One of the great battles of my life has been the battle to get a good night’s sleep. While I have some periods of success (including right now, thankfully), I always know that another bout of insomnia is never far away. I have learned to embrace this as one of the means through which the Lord keeps me weak and, therefore, dependent upon him. Yet while I have embraced it, I continue to take action against it, for the two are not mutually exclusive.

Those who struggle with sleep know what it’s like to be constantly looking for answers, and if not answers, then tips, tricks, or methods that might turn another wasted night into a good or at least reasonable one. Yet like so many things in life, insomnia so often seems to resist even our best attempts to defeat it.

Sleep, and the lack of it, is the subject of Matt Rehrer’s new book When Sleep Won’t Come. Rehrer is an emergency medicine physician in the San Francisco Bay Area who has a particular interest in the area of sleep. “My interest in studying sleep began from my own struggles,” he says. “As an emergency medicine physician, I work shifts that cover all hours of the day, including overnights. Working when most of the world sleeps presents challenges on both falling asleep and staying asleep when the sun is shining and kids are playing. My sleep problems extend beyond shift work challenges to other reasons and seasons—parenting, ministry, and the challenges that come in everyday life. While writing about sleep, the Lord has given me many opportunities to put into practice what I write.” As a doctor, he has interacted with patients who suffer from a chronic lack of sleep and even wind up in the emergency room because of it. As a pastor and counselor, he has seen how sleep affects spiritual well-being, fostering or contributing to many other issues.

“As both a doctor and pastor, I want to approach sleep from different angles: scientifically—to help you understand your body’s physical rhythms and needs; biblically—to show how God uses sleep and sleeplessness to reveal His grace and care. Sleep is not just a complex biological rhythm of the body but a spiritual rhythm of the soul.” This makes his book unique and uniquely helpful. He did not set out to write an exhaustive or scholarly examination of sleep, and that means his book is far more accessible to those of us who are interested in gaining a biblical perspective on both sleep and sleeping—the theory and the practice.

He begins by explaining what sleep is, then tells why we do it (and indeed must do it). From here he advances to the blessings of sleep and the consequences of insufficient sleep, in each case dedicating a brief chapter to the matter. He then offers medical, environmental, and spiritual reasons we fail to get the sleep we need, before offering wise ways to pursue better sleep. Two final chapters tell how to rest when we cannot sleep and how to live the next day exhausted. It is here that he is at his most pastoral.

Many potential readers will wonder whether he writes about sleep medications and techniques, and the answer is yes. He explains the differences between sleep medications, what they accomplish, and their potential negative consequences. He does the same with some of the non-medication techniques you may find recommended when researching ways to increase sleep.

When Sleep Won’t Come is a brief book, and one that sits nicely at the intersection of medicine and theology, or perhaps better said, medical care and pastoral care. It addresses an issue that is widespread and an issue for which many people experience a great deal of despair. It addresses it with the care of a doctor and the wisdom of a pastor.

I met Rehrer at a conference a few years ago and as we chatted, he mentioned his book. I immediately told him that I was interested in reading it and, if he wished, potentially willing to endorse it. After he had written it and it had passed through the editorial process, I read it at last and will leave you with the endorsement I subsequently passed along, which began much like this review: One of the major battles of my adult life has been the battle to simply get a good night’s rest. I have tried very nearly every strategy and technique there is, except for reading a distinctly Christian book on the subject. I was pleased to learn that in this book, Matt Rehrer brings both medical and theological expertise to the matter. He addresses the whole person and offers a whole solution. And for that reason, I can give this book the praise that only a writer on this subject wants to hear: Read this book, because it may just put you to sleep.

The God of love and peace be with you, my friends.

Don’t pity me for my blindness, for the first face I ever see will be the face of my Lord Jesus.

—Fanny Crosby

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It was Carl Trueman who introduced me to the idea of a deathwork, though the concept is Philip Rieff’s. According to Rieff, a deathwork is an assault on something that is hallowed to an established culture. It isn’t a critique or argument that the culture is untrue, but a means of profaning something that is sacred in order to make it seem ridiculous or repulsive. Trueman summarizes it as “the act of using the sacred symbols of a previous era in order to subvert, and then destroy, their original significance and purpose.”

In The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Trueman uses the example of Andres Serrano’s repulsive 1987 photograph Piss Christ, which displayed a crucifix immersed in the artist’s urine. He says, “Serrano is not simply mocking the sacred order in this work of art; he has turned it into something dirty, disgusting, and vile… The sacramental is made into the excremental.” By putting a crucifix in urine, Serrano makes the holy an object of mockery.

In a later article at First Things, Trueman extends the category to priests who wear the LGBTQ rainbow when carrying out their liturgical duties. To do so is to use a symbol that is sacred, in this case the rainbow, and profane it. “Such actions are deathworks, the willing subversion of the sacred in the service of the profane. The priests and ministers who perform them are simply helping the church become just like our world: a place where the sacred symbols that give church life meaning are degraded and parodied until nothing but chaos remains, and the things intended to remind Christians of God’s faithfulness become objects of ridicule.” He returns to deathworks in his recent The Desecration of Man and says, “Often deathworks will subversively use the idioms or the symbols of something once considered sacred to destroy any notion of the sacred.”

The New Aslan

And that brings me to the forthcoming film adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books. These films are being adapted and directed by Greta Gerwig, who established her directorial credentials with hits like Lady Bird, Little Women, and Barbie. The first of them, The Magician’s Nephew, is expected to arrive in theaters in early 2027 and land on Netflix shortly thereafter. For several months, we heard rumors that Aslan might be voiced by a woman, and sure enough, in a preview of a feature for Empire magazine, Gerwig confirmed the role has gone to Meryl Streep. We also learned that Gerwig was inspired by David Bowie, “both for the look of Aslan (who has multicolored eyes and a red-striped face in this version) as well as the essence of the movie, according to Gerwig. She described wanting the movie to be ‘big and transporting’ and feel like a ‘rock opera.’” The early images show Aslan with not merely a stripe on his face and different-colored eyes, but rainbow coloring as well.

Not surprisingly, Narnia lovers and purists were dismayed by this gender-bending of Aslan, and with Gerwig’s tampering with a beloved character and story. Samuel James argues that it is essential to the character of Aslan that his voice evokes a father; Pierce Taylor Hibbs explains that Aslan must be male because Aslan’s maleness is essential to the story Lewis wrote; Anne Kennedy says Gerwig “is taking a thing of sublime beauty that opens a door of the soul for Christ to step through to heal and restore what is broken and wrong” and says Gerwig herself is the one desecrating it.

Profaning Aslan

When I learned the news, I found myself pondering this question: Is Gerwig’s Aslan an example of a deathwork, or at least similar to one? Is it a subversion of something holy in order to profane it?

Aslan is not holy or sacramental, of course, since he is fictitious. But for Lewis and those who love his books, Aslan is a Christ-figure: he sings Narnia into being, he is the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, he is the King of Beasts, he sacrifices his life for the sake of others, he returns to life after dying, and so on. It could hardly be clearer. Though Lewis did not intend for Aslan to be Jesus, he explicitly intended for him to be like Jesus—to be a supposal, an answer to a question like this: Supposing there were a world that was different from this one, how might its story be like the biblical story?

So how might a glam, rainbow, gender-bent Aslan be like Jesus? The simple answer is that he can’t be. Gerwig has reframed Aslan so that one of several things must be true: either she no longer means for him to parallel Jesus, she reinvented Jesus and then created her version of Aslan to match him, or she failed to think in Lewis’s theological categories. Whichever it is, this Aslan is not and cannot be the Aslan of the books. Perhaps Gerwig means to convey that there is nothing essential to Aslan (and therefore to Jesus) that depends upon his being male. Yet as the critics have made clear, that’s not the case, and Aslan is and must be male, for his voice must evoke fatherhood. I might go a step further to suggest that this Aslan is aligned with today’s cultural ethos, and therefore opposed to the Bible’s ethos, in appearing to be both male and female or, if you prefer, neither male nor female. He may be a Bowie-like character, but he is not a Christ-like one.

I want to acknowledge that Gerwig claims to love Lewis’s works and that she is creating these films as an expression of her love for the stories that were part of her childhood. Yet I would respond that someone can be so immersed in one culture and so opposed to another that her tribute is actually a profanation. It is not impossible, despite her appreciation for Narnia, that for her version of Aslan, and perhaps for the rest of her version of Narnia, the things that are intended to evoke Christ actually ridicule him.

So is this Aslan a deathwork or something similar to one? Does he desecrate something sacred? Does he mock and subvert? We will need to see the whole movie before we can decide the matter definitively, but I would say that the early evidence suggests it’s entirely possible. Again, Aslan is not holy or sacramental to Christians, but he is meant to parallel and represent one who is. He is meant to evoke the kind of joy, love, and awe that Jesus evokes in those who meet him, know him, and follow him. Gerwig’s changes to Aslan appear to mock Jesus rather than respect him. Not only that, but if a new generation comes to know this Aslan, the old one may seem dated or possibly “problematic” by comparison. In that way, this reinvented Aslan may change not only a culture’s character, but also its taste. It threatens to supplant the real Aslan with a version that is better suited to what the culture wants anyway.

Conclusion

We are still months away from seeing Gerwig’s vision for Narnia, but if the earliest looks at her world and descriptions of it accurately represent its finished form, it may have far more of a resemblance to the story of the culture around us than to the story that motivated Lewis to engage his imagination in the first place. It may be her tribute not to Lewis and the story he told, but to the one she wishes for instead. It may just be a deathwork, a work of art that defiles what is sacred to an old world and remakes it in the image of a new one.

I am not anti-AI, but I am opposed to using AI to write on a human’s behalf. Sadly, I’ve been finding some of the writers I have enjoyed in the past are now very obviously relying on AI to do their writing for them. In cases where there is no doubt in my mind, I have stopped following these people and will no longer link to them in A La Carte. I want A La Carte to be a truly human experience!

A man can see farther on his knees than standing on tiptoe.

—De Witt Talmage

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This week, the blog is sponsored by New Growth Press. This article was written by Joe Keller and Rush Witt, authors of the newly released book, Shepherding Time: A Pastor’s Guide to Time Management (foreword by Tim).  Save 35% off Shepherding Time through October 4, 2026, at newgrowthpress.com.

Every pastor and ministry leader knows that time often seems like a difficult riddle that seems impossible to solve. You leave a hospital room, sit down for a budget meeting, and glance at a clock that never stops ticking. You pause and wonder if faithfulness to the church somehow means failure at home, or if resting for an evening means failing someone who needs you.

Scripture offers a freeing perspective on our time. The responsibilities and expectations are not riddles to be solved with a better app. God presents time as a stewardship to be shepherded, one that reveals what we actually believe about him, ourselves, and the Kingdom we serve.

Time reveals what we believe about God’s sovereignty.

Every person, whether pastor or parishioner, has access to the same 168 hours per week. No more, no less. While the amount of time cannot be altered, its use can and must be shepherded. Every wise pastor affirms the prayer of Moses: “Teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts” (Psalm 90:12). We do not steward time well by manufacturing more of it. We steward it well by trusting the God who measured it out.

Time reveals what we believe about pastoral vocation.

Left unexamined, our use of time becomes a referendum on our worth. Did I visit enough people? Prepare enough? Answer enough emails? God calls his pastoral people, and all people, to faithfulness, not omnipotence. Even so, we all struggle with the feeling of guilt, true or false. True guilt calls for repentance and faith, for resting in Christ’s finished work. In fact, the whole purpose of shepherding time leads us to work out who we already are to the glory of God.

Time reveals what we believe about effectiveness.

The parable of the talents raises the question: What are you doing while you wait on Christ? Focus on the stewardship of your own time as it relates to your particular calling, including rest. Though our culture prizes productivity and efficiency, Sabbath defies these norms for our good. It humbles us, proving we are neither machines nor self-sustaining creatures, and interrupts the lie that everything depends on our effort, reorienting our hearts to remember God as the true Shepherd and ourselves as simple stewards.

Shepherding Time: A Pastor’s Guide to Time Management

Shepherding Time equips pastors and ministry leaders to use time with intentionality and humility, so they can serve their people well without losing themselves, their families, or their first love for Christ.

We don’t need to make time; we need to make the most of the time we have. Being intentional in the present is investing in what will last eternally: God, God’s Word, and the souls of people everywhere. We pray this book helps you see your calendar not as a burden to manage, but as a gift to steward, for his glory and your joy.

Available at New Growth Press, Amazon, and Westminster Bookstore.

Subscribe to the Shepherding Time podcast and hear how other pastors and ministry leaders shepherd their time.

A year and a half ago, I wrote about G3 and the shocking news that its founder, Josh Buice, had resigned as both the leader of G3 and the pastor of the associated Pray’s Mill Baptist Church after it was proven that he had been anonymously slandering other Christian leaders online. I told about my involvement in the first eight years of the G3 conference and the reason I stopped being invited to it. If you’d like to read that, you can do so at “You, Me, and G3.” I concluded the article by saying, “I appreciated and enjoyed what G3 once was and would love to see it revisit the spirit it displayed when it was founded. I would be thrilled if G3’s best days and greatest contributions to the kingdom lie not in the past but in the future.”

Sadly, it was not to be. Last month it came out that all four elders of Pray’s Mill Baptist Church were involved in circulating anonymous packages containing damaging material about another pastor and his church’s process of discipline and restoration. The men apologized after their actions came to light, then resigned as elders and swiftly wound down G3. G3’s site, once a significant source for videos and articles, now says simply this: “This Site Is Offline. G3 Ministries is concluding its operations. Thank you for your patience.” It’s a sad ending to what was once a helpful ministry, and it leads to a pair of important lessons I believe we would all be wise to learn from the demise of G3.

In the aftermath of the first scandal, an individual who was associated with the organization reached out to me and we discussed the situation. I expressed my concern that, while the leadership of G3 had rightly moved very quickly to remove Buice from his position of leadership, I saw no indication that the remaining members of the organization were engaged in significant soul-searching to consider whether they had contributed their own sins to Buice’s or whether the sin he exhibited had been seeded right into the organization. Because I was not part of it and was not asked for counsel, there was not much I could do beyond expressing these concerns and hoping others were echoing them.

I don’t know if the leadership ever did that kind of soul-searching, but the events of the past month would seem to indicate that either they did not, or they did not do so sufficiently. Though the two sins happened a year apart, they were of a similar kind, involving secrecy, meddling, accusation, and a failure to go directly to a brother. The pattern that doomed the organization was not greatly different from the one its leaders had taken public action against only one year prior.

“The apple does not fall far from the tree” applies not only to fathers and their children, but also to founders and their organizations. This is the first lesson: just as a founder’s strengths will be embedded in the organization he creates, so will his weaknesses. Just as his strengths may be integral in causing that organization to rise, his weaknesses may be integral in causing it to fall. Thus, a wise leader tries to gain an awareness of his weaknesses and in some way to oppose or mitigate them, perhaps through policy, through limiting his position, or by hiring people whose strengths counter his weaknesses. When that leader leaves his position, and especially if he does so through scandal and disqualification, the organization ought to carefully examine itself to see if and how those weaknesses are part of its very fabric.

A companion to that old adage might go something like this: “The men who cut down the tree were felled by the same axe.” That is the second lesson: even those who rightly judge and discipline a person for committing a particular sin are not necessarily protected from committing it themselves. The moment of condemning a sin in another person is a moment of danger, since we often fail to hold ourselves to the standards to which we hold others, and we tend to be blinded to our own sins even when we see others’ with clarity. Frankly, I feel this danger in writing this very article.

I would like to think that if G3 had gone through a careful process of self-examination, it might have avoided disgracing itself and bringing reproach on the name of the Lord. The leaders could have brought in outside voices or proceeded through a guided process of uncovering and uprooting sinfulness. They could have exerted effort in mortifying organizational sin in just the ways every Christian mortifies personal sin—by pleading God’s grace, examining the organization in light of God’s Word, and applying to it God’s gospel. Perhaps they did all of this. Yet somehow they failed to see that there must have been systemic issues within the organization that had not been remedied simply by removing its leader. Taking a right and necessary action is not the same as taking sufficient action.

The truth is, there is only one kind of leader in this world, and that’s a flawed leader. Of course, God is gracious, and not every flawed leader will end up being a disqualified leader. Yet even the best will have weaknesses. The wise among these flawed leaders are the ones who are most aware of their flaws and who actively seek them out, take action against them, and invite others to do the same. When they are at their best, they prepare for the time they may be at their worst. They share God’s eagerness in putting their sin to death and apply the means he provides.

I wrote in my previous article that “God’s cause in this world needs no conferences or parachurch organizations, but it does often benefit from them.” The church benefited from G3 for a time, but those days are done. One man’s pattern of sin harmed the organization, but it was the remaining leaders’ repetition of the pattern, and their failure to put it to death, that finally doomed it. Let’s not fail to consider that, whether in our lives or in the organizations we create, sin runs deep. Thankfully, God’s grace runs deeper, and he makes it available to us if we will simply plead for it, take hold of it, and apply it.

Good morning. Grace and peace to you. I have collected some interesting articles below and hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I did.

More than anything else could ever do, the gospel enables me to embrace my tribulations and thereby position myself to gain full benefit from them.

—Milton Vincent

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In my weekly Works & Wonders column, I combine a brief devotional with other interesting and uplifting bits and pieces I gleaned throughout the week. I hope you enjoy this week’s collection! It includes:

1. Wonderful Wisdom
2. He Made a Cross His Throne
3. Ancient Underground Aqueducts
4. The Perfect Photo
5. Migration Dashboard
6. Abide with Me (at a Royal Funeral)

1.

Wonderful Wisdom

God has displayed his wisdom in many ways, but the greatest of all is in redemption—in saving a people to himself. God had created humanity good and sinless, made in his image to praise and honor him. But humanity turned away, scorning God and preferring to be their own gods. God could have left us on our own. He would have been within his rights to give us justice without grace, wrath without mercy. But in love he wished to save us, and in his wisdom he knew how to ensure that sin would be punished and sinners saved. And so he sent his Son into this world to fulfill the law by living an unblemished life, and then to pay for sin by suffering an atoning death. But death could have no claim on one who had committed no sin, so he was gloriously raised from the dead. From the greatest evil came the greatest good; from the greatest fall came the greatest rise; from the greatest grief came the greatest happiness. And the origin of it all was the wonderful wisdom of God. Little wonder, then, that God’s people love to praise his name, as we will do today when we gather to worship him.

2.

He Made a Cross His Throne

Shane & Shane recently recorded and released a new song titled “He Made a Cross His Throne.” Here’s how it begins:

He made a cross his throne
Embracing agony
The Lord of life would choose to die
To prove his love for me

He made a cross his throne
Raised high for all to see
And from that throne his dying breath
Secured my victory

Give it a listen, as I think you’ll enjoy it.

3.

Ancient Underground Aqueducts

This is pretty neat. “Underneath the narrow streets, churches, and palaces of the Italian city of Siena lies a sprawling network of underground aqueducts that supplied water to the Tuscan city for centuries, enabling it to flourish despite a chronic lack of nearby rivers and streams. Extending for roughly 25 kilometers, the so-called Bottini constitute an ingenious hydraulic system that sustained the city from the Middle Ages until the early 20th century.” You can read about it and see photos at The Ancient Underground Aqueducts of Siena.

4.

The Perfect Photo

This is an interesting little project. Filmmaker Yasmin van Dorp visits some beautiful locations in Norway to capture the tension between enjoying the beauty of the scenery and capturing it on a tiny little iPhone screen. It’s an interesting and poignant study in the way we miss out on beauty through our fixation on capturing it to show others. Watch: The Spectacle.

5.

Migration Dashboard

This is the season when billions of birds begin to migrate from the northern parts of North America to their wintering grounds in the south. Cornell Lab’s BirdCast helps us understand both the numbers and the types of birds that are passing overhead. You can punch in your state or county and get a pretty good idea of what’s happening. While unfortunately, the map only covers the United States, I’m just a few miles from Erie County, New York, so that gives me a pretty good idea of what’s going on here. Here is a glimpse of the local dashboard a couple of days ago:

6.

Abide with Me

There are few hymns more moving and beautiful than “Abide with Me.” There are also few hymns more suitable for a funeral. Norway’s King Harald died recently and his funeral featured a stirring rendition of the song in English.

Also, if you’re ever in a situation where almost no one else is singing along, be this guy and just go for it.

Good morning! I hope you’ll enjoy this Weekend A La Carte collection. It includes some think pieces and longer articles that cover the new software on your phone, the new Narnia films, music, MAiD, and more.

God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say, “Thank you?”

—William Ward

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This week’s Free Stuff Friday is sponsored by The Good Book Company.   Enter to win 1 of 3 Be Changed Bundles to meditate on the beauty of Jesus and marvel at the work he is doing in your life.

Each bundle includes:

We Will Be Changed

You want to be more like Jesus, but sometimes it feels that you’re not growing much. Despite your best efforts, spiritual progress seems frustratingly slow. Take heart! In We Will Be Changed, trusted Bible teacher Alistair Begg offers hope and reassurance that the Holy Spirit is working in and through you. He is shaping your heart, transforming your character, and forming your life into a testimony.

Christian Manifesto

What does genuine Christian living look like in the 21st century, and how can we be motivated to live that way? Alistair Begg unpacks the Sermon on the Mount to answer this question, encouraging Christians to live a radically different life that upends the world’s values and philosophies. It’s a lifestyle that is counterintuitive and countercultural, yet one that God blesses with true meaning and impact.

Here to Love

With good humor, grace, and wisdom, author Chris Cipollone clarifies the why and how of love as the driving force in the life of a Christian. Here to Love will refocus your heart on the first principle of Christianity, giving you a simple and liberating vision for your relationships with others, your decision-making, and your day-to-day worship of God.

More of Jesus

Worship Jesus as the one who was, and is, and is to come! This uplifting devotional takes a fresh look at 50 incredible truths about Jesus. Each short chapter will draw you to behold Jesus—to marvel at his beautiful character, to love him more deeply, and to apply the truth of who he is to your life.

Giveaway Terms:

By entering this giveaway, you are giving The Good Book Company permission to send you marketing emails about relevant resources. You are welcome to update your contact preferences or unsubscribe at any time. The winner will be notified via email. Giveaway closes at 11:59 pm on September 24th.

The Good Book Company will email the winner and request a shipping address. Limited to North America.

Enter here to win!

I have had the privilege of traveling across the world to visit local churches located on each of earth’s inhabited continents. I have been able to meet with pastors who minister in fast-paced world cities and in slow-paced rural villages. I have been able to spend time with pastors who are at the cutting edge of technology and pastors whose homes have yet to gain electricity or running water. I have learned from pastors who are able to commit every waking hour to ministry and pastors who have to rise long before the sun to tend to their cashew grove or rubber trees before they can begin to tend to their church.

There are a few things that bind all of these pastors together: Their commitment to the Word of God, their commitment to prayer, their commitment to shepherding the flock, and their struggle to manage their time well.

It is not only pastors who struggle with time management, of course. Yet pastors face particular challenges with their time that are often not addressed by the many books, guides, and programs available to them. They have a unique collection of responsibilities and a unique structure of accountability. On any given day they may be expected to exposit a text, counsel an addict, lead a pre-marriage class, chair a meeting, and pray at the bed of a dying man. Few pastors feel confident that they have used their time well. And perhaps of greater concern, few pastors feel confident that their parishioners believe they have used their time well either.

It is for these reasons that I’m thankful for Shepherding Time, a new book from Rush Witt and Joe Keller. They write as pastors to pastors—as shepherds to those who wish to shepherd their time confidently, successfully, and in a way that honors the Lord. They would be the first to admit that they have not mastered the art of time management, yet they have certainly made great strides in understanding how God means for them to use their time well and effectively. Their book is a powerful combination of biblical truths and practical pointers that draws from the deep wells of ancient wisdom and the front lines of modern innovation. It avoids the heavy hand of the law to focus instead on grace. It calls pastors—and, even better, guides them—into a fresh understanding of how to use their time for the good of their church and the glory of God.

If you are already in pastoral ministry or training for it, I’m certain that Shepherding Time will prove to be a great gift to you. It will challenge, inform, and instruct you in matters like expectations, guilt, accountability, and practical planning. Better yet, it will free y’ou from false expectations—whether your own or other people’s—so you can have confidence that you are honoring God with the time he has given you.

(Note: I’m allowing the foreword I wrote for Shepherding Time to serve as my review and recommendation.)

We’ve just about come to the end of another week! Be sure to check in over the weekend for some think pieces and reader recommendations tomorrow, followed by some enjoyable, uplifting, and just-right-for-Sunday content the morning after.

The Funnies

My friend Chris Martin maintains a Substack called The Funnies, and every Saturday he shares a few fun and silly things he found on the internet—something I see as a modern equivalent of the comics pages that used to be in every newspaper. I asked him to share a couple with you.

God’s kindness is called Jesus. When we look at Jesus, we see God’s character; we see his kindness in coming to and for those who had chosen to live in darkness.

—Alistair Begg

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Good morning. May the Lord be with you and bless you today.

Take care of your life and God will take care of your death.

—George Whitefield

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I recently saw a photo that alarmed me. Several men were participating in a panel discussion at a major conference, and I realized that almost all of them had either died or been disqualified from leadership—two very different ways for a ministry to come to an end. It was sobering to consider both the fleeting nature of life and the many ways that men can sin and necessitate their removal from public ministry.

I am often asked variations of this question: What do we do with books written by fallen pastors? Sadly, it needs to be answered more frequently than we’d like—we look at our bookcases and wonder what to do with the books by pastors we once admired but who have since been disqualified from ministry. It’s possible that their books or other forms of teaching helped us, shaped us, or even made us who we are. Yet now we wonder whether they could be as good as we remembered, or whether they could now actually lead us astray.

Let me lay out some of the ways I have thought this through.

First, I don’t think all of us will respond to this question in the same way, and I don’t think we need to. It is not a matter of clear right and wrong as much as a matter of wisdom and conscience. In the absence of definitive biblical guidance, you may feel a freedom where I do not, or vice versa. That’s okay, and neither of us has the need or right to pass judgment on the other.

A second factor is this: immorality does not negate truth. What was true when the pastor had a good reputation is true even after he has destroyed his reputation. His book does not transform from orthodox to heretical simply because he committed an act of immorality. What was true before is true now, what was brilliant before is brilliant now, what was mediocre or muddled before remains mediocre or muddled now. The leader’s actions have no effect on the objective truth or error of his material.

However, though immorality does not negate truth, it does negate the credibility and qualifications of the author. When it comes to Christian leaders, our concern must be for character more than ability or any other quality. This means that if an author or teacher sins in a grievous way, we can rightly understand that he has undermined his entire public ministry and given us legitimate reason to avoid it in the future. No Christian leader is unaware of the stakes when he takes on a position of leadership or signs a contract to write a book.

And then there is this: it is possible that the author’s poor character was present in his books and other teaching, even if it went unnoticed at the time. Hence, we are wise to consider whether his teaching may have been tainted in ways we did not spot before we knew of his sin. This probably means that we should be especially careful when it comes to subjects that were related to his downfall. If he committed adultery, we should be wary about what he wrote about marriage, or if he was found to be an abuser, we should be cautious when reading what he wrote about leadership. We often look back and realize that an author was justifying his sin in his writing, covering it up, or otherwise avoiding the Holy Spirit’s conviction. Sometimes it’s not what he said that matters, but what he didn’t say.

Here is another factor to consider: a book is closely associated with its author. To recommend a book is usually to tacitly recommend the person who wrote it. In the case of an author who has fallen into disqualifying sin, others have usually been caught up in his fall, and have often been damaged by his actions. To recommend a book by an abusive pastor may be unkind to those he has abused and may subtly cast doubt on the judgment of his local church. To recommend a book by an adulterous pastor may be unkind to his wife and family members who have been grievously hurt by his actions. To keep a distance from his material may be a way to love others.

And then there is the reality that to purchase a book is to give money to its author. Though authors usually receive only a small portion of a book’s purchase price, there is still a financial transaction between the author and reader. In this way, purchasing a book by a fallen pastor is a means of offering him monetary support.

As we put this all together, then, I would encourage you to consider the factors I have laid out and others that come to mind, trust that God delights to give you wisdom, then carefully heed your conscience and make your decision.

As for me, I find it difficult to read books by authors who have disgraced and disqualified themselves. Depending on the kind of immorality they displayed, I may even get rid of their books. We of all generations are blessed to have access to a multitude of good material, and there is no author so gifted that he alone has the ability to teach a doctrine, guide his readers in an area of Christian living, or speak to a current issue. I see little reason, then, to read books written by leaders who have made a shipwreck of their lives and ministries.

Here are a couple of notes. First, I wrote an article on this subject over 10 years ago, and this is an updated adaptation of it. Second, I wanted to include a paragraph about the role of the local church, but I could not think of any instances in which a fallen leader has remained within his local church and, therefore, in which his (former) church remained involved in a process of discipline or restoration. Ideally, I think we should take many of our cues from an individual’s church, but realistically, that’s not often possible.

There are some days I struggle to find six solid articles to share with you. Today, though, the struggle was to pare a huge list of worthy articles to merely six! I hope you benefit from the ones I selected. If you’re interested in video content, scroll down to see some recent trailers for films and series that will be coming our way in the months ahead.

Truly it is poor work to set our affections on a dying world and its short-lived comforts, and for the sake of an inch of time to lose a glorious immortality!

—J.C. Ryle

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I am wondering if someone who reads this works for U.S. Customs and Border Protection and could answer a couple of questions for me. I do not need to have anyone do anything for me, but am just trying to better understand a couple of things related to my trips into the U.S. If you can help, I’d love it if you got in touch.

New Book Releases

Most Christian books release on Tuesday, which means some new books are available today. Here are some new books that may be of special interest to parents.

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness: The Graphic Novel by Andrew Peterson. The first book in Peterson’s much-loved Wingfeather Saga is now available as a graphic novel.

Talking to Kids About Hard Things by Rebekah Hannah & Michael Keller. “Parents will learn how to create homes where questions are welcomed, grace is abundant, and faith is lived out authentically, helping children develop a deep and enduring relationship with God.”

God’s Story, Our Story by Charlotte & Andrew Ollerton. “Go on a fun and feasible journey as a family to see how the whole Bible fits together! Each engaging 15-minute devotion puts a specific story into place in God’s grand narrative and connects God’s story to your family’s story today.”

Guess What: God Knows You by Catherine MacKenzie. “This beautifully illustrated book gently introduces young readers to the comforting truth that God knows and cares for every detail of their lives.”

Zeal is like fire; in the chimney it is one of the best servants; but out of the chimney it is one of the worst masters.

—Thomas Brooks

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This week, the blog is sponsored by The Good Book Company and written by Alistair Begg, who is the Bible Teacher at Truth For Life and previously served as Senior Pastor of Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio. Alistair has three children and eight grandchildren.

God saves us just as we are, but he is not content for us to remain just as we are. No—God’s great purpose for us, having saved us, is to conform us into the image of Christ (Romans 8:28-29). In fact, that is the good for which he is always working in all aspects of our lives. There are not two versions of Christianity—the “basic” option, in which our souls are saved but our characters remain unchanged, and the “deluxe” option for those who are super-committed, which involves the hard work of becoming more like Jesus. Christianity is about both justification—the work of God in our lives to bring us to faith in Christ, that he might take our judgment and give us his perfection—and sanctification—the ongoing process in which God is at work to make us more and more like our Savior. The Bible calls us to become what we are so that what God has done will be transparently clear.

In other words, God cares about what you are like. He cares about your character. The New Testament, therefore, is full of exhortations to turn away from who we were and fully embrace who we now are. “If then you have been raised with Christ”—since we have a new identity—there is an “old self” that we are to put off and a “new self, which is being renewed … after the image of its creator,” that we are to put on (Colossians 3:1, 9-10). The Christian life involves change.

Wherever you open it up, you do not have to read many pages of the New Testament to find this kind of encouragement to become who you are. God is concerned with our character, for, as Jesus put it, “by this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit” (John 15:8).

Not only that, but your character is preaching a message, one way or another, as you go about your life each day. In his letter to Titus, Paul tells him to “teach what accords with sound doctrine” (2:1) “so that in everything [believers] may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” (v 10). There is a way to live that will both display the truth about God and make the truth about God attractive. As J.B. Phillips paraphrases that verse, we are called to be “a living testimonial to the teaching of God our Savior.”

And so the question we need to wrestle with is not simply “Does my ability to articulate the gospel make people want to believe it?” or “Does my ability to answer questions—to act as an apologist—make people want to believe?” but “Does my character make the gospel attractive so as to make people wish they believed it?”

Ours is a divided and disappointed age. But there is a way to live that makes people see that you have what they don’t—that makes them see that Christian faith makes a genuine difference to what a person is like and how they navigate life with peace and joy. The reverse, of course, is also true: it is possible to live in such a way that onlookers gain the distinct impression that a profession of belief makes no discernible difference.

So, what do people see in you? As the little poem I was taught as a boy puts it:

You’re writing a gospel,

A chapter each day,

By the deeds that you do

And the words that you say;

And people read what you write,

Distorted or true,

So what is the gospel

According to you?

When Christians look like Christ, we glorify God and impact the world. It matters. What the church needs today is not primarily better programs or apologetic resources or buildings, or more financial resources or greater political sway. What the church needs is Christians of increasingly Christlike character, so that what is found inside the church is radically different than the world outside the church. God cares about our character far more than he does our gifts or achievements or qualifications. If it were a crime for our churches to be places of radical love and distinctive kindness, for instance, would they be found guilty? If it were a crime for me to be full of joy and patience, would I be convicted?

In other words, am I, every day, in every way, making the gospel of the Lord Jesus attractive—not in what I say so much as in what I am like? How am I reflecting the glory of my Savior to the world he loved so much that he was born into it in order to die for it?

Though I have spent my whole life in churches, I had never heard of an abuse prevention policy until perhaps 15 or 20 years ago. At that time they were still a rarity. Today, though, they are very nearly a necessity. A succession of scandals in churches across a host of different settings and denominations has proven that evil people will prey upon churches. Christians have often been too trusting and naive, and many people have suffered as a result.

It has been a few years since I was a full-time pastor at my church, but when I was, we were just transitioning from a church plant to a “grownup” church. One of the tasks I initiated and oversaw was creating an abuse prevention policy. That involved finding a template (which a bigger and more mature church was glad to give us), adapting it to our congregation, teaching the church how and why we were instituting it, and then implementing it across our programs. I learned a lot from that process and, based on both that experience and subsequent reading, I want to lay out what a good policy accomplishes. I’ll also suggest some resources you may find helpful as you draft your own.

A Good Policy Protects the Vulnerable from Harm

The key purpose of an abuse prevention policy is to protect the vulnerable from those who may wish to bring them harm. A related purpose is to protect the vulnerable from those who may inadvertently bring them harm, thus distinguishing between someone who deliberately hits a child, for example, and someone who mistakenly knocks one over. In most cases, vulnerable people include children and those with special needs, though some churches may broaden it to better encompass the scope of their ministries. To meet these purposes, a policy may need to account for factors such as:

• How many adults must be present with vulnerable persons at all times.
• Whether related people may serve together.
• Ratios between children and childcare workers.
• Check-in and check-out procedures.
• Visibility procedures, such as classroom or office doors always remaining open.
• Diaper-changing and toileting procedures.
• Criminal background checks.
• Age limitations (such as the age at which someone may care for infants), gender limitations (such as whether boys or men can work with vulnerable people), and membership limitations (such as whether non-members of a church can volunteer for those programs).

The policy carefully assesses risks and proactively implements measures designed to mitigate them.

A Good Policy Protects the Innocent from False Accusations

Though the primary purpose of an abuse prevention policy is to protect those who are vulnerable, it should also protect those who may be falsely accused of having done wrong. These could be malicious false charges from one individual who wishes to harm another, or they could be mistaken false charges from someone who misunderstood or misinterpreted a situation. Just as a church expresses its love for the vulnerable by protecting them through a good policy, it expresses its love for those who work with them in the same way.

In many cases, the same measures will accomplish both purposes. For example, always having two adults present protects children from abusers (since an individual is unlikely to abuse a child in view of another adult) and protects workers from false charges (since another adult would be able to testify, for example, that a child was not struck by a childcare worker, but instead fell and hit his head). The increased focus on preventing abuse within churches may make some potential workers concerned about serving vulnerable people, so a good policy is designed to protect them and give them confidence.

A Good Policy Is Overseen

Everything in this world tends toward chaos rather than order, and policies are no exception. This means that any policy needs to be owned and overseen lest it become stale and fall into disuse. It may be best if an abuse prevention policy is overseen by an abuse prevention committee made up of members of the church whose task it is to know the policy, ensure that it is being followed, and make changes to it when necessary. Depending on the particulars of the church, the committee may be able to make changes unilaterally or it may need the approval of the elders or members. Either way, someone needs to own and oversee the policy on behalf of the rest of the congregation.

I would generally suggest that a group of members oversee the policy, but remain in close contact with ministry leaders and pastors. This committee may be wise to meet on a regular basis—perhaps annually or semiannually—and to ensure that those who are bound by the policy routinely read, review, and agree to it as well.

A Good Policy Is Living

Churches change over time, and thus it stands to reason that policies sometimes need to change as well. What may have been effective in a small church may no longer be tenable in a large one, what may have suited one building may not suit another, and what may have kept five children safe may not protect 50. For this reason, an abuse prevention policy should be a living document (unlike, for example, a statement of faith, which may remain unchanged indefinitely). The committee that oversees the policy should be in regular communication with ministry leaders, pastors, insurers, and others who may be able to make useful suggestions. While the core commitments may remain unchanged, it may be necessary to add or remove specific policies on a regular basis.

A Good Policy Describes Procedure

It is important that an abuse prevention policy lay out specific measures and procedures that will guard against abuse. However, it ought to go further to describe the procedures that will be taken if and when there is an incident or accusation. It will lay out who will be notified of any incident, who will be responsible to make decisions, and who will take specific actions. It will spell out the circumstances in which police or other authorities will be notified and will specify who will notify them. It clearly describes legal obligations such as mandatory reporting. In other words, an abuse prevention policy does not stop with actions designed to prevent abuse, but extends to actions that will be taken in the event of accusations of abuse.

Conclusion and Resources

We should not put all of our trust in policies, of course, but must also routinely pray for God’s protection upon vulnerable people and those who care for them. But even as we admit that evil people may find ways to circumvent even the best policy, it is still wise for a church to create one, implement it, and carefully oversee it out of love for the very people it is designed to protect. And if it has been well-designed and carefully maintained, it truly will serve its purpose.

Even just a few years ago, there were relatively few resources available to help those who wished to create an abuse prevention policy. Thankfully, that is no longer the case. Almost every major denomination has provided resources to its churches, and these are usually available to the public. In addition to whatever your denomination provides, here are some other books and sites you may find helpful:

• On Guard by Deepak Reju (my review)
• The Child Safeguarding Policy Guide for Churches and Ministries by Boz Tchividjian & Shira M. Berkovits
• PCA Discipleship Ministries
• MinistrySafe