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Joshua Reich

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If You’re a Parent, This Is the Most Important Thing You’ll Read Today & 9 Other Articles You Should Read this Weekend

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leader

Each Friday I share some posts that I’ve come across in the last week. They range in topics and sources but they are all things I’ve found interesting or helpful that I hope will be interesting and helpful to you. Here are 10 posts I came across this week that challenged my thinking or helped me as a leader, pastor, husband and father:

  1. Why the Christian Philosopher’s case for Same-Sex Marriage is Shallow by Wesley Hill
  2. Eight Ways Pastors Can Cultivate Long-Term Tenures by Art Rainer
  3. 30 Observations About Fast-Growing Churches by Brian Dodd
  4. 5 Reasons for Pastors to Appreciate Their Church by Chris Hefner
  5. How To Define Your Preaching Audience by Brian Jones
  6. 7 Hints You’re About to Make a Bad Leadership Decision by Ron Edmondson
  7. The Two Most Common Practices in Healthy Churches by Thom Rainer
  8. Children and Sleepovers: What Parents Need to Know by Tim Challies
  9. Mom as Unsung Disciple-Maker by Sam Bierig (via For the Church)
  10. If You’re a Parent, This Is the Most Important Thing You’ll Read Today by Justin Barison (via Inc.)
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Can Suffering Bring Any Joy or Happiness?

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suffering

How to find God in the midst of pain and hurt.

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Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my 75 years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or attained. In other words, if it ever were to be possible to eliminate affliction from our earthly existence by means of some drug or other medical mumbo jumbo…the result would not be to make life delectable, but to make it too banal and trivial to be endurable. This, of course, is what the Cross signifies. And it is the Cross, more than anything else, that has called me inexorably to Christ. -Malcolm Muggeridge

What God does in our pain and suffering.

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A Prayerful Response to the Election

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As we move towards the election, many of us have different thoughts about it, the candidates and the direction of our country. Some are excited, some are fearful, some are indifferent. Elections create joy and anxiety for different people.

As followers of Jesus, we are to engage politics in a unique, distinct and attractive way.

Followers of Jesus are to engage politics in a unique, distinct and attractive way.

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But how do we do that?

One of the ways we can do that is by focusing ourselves through praying the Lord’s Prayer.

election

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

God is our good and gracious Father who always does what is good, right and perfect. A father cares deeply for his children, and our heavenly Father cares deeply for His creation.

Acknowledging that God is Father also reminds us that God is in charge. That our God is in heaven, and nothing happens without His direction and permission. While we may not always understand or agree with His direction or permission, we can rest knowing His care for us as a Father.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

We are reminded that ultimately God’s kingdom will come. God’s will will be done. Nothing can thwart that.

Regardless of the election results, we know that God is still God and Jesus is still on the throne, on earth as it is in heaven.

This is great comfort to a follower of Jesus.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

This line helps us to remember where our needs get met and what God has done for us.

This also reminds us of where our response comes from, that we are to engage politics in a unique, distinct and attractive way. We can do this because we know that on our own, we live unforgiven, debt ridden lives. This allows us to extend the forgiveness we have received to those around us.

election

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

We are tempted to be evil when it comes to politics. We are tempted to repay evil with evil. We also need to be delivered from evil because there is evil in our world (although not always in the places we think).

This is a reminder of our fallenness apart from Jesus and our need for His grace. This reminds us of not only our need, but also that Jesus is the only deliverer. Not a political party, not a candidate, a policy or a platform. While those are tools God can and does use, they cannot save us and deliver us.

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever.

This last line sums it up well. God is in control, forever and ever. All the kingdom, the power and the glory go to Him. Regardless of what happens in a culture or election, we can rest knowing we can live knowing that.

The Lord’s prayer as a response to the election.

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Monday Morning Mind Dump…

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mind dump

  • Yesterday was a lot of fun at Revolution.
  • I’m thankful for a church that is willing to dive into the hard topics and be stretched.
  • As part of our series in Romans, we unpacked how a follower of Jesus is should relate and respond to the election.
  • The response has been overwhelmingly positive.
  • If you want to listen or watch it, you can do so here.
  • Personally, we are in a crazy busy season with a ton of family visiting us.
  • Once November rolls around, people want to come to Tucson.
  • I get it because summer is horribly hot.
  • I started reading A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix over the weekend. 
  • I’ve been told recently by several leaders I respect that it is the best book on leadership.
  • Hands down, one leader told me.
  • So, I had to start it.
  • With all the reading we’ve done on adoption, attachment and family systems, I’m really interested to dive into it as there’s a lot of that in it and applied to leadership.
  • While I don’t like scary things, I’m really excited for Halloween tonight.
  • It’s the one night a year all my neighbors are out and I can meet them if I haven’t yet.
  • Here’s what our family does to capitalize on Halloween and be on mission.
  • Next week, Katie is going to a photography conference, so I get to single dad it for 4 days.
  • Praying our kids survive on cereal and pizza.
  • I’m excited for her and to see her keep growing in her talent.
  • I’m blown away at what she does and how creative she is.
  • We got to have lunch yesterday with a couple that is about to have their first child in 2 weeks.
  • That season feels like a lifetime ago.
  • But it was awesome to hear their questions and to see their desire to grow as a couple to last in their marriage and make it in parenting.
  • Bottom line, lasting and loving it as a parent and in marriage takes intentionality.
  • It will not just happen.
  • One highlight for me personally coming up is we are talking about starting my next tattoo soon.
  • Something to go along with Katie’s tattoo and the journey we’ve been on together as a couple.
  • I’m still blown away Katie got a tattoo and it is awesome looking.
  • Well, back to it.
  • While I’m not preaching on politics per se this Sunday, I’m talking about the kingdom of God and the values of it.
  • Should be a lot of fun.
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7 Thoughts for Parenting a Young Family During the Presidential Election Season & 3 Other Posts You Should Read this Weekend

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leader

Each Friday I share some posts that I’ve come across in the last week. They range in topics and sources but they are all things I’ve found interesting or helpful that I hope will be interesting and helpful to you. Here are 4 posts I came across this week that challenged my thinking or helped me as a leader, pastor, husband and father:

  1. 7 Thoughts for Parenting a Young Family During the Presidential Election Season by Ron Edmondson
  2. 3 Shifts Growing Churches Make to Welcome the Lost [The Growing Church] by Brandon Kelley
  3. The Pastor’s Facebook Feed by Lauren Hunter
  4. The Internal Battles of Even the Best Pastors by Brandon Cox
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The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: Preaching

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There is a weight that pastors feel that I don’t know translates into other jobs. I think that people in churches can know about it but not fully understand it. I know that as a youth pastor I didn’t truly understand the weight of pastoring until becoming a lead pastor. For no particular reason it just worked that way.

The weight of pastoring.

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While there are many weights that a pastor carries, some of them are just human weights that others carry (including parenting), but I thought up five that I think pastors particularly carry on a daily basis because of what they do each and every week. There is an important distinction here: these are not pains. These are the weights of pastoring. There is a huge difference between pain and weight (so no one misses that).

Over the coming months I wanted to share some of the weights and joys of pastoring.

preaching

Weight #1: Preaching God’s Word Every Week

One of my favorite parts of my job is preaching every week, and for your pastor, this is probably one of his favorite parts of his job. Yes, I call it preaching, not teaching. For me the goal of preaching is life change, not to pass on information or to make people smarter.

There is this weight of knowing that each week you are standing in front of a group of people and trying to communicate in an accurate way what the Bible says. The idea of God using you and speaking through you is incredibly weighty. The idea that in our church every week there are broken marriages, addictions, pain, hurt, questions, doubts, people who are struggling with their faith, people who are trying to piece together their faith, and people who don’t know Jesus and are going to spend eternity without Him.

This is weighty.

It keeps me and other pastors up during the week, it humbles us as we read, as we pray, as we think through the faces and the stories every week of our churches.

While we don’t decide for people, and we don’t make people change, the weight is the part that we play in this. The idea that God can and does use preaching every week is weighty.

The weight that if we’re not prepared, we dishonor God and the call He has placed on our lives. If we’re not prepared, someone may think their suspicions of God, church and pastors have been confirmed, and they move farther away from God rather than closer.

One of the things that I try to do every week, and it doesn’t always happen, is to stand up at Revolution and preach like it is the last time I am going to preach. This is pastor talk for leaving it all on the field.

I’m often asked by people how they can help me or support me (or support their pastor). Here are some ways:

  • Pray during the week when I’m studying.
  • Pray on Saturday night. I rarely sleep well on Saturday nights as I am thinking about Sunday morning.
  • Come on Sunday expecting God to show up.
  • Don’t bring something up on Sunday before church; wait until after church. That sounds rude, but for me personally, if I can stay focused on my message before church, it goes so much better for me.
  • Pray and support Katie. The best way to serve and care for a pastor is to serve and care for his wife. While I carry a weight and have a target on my back, Katie feels it even more, and it is often lonelier and heavier for her.
How to pray for your pastor.

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Tuesday Mind Dump…

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mind dump

  • This past Sunday at Revolution was one of those days that pastors love.
  • It was a topic that has so much relevance to people, challenges people and is helpful.
  • How to forgive.
  • If you missed it or want to hear it again, you can watch it here.
  • For me, it was very timely.
  • Sunday morning I got a nasty anonymous comment on my blog that was really painful.
  • So walking onto the stage to preach about forgiveness with that hanging over me was hard but also a reminder of God’s grace to me.
  • I’ve been forgiven for things that are so much worse than someone lashing out at me on my blog.
  • I’m thankful for the RC leaders and elders at Revolution who pray with me and over me on Sunday mornings.
  • Especially this past Sunday.
  • Pastors, remember this: when someone lashes out at you in an email, a blog comment, conversation, a tweet, they are hurting and they don’t know how to process that hurt. Don’t take it personally.
  • It has way more to do with them, not you.
  • Easier said than done, but possible.
  • Last week was awesome for me, Katie went and got a tattoo.
  • It turned out amazing.
  • I love the imagery behind it and the story it represents in her life.
  • It was a lot of fun too.
  • We’re in the middle of a busy season of family coming into town.
  • Over the next 7 weeks, we have 5 weeks of family either coming to see us or Katie and I traveling.
  • Lots happening!
  • I’m preaching on politics this Sunday as part of our series in Romans.
  • It should be a lot of fun.
  • These books have been really helpful to me while I’ve prepped: Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel and Jesus Outside the Lines: A Way Forward for Those Who Are Tired of Taking Sides.
  • You might not agree with everything in them, but they’ll at least make you think.
  • Which isn’t always a bad thing for a Christian to do.
  • I’m probably taking one of our sons to see the U of A homecoming football game on Saturday.
  • I’m hoping it’s at least close.
  • We started sharing about our Christmas offering and some of the ideas we’re doing this year as part of our series Being Rich in What Matters Most. 
  • I think it’s going to be a challenging series for our church.
  • I love the idea of people in our church sharing God’s love on a daily basis for 30 days in December.
  • My hope is that it is the start of a simple, daily habit.
  • Don’t forget that Halloween is next week.
  • Great opportunity to engage your neighbors and meet them and share the love of Jesus with them.
  • Well, back at it.
  • Have a great week!
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How to Forgive, Let Go & Deal with Hurt in Relationships

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forgive

Forgiveness is tough. In a sermon, giving forgiveness sounds so easy and clean. Yet in real life it is difficult and messy. The reality, though, is that we forgive as much as we believe we are forgiven. Whenever we withhold forgiveness we deny the power of the cross. Whenever we say, “I can’t forgive that person”, or, “I can’t let go of that situation”, we deny the power of the cross. We deny the power of what God redeemed us to do.

How to Forgive, Let Go & Deal with Hurt in Relationships.

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Before walking through giving forgiveness, let’s look at what forgiveness is not.

In his book Rumors of God, Jon Tyson said there are six myths about forgiveness:

  1. Forgiving is the same as forgetting.
  2. Forgiving is the same as reconciling.
  3. Forgiving is the same as excusing.
  4. Forgiving will make you weak.
  5. Forgiving is a simple act or decision.
  6. Forgiving depends on the perpetrator admitting wrong.
6 myths about forgiveness.

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Forgiveness is letting go, canceling what is owed to you, letting go of the control the offender has over you. It is giving up revenge, and as we see in Romans 12:19, it is leaving it in God’s hands.

As you walk through this door and grant forgiveness, here are a few of things to keep in mind:

3 things to remember when you forgive.

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1. Forgiving someone does not mean pretending it didn’t happen. Forgiving does not mean forgetting, as the old saying goes. Those scars still exist. They are still there. Forgiving means acknowledging it happened and the pain associated with it. It is facing the hurt.

2. Giving forgiveness means bearing the other person’s sin. There is a cost to forgiveness. You must bear their sin. The cost of forgiveness is always on the person granting forgiveness. This is why forgiveness is so hard. C.S. Lewis said, “Forgiveness is a beautiful word, until you have something to forgive.”

3. Forgiveness is possible because Jesus bore your sin and the cost of your forgiveness. When we look at the cross, we see how Jesus bore our sin, knowing we would fail again and again. Yet, he forgave us. The power of this moment is what enables us to forgive the way Jesus did.

How to forgive, let go of your hurt and move forward in relationships.

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5 Emotional Intelligence Hacks That Can Immediately Improve Your Leadership & 6 Other Posts You Should Read this Weekend

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leader

Each Friday I share some posts that I’ve come across in the last week. They range in topics and sources but they are all things I’ve found interesting or helpful that I hope will be interesting and helpful to you. Here are 7 posts I came across this week that challenged my thinking or helped me as a leader, pastor, husband and father:

  1. 5 Emotional Intelligence Hacks That Can Immediately Improve Your Leadership by Carey Nieuwhof
  2. 10 Things I Wish I Could Say as a Pastor by Chuck Lawless
  3. 4 Misleading Ways to Measure Church Health…And a Guide That Can Help by Tony Morgan
  4. 10 Myths of About Being A Visionary Leader by Paul Sohn
  5. 5 Ways Ministry Has Changed in 20 Years by Ron Edmondson
  6. The Best 5 Books on Preaching
  7. 6 Pastoral Tips for Non-Pastoral Types by Rich Birch
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The Defining Characteristic of Christians and the Church

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Christians

What are Christians and churches known for?

What are Christians and churches known for?

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If you ask most people, and many researchers have done this, you will hear things like hateful, angry, hypocritical, ant-gay, mean-spirited. In our current cultural climate it is often associated with mean-spirited, conservative politics.

Yet according to the Bible, none of those things are what Christians and churches should be known for.

I think Romans 12:9 – 16 holds the answer for what Christians and churches should be known for right now.

What should Christians and churches be known for?

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Love.

In our culture love is a word that gets thrown around and has a lot of different ideas. Love is often seen as tolerance or an emotion that drives our lives. We love sunsets, pizza, naps and cats.

But all those ideas give an empty sense to what love truly is.

In the Bible, love is a choice. A mind-set. A clear step someone has taken. Love always costs something. It costs the person giving the love, not receiving the love.

Specifically in Romans 12:9 – 16, Paul says that love is the mark of a true Christian.

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.

When people think of churches and Christians, they should think of people who love what is good, who are against all evil. Who show honor to others, regardless of the honor they are shown. Who, instead of gossiping, are patient and take those things to God in prayer.

As we think of the current conversations in our culture on politics and race and see what people post on social media, Christians should be known for blessing others, not cursing them. Instead of asking whether they think someone has a right to weep because of racism, they weep with them. They strive to live in harmony with one another.

As Paul will say in verse 18: If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

I believe, and I think Paul does too, that love in this way, sacrificial love, would turn the tide of a culture. It would show the world around us what God is truly like. It would make people stop and take notice of the church and Jesus.

As you think of what stands out to you in Romans 12, why do you think the Holy Spirit made that verse stand out? What person do you need to be more loving towards? Are your Facebook posts defined by love or cursing? Is there someone in your life you need to weep with instead of giving advice to or asking if they have the right to weep?

These are hard questions. These are difficult questions, because they push us to think of others instead of ourselves. But they are what we are called to.