Arquivos Christian Living - OTPB - Ordem dos Teólogos e Pastores do Brasil

mar312020 by @prflavionunesNo Comments

Parenting Anxious Kids in an Anxious Time

ATUALIDADES

In the midst of the fear and uncertainty we are experiencing with COVID-19, I want to offer some brief, even basic and practical ideas for managing your own anxiety, as well as your children’s. In many ways, how we manage our own anxiety will transfer to how we are (or are not) able to appropriately care for and shepherd others, including our children. 1. Remain informed through trusted sources. Strive to consult trusted news and information sources rather than media that is sensationalized and headline-focused. Examples of such trusted sources include: 2. Limit media exposure. It’s necessary to stay informed, and it’s also wise. However, it’s incredibly tempting (speaking for myself) to become too consumed and too drawn in by the next headline. Set a limit on when and how you will che...

mar302020 by @prflavionunesNo Comments

Family Worship Starts Now

ATUALIDADES

Millions of schedules just slowed down. Schools are closed, churches are online, and many are hunkered down with streamed movies and lots of toilet paper. For those of us quarantined with our families, now is the perfect time to begin (or intentionally continue) habits of worship together. As parents, we must take an active role in shaping the spiritual climate of our homes in the coming weeks. Worship with Your Church As millions of Christians prepare to worship this week, many will be staring at a screen. Such technology is a wonderful gift that allows us, the body of Christ, to encourage one another, and we should be thankful. But we should beware of reducing the import of message because of its medium. Worship is a participatory response to the glorious acts of redempti...

mar302020 by @prflavionunesNo Comments

Social Distance, Don’t Social Isolate

ATUALIDADES, Technology

“Social distancing” is a term used by epidemiologists to refer to a conscious community effort to reduce contact between people in order to slow the transmission and reduce the impact of disease. In the face of the current global pandemic, it’s a necessary short-term measure intended to protect and preserve humanity, particularly those who are most vulnerable. It’s necessary, but it’s not easy. Humans were made for physical presence, so it’s natural to feel disordered when this presence is taken from us. The thought of social distancing brings a sense of loss—we worry we’ll lose spiritual vitality, stabilizing routines, interpersonal relationships. It’s scary. I understand this fear. I’ve spent the last five years battling chronic medical conditions that have kept me home l...

mar302020 by @prflavionunesNo Comments

The Fright of Death: How Conscience Makes Cowards of Us All

ATUALIDADES

“. . . that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Heb. 2:14–15). Death is the Great Interruption, tearing loved ones away from us, or us from them. Death is the Great Schism, ripping apart the material and immaterial parts of our being and sundering a whole person, who was never meant to be disembodied, even for a moment. Death is the Great Insult, because it reminds us, as Shakespeare said, that we are worm food. [We are] literally split in two: [Man] has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order to blindly and dumbly rot and disappear f...

mar302020 by @prflavionunesNo Comments

Watch Your (Knowledge) Diet in the COVID-19 Crisis

ATUALIDADES

The last few weeks have removed any remaining doubt: we are living through an epistemological crisis. Among the many distressing aspects of the COVID-19 global pandemic is the stress of information overload. Everyone has something to say about it. Millions of self-proclaimed experts chime in online, crowding out or contradicting real experts. Our minds are spinning because of this article we read, that tweet thread we saw, or any number of other charts, graphs, scenarios, and projections we’ve picked up on our streams. Meanwhile, the existing crisis of politicized “news” has worsened. “Alternative facts” proliferate, plenty for every side to marshal for whatever opinion they wish to perpetuate. Incessant commentary and clickbait leave our heads spinning. When something as biologically ...

mar292020 by @prflavionunesNo Comments

Quarantine Is Hard. God Is Good.

ATUALIDADES

During the last week of January, my family and I were relishing the end of a lovely vacation in Thailand and watching the news closely. We were considering what to do in light of the coronavirus chaos unfolding in China, where we currently live. As we prepared to return, though, I was just as concerned about the quarantine time as I was about the virus itself. I did the math: (4 very active young kids) + (1,600-square-foot apartment on the 25th floor of a high-rise building) x 8-plus weeks = potential insanity Fast forward almost two months and we’re still intact, but it hasn’t been easy. The question I’ve repeatedly asked is, What does it look like to depend on God during these uncertain and stressful times? Medicine from a Cave Enter Psalm 57, a psalm of David, written in a cave...

mar282020 by @prflavionunesNo Comments

When You Fear Not Being in Control

ATUALIDADES

Households across the world are aglow from screens delivering coronavirus updates. They’re also replete with fear. Leslie worries about her aging husband, whose health has been in slow decline since he turned 65. Tom knows he has no control over his pregnant wife’s health (or their baby’s) and goes to sleep nervous every night. Jessica is scared about her kids’ safety when they have to run to the grocery store, and Ron fears contracting the disease when he goes to work at the nursing home. Brittany can’t seem to control her anxiety over the virus, but it comes on full force at random moments, and she fears the next unexpected attack. Then there are fears surrounding policies and quarantines, as people anxiously await the choices their leaders will make, choices that are out of th...

mar272020 by @prflavionunesNo Comments

H. B. Charles on Jesus’s Longest Conversation

ATUALIDADES, podcast

Jesus is the meeting place of time and eternity. He is the intersection between heaven and earth. When we, like the woman at the well, were in our sin and could not reach up, God reached down. Transcript The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy. H. B. Charles: Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we ask again and afresh, that you would open our eyes that we may behold wonderful things about the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that you would help us to lay aside all malice, deceit, envy, hypocrisy, and slander, so that, as newborn infants we may crave the pure spiritual milk of your word, and grow thereby, having tasted of your goodness.Grant me physical strength a...

mar252020 by @prflavionunesNo Comments

6 Ways to Lead Your Family in Isolation

ATUALIDADES

For 12 years, our family of six would make a 22-hour, 1,200-mile, two-day trek from New England to Alabama to see grandparents. Buying airline tickets for all of us was not in our budget. As we strapped ourselves, astronaut-like, into our beloved minivan for our 22 hours of forced confinement, the question lingered. Would we survive? Reminiscing now, my children in their 20s would tell you we not only survived, but we thrived. They look back on that long trip and “forced fellowship” with fond memories. When we started our trips, our highest motive was to keep the children occupied, keep ourselves sane, and arrive safely at the grandparents. Only later did I realize our trip was a unique opportunity to build family identity and togetherness. Families are in a similar si...

mar252020 by @prflavionunesNo Comments

Suffering, Healing, and the Hope of Eternity

ATUALIDADES, podcast

Nancy Guthrie and Joni Eareckson Tada begin their conversation by reflecting on the first time they met, more than 20 years ago. At the time, Guthrie was reading Tada’s book Heaven: Your Real Home, as Guthrie’s daughter had recently gone home to heaven. This memory prompts Guthrie to ask Tada what it means to set the heart on heaven. Tada does her best to take God’s advice to lay up treasures in heaven, where she will be with Jesus, who makes it a heavenly place. Tada also references Jonathan Edwards’s remark on heaven where he said, in Tada’s paraphrase, that everything we do down here on earth has a direct bearing on our capacity for worship and joy and service in heaven. For Tada, this means that every day she can invest in heaven, trust and obey God, believe his Word, and follow hi...