The Plodding Preacher

by   Jordan Standridge A while back, I wrote an article on   truths we’re keeping from our youth groups . While the response was positive, some people wrote back desiring an article directed towards parents. Parenting is one of the most difficult things God has tasked us with in this life, but it can also be one of the most fulfilling. Parents desire much for their kids: happiness, success, friendship, marriage, and many children. Perhaps the greatest struggle parents have is to balance physical needs and spiritual needs. We all want our kids to be saved, but few want their children to be missionaries, or even worse, martyrs. The youth leaders also have a difficult responsibility; they want to influence students while also respecting parents and their leadership. Sometimes he or she must tell the children to do things or think things that are different than what their parents believe, and this causes great stress and difficulty for the leaders. Here are some things...

If we never have headaches through rebuking our children, we shall have plenty of heartaches when they grow up. - C.H. Spurgeon

I am almost on vacation.  One of my few remaining commitments before holidays is this month's missions' committee meeting.  In light of that appointment, I came across this excellent article by Karen Coleman at Eternal Perspectives Ministry. It might come as a surprise to some, but if you do a Bible search for the words “mission” or “missionary”, you aren’t going to find much. To understand the role of believers in reaching the world, we have to dig a little deeper. The heart of missions, when we get down to it, is God’s heart for lost people. It’s the Gospel, the Good News of Christ’s completed work for us through His death on the cross and His resurrection. And it’s not just for people who look like us, speak like us, or live near us.   It’s for everyone. So how can you become a more “Global Christian,” that is, someone who thinks and loves like God, who has God’s heart for the world and the lost? (Obviously, by that definition, every Christian should strive to b...

Our security doesn’t depend on our ability to stay saved, but on God’s ability to keep His promise . —John MacArthur

The following is taken from the article The Rise of Cultural Parasites by Hans Fiene. Christians Aren’t Off the Hook Granted, the liberal social justice warriors were not the only ones to inherit the “take, don’t make” mentality. For the past several decades, conservative Christians adopted the parasitic approach, convincing themselves that overtaking secular nests and repurposing them in a “Christian” style was somehow more virtuous than actually making something new. Having embraced the same mindset as many secular counterparts, Christian parents convinced themselves that creating their own unique faith-driven stories or storytelling genres, like Dante and Milton and Bunyan and Wallace and Lewis and Tolkien had done, would have been too much work and required capital and capabilities they didn’t have, so they churchified the Saturday morning cartoon nest by showing their kids videos of a talking cucumber lecturing them about honesty and fairness with a Bible verse or two thrown ...

The life of many religious people, I fear, in this age, is nothing better than a continual course of chasing after novelties. They are always morbidly craving fresh excitement; and they seem to care little what it is — if they only get it. All preaching seems to be the same to them; and they appear unable to “see differences” so long as they hear what is clever, have their ears tickled, and sit in a crowd. Worst of all, there are hundreds of young unestablished believers who are so infected with the same love of excitement, that they actually think it a duty to be always seeking it. Insensibly almost to themselves, they take up a kind of hysterical, sensational, sentimental Christianity — until they are never content with the “old paths;” and, like the Athenians, are always running after something new!  – J.C. Ryle

Yesterday's quotation from Stephen Altrogge has been on my mind for the last 24 hours.  Here is the result. I was born broken.  I was born a liar.  Lying was as natural to me as breathing.  No one had to teach me to lie.  It came naturally.  However, Jesus died for me and made me his child by grace through faith.  Now I love Jesus more than I love lying and daily I fight against the old temptations for Jesus' sake. I was born broken.  I was born a thief.  Oh, I was raised in a good home, so I never robbed banks or stole candy from babies.  Yet, I stole time from my boss.  I stole praise that other people deserved.  I was a natural.  However, Jesus died for me and made me his child by grace through faith.  Now I love Jesus more than I love stealing and daily I fight against the old temptations for Jesus' sake. I was born broken.  I was born wanting things that didn't belong to me.  From early chil...