I grow weary of social media.

I understand the irony of that statement, seeing as how you most likely found this article through Facebook or Twitter. Nevertheless, there is no such thing as a neutral medium, and social media is no exception to that rule. Media changes us, and much like smoking or any number of vices, I fear uncritical social media use may have unintended consequences only discovered after the fact. Furthermore, as Cal Newport convincingly demonstrates in his book Digital Minimalism, the companies that produce our favorite apps are not unaware of the emotional and psychological impact of their products. They build them to intentionally manipulate our emotions, so that we will engage with even more energy. Joy or anger, it does not matter if it will cause us to spend more time in our newsfeed.

But for a Christian, it most certainly matters.

In part one of this two-part series, I touched on the frequent use and abuse of Matthew 7:1, “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged.” This simple command of Christ is found in the Sermon on the Mount and when understood in its proper context, goes right to the heart of our interactions on social media, especially with other Christians. I would encourage you to first read that article, as it provides the basis for what follows.

Now, let’s revisit the passage in full:

Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. For you will be judged by the same standard with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure you use. Why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the beam of wood in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a beam of wood in your own eye? Hypocrite! First take the beam of wood out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:1-5)

Far from telling us not to confront others in conflict, this passage tells us we should engage in hard conversations with other Christians about potential shortcomings or sin issues. However, it is very clear that hypocritical judgment has no place in conflict between two Christians.

This passage calls us first toward introspection and second toward interpersonal action, in that order. It does not absolve us from either, but it does tell us there is a priority placed on dealing strongly with our own sin first. It is a challenge toward humility and away from hypocrisy. It is a call to love your fellow brother of sister through correction, not to overlook issues that will hurt them. It is also a call to do so from a position of humility, caring about the wellbeing of others. Correction among Christians is not an opportunity to score points against an opposing view, or heaven forbid, attempt to make yourself look holy or right in distinction to someone else.

Enter Christian Twitter.

Honestly, it’s not just Twitter; Facebook is at least as bad. If you follow a good bit of Christian social media, I imagine your newsfeed looks similar to mine: a long string of inspirational Bible verses, photos of precisely placed coffee mugs and journals, book recommendations from Crossway or B&H, requests to join a church for their online service during the pandemic, and the daily explosion of hateful vitriol and name calling on the Christian conflict du jour.

So, how do Christ’s words in Matthew 7:1-5 stack up to our current culture of Twitter spats and name calling among various evangelical factions? It has a lot to say.

First, let’s stop the nitpicking… especially in public.

Few things are tackier than a petty word fight in public, and yet, it seems we are often itching to hop in the ring in Christian social media circles today. Several years ago, I wrote an article (also based in the Sermon on the Mount) about how Christians deal with non-Christians on social media in our present “Age of Outrage” as Stetzer calls it. Since then, things appear to have only gotten worse, and now so much of that vitriol is directed at each other instead of the outside world. Different quarters of evangelicalism make it a hobby to blow holes in each other in front of an audience.

Do not hear what I am not saying. It is painfully obvious that we have some deep issues to discuss. I am not suggesting we just overlook those conversations. To the contrary, I think it is crucial that we develop some processes of hard dialogue surrounded by Christian charity. And, I’m not saying we keep our mouths shut about important things, especially doctrinal matters, in the name of some anemic understanding of unity. I am saying the medium matters. Ironically enough, it is possible to say the right thing the wrong way, and in doing so, make it the wrong thing to say.

Second, we need to work on that beam.

Unfortunately, even as I write those words, I fear the temptation is to recall all the instances where others have spoken the wrong way instead of first considering how I have misspoken. If your knee-jerk reaction to Jesus’ statement about the beam is to begin thinking of other people’s tweets as examples of unchristian behavior, then you’re not hearing what Jesus is saying. What’s the beam in my eye? That’s the question Jesus first tells us to address here.

It is too easy for us to hear this kind of command and agree but never practice it. If you leave this vague in your own life, you never actually do it. Faithfulness to Christ’s words here means we each need to do some deep introspection. Yes, we need introspection specifically concerning our relationship with internet megaphones and all of our platform-building tools. I think it’s easy for those of us without thousands upon thousands of followers to give ourselves a pass in how we speak and consume media, but we must carefully consider both what we say and what we read and share on social media. Do we drive up engagement of hateful statements by making sure we’re snacking on the controversial junk food, even if we don’t provide our own hateful hot take? We think our words are perhaps small enough to be insignificant, and then we uncritically consume the vitriol of others. In my heart and in your heart, we need to first answer the question of motive. What is my goal in posting that critique? What am I doing to myself and others by reading or spreading this stuff?

Too often, I fear the motivation is not winning a brother or sister. Instead, so much of this public conflict and criticism appears designed to further entrench divides. Instead of love for the one we’re engaging, the motive appears to be gaining the admiration of those who already agree. This is not removing a speck, it is building a personal platform among one’s own crowd. It is taking shots at the people who are perceived as shared enemies to prove one’s position as an insider of a given tribe. This form of social media interaction says, “I’m with you!” by slapping someone who is not.

May our motive never be ensuring we are seen publicly on the “right side” of an issue by those whose admiration we seek. Jesus had sharp words about that kind of righteousness.

Finally, we help our brother or sister with the speck.

We love to jump to this step, and we can quickly classify our Twitter rants and Facebook slams as helping others through correction. But hear this, you are not truly doing this last step in the spirit of Jesus’ words until you have worked on the first two.

Jesus is not telling us to overlook the issues of others in our church family or among the family of God more broadly. He is not telling us to “be soft on the issues.” He did the opposite. We remove the beam so we can help a brother or sister with their speck. But how do we do this well? I’m inclined to suggest it’s not over the internet. It is far harder, and far more humbling, to speak directly with people in a loving and non-platforming-building way. Authentically personal moments become the soil in which loving correction and dialogue can occur.

Do you have the kind of relationships with others in your local church, in your denomination, even across those network lines that allow for that kind of dialogue? Do you have real relationships, that allow you to speak into people’s lives in a loving way? If not, perhaps your first step in loving correction is building those kind of bridges.

Those are the kind of relationships that will allow us to serve one another, even in the hard things.

Further Reading

Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged.

Nowadays, few Bible verses are quoted quite so often as this one. Not so surprisingly, few are misquoted quite so often. And yet, I truly believe Jesus’ original intended meaning for these words in his Sermon on the Mount are of crucial importance for many churches in North America today. We would do well to recapture this verse–and the following passage–from its commonly misappropriated use as a prohibition to any form of correction, so that we can live under its condemnation of hypocrisy and submit to its call to lovingly confront one another inside the Christian community.

This is a big issue, so I’m tackling it in a two-article series. This first article addresses the common misuse of Matthew 7:1-5, so that we can rightly hear how Jesus expects his church to act as they relate to one another. The second article picks up the following understanding of the passage and applies it to a specific, critical issue today: Christian conflict on social media.

Let’s take a look at the passage in full.

Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. For you will be judged by the same standard with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure you use. Why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the beam of wood in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a beam of wood in your own eye? Hypocrite! First take the beam of wood out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:1-6)

You keep using that word…

I am dating myself here. I was in high school, we were on a field trip, and a buddy of mine had his headphones in listening to music on his discman. Yes, discman. At one point in the song, his enthusiasm gets the best of him and he starts singing aloud. That’s when it happened. In the middle of a crowded van, he starts singing, “I like to mobi chobi. I like to mobi chobi.” Of course, the song he thought he was singing was the great Reel 2 Real hit, “I Like to Move It.” At the time, the song had been out for several years, and this whole time, up until that moment when everyone laughed at him, my buddy thought the lyrics were “I like to mobi chobi.”

We all do that, don’t we? Hear something real popular, hear it over and over in fact, and think we know what it means. Only to find out later that we had it wrong the whole time.

It happens with Scripture as well. Some of the most often quoted verses are, ironically, done so in a way that is in actual opposition to their intended meaning. It’s a human tendency to round off those edges of Scripture that challenge us to live in a manner distinct from the world. The biblical worldview regularly confronts the worldviews of society at large, and when that battle takes place in our own heart, one authority has to win. Often, a subtle thing occurs where we want to force competing claims to agree.

This compulsion is especially true when it comes to passages like this one. For those of us in North America, the current zeitgeist screams against the idea of confronting others when they are in error. There are few cultural sins more heinous than telling someone they are wrong. Instead, we must adhere to the seemingly profound but grossly problem-ridden mantra of “Follow your heart.” To suggest that someone’s heart may not know where it’s going is beyond the pale.

Think about the internal turmoil that comes from the idea of correcting others. Sometimes, it is that pressure not to speak the gospel to others we know do not believe it. Who are we, after all, to suggest someone is wrong about their religious beliefs? Perhaps you have a friend at church you know is involved in something wrong. You know in the long run it will hurt them, and you also know that it damages their witness for Christ’s sake. Nevertheless, you do not feel you have the freedom to mention it. It feels wrong to tell someone they’re wrong.

Then, like a wave of refreshing water, this inner turmoil is met with the soothing relief of this verse: “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged.” What a tempting application for this simple, blunt command from Christ. I know we’ve all heard someone say, “Jesus says it’s wrong to judge people.” That would be great, too, if that is what this passage actually means.

It is not.

So, what does it mean?

In order to rightly capture Matthew’s intent (and that of Jesus, the original deliverer of the sermon), we must drive in three important pillars on which we can hang any application. These guides come from the text itself.

First, Jesus limits this statement to the way we deal with fellow disciples. This statement cannot be used as justification to excuse the many other passages in the Bible that tell us we are supposed to share our faith with people who are not Christians, because Jesus tells us this particular command concerns other disciples. He says so in verse 3: “Why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye…” This use of the word brother is significant, because Jesus uses that term to refer to those who have already crossed the line of faith. In most instances, it can be translated brothers and sisters, because the term is often used generally for all people who are part of the family.

Second, Jesus clearly explains what he means by judge with an example. In the verses that immediately follow this initial command, Jesus clarifies the specific meaning of judge within the context of the passage. We know that words can have different meanings based on the context in which they are used. Take for instance the word hand. What does that word mean? Well, in one sentence, it probably means the part of the body at the end of your arm. But, in another sentence, we can talk about giving someone a hand, and the word actually means to help them. And in yet another sentence, we can say the same phrase, “let’s give them a hand,” and it’s about giving someone a round of applause. The context of a word matters. Jesus explains how he is using the word judge right after he uses it.

In verses 3-4, Jesus uses a rather colorful word picture to describe this kind of judgment.

Why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the beam of wood in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a beam of wood in your own eye?

Jesus then calls the person who engages in this kind of judgment a hypocrite. It’s strong language, but that’s because this is a big problem.

It is a really human thing to be critical of the actions and motives of others and uncritical of our own. We tend to assume the worst of others, and the best of ourselves. I’ve done it. I assume you’ve done it. Jesus is telling his disciples that they cannot look down on fellow disciples, their brothers and sisters, others in their church, with arrogant criticism. We’re not supposed to nitpick other Christian’s problems, all the while overlooking and excusing our own. How arrogant! How hypocritical! There is no place for that kind of judgment in God’s kingdom. But we cannot leave it there, because Jesus doesn’t leave it there. Jesus doesn’t let us off the hook from lovingly confronting our church family and other Christians when they do have issues.

Finally, Jesus explicitly tells us to get involved in the sin issues of our fellow disciples in this passage. In short, the sin you should be most concerned about is your own. The person whose conduct you should evaluate most is your own. However, that is not to say we do not care deeply about the conduct of others. We do. We should. But, we are best equipped to help others in our church family with their issues when we are already in the habit of dealing with our own. Far from telling us not to address a brother or sister, Jesus tells us in this passage that we should get involved. He just tells us we need to do so from a position of integrity.

In verses 5-6, Jesus says this:

First take the beam of wood out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye.

The experience to lovingly help someone else remove sin from their life is often won in your personal fight (aided by the Spirit) with your own sin.

With these contextual parameters in mind, we come much closer to a faithful understanding of the text. Do not, from a position of arrogant ignorance about your own condition, look down on other brothers or sisters in judgment. Instead, maintain a critical eye toward your own heart, so that you can lovingly aid fellow Christians in considering theirs.

If you’re a member of the family of God, the ones sitting around Jesus’ feet as he delivers this sermon, what should you walk away considering? Simply put, work on that beam in your own eye, so that you can help your fellow Christians with their specks.

In this passage, Christ provides an ethic that reaches into a thousand instances of everyday life. I pray you consider how it reaches into yours, but I also want to point us toward one specific application. In the second part of this brief series, I provide an extended application that I feel is especially needed today. I believe Christ’s ethic has much to say concerning our approach to confrontation on social media. That article will be live in a couple of days.

Further Reading

To be honest, when I first arrived in Houston, I quickly became convinced many of the churches in Houston cared little about international missions. The conversation here in town has been loudly directed toward local church planting within the Houston metro, as opposed to sending planters to other places in the US or sending missionaries to plant churches among unreached peoples. While I’ve been very encouraged by the attention given to local church planting, this led me to make an unfortunate assumption, namely that global missions was low on the list of priorities for our churches.

Much to my surprise, this is far from the truth. When I started floating the idea of an intentional equipping in our own churches specifically for sending to the nations, I repeatedly heard encouragement. In fact, more than once, I was told church leaders had been hoping for just this kind of thing, not really knowing where to find it.

And then came the questions. Church leaders began to start asking about the ways they could get their churches involved in global missions partnerships. With little direct connection to specific missionaries, churches often don’t know where to start.

If you find your church in a similar position—having a desire to begin healthy overseas missions engagement and not knowing where to start—then here are four questions to help guide you to your first healthy international partnership.

Do we already have missionaries on the field?

The first place for any church to turn when it comes to international missions partnerships is their own membership. If a church has members, or past members, on the field serving with a missionary team, entering into partnership with their ongoing work is an excellent way to support them and involve the broader church in a missions vision.

Sending missionaries well requires supporting those you send. If a church is intentional about sending, then it actively looks for those inside its own congregation who should be equipped and sent into Great Commission tasks. Then, it supports those it sends with ongoing care and partnership.

It’s never too late to establish a partnership with those who have left your church to spread the gospel overseas.

Do other local churches in our association have partnerships?

Many churches do not have sent ones on the field with a prior connection to their church. In this case, looking to other nearby churches with a partnership is often a great start. In my role at the association where I serve, my hope is to establish many such cooperative relationships between churches in our association to partner with specific missionary teams on the field sent out of churches in our association.

There are great benefits from partnering with missionaries overseas sent by a sister church in your same city or county. These churches can work together to plan trips to engage in the work and support the missionary efforts. This is especially helpful for normative size churches that may need to pool volunteers with another church to form a short term team. In addition, when the missionaries are stateside, they are local to your area and can also spend time in fellowship and reporting with your church as well. Churches can plan joint events where they pray for and care for the missionary team together, and their proximity allows them to make all of these plans easily.

What agencies are we already supporting?

In addition to looking toward other churches in your local network or association, a church seeking their first missionary partnership should consider agencies they are already supporting. It surprises me how many conversations I have with pastors and church leaders in which they are unaware that they are already financially supporting an international missions agency by virtue of their cooperation in our denomination.

A young church planter in our association recently returned from his church’s first trip to visit an international missionary in South Asia. Upon returning, the team was convicted that a partnership with the ongoing work there would be an important part of their church’s mission. A new, small church plant, the pastor was telling me they knew they would need to send people from their church long term, but he was concerned about how they would fund such an endeavor.

What I told him next floored him. Their church was already funding the missionaries they would send! Furthermore, they were already financially supporting the missionary team they had visited in South Asia. As a part of the SBC, his church was working with an IMB missionary, an agency they were already cooperatively supporting, and the agency they would use to send any missionaries they sent. One of the great benefits of cooperative sending with the IMB is the fact that missionary support is taken care of through the cooperative funding program. The funding dilemma was already solved. Their small church already had it’s financial support mechanism in place and didn’t know.

If you happen to be an SBC church that does support the Cooperative Program, I would highly encourage you to consider a partnership with IMB missionaries on the field. You already financially support them, and working with the structures you already support will allow you to lean into future sending as well.

What people groups are we engaging locally?

Finally, consider the local opportunities for cross-cultural engagement right around you. A number of churches are already involved in some form of refugee ministry in their own city. Others are actively engaged in cross-cultural ministry of other types with local immigrants. This is often a good place to start when considering potential partnerships overseas.

Connecting your work with local unreached groups of Hindu or Muslim background peoples with an international missions partnership to those same areas overseas can produce a really healthy missions vision for your church. For instance, here in Houston we have over 75,000 Urdu-speaking Pakistanis. Many of these people are completely unreached with the gospel, and gospel ministry is perhaps even more pressing back in their home country. A local church can work to reach them both here and there with wise partnerships overseas and active gospel-centered engagement here in town.

Further Reading

In fact, I’ve been surprised in recent months at the amount of excitement this particular conversation has incited here in Houston. For the last few months, I’ve been working on some plans to help local churches equip potential international missionaries in partnership with the International Mission Board. As this has come up in conversations with various pastors, missions pastors, and regular church folk, I can honestly say it has produced more excitement than any other topic I’ve addressed with churches since I began working at the association.

I think more churches are interested in this than we may know.

Perhaps the most significant first step for a local church is developing specific partnerships with a global missions team overseas. Partnering directly with a missionary team on the field provides many significant benefits for a local church that cares about reaching the nations with the gospel. To that end, here are five key benefits of developing specific global missions partnerships with missionary teams overseas.

It’s Good for the Local Church Leaders

When it comes to global missions, many pastors both understand the importance of it and have a desire for their church to be actively engaged in the work, and yet they often feel they lack the expertise necessary to lead a church in a right direction. Having a partnership with experienced missionaries goes a long way in helping local church leaders develop a healthy vision for their church. The missionaries on the ground can be a vital sounding board for the local church as they develop their ministry. Furthermore, pastors will get to learn firsthand about the work of international missions through the deep relationships that can develop with their missionaries overseas.

It’s Good for the Missionaries on the Field

Speaking as someone who has lived overseas, far away from family and church, it can be lonely or isolating at times. Church partners can be, and should be, a crucial lifeline for the missionary team. Healthy church partners provide significant support and care for their missionary teams through prayer, communication, and sending short term and mid-term volunteer support to aid in the work.

Impacting the same place over time reaps a better harvest on the field.

A local church’s missions strategy should be a fire hose, not a water sprinkler. When we hop from place to place, attempting to land on a new continent each time we go overseas, we overlook the importance of persistence in the same location. A healthy short term missions strategy for a church is like chopping down an oak tree. With each subsequent team, the church learns more about the area, understands better ways to engage in gospel proclamation, begins to pick up language and culture, and has the huge advantage of returning to continue ministry with the same people.

When I was serving in West Africa, we had long-standing church partners that had visited the same villages for over a decade. Those churches had watched children in those villages grow up into adults. They had important relationships, and it allowed the work to progress in a way that trip hopping simply cannot.

Helping without Hurting

By now, I imagine a good number of pastors and church leaders are familiar with the book When Helping Hurts, by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. If not, you should [check it out](http://put in Amazin affiliate link here). Corbett and Fikkert point out that sometimes, despite our best intentions, we provide aid in a way that actually hurts more than it helps. This is especially true when we cross significant cultural barriers to provide that aid. However, being in a real partnership with a missionary team on the field provides your church with cross-cultural workers who know that location intimately and can help you make wise decisions about what you’re doing there—that is, as long as the local church listens to the missionary team concerning best practices for their engagement.

Identifying your own for sending through international missions partnerships.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, long term partnerships with missionary teams overseas provide an important foundation for sending your own to the nations. It is rare that I speak with an international missionary whose personal story does not recount the significance of a short term mission trip in their own calling. When done well, engaging your own congregation in the work of global missions through time spent with a missionary team introduces them firsthand to the missionary task. Furthermore, missionary teams become partners in the work of identifying, equipping, sending, and supporting more from inside your own congregation.

Clearly church partnerships with missionary teams are a key component in developing a healthy mission vision in a local church. The benefits above are only a sample of the rich reward that comes to a church when it links up with missionaries on the field to send and support.

Of course, once a church is convinced of the need to develop these partnerships, the next step is figuring ou how to find the right partners. And in the next article, I will provide five simple questions to guiding a church in finding the right missionary partners.

Further Reading

The vast majority of these churches rightly placed the needs of congregation and neighbor ahead of their attendance concerns and pivoted quickly to some other form of corporate worship. Some attempted drive-in services (many with a measure of success), while most turned to online options. A great deal of pastors who had never recorded a service suddenly found themselves neck-deep in how-to articles for using your smartphone to livestream.

The Excitement of Online Engagement

For many, however, an interesting thing happened: they had more views of their online worship services than people who normally attend in person. If you work in ministry leadership, I assume you’ve heard the tales. Pastors and church leaders that initially had little interest in their online presence suddenly found themselves excited about the potential for reaching new viewers.

Soon, the tweets started. Ministry leaders began pointing out the amazing ability to reach into homes and places they simply could not reach prior to the shift online. Anecdotes emerged of lost family members across the country viewing church services on Facebook. Stories surfaced of old college friends reaching out via social media seeking counsel because a friend posted their church’s service online.

These are the stories I have personally heard. I’m sure you have heard your own. The fear of not gathering, while still on the back burner, was crowded out by the excitement of having an “increased attendance” online.

Numbers like this are exciting, especially if you’ve become crestfallen in your church’s normal attendance of engagement with those far from God. And rightly so. Having new people tune in for your worship and exposition of the word should be exciting for church leaders and members alike. I know in my own church others have shared about how much easier it is to invite people to participate through online means, and many have seen positive results as friends and family “show up” online for our worship time.

Furthermore, it has been really encouraging to scroll through Facebook of a Sunday morning and see links to dozens and dozens of worship services. I’ve tuned in to several other churches merely because of the opportunity to be a onlooker, a fly on the wall, so to speak.

It is precisely this “fly on the wall” opportunity that creates easy engagement, and I believe it has had tremendous impact on viewer analytics for many churches. It takes virtually no effort for someone to peek in on the events that transpire behind the sanctuary doors. Add to that the increase in people asking the big questions about life, meaning, purpose, and death right now, and you’ve got a recipe for a swell in viewers.

People who wouldn’t walk into your church have viewed your service online, if only from morbid curiosity. These people, whether they meant to or not, have hopefully heard the gospel. I’m enough of an optimist when it comes to our churches that I believe the statements about the gospel being heard by so many more people through this are probably right.

Temper Your Expectations of Online Engagement

As good as these views are, and I do believe they are a good thing, we must not make more of this phenomenon than it is. We need to be careful that we do not misunderstand what these increased views mean. It would be easy for us to treat online viewer numbers as a new vanity metric to follow, propping up our own sense of success by measuring something that sounds prestigious but says little about real Great Commission ministry.

First, we need to realize that views are not equal to attendance in any conceivable way. Of course, advice is all over the map on this point if you peruse the internet. Take Facebook analytics as an example. Within the analytics page, Facebook will break down your views based on whether it was viewed for 3 seconds, 10 seconds, or 1 minute. Of course, the public-facing number is the 3 second number, since that will always be the biggest and provide the ego-boost.

But, despite the advice of some, using any of those numbers as a metric of attendance is problematic. Simply put, a 3 second view may just be an accidental click, and even a 1 minute view is a really low bar to measure whether someone actually participated in worship and heard your sermon. It’s best to stick with Thom Rainer’s advice and not count them as attendance at all but to certainly keep track of them. Sensational claims that half of all churches are now growing because of equating online views to church attendance are an overstatement at best and downright deceptive at worst.

Second, online views will not naturally translate into increased attendance. I did not say never. I’m talking norms, not exceptions, here. Keep in mind a viewer statistic is only a number. Was that person an unchurched agnostic who is now considering the gospel for the first time? Was it one of your regular church members? Was it a member of a sister church in town that is flirting with the idea of leaving their church? What if that person is one of the new serial worship service viewers birthed by the buffet of worship services on Facebook? I know of several people who are committed to their own church but still watch three or four worship services every Sunday just because they like them.

While you may see someone who found your church online once you begin regathering in person, someone merely viewing your very-easy-to-click-with-no-effort video does not mean you’re going to see them at the new visitor table.

Michael Frost recently spoke to this very important point, reminding everyone of the adage, “What you win them with, you win them to.” Frost’s article trends toward overstatement concerning established church practice over the last 30-40 years, but on this point he is exactly right. When we use attractional missions methods, the thing that draws a person is really what they came to get. It sounds so simple, because it’s true, and you can take that truth to the bank.

Of course, some people may come for one thing (a professional worship experience, a fancy visitor giveaway, some over-the-top event) and find something more important, but remember that is the exception not the norm. The thing that attracts a person is usually the thing for which they come and the thing for which they will stay. If they come for the professional worship experience, they will likely leave as soon as they find a church with a better band than your church’s.

This truth has serious ramifications for church mission and ministry. If you use consumerist tactics to hook a visitor, then you’ve most likely gained a consumer, not a member. Translate this into our wholesale shift toward online worship services, and the point is still true. If easy viewership is the thing you won them with, it’s most likely the thing you have won them for.

Embodied Engagement is Essential 

I believe many pastors and church leaders realize the previous point intuitively. These increased numbers may leave as quickly as they appeared, once we’re back in our buildings. I’ve heard concern about that from some pastors who are now excited about the additional reach. In fact, I’ve even heard some talk of “digital membership” options to cater to those who would watch but not participate in corporate worship services.

Let me be blunt on this point: there is no such animal as digital church membership. We’re talking about the called and gathered assembly of Christ’s redeemed people, not Netflix. Any form of “membership” in the church that allows one to completely avoid the biblically-mandated responsibility of embodied, interpersonal care and fellowship is no membership at all. Furthermore, it will more likely create consumers of spiritual services than disciples of the Lord Jesus.

There’s a difference between choosing to forego in person gatherings for a temporary period of time in order to love our congregations and neighbors in a health crisis and thinking that people who only engage with our church through their Facebook newsfeed are somehow really involved. Church, at its core, is embodied community. That’s not my opinion, it’s biblical revelation. Excitement at our increase in online reach cannot allow us to waver from this basic understanding of church. Embodied interaction is a non-negotiable aspect of church ministry.

So what do we do with all of these new viewers? We must move them toward embodied engagement.

I noted above that I, too, am excited about this additional reach through social media and online worship services. I believe there really is much to be gained through these actions, and I am confident that this presents a lane for the church to serve as a faithful witness to the gospel in front of those who are far from God. However, if making real disciples rests at the center of our mission, then we cannot settle for a mere increase in sermon views.

The future of the church is online, but it will never be just online.

In fact, it won’t even be primarily online. For the many who started streaming services for the first time out of necessity, let me suggest that practice should continue even as your church family gathers again for in-person worship services. If you’ve gained a new avenue for witness, it would be a shame to forego this gift. However, online services, worship, devotionals, and all the other practices you’ve developed for this time should be considered a supplement, not a replacement, for the gathered practices or your local church.

Appreciate new viewers for what they are.

Of course, a portion of your online viewers this past two months have been your own congregation. We should expect to see them back in gathered worship when the time comes. For those of you who’ve experienced additional viewers, these new viewers are a thing to celebrate. God may have provided an increase in your witness as a congregation. He may have extended your reach into homes you would not enter otherwise.

Praise God for this. Let us celebrate these viewers for what they are; however, and not place more burden on those numbers than they will bear. Consider them onlookers who may be curious. They may not mean your church has grown (at least not yet), but they certainly mean you have increased opportunities for gospel ministry. If you appreciate them for what they are, it will allow your church to consider the ways you can effectively minister to new onlookers.

When we understand online viewers for what they are, then we realize we are not serving them well by leaving them as viewers only. I’m reminded here of James’s exhortation to the Jewish Christian’s to not only be hearers of the word but doers also (James 1:22). Of course, James is not referring specifically to church attendance—far from it. However, I believe the principle speaks well to our responsibility to these new viewers. James is clear, the Christian life is not one of mere consumption.

James continues,

“But if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror. For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of person he was. But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer who works—this person will be blessed in what he does.” (James 1:23-25)

Hearing the word (or in this case viewing the word preached) and not following through in obedience to the biblical instructions concerning how we relate to Christ’s church is like looking into a mirror, seeing our need for real biblical community, and walking away and forgetting that essential need. Pastors and church leaders have a responsibility to guide these viewers toward real, embodied discipleship when possible. That is the gospel opportunity we’ve been given coming out of the pandemic.

Find ways to transition viewers into doers.

We may not know the identity of these extra viewers, but we need to provide clear ways for them to transition from viewing to doing in gathered church fellowship, accountability, worship, and mission.

There are multiple ways to do this, and I would suggest you use more than one. Provide opportunities for interpersonal connection, and regularly call those viewing to take advantage of these opportunities. For instance, one effective approach is providing an online discussion and prayer meeting immediately after the worship service airs. This can be done through Zoom or any of the dozens of web tools available. The link can be shared in the comments of the video worship service. Opportunities like this provide a path from being a one-way viewer to a two-way talker, and it means their identity is positively known to the church. That is a big first move.

Once someone is a talker, you can make decisions about how (or whether) to engage them on a path to becoming a doer with your local church. Those who will dialogue with your church online can be ministered to based on their unique needs. If they are an unbeliever, meeting them with the truth of the gospel is your first priority. If they live across the country, help them find real biblical community locally. If they are disconnected from an in-person church community, encourage them to plug into yours.

Years from now, books will be written that critique our ministry during the pandemic. In the clarity of hindsight, people will be able to grade our missteps and celebrate our successes. However, I earnestly pray now that one thing will be said of us during this time: that we were faithful to engage the harvest in a way that made new disciples through the disruption. Celebrate your new viewers pastor, but see them as gospel opportunity, not merely another vanity metric that allows you to feel successful in whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish.

Further Reading

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It seems everyone has their own prediction about how this will all turn out “for the American church,” and almost as many seem to have their our answer too. Estimates abound concerning church closures. I’ve seen estimates ranging from five percent to thirty percent of churches across the country have closed. Some articles minimize, and some sensationalize.

Frankly, I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I feel that making broad, universal statements about the plight of the American church is above my pay grade. Though, I do believe at least two things are true. If we believe these two things are true, we can avoid the ditches on either side.

Christ will have a witness.

I grow weary of the ministry pundits who spin this pandemic as the end of the church in America. Social media is fertile soil for sensationalism even without a pandemic. Insert a real, legitimate disruption of this magnitude into the mix, and the sensationalism hits a fever pitch.

Of course, predictions of the church’s total failure from those outside of the church, already antagonistic toward its purpose, should always be expected. Make no mistake, there are many rooting for the church to fail. However, my concern here are those inside the church who peddle in such pessimism. For some, perhaps it is the inability to see God at work in the storm; for others perhaps it is an axe they wish to grind against the established church.

Don’t buy the defeatism.

We have plenty of reason for hope. You know that the promise in Matthew’s gospel doesn’t say the gates of hell “might” not prevail against the church. It says they won’t—definitively. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church. Of course, there is finality to that statement. It doesn’t mean at every moment in every place the church will prevail. Setbacks abound in the 2,000 year history of the church, some lasting generations in particular places. But we can be sure that in the end, the church will prevail in its God-given purpose. The gospel must have its witness. Simply put, Christ will not be left without a witness in North America.

But that witness may not be your church.

We can be confident in the promise that Christ will have a witness, but let us avoid the ignorance or arrogance that assures it will come from our own church.

Christ’s church will certainly make it through this moment, but many local churches may not. We must avoid defeatism, but we cannot overlook the gravity of this disruption. Dismissing this disruption in hopes of returning to some pre-COVID status quo will only endanger the local church. This is a really big deal, and church on the other side must look different in some important ways. I believe it is too soon tell what specifics must change, but I am firmly convinced many will change.

If defeatism is the first ditch to avoid, then ambivalence is on the other side. Ambivalence assumes the status quo will return, and it leads one to inaction. Ambivalence may have many roots. It may be ignorance, merely not knowing how significant the shifts in culture and church practice will be. It could come from arrogance, thinking one’s own means and methods are not vulnerable to the shifts that are coming. Or, it could be a host of other mixed motives.

Confidence and Humility

Nevertheless, my plea to pastors and church leaders right now is to avoid both defeatism and ambivalence when it comes to their local church. I pray we can all avoid the ditches. What we need right now are pastors, ministry leaders, and local church members who are confident in the final success of the church in her God-given mission but humble enough to realize their own church is not immune to the effects of this pandemic.

We need to admit that our methods of ministry may need serious adjustments after a disruption of this magnitude. We must avoid the trap that makes our means and methods more important than the mission itself. The time coming around the corner may be one where we have to lay some sacred cows of local church ministry on the altar. Confidence and humility will win the day as begin the long process of moving past the pandemic.

Further Reading

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I am not personally suffering right now, but I do spend a lot of time worrying about potential suffering. So, of course, when all this virus stuff happened, I was very anxious over the implications of it.

In God’s providence, though, my husband and I began studying the book of Romans together and it has been very timely for me as Paul speaks directly about suffering in Romans. 

There are two main things that I’ve learned about suffering specifically through Romans 8:16-30.

We can endure suffering.

First, we can endure suffering because through the gospel, we have hope that one day suffering will end and we will be with Christ forever. We suffer because our world is broken. Brokenness is the result of humanity’s actions way back in the garden, when man chose to rebel against God. And this passage in Romans reminds us that sin has affected everything—our bodies, our relationships with God, others and ourselves, even creation itself suffers under the weight of sin. Verses 22-23 say that all of creation groans—it is in bondage to corruption. We are waiting to be set free.

And while we wait, we suffer. Note that Paul doesn’t act like suffering is an option—he assumes it’s going to happen and there’s nothing we can do to avoid it. Honestly, I don’t know if I could get to the end of ways we may suffer because that is how badly sin has broken us. All people—believers and nonbelievers alike— experience the suffering that comes as a result of sin’s presence in this world.

But, there is good news. Paul writes about two things that encourage us and help us endure suffering.

We have hope for the future.

Paul focuses on the future in this passage. In verse 18 he says that the suffering we go through in this life is not worth comparing to the glory that will one day be revealed in us. It’s almost as if he’s saying the glory that awaits us is so big, so good, so incomparable, and so eternal that it would be a waste of time to try to measure our suffering against it. Compared to that glory, our suffering is a tiny blip on the radar.

If you, like me, start to become anxious over suffering, consider this line from A Small Book for the Anxious Heart, by Edward Welch:

“If you are going to venture out into the future, continue far enough out so that the story ends with you welcomed into heaven for an eternity of no more sorrow, tears, and fears (Revelation 21:4).”

Our hope is not in this life; it’s in the next life where Christ will dwell with us forever.

But, as good as that news is, that’s not all. In verse 28, Paul says that God will work all things for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. Too often this verse is taken out of context. Many think that when Paul says that things will work out for our “good,” he means that our circumstances will work out however we want them to work out. But that’s not what he means.

The “good” Paul talks about is our sanctification. God has a purpose in all things, even our suffering. That purpose is to conform us to Christ’s image, with the promise that one day we will be glorified with Christ.

God also gives us help in the present.

The Spirit intercedes for us in prayer. Even when we don’t know how to pray or what we need, God knows, and because the Spirit has the mind of God, the Spirit can intercede on our behalf to ask God to give us what we need.

So this promised hope and this promised help should completely transform our perspective on suffering. Romans 5 tells us that we can actually rejoice in our afflictions, because suffering produces in us endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces a hope that does not disappoint us.

That does not mean we take suffering lightly. But note that grief and rejoicing can actually coexist. In Romans 5, Paul talks about rejoicing in our afflictions, but in Romans 8 he talks about groaning and longing for the day when suffering ends. Grief is a natural response to suffering.

But when we suffer, we don’t suffer as those who have no hope. The gospel gives us the hope we need to endure suffering and it helps us wait patiently for the day suffering will end. 

The gospel is worth our suffering.

Second, with this good news in mind, we can obey whatever God calls us to do because the gospel is worth suffering for now.

There are actually two kinds of suffering in this passage. Paul also addresses the kind of suffering that comes specifically to those who are Christ-followers, because they are Christ-followers. 

So Paul says in verses 16-17 that we are God’s children and heirs with Christ, if we suffer with Christ. He assumes that, like Jesus, we will suffer as a result of our obedience to God. 

While we don’t need to seek out martyrdom, we do need to consider what it means to suffer for Christ in our context. It may mean we lose social standing. Our friends may think we’re weird for talking about Jesus. We may be ostracized, ridiculed, called intolerant, passed up for a promotion, or even sued as our beliefs become increasingly offensive.

Or, many of us may need to consider if God is calling us to sacrifice something besides our social standing for his sake. For some of us, obedience may mean sacrificing everything familiar to plant a church in another part of the country, or to move overseas as missionaries to take the gospel to people who may never hear about Jesus otherwise. 

God uses his church to spread the gospel, and if we’re part of his church, that means he potentially wants us to give up everything and be the ones who go. So that’s a kind of suffering we may experience specifically because we are Christians.

Are we willing to be 100% obedient to Jesus, even if it means we suffer for it? Obedience and self-preservation often do not go hand in hand, so we need to decide if we truly believe the gospel is worth suffering for. 

If we truly believe that the gospel is worth our sacrifice, we can be radically obedient to whatever God calls us to do, knowing that we are working towards something that is eternal. God will give us the grace we need to persevere through any suffering we may encounter. The hope we have as we suffer through brokenness is the same hope we have when we suffer for Christ’s sake.

Consider the glory.

So whatever your situation might be right now, consider the glory that is waiting for you. Let it change your perspective and strengthen you to endure suffering—even to willingly accept suffering if it comes as a result of your obedience to God. 

Suffering is hard, to be sure. It hurts. But remember that this life is not it. Through Christ, we have hope in a future in which all of creation will be restored. No part of our existence will be broken anymore. One day, suffering will end and the glory we receive in the end is totally worth whatever hardships we may encounter in this life.

At the end of Romans 8, Paul reminds us that nothing can separate us from God’s love. So, whether we are suffering for Christ or suffering because we live in this broken world, remember that our suffering is not in vain. Our hope will not disappoint us because God is always faithful. He promises to make all things new. 

If you’re in Christ, you’re one of those things he will make new. So as you’re going through your daily life, I pray that you’ll dwell in the gospel and be encouraged knowing that one day this world won’t be broken anymore and we will be with Christ forever.

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In recent weeks, I’ve stumbled across a simple book by Don Whitney called Family Worship. While the concept is not new to me, I wanted to see if this little book provided fresh insight or if it was one I could recommend on the subject. I’m happy to report that both are true.

Whitney provides a very quick walk through both Scripture and history showing the importance of this practice throughout generations of the church. In doing so, he brings an arsenal of citations from church history to the table.

One quotation in particular stood out. It’s a quote from John Paton, a renowned missionary, in which he recalls the significance of family worship in his own home as a child:

How much my father’s prayers at this time impressed me I can never explain, nor could any stranger understand. When, on his knees and all of us kneeling around him in family worship, he poured out his whole soul with tears for the conversion of the Heathen World to the service of Jesus, and for every personal and domestic need, we all felt as if in the presence of the living Saviour, and learned to know and love Him as our Divine Friend. As we rose from our knees, I used to look at the light on my father’s face, and wish I were like him in spirit- hoping that, in answer to his prayers, I might be privileged and prepared to carry the blessed Gospel to some portion of the Heathen World.

Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides.

Raised in Scotland, John Patton was a missionary to the South Pacific islands during the back half of the nineteenth century. Patton and his family spent decades working among a cannibalistic tribe that repeatedly made attempts on his life. He lost his first wife and several children to tropical diseases. And yet, by the end of his tenure, he saw an entire island profess Christ, translated the New Testament into their language, and trained enough missionaries from that island to send out to twenty-five additional islands.

To what did Patton attribute his earliest desires to serve Christ as a missionary? It was the example set by his father during family worship.

The fervent prayers of his father that the gospel would go to the nations were, in fact, answered through the obedience of his son. That calling in the son was formed and established by the example of the father.

Reading this as a parent, it struck a new chord in my own heart.

Do I want my daughter to go?

My first interaction with a calling to missionary service was my own. I was already an adult and had been serving in collegiate ministry when God, through the work of my local church, called me to an extended season overseas among an unreached group in West Africa. I remember the conversations with my parents, both godly leaders in their own church. They were largely supportive, even proud at times, but I could see the emotional toll it took on them. To sacrifice themselves for the Great Commission was one thing, but to let go of their only child was a different ask.

I’m now the proud father of a rambunctious little girl. She’s less than a year old, but she recently started crawling and she’s ready to take on the world. What I once saw in my parent’s eyes when discussing a calling overseas, I now feel in my own heart for my baby girl.

Do I want my daughter to go?

As a Christian, as someone who believes the gospel and understands my own desperate need for it, I know the answer must be yes. The Great Commission was not given to a select few. No, the call to make disciples of the nations is for all who call upon the name of the Lord. As Danny Akin is quick to say: the question is not why should she go, but why should she stay?

What is more, I want what is best for her. If I am not careful, though, I will define “best” by the comfortable consumerist narrative around me instead of the Bible. What is best for my daughter? It is best that she knows and loves God, and it is best that she walks in obedience to all that he asks of her. 

We as parents want her to do big things, and what more worthy cause exists than taking the precious news of salvation to those who have never heard?

Is it safe? Of course not, but safety is only an illusion we’ve duped ourselves into feeling in our largely comfortable and self-sufficient surroundings in North America. Will it be a sacrifice? Most certainly. It will be one for her, and it will be one for us. And yet, we must agree with the Apostle Paul when he writes:

This grace was given to me—least of all the saints—to proclaim to the Gentiles the incalculable riches of Christ, and to shed light for all about the administration of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.

Ephesians 3:8-9

Modeling a Heart for the Nations

By this point, I hope we are in agreement. Our prayer for our daughter is that she would follow Christ wherever he leads and for her to hear the Bible’s clarion call to the nations.

In Paton’s writing, he reveals the significance of his parents’ example in discovering his call to international missions. He writes:

As we rose from our knees, I used to look at the light on my father’s face, and wish I were like him in spirit- hoping that, in answer to his prayers, I might be privileged and prepared to carry the blessed Gospel to some portion of the Heathen World.

Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides.

Parents, do not underestimate how much your concerns influence those of your children. If something weighs heavy on your heart, there is a good chance it will weigh heavy on theirs. And in order to model a heart for the nations, we must have one first. How much do you desire that the gospel go to the nations? Does that desire come to the surface as you parent? When was the last time your children heard you pray, in earnest, for the spread of the gospel to peoples and places far away?

Modeling anything requires both visibility and regularity. Quite simply, our children must see us doing something and see it often for it to ever be truly modeled.

This is not practicing prayer for show, a practice Jesus soundly rebuked (Matthew 6:5-6). Instead, this is authenticity in front of those who need to see it the most: your family. To be sure, we do model an approach to God, his word, and his call on our lives before our spouse and children. The question is not “if” we will do so, rather “which” approach we will model.

Finally, we must encourage the right thing. Children will lean into those things which we celebrate. This is as true of spiritual maturity and gospel-centered obedience to the Great Commission as it is sport or studies.

Paton’s words weigh heavy on my heart. Paton speaks of the admiration he possessed for his father and how it created in him a desire to lean into his calling. I find myself in agreement with Paton, admiring the example set by his father.

My prayer is that our daughter will see that kind of faith in us, that she will see hearts that beat for the spread of the gospel. I pray we celebrate in her most those things which Christ desires, and we would find joy in her obedience to him, even to the ends of the earth.

My hope is that you would pray those same prayers. Parents, let’s raise up missionaries.

Further Reading

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Why read missionary biographies?

Simply put, missionary biographies are good for your soul. As Christians, we are encouraged by stories of faithfulness in others. They are a testimony, a witness, not just to those with whom they are sharing the gospel, but also to us as well. We see in them and their lives the truth of the gospel. In them, we find both comfort and challenge.

The lives of missionaries comfort us because we see that Christ is worth it. Christ is worth the sacrifice, that others may know the unsurpassing glory of the Son of God is more valuable than any other human endeavor. How could these missionaries know and feel this way? Because they themselves have been transformed by the marvelous grace of the gospel. What first worked on them now works out of them and through them to others. We can take comfort in the gospel knowing that our hope and peace is found on the other side of that cross.

The lives of missionaries also challenge us. They demonstrate, perhaps more clearly than we sometimes care to see, the distinction between that which is wood, hay, and stubble and that which is pure gold refined by fire (1 Corinthians 3:11-15). They said the gospel is worth it, and when confronted with that reality, we must ask ourselves if we agree.

Uncertainty is something we’re all facing right now, perhaps more than most of us have ever encountered. The missionaries you find in the pages of these biographies were no strangers to uncertainty or sacrifice.

I pray that you will be comforted and challenged by their witness.

Missionary Biographies

This first set is a short collection of missionary biographies that are book-length treatments of one missionary. Of course, these are more in-depth reads and give you the chance to zoom in on one missionary and their story. Some are classics, and others are more recent contributions.

The Life and Diary of David Brainerd

This first book is perhaps the quintessentially classic missionary biography. It is primarily autobiographical, with notes from Jonathan Edwards. Brainerd was a missionary to the Native Americans during the 1700s.

Faithful Witness: The Life & Mission of William Carey

Written by Timothy George, this biography details the life of the “Father of Modern Missions.” Carey and his accomplishments were instrumental in beginning the modern missions movement. It is in large part to him that we owe our renewed focus on the Great Commission in evangelicalism.

Through Gates of Splendor

Jim Elliot’s story is not that far removed from the present. In the middle of the last century, the Elliot family was part of a missionary team to the jungles of Ecuador. Written by his wife, Elisabeth Elliot, this biography recounts the story of sacrifice and grace that they found in their obedience to the Great Commission. It is well worth the read.

To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson

Adoniram Judson’s life is a monumental testimony to the grace of God even in the midst of sacrifice. Courtney Alexander first published this work in 1956, but it remains a classic missionary biography.

Compilations

If you prefer reading a compilation, I’ve included three of those as well. Unlike the above works, these provide chapter-length treatments that highlight a missionary’s story but allow you to survey a number of different testimonies. If you’re new to missionary biographies, then you may want to start here.

Ten Who Changed the World

This is my go-to compilation for people entering the world of missionary biographies. Dr. Danny Akin is the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and has developed a practice over the years of sharing an annual chapel message that details the life of a missionary as an extended illustration for his message. This book is the fruit of that practice, weaving together missionary biographies with devotional material.

Filling Up the Afflications of Christ

Like Dr. Akin, John Piper has done extensive research and writing on the lives of many missionaries and Christian ministers throughout history. This particular work highlights the lives of William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton. It’s an excellent read in Piper’s signature style.

Bonus Splurge – 21 Servants of Sovereign Joy: Faithful, Flawed, and Fruitful

Also by John Piper, this hardcover book is the complete collection of Piper’s The Swans Are Not Silent series, of which the above book is volume 5. This work includes more than just missionaries, highlighting 21 different servants of Christ throughout history. If you want the complete package, this is probably the one to read!

Now is the perfect time to sharpen those Bible study skills. Over the past week a number of different publishing companies and institutions have made a wealth of biblical studies resources available for free for a limited time in order to aid students and churches as they transition to remote environments.

ESV.org Free Basic Subscription

Crossway has made a free basic subscription to their online Bible study software at ESV.org available until May 31, 2020. Their service is subscription based, but they’ve graciously made it available to anyone who signs up for the next couple of months.

The service includes several study Bibles, tools to engage with the Scriptures in the original languages, interactive Bible studies and a number of reading plans.

Free Online Bible Interpretation Course

In my opinion, this one falls into the “best kept secret” category, but Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary has a whole list of free online, seminary-level courses online. Unlike the rest of this list, these are always available and cover a wide range of topics from systematic theology to missions history.

Today, I want to specifically highlight the course by Dr. Akin on interpreting and teaching the Bible. The lectures are excellent, and this is a great way to learn how to study the Bible in a fruitful way.

Free Lifeway Curriculum

Lifeway has also stepped up in a big way, providing a ton of their Bible study curriculum for free to churches. The caveat: your church will have to first sign up for you to have access to this material. That said, this is a free offer for all churches with no strings attached.

If you are a leader in your church, consider making a few extra clicks on your computer and providing this free resource to your congregation right now. If you’re not a church leader, and are interested in looking over this large collection of Bible study curriculum, reach out to your pastor or staff and see if they will sign up for this. It only takes a few minutes.

Bonus: Massive Free Logos Package (for SEBTS students only)

This last one is a bonus, but it is only available for current Southeastern students. If you are a student at another seminary, check and see if this deal is available for you as well.

Southeastern has a partnership with Logos and the latter has graciously provided free access for 60 days to a massive collection of theological and biblical resources in what they are calling their remote learning library. All SEBTS students already have access to a free Logos license, and this provides an additional trove of free resources. If you are a SEBTS student, and you haven’t already done so, create a Faithlife account with your student email address, and these resources should populate that account.