When the Pews Hold Pain

How to preach and lead when trauma sits in your sanctuary.

kemalbas / Getty

There are two opposite errors we can make when it comes to thinking about pastoring and trauma. The first is to find it all too confusing and complex, and as a result do nothing. The second is to be overconfident about our capacity as agents of healing and do harm as we try to solve everything. A much better, and humbler, route exists. While acknowledging that we are not experts, we can recognize the many ways we can, and should, exhibit loving, Christ-centered care.

The Experience of Trauma

Trauma is a technical word that has acquired broad popular usage. We sometimes lose our bearings when faced with technical terms, so it is worth beginning by recognizing that trauma is always an experience of suffering, and those who suffer should always be of concern to us and our churches. Trauma is sometimes described as an experience that overwhelms a person, getting through their defenses and under their skin. Whether through military combat, a life-threatening car crash, prolonged childhood abuse, or some other reason, traumatic experiences leave their mark in that the impact of the past is carried into the living of the present.

The effect of trauma varies. Often, it produces a heightened level of arousal, especially in situations that feel threatening. Someone may be constantly on guard, with a hyper-vigilance that is alert to danger (whether real or perceived). It may be hard for someone to engage with those around them, and with heightened anxiety, they may begin to feel detached from their surroundings.

People who have experienced trauma may therefore be sensitive to particular situations, noises, or stories. Often these things have an association with the past. For example, a soldier who experienced trauma on the battlefield may find the experience evoked by the noise of fireworks. It is not simply that they recall the experience, but that they relive it—the emotions and physical sensations associated with the original trauma are experienced afresh in the present.

Trauma Isolates

Those who have experienced trauma often carry feelings of shame. Perhaps something was done to them that feels shameful (even if they were the one offended against). Or something they did, or failed to do, has come to feel shameful to them. Or perhaps it is a sense of being unable to cope that somehow seems worthy of shame.

Shame isolates us. It causes us to feel unacceptable, unwelcome, and as if we do not belong. It causes us to retreat and avoid people. Trauma is sometimes identified as something that we find “unspeakably” awful. Trauma silences us—we have no words to describe what has happened to us—which reinforces a sense of isolation.

Gospel Hope

In his ministry on earth, Jesus moved toward those who suffer. The sick and needy—and those who considered themselves outcasts—flocked to him (see Mark 1:32 and 10:49). In imitation of Jesus, the church is also expected to move toward those who suffer—”if one part suffers, every part suffers with it” (1 Cor. 12:26). This acceptance of, and love toward, those who suffer is rooted in the salvation work of Jesus. Jesus “endured the cross, scorning its shame” (Heb. 12:2). We have a message that speaks powerfully to both suffering and shame.

Five Principles for Our Churches

Be aware of the possibility. When someone asks if a church, or a ministry, is “trauma informed,” often what they want to know is, Will you see me? Will I be noticed and welcomed, or will it feel as if I am too complicated or awkward to be acknowledged? We don’t need to be experts, but we do need to be aware that alongside us in our churches there are people whose past suffering continues to create present struggles. That is why I wrote Understanding Trauma—I wanted to provide an introduction to trauma that is specifically designed for church life.

This awareness will shape our assumptions and natural responses to people. We will, for example, not assume that the distracted individual who fails to make eye contact or speaks abruptly is simply being rude. We will consider the possibility that they might be wrestling with anxiety as they bravely try to enter our church building rather than simply turn and flee.
Make space in your welcome. Most of us feel some anxiety when entering an unfamiliar environment—particularly one in which everyone else seems to feel at home—and this anxiety is heightened for those who have experienced trauma. People may leave early or arrive late to avoid crowding, and we can accommodate that. The layout of our entry and exit points and the posture of people stationed there can be warm and welcoming while making space for people to choose their own level of interaction. Do what you can to reduce congestion around the entrance, and make sure that there is a clear and unobstructed exit route.

If a person’s traumatic experience is associated with church, ordinary aspects of worship may be associated with threat and even take them by surprise. A song that many people find reassuringly familiar, for instance, could cause others to relive visceral memories of past suffering and helplessness. They may need to go outside for a time and later re-enter the building. Protect their ability to retreat or take a moment, and make it easy for them to move freely without awkwardness. We can use a light touch even in offering help: “If you need anything, do just ask. I’ll be glad to help.”

Alerts and warnings. A preacher cannot possibly know, never mind make allowance for, all the various sensitivities of their hearers. But the severe distress experienced in reliving trauma merits particular attention. Certain topics or narratives can be triggering for someone who has suffered trauma: that is, the memory—or, more accurately, the experience—of their suffering may be vividly evoked by those things.

The Bible does not shy away from the hard realities of sin and suffering, which means that it does include some uncompromising accounts of physical brutality and sexual violence. We will not want to avoid these passages, but we ought to be aware of the impact they might have. We might, therefore, consider giving advance notice when such a passage is going to be read or preached from. A brief mention at the start of the service may be all that is needed. Acknowledging that some may want to step out before the reading and sermon will make it that much easier to do so. It also clearly communicates the message: We see you and we care about you.
Follow Scripture’s lead. The Bible is generally circumspect in its descriptions of violence and suffering. Where contemporary novels often give extended, graphic accounts of events and emotions, the Bible rarely does. We would do well to follow that example and avoid graphic descriptions in our preaching and teaching.

We would also be wise to avoid misguided attempts to “lighten the mood.” What we intend as witty remarks to dispel awkwardness in the discussion of painful topics will, in all probability, land badly with those who have experienced trauma. It is likely to communicate that we have no conception of the severity of what they have lived through, or even that we are dismissing and trivializing their experience.
Involving and belonging. As we increase our awareness and make space for the different needs of those among us, we must resist the tendency to move into an “us and them” mindset. Someone suffering with trauma might assume that there is an “us” group that has everything sorted out (to which they cannot possibly belong) and they must be part of a troubled, needy “them.” We know better. The gospel, of course, directly counters such thinking. We are all needy. And we are all outside until Christ brings us in.

More than any other community, the church should communicate welcome and acceptance to those who feel isolated, shamed, or troubled. A shared experience of grace can (and does) create communities that are unusually good at incorporating difference. Christian believers know that God uses suffering in his plans and purposes. He has done so in Christ. When Paul speaks of sharing abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, he makes clear that these experiences have been used by God to make him even more effective in his ministry (2 Cor. 1:3–7). Those who have experienced trauma have much to teach God’s church, and we should be eager to use all the gifts God gives to us, his people. As we think about those among us who may be burdened by trauma, we can see them both as “bruised reeds” (Matt. 12:20) who need Christlike care from us, and as brothers and sisters who have much to contribute as members of the body of Christ.

Steve Midgley is executive director of Biblical Counselling UK and a pastor at Christ Church Cambridge. In his book, Understanding Trauma, Steve provides guidance for churches on how to walk with wisdom and compassion alongside those who are struggling with trauma.

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Supply Chains Break and Hospitals Shutter After USAID Freeze

Emily Belz

Christian donations can only do so much to fill the gap when facilities grapple with layoffs, scarce drugs, and unanswered questions.

A man in Kenya reads the newspaper about the impact of President Donald Trump's cuts to USAID.

James Wakibia / SOPA Images/ LightRocket via Getty Images

A 300-bed Christian hospital in Eswatini has largely stopped seeing patients. Staffers at a Christian maternity clinic in Côte d’Ivoire are watching HIV drugs rapidly disappear from their shelves and do not know where to acquire more even if they can raise money for them. Students at a Christian nursing school in Malawi lost the scholarships that helped them afford tuition and meals.

In the month since President Donald Trump’s executive order freezing foreign aid shuttered the US Agency for International Development (USAID), lifesaving care mostly remains cut off around the world, despite court orders and promised waivers.

Across Africa, hospitals, clinics, and nonprofits have scrambled to raise or redirect money on their own, but administrators know emergency fundraising isn’t a reliable way to cover operation costs. In the short term, many just want to keep vulnerable patients on tuberculosis medicine or antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) for HIV, or keep their staffs paid.

Programs on the ground reported to CT that they have not received any new disbursements from USAID and can’t get answers from the US government about if or when funding will resume.

Over the weekend, the Trump administration placed almost all USAID staffers on leave and fired at least 1,600. Even if the State Department were to absorb some of USAID’s work, as the administration has outlined, it’s unclear how billions of dollars’ worth of programs would be resumed and overseen without staffing.

In Tanzania, a Christian clinic treating 300 children with HIV had to put USAID-funded staff on leave and has been scouring for funds to cover ARVs for its young patients, whose immune systems are particularly vulnerable without drugs to keep HIV at bay.

The clinic is part of Shirati Hospital, historically a Mennonite mission hospital. Dale Ressler, an American, serves as executive director of Friends of Shirati, which raises private donations for the hospital.

Ressler has been in touch with the doctor in charge of the clinic about how to keep medicines going for the children. In the past few weeks, Ressler was able to raise $10,000 for ARVs, he said. But the medicines are hard to find, with supply chains broken by the USAID shutdown.

The $10,000 should be enough for three weeks of treatment for its patients. Still, Ressler said staff members at the clinic were preparing to talk to the children about the possibility of the drugs running out.

“Some of the smaller ones won’t necessarily understand,” Ressler said. “Children 12 and up will know the risks. They’ve been told every month their whole life, ‘If you don’t take [the medicine], you’ll die.’”

Certain projects around the world received waivers to continue operating despite Trump’s stop-work order—particularly HIV testing and drug distribution through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

Yet none of the HIV treatment programs contacted by CT said they had received funds since then, so groups that proceed must do so in good faith, hoping the US government will pay them for the contract work.

The New York Times reported that Phoenix, the system for disbursing money to partners in the field, remains shut down, and the acting USAID administrator has argued in court that the ongoing freeze in funds is justified.

Reuters exclusively reported last week that the administration had approved $500 million in PEPFAR funding, but if that money is coming, it hasn’t made it to many health facilities yet.

The funding freeze has halted operations at The Luke Commission (TLC) hospital in Eswatini, a small landlocked nation in Southern Africa. A 300-bed Christian hospital with about 700 employees, TLC specializes in surgeries and critical care and treats HIV, tuberculosis, and snakebites.

The Christian hospital— whose services are free to patients—leans heavily on USAID, with about $7 million of its $21 million budget coming from the US government, according to the latest tax filings. Consistent aid payments helped when other sources of funding were unpredictable, said Echo VanderWal, executive director of TLC.

“If I could describe [USAID] for us in two words, it would be ‘faithful friends,’” said VanderWal in an interview. When other parts of the health care system shut down during the pandemic, the USAID country director called VanderWal every day to ask how the hospital was doing.

But VanderWal thinks a shakeup of US aid could be good. She has seen how projects from US agencies and other foreign aid can be redundant or feed corruption.

“The need for accountability and transparency and integrity in global aid is long overdue,” she said. “I’m devastated that it’s happening like this.”

TLC leaders asked its US donors if it could redirect funds to tuberculosis and HIV medicines so patients wouldn’t lose access to the lifesaving drugs. Since the USAID shutdown, the hospital is mostly doing drug refills. The hospital has laid off some staff members, and others aren’t getting full salaries.

The COVID-19 pandemic left the facility in financial straits. During the pandemic TLC had a heavy patient load and made a significant investment in an oxygen plant. As a result, the hospital had already reduced some services before the USAID cut.

“I do not believe that America is going to give nothing to foreign aid,” VanderWal said. “I believe they are going to invest in a continued legacy of compassion to the world. … Possibly it’s going to be structured differently. I sure hope so.”

The frozen aid may have eliminated some wasteful programs, but it also cut PIM, a Christian maternity clinic in Côte D’Ivoire, specializing in mothers and children with HIV. The clinic treats 5,800 patients, according to Kip Lines, executive director of CMF International, a Christian mission organization in the US that supports PIM. The HIV medicine keeps a pregnant mother from passing the virus to her baby.

Run by Ivorians, the clinic was part of PEPFAR and received USAID funding. It had a signed contract with USAID through 2025 and was not prepared for the freeze.

The ARV distribution network in Côte D’Ivoire also shut down with the freeze, said CMF’s Lines. (CMF does not receive USAID funding.)

Without the network, the clinic isn’t sure where to procure ARVs.

“Even if the State Department said today, ‘Yes, we’re re-funding this program,’ none of the organizations that received the USAID funding locally are in operation,” Lines said. “They let their staff go. The offices are closed.”

CMF reached out to ACONDA VS-CI, the organization that oversees drug distribution, and got no response. ACONDA’s social media presence halted in late January, with its last post a recruitment for staff to fight HIV. CMF’s staff on the ground said the organization had shut down. ACONDA did not respond to an inquiry from CT.

When HIV funding disappeared in January, CMF asked US churches to raise money for the clinic’s operating costs, particularly the salaries of clinic staffers who would have to be laid off otherwise.

Churches responded by supporting the salaries in the short term, but the bigger fundraising need going forward is for the ARVs, which cost about $30,000 a month, if the clinics can acquire them.

Last week CMF was able to send $10,000 for ARVs to PIM, and Lines said the clinic was “buying them wherever they can find them.”

The emergency funding is helpful, but Lines wonders: If PEPFAR isn’t operational again in a few months, will PIM have to shut the clinic down?

In some places, the funding freeze is threatening efforts to make countries less dependent on foreign aid.

Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world, has long struggled with a shortage of health care workers. It has among the world’s lowest numbers of nurses per capita.

In recent years, USAID sponsored a scholarship to support nurses-in-training at Nkhoma Hospital, a rural mission hospital now run by Malawian Christians.

Most of the 350 students at Nkhoma College of Nursing and Midwifery pay their own tuition, but a USAID scholarship program supports a cohort of 20 nurses who need assistance. Some are the children of subsistence farmers, the first in their families to attain this level of education.

These 20 nurses were halfway through their three-year education when the funding freeze hit last month. The students were ready to start their semester, but the school received word that they would receive no funds for their tuition or their room and board.

The students were crying, saying they had nowhere to go, said multiple staffers at the school. Food is scarce now because it’s the time of the year Malawians call “hunger season.” Proceeds from a previous year’s crop are dwindling, and the next season’s maize crops aren’t harvested until May.

“Students, they cannot go home and say, ‘Give us maize and give us some food,’” said Rose Mazengera, one of the Malawian administrators at the nursing school. At the hospital, the doctors see more children with malnutrition during this season.

Nkhoma Hospital is already stretched thin serving a poor rural population and did not have money to cover the students’ fees and food.

In one letter to the school, reviewed by CT, a nursing student asked for a few months to pay his tuition, saying he had planted maize and would be able to harvest it in May in order to pay the school by June. “This is my only source of getting the fees,” he wrote.

In desperation, the school’s leaders sent a request to African Mission Healthcare, a foundation that has supported mission hospitals, to help keep the nurses in school. The foundation agreed to cover this semester of tuition for the 20 nurses.

But the school’s administrators don’t know if that support will continue. Before the shutdown, US government support felt reliable.

The freeze “came to us as a surprise and a shock,” said Newton Kamchetere, another nursing school administrator. “If their training is interrupted or curtailed, in the near future we will have deficiencies in terms of health care workers. … It will have a huge impact in the long run.”

It’s a compounding crisis too: Some nursing students who weren’t receiving the scholarship relied on family members working on USAID-supported projects to help pay their tuition.

“We are always grateful for the things the US government has been doing in Malawi … especially with HIV,” Mazengera said. But she expects the funding cuts will increase the mortality rate for children under 5 years old, a key health indicator.

“I’m just hoping and praying some of these things can be reversed,” she added. “It is a thing which needs God’s intervention.”

Last week in Nkhoma Hospital’s daily chapel, Kamchetere delivered the message and talked about Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 12:26 about the church as a body.

“When the other part of the body suffers, we should all be concerned—we need to help one another. I have seen that working,” Kamchetere said. “May the good Lord open other doors so at the end of the day we will alleviate the poverty and suffering.”

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Pepperdine Calls Foul with Netflix Trademark Infringement Lawsuit

Christopher Kuo

The Christian university claims that a new basketball sitcom has misappropriated its team name and branding.

Oliver McKenna / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Pepperdine University sued Netflix and Warner Bros. over a new sitcom that features a fictional Los Angeles basketball franchise whose branding resembles Pepperdine’s NCAA Division I team, the Waves.

The school—which is affiliated with the Churches of Christ and is a member of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities—claimed trademark infringement and argued that the show’s messaging runs counter to Pepperdine’s values and reputation.

“Without our permission, Netflix continues to promote Running Point, a new series that has misappropriated our trademarked name, the Waves, our colors, blue and orange, our hometown of Los Angeles, and even the year we were founded as an institution,” said Sean Burnett, Pepperdine’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer.

Created by Mindy Kaling and premiering on the streaming service this Thursday, Running Point stars Kate Hudson as the new owner of the Waves, with Chet Hanks, Brenda Song, and Max Greenfield in the supporting cast.

According to the lawsuit, filed February 20 in US District Court in California, the logo and branding for the show’s team is too close to Pepperdine’s.

“Defendants’ ‘Waves’ share the exact same name, use strikingly similar branding, have the exact same color combinations (blue, orange and white), promote the player number of Pepperdine’s well-known mascot and year of the university’s founding (37), and are in the same city, along with several other similarities,” the lawsuit said.

The university, located in Malibu, 29 miles from downtown LA, has a trademark on the mark WAVES that it uses for athletic gear, marketing, sports facilities, and other public displays, the suit said.

Pepperdine has used the Waves as its team name since the beginning; the university’s first president recommended it as a way to differentiate Pepperdine’s teams from others with animals as mascots. The school adopted blue and orange as its colors to represent the Pacific Ocean and the state of California.

Its NCAA athletic program includes eight men’s and nine women’s Division I teams, including its basketball teams. The men’s basketball program at Pepperdine has competed 13 times in the NCAA tournament and has sent 18 alumni to play professionally in the NBA.

Pepperdine said in its filing last week that its reputation will be “irreparably harmed” by the use of its trademarked logos and branding in Running Point because of the show’s foul language, sexually explicit content, references to alcohol and illegal substances, and violent altercations. (The show carries a TV-MA rating.) The suit also references a clip from the trailer that shows Hudson’s character posing topless with a pair of basketballs.

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These messages and images run counter to Pepperdine’s Christian values and would hinder its ability to pursue its mission and recruit students, faculty, and athletes, the suit said.

Staff from the university attempted to contact Netflix and Warner Bros. through phone calls, email correspondence, and a cease-and-desist letter but were not able to reach a satisfactory agreement, the suit said.

Spokespersons for Netflix and Warner Bros. did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Christianity Today.

Pepperdine is seeking injunctive relief that would prevent Netflix and Warner Bros. from using its trademarks or any other marks that are “confusingly similar” to Pepperdine’s in Running Point.

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Church Life

He Remembers Our Frames

Zack Eswine

A reflection on Psalm 103:14 for Ash Wednesday.

Illustration by Keith Negley

Psalm 103:14

In Eden, everything was a hallelujah. Good! Very good! God said (Gen. 1:1–31). Though brown and gray, even dust was a dappled speck of glittering life. Grand as the mountains. Majestic like whales. For even the tiniest fleck which clung to the hidden underside of Adam and Eve’s broom was cherished and celebrated, a treasured gift from God (Prov. 8:26).

Have you ever seen a snow-laden valley blanketed in soft white? When untouched and gleaming in the sunlight, before any human boot has pressed its mud-mixed imprint into it? In Eden, dust was associated with untouched beauty like this. All gleaming light. No muddy boot.

However, when David writes this psalm, he is a long way from Eden and innocence. His sins are many. He’d been sinned against too. He was dust. Not innocent and colorful, but what dust had become. Like all other created goods, dust was now twinged by death. Dingy, the dignity of its tiny fleck in Eden was gone. In the fallen world, tiny flecks are flicked. No one sees dust, and if one does, he tries to rid his room of it.

For out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return. (Gen. 3:19, ESV)

Dust was once Edenic (out of it you were taken). Now dust signals death (to dust you shall return).

When we sin as David had, we wonder about how God remembers us. Will God forget the dignity he gave us, or remembering our frailty, will he shun or abandon us?

In Psalm 103, David describes God as one who remembers and who is merciful and gracious (Ps. 103:4, 8). God is slow to anger and abounding with steadfast love, the kind of love no one can take from us (Ps. 103:4, 8, 11, 17).

As one who remembers, God banishes condemnation when we repent. Look to any horizon in any direction, and all a sinner will see is the shining light of the forgiveness of God (Ps. 103:11–12).

For God is like the most compassionate father (Ps. 103:13). Slow to anger, merciful, gracious, abounding with love, this Father is delighted when remembering the dignity of the one he loves. Such a Father would never give a scorpion or snake to one dearly loved who needs an egg or bread (Luke 11:11–13). On the contrary, such a compassionate Father would use his bold strength to gently brace, fiercely protect, and sacrificially guard the vulnerable child he loves. As a compassionate father who is good, God remembers our frame. He remembers that we are dust.

Whenever I’ve been with parents as they hold their little or grown children in their children’s last moments on this earth, compassionate and loving parents cradle them, speaking words of lifelong love. They remember their loved one’s frame. They cry, in Jesus, declaring the existence of a love that somehow overcomes even this death of deaths.

By faith, they know that it is not the Grim Reaper who comes for their loved one. It is the God who created and remembers their child that comes.

It is not death winning in those last breaths but death taking its last stand.

Remember, in this world, it is not death that is steadfast but divine love.

This divine love, mentioned four times in this psalm, remembers not only that we are dust in death, but also that it was with dust he had given us life.

He knows our frame. He remembers.

So when ash is smeared on our foreheads today, we confront a difficult truth. Death as dust is a scene in our story that we cannot escape. Sorrows for sins against us. Repentance for our own contribution.

And yet, in Christ Jesus, death as dust has never been and will never be the truest thing about us. Death has an enemy. His name is Jesus Christ.

When we receive ashes on our heads today, we declare by faith that death will die. Because death could not hold Jesus in the grave, dust will rise again, recovered to the glory given it in Eden and all the more in the new kingdom that awaits us.

This is why when the earliest followers of Jesus thought of death, they declare it their last enemy (1 Cor. 15:26). They learned to see this enemy outflanked at every turn by God’s steadfast love in Christ Jesus, from which nothing, not even death, can separate us (Rom. 8:38–39).

Our God is our great rememberer. He remembers our frames, that we are dust. Held by him, we hope.

Zack Eswine (Rev. PhD) serves as lead pastor of Riverside Chruch in Missouri. His books include The Imperfect Pastor and Wiser with Jesus. He writes at The Good Dark (thegooddark.substack.com) and is cofounder of Sage Christianity with his wife, Jessica.

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Introduction

Ronnie Martin

Reflections on Lent, meditations on Holy Week, and celebrating Easter.

Illustrations by Keith Negley

The days leading to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (the Lenten season) are some of the most significant of the year for many Christians in a variety of theological traditions. Whereas the Advent season is celebrated as a time of joyful anticipation, Lent is traditionally practiced with a sense of sober observance, characterized by repentance, self-denial, and an awareness of our sinful humanity that led to Christ’s atonement of our sins. While it is right and good for Christians to enter into a time of somber reflection as we look to the Cross, we don’t want to forget that this is a road with a joyful conclusion—the resurrection of Christ.

For this Easter and Lenten season, we will begin a journey down The Road to Joy.

The imagery of a road can evoke visions of sun-drenched stretches through the desert, tree-lined paths through the woods, or lonely highways traveling through the middle of nowhere. As we journey onward, we are met with numerous challenges as we get closer to our desired destination, but we press on courageously, convinced that it will have been worth it when we reach the end.

In some ways, this echoes our salvation stories, where we experience the sobering yet sanctifying reality of Christ’s death in our lives while never losing sight of the hopeful joy that his resurrecting power provides as we draw nearer to him, our desired destination. I pray that as you spend time reading and meditating on these hopeful reflections, your heart will be freshly renewed as you remember the one who endured the Cross, for the joy that was set before him.

Ronnie Martin is Director of Leader Care & Renewal for Harbor Network, and Pastor-In-Residence at Redeemer Community Church in Bloomington, IN. He has written several books, including In the Morning You Hear My Voice (B&H, 2025), and co-hosts The Heart of Pastoring podcast with Jared C. Wilson.

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If Anyone Would Come

Jeremy Linneman

Self-denial is an essential step on the road to joy.

Illustration by Keith Negley

Matthew 16:24

The road to joy, for Jesus, ran through Jerusalem. It was a path of self-denial, sacrifice, and death—before it was the passage into joy, redemption, and glory.

So it is for all who would follow in his steps. To walk with Jesus is to take the way of the Cross. To enter his kingdom is to knowingly and willingly choose the joy of self-denial.

How can we say the “joy” of self-denial? True joy doesn’t take the long way around pain; it doesn’t take a shortcut toward glory. True joy moves through hardship. True joy goes with Jesus through Jerusalem. The way is narrow, and the gate is small, but freedom and joy await the disciple who stays on the path.

Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24). This is rightly understood to be one of Jesus’ most intimidating challenges. But it is also one of his most subversive invitations. “Get off the road that leads to death,” he’s saying. “Choose instead this unexpected way to the good life—through denying and dying to self.”

Indeed, our denial is an essential step in becoming like Jesus. Dallas Willard wrote that “a shift toward self-denial is needed to reorder the … human self in subordination to God. … Christian spiritual formation rests on this indispensable foundation of death to self and cannot proceed except insofar as that foundation is being firmly laid and sustained.” What is the self-life that is being denied and laid down? It is the old self which needs to be put off. It is the old life that wasn’t so appealing anyway.

To deny ourselves and follow Jesus is the most freeing and wonderful thing; it is to let go of what wasn’t working in the first place. The new, selfless life that takes its place is the truly good life—a new heart devoted to God, a life of honesty, vulnerability, acceptance, friendship, communion, and purpose.

To be sure, self-denial is not the same as self-rejection. Self-rejection occurs when the soul says to itself, “See, everyone was right. I’m an awful person. I’m a failure and a mistake.” Self-rejection also says, “I am not so secure in myself, so I must rise and prove myself, must fight and defend myself.” This is not the way of Jesus, and it’s not self-denial. It is a rejection of what God has made and declared good. How do we know when we are practicing self-rejection and not self-denial? Self-rejection leads to shame, hiding, and self-criticism. It also makes us critical and demanding toward others. (We’re critical of others when we believe God is critical toward us.)

Self-denial, on the other hand, leads to a joyful submission to the Father. It is the freedom to reject the ways of the world—its anger, greed, and envy. Self-denial is an active choice to become like Jesus in his radical inner simplicity and wholehearted devotion to the Father. It is what the late Tim Keller called a “blessed self-forgetfulness.”

And unlike self-rejection, self-denial frees us to love and serve others purely. (We’re merciful toward others when we believe God is merciful toward us.)

Self-denial, then, is both the most difficult thing in the Christian life and the simplest. Laying down our lives can’t happen just once; it’s a complete surrender we make moment by moment, every day. Only if we truly embrace Jesus’ self-denying, non-defensive death on the cross can we believe we are accepted into his Father’s delight.

Yet in this tension of challenge and invitation, remember who supplies the strength and wisdom for a life of self-denial. It is Jesus. He provides all we need to follow in his self-giving love—namely, his Spirit. As we abide in him, walking by his Spirit, we come out with complete joy (John 15:11).

In a world consumed with earning, showing, and defending, self-denial seems like a radical and dangerous thing. But in the right-side-up kingdom of Jesus, it is the safest, simplest, and happiest place. In him, we lack nothing and have everything. Will you receive it? Will you deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus into full and eternal joy?

Lord Jesus, thank you that you are with me. I did not choose you, but you chose me and appointed me to die to myself and take up your life. Grant me your strength and wisdom to choose this life, not just once, but every moment. My life is yours. Lead me, by your Spirit and your self-giving love, into everlasting joy.

Jeremy Linneman (DMin Covenant Theological Seminary) serves as lead pastor of Trinity Community Church in Columbia, Missouri. He’s the author of Pour Out Your Heart: Discovering Joy, Strength, and Intimacy with God through Prayer. Jeremy and his wife, Jessie, have three sons.

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Church Life

I Have Calmed and Quieted My Soul

John Starke

Our management strategies for anxiety are not enough. Let us hope in God’s presence and power.

Illustration by Keith Negley

Psalm 131

In our life with God in this world, we often need to sit quietly and be honest with ourselves. What worries and anxieties are occupying our minds and governing our behavior more than they should? Sitting quietly is difficult.

We don’t like what happens when we do. All the ghosts and goblins from below, which we have so effectively silenced in the hurry of each day, suddenly come to the surface. When we are still, we often scroll. We scroll through algorithms available to us for the silencing of the inner panic. But when we resist the scrolling, we are often left with lingering pains, insecurities, and thoughts that worry us and, more than we realize, control us.

While we may be effective at managing our interior lives, our management never leads to healing. At best we can numb our pain with our distractions, but the Book of Psalms offers a different path. In the presence of the Lord, we acknowledge these pains and worries, allowing them to come to the surface. The good news, however, is that the Lord never brings things to the surface that he doesn’t intend to heal.

“Oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me” (Ps. 131:1, ESV).

There are many things we can offer up to the Lord and say, “This is too much. Only you can carry me through.” There are a lot of things that shouldn’t concern us, and worrying about them never makes things better. It only diminishes us. Jesus gives us examples of worrying about money, possessions, and what tomorrow may bring (Matt. 6:34).

But even more, I wonder if we might need to offer to God the management of our interior lives and emotional entanglements. There might be wounds from friends, intimates, and family that linger and torment us, creating a sustained inner dialogue that simply rehearses the pain over and over. There might be moments of humiliation and failure at work or in our marriages that make us shrink back and cringe at ourselves. Our management strategies haven’t brought healing or resolve, only lingering pain, and like cancer, the wounds only grow and fester.

Let us sit quietly with the Lord, being honest with him and ourselves, saying, “Oh Lord, I recognize I don’t have what it takes to heal these wounds. They control me more than I control them. They are too great for me.”

“But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me”(Ps. 131:2, ESV).

For an infant, dependent upon a mother’s milk, every meal is an emergency, every hunger pang a panic. Only after the consistent experience of being fed, never going without care and attention, does a child learn that when hunger comes, it’s going to be okay. Food has always come, and it will come again. The infant can sit in her mother’s lap without groping and grasping because she has grown an instinct of being settled, even when the feelings of neediness and hunger arise.

While an infant grows an instinct of being settled, we must be intentional about it. “But I have calmed and quieted my soul.” I am intentionally seeking God’s presence, taking a deep breath, and remembering all the times he has been my help. As an infant cannot feed herself, neither can we appropriately heal our wounds and emotional entanglements.

Our management strategies have left us like unweaned children, groping and grasping, anxiously seeking out ways to feel safe in this world. Every emotion is an emergency and every pain a panic. Growing in spiritual maturity requires remembering we have never gone without care and attention from God. When the pain and sadness come, it’s going to be okay. The Spirit has always been near, and he will be near again.

“O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore” (Ps. 131:3, ESV).

We must be honest with ourselves. At times our interior entanglements and worry have governed our lives more than we’d like to admit. We are tossed to and fro by our anxious thoughts, and our own management strategies haven’t been effective. In fact, they have distanced and desensitized us from the experience of God’s presence and love for our healing and renewal. Let us seek the Lord, opening ourselves to him, hoping not in our self-management but in his presence and power. From this time forth and forevermore, lay your management strategies and safety schemes down. Hope in the Lord and his goodness.

John Starke is lead pastor at Apostles Church Uptown and lives with his wife, Jena, and their four children in New York City. He is the author of The Possibility of Prayer (IVP) and The Secret Place of Thunder (Zondervan).

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Church Life

Rejoice in Our Sufferings

Dan Hyun

Dwelling with Jesus means viewing our trials through a new set of eyes.

Illustration by Keith Negley

Romans 5:3–5

Rejoice in suffering. It may sound ridiculous, if not offensive, especially to those of us walking through the very real fires of life. For most, to rejoice in life means trying to remove as much of our hardship as possible. And to be clear, we shouldn’t be weird people who actively pursue suffering. Life isn’t some kind of bizarre spiritual CrossFit where actively punishing ourselves somehow brings us closer to God.

Still, one of the most astounding implications of dwelling with Jesus is that we can now view our suffering through a new set of eyes. It may honestly feel like a mystery that takes the whole journey of life to fully unpack. But when suffering occurs—and for all of us it’s not an if but a when—we recognize God’s invitation to enjoy his very real presence with us.

Paul was writing to a people like us who experienced the hard things of life—a people who faced the sort of challenges leading them to understandably question all these wonderful doctrines of salvation that Paul had written about. Like some of us may ask, “If we’re really doing all this gospel-centered life right, should life be this hard?”

Paul’s reply: actually, yes.

Part of working out our salvation is growing in awareness of the Lord’s presence. Absolutely in those moments when we’d naturally expect to feel his presence, times of sweet communion or satisfying moments of ministry when there’s absolutely no doubt that God really loves us. It’s right to savor and enjoy God in those times, but not just in those times.

Working out the profound implications of Good News is learning to trust the presence of Christ with us in all things—even those horrible things that keep us up at night drowning in the sorrow of helpless tears.

Again, we don’t celebrate suffering itself. Rather, we boast “in” our afflictions. That’s a critical distinction. We’re not masochists who think pain itself is good. May we be compassionate people who grieve with those who suffer very real pain. Because into that grief, we can also offer real hope. Hope that even if we may never fully understand the “why” of suffering—at least on this side of glory—knowing the “who” invites us to trust in God’s character. To trust that there is a divine meaning to the hard things we endure, meaning that even lets us rejoice believing that we are being shaped to reflect his good glory to our world.

Our suffering produces endurance. As a runner training for a marathon has to believe, those grueling practice runs are building endurance for the race. Knowing your aim can help give meaning to what may feel like torture.

And this endurance produces character. I chuckle when newlywed couples offer marriage advice. Not that it’s unhelpful, but there is a weight girding the wisdom offered by couples who’ve endured through long, hard years together and come out stronger. Character isn’t developed like heating up a quick dish in the microwave; it requires the slow cooker of life that sometimes doesn’t even look like it’s cooking.

And demonstrated character then leads to hope. It’s important to recognize that the nature of hope is that we don’t yet have what we’re longing for.

Persevering in hope can make you feel silly, but this journey of hope grows our trust in who God is. Even as it feels like so many other promises of our world ultimately disappoint, God will never let you down.

This isn’t just sweetly sentimental. God’s love is an on-the-ground, dirt-under-the-nails kind of presence. It’s the demonstrated love of a Savior suffering on a real cross that speaks hope into the darkest of places.

It’s the kind of hope where you discover that even if everything else in this world feels like it’s against you, God is for you, and that’s enough.

In the countercultural ways of God, suffering isn’t just something to be endured, but the mystery of his loving hands forming us in beauty. Trust that God loves you like this, and even if your hands are trembling, rejoice in your suffering.

Dan Hyun finds joy in equipping the church to experience God’s presence in cultivating a deeper passion for reconciliation, justice, and mission. He is the founding pastor of The Village Church in Baltimore and author of The Bible in 52 Weeks.

This article appeared in the The Road to Joy issue of Christianity Today as "Rejoice in Our Suffering".

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Church Life

In the Rush of Great Waters

Heather Thompson Day

This Lent, may we remember the Cross as those who know the depth in which we need it.

Illustration by Keith Negley

Psalm 32

Many years ago, I had a student who shared with our class that he had killed a motorcyclist in a car accident.

I was teaching a creative writing class. Every class period, we opened by looking at a writing prompt that I had projected onto the large screen. One evening every week, students would come in and quietly unzip their backpacks. You didn’t hear voices, just the quiet scratches of pen on paper. It is a sound that we don’t hear much of in classrooms anymore. Every week, the large white screen revealed a different prompt. One week it said, “They never noticed me, but I noticed them.” Another week it read, “Of all the things I have learned, this was the most important.”

We got to know each other well in that classroom. Students who thought they were terrible writers discovered the power of their own voices. We learned from the lives of one another. We grew one pen scratch at a time.

One week in particular, the prompt read, “Do you forgive me?” That’s when my student read to the class his story of a car accident that was his fault, where he killed a motorcyclist. He told us that the experience destroyed him. He dropped out of school. He developed severe depression. He pulled away from friends and family and spent nearly two years in isolation and self-loathing.

Psalm 32:3–4 encapsulates how he was feeling. “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.”

He went on to tell us that his life was changed by an unexpected display of forgiveness. He wrote a letter to the parents of the man he had killed. He expressed his sorrow for the accident and shared how grieved he had been by their loss.

Psalm 32:5 reads, “Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.’ And you forgave the guilt of my sin.” That is exactly what the parents who had buried their son did. They wrote my student a letter and forgave him for the accident, but that wasn’t all they did. The letter included an invitation. They invited my student to join them for dinner. They gave him the seat of the son they had lost. They made him a meal. They showed him pictures. They told him stories of the boy they had loved. And in this unbelievable act of compassion and kindness, my student found grace and healing.

Psalm 32:1–2 reads, “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them.” My student would return every year to have dinner with the parents of the man he had killed. And every year, they would open their home, and their memories, and offer my student forgiveness.

I have never forgotten this story. It is one of the clearest examples I have seen of the image of God in the image bearers of God. The sacrifice of these parents changed the life of my student forever. They lost one son and yet found the strength to redeem someone else’s. He went back to school. He found a therapist. He experienced the healing and restoration to his life that being washed from sin through grace always offers those of us who know the depths of which we need it.

This Lent, may we all approach the remembrance of the Cross with the heart of my student. I hope you remember the God who has remembered you. I hope you will accept the grace that has been freely given.

Psalm 32:10 says, “But the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him.”

My prompt that day that was projected on a giant white screen said, “Do you forgive me?” This Easter season, may we all remember how Christ gave his life in answer to that question. “Yes,” the Lord responded. And then he hung his head and died. The church has been living ever since.

Heather Thompson Day, PhD, is the founder of It Is Day Ministries, a nonprofit organization that trains churches, leaders, and laypeople with a gospel-centered communication approach. She has authored nine books, including I’ll See You Tomorrow and What If I’m Wrong?

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Church Life

Nor Be Weary

Jeremy Writebol

Enduring under a set of disciplines for a season prepares us for greater joy at the Resurrection.

Illustration by Keith Negley

Hebrews 12:5–7

I’ve ridden a bicycle across the state of North Carolina. Twice. Mostly.

In full disclosure, we didn’t cross the entire state. In fact, a good chunk of the ride was in South Carolina, but that’s beside the point. Two days on each trek. Up and down the rolling hills of the Carolina Piedmont on the way to the coast. One hundred and fifty miles on a heavy, iron-framed, used bicycle in the sweltering humidity and heat of mid-September. It was unbearable and nearly physically broke me. But we did it.

My father had (for reasons that remain unknown and mysterious to me) decided that it would be a great bonding exercise for him, myself, and my younger brother. We were going to support a national nonprofit organization’s fundraising efforts by riding in their 150-mile event. He enrolled us and promised it would be a lot of fun and push us to do something significant together. Looking back, he was right. But the fun and the significance of it, even 30 years later, is also remembered alongside the agony.

To be able to ride a bike 150 miles in the course of two days requires significant stamina and energy. It’s not a thing that most of us can get up in the morning and decide on a whim to do that day. It requires preparation, training, and—dare I say—discipline.

So Dad took my brother and me out on longer and longer training rides through the hot summer to train our bodies. They weren’t optional. They weren’t fun. These training rides were discipline, but they developed a capacity and an ability to actually enjoy 150 miles of biking to the beach.

The 40 days of Lent are a slog for people like me who are used to the instant gratification and immediate reward lifestyle of our current culture. Yet the effort of observing a season of repentance, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to increase my affections for Jesus is worth it. Just like my father’s grueling training rides, enduring under a set of disciplines for a season prepares us for greater joy at the Resurrection. They may even help us find greater joy in the here and now as we journey by faith to the New Jerusalem.

The writer of Hebrews understands the dynamic of our need for discipline and the Father’s good and holy purposes for us. We’re encouraged to not disregard or belittle the processes and practices of discipline God puts us under. When corrected, even rebuked, we’re encouraged not to grow weary of the process of formation. Ultimately, the application is for us to “endure hardship as discipline” (Heb. 12:7). The discipline of God is for our good, and to avoid, spurn, or reject his careful formation of us is to circumvent becoming like Christ.

Yet there is more to discipline than just getting better or stronger. Enduring the hardship and correction the Lord places us under is a sign of a unique identity we have from God. Hebrews 12:6–7 tells us, “The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son … God is treating you as his children.”

When we experience the hardship of spiritual discipline and correction, we’re really experiencing the loving training and formation of the Father. We’re not prison inmates being punished for our crimes, nor unruly students being barked at by an uncaring teacher. We’re beloved children being shaped into mature saints, able to experience surprising resilience and sustained joy until we are together with our Father forever.

Biking to the beach, and all the training rides along with it, built a lasting memory with and affection for my father, even if it took blood, sweat, and tears—the stuff of enduring hardship—to attain. The hardship and discipline from our heavenly Father will build a lasting capacity for joy and eternal delight when he brings us home. Don’t lose heart, nor be weary.

Jeremy Writebol serves as lead campus pastor at Woodside Bible Church in Plymouth, Michigan, and is executive director of Gospel-Centered Discipleship. He has authored several books including Pastor, Jesus Is Enough. He is married to Stephanie and has two children.

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