When The Pursuit Of Justice Isn't: Justice in the Bible is not some nebulous fairness or sense of altruistic equality. It is the spreading dominion of the righteousness of God. (Note how often justice is paired with righteousness in the Bible.) When God calls us to “do justice,” he is calling us to reflect the life-giving, culture-flourishing, gracious abundance that is in keeping with his glory.

Pornolesence: So many young Christians have stunted their spiritual growth through what I call pornolesence. Pornolescence is that period when a person is old enough and mature enough to know that pornography is wrong and that it exacts a heavy price, but too immature or too apathetic to do anything about it.

The Trip Is The True Adventure: Car trips are fascinating microcosms for conversations that affect and reinforce our shared story as a family. Perhaps this summer’s travel time holds for you a conversation that will change or clarify your own life’s adventure. But you won’t have it if you don’t turn down the volume or disconnect the digital movie playing in the back seat. Use the sacred space of a road trip to explore and deepen your own shared story with the people who matter most.

Keep Up The Prayer Meetings All You Can: If you want your people as well as yourself to be soul-winners, try and keep up the prayer meetings all you can.

Could the Persecuted Church Rescue American Christianity?: Moreover, this nominal Christianity has emphasized the “values” and “meaning” aspects of Christianity while often downplaying the “strangeness” of Christianity, namely the conviction that a previously dead man is alive and returning to judge the living and the dead.

Men Hear With Their Eyes: Of course, this is just one aspect of learning to communicate with the man you have given yourself to. But it is a good place to start! "When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent" (Pro. 10:32).

Dads, Date Your Daughter's Boyfriends: One of the most terrifying moments of a not-yet-married man’s life is meeting his girlfriend’s father. The much-anticipated introduction is an unending fountain of humor for friends and family, but it’s more often an occasion for horror for the young man. What will dad say? What will he ask? Will he be armed? The moment is a mountain to overcome in almost any relationship, but I believe it’s a mountain we, as Christians, can capture for the good of the daughter, the suitor, and the father.

Stories Of My Dad: God gave me a great dad.  He was the finest man I’ve ever known — and the best pastor, and the best preacher, by far.  I drew strength from his love for me.  I miss him today.  I miss him every day. Here are some reasons why I honor him.  And these are just for starters.

Happy Failure's Day: If you’re a dad, you know what it means to fail. On Father’s Day, don’t dwell on your failures; remember how Jesus has overcome them.

Knowing God or Knowing About God?: If we reduce knowing God (in a deep relational sense) to knowing things about God, then we’re going to find ourselves producing disciples that look like demons – who have perfect knowledge of God but refuse to treasure Him.

photo credit: nickcastonguay via photopin cc

photo credit: d.a.n.n.y.c via photopin cc

Weekly Once-Over is our weekly recap of some great blog posts that we've seen this past week that have been helpful. Our hope is that they would benefit you in someway. Each Thursday of every week you will see a post that has links to different blog posts. 

Why Multiply a Gospel Community
If you have ever led a small community, regardless of what kind, then chances are good you have struggled with the reality of growing. Some communities close their doors and stick with the same people for years on end. Some groups burst at the seams.  Few groups tend to succeed when it comes time to multiply though. Here is some great insights on why the multiplication of our Gospel Communities is so important and needed.

 Outline of John Owen's Mortification of Sin 
This great blog post done by Bob Thune is his attempt to outline John Owen's book "Mortification of Sin." This is a great resource to read and know in regards to fighting sin that dwells deep within us.

 Is Your Child a Christian? 
As parents, we all wrestle with how to answer this question, and I've found there are usually two extremes that need to be avoided. This is a great blog post by Brian Croft on how to navigate this question as a parent.

 Raising Entrepreneurs 
Parents here is another blog about how to foster the entrepreneur spirit that is within your child.

 6 Ways Small Churches Can Love Their Communities 
Here is six tips given by Daniel Darling on how a small church can do outreach within their communities.

In Praise of the Low-Minded Christian 
Jared Wilson does a great job showing the pride of Christians when it comes to looking down on other Christians for what they do. Great blog post to bring conviction and heart change.

"In public and private, in sanctuary and home, may my life be steeped in prayer, filled with the spirit of grace and supplication" - Valley of Vision

Goal for Weekly Once-Over Weekly Once-Over is our weekly recap of some great blog posts that we've seen this past week that have been helpful. Our hope is that they would benefit you in someway. Each Thursday of every week you will see a post that has links to different blog posts. Enjoy!

Weekly Once-Over (7.25.13)

10 Basic Facts About the NT that Every Christian Should Memorize - Mike Kruger, author of Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books (Crossway, 2012) and the forthcoming The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate (IVP, 2013), has a helpful series on the New Testament canon, linked below, “designed to help Christians understand ten basic facts about its origins.  This series is designed for a lay-level audience and hopefully could prove helpful in a conversation one might have with a skeptical friend.”

Should I Make My Child Apologize? - "Parents frequently ask me if it is wrong to require their children to apologize when they are disrespectful or disobedient. Usually, they're concerned that they might be training their child to lie. Wouldn't it be better to wait for the child to apologize on his own when he feels genuine remorse, rather than to just repeat an apology he has been taught?"

Giving Your Child a Cellphone - Here are three tips to consider as you navigate through the process for deciding to give your child a cellphone.

Community In Gospel-Centered Discipleship - "What does community look like? What prevents us from experiencing it? What role does community play in discipleship? What keeps us from authentic community? We went through our archives and found these four articles that use scripture and the lense of the gospel to answer these questions."

Disciple-Making is Ordinary Christianity - "What is your job as a Christian? If God gave you a job description for the Christian life, what would he put on it? At the core of the Christian’s job is the task of discipleship." Eric Raymond gives helpful scenarios and examples of different opportunities to make disciples.

Blog post by Kati Berreth How can I be a missional mom?

So moms how are you doing? Almost 2 full weeks of kids being home from school or taking a break from formal schooling with little to no routine. It is freeing and also can be exhausting as most kids are used to a schedule and the change and inconsistencies in their day can throw them off. And if you are anything like me, you are spending a lot of time and energy trying to do activities to make the summer super fun. And this is as it should be when we do this out of love for our children since we are called to love them in Titus 2.4.

And yet ladies, I believe that there is and can be more to our summers than simply taking our kids to the dollar movies, driving them to this camp or that VBS, or even sitting by the pool while our kids have swim lessons texting our friends. We get the opportunity to instead do all of the above things but with Gospel intentionality.

Deuteronomy 6.4-7 says:

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

And Mark 12:38 adds:

“The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Turning our everyday life experiences into missional moments

What if the day you plan to take your kids to the dollar movies you invite one of your or your child’s non-Christian friends to come along and simply do life with you? Simply inviting others into the normal rhythms of your life is one of the best ways to introduce them to Jesus. They get to see real life Christians, which makes caricatures so much harder to embrace. They get to see you love and forgive and fight and mess up and all the while point to Jesus who never messed up.

And in order to help your kids see this as a missional opportunity, plan on spending time in prayer for those friends before you go for boldness and openness in conversations to discuss how amazing Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is and how it is impacting your life. Not only does this show your kids how to “love your neighbor as yourself” but it is also “teaching them diligently” to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

You can also do this by inviting friends to VBS with your kids or to the Firs or other camps and especially as you sit by the pool or the soccer field or the basketball court at camps. Sports are an amazing way to get to know other parents and families. There are not many other opportunities in life that give you a minimum of a solid hour to engage with strangers. And although it is tempting to take these “break times” where your child is engaged and use them to run errands or read a good book, these times can also be well spent engaging the lost. Now, don't get me wrong, take breaks times too. That's good and right and Godly. But also, see these as missional opportunities as that's good and right and Godly too.

Over the years at swim lessons and soccer and basketball practice, Rob and I have met some great friends as well as had the opportunity to share the gospel – all because we were given hours each week to spend time with the same people getting to know them and share our lives with each other. It has been a great chance to be intentional with our time as well as a chance to disciple our kids by teaching them to be missionaries, which is an essential part of who we are as ambassadors for Jesus. They need to see mom and dad experiencing life with people that don't know Jesus so they know how to do life with people that don't know Jesus.

How the Gospel applies to our attempts, efforts, and ineptness at being missional.

And yet ladies, as I write these things, my fear is that you, like me, will say, “Sure, Kati, I can do this.” And it will become just one more thing to add onto an already busy day or be a burden to you as you think about the fact that during swim lessons is the only chance you get to sit in peace for an hour during the day.

Please take these suggestions and pray over them. Pray for the Holy Spirit to move you to have a heart for the lost and have words to share when you get the opportunity to. Pray and ask for wisdom for where you do need a break and trust that Jesus' work for you is enough. Pray and ask for confidence that you are accepted because Jesus is the perfect missionary, not you. Pray every morning for your love of the Lord to grow so that you might love Him with all your heart, soul, and might desiring to teach this love to your children and share it with your neighbors. And pray for God to control your days – your summer and that you might use it to be missionally intentional because Jesus is amazing and we want the world to know Him.

grace and peace,

Kati

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