book called Broken but Beautiful. The book launches today!
We adapted the book’s title from the first article by Glenna Marshall. She learned in deeper ways the beauty of the church during the unexpected death of a church member and the way her church served together in the days that followed.
As I think back to my own life, I think of a time sixteen years ago when my oldest son was born. The birth did not go well. There was an evening and morning of hard labor, after which the umbilical cord wrapped around my son’s neck, and they did an emergency c-section. Mom and baby, in the end, were fine—praise God. But recovery from the trauma induced by a night of labor and the emergency surgery lasted weeks. Then postpartum depression bit like a rabid dog that wouldn’t let go. But before postpartum, right when we got home from the hospital, everyone got the flu, including everyone who came to stay with us and help. Yet this is the time, my wife and I often say, that we learned when the church was the church. So many people helped and cooked and cleaned and cared. They sat with my wife when I eventually had to go back to work. We no longer live in that same city, but we saw God’s blessings in that local church so strongly that a dozen years later we named our youngest son after that church.
In the providence of God, somehow you’re reading this email. If your heart is in a season of disappointment with the local church—maybe you’d even use the word hate to describe how you currently feel about the church—we hope these stories will minister to you.
I put the table of contents for the book down below, so you can see all the authors and the entries.
You can buy the book on Amazon’s website, here. If your church would like to purchase books at a significant bulk discount, when you buy twenty on the publisher’s website, they are only $5 each! You can do that here.
As an author with a small platform, it would mean a lot to me if you’d buy a copy and consider leaving a short Amazon review. Those reviews help a ton. Seriously. And the review only needs to be a sentence or two.
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Table of Contents
Preface | Benjamin Vrbicek vii
She Is Broken, and She Is Beautiful | Glenna Marshall 1
Missing Church Is Missing Out | Timothy M. Shorey 7
How God Humbled Me through a Church I Didn’t Agree With | Lara d’Entremont 11
The Dearest Place on Earth | James Williams 17
The Unexpected Blessing of a Rural Church | Stephanie O’Donnell 21
The Local Church Helps Rid Me of Morbid Introspection | Chrys Jones 27
The Church Is Not a Meritocracy | Jessica Miskelly 33
A Family of Redemption for Children of Divorce | Chase Johnson 39
The Warmth of the Local Church for the Suffering | Brianna Lambert 45
The Singles Among Us Deserve a Better Church Culture | Denise Hardy 51
Love Your Church Anyway | Heidi Kellogg 57
For the Love of Liturgy | Erin Jones 63
God’s Good Design of the Local Church | James Williams 69
Finding Beauty in the Local Church in Our Age of Social Media | Cassie Pattillo 75
The Hands of Grace | Amber Thiessen 79
How the Church Shapes Us on Our Faith Journey | Rob Bentz 83
On the Other Side of the Church Split | Abigail Rehmert 89
Dear New Mother, Embrace the Body of Christ | Lara d’Entremont 95
The Gold Mine in the Local Church | Chrys Jones 101
The Local Church Is a Sandbox | Timarie Friesen 105
Unless the Seed Dies | Tom Sugimura 111
Redeeming Love Has Been My Theme and Shall Be Until I Die | Timothy M. Shorey 115
Epilogue | Jeremy Writebol 119
Notes 121
Author Bios 123
About Gospel-Centered Discipleship 127
Resources from Gospel-Centered Discipleship 129
I Signed My First Traditional Book Contract (And Sort of a Second Book Contract)
I’m working on a book about the return of Christ and hope for those who suffer. (And the other book is about the beauty of the local church.)
Over the years I’ve written a lot of articles and a few books. Those books were either self-published or published by a small, independent Christian publisher. So this summer was a first for me. I just signed my first contract with a traditional publisher. I’m writing for Baker Books. It won’t come out until the summer of 2026, but I’m trying to find moments to work on the manuscript as much as possible.
The book explores the promise of the second coming of Christ, and how his return brings encouragement to believers, especially for those suffering. The working title is The Last Shall Be First: How the Return of Christ Makes Everything Sad Untrue. Here’s what we came up with for the summary:
Despite the confusion and controversy that often exists around the topic of the end times, the writers of Scripture believed that the promise of Christ’s return should comfort believers. With vivid imagery and passionate appeals, the biblical authors announced to Christians the happy ending of our story: justice for the wronged, family for the forsaken, new bodies for the broken, peace for the persecuted, feasting for the famished, and, best of all, faith in Christ becoming sight.
The First Shall Be Last explores seven aspects of Christ’s return, primarily from the amillennial perspective. But the book is not mainly about one specific view. Rather, pastor and author Benjamin Vrbicek encourages Christians to make the biggest and brightest truths about the return of Christ the biggest and brightest truths in our hearts. Every Christian, especially those suffering, needs the hope of the end. We need the good news that what we see now in part, we will soon see in full. When the trumpet sounds, the last shall be first, and, to borrow from Tolkien, everything sad will come untrue.
I started this project almost five years ago, and got seven rejections from publishers along the way. But as I’m getting back into the material, I’m slowly starting to remember why the topic matters so much to me and, I trust, all believers.
When I’ve worked on books in the past, the associated deadlines mainly were self-inflicted. I could hit the deadline or not and little consequence would follow either way. I did not expect the anxiety that would come with a real contract on a real book with a real publisher. Woof. I feel the pressure now.
I’ll share more about the books over the next few years. Please, if you know me and are so inclined, say a prayer for me. Pray that the words would come and that they would bless readers with the truth and hope that in Christ one day everything sad will come untrue.
As an aside, there were no pictures of me signing a contract on social media. Signing the contract was humorously anticlimactic. After months of working on the agreement (after years of working on the proposal), the actual contract took a literal four seconds to sign. It was through the Adobe electronic sign feature. It wasn’t even my signature. I just clicked a button and generic cursive showed up. Oh well. It’s probably better for my heart this way.
I also signed a book contract with Gospel-Centered Discipleship, the company I work part-time for as the managing editor. On this book, I’m not the writer but the editor. We’re publishing some of our best essays from the last few years about the local church. It’s called Broken but Beautiful: Reflections on the Blessings of the Local Church. This book will be released later in the fall. There’s so much bad press out there about the local church. I hope this book shines a light on how the true church still shines bright in the midst of all the junk.
Finally, let me just mention that I wish I wrote more essays on my blog. I still think of article ideas all the time and even make notes about what I would write if I had time. Unfortunately in this season of pastoring and coaching sports and sending children off to college next year and buying our first puppy, I mainly just drop monthly book writing and guest post and podcast updates in the blog. But I thank you for reading and rooting for me nonetheless. It means so much.
* Photo by Dominik Dancs on Unsplash
Two Podcast Interviews: How Improvement in Writing Is Like Bench-Press & How Our Church Stayed “Front-Edge of the Middle” During Covid
Recently I was a guest on two different podcasts to talk about writing and pastoring.
I have two podcast interview updates to share. One interview was about writing and the other about pastoring.
First, the podcast about writing. I was a guest on Amy Simon’s podcast, The Purposeful Pen. The episode released yesterday. It’s a podcast to encourage Christian writers.
On the episode we talk a little bit about what makes for good writing, the article submission process, and some specifics to writing for Gospel-Centered Discipleship, the website I help manage. You can find it here, “Episode 63: Improving the Craft of Writing with Benjamin Vrbicek.”
A piece of advice I give is that finishing one piece of writing often develops a writer more than starting five pieces of writing but not finishing any of them. My metaphor for this comes from the gym. Something about finishing a last set of bench press, especially if you go until failure, produces more physical gains than simply doing a few sets and not going to failure. Pushing individual pieces of writing to the final, public form forces authors to identify problems and find solutions in a way that merely jotting down the “good stuff” and moving along doesn’t do.
Second, the podcast about pastoring. The other week I was a guest on the MemeLord Monday podcast, which often takes a humorous (and sometimes serious) look at the Christian subculture. You can find it here, “What Happened to the Post-Pandemic Church?”
The podcast actually released a few years ago, but the host and my friend, Matt Matias, just released the interview to the public. Previously, the episode was only available to his paid subscribers.
Now, you probably have a legitimate question coming to your mind: Why in the world would I want to listen to a podcast about churches and Covid, especially when it’s so old? I get it. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to listen to it either—and I was the guest! Who wants to relive that era, I thought. Let’s forget about Covid and move on.
But I did listen to the interview, and I found it fascinating.
I know, I know, you could say I’m an egomaniac and just love listening to my own voice. I don’t think that was the reason I enjoyed the interview so much. Listening to the interview felt like opening a strange time capsule. I had honestly forgotten all we went through as a church. Our church even had a malicious hacker ruin our online “reserved seating” by signing up fake names. Crazy weird and super aggravating. We had our guesses who hacked us, but we could never confirm it.
You probably remember, too, how there was something of a bell curve regarding how churches handled Covid. In the interview, I explained our unsophisticated guesswork about how to keep our church on the “front edge of the middle” regarding the “uncautious-to-cautious” spectrum. This involved prayer reading the Bible, arguing among ourselves, and talking to doctors, church members, and other pastors—as well as doing exactly whatever the government told us to do without question. Oh, we also cast lots a few times.
Well, maybe we didn’t do all of those. I’ll let you listen to figure it out. But our “front-edge of the middle” strategy was our version of the Goldilocks approach, our plan to hit the bell curve just right. This proved challenging as the backdrop matrix of Covid, culture, and churches kept shifting, and not always in the same direction. Alas, we did our best to be faithful to the Lord. He knows our hearts.
In the interview we also discuss pastoral abuse and why our church has a plurality of pastor-elders, rather than “the guy.” And we tell a few jokes.
If you listen to either podcast, let me know what you think. I’d love to hear your best tips to improve at writing and what your church did that was helpful during Covid.
The Purposeful Pen: “Improving the Craft of Writing”
MemeLord Monday: “What Happened to the Post-Pandemic Church?”
* Photo by ConvertKit on Unsplash
Exploring the Nuance of “The Tim Keller Rule” for Writers
Christian writers should consider waiting to publish books until they are older. But they shouldn’t wait to write.
[Author’s Note: I started writing these reflections nearly two years ago and only recently took them back out to complete them, entirely independent of knowing about Keller’s declining health. Then, like everyone else, I learned how sick he was and then that he so quickly passed away, and thus I paused on publishing this. In light of his death, I would have rather written a more overt tribute to him, sharing my deep appreciation for his ministry. But maybe—when rightly understood—this post can serve as a kind of tribute to Keller’s ministry, specifically his writing ministry. The way he lived his “rule” and avoided the pitfalls that came with fame can serve as an excellent model for every believer, no matter the size of their platform.]
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Despite what seems to be the case, all authors write far more words that do not get published than they write words that go viral.
And that’s okay. In fact, it’s even good for us. God has a good purpose for Christian writers in what often feels like the frustrating slowness of our progress in the craft and the expansion of our platforms.
Consider what God says to the Israelites in Exodus 23 about the way he will cause them to inherit the Promised Land. “I will not drive them out from before you in one year,” God says, “lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you.” Instead, God tells them, “Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land” (Ex. 23:29–30).
This principle of slow-and-steady and providentially governed progress should temper a writer’s publishing angst, that anxious fretting many of us do about how much to publish and where to publish, who is reading us and how to get more people to read our work. This principle should also help us understand why books are often better written by authors without velvet fluff still on their antlers.
The young prophet Jeremiah had fire in his bones, but it would be years, even decades, before he understood what it meant to run with horses in the thicket of the Jordan (Jer. 20:9; 12:5). And consider young Elihu from the book of Job. Four times in just four verses the narrator tells us Elihu burned with anger. “Then Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, burned with anger. He burned with anger at Job because he justified himself rather than God. He burned with anger also at Job’s three friends because they had found no answer, although they had declared Job to be in the wrong. Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job because they were older than he. And when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, he burned with anger” (Job 32:2–5). Despite all the burning anger, we’re told he “had waited to speak to Job because they were older than he” (32:4).
Although one wonders if Elihu should have waited longer than he did to speak up, perhaps waiting another few dozen years for his youthful angst, we would hope, to meld into wisdom. As it is, his juvenile berating became canonized in the best-selling book of all time. “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child” (Prov 22:15).
These issues around when to write and how much to write lead me to consider what I’ve heard called “The Tim Keller Rule.” It’s a rule that haunts the conscience of many writers in the evangelical world, including mine. Do not publish a book until you are sixty years old, the rule goes. The government has rules about how old a person must be before they can work a job, drive a car, get married, enlist in the military, smoke tobacco, drink alcohol, and many other activities. Should Christian publishers have an age rule? Would we want it to be sixty?
A former understudy of Keller wrote a tribute to him in one of his books. “Tim waited until he was almost sixty years old to publish his first trade book,” he writes. “Humbly, he wanted to wait until he was old and wise enough to write the best possible book he could on any given subject. No doubt, his book writing pace since then has made up for lost time.” Keller’s understudy doesn’t state this so much as a rule but more as a description. The clear implication is that humble and wise authors should consider doing the same. One writer on Twitter recently referred to this as the Keller model rather than the rule.
Yet the word choice of publish in this tribute is key. Is sixty when Keller began writing? If Keller never wrote anything from high school to the age of early retirement, would his books be so insightful, so clear, and well-written? Could Keller have published a book every year from age sixty to seventy if he never wrote anything from his twenties through his fifties?
To be clear, God’s blessing has rested upon Keller in ways and to degrees no one could manufacture—even Keller himself. The full credit for Keller’s tremendous writing output and exceptional quality belongs only to God. I praise God for the benefits his ministry has poured into my life and the life of our church.
When considering Keller’s output, however, we are also beholding the effects of compound interest. When you squirrel away a few dollars here and a few dollars there in mutual funds, the money not only increases by addition but by multiplication. Keller may not have published before he was sixty, but he certainly wrote.
In the introduction to Hidden Christmas he writes, “In this book I hope to make the truths of Christmas less hidden. We will look at some passages of the Bible that are famous because they are dusted off every Christmas” (4). The Christmas story is not only dusted off by parishioners but also by pastors, which is why in the acknowledgments of the book Keller notes, “The ideas in this book were forged not in writing but preaching. Each chapter represents at least 10 or so meditations and sermons on each biblical text, delivered in Christmas services across the decades” (143). Keller was sixty-six years old when Hidden Christmas was published, but the seeds of the book were planted and watered long before the food was harvested and packaged commercially.
In Keller’s book Center Church, we read similar words when he mentions that the book has roots in lectures he gave to an international audience nearly ten years before the book was published (385), which were ideas and lectures, we assume and he implies, that had been written and field-tested the previous decade at Redeemer Church and beyond.
Perhaps some of the mystique about The Keller Rule comes from Keller himself. In an interview about the subject of young pastors writing books, Keller encouraged writing “essays and chapters, not books yet. Hone your craft through short pieces and occasional writing.” Then he warned, “But don’t tackle books yet. Writing a whole book takes an enormous amount of energy and time, especially the first one.”
In this way Keller encourages the “both-and” we find in Paul’s letter to Timothy. On the one hand, Paul instructs that someone in spiritual leadership “must not be a recent convert.” The command exists not because he won’t do the job well but because he probably will, and success may cause him to become “puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil” (1 Tim. 3:6). Yet, on the other hand, in the next chapter Paul tells Timothy, “Let no one despise you for your youth.” Timothy is instead to “set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Tim. 4:12). If Timothy was to set an example “in speech” among his congregation, surely he should also set an example, albeit a youthful one, in his writing.
Thus, aspiring writers need to hear the helpful warning of The Keller Rule about publishing words. Young writers often need their publishing ambitions chastened. But at the same time, young writers must not fear writing words. Indeed, those called to write should write, even if they only plod along at the pace of a few pages here and a few essays there. The literary version of compound interest can only happen when you squirrel words away in the bank, making regular and faithful deposits.
Returning to the idea of “little by little” in Exodus 23, if you’re a young or beginning writer, you probably can’t handle all the success you think you want right now. You probably can’t handle all the criticism that comes along with that success. The “wild beasts” mentioned in Exodus 23 eat famous yet immature authors for breakfast. If you had written Gentle and Lowly, you might have become brutal and haughty.
So take heart. The writer who sows words slow and steady, generously and obediently, will also reap generously—whether in this life or the next. Just as no one gives a cup of cold water to a needy person in the name of Jesus without a permanent divine accounting, no one who writes words for God’s glory does so without God’s notice. Your labor in the Lord, Paul says, is not in vain.
* Photo by Brad Neathery on Unsplash
Reflections on Shepherds and Sheep: An Unexpected Cost
A recent article for Christianity Today about the reasons people leave churches.
You often hear a writer tell you how many hours it took him to write his big article or how many years it took her to write her big book. I’ve written a few times about how much I love Anthony Doerr’s novel All the Light We Cannot See, and it seems like in every interview I’ve heard with Doerr, he’s always asked about the ten years it took to write the novel. And I get it. Authors want readers to know how much effort we expended in writing the piece, how much heartache we endured and how much saltwater dripped on the keyboard. Sometimes readers like to know too.
Author Annie Dillard, however, questions whether authors should share the cost. “How many gifts do we open from which the writer neglected to remove the price tag?” she asks rhetorically. “Is it pertinent, is it courteous, for us to learn what it cost the writer?” (Dillard, The Writing Life, 7). She’s probably right. We all take the price tag off birthday presents before we give them lest what might have otherwise been an expensive, generous gift be seen as cheap. And yet still, from time to time, I feel the impulse to leave the tag, not so much as a humble brag—“Look how long this took”—but as catharsis.
Recently I wrote something that I won’t tell you what it cost, at least in terms of hours or months, thus sparing myself the impertinence, to use Dillard’s word. I will say, though, that I didn’t anticipate the emotional cost required to look certain realities in the eyes. Even I was caught off guard by the process, and more than a few times, I had the wind knocked out of me. Yesterday, Christianity Today posted the article. It’s about people leaving church and how pastors can respond. I’ll just share the opening few paragraphs with you, although I’d love for you to read the whole thing, “Two Hundred People Left Our Small Church.”
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About 200 people have left our small church. The number probably sits closer to 350 when counting their children. But they didn’t leave the way you might expect—no church split or splinter. They left slowly, with neither fanfare nor fireworks. Some, if not most, left without a goodbye. And they left not over seven weeks or seven months, but over the course of seven years.
I got to thinking about this when I came back from my summer sabbatical, because I was pleased to see that not only did our church still exist, but there were also a few dozen new people.
The new attendees shake my hand and introduce themselves. They smile at me as I preach. They participate in our membership class and ask about small groups and opportunities to serve. One couple invited my wife and me out for a date. Still, I struggle to open my heart to them the way a pastor should, fully and without reservation. And I wonder why.
Then it hit me. In seven years, our church—in terms of net attendance—has grown from around 150 to 350. But in the same amount of time, our church has lost as many as have stayed. The losses never occur rapidly, as though a levee burst, but more as a steady trickle or slow leak.
A few of our members died. One went to jail. One wrote me an eight-page letter of grievances I was instructed to share with the elders; another wrote a chapter-length blog post suggesting we’re not even a church. Some parishioners didn’t let the door hit them on the way out because they kicked it off the hinges and left us to pick up the shattered pieces.
These departures are by far the exceptions. Many of those who left told me neither why they left nor even that they had left. I often find out via back channels like social media and other impersonal means. And I don’t believe our church has an exceptionally large back door—I suspect we’re typical.
How does a pastor keep his heart from growing cynical when, over 350 weeks of pastoring the same church, I have lost an average of one person each week? And why are these congregants leaving our church anyway? What role might I play, even unintentionally, in sending sheep to what they perceive to be greener pastures?
I don’t know. But I recently spent a lot of time and effort to find out.
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You can read the rest at Christianity Today.
* Photo by Taylor Brandon on Unsplash
11 Memoirs I Love but Can’t Necessarily Endorse
I’ve become a sucker for a good, true story.
Lately my favorite genre of books, the genre I can’t seem to get enough of, is memoir. A memoir differs from a classic autobiography in aim and scope. The author of a memoir has more narrative focus than simply telling the details of one’s life, the details that begin where it all began and move toward where it’s at now.
In the introduction to the ten-year anniversary edition to Mary Karr’s best-selling memoir The Liar’s Club, she describes the way memoirs have taken up the mantle that used to belong to novels in telling the experience of people that don’t often have their story told. She believes readers find the “single, intensely personal voice” of memoirs compelling. I know that’s one of the reasons I love a good memoir. She also adds that people are drawn to memoirs because they deal with dysfunctional people and families in ways we often find reassuring. And note how Karr defines a dysfunctional family: “a dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.” Then she adds, “In other words, the boat I can feel so lonely in actually holds us all.”
Below I’ve put a few of the memoirs I have most enjoyed. I listed them alphabetically by the author’s last name. I hope they give you some reading ideas to consider this fall.
As you look at the list, please be aware that just because I put a book on the list, it does not mean I love every aspect of the book, or even most of the book, especially when it comes to foul language and non-Christian worldviews. Sometimes family life gets described with a form that matches dysfunction.
But, alas, I confess, I did love reading them anyway, even as I find them strategic reading. Here’s why: so much of my role as a pastor pushes me to spend more and more of my time, indeed nearly all of my time, with mature Christians. And so, one way I try to keep from becoming utterly insular is by reading broadly. I’ll stand by that practice even when I can’t stand by some of the specific content in these books. These authors represent the sort of cross-section that exists in our world and might, on a random Sunday that’s not random at all, be the sort of people who visit our church. I want to speak intelligently to them about the only hope I know: Jesus.
Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi
One-sentence summary: A strikingly vulnerable story told by a man who seemed cocky but—big surprise—had a lot of inner demons.
I couldn’t imagine being this open about my struggles. And I believe the Christian message of the gospel, which tells me that I’m loved even when I was a sinner far from God, and therefore have nothing to hide. Still, to be this open would scare me. I love how Agassi tells us how and why he came to hate the sport that made him famous. Image, as you already know, isn’t everything, despite the camera advertising that used him to say otherwise. I only wish I understood the scoring system in tennis better, so I could have understood those parts of the book better. But if you can’t tell the difference between serving love and straight sets, don’t let that stop you from reading it.
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Brycen
One-sentence summary: two guys who are not fit enough to do something really tough, try anyway—and have a lot of goofy struggles along the way.
Oh man, I laughed and laughed and laughed through this book. This summer I went on a long, four-day hike in the Adirondacks with my oldest daughter and some friends. In preparation for the hike, one of the guys going on the trip told me about this book. I’m glad he did. And I wish, as Brycen writes, I too had “eyes of chipped granite.”
Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World by Anthony Doerr
One-sentence summary: a literary writer is given a year to write and think and ponder, and what results is the weaving of a story about the ancient city of Rome with the themes of life and death and the struggle to make meaningful art, all while his own life is both ordinary and hard.
My favorite novelist wrote this book, so he had me at hello. Also, if you’ve read All the Light We Cannot See, you’ll appreciate the backstory to some of the struggles that went into writing that novel, as a discussion of that book pops up here and there in this memoir. Some readers might find this memoir too self-indulgent, but I’m not one of them.
Life & Letters: On Being a Writer, On Being a Christian by Bret Lott
One-sentence summary: a collection of essays that have the overtones of memoir, especially the last half of the book, which links together the death of a father and the love of his son.
I recently read this book and another nonfiction book by Bret Lott about writing (Before We Get Started: A Practical Memoir of the Writer’s Life). I’m not sure why I waited so long to read these two books. I love the plain and conversational tone of the writing that slowly unfolds to reveal just how thoughtful and un-plain the writing is. Lott is a Christian who doesn’t always write to Christian audiences, which makes him a good man to learn from. This book gets a full endorsement.
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
One-sentence summary: a Hollywood A-list celebrity, who only sort of fits into Hollywood’s culture, writes about his Texas upbringing and his expansive acting career, all while punctuating the memoir with new-agey-pop-self-help gobbledygook—and doing so with a lot of goofy gusto, I might add. All right, all right, all right.
When I texted a friend about this book, he told me that he had heard it was a “hoot.” Boy, is it ever. I’m a fan of The McConaissance, at least in so much as it produced a movie like Interstellar—but for the record, this is for sure not a book I endorse. My favorite part came when he described his self-appointed physical training to act the role of a dragon slayer.
12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
One-sentence summary: terrible, unspeakable evils happened to an educated African American slave.
It was so hard to read this book. We read it in our church book club a few years ago. In the movie adaptation, I remember a good many scenes where the cameras stayed focused for an almost too-intense amount of time, as if to say, “Don’t look away. Keep staring at this evil.” I wouldn’t say the author does this as much, but aspects of the book are sort of like that too. And, in my opinion, we are better for staring despite our desire to look away.
A Promised Land by Barak Obama
One-sentence summary: the most powerful man in the world tells the story of his presidency and how, “despite all the pomp and power,” the presidency is just an ordinary job.
I found this book absolutely fascinating. During the early years of his presidency, so many iconic moments in modern history took place—the economic recovery after 2008, the BP oil spill, and the killing of Osama bin Laden, just to name a few. But if I’m honest, I had my head down and pointed at my feet during his presidency, working hard to raise a family, earn a graduate degree, and love a church, and, therefore, I missed so much of what happened more broadly in US politics during his eight years in office. To give you a “for instance” to illustrate my point, I remember on an early Tuesday morning in November standing in the dark for hours waiting to vote in President Obama’s first presidential election while I tried to study a book about Hebrew grammar because I had a graduate-level Hebrew exam that week. And not only did this book narrate a period of US history I know little about, it often does so from a political perspective I don’t typically share, which is so helpful for having one’s own views sharpened as opposed to having one’s own views merely pampered. This book is only volume 1 of 2, so I’m excited to read the next volume, which will follow his second term in office.
Becoming by Michelle Obama
One-sentence summary: the wife of the most powerful man in the world tells the story of what it’s like to embrace that identity while also seeking to pursue her own—oh, and at the same time, raise two lovely daughters before a watching world.
Michelle Obama’s book came before her husband’s, so I read it first, but as I later read his book, I found myself thinking over and over again that her book makes a wonderful complement to her husband’s book, offering a more domestic look at their very public careers. The book covers her whole life, from her birth and childhood in Chicago, through her years at Princeton and Harvard Law school, and then back to Chicago again, and then to DC and back to Chicago. I only had a small complaint. I didn’t love how, at times, her words seemed to have a slight agenda toward propaganda; although I can’t fault her too much for that because in the moments the book comes across this way, her words are often in the service of praising her husband. How can that be so wrong?
Struck: One Christian’s Reflections on Encountering Death by Russ Ramsey
One-sentence summary: a Christian pastor gets a random infection from a trip to the dentist, and in a very short time, he has to have massive heart surgery, which upends all of life and takes a few years to recover from the trauma.
When I read this book, I went out and bought five more copies to give away to those who are suffering at our church. I heard back from several of those people how much the book put into honest language their pain while pointing them to the hope of the gospel. This book gets a full endorsement.
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
One-sentence summary: a poor kid from a poverty-stricken part of the country rises out of that mess (and it is a mess) and becomes an Ivy League lawyer while also navigating truckloads of family dysfunction.
An interesting part of this story, which I only noticed during my second reading, is the way different “versions of Christianity” show up in the background. By a version of Christianity, I mainly mean a folksy version and a more fundamental, Pentecostal version. And it seemed to me, especially on the second reading, that Vance actually wrestled with a true version of Christianity mingled with all the rest. The recent movie will give you a sense of his story but not this part.
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
One-sentence summary: a woman grew up in a pseudo-Mormon cult but found a way to get away and become educated.
Perhaps my favorite part of this book is the way the author leaves out editorializing and instead focuses on the strict narrative; she trusts her powerful writing and her powerful story and the thoughtfulness of her readers to pick up what she’s throwing down.
What about you? What are some of your favorite memoirs? Let me know in the comments.
* Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash
Shepherd & Sheep: The Preface from My New Collection of Essays
A book with my best essays about life in a local church.
I recently returned to church after a summer sabbatical. My family and I used the time to rest and play. I also used the time to work on several writing projects. It was a surprise for my church, but I gathered up my best writing about the local church and collected it in one place, a book called Shepherd and Sheep: Essays on Loving and Leading in a Local Church.
If you like, you can grab the book on Amazon. We gave away 150 copies last Sunday at church. Below is the preface to the book and the table of contents.
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Preface
Of all the apps on my phone, my favorite is Strava. It’s the fitness tracker app I’ve used to log all my workouts for the last ten years. Every trip to the gym, every mile run on a road or a trail, and every mile ridden on a street or a stationary bike are all stored in my fitness history. With all that information, Strava creates what they call a “heatmap.” Overlaid on a map of the world, Strava uses a system of colored lines with various thicknesses to show the areas an athlete has traveled most. The heatmap resembles a diagram of arteries and veins. My heatmap shows thick lines up the back of Blue Mountain Parkway in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a climb I’ve ridden well over one hundred times. It’s a 1.59-mile climb to the top, with an average gradient of 8.4%, making it a Category 3 climb, although that probably only means something to cyclists. My quickest time was six years ago, which required just under eleven minutes of enjoyable suffering. I rarely check the leaderboard, but of the nearly two thousand attempts to summit the climb, that attempt is ranked forty-fifth. Not too bad.
A certain satisfaction comes not only from looking at individual excursions but also from seeing the aggregate of all the runs and all the rides in one place. Analyzing my heatmap, I notice the routines, those places and pathways I return to again and again. Some people might rather call these routines “ruts.” But the difference of word choice between routines and ruts is more than the difference between “you say to-may-toe, and I say to-mah-toe.” Ruts signify unthinking drudgery, a continuous grind from which we cannot pop loose. Routines signify, I like to think, the places my heart, and thus my feet, gravitate toward without much thinking. Routines signify the places we love to travel, even when we know doing so might involve eleven minutes of suffering. Or to say it in biblical language, where our routines are, there our treasure is also.
This summer my church graciously offered me a sabbatical after seven years together. The sabbatical plan had been in place for a long time, but with all the unrest in the world and in local churches, it seemed like following through with the sabbatical this summer might be unwise. Sometime in early winter, however, the Lord began to give our church a fresh supply of stability. So, when the time came, my church sent me away, and I left. I left to rest and read and write and exercise and date my wife and play with my children for fifteen weeks.
In the early weeks of my sabbatical, I happened to look over some of the essays I’d written while at our church. There are over three hundred on my blog and another seventy-five published elsewhere. Like analyzing my Strava heatmap, I began to notice routines, those themes I tend to return to again and again. I hadn’t realized how often I alluded to The Chronicles of Narnia or how influential Zack Eswine’s book The Imperfect Pastor has been to me. (Well, maybe I did know that one already.) As I looked over all the words, the largest cluster seemed to revolve around life in a local church, the relationship between pastors and parishioners, shepherds and sheep. That makes sense, of course; pastoring is, after all, my day job.
But pastoring a local church is far more than a job to me. The local church signifies the place my heart loves to be, even though I know being here will often involve more than eleven minutes of suffering. So, as a gift to our church and for the joy of collecting the best of the essays in one place, I put together this book, my writing heatmap, if you will. Perhaps a half dozen of these articles were first published on my website, but most of them appeared elsewhere, places such as Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, 9Marks, For The Church, Gospel-Centered Discipleship, and Desiring God. If you’re interested, you can see the note at the end of the book for the details of where each entry was published.
I subtitled this collection Essays on Loving and Leading in a Local Church because I like to think the two go together: loving and leading, if not in my actual shepherding, at least as an aspiration. But I gave it the title Shepherd & Sheep as a way to remember that every shepherd is first and foremost a sheep in the fold of the Good Shepherd. As the apostle Peter shares, each local shepherd is an under shepherd of the chief Shepherd (1 Pet. 5:4). And praise God that the chief Shepherd loves the sheep he leads and leads the sheep he loves. Loving and leading go together with him.
May the congregational lives of local churches, the routines of local shepherds and sheep—our heatmaps—be to the praise of the glory of the Chief Shepherd’s grace.
Benjamin Vrbicek
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Summer 2021
Table of Contents
Preface ix
1 Bending the Covid Bow of Bronze 1
2 The Day That Darrin Died 10
3 “Pastor, Why Aren’t You Preaching about What’s Happening?” 13
4 Redeeming Pastoral Ambition 22
5 Spring Loaded Camming Devices and The Expository Sermon 27
6 When My Church Was Washed with Butter 32
7 Ministry Morning, Noon, and Night 37
8 Was I Betraying My Church by Interviewing Elsewhere? 44
9 The Greatest Enemy of the Church 48
10 Pastor, Strive to Learn Their Names 52
11 Pastors Need Healthy Boundaries 56
12 Do Not Despise a Gentle Nudge 60
13 Don’t Let Sexual Shame Move You from Christ’s Mission 66
14 The Truth Is Always Positive 71
15 Light for Those Who Sit in Darkness 76
16 Two Ways Every Christian Can Be Pastoral 80
17 On Pastoral Prayer 84
18 The Wrath of God Should Come to Our Minds More Often 91
19 When Ministry Success Becomes an Idol 97
20 How Much Does a Pastor Work? 102
21 Congregations of Bruised Reeds 110
22 Come to Me All Who Have Covid Weariness 114
23 Sometimes God Just Closes Doors 119
24 Dear Twitter, I’m Leaving You for My Wife 123
25 My Heart Is Full 128
Publication Note 133
About the Author 137
Writers’ Coaching Corner: A New Feature for GCD
A new, monthly resource to teach and encourage Christian writers.
“Books don’t change people, paragraphs do—sometimes sentences.”
This famous quote from author and long-time pastor John Piper highlights the transformative potential of prose. Piper added, “One sentence or paragraph may lodge itself so powerfully in our mind that its effect is enormous when all else is forgotten.”
But what makes one paragraph so transformative and so unforgettable? The answer is two-fold: the supernatural power of God and good writing. Writers can’t control the former, but we can practice the latter.
Back in January of this year, I took the part-time role of managing editor for the Gospel-Centered Discipleship (GCD) website. I’ve loved it. I get to oversee the publication of our articles and the team of staff writers and editors, help with our book publishing, and mentor fellow writers.
To that end of mentoring writers, I started a monthly feature where I look closely at one paragraph from a GCD article in the previous month to highlight some aspect of what makes for good writing. I talk about what makes the writing in the article work so well and how we, as fellow writers, can incorporate more of that writerly goodness into our craft.
If this interests you, I put a few of the videos below. You can get them all on our website, under the tab “Writers’ Coaching Corner.”
I’ve already made the video for next month, where I discuss one of my favorite writing ideas: climbing up and down the ladder of abstraction. It’s more helpful than it sounds. Trust me. I’ll post it on the GCD website on Monday, September 6, 2021.
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AUGUST 2021:
LIMIT THE USE OF BE-VERBS
This month I use Brianna Lambert’s article titled “God’s Word Isn’t Your Gas Station” to talk about the principle that good writing limits the use of be-verbs (is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been).
I also mention Russ Ramsey’s memoir Struck: One Christian’s Reflections on Encountering Death and Helen Sword’s The Writer’s Diet: A Guide to Fit Prose.
JULY 2021:
TAILOR PROSE TO A PARTICULAR AUDIENCE
This month I use Jen Oshman’s article, a letter written to her daughter who recently graduated from high school. The article is titled, “From Mom and Dad to Our Grad.” This article illustrates the principle that good writing tailors prose to a particular audience.
I also mention Ivan Mesa’s Before You Lose Your Faith, Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly, the Gospel-Centered Disciple Writers’ Cohort, and Roy Peter Clark’s How to Write Short: Word Craft for Fast Times.
JUNE 2021:
LEVERAGE THE POWER OF ALLUSION
This month I use David McLemore’s recent article about guilt and grief over our sin, “In the Darkness, Jesus Is My Light,” to talk about the principle that good writing leverages the power of allusion.
I also mention Russel Moore’s recent newsletter “Atheists, Anger, & Alcohol” (Moore to the Point, May 17, 2021) and Douglas Wilson’s book Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life.
MAY 2021:
EXTRUDE LIFE THROUGH TRUTH
This month I use Lauren Bowerman’s recent article about her struggles with infertility, “How Infertility Revealed My Idolatry” to talk about the principle that good writing extrudes life through truth.
I also mention Timothy Keller’s article “Growing My Faith in the Face of Death” and John Piper’s book Seeing Beauty and Saying Beautifully: The Power of Poetic Effort in the Work of George Herbert, George Whitefield, and C. S. Lewis.
* Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash
A Big Change to My Blog
I’m the new Managing Editor for Gospel-Centered Discipleship, which changes how often I can blog.
I don’t want to bury the lede on this one, as journalists say. So, here’s the big change: I need to publish less often on my blog.
Let me explain.
In January I took the part-time role of Managing Editor for Gospel-Centered Discipleship. I now oversee all the content we publish on our website, as well as the nine staff writers and three editors.
If you don’t know much about Gospel-Centered Discipleship (GCD), let me just say how much I love their passion for publishing biblical, gospel-saturated content. I also love GCD’s emphasis on developing Christian writers. They don’t just write about the gospel; they coach others to write well about the gospel. In the last ten years, the Lord has caused these two passions—love for writing about the gospel and love for thinking about writing about the gospel—to become central to my calling. I’m excited to join their team.
To state what I hope will be obvious, I still work full-time as the lead pastor of Community Evangelical Free Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. No matter what happens with my writing, pastoral ministry in a local church will always be, I suspect, home base. I spent two months talking about taking the managing editor role with the fellow pastor-elders at our church, and not only do I have their permission, I have their blessing and encouragement.
A downside to this change will mean that I cannot write as often on this blog. I only have so much free time, and all the side projects tend to add up: blogging at Fan and Flame, writing guest posts for other websites, managing the GCD website, writing longer book projects, and doing freelance editing and book design. Something has to give. For now, my blog drew the short straw. That’s a bummer. I mean, I did just publish a book about blogging.
And yet, this change is also a welcomed change to my heart. I am excited to think less about me, if that makes sense. Even when I do my best to blog for God’s glory, I feel a low-grade pressure to perform and have articles hit big. What I want to do, I do not do, as Paul said. And what I do not want to struggle with, I do struggle with. Blogging less often on my website, while editing articles for others, will force me to think about me less often, which will be good for my soul.
Also, I never would have guessed how much I enjoy, and perhaps am gifted at, coaching other writers. I don’t feel like I’ve had much success as a writer, but to those on the outside of my inner circle— those who don’t see all the rejections or how painfully slow the process of writing is and how slowly my platform grows and how slowly relationships with websites and publishers develop—think I have had success. This has resulted in an increasingly steady stream of other writers asking me for help: Benjamin, can you edit this blog post before I submit it? Can you look at my book proposal? Would you read and comment on my book manuscript before I give it to the publisher? Benjamin, can we jump on a Zoom call so I can ask you questions about writing? Yes, of course; I’ll find time for that, I say.
Maybe I’m a people pleaser, and so maybe I say yes too often. But I’m also beginning to realize it also pleases me to help others improve their writing. I really do like tinkering with words.
If you’re still reading, you probably know me or care about me and my writing, so thank you. To you, I’ll mention one more factor in the change. This year is my seventh year at my church, and I have a summer sabbatical coming. I won’t be working full-time this June, July, and August, and I would have slowed my blogging anyway.
During part of this sabbatical, I hope to take an online 8-week graduate class. This class will be toward the degree of a master’s in fine arts (MFA) in creative non-fiction. The title “creative non-fiction” (also known as “narrative non-fiction”) explores traditional elements of fiction (e.g., plot, characterization, tension, and foreshadowing) and employs them in non-fiction. I believe this degree has large overlap with my preaching and other ministry responsibilities. And I’ve been dreaming about this for ten years; I just don’t talk about it much, if ever. Taking one course this summer will test the waters to see if pursuing the full degree makes sense—that is, whether the benefits outweigh the many logistical and financial headaches.
Thank you for reading my blog. I will still post something new, Lord willing, once a month. It’s a great pleasure to serve the Lord and others with words.
* Photo by Jean-Baptiste D on Unsplash
Why I Write: Thoughts on Joy and Obedience
A few of the reasons why I feel called to spend so much time writing.
Our motivations often have more layers than we realize. But if we set aside the sinful, self-serving motives lurking around the edges of a Christian’s heart, I’d say one of my primary motivations for writing is joy. I really do enjoy tinkering with words that point people to God. I’ve heard a famous Christian author say that for him, writing is like eating ice cream, not a “have to” but a “get to.” I feel the same, although it wasn’t always this way.
The Backstory
In college I studied Mechanical Engineering for three reasons: first, my father was an engineer, so it felt familiar; second, I excelled at math and science; and third—and this might be the key reason why I chose engineering—I hated to read and write. Hated it. Perhaps the feeling isn’t so uncommon. Tony Reinke writes in Lit! that most people view reading “like trying to drink down a huge vitamin” (p. 15). With few exceptions, that’s what reading and writing were to me, the yuk of drinking a tall, chalky glass of Flintstones.
For the Joy of It
When I began following Christ in college, all that changed. As I read and studied Christianity—informally on my own and then later in seminary—new joys and passions and hopes bubbled up within me, as though some chemical reaction was being cooked over a Bunsen burner. Through listening to good preaching, I felt God was calling me to preach. The call to preach seemed to pounce on me, irrevocably so, while listening to other men preach and feeling my mind and affections doused in a kind of spiritual kerosene so that I just knew I wanted to, in fact had to, be involved in doing this for others.
During the early days of this feeling, if I could have hit pause during a sermon by any one of the many gifted preachers I was listening to in those days, I think I would have described the experience this way:
What God is doing right now, through that guy, on that stage, behind that pulpit, as he explains that passage and the glory of God and the beauty of the gospel, with those words and those gestures, and that tone, and with all of that love and passion and urgency such that my heart is prodded and my mind is riveted—well, someday I just have to be involved in sharing that good news with others.
This is what I mean when I say that my calling to preach came not only through opportunities to preach but also, even predominantly, through having it done to me.
The experience has been the same with my call to write. In his insightful book about the craft of writing, Stephen King put it this way: “Being swept away by a combination of great story and great writing—of being flattened, in fact—is part of every writer’s necessary formation. You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.” (On Writing, p. 146). Through reading good writing, I felt God calling me to write. The reaction felt explosive, if only in my heart—or to use King’s words, flattening.
Yet, the transition from an engineer to a preacher-writer came with many frustrations. In seminary I struggled more than others with the demands to read and write. However, after lots of practice, much of it forced upon me by seminary and pastoral ministry, I can honestly say my frustration with drinking down vitamins grew into love. I had acquired the taste.
For the Obedience of It
In addition to joy, my other primary motivation for writing is obedience. I’ve joked before that I do not have a writing “boss.” All my projects and deadlines are self-inflicted. But I do hope that I treat writing the way the lay-elders of our church treat their pastoring: serving the church is something they enjoy but also something they feel called by God to do. In other words, we do have a boss. Our pastoring, and I trust my writing, is done at the invitation and the command of God.
These two motivations, joy and obedience, mingle together in the name of my blog: Fan and Flame. It’s an allusion to 2 Timothy 1:6 where Paul told Timothy to “fan into flame the gift of God.” I take the command to mean that the young pastor must do whatever is necessary to keep the fire burning. If only embers remain, well then, you get on your hands and knees, put your nose in the kindling, and blow. Never mind the smoke searing your eyes—you keep the fire alive. Indeed, toil to make it grow.
For the Pursuit of Accessible, Riveting Scholarship
Over the years, I’ve settled on a few short phrases to capture what I’m trying to do when I write: I write accessible, riveting scholarship to fan into flame joy in God. People do not normally associate scholarship with accessible and riveting, but that is the cluster I aim for. By scholarship I don’t mean the use of big words but the best insights about a given topic such that the writing has an awareness of what others have said and are saying; by accessible I mean avoiding technical, insider language and the effort to make the complex simple; and by riveting I mean striving for command of the craft that holds attention, for the kind of writing that engages the head and heart, the kind of writing I like to read.
It feels goofy to write out my purpose statement for someone else to see. Thus far, I’ve kept it hidden, like a compass in my pocket, only pulling it out occasionally to double-check my trajectory. But the phrasing has brought needed focus to my writing even if I never produce anything worthy of the label scholarship, accessible, or riveting. It’s a “shoot for the stars to hit the moon” sort of thing.
My book projects always target a particular audience, but I don’t have a specific age or gender in mind when I write more generally on my blog except to say I hope to reach the types of readers who might be in my church regularly on Sunday mornings.
People ask me why an engineer would ever become a preacher and writer. They typically want a sound bite answer. I’m not sure how to give them that. Maybe someday I will figure out how. For now, I suppose that I could say that it had something to do with vinegar and baking soda, corked and shaken.
* This summer I enrolled in the Gospel-Centered Discipleship Writing Cohort, a six-month coaching group. Our first assignment was to write our personal writing mission statement, as well as 800 words of explanation. My 800 words (plus a couple hundred extra) are above, and here’s my personal mission statement: I write accessible, riveting scholarship to fan into flame joy in God. The exercise stretched me. If you’ve ever had to do something similar for writing or pastoring or education or whatever, I’d love to hear about the experience, what you learned, and if there are enduring takeaways from the effort.
** Photo by Sebastian Pociecha on Unsplash
Is Blogging Dead?: A Few Dozen Christian Bloggers Say No
Blogging may have changed, but it’s certainly not dead.
In a series of quick, mindless thumb swipes to the top of my Twitter feed, my eyes notice a tweet of someone I respect—someone who thinks deeply about blogging and journalism and reaching people for Christ via the internet.
His tweet declares that blogs have been killed.
I take a deep breath and sit zombie-like on my couch.
I stare out the window for a bit, contemplating why the book about blogging I’ve spent the last two years working on wouldn’t also die as collateral damage. Who needs a book about blogging if blogging is dead? Though the first draft of the book is already written, it sure would save my coauthor and me a lot of time and money to cut our losses.
Collin Hansen is the editorial director of The Gospel Coalition, and for several years he co-led the now-disbanded group called “Band of Bloggers.” In other words, he knows more than a little about the topic of blogging.
Hansen’s tweet identified what, in his opinion, killed blogging: “Social media killed blogs,” he writes. “Can’t find them any longer, since folks don’t browse sites any longer.” His comment sat in a thread discussing the current fad of writers using e-newsletters rather than true blogs.
As much as I respect Hansen, I’d suggest we not order the autopsy report yet. To tweak the words often ascribed to Mark Twain, the reports of the death of blogs have been greatly exaggerated. I agree that today’s blogger cannot ascend to the levels of influence reached almost exclusively by those who got into the game ten years ago, if not twenty. But I think we’d be wrong to say social media has killed blogs, just as we’d be wrong to say the car killed the bicycle. For exercise and for pleasure and for social interaction, people still ride—just as people will blog. Think how many Twitter handles still have a link to the person’s blog? Lots, I tell you, lots. Admittedly, when I click those links I’m often disappointed by the result: the last post dates from more than a year ago and the post before that is often even further back—hence why we wrote this book. Tim Challies highlights a potential incentive to commit or recommit to blogging as others bail. “With so many people opting out,” he writes, “there is lots of room for aspiring writers to work their way in.”
Samuel James is more pessimistic. He writes,
Blogging is dead, right? At least among the folks in a position to say so, this seems to be the consensus. Many of blogging’s most important early practitioners have either abandoned it . . . or else transformed their writing spaces into storefronts that offer “promoted” content in exchange for patronage. The thinking goes like this: Before Mark Zuckerberg and Tweet threads, blogging was a viable way of sharing ideas online. Now, though, social media has streamlined and mobilized both content and community. Reading a blog when you could be reading what your friends are Tweeting about is like attending a lecture completely alone. It’s boring and lonely for you, and a waste of time for the lecturer.
The full post by James suggests more optimism than that quote belies. For example, after noting many strengths of blogging in our cultural moment, his concluding paragraph states, “Blogging still matters, because it’s still the medium that most ably combines the best aspects of online writing.”
Twitter doesn’t do nuance well, so as I think back over Collin Hansen’s statement about the death of blogging, perhaps he only meant that blogs don’t have the popularity they used to have or that many obstacles are stacked against their success, as James points out and all of us would likely concede.
Regardless, John Beeson and I are still blogging regularly. And so are hundreds of thousands of others. If you’re reading this ebook, we want you to keep blogging or consider starting a blog of your own if you don’t have one yet. Bloggers writing for the glory of God have not saturated the market, not even close. Author Tony Reinke spoke about this in an interview on the Home Row podcast.
Don’t be intimidated by all the books. Everybody is publishing it seems. [But] we have this promise from the Lord in Habakkuk. It says, “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (2:14). Just think about that. Think about that overwhelming tsunami of the knowledge of God. We are far from that saturation point. . . . There is so much work to be done.[1]
I agree with Reinke. We have work to do, books and blog posts to write, and the glory of God to spread.
But don’t just take our word for it. We asked a few dozen other bloggers to give us their hot take on the future of blogging, because offering hot takes is all we bloggers do. Right? We hope you’ll be encouraged. Blogging may have changed, but it’s certainly not dead.
Is Blogging Dead?
It seems unlikely that blogging will ever be as popular as it was in the late 1990s, but people continue to want to read blog-like content. The form it takes may be different (people, for example, seem to want to turn platforms that were not designed for blogging, such as Instagram, into blogs), but the blog-like intention behind the content persists.
Abby Farson Pratt, abbyfp.com
Although it’s easy to think that blogging has already had its heyday, the demand for long-form content, while tempered by market forces, will always be a factor. Search engines like Google assign more weight to long-form content. While those less serious about writing turn to social media to express themselves, more opportunity now exists in the blogging arena for those committed to persevering in their craft and doing the hard work of building an audience over time.
Alex Kocman, alexkocman.com
Bloggers are in a unique position to inform people that they wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise, and they have the benefit of being able to speak on any topic. If blogs are being used correctly, to build people up in their faith and inform believers for God’s glory, then I believe they will always have a place.
Alistair Chalmers, achalmersblog.com
In my opinion, blogging is not dead. Although the word “blogging” might sound outdated, just call it an “article,” or a “writing,” or even an “essay,” and voila! You’re back to blogging.
Alisa Childers, alisachilders.com
I think that blogging has shifted. Where we used to sign up to follow blogs, we now follow accounts—Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. With the inundation of information, I wonder if we’ve become lazy—wanting our social media to vet our posts for us and to make it easier and quicker to decide what we will spend time reading. I don’t think blogging has disappeared. There are new blogs every day. I think the way that people view and interact with blogs has shifted. I think it affects the reader and the writer at the same time, and it’s a phenomenon that new writers and blog owners will have to deal with. In order to get followings, you will feel the push to promote, promote, promote. That being said, I do wonder as Facebook, Twitter, and others all come under fire for their filtering, if more and more people will start to take control over what content they want to see. To be honest, and perhaps this is more cynical, but I see the majority of people complaining but then continuing on with what is easiest.
Brianna Lambert, lookingtotheharvest.com
Not at all! Social media has its place, and I know microblogging is on the rise on those platforms, but I think they serve different purposes. First, there’s the issue of space—you simply cannot flesh out a nuanced idea in the narrow confines of social media in the same way as a longer blog post. Second, your reach on social media has become so dependent upon algorithms. We see what the platforms want us to see, and we don’t have control over that. Blogging allows us to curate our own sources and see every post by visiting specific sites or using an RSS reader. Blogging occupies a crucial space between social media and books, and we’d be poorer without it.
Cassie Watson, casswatson.com
I think a website is still essential, and including a blog is a helpful way of demonstrating commitment and credibility. But a blog no longer seems to be enough. Podcasts and YouTube are becoming more important platforms because they possess greater attention.
Chase Replogle, chasereplogle.com
Blogging is still an incredibly important means of communication, especially in the Christian space. Its day is not over, even if it looks a bit different.
Chris Martin, chrismartin.blog
Blogging has a future, though like many mediums in this age, it may need to find new iterations. Even in the short time blogging has already experienced, we’ve seen a transformation of style and presentation—some that have been helpful and others less so.
Chris Thomas, ploughmansrest.com
Blogging is dead in terms of the early blogs that primarily curate info available elsewhere on the internet. Blogs that did that well are still alive and well but they own the market. Those who own that lane do enough research and reflection to also give a lot of insights into any number of topics. Blogging isn’t dead in terms of writers who are able to give thoughtful insights and perspectives on important issues. The newer brand of blogging isn’t for people who merely want to air their opinions but for those who possess the time, skill, and energy to produce something unique and helpful. There’s always a space for committed authors who want to help others. But like most things, it takes hard work and anyone wanting a fastlane to “success” will likely drop out long before they get enough traction to make a lasting contribution.
Dan DeWitt, theolatte.com
Yes and no. Yes in the sense that the newness and buzz of blogging probably will never be what it once was. I also say no because I don’t think blogging will die anytime soon. As others have pointed out, the name “blogging” might change. But the format of writing words in article form to post on the internet to promote edification isn’t going away soon, so I think blogging has a bright future.
David Qaoud, gospelrelevance.com
Blogging as a thing “everybody does” is gone, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Writers who want to test a message, have unedited freedom in voice and style, hone their craft, and develop a body of work will keep plodding. Although not always the most efficient way of getting a piece to the masses, those who stick around will hopefully make blogging about the value of truthful words and vibrant stories.
Emily Jensen & Laura Wifler, risenmotherhood.com
Our world increasingly seems to value forms of communication that are instantaneous, combative, and designed to trigger emotions. Against this trend, many are recognizing just how important long-form mediums are for creating light, not just heat. Blogging is a kind of hybrid medium—faster than books, longer than Twitter. My hope is that Christians will continue to engage the world of blogging as we try to carve out spaces for reflection and reasoned dialogue.
Gavin Ortlund, gavinortlund.com
I work with young writers every week, and I firmly believe blogging is not dead. How blogs are curated and shared has shifted and evolved over the years, but blogs’ power and purpose have not. Blogging is still a medium that changes lives and contributes to the kingdom, one post at a time.
Jaquelle Ferris, jaquellecrowe.com
I’m late to the game and can’t say for sure. It does seem like things like YouTube are taking over. But, I still read others’ blogs, and other people still read mine, so I think there’s still a small space for it in the world and in ministry.
Jen Oshman, jenoshman.com
The original kind of blogging is done and gone. Few remain. More collective groups are writing better content with editors, and that is far superior in my opinion.
Jeremy Writebol, jwritebol.net
Yes and no. Blogging has certainly peaked because, as many people discovered, it’s easy to start a blog but hard to maintain interest in writing for one on a regular basis. But blogging is still essential because the low barrier to entry allows undiscovered talent to flourish.
Joe Carter, thegospelcoalition.org/profile/joe-carter
Blogging is definitely dead!!! (Actually, it is a pet peeve of mine to see the headline formula, “Is ___________ dead?” The subject in question never actually dies; it just changes. Unless you’re talking about VHS or Laserdisc players, then they’re dead alright.) Blogging isn’t dead, but it has changed due to podcasts, YouTube, and Twitter. A certain type of blogging has had its day. But there is still room for thoughtful and well-written blogging.
Kevin Halloran, kevinhalloran.net
I don’t believe so. These days, Twitter and Facebook have reduced our attention spans to only be capable of digesting small, bite-sized pieces of information before moving on to the next thing, many times without critically reflecting upon the tweet or post we’ve just read. Blogging provides a great platform for more rigorously interacting with and explaining ideas in a way that is still open to community and peer feedback without as much distraction. I hope that our society, as time goes on, will become disenchanted with shallow information grazing, and come to appreciate this medium more and more. This will be more likely if the blogosphere is already filled with quality, Christ-centered content once the rest of the world comes back here.
Kris Sinclair, krissinclair.com
Nah. Especially since social media is stupid and people are becoming more suspicious of its integrity. I think more people will transition from social media to blogs and email communication.
Kristen Wetherell, kristenwetherell.com
I think the world of blogging has certainly changed. But, I don’t think that the medium is going anywhere. I do think that it looks different, and maybe the day of the mega-blog is passing us by. Bloggers are going to have to be satisfied with smaller audiences, with more of a niche following, because there is so much out there that distinguishing yourself as a big blog that everyone checks constantly is getting more and more impossible. This is especially true of Christian blogs because, let’s face it, the Christian message is getting less and less appealing as our culture steps further away from Jesus. I write things that people tell me they agree with but are afraid to share because of the inevitable backlash from their friends and family. In that way, Christian bloggers are certainly operating in the land of Jesus’s words about what the gospel does: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household” (Matt 10:34–36).
Melissa Edgington, yourmomhasablog.com
Blogging is not done yet. It has a few and new competitors along the way. As long as the passion is there, we don’t have to throw in the towel yet. We just need to find new and exciting ways to be heard.
Nitoy Gonzales, delightinggrace.wordpress.com
No, because it will continue to play a role in supporting the mission of the local church. It may begin to look different, e.g., smaller circles of influence, more local writing, etc. But if we see the role of blogging as falling in line with furthering the mission of the church and building up the saints for the work of ministry, then it will continue to have purpose because it falls in line with God’s mission.
Ryan Williams, amicalled.com
Blogging isn’t going to go away, but the influence and reach of individual bloggers will probably never be what it was ten years ago. There’s so much content out there right now, and ways to curate that content through algorithms, that only people with specific kinds of day jobs can afford to “build” a blogging profile.
Samuel James, letterandliturgy.com
Blogging is not dead because Jesus is not dead. Christians have always looked for ways to share the gospel and to share what they are learning about how the gospel shapes our lives. As long as we have the internet and the opportunity to post on the internet, Christian bloggers will write about this best of news. It is why I have blogged for over nine years, and why I plan to be blogging nine years from now.
Tim Counts, hemustbecomegreater.com
No. It’s just transformed for some into the micro-blogging of Twitter and Facebook. It’s still a kind of blog, just smaller and easier to digest. Long-form blogging isn’t dead. When TV was invented, people thought movie theaters would die out. They didn’t.
Tom Terry, tomthinking.com
No. It’s true that the season of early blogging, in which upstart bloggers could build a platform by quality writing on a large variety of subjects, has come to an end. For a new blog to gain traction today, one needs either an already-established platform or excellent insights that focus on a narrower sliver of topics. But blogging itself—which is really just one form of writing articles, similar to newspaper columns from a hundred years ago from good writers—is still and will remain a relevant form of communication. Social media has grown in importance for blogging, as most readers interact with writers by following social media accounts and not blogs. But this doesn’t mean that blogging has died, only that the entry point to these articles has shifted.
Trevin Wax, thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax
* Photo by Goran Ivos on Unsplash
** Is Blogging Dead? is an excerpt from an appendix in the book Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World by Benjamin Vrbicek and John Beeson.
Book Giveaway 4 of 5: Enduring Grace
Here’s how to get a free paperback copy of Enduring Grace.
I’ve written a blog post nearly every week for the last six years. During that same time, I’ve also written dozens of guest posts for various websites and even a few books. And I love this. It’s not a chore. Most of the time, writing feels like eating ice cream and running downhill.
But after six years, I’m getting tired. I need a small break.
You can watch the short video below for a better introduction, but as a way to get some rest while at the same time show appreciation to my blog readers, I’m giving away physical copies of all the books I’ve written. (If you watched the last video, the first 2:22 is the same; just skip ahead to hear about this week’s book.) For five weeks this summer and fall, I’m giving away five paperback copies of each of the five books that I’ve written. Each week I’ll giveaway a different book.
The only thing you need to do to get a paperback book is sign up for my blog (here) and reply to the welcome email to send me your address. If you are already subscribed to my blog, please share this post with a friend who might like to subscribe and get a paperback book.
This week I’m giving away copies of Enduring Grace: 21 Days with the Apostle Peter.
There were only a handful of people who got a front row view of Jesus’s entire earthly ministry. Of these, perhaps none heard, saw, or experienced more than the fisherman Peter. We speak of disciples as those who follow Jesus, and Peter did that literally—for three years. As Peter followed Jesus, he saw miracles performed, heard truth spoken, and even read what Jesus wrote in the dirt. He studied the Scriptures under Jesus and saw the brilliant white glory of heaven surround Jesus. Peter walked on water after him, shared meals with him, and spoke with men he had raised from the dead. Who wouldn’t want to hear of Peter’s experiences with the Savior?
Not only did Peter share in a wide variety of moments with Jesus, but he also responded to Jesus in a wide variety of ways. With cowardice and cursing, he denied Jesus before the resurrection. Bold and confident, Peter preached Jesus after the resurrection. Up and down, down and up, Peter went. Two steps forward, one step—or sometimes three steps—back, Peter was not a detached observer. He was an intimately growing, struggling, and broken yet redeemed man who learned that the depth of his sin was very deep but that the Savior’s love was deeper still. And through it all, the grace of Jesus toward Peter endured, which means that in the end, by the very same grace, Peter endured.
Today I’m giving away paperback copies of Enduring Grace: 21 Days with the Apostle Peter. If you’d like a copy or know someone who would, please share this post with them.
Fine Print:
You must subscribe to my email list (here).
You must be a new subscriber.
You must reply to the “welcome” email with your address.
You must have an address in the United States (sorry of you live elsewhere!)
Diesel Fuel for Writers and Preachers
My thankfulness for Chase Replogle’s The Pastor Writer podcast.
If you pour even a small amount of gasoline on a bonfire, it flames up quickly and dangerously. That’s why every warning label on gasoline canisters will tell you never to do that. Diesel fuel, as opposed to straight gasoline, burns much slower. You still shouldn’t dump a gallon jug of diesel on a bonfire, but in small amounts, the resulting combustion from diesel can be controlled and used for building and sustaining a fire with poor kindling in a way that gasoline never can. It’s just too flammable.
For the last few years, I’ve considered Chase Replogle’s podcast The Pastor Writer like diesel fuel for writers and preachers. Replogle is a pastor and writer in Springfield, Missouri, and he’s released a new podcast episode most weeks for the last two years.
I suppose there’s a place for gasoline-fueled binge-writing sessions, times when fingers pound keyboards like pistons in a V8 engine. But that type of writing can’t be sustained over the long haul or often even manufactured in a moment. You typically can’t script productive, frenetic writing.
What I need, and what most writers need, is the slow-burn of diesel fuel to help grow in the craft over a lifetime. Most writers, if they are anything like me, shoehorn writing into an already full life. And to do that well—to fit quality writing in and around pastoring a church and being a dad and husband in a big family—I need more than adrenaline and Monster-Energy-Drink type writing, the type of writing that soars for an hour or two but then crashes for weeks; writing that flames up quickly also flames out quickly. I need, instead, fuel for the long obedience in the same direction required to excel as something worthwhile. The Pastor Writer podcast has been this type of fuel for me.
As Replogle neared the hundredth episode of The Pastor Writer, he asked for feedback from listeners about ways his podcast had helped listeners, and I was able to share some of these thoughts with him, which he kindly included at the beginning of episode 98. But shortly after I sent him that feedback, the pandemic we’ve all been living with hit and work at our church became all-consuming. I quickly fell off the podcast wagon. Only just recently, while on vacation the other week, did I begin to catch up on all the episodes I missed and heard my own remarks.
Episode 98 is not an interview but one of the occasional monologues where Replogle reflects on some aspect of the craft. In this episode he talked about how a writer can find his preaching or writing voice. We often begin with imitation, where we try—intentionally or unintentionally—to imitate our heroes. A decade ago, when God first stirred passions in me to write, my wife and I were reading together Jon Acuff’s witty, sarcastic book Stuff Christians Like, and everything I wrote that summer sounded like an Acuff knock-off. I was a little kid trying to walk around the house in his father’s shoes, which is cute when you’re three-years-old but awkward when you’re thirty.
The next stage for many writers of finding your voice, says Replogle, involves following the crowd. You discern what the masses like and try to produce that. The final stage of this progression comes when you make uniqueness the goal, where you seek to write or preach as no one has before. Replogle points out, however, that while each of these stages may be necessary in the development of a writer, they are neither the way we develop best nor how we find our voice.
So how does a writer or preacher find his voice? “Eventually,” Replogle says, “you come to realize that a voice is not something you can construct but something which must be uncovered.” He goes on to say you can’t find your writing voice, as with so many aspects in life, by looking for it directly. You can’t find your voice by trying to find your voice. You only find your particular way of writing and preaching, he argues, as a byproduct of pursuing something else.
His point reminds me of that old parable about the phrase “you can’t get there from here.” The origins of the phrase aren’t so clear, but the phrase tends to get used when someone is lost and looking for directions, typically in a rural setting. A guy pulls his car over to ask a local resident for directions to get somewhere specific. The local stares back at the driver, takes a condescending look at the direction the car was headed, then looks back at the driver. “You can’t get there from here,” the local says. The meaning is something like if you keep heading the way you’re going, you’ll never get there; you have to back up to the next town over, as it were, to get to where you want to go.
In the podcast episode, Replogle rebukes the idolatry often involved in the pursuit of perfect prose and perfect preaching. When you go after either of those directly, you end up exhausted and disillusioned. No sermon lives up to your expectations and no article ever achieves all you hoped it would. But, Replogle argues, if we instead have something we love more than the craft, we just might also get good at the craft too. Good writing and good preaching are not to be served but employed in the service of something greater. If you have as your highest aim to love and live for the beauty of Christ, then you just might stumble toward compelling prose and preaching. We can’t get there from here, but we can get there.
I’m sure it takes an enormous effort for Chase to recruit the guests for his podcast, read books by the authors beforehand, craft compelling interview questions or write the monologues, process the podcast through post-production, and then publish and promote each episode. That’s a lot of work. But I’m so thankful for it. Each episode fills my writing tank with diesel fuel, sometimes when I’ve been writing and preaching on fumes.
* Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash
** I was a guest on The Pastor Writer, episode 40, “Reflections on the Pursuit of Writing”
Book Giveaway 2 of 5: Don’t Just Send a Resume
Here’s how to get a free paperback copy of Don’t Just Send a Resume.
I’ve written a blog post nearly every week for the last six years. During that same time, I’ve also written dozens of guest posts for various websites and even a few books. And I love this. It’s not a chore. Most of the time, writing feels like eating ice cream and running downhill.
But after six years, I’m getting tired. I need a small break.
You can watch the short video below for a better introduction, but as a way to get some rest while at the same time show appreciation to my blog readers, I’m giving away physical copies of all the books I’ve written. (If you watched the last video, the first 2:22 is the same; just skip ahead to hear about this week’s book.) For five weeks this summer, I’m giving away five paperback copies of each of the five books that I’ve written. Each week I’ll giveaway a different book.
The only thing you need to do to get a paperback book is sign up for my blog (here) and reply to the welcome email to send me your address. If you are already subscribed to my blog, please share this post with a friend who might like to subscribe and get a paperback book.
This week I’m giving away copies of Don’t Just Send a Resume: How to Find the Right Job in a Local Church. In the last 15 years, many books have been written to help a church navigate the job-search process. But only one book—this book—has been written to help pastors. I’m thankful that in the last few weeks the book has been featured by 9Marks, The Gospel Coalition, and Tim Challies (Kindle Deals, Aug. 17).
Don’t Just Send a Resume features short contributions by 12 published authors and ministry leaders, including: Chris Brauns, Cara Croft, Dave Harvey, David Mathis, J. A. Medders, Sam Rainer, Chase Replogle, William Vanderbloemen, Kristen Wetherell, Jared C. Wilson, and Jeremy Writebol.
Fine Print:
You must subscribe to my email list (here).
You must be a new subscriber.
You must reply to the “welcome” email with your address.
You must have an address in the United States (sorry of you live elsewhere!)
Book Giveaway 1 of 5: More People to Love
Here’s how to get a free paperback copy of More People to Love.
I’ve written a blog post nearly every week for the last six years. During that same time, I’ve also written dozens of guest posts for various websites and even a few books. And I love this. It’s not a chore. Most of the time, writing feels like eating ice cream and running downhill.
But after six years, I’m getting tired. I need a small break.
You can watch the short video below for a better introduction, but as a way to get some rest while at the same time show appreciation to my blog readers, I’m giving away physical copies of all the books I’ve written. For five weeks this summer, I’m giving away five paperback copies of each of the five books that I’ve written. Each week I’ll giveaway a different book.
The only thing you need to do to get a paperback book is sign up for my blog (here) and reply to the welcome email to send me your address. If you are already subscribed to my blog, please share this post with a friend who might like to subscribe and get a paperback book.
This week I’m giving away copies of More People to Love: How the Bible Starts in a Garden and Ends in a City and What That Means for You. It’s a book about The Big Story of the Bible, that is, God’s plan from Genesis to Revelation to make his name great among the nations (Malachi 1:11). It’s also a book about why God’s plan for the world means good news for you. Brant Hansen wrote the foreword. He’s a nationally syndicated Christian radio host and author of Unoffendable, Blessed are the Misfits, and The Truth about Us.
Fine Print:
You must subscribe to my email list (here).
You must be a new subscriber.
You must reply to the “welcome” email with your address.
You must have an address in the United States (sorry of you live elsewhere!)
Fathers, Ask for Their Heart (And, Preachers, Write a Poem)
A plea from a loving father to his son.
I sympathize with fellow church leaders who wrestle with what to do at church on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Some of us avoid them altogether, as if they didn’t exist, while others craft the sermon, even the service, around the day.
I once heard a pastor remark that those opposed to “high church liturgy” often have instead a “Hallmark liturgical calendar,” so not Pentecost or Epiphany but MLK Day, a summer series bounded by Memorial Day and Labor Day with Fourth of July in the middle, and a fall calendar with Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving.
Our church tends to fall in the middle. On the one hand, we mark Lent and Advent, but we miss all the national holidays except Mother’s and Father’s Day.
But even when a church highlights Mother’s and Father’s Day, it’s not always clear the best way to do so. My church, just like your church, is filled with some people rejoicing and other people weeping.
Father’s Day amplifies the pain of infertility, miscarriage, abuse, abandonment, divorce, and death. But Father’s Day also highlights the joys of parenting and being parented and that children are a wonderful gift from the Lord. It’s also a day to encourage the fathers among us who strive, however imperfectly, to image the love of the heavenly Father.
During our church services on these days, I’ll often do the announcements or pastoral prayer, briefly mentioning this tension and praying in such a way as to cover the spectrum of emotions and to lift our eyes to the Lord.
Some years on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, I also write a poem and read it to the church. Two years ago, I wrote a poem for Father’s Day based on Proverbs 23:26, which says, “My son, give me your heart.” I stumbled on that short verse a long time ago, being struck by the audacity of asking for something of such significance: a father not asking for mere good deeds done with indifference, but rather his son’s heart, the very center of who he is. It strikes me that this is what God asks from all of us. “Give me your heart,” our Father in heaven says.
My poem is an imagined conversation between a loving father and a prodigal son. I’ve included the poem below. I only share it in the hope that it might stir an idea as you prepare yourself and your church for next year’s Father’s Day.
When I shared the poem in church, the feedback was good but certainly not glowing. That’s what I expected. The poem is good but not great. And that’s okay. I ain’t Will Shakespeare or John Piper.
But this winter, a year and a half after I shared the poem at church, I went to the house of a member who had died a few days before. I sat around a kitchen table with the man’s widow and three grown children to plan the funeral of the father and husband they loved and will only see again in heaven.
After we planned and prayed and hugged, I went to leave. And as I did, I saw my Father’s Day poem taped to his fridge. I smiled, thanking God that even though most of the time pastors don’t get to see the fruit God grows through our ministry, sometimes we do.
* * *
“My Son, Give Me Your Heart”
Dad, there’s a cuddly dragon outside
I’d like to take him for a ride
He’s just beyond my window pane
His breath is steaming in the rain
My son, no
Dragons grow
I see him when I close my eyes
His whispering sounds so wise
Son, a dragon’s purr becomes a roar
He won’t be thrilled except through more
He’ll stretch his wings and won’t be tamed
His claws cut deep in hearts he’s claimed
Okay, okay, I understand
For you I’ll live a life that’s bland
I’ll clean my room and mow the yard
Grit teeth and tithe, and do what’s hard
My son, give me your heart
Remember that dragon outside?
I’m going to take him for a ride
His shiny scales feel soft and fast
We’ll swoop and soar over oceans vast
Don’t be deceived when they entice
The scales that shimmer also slice
Though his highest intension sleeps
A dragon only plays for keeps
Between your shoulders is his prize
Never believe him when he lies
My son, give me your heart
Then ride a stallion, pick a cause
Don’t live for fleeting man’s applause
Follow God, love him first to last
Then you’ll soar over oceans vast
Now, I’ve failed you; I blew it bad
I’ll run away; I’ll fix it, Dad
My son, give me your heart
You said, Love a woman, love her well
But I loved ten
You said, Follow all the rules
I ran with fools
That’s neither what I said nor meant
A father’s love will not relent
Run and run away you may
Never so far that you can’t pray
And I will surely love you still
Though you rebelled against my will
My son, give me your heart
* This article was originally posted by the Eastern District Association of The Evangelical Free Church of America here.
Happy 1-Year Birthday: Don’t Just Send a Resume
Thanks for making last year so successful.
One year ago today, my book Don’t Just Send a Resume launched into the world. I’ve been so encouraged by the response. About once a month over the last year I received a note from a reader who was helped by the book. Here’s one from a pastor named Kevin:
Hey Benjamin! Thank you for writing “Don’t Just Send a Resume.” I graduated from ________ Seminary about 18 months ago. I took an un-ordained Pastoral Resident job at a church in ________ where I had done a couple summer internships. About 8 months ago I got licensed and began searching for Assistant or Associate Pastor jobs within the denomination. I had a few jobs I applied for where I had no idea what I was doing. Then I picked up your book . . . and it helped a ton. It gave me perspective, encouragement, and it was just plain practical. My wife also read through parts of it and found it super useful as well. After taking some of your advice I began to have more serious leads and a couple weeks ago I officially accepted an Assistant Pastor role at a PCA church in the ________ area. I’m thankful for how the Lord used you and the book you wrote!
Not to make this sound like a speech at the Oscars, but . . .
Thank you to everyone who helped with the Kickstarter campaign.
Thank you to all of the authors and pastors who made contributions to the book: Chris Brauns, Cara Croft, Dave Harvey, David Mathis, J. A. Medders, Sam Rainer, Chase Replogle, William Vanderbloemen, Kristen Wetherell, Jared C. Wilson, and Jeremy Writebol.
Thank you to everyone who helped edit the book: Jason Abbott, Mary Wells, Ben Bechtel, Russell Meek, Stacey Covell, Alex Duke, Alexandra Richter, and dozens of early readers.
Thank you to Tim Challies for including the book in your “New & Notable” promotion.
Thank you to the 20 or so people who wrote endorsements.
Thank you to ABWE, EFCA Now blog, GCD, AmICalled.com, and other websites who posted articles about the book.
Thank you to Matt Higgins for creating a fantastic book cover. Such a great design.
Thank you to David K. Martin for making the audiobook.
Thank you to everyone who bought a copy of the book and shared about it online.
Thank you to the two-dozen people who wrote Amazon reviews.
Thank you to my wife, who still encourages me to write when the economic return on my time makes absolutely no sense.
And thank you to New Life Bible Fellowship, to whom I wrote the book’s dedication. This Oscar—I mean this “book birthday”—is for you.
If anyone would like a copy of the audiobook of Don’t Just Send a Resume, you can grab one at Amazon, Audible, and iTunes. But you don’t have to buy one. I still have a few dozen to give away. Please just send me a message (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or email: benjamin@fanandflame.com), so I can give you the code to download it.
Thanks for all the encouragement along the way!
Hitting It Big as a Blogger?
My struggles with blogging metrics.
We give the prefix mega to a church with over two thousand regular attendees. Perhaps it would be helpful and objective to consider the epithet megablog as one with two thousand regular readers. I dunno.
But the question of how we measure success as online writers causes me to excavate what’s buried in my own heart, as well as evaluate what we might consider subjective and objective metrics of success. How do you define hitting it big?
J.A. Medders and Chase Replogle both interviewed pastor and author Scott Sauls on their writing podcasts (Home Row and Pastor Writer, respectively). In these interviews, Sauls spoke of publishers who courted him to write a book, but he also spoke of the resistance he felt for years toward this pursuit. I don’t know if the courting happened because of his blogging, his pastoring, his networking, or all of these together. In my anecdote about Sauls, there are no metrics to quantify “big,” but to me this should count as hitting it big. This is not to discount the work he eventually had to do to write proposals and complete manuscripts, but most authors have to court publishers, not the other way around.
I suppose someone from the outside could look at the websites that have published my work and feel that I have made it big—at least with respect to relationships with editors at popular evangelical websites. But every relationship with an editor did not come through my blog, even though at first I suppose having the blog (and a local church pastorate) established a measure of legitimacy. My point is that, to my knowledge, no editors have ever looked at my blog saying, “Man, we need some posts from that guy.”
Objective metrics can be helpful because I fear the dangers of a sliding scale. The fear of thinking to hit it big always means something more than where you currently are, something always just out of reach and around the corner, something like rowing toward Gatsby’s green light. An author hasn’t hit it big until he’s as well-known as, say, Keller. This is silly . . . and sinful. I’m in an online group for Christian writers, and we recently discussed blogging struggles. The most successful blogger among us commented, “One thing I can attest to is that if ‘bigger’ is your goal, nothing will ever be big enough. . . because ‘bigger’ isn’t really a measure of having more readers than you do now, but having more readers than the other guy.” This is the sliding scale I fear and the one that will bleed your joy and devour your contentment.
In that same discussion I told a friend that I had not “hit it big blogging,” and he asked what I meant by that. I guess what I mean is that after blogging weekly for over five and a half years, I have just over three hundred email subscribers. My open rate on emails is around 40 percent, which floats just above industry standards for religious emails (per MailChimp), but it does mean that only about one hundred people open each email I send. I suspect that far less than this go on to read the email they opened. My “click rate” within each email hovers around 1–2 percent, which is tiny. And almost no one except me ever shares my blog posts on social media, and I only share each post once at most. By the way, allow me to break the fourth wall for a moment to interject to say that I’m not crying or upset and hopefully not ranting; I’m just disclosing what’s behind the curtain.
At the end of the year, a number of bloggers shared on social media their blog traffic from 2019. A few friends of mine had tremendous years, which I loved and rejoiced over when I saw the numbers. My friend Chris, who asked me to define hitting it big, had web traffic numbers twice as big as my best year, which was twice as big as all my other years. That’s objective, not subjective. And I’m not complaining. I’m simply saying that over the last year when I wrote more guest posts than ever and appeared on a few podcasts and published several longer projects, my blog subscribers stopped growing. Sure, I occasionally get new subscribers, but every email I send loses subscribers too, often several. All this happens while my friend John Beeson and I work on a book about blogging. A guy writing a book about blogging should be able to grow one.
If we could measure the number of people who read my posts—not measuring “page views” and those who only skimmed a paragraph or two but measuring those who actually read an entire post—I think the number of people reading most of my posts could be counted on two hands, or maybe two hands and two feet. I’d hardly say having seventeen people read each post qualifies as big readership. And over the last six months my blog might even be shrinking. Adding more subheadings, lists, and hot-takes would get more readers to skim my posts, yet I’ll often find myself intentionally writing posts without headings, lists, and hot-takes just to reward readers who read, like putting a candy bar in the bottom of my kids’ laundry baskets to reward them for staying the course until the job is done. (I don’t do that, by the way.)
Perhaps the shrinking of my readers has to do, in part, with my writing and blogging skills. I don’t want to deflect ownership. But my shrinking readership also reflects changes in culture and Internet algorithms. A large number of shares on Facebook, for example, does not happen today except for a few bloggers. Facebook algorithms want you to stay scrolling and liking and reading Facebook, not clicking away. It’s the same with Google. It used to be that when you searched a question, you were given links to go browse. Of course Google still returns links, but more often than not, the top links are simply excerpts that show searchers the answers to their questions. So, if you crush the SEO on a post (which I never worry about) and Google ranks your post near the top or even at the top of all posts, you still might not get many click-overs because searchers only want the bite-sized answer, and Google feeds it to them. Besides all this, the idea that lead magnets generate hundreds of email subscribers has lost the novelty it once had. Who thinks, “What I need is an inbox filled with more subscription emails”?
Blogging also must compete with other platforms for attention. In Tony Reinke’s book Competing Spectacles, he describes attention as a zero-sum commodity. “At some point we must close all our screens and fall asleep” (p. 57). Reinke quotes the CEO of Microsoft who noted, “We are moving from a world where computing power was scarce to a place where it now is almost limitless, and where the true scarce commodity is increasingly human attention” (p. 57). This certainly affects bloggers and blogging. The streaming services of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video gobble up the precious resource of attention leaving individual online authors and their blogs to compete for the table scraps of attention with large conglomerate blogs, Christian news ministries, podcasts, YouTube channels, and the microblogging of twitter threads and Instagram posts. A friend once told me that when it comes to playing outdoor sports (e.g., skiing, mountain biking, rock climbing, kayaking, etc.), you have to pick one or at most two because they’re too expensive and time-consuming. The same could be said of excelling at a craft and cultivating an audience. It’s a rare person who can excel across all the platforms available to the dedicated amateur.
For all these reasons—the changing Facebook and Google algorithms, the cultural aversion to trading one’s email address for subscriptions, and the crowded market of ideas vying for attention—the blogging landscape has changed, and so should our expectations for growth. Comparing the success of average bloggers today with the success of average bloggers just five and certainly ten years ago is like comparing baseball stats of today with the stats during the steroid era, which often get flagged with an asterisk.
We Christian bloggers have a strange relationship with metrics. We love them and hate them. We need “page views” to validate our labors and we loathe the magnetism statistics have over us. It’s not unlike the pastor who laments the Monday morning deluge of emails while at the same time knowing each inbox ping supplies a spurt of dopamine reassuring him of his job security and importance: people need me—look how they email. Deep down most Christian bloggers do want to write for the sake of God and his glory, for the sake of truth, for the sake of serving readers with our words. But I also know that for me, the mottos of “art for God’s sake” and “art for ego’s sake“ slosh about in the same heart.
Professor and author John Koessler recently wrote, “What if, like Emily Dickinson, we die without seeing the bulk of what we have written published?” It’s a good question. Today bloggers can publish whatever we want as fast as we want, but most of us know what it means to self-publish posts long labored over only to hear crickets, which means there are more similarities to Dickinson and her mid-nineteenth century writing in obscurity than we might expect. Koessler continues, “The romantic in me says that it doesn’t matter. I am a writer. Therefore, I must write. But it is often the pragmatist who sits at the keyboard. I am afraid I am wasting my time. I worry that no one is listening.” While Koessler worries about no one listening, I often have the stats to prove no one was. So why keep blogging?
My reflections here about how we measure success as a blogger are too long-winded and probably say more about me and my existential blogging angst than the topic, so please forgive me. But the point I’m trying to meander toward is seeing the goodness of what Laura Lundgren calls being a “village poet.” A village poet views success as faithfully serving a small number of readers with our words, not as a resignation to the state of affairs but as a goal. “When I first arrived,” Lundgren writes, “the internet felt wide open with possibility.” In a world that expects and rewards all things done fast and famously, the biggest challenge for Christian writers might be to find joy in being faithful with the little things. Lundgren goes on to say, “My writing has not turned into a career. It’s mostly a hobby and a privilege. As a village poet I recognize that my writing is only one aspect of a larger ministry. Writing gives me a chance to order my thoughts about Scripture, but the ultimate goal is not to write well about these things but to live them out in obedience and humility.”
I think she gets it. I wish my heart did too.
* Photo by Carlos Muza on Unsplash
Free Audiobook Copies of Enduring Grace
Send me a message to get a copy of our audiobook.
Last year my friend Stephen Morefield and I published a devotional book titled Enduring Grace: 21 Days with The Apostle Peter. We’ve been encouraged by the positive feedback the book has received.
The audiobook was recently completed by David K. Martin, who also narrated my books, Struggle Against Porn and Don’t Just Send a Resume. The sample on Audible comes from a section in chapter 16, the famous scene where Peter meets Jesus on the shore of Galilee after the resurrection. I’ve pasted it below.
If you’d like to listen to our audiobook, you don’t have to buy one! I have a dozen to give away. The only thing you have to do is send me a message (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or email: benjamin@fanandflame.com) so I can give you the download code. Please don’t hesitate to ask. We really do want people to have them.
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From Enduring Grace, Chapter 16, “Hope by a Charcoal Fire”
When Peter gets to shore, the first thing he notices is the fire—and not just any fire. The Gospel of John is particular here. It was a charcoal fire, a kind of fire only mentioned one other place in the Bible. In John 13, Jesus asked Peter, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times” (13:38). To this Peter says something along the lines of, “I’m all in. I’m a rock. I won’t fail you.” But as you know, he wasn’t a rock. After the arrest of Jesus, Peter followed until he reached the courtyard where his denials took place. Then John gives us this detail: “Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing and warming themselves. Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself” (John 18:18).
It’s funny how smells bring back memories. Peter jumps out of the boat, swims to shore to see his Lord, and when the wet sand under his toes becomes dry, he smells his own denial. Jesus, at first, simply says, “Come and have breakfast” (21:12). This wasn’t the first time Peter and Jesus had seen each other after the resurrection, but you can imagine that if the last time you saw Jesus alive before his death you had denied him, then you’d also know that when Jesus comes back from the grave, eventually he’ll want to talk to you about your sin.
But here’s the thing with Jesus: he doesn’t poke a wound to make it worse. If the risen Lord pokes your wounds, he does it so they will heal. Three times Jesus asks Peter if he loves him. Notice the way Jesus puts it the first time: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” (21:15).
More than these? Does Jesus question whether Peter loves Jesus more than the other disciples love Jesus? Perhaps. If we only had the video footage we could see how Jesus gestured and know for sure.
But I don’t think we need the footage. When Peter gets to shore, Jesus told them all to get more fish to eat. They had, after all, just netted 153 of them. Peter was the one who leaped up and grabbed the huge net and dragged it to shore, so happy about his catch. Fish are great . . . if you’re a fisherman of fish.
Jesus looks at this huge catch of fish and says, “Do you love me more than these?” (emphasis added). It’s as though Jesus is asking, “Do you love me more than stuff? Is the calling that I’ve placed on your life to follow me, to fish for men and shepherd my sheep, enough for you?”
Jesus asks one time for each denial—three denials, three questions. The wound is poked, but the risen Lord is reinstating Peter. No longer must Peter pretend that everything is okay around Jesus because now it is okay. No, it’s more than okay. Peter is on mission again. He’s following Jesus. And not only will Peter spend his life as a shepherd of God’s sheep, but he’ll die a death that glorifies God. Jesus tells Peter, “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go” (21:18). Then the narrator John adds, “This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God” (21:19). There’s certainly a heaviness to that. But there’s also gospel to it. After failing the Lord, Peter might have thought, I’ll never do anything again that brings glory to my savior. I love Jesus, I love Jesus, I love Jesus, but now how will I bring glory to him? But he will. In his life and in his death, Peter will glorify God.
In popular culture the story of Easter is about new beginnings: yellow tulips poking through the ground in the springtime sun, bunnies scampering across green grass, and the penitent turning over new leaves. But Easter is only generally about new beginnings because it is first about a particular new beginning—the dawn of a new age, the true spring. Easter is the story of how our sin dies with Jesus and he raises us to life with him. The roller coaster of transitions in our lives can cause us to drift from this, our core identity. But the good work Jesus begins in you, he promises to bring to completion (Philippians 2:6). If you are drifting, as Peter was, come home to Jesus.
* Photo by Frances Gunn on Unsplash