Informing the Reforming

Blog can be found on:

www.challies.com

Proper introductions begin with names, so let me tell you how to pronounce mine. It’s pronounced CHALL-eez and rhymes with “valleys” and “rallies.” It’s quite simple, really, but is almost always the first question I’m asked.

I am a Christian, a husband to Aileen and a father to three children aged 10 to 16. I worship and serve as an elder at Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto, Ontario. I am a book reviewer, co-founder of Cruciform Press, and have written five books:

The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment (Crossway, 2007)
Sexual Detox: A Guide For Guys Who Are Sick of Porn (Cruciform Press, 2010)
The Next Story: Life and Faith After the Digital Explosion (Zondervan, 2011)
Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity (Cruciform Press, 2015)
Visual Theology: Seeing and Understanding the Truth About God (Zondervan, 2016)

I began this web site in 2002 and have been writing here daily since 2003. It is my place to think out loud and in public while also sharing some of the interesting things I’ve discovered in my online travels.

Free Stuff Fridays

05/08/2016 0 Comment

This week’s Free Stuff Fridays is sponsored by Smallgroup.com who also sponsored the blog this week.

Smallgroup.com is a library of discussion-driven and video-enhanced studies that you can customize for any small group to have a consistent and transformational discipleship experience. It is for churches that want to give their group leaders a powerful discipleship tool and group leaders who want to engage their group at a unique and intentional level. Here are just a few things you can do with smallgroup.com:

Find or create a study to match your group’s preferences.
Build a series of studies based on a specific discipleship plan.
Reinforce a sermon series…

Condone, Condemn, or Mourn?

05/08/2016 0 Comment

Reading Jerry Bridges is invariably good for my soul. He had such a way of reaching deep into the Bible to draw out helpful, heartfelt application. In his book on humility (release posthumously) he offers application that seems particularly appropriate to a time of political turmoil and disunity, and to a time of deep national depravity.

Bridges has just explained that mourning over sin is a display of humility because “We cannot be proud and mourn over sin at the same time. We cannot be judgmental toward other believers, or even toward unbelievers, if we are truly contrite and brokenhearted over our sin.” Then he says this:

The Greek word that Jesus used for mourn is used twice elsewhere for mourning over sin: 1 Corinthians 5:2 and James 4:9. James uses it in the context of our sin, but Paul uses it in the context of tolerating the sin of someone else. I think that in Paul’s use there is a lesson for us to apply in today’s culture.

There is no question that our nation is sinking ..

A La Carte (August 5)

05/08/2016 0 Comment

I did not track down any new Kindle deals today, but you can check out all of the ones from earlier this week on the Kindle deals page. Logos users may want to pick up The Basics of the Faith series at 45% off as well as a 5-volume D.A. Carson series at 30% off.

Holiness Is Not Our Goal
Ed Welch makes an important point here: “Obedience, however—our growth in holiness—is not our goal. It is only a means to an end.”

Is Crowdfunding the New Church?
This is an intriguing question. “For every major religion, giving to the poor is a fundamental pillar. And yet it seems like technology, rather than church, is augmenting charitable giving these days.”

Praying for the Police
Karen Swallow Prior shares an experience and a prayer meeting.

How Not To Grow Weary In Doing Good
We all do at times, don’t we? “You would not think that we who believe in Jesus would grow weary of doing good. He’s been so good to us. When we do good it brings him joy and he rewards us. Yet Paul warned the Galatians n..

A La Carte (August 4)

04/08/2016 0 Comment

Today’s Kindle deals include: Many volumes in the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series, The 100 Most Important Events in Christian History by Kenneth Curtis and Jesus Revealed by Mark D. Roberts. Get those deals and others here.

Westminster Books has their annual sale on the excellent Resources For Changing Lives booklets. They’ve got a number of associated books on sale as well.

God’s Sovereign Grace in Timbuktu
Randy Alcorn tells a neat little tale and he tells it well.

How Can You Get a Mentor?
“I often hear from Christians who want to find a mentor, but aren’t sure how to go about that. Often these believers know they would benefit from this kind of relationship, but they don’t know how it starts or what they should be doing. Here is some guidance on finding a mentor…”

Religious Liberty In Canada
Paul Carter did some research and found the situation is pretty good when it comes to the legal protection of religious liberty here in Canada.

Four Reasons to Pray for Your P..

The Utter Devastation of Sin

03/08/2016 0 Comment

Do you remember Pepé Le Pew? Pepé was a skunk, one of the classic characters from Looney Tunes. He was known for two things: His obsession with finding amour (love, that is) and his unbearable stink. These factors were constantly and comically at cross purposes. If you remember watching those cartoons, you no doubt remember seeing the trail that Pepé left behind him. Wherever he went, wherever he walked, he left behind an offensive cloud of stink. No wonder, then, that he had such trouble finding love! I thought of poor Pepé recently as I was search for a metaphor to help describe matters that are far less comical.

As we make our way through this life we have endless opportunities to encounter sin. Sometimes this is our own sin and sometimes this is the sin of others. Sometimes this sin is pre-meditated and carefully constructed to bring the greatest devastation. Other times this sin is inadvertent, negligent, thoughtless, based on omission rather than commission. Of course the motive..

The Apostle

02/08/2016 0 Comment

Human history contains few lives more interesting, more unusual, more significant, than that of the Apostle Paul. The words he wrote transformed the ancient world and, when rediscovered at the time of the Reformation, shaped the modern world as well. It is impossible to construct an accurate picture of the world today without considering Paul and the letters he wrote so many years ago—letters that became the core of our New Testament.

I was recently considering my love of biographies and thinking about some of the characters I have encountered in them. It occurred to me that I had never read a biography of Paul and determined I should remedy that as soon as possible. I quickly found John Pollock’s The Apostle: A Life of Paul and thoroughly enjoyed it.

There are many ways an author could tell the tale of Paul’s life. He could do it in the form of a novel, but I wasn’t interested in that approach. He could do it in a very academic way and, while there is room for that, I was interested..

Three Things Every Miraculous Group Leader Needs

01/08/2016 0 Comment

This sponsored post was prepared by SmallGroup.com who invites you to sign up for a free trial.

Every time Jesus makes someone more like Himself, it is a miracle. If we are honest about our own hearts we will admit that discipleship is truly miraculous. If your church has decided that discipleship occurs best within a small community of believers, then your goal should be to develop leaders to lead those communities toward the miracle of looking like Christ. Finding already miraculous leaders is almost impossible, which is why they have to be developed. Jesus changed the world with twelve very ordinary men. It was only through intentional time and development were they capable of doing extraordinary things. Even the best leaders in history were not always amazing. If you study their lives, each one had someone that took the time to mentor them to greatness.

If you expect your small group leaders to do the amazing and be miraculous, here are three things that they will need from the l..

There Are 3 Kinds of Churches

01/08/2016 0 Comment

One of my favorite parts of vacation is visiting new churches, sometimes close by and sometimes far away. I enjoy meeting new people, of course, and experiencing Christian fellowship with them. But I also love seeing how other churches worship—what songs they sing, how they structure their services, how they read and pray, how they preach. There are as many varieties of worship as there are congregations and it is a sweet thing to see how they worship the same God in sometimes very different ways. There is always something to learn and apply to my own life and my own church.

This summer has already brought a number of opportunities to visit different churches and I want to share an observation I’ve made: There are three different kinds of churches. There are three different kinds of churches defined by the ways they relate to one another and the ways they relate to visitors. Let me explain what I mean.

The first kind of church is the church that doesn’t love. At least, it doesn’t see..

A La Carte (August 1)

01/08/2016 0 Comment

Today’s Kindle deals include a good selection: Atheism Remix by Albert Mohler; Reasons We Believe by Nathan Busenitz; Is Jesus the Only Way? by Philip Ryken; Reasons for Faith by Norman Geisler; How to Be An Atheist by Mitch Stokes; and What’s Best Next by Matt Perman. Get them here.

Free from Christian Audio this month is The Brothers Karamazov. They also have a lot of other great classics discounted.

The Story of Iran’s Church in Two Sentences
“It’s a simple story that can be summarized in just two sentences: Persecution threatened to wipe out Iran’s tiny church. Instead, the church in Iran has become the fastest growing in the world, and it is influencing the region for Christ. As simple as it is, such an amazing story is worth examining deeper.”

China’s Christian Future
We go from Iran to China: “Two years later, the Holy Spirit made fellowship with me and allowed me to confess my sins. The Lord gave me the chance to repent and he accepted me as his humble servant. I was baptize..

Jane Austen’s Prayer

31/07/2016 0 Comment

Most people—most English-speaking people, at least—know the name Jane Austen. But what few people know is that she was a woman with deep Christian convictions. Michael Haykin makes this clear in his new book Eight Women of Faith. There he shares a prayer was composed by Austen. It is not a particularly great prayer (whatever that means). It is not a particularly original prayer and was clearly inspired by the Anglican prayer book. But it is sincere and personal and evangelical. Read along and see what Jane Austen prayed.

Give us grace, Almighty Father, so to pray, as to deserve to be heard, to address thee with our hearts, as with our lips. Thou art every where present, from thee no secret can be hid. May the knowledge of this, teach us to fix our thoughts on thee, with reverence and devotion that we pray not in vain.

Look with mercy on the sins we have this day committed, and in mercy make us feel them deeply, that our repentance may be sincere, & our resolutions steadfast of ende..