I want to remind you that all of the quote graphics I share day-by-day are available to download for free at SquareQuotes. Download them and use them as you see fit!

Today’s Kindle deals include several excellent books on marriage.
(Yesterday on the blog: One String to the Bow)
Why the Reformation Still Matters, Another Example
Jeff provides evidence that the Reformation still really matters.
Complete Series of Dr. W Robert Godfrey on the End of Christendom
I have really been enjoying this series of lectures by Robert Godfrey in which he discusses the end of Christendom (and makes so many Dutch jokes).
Does Rahab Show Us That It’s Sometimes Okay to Lie?
Does the Old Testament story of Rahab tell us that it’s sometimes okay to lie? I am inclined to agree with this author’s perspective.
Time to Bring Out the Fruit
“Every culture, in spite of the fall, retains elements of the image of God. For those with eyes to see, these positive elements of a culture quietly point to the wisdom, beauty, and goodness of God, a remnant witness which can’t help but spill out even in cultures that have been cut off from the truth for centuries.”
Loving Those That the Woke Leaves Broke
This article asks whether we are prepared to love and serve those whom modern ideology has harmed. “While the culture war continues to rage, I would like to very briefly ask my brothers and sisters in Christ to poke our heads above the fray of headlines and to consider the years ahead and how they might impact our actions today.”
Unless Providentially Hindered
Sometimes we are providentially hindered from gathering with God’s people. Far more often, though, we skip for other reasons.
Flashback: Maybe We Need Less Math and More History
We need church historians because we need church history. Few things are more important to the life and health of Christianity than a sound knowledge of our shared past.

The more the soul is conformed to Christ, the more confident it will be of its interest in Christ. —Thomas Brooks

Westminster Books is offering a great discount on a beautiful new edition of a true classic—Charnock’s The Existence & Attributes of God.

There are several new limited time Kindle deals.
The Four Quadrants of Church Life in the Gray Zone
“By summer of 2021, like many churches, our people started emerging from the pandemic more regularly, but they weren’t emerging in the same way that they went into it. And even though it was time to rev the engine of church programming again, we experienced no small amount of emotional or attendance resistance to normal church programming that we had offered in the past.” This leads to quite an interesting reflection on effective church programming.
5 Myths about How We Got the Bible
This article addresses some common myths about how we got the Bible.
Golden Bowls Filled with Prayer
“Revelation gives us a fascinating picture of golden bowls filled with our prayers at the throne of God. What is this telling us? Why would our prayers be presented this way? Let us look at the basic biblical interpretation of this passage and then close with one point of speculation.”
Wise Anger
Not all anger is good because not all anger is wise. “The Bible teaches us to be careful around anger. It’s often been said that ‘anger’ is one letter away from ‘danger.’ So, how can we be more cautious with our anger? How can we steer away from foolish and unjustified anger? At the same time, how can we ensure there’s a place for wise and justified anger in our lives?”
Algorithmic Money Faucet
Chris explains why Instagram has made some significant changes and why it is making so many people unhappy.
What the Gospel Says to Those Who Suffer
Christina Fox describes what the gospel says to those who are enduring a time of suffering.
Flashback: 5 Bad Substitutes for Discipline
As a Christian parent you will want your children ultimately to choose good behavior for its own sake. If you habitually bribe them you are effectively denying the child the opportunity for finding out that good behavior is its own reward.

Jesus cannot fit around our lives, brought in when he’s convenient. He’s either Lord of everything we have, and are, and ever will become—or he is not. —Rebecca McLaughlin

NPR recently ran an article about the future of the Christian church. Church attendance is in decline, they said, but some creative leaders are finding ways to keep it relevant in a new cultural context. Pastor Chris Battle has walked away from traditional church because it “was not connecting with people” and now leads a “spiritual community” called BattleField Farm & Gardens. Rector Billy Daniel and Pastor Caroline Vogel of an Episcopal Church in Knoxville use their sanctuary for yoga, breathing exercises, and other alternate forms of spirituality. “Just because you leave organized religion doesn’t mean the hunger to connect with the divine is going to cease,” she says. Bradley Hyde, a Methodist minister, sees churches like his hemorrhaging members and is also turning away from traditional services to focus more on community involvement.

It needs to be said: I care what NPR thinks of the church about as much as I care about what North Korea thinks of democracy or what Jehovah’s Witnesses think of the Trinity. But the article did have some tremendously revealing components to it and ones that are worth considering because they reveal universal human tendencies and temptations.
One of these comes courtesy of a participant in Chris Battle’s church who describes herself as “a refugee from fundamentalist churches.” When asked why she is part of BattleField Farm & Gardens she says, “Generally, I’m here because I want two things out of church … I want time to sit down, like we do on Sundays sometimes or around the fire, and, like, pray and re-center and figure out what we’re about in the world. Because the world is very noisy. And then I want a church to get [expletive] done with your community and for your community.”
The key part of her comment is not the bit about sitting around the fire and re-centering and it’s not the bit about getting [expletive] done within the community. The key part is at the beginning where she says, “I want two things out of church.” The assumption is that her desires are relevant, that what she wants out of a church is even the least bit consequential.
But then she is well-trained because the pastor, when he became convinced church was no longer relevant, said to himself, “maybe we need to begin to do church differently. But what does that look like? And I didn’t know until I got to the garden.” There’s no indication that he looked outside of himself for answers, but only that he looked inside. He asked what he wanted, not what God wanted. He indicates no source of authority beyond his own desires or his own reasoning.
Then Caroline Vogel says that just as we need food, shelter, and clothing “we also have to feed our souls in some way. … And so I think there’s this challenge of, OK, we’ve been doing it like this for so long, and it’s just not working for people in a way that meets them in a holistic way.” What apparently meets them in a holistic way is yoga, breathing exercises, a Celtic service. “Your human breath is infinitely connecting to the divine breath,” she says in one of these yoga services, “so that as you breathe you are being breathed by the Holy.” One of her new parishioners says “she and her husband stopped going to traditional church about six years ago because it wasn’t doing anything for them.” “The breathing linked with feeling the spirit is really important to me. And it stays with me more than just a sermon and some hymns.”
We may roll our eyes at such people and consider ourselves superior to them. But isn’t it possible that we can relate to church in a similar way? Isn’t it possible that we can join and depart churches on the basis of preference more than on the basis of God’s revelation of what a church is and ought to be? Aren’t we all tempted at times to leave a faithful church for an exciting one, a church that does things God’s way for one that does things in a fresh or novel way? Isn’t every leader tempted at times to change the way he does church not because he has come to realize it’s unfaithful to Scripture but because it no longer seems to engage the people around him?
The fact is that we are all prone to create a local church community or a worship service that begins with questions like “What do I want? What feels meaningful to me? What makes me feel fulfilled?” The Church Growth Movement essentially baptized this consumeristic impulse by building churches around the desires of their target demographics. Their constant question to the unchurched and de-churched alike was “What would it take to get you to come?” Rarely if ever did they ask, “What does God say a church should be?” Instead of scouring the Bible, they scoured the minds, desires, and requests of unbelievers.
If indeed it is true that church attendance is in decline, our key task is not to change what we do for the sake of regaining attendees. Our key task is not to survey people to find out what it will take to get them back in and it’s not to inquire what they might find spiritually meaningful. Our key task is to search the Scriptures to see what God tells us a church ought to be and ought to do. We will find that he is not silent. We will find that he prescribes how we are to worship him. We will find that we must remain faithful to him whether the church fills or empties, whether the congregation explodes in growth or stays static (or even diminishes).
Here’s the great irony in this story: The cure that these church leaders propose is actually indistinguishable from the disease. The cure they propose for this illness is to administer more of the illness! They are treating cancer with cancer, infection with infection, radiation poisoning with even greater doses of radiation. The reason their churches are crumbling is ultimately because they lost their confidence in the Word, in its guidance, in its core message. The way home is not to wander even farther, but always to return—to return to doing what God says, to doing what God makes clear.
What we want from church is utterly irrelevant, completely meaningless, entirely inconsequential. All that matters is what God wants. After all, he is the one who created us and the one who created church! Surely then we can trust his purpose and his design. Whether we are tempted to leave one church for another over a matter of mere preference, whether we are tempted to remove an element of our worship service because it no longer resonates with people, whether we are tempted to try something novel and new, we must always turn first to the Word, first to the one who knows exactly what we need. He will lead us, he will guide us, he will help us to worship in the ways that please him and that satisfy our hungry souls.