Thanks to all who came out to the launch event yesterday. It was a blessing to meet so many of you. I’m sorry that we ran out of books! The bookstore is attempting to replenish them; alternatively, you can order it from the bookstore or online.

Don’t Sleep on Rural Ministry
Jared Wilson has some good comments here on rural ministry.
How Can I Confirm Whether I Am Truly Saved? (Video)
This is a helpful answer to a very common question.
The Word Faithfully Preached
I enjoyed these comments on faithful preachers and faithful preaching
Forgiven
“Simon invites Jesus to a meal in his home. Holding Him at arm’s length. Studying the Master. And in the midst of critical scrutiny, he foregoes the most basic act of hospitality. Washing the feet of his guest.”
Why would God ever be gracious to us?
“Why would God ever be gracious to us? Why would he ever be gracious and kind and loving to a bunch of miserable, rotten sinners? After all, the God of the Bible is quite explicit in his condemnation of us from start to finish.”
Driven by Awe: Fighting Sin
“When Christians think of fighting sin, we usually imagine strict self-discipline and saying ‘no’ to wrong desires. Certainly, self-control is one of the fruits of the Spirit and a means of helping us fight our sin. But, what if we had another tool given to us by the Spirit to help us overcome?”
Flashback: Parent Love and Grandparent Love
Let me offer two ways I believe grandparents can take on a role of spiritual influence in the lives of their grandchildren.

When discipline leaves a church, Christ goes with it. —John Dagg

This morning I will be hosting a launch event for my new book Seasons of Sorrow. It will be taking place immediately prior to the Getty Music Sing! Conference at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

For those who plan to attend, or who still wish to attend, here’s the information you’ll need:

I will be joined by Alistair Begg, Bob Lepine, and the band CityAlight (who will, in turn, be joined by Sandra McCracken). I will open the event, then Alistair, Bob, and I will have a discussion about God’s purposes and God’s comfort in our times of grief, sorrow, and loss. CityAlight and Sandra McCracken will close things out by debuting a new song titled “In the Valley (Bless the Lord).” This song, which is inspired by Seasons of Sorrow, will debut at the conference, then be released to all music platforms on September 13, which is also the book’s official release date. The recorded version of the song is a duet with CityAlight’s vocalist and Sandra McCracken.
The event will begin at 10:30 AM and be held in the Delta Ballroom, which is the “main room” that will host the conference’s plenary sessions. The event will end by 11:30 to allow plenty of time to get some lunch before the conference formally begins.
If you are attending the Sing! conference, you can simply come to the Delta ballroom for 10:30 AM. Please do come, even if you haven’t registered!
If you are not attending the Sing! conference you are also welcome to come; perhaps plan to arrive just a few minutes early since the resort is big, sprawling, and fairly difficult to navigate.
Seasons of Sorrow will be available for purchase at the launch event and in the conference bookstore.
Though the launch event will not be live-streamed, it will be recorded and released to those who are attending the Virtual Conference. (Save 35% on any virtual pass with coupon code CHALLIES35.)

I am looking forward to seeing many of you there. I plan to stick around after the event to meet you, so please don’t feel the need to rush off. See you soon!

Happy Labor Day (that’s Labour Day in Canada) for those who are enjoying a day of rest today.

Today is the launch event for my book Seasons of Sorrow. If you’re looking for information about that, please visit this page. Remember that the book is now available for pre-order from Amazon and actually shipping from Westminster Books.
Today’s Kindle deals include a nice little list from Crossway.
(Yesterday on the blog: The Signal Gun of the Gospel)
Did the Pandemic Open Doors? Effects of COVID on Missions
This article at DG asks and answers an interesting question: “How is God using all the effects of COVID-19 to accomplish his purposes in the world?”
Ashamed Sinner, Unashamed Savior
“When you’re in the midst of guilt and shame—which we should rightly feel in the midst of sin—we have to take all that he has done and his promises to God and see that he’s actually not ashamed of us. It’s not that he excuses sin, but he welcomes sinners.”
Now What? How Parents Can Pray for Their College-Aged Kids
“How can we encourage, support, and especially pray for our kids when they’re away at college?” Cara has some experience at this and offers an answer.
Good News for the Overwhelmed
Darryl Dash: “I felt overwhelmed again this week. I always feel overwhelmed at the beginning of the Fall. I love the summer pace. As a new ministry year begins, I feel intimidated at what lies ahead: fuller schedules, new initiatives, and more to do than I can possibly accomplish.”
Be Still…
Why should we learn to be still and how can we actually do it? That’s what this one is about.
More on Projectors in Worship
I wish this article did a bit more to consider the benefits of using projectors (vs hymnals) in worship. But it is interesting to consider these drawbacks and, most of all, to ask whether we really think carefully about the benefits and drawbacks before we bring changes to our churches and our worship.
Flashback: Thank God For Your Job (Doesn’t Matter What Your Job Is!)
As you enjoy rest from your labors, why don’t you take a bit of time to thank God for your labors. No matter what they are, they are evidence of his kindness and mercy toward you.

If we really believe that the God who created the universe cares for us and is working in our lives, then that removes the fear that makes us hoard our money and turn away everyone who might need the generosity that God asks of us. —Bryan Chapell

We must always preach the gospel and always do so with some measure of urgency. De Witt Talmage was particularly adept at preaching with urgency as this excerpt from one of his sermon illustrates. He tells of the sinking of the ship Arctic and the heroic actions of one young man who was aboard it. And as Talmage does that, he warns his listeners not to delay but to turn to Christ at that very moment.

I remember the story of the lad on the Arctic some years ago—the lad Stewart Holland. A vessel crashed into the Arctic in the time of a fog, and it was found that the ship must go down. Some of the passengers got off in the lifeboats, some got off on rafts; but three hundred went to the bottom.
During all those hours of calamity, Stewart Holland stood at the signal gun, and it sounded across the sea, boom ! boom! The helmsman forsook his place, the engineer was gone, and some fainted, and some prayed, and some blasphemed, and the powder was gone, and they could no more let off the signal gun. The lad broke in the magazine, and brought out more powder, and again the gun boomed over the sea.
Oh, my friends, I behold many of you in immortal peril. Sickness will come down after awhile upon you, death will come upon you, judgment will come upon you, eternity will come upon you. Some, having taken the warning, have gone off in the lifeboat, and they are safe; but others are not making any attempt to escape. So I stand at this signal gun of the Gospel, sounding the alarm, beware! beware! “Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation.” The wrath to come! The wrath to come! Boom! Boom! Fly to the hope of the Gospel. Jesus waits. He stretches out His arms to all this auditory, and cries tonight with a tenderness I have never heard before : “Come unto me, all ye! Come!”

Here are a few deals to keep in mind today:

(Yesterday on the blog: Dream Small)
The Lord Almighty Reigns
You’ll enjoy this new song from Keith & Kristyn Getty.
The Fruit Grown in a Flock by Pastoral Encouragement
This article is meant to encourage pastors to be encouraging.
The Cancellation of Dr. Nassif
Carl Trueman: “For anyone wondering how traditional Christianity is going to fare in the culture in future, even within many Christian institutions, the disturbing tale of Dr. Bradley Nassif, formerly of North Park University, an institution formally connected to the theologically conservative Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC), offers an interesting case in point.”
Protecting and Cultivating Your Marriage
In this brief video, Hershael York explains how ministry leaders can invest in the most valuable relationship in your life and ministry.
How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament
This is a neat ongoing series by Jason DeRouchie that means to help you know how to understand and apply the OT.
The parable of monkeypox
This article from Al Mohler is a few weeks old but still timely.
Flashback: Tips for Young (and Maybe Not-So-Young) Bloggers
Even as you grow in knowledge and begin to share that knowledge with others, be certain that you put the higher priority on humility. The Christian world has greater need of examples of humble young people than know-it-all young people.

If you give the devil your pen, he’ll write you a horror story. —David Murray

This week’s Free Stuff Friday is sponsored by Christian Focus Publications. They are offering copies of The Illustrated Westminster Shorter Catechism five winners.

Each generation must not only come face to face with the truth of the gospel, receiving and embracing it for themselves; they must also guard that which is entrusted to them, in turn passing on and entrusting to yet another generation.
Stretching back to the early Church (in fact one could even say right back to Old Testament times), each successive generation has been taught in one way or another through a catechism.  The Westminster Shorter Catechism stands in a long line of catechisms that has been used as a tool to help teach ‘the faith once delivered to the saints’ (Jude v3) down through the ages and which has endured and remained with us.  Alongside the Heidelberg Catechism, the Westminster Shorter Catechism was penned during the Reformation period; Heidelberg in 1563 and the Shorter Catechism in 1647.
Since then, the Shorter Catechism has been used in Reformed and Presbyterian churches, becoming both well-loved and well-worn (though not a universal experience, otherwise we would not have felt the need for the project!)  Yet it remains that it has stood the test of time – a testimony to the work of the Assembly of Divines – and there are many children and young people learning such great truths and a great many older folk who still remember what they were taught in their day by a previous generation too.
But if you ask people about learning from a catechism you will receive mixed responses.  For some it is dry and antiquated, the reserve of students, theologians, and those folks in tweed jackets. Others ‘had’ to work through it for membership class and now see no further use.  Some may have fond memories of a parent, grandparent, or loved Sunday School teacher who lovingly taught them so many years ago and still remember clearly what they memorised.  Some of us may have no more familiarity than beyond the iconic Question 1.  But does it have to be so?
The project to publish the Illustrated Westminster Shorter Catechism wanted to help provide a tool to continue the use of catechism as a learning tool and form of discipleship.  It aimed to put the catechism back in hands of families, children, young people, and church leaders too; hopefully to encourage those who already practice catechetical learning; and, to introduce it  – or even reintroduce it (perhaps removing some barriers at the same time) – to those not in the practice.  As already alluded to, there can be an image of catechism as dusty, old, outdated, irrelevant, and so the aim was to undertake the project in a contemporary, accessible, and visually attractive way.
Knowing the great heritage that we were working with, how much meaning, theology, and doctrine are behind every word, great care was taken when seeking to modernise and simplify the language and phrasing, ensuring that nothing new was written or introduced.  Hopefully by updating some of the language and phrasing many more people will be introduced to the teaching of the catechism.  With the help of beautiful, carefully thought out artwork, it is hoped that the illustrations will aid teaching and learning and understanding the questions and answers of the catechism.  In our day and age, people are accustomed to great illustrations and graphics, but more than being only aesthetically attractive the illustrations used seek to capture something of the main point being covered.  We need to engage our children and young people and discuss the faith, to help them understand what they are learning – ‘what they believe and why they believe it’ type conversations.  Why not engage them with a contemporary voice that is accessible and creative?
Ultimately, we are convinced by the truth the catechism teaches – something undertaking this project only helped reinforce – and we want you to experience that, holding fast, receiving, and embracing the truth the catechism teaches.  The Shorter Catechism is worthy of the reading and study of all Christians for the truth it so concisely contains.  You may not be able to memorise it; but you can engage with it, use it, talk about it, discuss it, be amazed and humbled by it.  You can pass it on, even to another generation.

Enter Here
Again, there are five copies to win. And all you need to do to enter the draw is to drop your name and email address in the form below, which will add you to Christian Focus’ mailing list.
Giveaway Rules: You may enter one time. Winners will be notified by email.
Christian Focus are giving away copies of The Illustrated Westminster Shorter Catechism to five randomly selected lucky winners who sign up to their mailing list below.

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There are a lot of authors in the Christian world, but not nearly as many writers. There are a lot of people who publish books, but few who have a level of mastery over the English language. There are a lot of people who can say what’s true, but not very many who say it beautifully.

Seth Lewis is one of those rare authors who can truly write. I have been reading his blog for a number of years and have admired his ability to write both poetry and prose that is interesting, compelling, and full of beauty. I was thrilled, then, to learn that he has now also written a book, Dream Small: The Secret Power of the Ordinary Christian Life.
Dream Small takes as its starting point the fact that most of us enlist our dreams and ambitions in the direction of self-aggrandizement. We dream big in the sense that we dream of changing the whole world. And if we fail to do so, if we fail to achieve fame, fortune, or power, we then tend to believe we have failed to live a life of significance.
“The world around you will constantly encourage you to follow your dreams,” says Lewis. “That’s not bad advice as far as it goes, but I’m asking you to pause first, and take the time to ask an important question that often gets overlooked: just where, exactly, are your dreams leading you? Before you follow your dreams, you need to aim them. And what will you aim them at? The default assumption which says that bigger dreams will always turn out better is simply not true. Where will you find better dreams?”
That’s exactly what his book is about. It’s about dreaming better dreams and then working to achieve them. This means he has to set humanity in its proper context as wonderfully significant to God, yet also infinitesimal by comparison to God. He has to explain how the gospel redeems us and directs us toward the good of others and the glory of God. He has to show that God’s values are very different from the world’s and, therefore, often very different from our own. He has to show that by dreaming small we can accumulate achievements that God deems great.

You are here for a purpose. You were carefully crafted with a perfect plan in mind. You are a character in the greatest story ever told, and your life, and your actions, and your decisions—even today—can send shockwaves into eternity. Maybe the role God has for you is big and public. Maybe it is quiet, behind the scenes, where hardly anyone will notice. Don’t worry about that. You can invest in loving God and loving the people he loves from wherever you are, and the best ways to do that have always been the closest, most ordinary, most overlooked and under-appreciated ways, like humble service to humble people and time spent with God and all the little ways we can remind each other of God’s truth and God’s love and the big story he made us to be part of.

To dream small, he explains, is not to miss out on God’s plan for our lives, but to find it, to take hold of it, and to live it out. It’s to live a life of the highest significance to the God whose ways are so very different from our own.
A few years ago the Christian world saw a whole crop of books that dealt with being ordinary—a natural reaction, I think, to books like Radical and Do Hard Things which meant to shake people out of their spiritual complacency. These books achieved their purpose, but may have also discouraged some who tried to be radical and some who tried to do hard things, but who in the end found themselves still living very ordinary lives. Dream Small offers an important correction. It shows beautifully that the most significant Christian life is also the most ordinary Christian life.

Buy from Amazon

Here’s some news: Westminster Books has received their shipment of Seasons of Sorrow and has decided to ship it right away. So if you ordered from them, the book should be on its way. They have also made it their deal of the week so it’s a good time to order.

One Audiobooks has a free copy of Anne of Green Gables if you’d like it. (It’s still and always one of my favorite novels.)
Today’s Kindle deals include Dane Ortlund’s Deeper among others.
The “Good, Better, and Best” of Worship
“Throughout church history, there has been a tendency for serious, theologically-minded believers (and we should all want to be serious, theologically-minded believers) to fall into the trap of being overly critical of the way in which other believers approach the adiaphora circumstances of worship.” This is most certainly true.
For this Purpose I Raised You Up
“When we read God’s statement in scripture where he says, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up,’ commonplace religion has conditioned us always to expect the reason to be something positive for the person addressed.” But in what context does God use those words?
Money’s Not the Problem
“He sat in front of me, bitter and discouraged. His view of his life was that he had been dealt a bad hand. He hated the comfortable lifestyle of so many people around him, and he had long since given up any practical belief in the goodness of God. He had started out our time together by saying this: ‘I’m here to get your advice because my wife told me to get help or she would leave, but I don’t want you to talk to me about God.’”
Panic
There’s lots to think about in this article from Jake Meador as he considers Rod Dreher’s argument that it’s time for a moral panic.
If we don’t understand how people actually live, our solutions won’t really appeal
I suppose that’s common sense. But I think it’s still good to consider.
After Church Discipline: Comfort After Removing a Loved One from Membership
“With a heavy heart, I walked into the church building knowing what was about to take place. As a church, we were gathering together to exercise the final step of church discipline: removal from membership. When the call to vote came, I cast my head down and raised my hand to vote for removal.”
Flashback: The First Two Minutes Matter Most
Here’s the challenge: Determine right now that when the service ends, you will do your utmost to give the first two minutes to someone you don’t know or to someone you don’t know well…It’s the first two minutes that matter most.

If you show me a person whose life is governed by the Word of God, I will show you a person whose life is governed by the Spirit of God. —H.B. Charles Jr.