“When Christians trust God, they find themselves doing things that otherwise seemed impossible.” (From my devotional today in Anchor.)
Big topics covered this Sunday in the Confession Overview Class. For example: How can you experience communion with God? And what does that even mean? Join us after worship, 11:15am-12:00pm. Here is the updated handout.
It amazes me that God uses human teachers to help us grow, but he does. As Paul said to the Thessalonians, “You became imitators of us and of the Lord…. And so you became a model to all the believers.” Whom are you imitating? Why? Who is imitating you? Is it good that they are?
Currently reading: The Christian Family by Herman Bavinck 📚
Got a great intern coming from @wscal to officially start the Covenant Summer Internship Program next week. Thx to churches across the @OrthodoxPC for helping us make this possible and to an anon supporter in #Tucson for funding the housing. Y’all are amazing. Praise God!
R. Scott Clark: “Are P&R Churches “Wholly Inadequate” To Investigate Abuse?”
“This is not a binary choice. The church should fulfill its vocation to address sin but it should do so with all the resources it has to hand.”
At Glover Ranch tonight. Saw paintings by students of @dellachelpkaart. Reminded me of the filmmaking comeback in Marana. Southern Arizona is great place for art.
Reading: Thoughts on Family Worship by James W. Alexander. 📚
As authoritative, powerful, helpful, and life-giving as God’s Word is, I hope you’re in a church where you get to hear lots of the Bible. @LigonDuncan explains more about the public reading of Scripture. Advice for pastors included. (Tweet)
This Sunday at Covenant, I continue my overview the Westminster Confession of Faith after worship. Coming up: oaths and vows; civil govern; marriage and divorce. Here are the notes..
In Christ, we are also children of God and walk in the way of our Father. “Walk with God, before God, and after God” via @fredfredsanders
Good: Jehoshaphat walked in all the way of Asa his father. Glorious: Jesus walked in all the way of God his father.
Feedback can be very valuable for pastors or any kind of leader, but it can be hard to get, especially if you want it fast. Here are a few ideas I’m sharing that might help.
This is entry 4 of the blogchain Better Leading, Better Meeting.
I was inspired by this post to share some ideas about how you can get immediate feedback from a group. before, during, or after a class or a meeting.
Most digital communication platforms offer both public and private ways to communicate quickly, including sharing feedback. One way to extend their use beyond the obvious is to decide on an agreed upon emoji code for evaluating. Also, some tools, like WebEx Meet, already have a sophisticated polling features already built in.
For in-person events, I sometimes have people use hand signs to indicate how they feel or think about a question. This is less distruptive and time consuming than using paper; also easier than voice votes for those who are more shy.
If you want to offer more privacy or even completely anonymize responses, digital solutions can help. There are some very fancy and expensive options, but many are overkill for what I need. One simple option is to have a students simply text you their responses. Get them ready by having each person send you a quick text at the start of class. A silly emoji is fun. If you don’t want to share your phone number you could get a new one for the course at no cost or you could use a web-based messaging service like tawk.to. Sharing a QR code that will take people to a pre-made online survey is another option.
An option that allows for anonymous but public responses is to share a publicly editable document from the cloud with the group. You could write a question, then have them write their answers. Just like this. As before, it’s good to practice the tech before you use it that way people feel free and ready to respond when they need to.
Of course, you can learn a lot from simply listening and watching and asking good questions.
