This week’s post is sponsored by The Master’s Academy International (TMAI), a global network of pastoral training centers that specialize in expository preaching. They invite you to sign up for their 2023 International Symposium on March 7th in Los Angeles, California.

We sometimes hear that a mature church will be “all in” when it comes to missions, but we rarely define what that engagement can look like for every member of our church. 
In 2023, with an ever-growing wealth of technology at our fingertips and an abundance of Christian expertise in many sectors of society, the question of how whole churches can support missions requires a careful answer.
As an extension of pastors preaching God’s heart for the nations and how to reach them, is there also a way for them to train our business professionals, schoolteachers, musicians, and others to leverage even their vocational skills for the good of the global church? Is there more to supporting missions than sending money and men? 
We believe the answer to these questions is yes. And if you’re looking to shepherd your church towards greater maturity and missions-mindedness, we want to help you capture a vision for how to do that with all hands on deck. This is why you’re invited to join us at the 2023 International Symposium on March 7th, where we’ll enjoy keynote messages from John MacArthur, Conrad Mbewe, and Paul Washer. 
While “missions proper” will always remain the work of sending pastors and planting churches, “missions support” can get much more dynamic than sending dollars. In fact, we’ve seen our own support network exploring creative ways to help local churches advance the word, and in doing this, they are following a godward trajectory of thinking that was recovered in the Reformation.

What the Reformation Recovered for Us
Prior to the Reformation, it was easy to embrace a sharp divide between “sacred” and “secular” aspects of life. Priests were privileged to do “sacred work” while the 9:00-5:00 labors of the common churchman could be considered “secular.” In this thinking, the everyday work of Christians was easily distinguished from the holy purposes of God.
But when the Reformers recovered their Bibles, they also recovered biblical insights that could repair that disconnect and show us how the Lordship of Christ graciously governs everything we do. The Reformers reclaimed a clear commitment to the priesthood of all believers (Rev 1:6) and spoke about how every Christian’s work is sacred unto the Lord (1 Cor 10:31; Eph 6:5–9). In teaching this, God’s word helps us understand that what we do from Monday to Saturday matters in the grand purposes of God.
And yet, even today, it seems there are dots left to connect when it comes to how the gifts of every church member can integrate with the Great Commission.

Where the Bible Reforms Us Further
Despite the biblical perspectives recovered in the Reformation, it’s still easy to slip into the belief that if we aren’t missionaries, then our role in the Great Commission doesn’t extend far beyond our checkbooks.
And while financial support of missionaries is entirely biblical (2 Cor 8:1–4; 3 John 8), we would do well to realize that, as it was in the Bible, our wealth involves more than our money (cf. Deut 8:11–18). And this means that our support can involve more than a check.
Because of this, we want to help churches expand beyond a one-dimensional view of supporting missions and grow into a deeper, more holistic mobilization of the church body.
Whatever your skillset and stewardship, it’s no accident that you have your gifts at this time in church history. You need only to consider how you can employ your gifts in the service of God’s word around the world.
To help your church become more missions-minded, join us Tuesday, March 7.

Good morning. Grace and peace to you.

(Yesterday on the blog: A Prayer for Times of Controversy)
What Are Theologians For? The Case of Karl Barth’s Adultery
“‘It’s a shame he was an adulterous and unfaithful husband, but he sure was a great theologian and a gift to the church.’ Is this sentence intelligible? Might it be regarded as capturing the complex reality of indwelling and ongoing sin for theologians, or is it simply oxymoronic?”
The most precious and painful thing I will ever write
It is so encouraging and challenging to read an obituary of a very good life.
‘He Gets Us’ Super Bowl Ads Part of Billion-Dollar Campaign
What’s the “He Gets Us” campaign all about? And who’s funding it? CT explains.
An Open Letter to the Prayerless Church
Paul Miller: “In our prayer seminar, we ask several confidential questions about a participant’s prayer life. After doing hundreds of seminars, we have found that about 85% of Christians in a typical church do not have much of a prayer life. Praying communities are, perhaps, even more rare.”
What is Good (and Bad) about Transparency
“The rise of reality TV and then social media has radically increased transparency. Team Transparency has rallied around #nofilter selfies and sharing even the frustrating and discouraging parts of life. Team Self-Respect has rallied around calls for decency and the need for some last bastion of privacy.”
Scarcity and the Goodness of God
“Once we grab a taste of joy and pleasure we’re tempted to cram ourselves full– whether through TV binges or social media dopamine hits. We’re stuffed, yet completely dissatisfied, because deep down we still wonder when we’ll get it again. Yet those of us who belong to Christ don’t have to live in such a way. We can shift our minds to what’s true: Abundant goodness remains accessible at any time to us through our Lord.”
Flashback: As if God Had Ever Made an Atlantic Wide Enough…
In this short but sweet quote, Theodore Cuyler reflects on what we need most in our times of affliction.

We should not run aimlessly or halfheartedly, as though we signed up just to get a T-shirt, but as runners who look to receive the “well done” from our Lord and Master. —Alistair Begg

One of the simplest of all skills has evaded me for much of my adult life. One of those skills that most babies master in their earliest days seems to have mostly passed me by. One of the most basic of all talents has become my greatest battle.
I’m referring, of course, to sleep. Though I’m really good at falling asleep, I’m extremely poor at staying asleep. And, as I’m sure you’d agree, the staying is every bit as important as the falling! When night comes and bedtime draws near, I always face it with a mix of eagerness and dread—eagerness to get some rest but dread of waking up before I get enough rest. More often than not, I sleep for a time, then wake up in the wee hours—too tired to feel rested but too rested to fall back asleep. I often begin a new day discouraged, with my mind hazy and my brain sluggish. It’s a battle that has gone on for decades and one that is getting no better as I age. In fact, it could actually be getting worse.
I’ve long observed that insomnia is one of those afflictions that everyone else knows how to cure—everyone except the person experiencing it. Have you tried chamomile? Melatonin? Adjusting the temperature? Lowering the humidity? Cutting caffeine? White noise? The Calm app? Of course I have. I’ve tried all of that—I’ve tried the fringe and the mainstream and everything in between. None of it works for long or for good. Sleeping pills may work their magic, but that’s no long-term solution since they inevitably lead to a cycle of increased dosages providing diminished effect. So what to do?
In biographies, I’ve often noticed the connection between great men and short naps. Often those who accomplish the most are able to work until they are tired, then have a nap of twenty or thirty minutes and awaken feeling like a whole new man. That hasn’t proven an option for me. If I lay down for a half hour, I’ll spend the first 15 minutes in self-pity and the second in self-loathing. I’ll eventually give up and feel worse than I did when I began.
In Psalm 127, Solomon calls God’s people to labor with diligence, to expend their lives working toward those things that matter, for work is vain unless it is done for the Lord. “It is in vain that you rise up early / and go late to rest, / eating the bread of anxious toil.” And then he adds this: “for he gives to his beloved asleep.” And I wonder: But what about those times when he doesn’t give his beloved sleep?
I often think of all I could do if I wasn’t so tired so much of the time. I think of the extra capacity it would give me—the capacity to write more, read more, serve more, and do more. I think of how that kind of capacity is so close at hand, just an hour or two of sleep each night and my days would be transformed. Yet despite many prayers and much pleading, God has not seen fit to give it. I may go through brief phases when I sleep better, but a new bout of insomnia is never far away.
So I have decided I ought to receive this as God’s will—as a reality to be accepted rather than resented. After all, who am I to resist what God seems to have decreed? It is within his capacity to give me the sleep I crave. It would be no struggle for him to grant me a solid seven or eight hours each night. But that does not seem to be his plan for me. And so in this, as in so much else, I bow the knee to him.
That doesn’t mean I won’t keep praying and won’t keep trying—praying for sleep and trying to get better at it. That doesn’t mean I won’t try the next herbal concoction someone recommends as the one that changed their life. But it does mean that I won’t let myself feel like God doesn’t care about this or that it represents some kind of failure on my part. For I have long observed that as much as we always want God to strengthen us so we can do his will, he often chooses to weaken us so we can do his will. As he makes clear in his Word, his power is better displayed in human weakness than in human strength. And sometimes, I guess, that means in fatigue rather than in rest. Either way, it falls to me to trust that he loves, that he cares, and that he knows best.