Tony Boes

God, Family, and Good Books

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Building the Kingdom of Life

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Desire for Fulfillment

My son looks up at me with envy. He sees the joy in my eyes as I watch the bacon start to sizzle in the pan. He sees the smile on my lips as I push the crackling goodness around with a fork, attempting to avoid the occasional splatter of grease.

“I want to do it!”

But he’s not old enough, not observant enough. If I let him try, the resulting burns could land him in the ER.

My daughter gets frustrated when she picks up a ‘grown-up book’ with its blocks of text and lack of picture-clues.

“How come I can’t read it?!”

She’s just not there yet. She’s too young.

My children have strong desires to do good things, but they can’t fulfill them. Not yet. There are years of development between where they are now and where they wish to be. Their loud frustrations bring them no closer.

“When will I be grow’d up?” my son asks mournfully. “Will it be a long, long time?”

It would be nice if time were the only factor keeping him from responsible adulthood. He has much work to do. Very little of it will be glamorous.Continue Reading

To desire to be an overseer is a marvelous thing. Aspire to greatness in it! Aspire to frequent the unknown, to bless the unnamed, to lose your fame and your reputation among the influential, in order to take a stand for an end to appearance making as a way of life and ministry.

~ Zack Eswine, Sensing Jesus

For the Church 2014

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An All-New Midwestern

As I walked through the halls of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary on Tuesday, I expected to overhear the common church-conference conversations.

“What did you think of Darrin Patrick’s statement on Mark Driscoll?” Of course people are talking about that.

“I don’t know if I agree with Himaya’s stance on discipleship.” Eloquently disagreeing with a speaker is practically a competitive sport at these things.

“So how many people have you baptized this year?” Asked purely to share in another’s joy, I’m sure.

What I didn’t think to expect were all the comments about Midwestern itself. The school’s push to reinvent itself seems to be working.

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Every leader who truly follows Christ will have followers who look more and more like Jesus Christ, not like the leader.

~ Dr. Diane Langberg, Narcissism and the System it Breeds

Often readers don’t stop reading because they don’t have “permission” to stop. You have permission. The only book you should read entirely is the Bible. All other books must prove their value along the way. Don’t allow unfinished books to pile up in a mountain of guilt. Show patience with a book, but cut the ties when necessary and move on.

~Tony Reinke, Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books

Cheering for Church Fights

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“Let’s Take This Outside”

When the Bus Ministry Leader asked the Head Deacon if he wanted to “take the vote out into the parking lot” at the church’s monthly business meeting, any illusions that I was attending a peaceful country church were shattered. Before this exchange, all I knew of our church centered around the preaching of the Gospel, and the care for the less fortunate. In a few short moments, the veneer of health and unity was stripped away and the deep, sinful dysfunction of the church was made evident.

Men I had thought cared only for the spread of the gospel, showed themselves to be most interested in the wielding of influence and power. It was my first church fight. I was a new Christian and barely 13 years old.

By God’s grace that business meeting was not the end of my walk with Christ, but I was damaged. It shaped the way I see relationships in the church, and has influenced my convictions on how the church should be governed (hint: preteens have no business in business meetings). Since then I’ve seen and heard even worse–shameful divisions that have no place in the household of God.

My father, who was baptized shortly after me, has a saying: “Baptists only love two things: fightin’ and eatin’.”  He spoke plainly from experience. I can’t say that I blame him.

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5 Ways a Church Becomes a Machine

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Shallow, Impersonal, Uncaring

My church cares too much about how many people show up on Sunday. The pastors ask us to give money for their special projects, but don’t care to get to know us. Look at the volunteers, they’re automatons with fake smiles rushing around so that the church can churn out another rockin’ worship song,  another shallow sermon, and another waste-of-time youth event. We do more and more and more, but we’re all still dead inside.

I hear these kinds of complaints a lot. I read one on Facebook in a post by a depressed college buddy. I hear another grumbled from a family member over the holidays. I hear the same whispered, through tears, by a friend at a small-group meeting. Sometimes, when I am feeling cynical about failures in ministry, these are my own words–though they are rarely said aloud.

Some churches are blasphemous, personality-driven machines–top-heavy organizations that grind through people in the name of building even larger organizations that grind through even larger amounts of people. Such churches leave battered and broken people in their wake. They deserve the scorn they generate. With other churches, things are not quite so clear-cut.

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