8 Items For Christian Parents To Ponder: Along the way he includes a brief but powerful section in which he exhorts parents in the duties they have in raising their children. He wants you, the parent, to seriously consider the responsibility that God has entrusted to you for each one of your children. And, at least for me, each of them felt like a gut-punch. He offers these 8 considerations, asking that you would ponder each one and allow them to motivate you to call your children to respond to the gospel.

Stephen Curry And The Culture of Self-Trust: The gospel transforms our notion of self-worth and identity because it invites us to embrace a sense of meaning and purpose that’s bigger than ourselves. In Christ, we we’re not demoralized by failure or overly impressed by narrow ideas of success, like football tackles or MVP awards or prestigious scholarships and degrees.

How Do I Know I'm A Christian?: Whenever counseling Christians looking for assurance of salvation, I take them to 1 John. This brief epistle is full of help for determining whether we are in the faith or not. In particular, there are three signs in 1 John given to us so we can answer the question “Do I have confidence or condemnation?”

What Does It Mean To "Accept Jesus": Ray Ortlund gives us a very helpful instruction of what is truly means to "Accept Jesus".

7 Truths About Hell: Hell is a difficult reality, but it is something that the Bible teaches, and we can't fully understand God and his world unless we grapple with it. These seven truths should frame our discussion of hell.

9 Things Adult Daughters Want Their Mothers To Know: John Stott notes that Paul’s emphasis falls upon the restraint, not the exercise, of parental authority. He writes, “Children are to obey . . . yet they have a life and personality of their own.” I wonder if these young women and Stott aren’t on the same page. So moms, there you have it, from the younger generation to us older. May we listen and take it to heart.

The following is an excerpt from the Worship Sourcebook regarding Corporate Worship's meaning and purpose. This book was written and published by The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship; Faith Alive Christian Resources; and Baker Books.

Each week Christians gather for worship in mud huts and Gothic cathedrals, in prisons and nursing homes, in storefront buildings and village squares, in sprawling megachurches and old country chapels. In these diverse  contexts the style of worship caries greatly. Some congregations hear formal sermons read from carefully honed manuscripts; others hear extemporaneous outpourings of emotional fervor. Some sing music accompanied by rock bands, some by pipe organs, some by drum ensembles, some by rusty old pianos, and some by no accompaniment at all. Some dress in their formal Sunday best, others in casual beach clothes.

Yet for all the diversity of cultural expressions and worship styles, there remain several constant norms for Christian worship that transcend cultures and keep us faithful to the gospel of Christ. Especially in an age that constantly focuses on worship still, it is crucial for all leaders to rehearse these transcultural, common criteria for Christian worship and to actively seek to practice them faithfully. Without attention to these basic norms, the best texts, best music, and best forms for worship can easily become distorted and detract from the gospel of Christ that is the basis for Christian life and hope. Though volumes can be written to probe these transcultural norms, even a brief life is helpful for setting the stage for everything that follows in this book.

1. Christian worship should be biblical. The Bible is the source of our knowledge of God and of the world's redemption in Christ. Worship should include prominent readings of Scripture. It should present and depict God's being, character, and actions in ways that are consistent with scriptural teaching. It should obey explicit biblical commands about worship practices, and it should heed scriptural warnings about false and improper worship. Worship should focus its primary attention where the Bible does: on the person and work of Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of all creation and the founder and harbinger of the kingdom of God through the work of the Holy Spirit.
2. Christian worship should be dialogue and relational. In worship, God speaks and God listens. By the power of the Holy Spirit, God challenges us, comforts us, and awakens us. And by the prompting of the Holy Spirit we listen and then respond with praise, confession, petition, testimony, and dedication. Scripture constantly depicts God as initiating and participating in ongoing relationships with people. A healthy life with God maintains a balance of attentive listening and honest speech. So does healthy worship. This is why our words matter in worship: they are used by God to speak to us, and they carry our praise and prayer to God.
3. Christian worship should be covenantal. In worship, God's gracious and new covenant with us in Christ is renewed, affirmed, and sealed. The relationship that God welcomes us into is not a contractual relationship of obligations but a promise-based or covenantal relationship of self-giving love. It is more like a marriage than a legal contact. Worship rehearses God's promises to us and allows for us to recommit ourselves to this covenantal relationship. One question to ask of any worship service is whether it has enabled us to speak to God as faithful and committed covenant partners.
4. Christian worship should be trinitarian. In worship we address the triune God-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - one God in three persons, the God of holiness, love, beauty, and power. God is the one who graciously invites our worship and then hears our response. God is the one who perfects and mediates our praise and petitions. God is also the one who helps us comprehend what we hear and prompts us to respond. In worship, then, we are drawn into relationship with God (the Father) through God (the Son) and by God (the Holy Spirit). Worship is an arena in which the triune God is active in drawing us closer, using tangible, physical things like water, bread, and wine; melodies, rhythms, and harmonies; gestures, smiles, and handshakes to nurture and challenge us. In worship we focus out attention on this self-giving God. This God-centered focus also keeps us from the temptation to worship worship itself.
5. Christian worship should be communal. The gospel of Christ draws us into communal life with other people. Worship is one setting in which we see the church in action and we attempt to demonstrate and deepen the unity, holiness, and witness of the church. Worship is a first-person-plural activity. It is extremely significant in worship that otherwise remarkably different people nevertheless offer praise together, pray together, listen together, and make promises together.
6. Christian worship should be hospitable, caring, and welcoming. Christian worship must never be self-centered. In worship we pray for the world and offer hospitality to all who live in fear, despair, and loneliness. Public worship sends us out for worshipful lives of service and witness. Worship not only comforts us with the promises of the gospel but also disturbs us (in the best sense) as we realize the significance of fear and broken in our world and the world's desperate need for a Savior. Worship stokes the gratitude of our hearts that leads naturally to serving the needs of our broken world.
7. Christian worship should be "in but not of" the world. Christian worship always reflects the culture out of which it is offered. Patterns of speech, styles or dress, senses of time, rhythms and harmonies of music, and styles of visual symbols vary widely depending on cultural contexts. At the same time, worship must not be enslaved to culture. it must remain prophetic, challenging any dimension of local culture that is at odds with the gospel of Christ.
8. Christian worship should be a generous and excellent outpouring of ourselves before God. Worship should not be stingy. Like the perfume that anointed Jesus' feet, our worship should be a lavish outpouring of our love and praise to the God who has created and redeemed us. Worship calls for our best offerings. When we practice music, prepare words to speak, set aside gifts of money and time to offer, and ensure that we are rested and ready to give our undivided attention, we are practicing the kind of excellence worthy of our great and gracious God.
9. Christian worship should be both expressive and formative. It should honestly express what a community already feels and has experienced - imitating the biblical psalms in their vividly honest expressions of praise and lament, thanksgiving and penitence. Yet worship should also stretch us to take to our lips words that we would not come up with on our own that- like the Lord's prayer - will shape new and deeper dimensions of faith and life with God. In this way, words become a tool of Spirit-led discipleship, forming us to be more faithful followers of and witnesses to Jesus Christ.

These norms, which are more illustrative than exhaustive, point to enduring lessons of Christian wisdom drawn from two thousand years of practice and reflection. And because they are so important, these basic norms must not simply reside in introductions to books of resources. They must function habitually in the working imaginations of worship leaders each week. Each week people who are responsible for worship have the joyful tasks of imagining how worship can be truly biblical, dialogue, covenantal, trinitarian, hospitable, and excellent.

Also important is that these norms come together. Christians need worship that is simultaneously trinitarian and hospitable, covenantal and "in but not of the world." All too often we make choices that, for example, either deepen our theological vision at the expense of hospitality or weaken our theological vision int he name of hospitality...Page 17-18 (The Practice of Christian Worship) of the Worship Sourcebook

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Social Justice - A Counterfeit Of The Real Things: This is our role as Christian leaders. This is our role as artists, songwriters, pastors — to lead the charge for seeking justice, renewal and redemption. We demonstrate gospel justice primarily in three steps. I am going to discuss the first of the ways in this post, and I’ll get to the last two in part 3.

What's The Problem With Christian Books: I have a recurring problem in my reading. It is this: that too often I find Christian books uninspiring, compared with how interesting I find so many secular ones.

Why Pray? Because God Is A Forgiving God: Yes, you’re going to get this wrong. Yes, you’re going to pray like a proud idiot sometimes, but that’s no reason to stop praying. It’s only as you go to God with confidence that he hears your prayers even as he forgives them, that you will grow in your walk with God. As you grow in prayer, and you grow in your knowledge of God’s forgiveness, and eventually lose your pride and begin to pray to him the way you ought to. It’s a virtuous cycle. So, why should you be confident in prayer? Because God forgives them.

Your Deepest Identity: More than anything else, your new identity hinges on this one simple truth: You are in Christ. You are united to Christ, and identified with him. Many Christians through the years have said that of all the blessings you receive as a Christian, none is greater than this. Why?

When Prayer Comes Out Of The Closet: Good corporate praying is not just directed to God, but has our fellow pray-ers in view. Which means, like Jesus, we pray most often with “we,” “us,” and “our,” and both with authenticity and with candor that is appropriate for those assembled.

A Prayer For Preaching The Gospel To Yourself: Lord Jesus, these are just verses and doctrines, but my life and joy, peace and liberty. Because the gospel is true, I want to live and love to your glory, until the Day you return to finish making all things new, including me. So very Amen I pray, in your merciful and mighty name.

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Evolution Of A Missional Community Vision: Are you allowed to change your missional community vision? Not only are you allowed, but your missional community vision should change if you are truly seeking to follow God.

How Do I Describe My Missional Community To Others: When your co-worker or your neighbor asks you what you’re doing tonight, how do you answer when you’re gathering with your missional community/community group/life group/city group/small group unicorn?

When Dad Doesn't Disciple The Kids: Three kinds of “single moms” exist in the church: the literal single mom who is raising children on her own, the mom whose husband is an unbeliever, and the mom whose husband professes belief but does not partner in the spiritual nurture of the family. For the true single mom and the mom married to an unbeliever, the task is clear: train your children in the Lord because no one else will. For the wife of the believing father guilty of spiritual absenteeism, the lines are blurry. She lives in the tension between wanting to honor her spouse and wanting to spiritually equip her children. All three “single moms” desperately need the support of the church, but in this post I want to focus specifically on the third mom, a woman trapped in a dilemma.

6 Costs To Real Friendships: Do you know how your “friends” are doing? How their hearts are? The spiritual condition of their soul? If we have no idea how our “friend” is doing in their walk with God, what difficult times they are going through, or the sins they struggling with, we have a superficial acquaintance, not a friendship. Maybe friendships are in low supply these days because of the cost of being a friend. Let’s take a moment to count the cost of friendship.

Sin Is Worse Than Hell: For some, the doctrine of everlasting punishment in hell feels like a divine overreaction. Take Clark Pinnock as an example: “How can Christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness whose ways include inflicting everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful they may have been?”

The Most Honest Atheist In The World: What a refreshing blast of humble and honest air! You cannot but admire such a sincere, transparent, and honorable atheist. But the article ends on a painfully sad note, which may partly explain Sartwell’s atheism, and maybe even his humility.

70 Years Ago Today: The Conversion Of J.I. Packer: Packer states simply, “I had given my life to Christ.” He also recounts, “When I went out of the church I knew I was a Christian.” Packer went back to his room at Corpus Christi and wrote his parents to tell them what had happened. More than half a century later, Packer could attest regarding his conversion that “I remember the experience as if it were yesterday.”

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Study My City: For everyday missionaries, the questions are endless. Bank clerks, grocery store checkers, hair stylists, and property development workers can tell you so much of what you need to know about your city because they are in the city, working in the city, and up to date on what’s going on in the city. Perhaps if you don’t know where to start, you should go get a trim and practice asking the person cutting your hair questions. Dear Christian, are you studying your city?

5 Myths You Still Might Believe About Puritans: Many of us have grown up with an understanding of Puritans as those gloomy religious folk who found joy in making sure others had none. The tale of spoilsport Puritans continues to be told, and it couldn't be further from the truth. Here are 5 myths about Puritans which you may still believe.

Talking About "Man-Boys": The solution to immaturity among young Christian guys is not remembering truths or tightening regulations, but a Person, who did not avoid our realities, but rushed into them for our sake: Jesus (Luke 2:52; Philippians 2:6–9) — Jesus, with his intercession, charity, and grace. What can single Christian women do about this phenomenon of immaturity besides vent and name-call? Here are some ways that they can help:

5 Great Reasons To Memorize Scripture Today: There are few areas of the Christian life where there is a wider gap between what Christians want to do and what Christians actually do than in this area: memorizing Scripture. We all know that we should, we all have some appreciation of the benefits, and we would all love to be released from the guilt of doing it so little. Here, are 5 great reasons to memorize Scripture today.

Help For Those Fighting Or Grieving Suicide: For most of us, depression is an indication of what we are believing. Let us not listen to the darkness and it’s seductive, hope-depleting half-truthed lies. It leads to a black hole. Listen to and move toward the Light. Light will dawn for those who trust him (Psalm 112:4). It’s a promise.

He Survived Brain Cancer and Leads a Church of 11,000 – but Have You Heard of Him?: Chandler’s story is just a small part of a larger one he hopes his church conveys: The story about what Christ can do. It’s especially important during a time when Christians are increasingly being marginalized.

God Does Not View Your Labors As Filthy Rags: So what does God think of our good works after we are saved? Here, unfortunately, Christians often receive mixed messages. Somewhere along the way we have begun to believe that our pride is best held in check, and God’s grace is most magnified, when we denigrate all our efforts and all our labors as merely “filthy rags” in the sight of God (Is. 64:6). But does God really view the Spirit-wrought works of his own children in such a fashion? Is God pleased only with Christ’s work, and always displeased with our own?

Do I Have To Go To Church To Be A Christian?: While we could go on for a few more pages here, you get the point. “Can you be a Christian and not go to church?” I suppose the better question is, “What kind of Christian are you trying to be?"

5 Things You Can Do For The Christians In Iraq: Like many believers around the world, I am horrified at the persecution of Christians in Iraq. It is a sobering moment to realize that the type of persecution I’ve read about so many times in the Book of Acts is happening in our day. Even our Lord Jesus spoke of the reality and the blessing that He will give to those who suffer for the faith. As I’ve pondered it all, here are five things that we can do about the persecution of the church in Iraq.

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"I Used To Be A Christian, But...." And The Importance Of Questions In Evangelism: Of course, I am not saying everyone who tells you that sort of story is lying, confused, or only rejecting the gospel because they don’t understand it. Some have heard the gospel and have knowingly rejected it. That’s a real situation you’ll come up against. And that’s fine–God works in those situations too. I’d still encourage you to do feel free to do a little digging in your evangelistic encounters. A key question can make a world of difference.

Scripture Is About Our Shame: Because of sin, shame stalks us all. But from the beginning God has committed himself to abolishing shame by covering, cleansing, and including us.

Seven Things I Believe Jesus Would Say To The LGBT Community: I write this simply wanting to begin another denominational conversation, for I have read a great deal, thought and prayed long and hard on this and still do not see clearly either the biblical norms and how they actually apply, nor the way to really reach out in love and effectiveness to those caught within these sinful practices... May the following seven things begin to move us to thinking and action. The Lord seems to say in his word to all sinners, and that includes those in the LGBT community.

6 Types Of Grace: You see, God’s grace is the most powerful force in the universe, so I would have to argue that it's the most beautiful word in the universe. It reaches you where you are and takes you where God wants you to be. It has the power to do something that nothing else can do: transform you at the causal core of who you are as a human being - your heart.

A Secret Life Of Sin: “Nobody just falls out of a tree. They climb up in it, move around a bit, and then fall out.” Indeed. And here’s an implication: Where a secret life is present, a secret prayer life is absent.”

How The Gospel Changes Everything: Each of these texts refers to the gospel of what God has done for us in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and each text applies that gospel truth to the particular problem noted. These, then, are just a handful of the ways that the gospel affects all of life, all of ministry, and everything we seek to be and do and accomplish as Christians and as local churches.

The Church And The LGBT Community: Is There A Way Forward?: There are many Christians who are leading the way on these points. I’m thankful for Jonathan Merritt’s piece in CT, telling his story of same-sex attraction and how it led to an encounter with God’s grace. On the progressive side, Andrew Sullivan has led the way in arguing for a truly tolerant society that makes room for traditional religious belief.

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