pb'sbabbles

Most people think that Pastors only work one day a week – Sunday. So, in their mind the gig must be good. Just download a sermon from the internet and you got it made. Anyone who seriously thinks that is welcome to take a week and be Mr. Minister. You’ll soon find that there is more work than week. From time to time we all must take some time to ourselves and get away from the desk, workbench or wherever you earn your pay. It is a time to get away and refocus. If you are lucky you have someone you want to refocus with and that person in my life is my best friend and lovely bride Julie. She is a teacher and before you say that they also have it made I recommend you get ready to be punched. Teachers are some of the hardest working least appreciated people in this world. Mike Rowe should have included them in an episode of Dirty Jobs. Thankfully she had a day off the other weekend and we decided it was time for Mom and Dad to go be Julie and Brian, so we went to a little town in Ce...

The children’s ministry rethinks the competition at its core. TED OLSEN | SEPTEMBER 20, 2017 O ne of the most important symbols in modern Christianity is a circle inside a square, its sides marked red, blue, green, and yellow, divided by diagonal lines. For some Christians, it is a literal mark of orthodoxy, a subtle indicator that a church teaches Scripture authoritatively and rigorously (and usually from a particular Reformed, premillennial, cessationist perspective). Read the second part of our October 2017 cover package: Bible Study Fellowship Rewrites the Rulebook The square has changed little from its origins in the 1940s at the North Side Gospel Center in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood. Church youth leader Art Rorheim had been having trouble with traditional two-team games as his youth group grew; his four-team court was designed to let 100 play with little downtime. Now more than 10,000 churches in the United States use it as they host Awana programs. S...

I thought this was a good read. Brett McKraken's 7 Bad reasons to Leave a Church. Brett McCracken is a senior editor for the Gospel Coalition His book Uncomfortable makes a compelling case that following Jesus calls us to embrace the more difficult aspects of Christianity in the context of the local church. 1. Other churchgoers annoy you. One of the most countercultural and challenging aspects of the Christian church is that it draws people together from very diverse backgrounds. This is what the gospel does! This means it’s very likely you’ll be worshiping alongside people who you’d normally never choose to interact with. And this can be awkward and annoying. But don’t let this lead you to leave and search for a church full of people just like you. To do so is to undermine the very power of the gospel to equalize and unify across natural dividing lines (see Galatians 3). 2. Your "cause" is not sufficiently championed. Many pe...

“Jesus? Who is that?” he asked with a genuinely inquisitive look on his face. “Umm, you know . . . Jesus,” I said. “I’ve never heard of him,” he replied. I was a nineteen-year-old college student in a large city in Southeast Asia talking to another student about cultural things, and then the conversation moved quickly to spiritual matters. Although I had heard there were people around the world who have never heard of Jesus, I had never actually met one. But something clicked for me that day like it never had before. Here I was on the other side of the world sitting face to face with someone my age, heartbroken that he had never even heard of Jesus and the salvation he accomplished on the cross and in the resurrection. Centuries before my conversation with the college student that day, the truth of  Sola Christus  was one of five key declarations made by the leaders of the Protestant Reformation that began in 1517. Today, it remains a vital remind...

“Pastor John, do you believe there is a difference between film nudity versus pornography? I know many Christians who are against porn, but they have no issue watching movies or TV shows that show graphic nudity.” A young woman named Emily emailed this question to the  Ask Pastor John  inbox. A day later, Adam emailed to ask, “Pastor John, what would you say to a Christian who watches the cable TV show  Game of Thrones ?” This is a television series rated TV-MA, and has become rather infamous for its explicit nudity and sex scenes, and for graphic scenes of rape and sexual violence against women.  Game of Thrones  is now the most popular series in HBO history, with an average audience of more than 23 million viewers. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of John Piper’s response. The closer I get to death and meeting Jesus personally face-to-face and giving an account for my life and for the careless words that I have spoken ( Matthew 12:36 ),...