I have just returned from a long journey that took me to a number of countries in Asia and the Pacific. I will share more on that momentarily but first, for those who are interested, I’ve got some updates on a couple of other matters.

Nick Challies Memorial Scholarship
You may remember that after Nick’s death we established a scholarship in his name at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—a means of honoring his legacy while also furthering his desire to see the local church strengthened in Canada. We were pleased to learn that it recently hit the milestone of $100,000 in total givings from more than 300 donors. We are so grateful to all who have donated. Of course there is far less than that actually in the fund because the scholarship is already being distributed to eligible students who intend to return to Canada to serve in ministry after completing their studies. We were recently on campus and able to meet with four of this year’s five recipients. It was a joy to get to know them. It also seems worth pointing out that we have just hired one of them to a full-time position at Grace Fellowship Church!

Aileen and I continue to give to the scholarship fund and invite you to do the same. A portion of the proceeds from Seasons of Sorrows goes to it as well. (The scholarship is collected, overseen, and distributed by SBTS and we ask only to know who receives it so we can pray for them, cheer them on from afar, and, when possible, meet them.)
Seasons of Sorrows
Speaking of Seasons of Sorrows, I believe I have now completed the last of my scheduled interviews related to it. I lost track of how many I did, but I believe it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 or 60. I have been encouraged by the response to the book and especially blessed to hear how it has been meaningful to parents who have experienced the loss of a child. I will be speaking on the subject at the end of the month at the Called to Counsel conference in Dallas (and look forward to meeting some of you there).
Also on the subject, the Spanish edition (Estaciones de aflicción: El dolor de la pérdida y el consuelo de Dios) is now in its finishing stages and should be available in the summer. You can order it here.
Worship Round the World
My Worship Round the World project is now well underway and about 25% complete. We have just returned from filming episodes at churches in both Cambodia and Fiji. We also made brief stops in Singapore, Tonga, and Australia. Though the journey was intense and involved something like 60 hours of flying, things are going well and we are increasingly confident that at the end of it all we will have a documentary and book that will encourage and challenge the church. If all goes according to plan, our next journey will be in June when we will visit both Chile (Villarrica) and Brazil (Recife). In July we will travel to South Korea and Australia.

Of far less importance, this month’s journey allowed me to eat at McDonald’s in Singapore. I have the odd habit of attempting to eat at McDonald’s in every country I visit. McDonald’s has not yet reached Cambodia or Tonga and I had already sampled it in Fiji and Australia, but was glad to try it out in Singapore—my 30th country.
For what it’s worth, I don’t even particularly like McDonald’s—it has just become a thing I do. To answer the questions I inevitably get at this point, the worst thing I’ve had is the Mega McAmerica burger in Israel while the best was a breakfast sandwich in Ecuador whose name I’ve since forgotten. An honorable mention goes to the chicken in Singapore and a dishonorable mention to India’s Maharajah Mac.
(One quirky thing that happened along the way is that before we left Sydney to fly to Vancouver, someone on the ground crew forgot to empty the plane’s toilet system. So about halfway over the Pacific the toilets began to malfunction and before long 325 people were reduced to using just two. We ended up having to make a pit stop in Honolulu so they could empty them. I don’t think any of the pilots or crew had ever experienced that circumstance before! Of course that caused me to miss my connection and delayed my return by a few hours…)
Family Stuff
In March we visited Boyce College for their spring Preview Day and Michaela very much liked what she saw and experienced. She has applied and been accepted and looks forward to beginning her studies there in August. She will move down just two or three days after Aileen and I reach our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary (which is approaching in early August). Until then, she is wrapping up her final high school courses and looking for a new job since the grocery store she has worked at for the past couple of years has drastically cut hours across the board. She will soon have college bills to pay for!
Abby and Nate continue to live in the married housing on the Boyce/Southern campus and plan to remain there for another year until Abby has completed her degree. This means they will overlap with Michaela for one school year before they move to the Toronto area and settle in near us. It’s hard to believe, but they are already coming up to their first wedding anniversary!
Ryn has moved into a new apartment in Louisville and is looking forward to an upcoming mission trip to the Middle East. She will vacation with us again this summer and we are looking forward to the time with her.
Aileen continues to work as a personal assistant within the real estate industry and is generally enjoying the work. It tends to be “feast or famine” in that some weeks she is barely needed and in others she has to pull very long hours. But she has a fair bit of flexibility in life now, so it works well enough. The job itself offers enough freedom that she will be able to join me on a few of my trips this year.
And I guess that’s pretty much the news from these parts!

Good morning from Toronto (at long last). It was an eventful journey home that included an unexpected stop in Honolulu, but I made it home eventually. And I am glad to be here!

There are some new Kindle deals from both yesterday and today.
MrBeast: The Greatest Showman
This is a fantastic write-up by Chris Martin on the YouTube phenomenon MrBeast. If you haven’t heard of him or seen his videos, it’s likely your kids have.
Does My Sexual Past Disqualify Me from Pastoring?
I appreciate John Piper’s response to this question.
GOD IS FAITHFUL DESPITE WAR AND VIOLENCE IN UKRAINE
“We had never prayed so much before,” shared Lyena, a Ukrainian woman whose home was destroyed in the war. “I had never read the Psalms so thoughtfully before. It was the encouragement that brought tears of gratitude and joy. I realized that only when you walk through the valley of mortal darkness, you learn to completely trust God, and then you are not afraid, because the Lord is with you.” (Sponsored Link)
Rules for Passivists
This is a bit of a cheeky article, but I think it shares some true wisdom. “I’ve been working on an exciting new philosophy of life, cultivating a different way of being in the world, polishing a shiny new weltanschauung. I’m calling it passivism. Here’s how it works.”
What Is Gluttony?
“Gluttony, biblically speaking, can be summed up as laboring ‘for the food that perishes’ (John 6:27). It is not only found in over-consumption, but an idolatrous expectation that looks to eating and drinking to provide sating and fullness for the soul (the inner person).”
Keeping Your Daily Devotions Fresh through Journaling
Paul Tautges offers help on keeping your daily devotions fresh.
The God-Centered Camp
I’ve always been interested in the way God arranged his people around his tabernacle. This article explains.
Flashback: Each Gift Has Its Place
…as the gardener suits the plants to his garden, God suits the gifts to his church. He dispenses gifts to each person, each to be used in love and service to others.

Pastor, do not let your vision for the church you want get in the way of God’s vision for the church you actually have! —Jared C. Wilson

Good morning from somewhere far out over the Pacific as I make my homeward journey. Blessings to you today!

(Yesterday on the blog: Behind-the-Scenes: Conference Speaking)
George Verwer (1938–2023)
Justin Taylor has written a lovely obituary for mission mobilizer George Verwer who “went to be with his Lord and Savior after a two-month battle with Sarcoma cancer. He is survived by his wife,Drena, and their three children, Ben, Daniel, and Christa.” (See also Christianity Today)
What Comes to Mind When You Think of Heaven?
Renee Zou wants you to think about heaven. “How can we remind ourselves that eternal life is real, and we are heading for it? How do we increase our desires to be in the new creation? Here are four ways to help ourselves and others along the journey home.”
GOD IS FAITHFUL DESPITE WAR AND VIOLENCE IN UKRAINE
“We had never prayed so much before,” shared Lyena, a Ukrainian woman whose home was destroyed in the war. “I had never read the Psalms so thoughtfully before. It was the encouragement that brought tears of gratitude and joy. I realized that only when you walk through the valley of mortal darkness, you learn to completely trust God, and then you are not afraid, because the Lord is with you.” (Sponsored Link)
Hebrews 11 and Cancel Culture
Jim Newheiser: “Cancel culture has … come to evangelical Christianity as both contemporary and historical figures are judged to be unworthy because they said or did something deemed to be oppressive or incorrect. Former allies are persona non grata. What once were close personal friendships have been severed.”
Called to Sacrifice
“Several years ago, a man in our church who had spent much of his life as a missionary in Africa spoke of not liking the word ‘sacrifice’ in reference to his service. He said it was his privilege to serve the Lord and not at all a sacrifice.” And while that may be true, God really does call us to sacrifice in a number of ways.
I’d like a refund for this cup of suffering
“I have a journey before me, but I’m standing at the front desk with a complaint, ‘Excuse me, sir, I specifically asked that this cup would be taken from me. And yet, behold, still there is a cup. I would like this to be rectified.’ And Jesus comes alongside me to guide me. ‘Yet not what I will, but what you will,’ He coaches me.”
There Is a Healthy Hatred
”There is, according to God’s Word, a kind of healthy hatred.” Justin Huffman explains what it is.
Flashback: The Best Argument for Using a Printed Bible
When you have run your race and received your reward, your Bible will live on as a testimony to your interests, to your character, and ultimately, to your Christian profession.

You are not in this parenting drama alone…because the One who is without weakness is with you, and he does his best work through those who admit that they are weak but in weakness still heed his call. —Paul David Tripp

A short time ago I shared a behind-the-scenes look at book endorsements—why publishers and readers demand them and how they come to be. I did this to simply tell people how they work and to address some of the critiques of the system. Today I’d like to do something similar with conferences—to tell what comes with being a speaker at Christian events.

Before I do anything else, let me say that it’s a tremendous honor to be invited to speak at a conference and, even more so, to speak at a local church. I do not take lightly the privilege of being able to stand in the pulpit or podium at a church or event. And I’m certain I’m not alone in this.
Preparing for a Conference
Some conference speakers are chosen because of their experience or expertise on a specific topic. Others are generalists who are capable of speaking on a wider variety of topics. Often at least one or two speakers at each event are chosen more for their popularity and their likelihood of drawing a crowd than for any other factor. There, are, after all, costs involved in hosting an event and conferences tend to draw people more on the strength of the list of speakers than the actual topic they will cover. (A large convention center will charge hundreds of thousands of dollars per day for the use of its facility so the costs can be astronomical!) Wise speakers will know when they are in over their heads with certain topics and decline events for which they would have nothing helpful to say.
At the majority of events, the speakers are assigned a topic. Less commonly they are assigned a specific biblical text they are meant to exposit. Occasionally they are told they can speak on anything they like—especially for Sunday morning sermons.
It is not unusual for speakers to bring the same message to a number of events, perhaps especially when the speaker tends to lead seminars more than preach sermons. Sometimes there will even be a specific request to deliver a talk that the conference organizers heard at a previous event. I believe, though, that this has become a bit less common now that most events are recorded and uploaded to YouTube.
I expect I am not alone in that I prefer to prepare messages for my own church before delivering them elsewhere so that my speaking ministry essentially flows out of my ministry within the local church. This ensures that every message is prepared with real people in mind rather than with not-yet-known strangers.
Traveling to a Conference
In my experience, travel to conferences is comfortable and economical but never luxurious. I have never had a conference or event pay for more than economy-class flights or put me up in more than a standard mid-range hotel—and that’s true even when the events are overseas and require hours or days of travel. Most of the time the speakers book their own flights and send a receipt for reimbursement. I have long since learned that it’s best to book my own travel to ensure that I avoid flights departing too early or arriving too late. When I travel several time zones to the east I ask not to speak early in the day and when I travel several time zones to the west I ask not to speak late in the day—my way of compensating for jet lag. (An 8 PM speaking time in California is the equivalent of 11 PM at home—well after my prime time!)
Some events offer billeting with the pastor or a family from the church, though I and most other speakers generally prefer a hotel where there is the highest likelihood of getting a good night’s rest. Also, most of us have had one or two negative or uncomfortable experiences with billeting and realized that hotels are generally the best option. It would be uncharitable to recount those experiences, but certainly most speakers have had them.
Some conferences are glad to have the speakers present for only the sessions they will be involved in while others ask the speakers to be present for the entire duration of the event. Hence some events are a commitment of several days while others are no more than a few hours. I tend to prefer events where I stick around and get to know those who are attending.
Some conferences will pay for a companion to accompany a speaker (e.g. a spouse or colleague) and others will not. Some speakers have a ministry budget that will cover that additional expense if the event doesn’t while others do not. Some conference speakers prefer to travel alone and some only ever have people with them.
Some conferences try to build a bit of camaraderie between the speakers, but far more commonly they see little of one another. It is not unusual to routinely cross paths with another speaker, yet to barely know that individual. There are a good number of men and women who have spoken at many conferences with me, but whom I barely know at all. And all of that is to say that if you imagine there is some community of conference speakers who know one another well and coordinate efforts in big ways, that may be true in some circumstances, but certainly not all.
The Event
I think I can speak for most conference speakers when I say that conferences are usually very good experiences. I am sure that most, like me, have had the occasional event where they were treated poorly or taken advantage of, but far more often than not we are well taken care of and return home blessed and encouraged. Perhaps the foremost blessing, apart from being able to preach or teach truth, is being able to meet other Christians who have been impacted by our books, articles, or other resources. Mutual encouragement is a sweet blessing.
Speakers are sometimes asked to do book signings at conferences. From what I can tell, most speakers dislike doing them but will cede to the organizer’s wishes. There are few things that make an author feel dumber than sitting alone at a book-signing table—especially when another author has a massive line of people waiting for him or her. And yes, I speak from personal experience here! I guess the Lord has his ways of humbling us.
At some major conferences, the breakout or pre-conference speakers actually pay for the right to be there. This is because the conference offers a large audience and speaking there is more beneficial to the speaker than the event. This breakout or pre-conference session may be part of a larger advertising package purchased by the publisher or ministry. That said, most major conferences are also very generous in giving free or heavily-discounted exhibition space to smaller ministries that would otherwise not be able to afford it.
Most events offer the speakers a “green room.” I have often heard people speak of a green room as if it is a luxury, but usually it will simply be a quiet room with a few drinks and snacks where speakers can pray, prepare, rest, or chat. I have yet to encounter one that is the least bit posh. Most conferences provide meals for their speakers on-site, though some have them buy their own meals and later reimburse the expense. Very large conferences may invite their speakers to take advantage of a hotel’s room service, but this is rare. Most often conference speakers are eating your standard catered or church-cooked conference meals. If the event is in the South, they will be served barbecue at least once, not to mention a daily helping of biscuits and gravy.
The Honorarium
Just about every conference offers some kind of honorarium (i.e. payment) to its speakers. I don’t think I have ever asked or known the amount before getting home and opening the envelope I was handed on my way out. This is occasionally a “love offering” but more often an amount set in advance by the church or conference. I have never been given an honorarium that was embarrassingly high or discouragingly low. Thinking back to an event from some time ago, I spent roughly 8 days preparing two sermons to deliver there. The conference had me away from home for a further 4 days. In the end, I received $1500–an amount that seems quite typical. That’s the economics of a conference from a speaker’s perspective. Some conference speakers have these honoraria paid out to the ministry they represent while others, especially those who do not draw a salary from a ministry, count them as personal income.
Conclusion
Again, I consider it a privilege to speak at a conference. Yet the privilege is not in special treatment or luxurious perks. The privilege is simply being able to be with the Lord’s people and speak the Lord’s Word to them. And that, I think, is as it ought to be.

Good morning from Sydney, Australia, where I’ve stopped for just one night before heading back across the Pacific. It has been a good and successful journey, but I’m ready to be home!

Today’s Kindle deals include a substantial collection from Crossway.
(Yesterday on the blog: Trusting God with Creation But Not Providence)
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, April Witkowski & the Myth of the Wasted Ministry
This is a sweet reflection by Peter Witkowski. “Our lives today will not be defined by our dreams, hopes, or expectations of what is to come (of what may never come) but will be defined by our faithful execution of the life and ministry God has given us in this moment. If we are faithfully serving God today in accordance with his Word and our calling and gifting, our lives are not a waste but rather the very definition of success.”
Beware of the Birds: How Satan Sabotages Sermons
“Every Sunday morning, they perch among us. Listen closely and you can hear their wings flapping overhead. Singing voices have quieted, the preacher mounts his summit, the book is laid open. As the people fidget in the pew, readying to hear God speak through a man, the crows and ravens stir in anticipation. Caws and muffled croaks murmur in the rafters. Some sound eerily like a chuckle.”
Alistair Begg on LGBT issues, gentleness and ‘conversion therapy’
I enjoyed this conversation with Alistair Begg as he addresses a number of important contemporary issues.
3 Views on Baptism
Core Christianity has put together three articles that address the three major Protestant views of baptism.
What are the Most Important Qualities in a Missionary?
There is undoubtedly something to be said for these particular attributes.
What Is a Woman?
Alan Shlemon has an answer for one of the defining questions of our times.
Flashback: Why Should We Try To Add One Stitch To a Finished Garment?
Easter is a day of acceptance, a day of completion…Yet despite the sufficiency of Christ’s work, we can so easily slip back into an old mindset in which we become convinced there is still something left for us to do.

God has so wired us that beauty generates powerful experiences of wonder. Wonder is one of God’s most precious gifts to us, especially when it leads us to its intended end—worship of our beautiful God. —Steve DeWitt

Each of us is prone at times to lose our confidence in God’s wisdom and to assume that he would benefit from a bit of our own. How often do we grumble and complain against God’s will? How often in prayer do we attempt to direct God according to our own limited knowledge, our own limited wisdom?

Yet God’s creation has a way of redirecting our thoughts, for it displays the greatness of his wisdom. God created it without the least bit of input from any man, yet he made it good and very good. And if God exercised his wisdom in creating so wonderful a universe, shouldn’t we trust him to exercise his wisdom in the affairs and circumstances of our lives? Will we trust him with creation but not providence, trust him to create but not to direct?
To ask the question is to highlight its absurdity. Faith directs us to believe that God’s providence is every bit as beautiful as creation—as beautiful as the mighty mountains, as awesome as the expanse of the oceans, as stunning as the most wondrous of all the creatures that live on the earth.
As Matthew Henry once wrote, “God did not consult us in making the world, yet it is well made; why should we expect then that he should take his measures from us in governing it?”
(This is an excerpt from my forthcoming devotional book Understanding and Trusting Our Great God)

My thanks goes to Children’s Hunger Fund for sponsoring the blog this week. Be sure to read about A Believer’s Response to Poverty. Sponsors are essential to keeping this blog running, so I’m grateful to each and every one. I screen them carefully so encourage you to always give them a good look.

Today’s Kindle deals include newer and older books.
(Yesterday on the blog: Friendship With God)
Not Forever, Yet Still Meaningful
“Make sure they know their commitment doesn’t have to be forever to be meaningful.” This is a helpful tip for any number of circumstances.
Psychology’s Culpability in the Transgender Movement
Jesse Johnson: “I’m writing this because I want to make sure pastors and parents see the massive worldview shift that is taking place in the schools and so-called sciences. The transgender movement has become the gravitational center of our culture. It is fed by the Bible of psychology, and it targets our kids. We should at least be familiar with the book that is being used to justify the massive surge in the transgender movement.”
Please Bear with Me
This is a strong call for love and unity in the local church.
The World is Still Spinning
“The world is still spinning, Love. These are the words that jogged through my mind recently, as I was playing with our 19-month-old grandson. We were in his backyard, and he was mowing the grass with his noisy plastic lawnmower.”
No Further
Cassie Watson: “At dawn, I’m on the beach. It’s deserted—just me, a pelican, and the churning waves. And my churning mind.”
Polity Matters
“Are the rules of the church arbitrary? Do we follow the rules as a part of our commitment to Jesus or are they just something we get from the world? This is a significant question because many think that the church’s rules are more advisory than regulatory. They miss the connection to the scriptures and the work of the church.  Here are some reasons why the rules are important and to be followed.”
Flashback: Bring Her Out and Let Her Be Burned
From a great distance and with the scantest information we can judge another person’s least transgression. Yet we can rack our own hearts and minds and often barely come up with a single way we are anything less than perfect.

Regimens and strategies leave us guilt-ridden when we fail, but prayer that flows out of our relationship with God reminds us of his grace toward us even when we fail. —John Onwuchekwa

This week’s Free Stuff Friday is sponsored by Children’s Hunger Fund (CHF). They have three book bundles for giveaway, featuring titles that have both influenced CHF’s ministry and will hopefully encourage you and your family. Each giveaway package will also include hand-selected items from the Children’s Hunger Fund store. The giveaway will close on April 16th at noon EST.

Good News to the Poor by Tim Chester
Help them or tell them?
Be like Jesus or talk about Jesus?
Social action or gospel proclamation?
Quite often we find ourselves gravitating toward one of those modes over the other—at times going so far as to pit word against deed, as if the two were mutually exclusive. Yet Good News to the Poor shows us how both are integrated in the biblical vision of missions so we may become both evangelists and activists—Christians who talk the talk and who walk the walk.
Author Tim Chester (PhD, University of Wales) is a faculty member of Crosslands and a pastor with Grace Church, Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire.

Church in Hard Places by Mez McConnell and Mike McKinley
It is impossible to alleviate poverty, spiritual or physical, apart from the local church.
In recent years, Christians have shown an increased commitment to helping the poor. But this renewed interest in poverty alleviation is doomed to fail if it is not rooted in the local church—God’s established means of drawing downtrodden people into a transformative relationship with Himself. Emphasizing the priority of the gospel, Mez McConnell and Mike McKinley, both pastors with fruitful ministries among the poor, offer biblical guidelines and practical strategies for planting, revitalizing, and growing faithful churches in hard places—in our own communities and around the world.
Mez McConnell is the senior pastor of Niddrie Community Church in Edinburgh, Scotland. He has been involved in pastoral ministry since 1999 and is the founder of 20schemes, a ministry dedicated to planting gospel-centered churches among the poorest of the poor throughout Scotland. Mike McKinley is the senior pastor of Sterling Park Baptist Church in Sterling, Virginia.

The Sower by Scott James, illustrated by Stephen Crotts
From creation to final restoration, Scripture paints a vivid picture of God as a gardener—sowing seeds, planting gardens, and bringing life through the power of His word. The Sower introduces this biblical imagery to young readers to help them understand the story of redemptive history and look forward to future reconciliation.
Vibrant illustrations complement the book’s lyrical style to engage a child’s imagination and display God’s cultivating work in creation and in the hearts of His people.

Ideal for Children Ages 5-10: Introduces the grand story of redemption in an artistic, imaginative way
Introduction to Biblical Theology: Traces the theme of God as a gardener, cultivator, and vinedresser throughout the Bible
Engaging and Elegant: Vivid illustrations by Stephen Crotts inspire wonder at God’s creative work in our hearts and in the world

All you need to do to enter the drawing is drop your name and email address in the form below.
Giveaway Rules
You may enter one time. When you enter, you permit Children’s Hunger Fund to send you marketing emails. The winners will be notified via email. The giveaway closes on Friday, April 16th at noon EST.

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There are three ways to read a good and growing number of the classics of the Christian faith. The first is to read the original work. This is usually the most rewarding option, but it can pose difficulties when the author’s language is either foreign or antiquated. The second is to read a modernized version in which a contemporary author has generally maintained the content and flow of the book, but rewritten it in modern English. The third is to read a modern adaptation of the work in which a contemporary author writes his own version or adaptation that conveys the same ideas as the original, but with fresh language, illustrations, and so on. As time goes on, many classic works are available in all three formats.

The most recent to receive this treatment is John Owen’s Communion with God. Already available in Communion with the Triune God, a slightly modernized version edited by Justin Taylor and Kelly Kapic, we now have a fully adapted version in Mike McKinley’s Friendship with God: A Path to Deeper Fellowship with the Father, Son, and Spirit.
There is little I need to say about the original text except that it is for good reason that it has stood the test of time. First printed in the 1650s, it continues to be the preeminent work on the subject of the Christian’s communion with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—realities that Owen understood to be not only crucial to the Christian life, but actually the heart and soul of it.
In this adaptation, McKinley chooses to speak of “friendship” rather than “communion.” “If you are a Christian,” he explains, “the Bible says that the eternal God—the one who made the universe and everything in it, the God who is more holy and glorious and powerful than we can even begin to understand—that God wants you to know him and be known by him. He has gone to great lengths to make it possible for you to be his friend. He delights in your company and loves to shower you with good gifts. In fact, he plans to spend eternity blessing you far beyond what you can imagine.” And, indeed, within the pages of Scripture we find the Lord referring to his people as friends, family, his body, his bride, and other terms of warmth, endearment, communion, and friendship. “That’s pretty clear, isn’t it? God intends to have a close and intimate connection with us.”
Yet we often have trouble believing this and living like it’s true—imagining that a being as great and holy and mighty as God might actually treasure a relationship with weak and broken people like us. And then even if we do believe it, we can struggle to know how to act out and foster that relationship. “I know both of those struggles in my own life and in the lives of the brothers and sisters in the church I pastor,” says McKinley. “I see it in the Christians who leave to find another church that makes them feel ‘more spiritual,’ in those who are always looking for the new conference or program that will unlock the key insight they need to feel closer to God, in those who have grown doubtful that God could really love someone like them, in those who feel like their walk with the Lord has simply stalled out, and in the people who have settled into going through the motions, hoping that something will change someday.”
And this is precisely where Owen’s book has proven so valuable to so many generations of Christians. Yet as time passes, it becomes increasingly inaccessible. “The problem (and the reason for this book) is that Owen can be difficult to read and understand. His language is outdated, the world that he was writing to is very different from ours, he never tires of listing out points and subpoints, and his writing style can seem overly complicated at times (he never seems to explain anything in ten words if he can explain it in fifty!). As a result, Communion with God just isn’t something that most twenty-first century Christians are going to pick up and read.”
Hence this modernization in which McKinley’s goal has been to “mine some of the most precious diamonds of Owen’s spiritual insights and make them available and applicable to you as you grow in your enjoyment of the friendship of the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I’ve tried to provide some of Owen’s most accessible and helpful quotes from the book, and if this motivates you to go read Owen on your own, you will be richly rewarded for your time and effort. It is true that some wonderful things are inevitably lost when you take a masterpiece written by a genius and let a (definite) nongenius like me shorten, rephrase, and rework it. But while some of Owen’s brilliance has certainly been lost in the process of creating this book, I do have hope that much good remains to serve you in your friendship with God.”
McKinley carries out his task well and helpfully conveys the best of Owen’s work in a way that is much easier to read and digest. If you have wanted to read a classic but have been intimidated by the original, or perhaps even incapable of understanding it, Friendship with God is just the answer. I am glad to recommend it.
Buy from Amazon

Good morning from Fiji, the last long stop on this filming journey. I enjoyed my brief time in Tonga—especially lunch with a local pastor and evangelist. The Lord is at work there!

Westminster Books is offering a deal on a book that is now available in English for the first time.
How Bethel and Hillsong Took Over Our Worship Sets
We may wish it wasn’t so, but the fact is that Bethel and Hillsong have taken over the worship sets in so many churches. This article from CT explains how it got to be that way. “A new study found that Bethel and a handful of other megachurches have cornered the market on worship music in recent years, churning out hit after hit and dominating the worship charts.”
Tiktoker Says Christians Must Choose Between Faith and Evidence
I enjoy the contrast between the sneering Tiktoker and the respectful apologist.
Slowly Going Blind
“It seems to me that one of the surest ways to go blind to the wonder of the world we live in is to see it too much. Imagine if you only ever saw one songbird, or one daffodil, or one rainbow in your whole life—wouldn’t you be overwhelmed? So why are we not overwhelmed when we’ve seen a thousand?”
4 Distinctions to Sort Through when Addressing Sin
There is lots of wisdom here to help sort through what is sin and what may not be. James Seward says, “This article is my effort to push us toward more careful, biblical thinking about addressing sin. It presents four distinctions we should sort through before addressing sin.”
The Power of Example
“You don’t have to look too far in the Bible or in life to see the power of example. We’re wired to be copycats.” There are important spiritual implications to this.
Mercy In The No
Jill explains one of those times when God’s no was just the right answer.
Flashback: It’s Far Too Easy To Buy A Tiger
The sinful heart, like the owner of the tiger, thinks it can contain the ferocity, that it can be the one who masters its strength, who subjugates its power, who persuades it to go only so far but no farther.

My scars are numerous, my flesh is powerless, my enemy is dangerous, but my God is glorious and His grace is totally sufficient. —Matt Papa