Lost in December: A Short Story

Seven years ago my wife and I had a miscarriage. I don’t think about it as often as I once did. And I suppose that looking at our family from the outside, some might think that because we have so many children, I never think about it. But I do. Last Sunday was the anniversary of the long day in a hospital when we learned part of our family tree would be missing.

A few years ago I wrote a short story about a couple who has to return to life after a miscarriage. Over the years, it has surprised me to learn how many couples have had one, or even several, miscarriages. In the story, a husband and wife (Joshua and Allison), as well as their other young children, learn what it means to move on after losing a child. You can get it here.

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Excerpt from “Lost in December: A Short Story”

It had been a cold day in December, and not just for Tucson. It was made worse by the way it forced itself on us. No one had the right coats with them; it had been warm when we woke up.

Allison and I hadn’t talked all day, and we had driven to the Christmas party separately. She had errands, and I had work to finish. But now we made the brief walk from our separate cars to the restaurant together. “I’m glad you could come, sweetie. Did the babysitter show up?” I asked Allison.

“It’s cold. Let’s just get inside.”

That day, even the foothills, which never have snow, were white. My wife had goosebumps.

As I held the door open for her, I commented that I didn’t remember coming to this restaurant before. She said they were all the same. 

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If you’d like to get a copy of the whole story, click here.

THE ART OF REST by Adam Mabry (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)

I can’t say whether you’ll love The Art of Rest by Adam Mabry as much as I love it. You might not need his book as much as I do. Throughout the last year I have especially felt the need to practice better rhythms of work and rest. God made us to experience both, not just one or the other. But until this last summer, being vaguely aware of my inability to rest had not coincided with the ability to change. The Art of Rest helped me turn the corner.

Mabry is a local church pastor in the busy city of Boston with a young family, which means he doesn’t write about rest from a hammock on the beach with a Corona in hand. He knows what it’s like to slam doors too hard when his young children dilly-dally instead of getting ready for school. He knows the pressures of pastoral ministry that seep into home life. He knows what it’s like to buy a house and renovate it while living there. Oh, and besides church planting, loving his family, and renovating a home, Mabry is a PhD student. In other words, he’ll see your busy and raise you ten.

This is part of the reason I like The Art of Rest so much. Mabry writes as a fellow pilgrim. He, too, is searching for asylum from a common but often ignored idol: busyness. “In the West,” Mabry writes, “we’ve managed to take something that has in every culture until recently been a vice and, through the magic of repeating a bad idea long enough, have turned it into a virtue!” (p. 29).

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A strength of the book is the way Mabry connects our busyness problem to our hearts. Our refusal to rest, Mabry argues, betrays our lack of trust in God and our propensity to rebel against our humanness. It’s patterns of biblical Sabbath that remind us we are neither little gods nor beasts of burden but dearly-loved image bearers of God.

Another strength of the book is the way Mabry avoids binding prescriptions for how the principle of Sabbath should look in your life. In the final chapter he offers suggestions, not rules, for practicing Sabbath.

One might say a weakness of the book is that it’s not an extensive treatment of Sabbath. Because his book is short and written so breezy, it could come across as simple. But to say that would be to criticize the book for being something it wasn’t supposed to be. We don’t fault marathon runners for not being linebackers. Additionally, the simplicity, brevity, and punchiness of Mabry’s writing shouldn’t be misconstrued as the same as shallow. By way of example, consider one section where he connects our understanding of God to our understanding of rest. He writes,

If God is a hurried taskmaster constantly turning knobs and pushing buttons, frenetically refining his work, it’s hard to imagine resting with him. But if God the Father, Son, and Spirit are the very definition of love, and fundamentally relational, then the idea of resting with him becomes more than imaginable. It becomes desirable. (p. 25)

I certainly wouldn’t call this trinitarian observation simplistic.

The Art of Rest is just one of several books I’ve read this year circling around the theme of rest. The others include Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung (2013), Reset by David Murray (2017), Chasing Contentment by Eric Raymond (2017), and Sabbaticals by Rusty McKie (2018). All of these complimented each other, but I felt the most helped by Mabry’s book.

When I was given The Art of Rest back in April, I read it, and after reading it, I immediately bought five copies and gave them away to friends. Then I bought and listened to the audiobook. Then six months passed before I re-read his book and wrote this review. When I read the book this second time around, I still loved it. But I was encouraged that I needed the book less than I did the first time around, which is a good thing. It’s the reason Mabry wrote his book. He tells readers that he writes to “sell Sabbath rest” to us. He wants us to know the how of Sabbath, the why of Sabbath, and the look-how-wonderful-this-is of Sabbath.

I get no kickbacks for writing this review, but I do confess that just as Mabry wants to sell us Sabbath, I want to sell you The Art of Rest.

* Photo by Drew Coffman on Unsplash

8 Sojourn Network “How-To” Books in 30-Seconds Each

I love writing book reviews, which I know makes me weird to many of you—like, Didn’t you get enough of that in High School? But over the last year Sojourn Network has released so many helpful books in their “How-To” series that I don’t have time to write about each of them. So, I thought I’d just get in front of a camera for a few minutes and tell you a bit about each book.

If you don’t know anything about Sojourn Network, it’s a group of pastors and churches banded together for encouragement, training, and church planting. I think they are doing a lot of good things.

Full disclosure: I was privileged to help these books come into print, so I have a vested interest in their success. But I wouldn’t be telling you about them like this if I didn’t actually think they were helpful. I’d love for you to check them out. There are more coming in 2019.

Let me know in the comments which book sounds most interesting to you.

Healthy Plurality = Durable Church: “How-To” Build and Maintain a Healthy Plurality of Elders by Dave Harvey

Life-Giving-Groups: “How-To” Grow Healthy, Multiplying Community Groups by Jeremy Linneman [Listen to my interview with the author here.]

Charting the Course: “How-To” Navigate the Legal Side of a Church Plant by Tim Beltz

Redemptive Participation: A “How-To” Guide for Pastors in Culture by Mike Cosper

Filling Blank Spaces: “How-To” Work with Visual Artists in Your Church by Michael Winters

Before the Lord, Before the Church: “How-To” Plan a Child Dedication Service by Jared Kennedy with Megan Kennedy

Sabbaticals: “How-To” Take a Break from Ministry before Ministry Breaks You by Rusty McKie

Leaders through Relationship: “How-To” Develop Leaders in the Local Church by Kevin Galloway

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Reflections on The Pursuit of Writing: My Interview on The Pastor Writer Podcast

It’s crazy to me that I spend 10 hours a week before my family wakes tinkering with words. Crazier still is that I enjoy it. I didn’t always feel this way. In fact, there were three reasons I first became an engineer; one of them was hating to read and write.

Last week I had the privilege of being interviewed by Chase Replogle, the host of one of my favorite podcasts, The Pastor Writer. And when I say privilege, I mean it. I’ve listened to all forty episodes and would do so again regardless of whether I ever squeaked into the roster myself. I’m happy to just tweet about the show. Golly, he’s interviewed Zack Eswine, Tim Challies, Russ Ramsey, Karen Swallow Prior, and a bunch of other all-stars. It’s his monologues, though, that are some of my favorite episodes (e.g., 7: “Burn the Book: Obsessed with Getting Published”, 14: “Why Poor Writing Comes So Naturally”, and 17. “Your Clichés Are More Dangerous Than You Think,” and 34. “There’s No Sentence Like The First Sentence”).

In the interview I share how I became interested in writing. I also imagine for a bit what it might have been like to write (or do any work) before sin entered the world in Genesis 3 and what it will be like when sin is no more in the new heavens and the new earth.

Below are some of the questions Chase and I discuss. I’d love for you to listen to the interview, and if you enjoy it, to subscribe to his show.

• How did you first hear of Pastor Writer?

• Tell me about the church where you serve?

• When did you first sense a call to writing?

• What do you enjoy about the writing process?

• What’s the most frustrating part of the writing process?

• How has writing shaped you as a pastor?

• The struggle with getting published?

• Self-publishing?

• Getting endorsements?

The True Spring

Thomas Kidd is a history professor at the University of Baylor and thoughtful Christian author. He writes a weekly newsletter where he gives something of a backstage pass to the writing process. If you write, you should subscribe.

In one newsletter this summer, he counseled writers to always work on two major writing projects during the same season. He thinks this is wise because, as you juggle the various stages of the publication process (writing, editing, proofing layouts, gathering endorsements, printing, and promotion), you always have something to work on, even if, for example, one of the projects is with an editor for a few months.

I’m an idiot. I’m juggling three projects (not two) and feel like one is always about to go splat. I won’t do this again.

But in fairness, some aspects of my personal schedule and the publication schedules shifted in ways I hadn’t anticipated. The current ball in hand is a rough draft of a new project. I teamed up with my friend Stephen Morefield, a pastor and author, to write Enduring Grace, a devotional on the life and teaching of the Apostle Peter.

Below is a tiny excerpt I hope to include in our book. The excerpt comes from the final paragraph of my entry on John 21, the passage where Jesus reinstates Peter with his “do you love me” questions.

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, 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 sees to completion (Philippians 2:6). If you are drifting, as Peter was, come home to Jesus.

Today outside my window, gray clouds cover the sky, and dead leaves scatter the ground. Winter is coming.

But the true spring blooms. He has risen.

* Photo by Anthony DeLanoix on Unsplash

Help Me Choose the Book Cover (Feedback Please!)

While many books have been written to help a church when their pastor leaves, nothing has been published in the last 10 years to help the pastor in the job-search process. I hope to change that with my book, Don’t Just Send a Resume: How to Find the Right Job in a Local Church.

But nothing will change if people don’t buy the book. And a big part of buying any book is judging books buy their covers. When I work with Photoshop, I feel like I’m drawing with big, fat crayons. So, I hired a pro: Matt Higgins. I love the early design work Matt has done, but now we need to narrow the options. This is where you come in.

The two leading concepts are below. Please let me know in the comments which cover design would most compel you to buy the book. You can simply share a “1” or “2,” or you can explain a bit. It’s up to you.

Thank you for your help,
Benjamin

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Design Concept 1

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Design Concept 2

Most of Life Is Not Lived at a Subspiritual Level: A Quote from Eugene Peterson

Yesterday morning, after a long obedience in the same direction, Eugene Peterson went home to be with our Lord. He was 85.

Peterson is best known, perhaps, for his paraphrase of the Bible called The Message. I often turn to The Message when I am preparing sermons to see what insights come alive in his fresh retelling. Peterson authored many books, some written to help the wider Christian audience and others to help his fellow pastors.

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Russell Moore, wrote a kind piece yesterday about the way Peterson only preached one sermon, despite his many sermons and many books. “[Peterson] had many things to say to us, and he said them in a wide spectrum of ways,” Moore writes. “But, really, he was just pointing our imaginations away from ourselves and toward awe and wonder—in the Bible, in the universe, in the local congregation, but all of it really pointed to awe in the presence of the One who holds it all together, a Jesus who loves us and is, in ways we can’t adequately piece together now, calling us homeward.” Well said.

Below is an extended excerpt from Peterson’s book The Contemplative Pastor. In it, Peterson reminds us that the small things should matter to pastors because it’s in the small things that most of our lives are lived unto God.

My pastor, during my adolescent years, came often to our home. After a brief an awkward interval, he always said, “And how are things in your SOUL today?” (He always pronounced “soul” in capital letters.)

I never said much. I was too intimidated. The thoughts and experiences that filled my life in those years seems small potatoes after that question. I knew, of course, that if I ever wanted to discuss matters of SOUL, I could go to him. But for everything else, I would probably do better with someone who wouldn’t brush aside as worldly vanity what it felt like to get cut from the basketball varsity, someone who wouldn’t pronounce with scary intimations of hellfire on the thoughts I was having about Marnie Schmidt, the new girl from California.

Pastoral work, I learned later, is that aspect of Christian ministry that specializes in the ordinary. It is the nature of pastoral life to be attentive to, immersed in, and appreciative of the everyday texture of people’s lives—the buying and selling, the visiting and meeting, the going and coming. There are also crisis events to be met: birth and death, conversion and commitment, baptism and Eucharist, despair and celebration. These also occur in people’s lives and, therefore, in pastoral work. But not as everyday items.

Most people, most of the time, are not in crisis. If pastoral work is to represent the gospel and develop a life of faith in the actual circumstances of life, it must learn to be at home in what novelist William Golding has termed the “ordinary universe”—the everyday things in people’s lives—getting kids off to school, deciding what to have for dinner, dealing with the daily droning complaints of work associates, watching the nightly news on TV, making small talk at coffee break.

Small talk: the way we talk when we not are talking about anything in particular, and we don’t have to think logically, or decide sensibly, or understand accurately. The reassuring conversational noises that make no demands, inflict no stress. The sounds that take the pressure off. The meandering talk to simply express what is going on at the time. My old pastor‘s refusal (or inability) to engage in that kind of talk implied, in effect, that most of my life has been lived at a subspiritual level. Vast tracts of my experience were “worldly,” with occasional moments qualifying as “spiritual.” I never question the practice until I became a pastor myself and found that such an approach left me uninvolved with most of what was happening in people’s lives and without a conversational context for the actual undramatic work of living by faith in the fog and the drizzle. (Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor, 112–13)

* Photo Bono & Eugene Peterson | THE PSALMS

How (Not) to Be a Miserable Comforter

A few times a year, I post one of my recent sermons. Our church is preaching through the book of Job, and below is the audio and manuscript from my sermon last Sunday. In the sermon I explore things we must avoid if we are going to be helpful to those around us who are hurting. I also tell the story of when our family went through some significant suffering.  

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This morning we are continuing our sermon series through the book of Job. This is the fourth week of ten. Thus far in this series, we haven’t missed reading a single verse. That’s going to change. The book of Job has 42 chapters, and this is the first sermon where we’ll have to do a good bit of summarizing. In Week 1, we met Job, this great man from the land of Uz. In Week 2, the bottom fell out in his life—home and health collapsed as the evil one drew back his bow. In Week 3, Job’s friends arrived, and they sat in silence as Job began to lament. Now, in Week 4, Job’s friends, his comforters, begin to speak with Job, and it doesn’t go well. In fact, in chapter 16, Job says, “miserable comforters are you all” (v. 2). His friends, his comforters, are miserable—in Job’s estimation and God’s. This morning we are going to explore some of the things that made them so miserable. But I don’t merely want to stay in the land of Uz. I believe that to study this book rightly, we’ll need to also think about how we can avoid their mistakes.

I’ll read portions of the book of Job in the sermon, but I want to begin by reading just one verse from the book of Proverbs. The verse teaches that truth is sharp; it has a point to it, which means that using truth requires wisdom, and if you don’t have wisdom, you’ll hurt yourself and others. Proverbs 26:9 says,

Like a thorn that goes up into the hand of a drunkard
    is a proverb in the mouth of fools.

Prayer…

Introduction

I mentioned at the start that we would not be reading every verse. To understand why, you need to understand something of the structure of the book of Job. The book of Job begins with the account of Job losing nearly everything, and the book ends with a short account of everything—and then some—being restored.

In the middle of the book, people talk to each other—a lot! Here’s the order: Job talks, then Friend 1 talks (Eliphaz). Then Job talks and Friend 2 talks (Bildad). Then Job talks and then Friend 3 talks (Zophar). From chapters 3 to 31, this cycle of Job-Friend/Job-Friend/Job-Friend happens three times . . . well, almost three times. The last cycle is broken short. Then in chapter 32 a young guy comes onto the scene and he talks. His name is Elihu. And when Elihu is finished talking, God talks. Or rather, God asks question after question after question. That’s a lot of talking.

We’ll have a few sermons that come from passages in the middle portion of the book, the talking parts. My job this morning is to represent Job’s friends and explore what made them miserable comforters.

But before I get into them, I’ll say this. When I preached two weeks ago, I covered nearly all of chapter 1 and 2, which were very full chapters. I even preached an extra 10 minutes longer than usual, and I still felt like all I was able to do was observe what was going on in the passage, let alone do much by way of illustration and application. At the end of the sermon, I mentioned how I hoped to have time for more of this later. And we do. So I’ll be begin with a story.

Several years ago, I got a short phone call from my wife. This was before we lived here in Harrisburg. We lived in Tucson, AZ at the time. On the call, Brooke really only asked one question. After our greeting, she asked if I saw that our house was listed online? I said that I hadn’t. I hung up the phone after the call, walked outside and confirmed a few details, and then made a phone call to the realtor.

It’s sort of a cliché when we talk about being so unsettled that you feel like you are going to be sick, to throw up, but that’s how I felt. We had been trying to sell our home for two years—a home we didn’t even live in anymore. When a contract on the home looked like it was going to materialize, we moved to Tucson, so I could work in a church. But then the contract didn’t materialize. And I asked a friend to live in my house for only $200 a month if he’d just mow the yard, which was 1/7 of the cost to own the house. And 18 months later, he was still living there. Our savings were almost gone, and one afternoon I remember going to CarMax to see how much I could get for my Ford Escape, which I found out would only get me another month or two, and we’d be in the same situation.

So we made this whole plan to take our house of the market and put it back on again. If we did it right, the timing would make it so that the previous time on the market would start over at zero. (At least those were the rules at the time.) But through an administrative error, the new realtor one day got back to the office and just listed it online some 15 days too early to restart the “clock”—and listed with no pictures. That’s why I felt sick.

Oh, and I should add a few months before I got that phone call, my wife had a miscarriage, which lead to some other on-going complications. And I should add that our landlord in Tucson just doubled our rent. And I should add that my job wasn’t as stable as it seemed when I first moved to this new city. My world felt unstable, like everything I was standing on was moving under my feet.

Think about an A-frame ladder. A-frame ladders are, relatively speaking, stable. They have a low center of gravity and a wide base. It’s stable. You can biff an A-frame ladder, and it returns to normal, if it even moves at all. When we went through that season, it was like I had been flipped upside down. Rather than a wide base and low center of gravity, all that was flipped. Everything was unstable. And if someone only whispered to me that all my calamities were because of my sin and lack of faith, I might have toppled over. This is how Job is when his friends arrive. He’s been honoring God, but yet his life has become unstable. If someone only hints that this is his fault, he might topple over.

And remember what Jason said last week. These are not just any friends. These friends are subtly flagged by the author of the book as wise men of the world—they are from countries noted for their wisdom. It’s like having grief counselors from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, Jason said. And the wisdom the world has to offer Job is miserable.

Now, let’s spend the rest of our time getting into passages and talking about what made them so miserable.

1. Miserable Comforters Confuse Proverbs and Promises

The first thing that makes a miserable comforter is confusing a proverb and a promise. Both proverbs and promises are wonderful things. The Bible has many, many of each. But they are different things and things that should not be confused. Let me read a portion of chapter 18 to show you what I mean. This is Bildad speaking for the second time.

18 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said...
5 “Indeed, the light of the wicked is put out,
    and the flame of [the wicked person’s] fire does not shine.
6 The light is dark in [the wicked person’s] tent,
    and [the wicked person’s] lamp above him is put out.
7 [The wicked person’s] strong steps are shortened,
    and his own schemes throw him down.
8 For he is cast into a net by his own feet,
    and he walks on its mesh.
9 A trap seizes him by the heel;
    a snare lays hold of him...

19 [The wicked person] has no posterity or progeny among his people,
    and no survivor where he used to live.
20 They of the west are appalled at his day,
    and horror seizes them of the east.
21 Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous,
    such is the place of him who knows not God.”

How would you summarize these words? I might summarize them this way: Cheaters never win. They always get what they deserve. What Bildad says here is true as a proverb. A proverb, biblical speaking, is a statement about how God has generally set up the world. They are short statements that are designed to be memorable (e.g., cheaters never win). And because they are designed to be memorable, they do not have qualifications and disclaimers. If you clutter a proverb up with all sorts of qualifications, then the punchiness and memorableness are lost. (e.g., “many hands make light work,” but if you have a small room and too many people, well then, the work gets harder.) Part of handling proverbs rightly is having the wisdom to know their limits.

Yes, as Bildad says, most of the time when wicked people use wicked means to get ahead in life, they are crushed in their own devices. But if we could speak with Bildad, we’d want to ask him, “Bildad, is that true all of the time? Do you mean to tell me that this general truth that you have observed about the world is always true? Do you mean to tell me that a wicked person has never gone free, never gotten away with what they’ve done? No, Bildad, of course they do; sometimes the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer.”

I’m just picking one example from the many that could be mentioned in Job. You can hardly read any one of the friends’ speeches and not see aspects of their confusion about proverbs and promises.

Let me say it another way. What makes a miserable comforter is to believe that sin and suffering are in a relationship and that relationship is a one-to-one relationship. You’ll be a miserable comforter if you believe that if a person does something wrong, God will crush them—always. And to be a miserable comforter is to believe prosperity and righteousness are in a one-to-one relationship. If you do something right, God will reward you—always.

Let me make it more personal. Let me read Proverbs 22:6 and ask a question.

Train up a child in the way he should go;
    even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Is that a promise or a proverb? Is God saying wisdom seeks to raise children up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, and—generally speaking—when patterns of godliness are ingrained from an early age and the goodness and grace of God are tasted at an early age—generally speaking—those children who see an authentic relationship with God modeled before them—generally speaking—will not depart from such a beautiful way of life when they are older?

Or, is this verse saying that if you do everything right as a parent, then your children will always become good, Christians, and if you don’t do what is right, then your children will always end up hating God? Which is it?

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” is a proverb, not a promise. It’s a general truth about how God has set up the world, namely, as a cause-and-effect world. Good causes—generally speaking—produce good effects. But that proverb starts to fall apart when it’s treated as a promise. And when this verse is treated as a promise, much confusion and much misery are bound to follow. When Job’s friends get proverbs and promises mixed up, it certainly causes Job all kinds of misery. Let’s go to the next point to see what this view leads them to do.

2. Miserable Comforters Speak Beyond What They Know

The next thing that makes a miserable comfortable miserable is when they speak beyond what they can know. Job’s friends are so committed to their one-to-one view of the world (sin leads to suffering and righteousness to prosperity), that even though they don’t know why Job’s suffering, they believe they can make up the reason he is suffering with absolute certainty.

Let me show you two examples, one from chapter 8 and the other from 22. The first also comes from Bildad. This is from his opening speech. Look at Job 8:1–4,

8 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:
2 “How long will you say these things,
    and the words of your mouth be a great wind?
3 Does God pervert justice?
    Or does the Almighty pervert the right?
4 If your children have sinned against him,
    he has delivered them into the hand of their transgression. (Job 8:1–4)

In v. 2 he says, “Your words are nothing more than hot air, Job.” And look at v. 4. He says, “Job, the reason your children are dead, is because they are sinners.” A miserable comforter today might say, “The reason your kidneys failed, the reason you have cancer, the reason your house didn’t sell, the reason your child died of SIDS . . . is because you’re a sinner—not a general sinner, as we all are, but a sinner in particular ways that lead you to deserve the particular punishment you got.”

Do you see why they are miserable? Bildad doesn’t know what he’s talking about. This wisdom of the world wasn’t in the secret council room of God when things were discussed, but still, it claims to know why things happened the way they did.

Now look at Job 22:1, 5–10, and 21. This is from the final cycle of conversations. Eliphaz speaks in this way,  

22 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
5 Is not your evil abundant?
    There is no end to your iniquities.
6 For you have exacted pledges of your brothers for nothing
    and stripped the naked of their clothing.
7 You have given no water to the weary to drink,
    and you have withheld bread from the hungry.
8 The man with power possessed the land,
    and the favored man lived in it.
9 You have sent widows away empty,
    and the arms of the fatherless were crushed.
10 Therefore snares are all around you,
    and sudden terror overwhelms you...
21 “Agree with God, and be at peace;
    thereby good will come to you.

Every word of this is a lie. In Eliphaz’s first speech in chapter 4, he conceded that Job was likely a righteous man (vv. 3–6). But then all the friends start dancing around the massive elephant that they believe is in the room: Job is a wicked sinner, and if only he would come to his senses and repent, God would restore him. The whole time they are wondering who will be the one to say this outright to Job. Eliphaz is the one.  

Did you notice that line in v.  9 about widows? Eliphaz say that in Job’s prior life, he “sent widows away empty.” I take this to mean that Job got his wealth by being a wicked miser.

One of the reasons I spent so much time in just reading and observing chapters 1 and 2 a few weeks ago, is for this moment right now. The narrator called Job a blameless man. God called Job a blameless man, and though he hated it, it seems Satan had to acknowledge it too. But here, these miserable comforters reinterpret the backstory of Job’s life. They speak beyond what they can know. This is one reason why Job is so exasperated. In a long, final appeal to his friends, Job says in chapter 29 that in his former life he “caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy” (v. 13). This is quite the contrast from what his friends tell him, but one I’m inclined to agree with because of what God had said about him.

To go back to my ladder metaphor, Job has been turned upside down; his center of gravity has moved up; his base has shrunk. He’s wobbly. He’s unstable. And the wisdom of the world comes along and says, “This is your fault.”

3. Miserable Comforters Speak Wrongly about God

Let me briefly mention the final thing that makes them miserable. It’s the thing that God mentions at the very end of the book. Look at 42:7,

7 After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.

God looks through all the aspects of Job’s friends’ words that make them miserable, some of which I pointed out and others I didn’t have time for, and God says, the main issue is that they are not speaking rightly about him. Don’t miss this. What you believe about God is eminently practical for every aspect of your life, including when you’re comforting others.

Applications

So many applications could be made. You want to be a wise friend, a wise counselor? Soak in good theology. This is one reason why we give huge portions of our service to thinking soberly about the book God wrote, and why we should spend our lives, not just on Sundays, soaking in it. When we do this, we can come to people who are suffering, and we’ll be able to do everything we can to deepen their trust in God, to lower their center of gravity and widen their base, so to speak.

And when we don’t know something, we should just say we don’t know it. We need to look people the eyes as they cry, and as we cry with them, and say, “I don’t know why this strange providence of God has come upon you. And I don’t know if we’ll ever know in this life. But let me help you hold on to God even as he’s going to hold on to you.”

And Jason mentioned many other, very practical things we need to do last week regarding the effort to help those suffering. When people are suffering, we write cards, make meals, mow the yard, rake leaves, clean bathrooms. We show up; we talk for a bit; then we leave. And with our words we point people to the goodness of God, even though it seems like the storm makes him and his goodness difficult to see.

Conclusion

Speaking of the goodness of God, I want to close by talking about that. There is a saying that goes around these days that says, That escalated quickly. We usually say it when we observe that someone took something out of proportion. So, someone stubs their toe, and they start calling down curses from heaven on the nightstand. “Woe to you, nightstand. Curse the tree that gave birth to you.” And we say, “That escalated quickly.”

When God says, that Job’s friends had spoken about him wrongly, God did not escalate quickly, and when he did, he did not overstep proportion. “The Lord is slow to anger” (Exodus 34:6). God listened to their hot air for chapter, after chapter, after chapter, until finally, he says, “Enough.” Because of God’s love for Job, because of God’s love for Job’s friends, and because of God’s love for his own reputation and glory, God says, “Enough.”

Sometimes when Christians talk about the book of Job, we can focus so much on the suffering and sin and Satan and how God fits in all those things, that we miss that God has given this book to make us wise. The book of Job is part of what are called the wisdom books in the Bible. They are those books that are especially given by God to his people to make them wise.

Think about that. Not only does God love you so much that he would send Jesus the savior to the earth and live perfectly and then die in your place for your sins, and then rise again on the third day, defeating sin and death, and then sit in heaven where he rules and reigns and awaits to come again for you—but not only has he done all of that, but he loves you so much that in the meantime while Christians wait for his glorious return, he has given us instructions to make us wise. We can get so focused on chapters 1 and 2 of Job and forget that God has given us a great gift in this book, a book showing us how to relate to people who are suffering, and in many ways, how not to relate to them, how not to be a miserable comforter. That may feel like a small thing. But I know story after story of people who were suffering and some well-meaning Christian comes to him or her and says, in essence, “This is your fault, and if you’d just have enough faith, your circumstances would change.” God loves us so much that his salvation includes his desire to make us wise. Be careful with your words, Christian.

There was an article on a popular Christian website a few years ago called, “What Grieving People Wish You Knew at Christmas” by Nancy Guthrie (Desiring God, December 21, 2016). It’s a short article. It came out just four days before Christmas in 2016. It’s just my guess, but it would seem that the average number of “shares” for articles on that website are maybe 1–3k shares. A good article might get 10k shares and a great one might get 30k or even 50k shares. The article, “What Grieving People Wish You Knew at Christmas,” an article that gave Christians wisdom for how to speak to people who are suffering, was shared over 1.3 million times, many of those in the first few days. It’s the most-shared article of all time on Desiring God’s website. We are hungry for wisdom, especially when people are grieving.

I talked about not confusing proverbs and promises. Let me close with a promise from Jesus. This is Jesus speaking to his disciples. He tells them,

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

Now that’s a promise. No matter what happens in this life—whether it’s your fault or not—if you are trusting in Christ, he will hold you. Take that to heart, Christian.

* Photo Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

New Social Media Strategy: Relentlessly Encourage, Edify and Inform

I really don’t know what I’m doing with social media. As a pastor and someone who enjoys writing, I really should be better at it. Sometimes I tweet a Bible verse; sometimes I share a cute picture of my kids on Instagram or a meme on Facebook; other times I share about my writing on all three platforms. I’m sort of hodgepodge that way.

The one thing I do know is that I don’t like to be told what I should and should not post about on social media. For example, it drives me nuts when people imply that if I don’t post about “X” [insert latest controversy], then I don’t care about “X.” Come on, people.

While being annoyed and against something has a place, it can’t rightly occupy a proactive, positive strategy. I want to take the Bible seriously when it tells us “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). I want to hear the force of Jesus’s statement that “on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak” (Matthew 12:36). And I want to embody Paul’s approach to language when he says that he has “renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways,” instead committing to “the open statement of the truth,” (2 Corinthians 4:2)

For all these reasons, Ligon Duncan’s tweet last week about his strategy for social media caught my attention. Duncan is the Chancellor of Reformed Theological Seminary and a popular author and speaker. His Twitter thread went like this:

My social media strategy:

1. Relentlessly encourage, edify & inform.

2. Ignore trolls, mockers & slanderers into oblivion.

3. Starve dissensionists, narcissists, & errorists of the attention they crave.

4. Point people to sound people & resources.

5. Exalt Christ. Bible. Grace. Truth. Gospel.

6. Stay out of food fights. Don’t lob hand grenades into serious discussions. Bring people together.

7. Be kind. Persuade (rather than rally).

8. Treat people on social media like I would treat them in person.

9. Don’t be different on social media from what I am in my life, family, church and ministry. Be the same person online and offline.

10. Don’t give inordinate attention to people whose only “platform” is social media & who elsewhere have little accountability, responsibility.

Duncan speaks of “ignoring trolls,” meaning those only trying to provoke conflict and grind an ax. I don’t have to worry much about trolls; they tend to congregate under larger bridges. Still, for the time being, I’ll try to make his approach, my approach.

Oh, I’ll still probably share some cute family pictures on Instagram too.

* Photo by Tom Holmes on Unsplash

“Don’t Just Send a Resume” is on Amazon Pre-Order

We can speak of relationships and job changes as being “Facebook official.” Well, after four years of working on a book to help pastor’s in the job-search process, my book Don’t Just Send a Resume is now “Amazon official.” It’s also “Barns & Noble official,” which is fun to see.

I’d love for you to check it out. Right now the hardback edition is for sale. The ebook pre-order will arrive in mid-October, and the paperback edition will show up right before the book’s launch on January 15, 2019.

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Below is some more information about the book and the contributors. Thanks for all the support along the way!

*     *     *

When God says, “Follow me,” do you know how?

If you work in Christian ministry, it’s likely that at some point in your career God will call you from one church to another. Do you know how to make this transition effectively? Moving can be scary and full of questions: Where do I start the job search process? Which people do I talk with, and what do I send to them? How do I know if my family and I will fit in at a new church? And how do I tell people I’m leaving?

This book is intended to help you answer those questions so that the hiring process goes well. And when the hiring process does go well, a lot of pain can be avoided—for the pastor and the church.

What we pastors need is solid coaching that is theologically informed and practically oriented. We need to know how the gospel empowers us to interview with both humility and confidence. We need anecdotes from real hiring processes, and we need detailed strategies for every step of the way, so we can transition with excellence, protect our families, respect the church, and honor God.

Don’t Just Send a Resume also features short contributions from 10 published authors and ministry leaders, including:

David Mathis | executive editor for desiringGod.org, pastor at Cities Church, and author.

Sam Rainer | lead pastor of West Bradenton Baptist Church, president of Rainer Research, the co-founder/co-owner of Rainer Publishing, and author of several books.

Chris Brauns | senior pastor at the Red Brick and author of several books, including When the Word Leads Your Pastoral Search.

Jared C. Wilson | director of content strategy for Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and author of several books, including The Imperfect Disciple, The Prodigal Church, and Gospel Wakefulness.

Cara Croft | director of Women’s Ministry for Practical Shepherding, co-author of the book The Pastor’s Family, and wife to pastor and author Brian Croft.

J.A. Medders | lead pastor of Redeemer, author of several books, and host of the Home Row podcast for writers.

William Vanderbloemen | CEO and Founder of Vanderbloemen Search Group and author of Next, Search, and Culture Wins.

Jeremy Writebol | pastor at Woodside Bible Church and the Executive Director of Gospel-Centered Discipleship.

Dave Harvey | Executive Director of Sojourn Network, the teaching pastor at Summit Church, author of several books, and founder of AmICalled.com.

Kristen Wetherell | coauthor of Hope When It Hurts, a Bible teacher, content manager at Unlocking the Bible, and wife of pastor Brad Wetherell.

A Memo Can Change the World

On a few road trips this summer and last, our children watched movies as we drove. A favorite was the 2017 animated movie Boss Baby. As the driver, I didn’t get to watch, but I did listen. In one memorable scene, the main character, a child named Tim, asks Boss Baby, “What’s a memo?”

With Alec Baldwin’s arrogant, sarcastic persona, Boss Baby responds, “A memo is something you write to give people information. Memos are for important things. A memo can bring people together. A memo can be a call to arms, a manifesto, a poem.” Then, after a dramatic pause, Boss Baby adds, “A memo can change the world.”

The humor of the scene is the overstatement. Memos don’t change the world; they strangle the world in bureaucratic red tape.

Or do they?

Author and pastor Kevin DeYoung recently wrote on his blog that “good writers rule the world.” He acknowledged this was, of course, an exaggeration, but he believes only a slight one. “I can almost guarantee it,” he adds, “the writers who actually get read, and the writers you actually want to read, are writers who write well.”

For my part, Kevin DeYoung is the gold standard of evangelical Christian writing: theological precision and biblical fidelity combined with crisp prose and playful language. I certainly put him in the category of those good writers changing the world—at least my world has been changed.

For those of us who believe in the power of God’s words, we certainly believe words do change the world. As Moses said, “[God’s words] are not just idle words for you—they are your life” (Deuteronomy 32:46, NIV). When a young king named Josiah found the book of God’s law, which most certainly included the words of Moses in Deuteronomy, a kingdom woke (2 Kings 22). Years later, churches were established and strengthened when apostles wrote the memos we call epistles and biographers wrote the stories we call gospels. Indeed, these documents are still establishing and strengthening churches. And most especially we know that when “the word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), a new era in human history began.

But for the moment, let’s leave aside the question of whether our memos or any of our writings can change the world. That question is too big to answer. What constitutes changing the world? How many people must be changed? And how would this change even be measured? Instead, let’s ask a more straightforward question: what are the characteristics of written words that seem to induce the most change on people?

I’m not the right one to answer this question. When it comes to the craft, I’m a student not the teacher, a pilgrim not the guru. But I did find some helpful advice as I recently finished the third and final book in John Piper’s lengthy series on the word of God. The book is called Expository Exultation: Christian Preaching as Worship. It is Piper’s attempt to explain what preaching is and why it’s uniquely fitted for a central role in a weekly gathering of God’s people in a local church.

At one point in the book, Piper holds forth advice that C. S. Lewis originally gave to a young woman about writing. I realize not everyone who reads this blog is also a preacher and writer. But most likely you are writing things that are memo-like, not meaning corporate directives but short bits of important information, whether an email to a friend about an upcoming vacation, a quick note encouraging your pastor (wink-wink), or a reference letter explaining why someone would be ideal for a job.

Here are the five suggestions that C. S. Lewis gives about writing:

1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.
2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.
3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.”
4. In writing, don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”
5. Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

We are all using words to communicate, and as Christians we should feel a particular burden to use them well. We may never achieve the facility with language of Lewis, Piper, DeYoung, or Boss Baby. But that shouldn’t stop us from trying. “For whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do [such as write a sermon, blog post, memo that changes the world, or update to social media], do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Among Those Shadowy Brides

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Pastor and author John Piper has said the closest he ever came to being fired from his long tenure as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church was when he wrote an article entitled “Missions and Masturbation.”

Provocative title, huh?

The article was birthed out of the sadness he felt over so many people, young people especially, who “were being lost in the cause of Christ’s mission because they were not taught how to deal with the guilt of sexual failure.”

Piper’s article was published in 1984, which was 34 years ago! A lot has changed since then.

But at the same time, a lot hasn’t changed. Piper’s concern that many people were being lost to the mission of Christ because they didn’t know how to deal with the guilt and shame that came from their sexual failure is still relevant. Sexual sin, and its associated guilt and shame, are just as prevalent, if not more so.

Nearly 30 years before Piper wrote his article, C. S. Lewis wrote about the topic of masturbation in a letter to a friend, which must have been very taboo at the time. In fact, it seems the recipient of the letter, Keith Masson, had asked Lewis about several matters related to sexual ethics, believing that a frank discussion would be helpful to young people. And I agree; being frank, without being crass, is what is needed.  

Here’s what C. S. Lewis wrote,

For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back: sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides.

And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman. For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no real woman can rival. Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover: no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity. In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself. . . . And it is not only the faculty of love which is thus sterilized, forced back on itself, but also the faculty of imagination. (C. S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950–1963, ed. Walter Hooper (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 758–59.

Notice the severe contrast Lewis sets forth between the biblical vision of sexuality and the distorted one that occurs in masturbation: not self-less giving but selfish taking; not loving another but lusting for one’s self; not a place of life-giving effort but the lazy way of ease. Lewis calls this life of the imagination “among these shadowy brides” a thing that leads a man “into the prison of himself.” This, at least in part, is the slavery from which Piper wanted to protect young men and women. Indeed, it is the slavery from which Jesus wants to save us.

In pastoral ministry I’ve seen too many men locked inside this prison. This is why I’ve spent the last two years laboring to write a book that marshals every God-given resource available to help men struggle against sexual sin. Just yesterday I sent an edited copy of the book back to the publisher. Soon they will send me a preview draft of the interior layout. After that comes the cover design. And after that, it will be available to the world.

Please pray for me. Pray for all of us.

* Photo by Aaron Mello on Unsplash

God Loves a Cheerful Preacher

Just the other day, I walked through my front door, thinking about church stuff, when the question “What is God?” randomly popped into my head. Without any effort or hesitation, my mind rattled off: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.

Don’t be too impressed, though. Of the 107 questions and answers in the Westminster Shorter Catechism, I think I can only recite two—that one and the famous first question (Q: What is the chief end of man? A: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.). Although my memory can’t capture the entire catechism, my automatic mental response is proof that catechisms unite two important things: clarity and memorability.

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Lewis Allen, in his new book, The Preacher’s Catechism (Crossway 2018), seeks to capitalize on the doctrinal clarity of catechisms and their memorability. Allen also focuses on a third element that he believes catechisms offer: the ability to probe the heart. He writes, “The Westminster Shorter Catechism is an outstanding resource for the heart needs of every preacher” (p. 21). I might not have believed that sentence when I first read it, but now I’m a believer.

The Preacher’s Catechism has 43 mini-chapters, each beginning with a reprise of a question from the Westminster Shorter Catechism that aims to edify both preaching and the preacher himself. A good example of this tailoring is in the first chapter. “What is the chief end in preaching?” he asks. “God’s chief end in preaching is to glorify His name,” he answers.

Allen is a gifted writer and a church pastor in England. I appreciated his occasional clever tweaking of a familiar Bible passage. On page 31, he writes, “God loves a cheerful preacher.” And when discussing the struggles associated with retirement from the preaching vocation, he reminds us, “Naked [we] came to preaching, and naked [we leave] it. Blessed be the name of the Lord” (p. 105). . . .

* This Review was originally published by the Evangelical Free Church of America. To read the rest of the review, click here.

Website Botox

I’ve been blogging regularly for four years. Early on, I updated the website layout several times, but for the last three years FAN AND FLAME has basically looked the same. The website was starting to show signs of aging. It needed a facelift.

Let me back up. I can’t imagine this is a riveting update to receive. I assume, actually, you’re not hanging on every word or eager to click through every link just to see all the changes. In fact, some of you are perhaps insulted at my vanity by evening mentioning the update, like I’m posting a humble-brag “before and after” pic to social media. If that’s how you read this, please know that’s not how I intend it to come across.

Perhaps, though, there are a few of you who do have experience with marketing and building websites. If so, I welcome your feedback. I’m a complete amateur. When it comes to web design, I feel like a kid playing with a Lego set that’s too advanced for his age.

There is a part of me that does enjoy the process of (attempting to) artfully design the website because I believe well-written words are best paired with a well-designed container; form and function are in a symbiotic relationship. But what I enjoy most, however, is the writing. Web design, search engine optimization, lead magnets, calls-to-action, and attending to the other accouterments of blogging, such as using social media and email services, are neither my passion nor expertise, which is why it took me three years to update the layout and I feel self-conscious letting you know the site was even updated.

Again, if you’d like to click around the site and offer feedback, just know I would consider your feedback precious. And if you wish to click away from this post as quickly as you first clicked it, you have my permission!

* Photo by helloimnik on Unsplash

Is the Engine of Your Team Healthy?

Local churches mentioned in the New Testament always had more than one pastor. They always had a plurality of pastor-elders. Numerous passages in the Bible indicate this. For example, see Acts 20:28; Ephesians 4:11; 1 Timothy 4:14; 5:17; Titus 1:5; and 1 Peter 5:1–5. This is why the leadership of our church is carried out, not by one leader, but by a team of spiritually qualified men.

The pastor-elder team at our church includes two “staff pastors” and six “non-staff pastors.” We typically meet every other Wednesday night for 3–4 hours. We share a meal, pray for each other and our church, and discuss things related to the health and direction of our congregation.

During the meal at our pastor-elder meetings, we often discuss a book we’re reading together. We spent significant time at our last three meetings discussing Dave Harvey’s latest book Healthy Plurality = Durable Church. The book is short, sweet, and full of thought-provoking questions and ideas. It’s the kind of book you’re thankful for even if you do not see every point the same way.

Harvey begins his book with a thesis: “The quality of your elder plurality determines the health of your church.” In my own experience, although far less extensive than Harvey’s, I’ve found his thesis to be true, especially over the long-haul of a church. This means working on the health of your elders is a nearly constant priority. As with healthy eating, you can take a break for a meal or two, or even a week or two, but bad things happen if you eat hot dogs and Cheetos and sticky buns and drink Mountain Dew and IPAs for a year.

In an appendix of the book, Harvey lists several questions he finds helpful for an elder team to consider as they evaluate the health of their team. I’ve included these questions below. But you don’t have to be an elder board to find these questions helpful. I suppose with only slight modifications here and there, they could apply to most teams that are committed together in Christian ministry.

If you’re a pastor, I encourage you to grab this book and discuss it with your team because “the quality of your elder plurality determines the health of your church.”

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Four Indicators for Inspecting the Healthy of a Plurality

1. Agreement: Do We Agree with Each Other?

• Is the doctrinal basis of our unity as a team well-defined?
• Do we have a statement of faith, and if so, do we all affirm our statement of faith?
• Are we growing together theologically through study and discussion?
• Is it clear to me that you have worked hard to understand my positions and can represent them without exaggeration or misrepresentation?
• Is dissent sufficiently principled and coming from a heart that honestly believes this decision may contradict our values or harm the church?
• Will you wisely represent the position of the plurality to others, whether you agree or disagree?

2. Trust: Do We Trust One Another?

• Will you be loyal to God’s Word by being completely honest with me?
• Will you judge me or exploit me when I show weakness?
• Will you be patient with me in areas I need to grow?
• Can you be discreet once you really know my temptations?
• Am I confident that you will not share what I confide with anyone who should not know?
• Do you have my back?
• Will you be humble if I risk correcting you?

3. Care: Do We Care for Each Other?

• Is it clear to each of us that our state of soul matters to each other as much as (or more than!) our performance?
• Are conversations more likely to encourage or critique?
• Can we point out specific times where we talk about our lives, families, struggles and/or temptations (something apart from ministry!)?
• Does my feedback on your performance include encouragement?
• Does someone on this team know where I am vulnerable to temptation?
• Would my wife feel free to call you if I was tanking? Why or why not?

4. Fit: Do We Enjoy Each Other and Know Where We Fit?

• Does my personality appear to mesh with these men?
• Are we able to work together in ways that deepen our relationships rather than strain them?
• Do I know my role and what is expected of me?
• Have we clearly defined how we will evaluate one another and what determines success?
• Am I aware of the specific and regular contexts where we will evaluate our fruitfulness as a team?

THE JOY PROJECT by Tony Reinke: Updated and Expanded

Last fall I wrote about how much I liked Tony Reinke’s book The Joy Project. The book tells the story of what God has done to bring us joy—forever.

The Joy Project was recently re-released. Tony Reinke, Desiring God, and Cruciform Press teamed up to improve the book. It now has a new subtitle (“An Introduction to Calvinism”), a foreword by John Piper, expanded and clarified content, and a new study guide.

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And because The Joy Project now has its own study guide, I retired the study guide that I wrote for the book. It’s no longer available for purchase. Thank you to everyone who bought a copy and found it helpful.

I feel prividgled that Reinke included my endorsement with the new print version, which goes like this:

The Joy Project is a celebration of reformed theology, and in this way it’s more in keeping with the Bible’s treatment of the subject—behold the beauty before bemoaning the controversies. We cover this topic briefly in our church membership class, and for those who want to pursue it further, this book, for its accessibility and warmth, is the one I’ll recommend first.

If you’d like to pick up the book, you can do so on Amazon.

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When a Book Is an Ambulance

The updates, the emails, the posts—it all ends tonight.

After one month and half a dozen email updates, my Kickstarter campaign for Don’t Just Send a Resume ends tonight at 11 pm EST. Thank you to everyone who helped and prayed for the project. It was a huge success.

If you’d like to still help, go for it. Every extra $15 raised will help me get the book to a job-placement coordinator at new seminary.

As a final email, I thought you might enjoy reading the current preface to the book to see how I believe it will prevent pastors from floundering.

Thank you,
Benjamin

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“Preface” to Don’t Just Send a Resume

It took me five years to earn my seminary degree. It was exhausting. It cost thousands of dollars and took thousands of hours to learn what I needed to learn so I could help lead a local church. Eventually that training was complete, and it was time for my classmates and me to look for jobs.

This didn’t go well for many of us. In fact, some students—men I respected and thought would make great pastors—struggled to find the right church, or any church at all.

In a word, they floundered.

Why? Because they didn’t know how to find a job. They didn’t know what they were doing. I suspect there are valid reasons why this was the case.

First, they forgot—or they never learned—that the business world is different from the vocational ministry world. These differences startled me when I began interviewing for pastoral jobs. For example, during the interview process with one church, the pastors visited my home for a meal. They met my entire family, and even saw my laundry room as I gave them a tour of our house. Trust me, this never happened during my former career as a mechanical engineer.

Second, pastors struggle to connect with the right local church because many seminaries don’t have margin to teach students how to transition from the classroom. For every book a professor includes, there are ten others he or she wanted to add but couldn’t.

If you’re a seminary student about to graduate, it’s no guarantee you’ll have a pastoral job in a few months. You know the feeling—and it’s terrifying. In his book to help pastors during transitions, author John Cionca writes, “Occasionally, I meet seminarians who view a Master of Divinity degree as a union card. They figure that someone owes them a church upon graduation” (Cionca, Before You Move, 35). I’m not sure I’d go this far, but I understand the sentiment. All that effort, time, and money—in addition to a sense of calling that’s been confirmed by others—creates certain expectations, or at least certain hopes.

So, when the end of the tunnel starts to look more hopeless than hopeful, disillusionment and panic ensue. It’s overwhelming to think about all the steps involved in finding the right job, especially if you’ve never done it before. Where do I start? Who do I talk to? What do I send them? It’s no less terrifying when you’re currently in a church but considering a new role. How do I know my family and I will fit at the new church? How do I tell people I’m leaving?

For all those questions, we pastors need solid coaching. We need processes that are theologically informed and practically oriented. We need anecdotes from real hiring processes, and we need strategies for every step of the way.

This is what Don’t Just Send a Resume is about. Consider for a moment an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). An EMT, though trained, needs an ambulance to get him to the accident. He’s been trained to help those who hurt, but he needs a ride to be able to do so. If he can’t get to the accident, he can’t help. In the same way, I’m not interested in pastors earning a lot of money or finding the flashiest job. I simply want to get those who are trained to help—pastors—on the path to those churches who need their help.

This whole project started with two e-mails. Joel, a friend from seminary, emailed me to ask for advice about what a pastor should do to find a job in a church. That was two and a half years ago. Joel was about to transition from one church to another, and he was looking for help. I sent him an e-mail with ten suggestions. Who sends a ten-point e-mail? I guess I do! Anyway, Joel actually appreciated my advice, as well as the subsequent coaching I gave him. After that, my e-mail response to Joel grew into a series of blog posts. Then came eighteen months of research with my nose in books on the topic, both church-specific and business books alike. Then came over fifty interviews with pastors of all different ages and roles and denominations who’d recently made a pastoral transition. And finally, then came this book—or, rather, this ambulance.

Let’s go for a ride.

* Photo by Zhen Hu on Unsplash

We Made the Kickstarter Goal, Thank You!

I’ve been on vacation in Iowa with my family for the last few days seeing extended family. We’ve been playing in creeks and ponds and the woods and catching frogs. And I’ve had my phone off nearly 23 hours a day. That’s a vacation in and of itself.

But it was fun to turn on my phone two days ago and see that all of you helped me reach my Kickstarter goal for my book Don’t Just Send a Resume! I’m profoundly thankful for that. I’m almost done posting about it. Seriously. I’m getting tired too. Hang in for there for just one or two more posts.

I mentioned in the last post that every dollar I raise above the goal will go to hiring a professional cover designer. I’ve been winging it as I’ve made covers for the books, and I’m hoping to get out of the way and let a pro finish this book right.

I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the previous covers I’ve made for the book over the last two years. You can see the title even changed twice. Each cover has gotten a little better, but I’d love to see what someone who does this for a living could do.

No matter where the final Kickstarter number reaches, please know that I greatly appreciate all the help with this project!

Thank you,
Benjamin

Click the picture to watch the video.

Thank God for Typo Snipers

The best way to catch a typo is to hire a professional editor who can snipe one from 1,000 yards away. I’m so thankful for people who have this ability. I sure doesn’t. (You see what I did there?)

I’ve been working on a book to help pastors in the job-search process. It’s called Don’t Just Send a Resume. If you follow my blog, you’ve heard me talk about it for the last month. By the way, thanks to everyone who has given to the project via Kickstarter. I’m at 91% of the goal with 7 days to go! If we should exceed the goal, every dollar I get above and beyond will go toward hiring a professional graphic designer to create the cover of the book.

Anyway, over the last three years, I’ve had a few dozen people read over the book, even hiring several professional editors. I’m so thankful for each of them: Mary Wells, Gavin Ortlund, Russell Meek, Stacey Covell, Alex Duke, and Alexandra Richter. Also, my esteemed co-workers Jason Abbott and Ben Bechtel spent a good bit of time tweaking early versions of the material. And this isn’t even mentioning the dozen others who have offered suggestions along the way. To everyone who has helped and will help, please know how grateful I am.  

How to Improve as a Self-Editor

If you don’t have the time or money for professional editing, and you don’t trust the ability of your friends, there are several things you can do to improve the quality of your self-editing. Here are five of my tips:

First, run the spell check. Simple, right? Yet it’s often not done. Make sure to do it even if you think you’re golden.

Second, print what you wrote and read it aloud. Most people catch more typos when they’re not reading silently from a screen.

Third, use editing software on the Internet. My two favorites are the Hemingway App and Grammarly. Both are available in free and paid versions. Also, Grammarly has an add-on for Chrome and Outlook to help with e-mails. I’ve been using the paid version of Grammarly for the last two years. So helpful.

Fourth, if you have time, put the document away for a few days. It can be difficult to see your own mistakes when you’re too close to them. I think this is something of a spiritual metaphor.

Finally, use software that can “read” out loud so your document can be read back to you. My favorite is NaturalReader. As with the Hemingway App and Grammarly, you can use NaturalReader on the Internet or download it for your desktop. Be advised that electronic readers all sound a little choppy and mechanical, but you’re not listening for eloquence; you’re listening for typos. This final layer of self-editing is where I often catch mistakes I never would have found otherwise. If you don’t want to mess with finding software to do this, many smartphones are able to read text. A quick Internet search will show you how to do this. For the iPhone, you swipe down with two fingers.

Look, we all can’t be typo snipers. And that’s okay. The Lord gives us different gifts. But if writing is a key part of your job—and especially if you understand writing to be a part of your calling as a Christian—then we should seek to grow in our ability to write with clarity.

* Photo by Kony Xyzx on Unsplash

My Son, Give Me Your Heart: An Original Father’s Day Poem

Today is Father’s Day. At church I’m sharing a poem I wrote. It’s a conversation between a father and his son. The repeated line in the poem (“My son, give me your heart”) comes from a verse in the book of Proverbs. I hope you enjoy it.

You can read it below, and—if you like—you can listen to me and my oldest son read it.

*     *    *

“My Son, Give Me Your Heart”
a poem based on Proverbs 23:26a

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

* Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash