What if God had more for our kin this Thanksgiving than the Macy’s parade, tryptophan-induced naps, and NFL football? What if we saw our gatherings with extended family not as a chance to check out, but as an opportunity for Christian mission?

It should be good news to us that we don’t have to be Jedi-master evangelists to be agents of gospel advance among those whom we know best. In fact, it may be better if we’re not.

So before bellying up to this year’s turkey feast, here’s a few thoughts from a fellow bungler to help us think ahead and pray about how we might grow in being proxies for the gospel, in word and deed, among our families this Thanksgiving. These are some practical ideas f…

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In his new book,Gospel Wakefulness, Jared Wilson talks about how all of life is relevant for mission. From drinking coffee to changing diapers, from cutting the grass to washing dishes — all of life can be lived to the glory of God by those who have been awakened to the gospel of our exhaustively sovereign Savior.

He writes,

One of the attendant aims of missional evangelicalism is to challenge the compartmentalizing of the Christian faith that we see within the Western church. We are fantastic at itemizing our schedules, and even if we don't assign God a very large bracket, we are constantly remorseful that we "haven't made much time for him." While such compartmentalizing — as if "time…

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Gospel wakefulness. That's Jared Wilson's term for the Christian's experience of treasuring Jesus more greatly and savoring his power more sweetly than ever before. For some it happens at new birth. For some it's a gradual dawning over time. And for many, it's a kind of spiritual quantum leap, almost like a kind of sanctification warp speed. You'll want to learn more. . . .

So join us this Monday, November 14 at 3PM (EST), for a DG Live interview with Wilson, pastor in Vermont and author of the new book Gospel Wakefulness. We'll ask him all about this reality of gospel wakefulness, its implications, and how to pursue it.

Here's a little sample from Wilson's book:

I have discussed wit…

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John Frame:

We need more Christians who will lead lives of repentance, for repentance always challenges pride. 

If you're coming to God daily to confess to him how much you have sinned, you will find it hard to pretend that you are holier than everybody else. You'll find it hard to put on airs, to pose as the perfect Christian.

When others accuse you of sin, you won't immediately jump to defend yourself, as if of course you could never do wrong and any accusation must be a misunderstanding. Rather, when someone accuses you of sin, you'll respond by thinking there is a high probability that the accusation is true, and you won't be embarrassed to say, "Oh, yes, I did do that. An…

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It was October 31, 1517, that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg. He wanted to debate the sale of indulgences with his fellow university professors. He wrote in Latin, but a nameless visionary translated the theses into German, carried them to the printing press, and enabled their dispersion far and wide.

Luther ended up with more than he bargained for, but he proved to be no coward in defending the discoveries he was making in Scripture. When the Roman church wouldn’t serve him the treat of sufficiently addressing his concerns, he was consigned to the role of sparking the now half-millennium running trick called the Protestant church.

Why Halloween?

O…

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What if a crisp October wind blew through “the way we’ve always done things” at Halloween? What if the Spirit stirred in us a new perspective on October 31? What if dads led their households in a fresh approach to Halloween as Christians on mission?

What if spreading a passion for God’s supremacy in all things included Halloween — that amalgamation of wickedness now the second-largest commercial holiday in the West?

Loving Others and Extending Grace

What if we didn’t think of ourselves as “in the world, but not of it,” but rather, as Jesus says in John 17, “not of the world, but sent into it”?

And what if that led us to move beyond our squabbles about whether or not we’re free to c…

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Maybe you attended a missions conference. Or read a book or article. Or heard a life-altering message. Or perhaps best of all, you were turned upside down by personal interaction with a fellow Christian. For the first time, you’re seeing that we are all “sent.” Every Christian is called to live on gospel mission. Whether God is lighting a new fire in you for “living sent” where you already are, or he’s calling you to cross a culture in missions, what’t next? Where do you go from here?

Here’s the guidance David Platt has for us in his book Radical:

I am concerned about a general vagueness that has existed in contemporary Christianity regarding the next step. We have seen that God blesses…

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As you head back to school, or out to visit a friend or family member—or perhaps as you leave the National Conference in Minneapolis—take a cue from the apostle Paul and bring some good books with (which is a quintessentially Minnesotan way of saying it).

The Time Is Short

In 2 Timothy, the grizzled gospel-carrier knows he’s nearing the end of his days on earth. “The time of my departure has come,” he writes. “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (4:6–7).

His time is short, and he’d like to see his disciple Timothy as quickly as possible. “Do your best to come to me soon” (4:9). It will be a great joy to see his beloved son in the faith one mor…

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C. S. Lewis's words from his classic essay “Learning in War-Time," written during World War II, captured some of the powerful effect 9/11 had on those of us living half a century later.

There is no question of death or life for any of us, only a question of this death or of that — of a machine gun bullet now or a cancer forty years later. 

What does war do to death? It certainly does not make it more frequent; 100 percent of us die, and the percentage cannot be increased. It puts several deaths earlier, but I hardly suppose that that is what we fear. Certainly when the moment comes, it will make little difference how many years we have behind us. 

…

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The first of the Baby Boomers are turning 65 this year, just as their generational progeny, the so-called “Millennials,” are hitting their thirties. With one massive generation approaching retirement, while another even larger group seeks to establish itself in the adult world, it’s a recipe for generational tension.

The Boomers were born in the post-WWII birthrate “boom” from 1946 to about 1965. After this significant two-decade spike, there was a kind of birthrate recession from about 1965 to 1980—referred to as “Generation X.” Then followed from about 1980 through the end of the century a kind of “echo boom,” as the Boomers produced offspring en masse and the birthrate again soared. The…

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