Michael Foster @thisisfoster

@slobbey @dalepartridge My assumption is Dale knows I rather not be associated with him and its an attempt at a form of deference. That’s my charitable take.

. @dalepartridge

Peter @peterpeccavi

a hour ago

So on Manhood.org, Dale Partridge is charging $2,200+/year for a cohort program styled heavily around Moscow mood / biblical manhood material for credibility. Key module: “Reading: Getting Gravitas by Bnonn Tennant”. This pulls straight from chapters 9 & 10 in “It’s

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@Dominion_Taker Will report back

Michigan bound

Since it has pleased Almighty God, in His great mercy, to receive to Himself the soul of our brother departed, we now commit his body to the ground: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subject all things to Himself.

@dougponder @dmichaelclary @JoeHolland @thisismrsfoster

“And this is why chili with spaghetti noodles makes perfect sense when you think about it…” HT: @dmichaelclary @dougponder @JoeHolland

@Mericalover7 No

Friends, there’s no easy way to say this. Yesterday, we lost the baby. We’re not sure why. Emily was 14 weeks along, and everything appeared to be going well. But the Lord saw fit to bring him home sooner than most. He was a boy. We have named him Pascal Watson. Physically, Emily is doing well, but we are all heartbroken. Even so, we trust the goodness and wisdom of God. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord. For us, Pascal has become another reason to long for heaven. We are deeply thankful for the strong community of Christian friends God has surrounded us with through our church, my employer, and the broader community. We are being well cared for and have lacked for nothing. We do, however, appreciate your prayers.

@DPCassidyTKC Thank you, David.

@jamesabeckett I’m happy to encourage Christians to get healthy. But not with your help. I would want it to be someone with some prudence.

Everyday everyone you know gets a little closer to eternity. Tell all of them about Christ.

@jamesabeckett Tell people about Jesus and promote your book? Is that right?

Tragedy and the suffering that follows it are a fire. To adapt an old phrase, the same flame that melts the wax hardens the clay. There is no escaping tragedy. It visits every life, sometimes in isolated moments and sometimes in long, relentless seasons. Over the last six years, we’ve been living through what I’ve come to call a swirl of death. Multiple family members and friends have died in unexpected and heartbreaking ways. Each time, we have been forced to decide what that fire would do to us. Would it melt us into a sorrowful but Godward faith? Or would it harden us into self-centeredness and self-pity? Every trial presents a person with an opportunity to confess what he truly believes. Suffering has a way of exposing the deepest convictions of the heart. In the fire, everyone makes a confession, even if he does so unknowingly. We live in a trauma-obsessed culture that treats suffering as a kind of moral exemption. Many people assume that tragedy, even relatively small tragedies, gives them permission to live faithlessly toward God and resentfully toward others. Suffering becomes a license for self-pity and bitterness. It becomes a reason to question God’s goodness without end. How often have grieving people been told, “It’s okay to be mad at God”? No, it isn’t. It may be understandable, but it is not okay. A wise and compassionate person recognizes the frailty of the human heart. In times of suffering, we are tempted to doubt God’s goodness, wisdom, and love. We should not be surprised by those temptations. But neither should we indulge them. Doubt is not something to be coddled. It is something to be confronted. Faith must be reasserted. The truth must be preached to our own souls again and again. God is good. He is good when He gives and when He takes away. He is good when we understand His purposes and when we do not. Christian maturity is not gauged by the absence of tears but by the presence of faith in the midst of them. The immature man allows suffering to turn him inward. He becomes consumed with himself and his pain. The mature Christian grieves honestly while refusing to surrender to self-pity. He learns to say with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.” The goal is not to suffer less but to suffer faithfully. In the last three years, I have buried my younger brother, my mother, my baby son, and three good friends. Yet I know there are many who, in that same span of time, have suffered just as much or more. Suffering is not a competition. We all must face the reality of living in a fallen world. Some endure heavier burdens than others, and those burdens often come in different seasons. But every one of us will eventually walk through the valley of sorrow. Because of that, suffering should not become a scoreboard by which we measure whose bitterness is most justified. Nor should it become an excuse for faithlessness, self-pity, or sinful behavior. Rather, our common experience of suffering should cultivate compassion for one another. It should remind us that we are all frail and dependent upon the grace of God. It should also give us the courage to lovingly confront those whose faith is wavering. The answer to suffering is not to lower our view of God but to raise our eyes to Christ. The reason we need the good news is precisely that we live in a bad world. The reason we need a Savior is that sin, death, and the devil are real enemies. The gospel is not a message for people who have escaped suffering. It is the announcement that Christ has conquered the very things that make suffering so painful. He has defeated sin. He has broken the power of death. He has crushed the serpent’s head. One day, He will make all things new. Until then, we grieve. But we do not grieve as those who have no hope.

@Zoraiz89 I’m sure there’s a chance, but I don’t know if they will.

I'm headed up to Holland, Michigan for two events this weekend, one on Friday and the other on Saturday. Both are either free or very inexpensive, and I'll put the links below. The first event is Friday night, where I'll be giving a new talk on Rebuilding the Order of Men. My basic argument is that male relationships have been steadily broken down by modernity over the last century. If we want virtuous homes, virtuous churches, and a virtuous society, we have to start rebuilding these relationships. But where do we begin? I'll try to lay out both a roadmap of how we got here and some practical steps we can take to get back to where we should be. I'll consider three lies or three attacks. First is the attack on masculinity itself. It presents masculinity as something toxic or inherently evil. Quite the opposite. Masculinity is a good gift designed by God. When lived out according to His Word, it is one of the greatest forces for good in creation. Second is the lie that for it to be good to be a man, it must be bad to be a woman. As if there is some sort of zero-sum conflict between the sexes. This too is a lie. It turns men against women and women against men. In reality, when men live virtuously, women, families, and communities thrive. Third is the attack on the relationship between the generations. It is sin and the devil that turn father against son and brother against brother. For men to build things that last, whether families, churches, businesses, or societies, they must learn to work together. We need the wisdom that comes with virtuous old age and the vigor and strength of zealous young men. Big things are built when a brotherhood of faithful men works together across generations. The second event is Saturday at the Christ the King Festival. There I'll be speaking on the importance of having an earthly home. If you've followed me for any length of time, you know I'm all about biblical localism, which I define as giving first priority to the time and place where God has put you. In this talk, I want to challenge the idea that the only way a Christian can live a radical life is by leaving home, traveling far away, and loving people they have never known. There is great honor in foreign missions, and the church should celebrate and support those whom God calls to that work. But it is not the calling of every Christian, nor should it be considered the pattern for ordinary Christian faithfulness. In fact, Scripture repeatedly directs us to begin with the responsibilities God has already placed before us. If a man cannot order his own household, why would he assume he is prepared to order the household of another? I want to show that giving yourself to the time, the place, and the people God has entrusted to you is not a lesser calling. It is one of God's primary means of sanctification. Through the ordinary duties of family, church, work, and community, He shapes us into the kind of people fit for heaven. More than that, rootedness is one of the most effective ways to love your neighbor. Lasting communities, strong churches, healthy families, and thriving towns are built by men and women who embrace their God-given place and faithfully labor there over the course of a lifetime. I hope you'll come. I'd love the chance to meet you, and I'm praying that God uses these talks to encourage the Christians and churches in that region. Men's Event ($5): eventbrite.com/e/its-good-to-… Christ is King Event (Free): christiskingholland.org

@TCSDisciple 👍🏻

We absolutely should call it masculinity because it is a natural thing. But natural things can be twisted into sinful expressions. For example, heterosexuality is natural. The erotic desire of a man for a woman and a woman for a man is part of human sexuality as God designed it. However, for that desire to be virtuous, it must be contained within marriage and lived out according to God’s holy Word. Homosexuality, by contrast, is a sin against nature itself and has no godly expression. The same principle applies elsewhere. There is true religion and false religion. There is godly ambition and selfish ambition. There is virtuous Christian masculinity and there are sinful, self-serving distortions of masculinity.

A church should be historically rooted, spiritually alive, and fully embodied...

Preaching the gospel in ‘99