Talking a Good Game

7 July 2026

Every person has their own little ways of rationalizing disobedience to God; part of the process of sanctification is learning to see where you’re disobedient, recognize your own little work-arounds, and repent of them. The same is true for communities. I’m going to speak to some of the foibles of the North American suburban church and its denizens, because that’s the community I happen to have grown up in, but you can take these same principles and apply them wherever you are.

I grew up in Northern Virginia, in an unincorporated “town” mostly populated by commuters who worked in and around Washington, D.C. Mostly these were people who had kids and wanted them to succeed, which (by the metrics of the area) meant doing something that changed the world, made a lot of money, or (preferably) both. Our church was also about changing the world, mostly through Christian education, foreign missions, and a thriving ministry to the international community in our area. And you know what? We did a lot of good work. Faith Bible Church cast a very, very long shadow. I’m grateful and proud to be from there, and I still know a number of people today whose long and fruitful ministries were launched in that church.

I left Northern Virginia behind in December of 1998. Quit my job, packed my car, drove 9 hours to Knoxville for a family Christmas with my grandma…and then headed cross-country. In California, there was a seminary I planned to attend, and a girl I planned to marry. I really had no intention of returning to Northern Virginia; nothing much there for me. But it proved easier to get me out of Northern Virginia than it was to get Northern Virginia out of me.

In the end, every legacy is mixed. As the Rabbi said, only God is good. For me, one of the unfortunate parts of that Northern Virginia legacy was the inveterate on-the-make-ness, the need to be important, the constant preoccupation with activity at the expense of slowing down enough to actually know people. I was partway through my seminary training when I noticed what Hebrews 3:12-13 actually says: “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” Did you catch that? The prescription for avoiding an evil heart of unbelief is encouraging one another daily. Daily.

We love to rationalize this away. We’re so busy. Work has been nuts. Jack has soccer, and Kaitlyn has all the extra practices for that ballet recital coming up. And so on….but it says what it says. Now for me when I first really noticed this passage, I was single, living alone, in grad school full time and working full time. I went to church every Sunday and I had a Christian girlfriend (who would one day become my wife), but I could go a few days without seeing a fellow believer, and far longer than that without exchanging encouragement with a fellow believer. My initial inclination was to rationalize the command away: “I’m so busy; I see believers often enough; I’m sure it’s fine.”

Then I thought: If I just look at this in black and white, I’m telling myself it’s fine to disobey the Bible. If that’s not being hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, what would be? I didn’t have a good answer to that. So I started to explore: What if I didn’t excuse myself from obedience? Rationalization gave way to logistics. I quickly realized that given my own schedule and the schedules of my Christian friends, this might really be impossible some days. But what would happen if I tried? I’ve been trying ever since, and getting better at it as I go. Having more control over my own schedule has been really big, for this.

Does it go perfectly? No, it does not. Some days, as far as I can tell, it’s just not possible. Even in the age of cell phones and video chat, sometimes nobody’s got time, even if I have a few minutes. Some days, despite my best efforts, I’m the one that somehow doesn’t have a few minutes. But honestly, that’s rare.

I don’t make myself nuts about it. Here’s how I figure it: if in God’s providence, there’s really no way to exchange encouragement with another believer on a given day, then that’s on Him; I tried, and nobody was available. But if the reason I don’t get (and give!) encouragement is because I’m not trying, then that’s on me. And you know what I discovered? When I stopped arguing with myself about whether it’s possible and start thinking about how to make it happen, a lot more happened than you’d think. I see a lot more of my fellow believers than I ever did before I started trying to exchange daily encouragement.

Of course, that also comes at a substantial cost. I have worked to have a good bit of control over my schedule, but I still only have the same 168 hours everybody else gets in a week. A few minutes chatting in the parking lot here, a quick call there, a text that turns into a daylong exchange…it adds up, even before you consider the “five minute” conversation that’s still going two hours later, or the quick phone call to a single friend who’s sick, which turns into a grocery run and cooking him chicken soup at his place because he hasn’t eaten in a couple days. My life is in every way richer and more meaningful for it, but all this takes time; it doesn’t happen for free.

…and that’s the thing I really want to talk about here. Take the Hebrews 3 command as an example, illustrating a journey. The starting point is the blind assumption that the ‘normal’ I was raised with, my default setting for life—whatever that is—is fine. From there…

  1. The journey begins with the suspicion that the Bible says something quite different from what I think is normal. The suspicion prompts study, and the study, in due time, yields certainty: God expects something different from me.
  2. The struggle between rationalization and obedience begins. Is it really that important? Am I quite sure the Bible really says this? (Does “Yea, hath God indeed said…?” sound familiar at all?) People underrate this step; it is often much harder than it sounds. Navigate it successfully, and you come out wanting—or at least willing—to do what God said.
  3. The desire for obedience is not the end of the road, however. There’s still the logistics of actually doing it. Obedience is frequently difficult and costly. Just figuring out how can be quite a process of trial and error, and then there’s the costs of actually doing it.

In other words, this is a process. Every step along the journey is commendable; no one should hold any part of the journey toward obedience in contempt. But actual obedience is what happens in step 3.

The thing I want to talk about is getting stuck at the end of step 2. For so many people who come from a pretty conventional background, the first two steps were quite a journey already. Just seeing past the smokescreen of their assumed ‘normal’ and coming to the place where they want what they ought to want was a lot of work. For example…

  • Seeing past the grocery store errand to notice the homeless family sitting on the sidewalk outside the store.
  • Seeing past endless rounds of suburban soccer to the possibility of giving your kids a meaningful relationship with the church.
  • Seeing past our insularity and beginning to want genuine friendships.
  • Seeing past quoting Hebrews 10:25 about the Sunday morning production, and beginning to look for places where Hebrews 10:24-25 actually happens.
  • And yes, seeing past all our addictive busyness to the need for daily mutual encouragement.

Once you’ve gotten around that corner, once you’ve made it to the end of step 2, you want what you ought to want. You can’t un-see it now. You talk about how blind you used to be, how the American church gets it so wrong, how God showed you the error of your ways, That’s all to the good, as far as it goes…

…but then you gotta do it. We’ve been so culturally conditioned to think we can have it all, we really struggle with the realization that Christian obedience may cost us something important. That’s ok. You’re allowed to have that stomach-drop moment where you realize what obedience is going to cost you. For most of us, sticker-shock is part of the process, at least sometimes. Just don’t let it stop you. But my real concern here is not with the people who see the cost of real obedience and just won’t take the plunge. That’s a real problem, but a fairly straightforward one: tighten your belt and jump!

The problem I want to tackle today is getting stuck thinking that insight alone is enough. Getting all the way to the end of step 2 is hard. That can be a really long journey, and it’s incredibly easy to let yourself slip into the delusion that you’ve now arrived. You’ve crested the mountain; just the act of really wanting it, talking a good game with your friends, will somehow bring it about. You have good intentions; you want the right things, and that was a hard spot to get to. But you’ve tricked yourself into thinking that those things will now come to you simply because you now see how important they are.

  • This is the pastor who believes in plurality of elders on paper, has plural elders in his church…but under stress reverts to dictatorial behavior and expects them to back him 100%.
  • This is the minister who believes that a person with the appropriate gifting should lead a particular ministry…but insists on making himself the leader for every ministry of the church in practice.
  • This is the young husband who talks about how important it is for everyone in the family to be accountable…but isolates his family from the church so that in practice, his family is accountable to him, and he’s accountable to nobody.
  • This is the guy who talks about noticing the last, the lost, and the least…but sees the bulging sidewall in a single mom’s tire, and doesn’t do anything because she gets child support, so it’s not his responsibility.
  • This is the man who talks about how confrontation makes us all better…but makes life hell for anybody who confronts him.
  • This is the lady who talks about the Christian duty of close community…but has to have it when it’s convenient for her, on her schedule, entirely on her terms.
  • This is the “complementarian” husband who talks about the importance of accountability…but his family is so isolated in practice that everyone in the family is accountable to him, and he’s not accountable to anyone.

I could multiply examples, but hopefully you get the idea. All of these people, when they don’t achieve the result they say they want, are going to see other people as the problem, somehow. Because they see the need for the thing, because they really want it—and listen, they sincerely do—they think they’re doing their part. It must just be that other people don’t want it as much as they do.

But no. They haven’t reckoned with the ways in which their own decisions—and the conflicting desires that drive them—are tripping them up. But the challenge today isn’t to join these folks in occupying yourself with how dumb other people are. The challenge here is to ask, “Where am I guilty of this?” Where do I want the right things but refuse to pay the costs? Are there people I’m short-changing because I insist that they make sacrifices for me that I wouldn’t make for them? Are there places where my intentions are good, but I’m letting myself believe that insight alone will change my life?

Don’t look at your intentions; good intentions are just table stakes. Look at your results. Look at your effect on the people around you. May God give us all eyes to see.

4 Comments | Ecclesiology, Mentoring/Disciple-Making | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

Content to be Competent

23 June 2026

I vividly remember the day I got turned down for membership in an professional academic theological society. The rejection letter came from the secretary of the organization, a man who was also a well-regarded professor at a big seminary that I happened to be very familiar with. 

I knew that I’d jumped through all the same academic hoops his own school’s graduates did. I knew the sort of master’s thesis his program routinely produced, because I’d read a bunch of them, probably including some he’d signed off on: competent 50- to 60-page volumes totally dependent on secondary sources, which is acceptable for a master’s thesis. (At the master’s level, the task is to demonstrate mastery of the literature, not to make a contribution.) Meanwhile, mine—130 pages of meticulously documented original research that accounted for the secondary literature but was grounded in primary sources and making an argument not found in the secondary literature—is selling on Amazon. Not a ton of course, but a couple decades later, there remains a very small but consistent demand.

So why’d they turn me down? I had the right degree and the right background, but I didn’t go to the right school. The secretary of the association—I expect he’s a fine fellow, and I bear him personally no ill will—was just applying the guidelines he’d been given. By those guidelines, I wasn’t good enough for their professional association. If you prepare for ministry in the ways I tend to advocate for these days, you won’t be good enough either. Traditional mentor-disciple relationships have prepared our people for ministry for the better part of two millennia, but some folks just gotta see a piece of Department of Education-recognized wallpaper.

Fortunately, Jesus doesn’t care about that. The people you serve won’t care either, just like my people don’t. 

You know who does care? Career academics. If you’re looking for wallpaper—credentials to impress career academics and land you a tenure-track position in a school somewhere—the traditional mentor-disciple preparation simply will not get you where you’re trying to go. In place of that, degree-granting academic institutions offer you highly credentialed faculty, a big library, and a lot of classroom time. The better ones will get you some internships too, which is great. But the ugly truth is that at the core, academic institutions are classrooms doing what classrooms do well. Classrooms can give you a lot of really useful deep background knowledge: Bible, languages, church history and history of doctrine—but preparation for using that knowledge to benefit real people in front-line ministry is just not something classrooms do especially well. Among seasoned ministers, there’s a rich vein of true stories—some tragic, some hilarious—that end with “They didn’t teach me about that in seminary!”

You can, of course, seek out a mentor and get the wallpaper. If you’re going to get the wallpaper, I highly recommend seeking out the mentor too, because again, the ugly truth is that even at their best, academic institutions are classrooms doing what classrooms do well, and the exigencies of daily real-world ministry don’t lend themselves to classroom preparation. But shadowing a mentor for a few years will naturally expose you to what happens most—which is exactly what classrooms don’t do. If you prepare for what happens most, you’ll be prepared for most of what happens.

If you need the academic degree to open up a door for you to pursue your calling, then by all means get it. But don’t neglect the much harder task of developing the character, skills, and knowledge to support your calling. On the other hand, if you’re content to be competent, and you don’t need the wallpaper, then you can save yourself a lot of money by foregoing seminary.

Me, I’ve had the privilege of mentoring a number of people for the ministry. Since I left the seminary world in 2012, I don’t do academic wallpaper. I’m not against it; God may take me back into that world someday. But right now, I’m occupied with mentoring, and I find it more effective. If you love the people you serve, if you want—no, if you need—battle-tested, real-world knowledge presented in its real context, then get yourself a mentor.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

The Future of the Humanities

19 May 2026

University humanities departments are an abject failure. I wrote on this at length elsewhere, but the short version is that their faculties turned into monocultures and stopped teaching their disciplines decades ago. A humanities major today will be a long slog through the most provincial drivel you can find in the left gutter of Twitter.

So what do we do?

The obvious answer is to reform the educational system, but let’s be honest: that has the handy effect of making the whole thing someone else’s responsibility. As much as I appreciate the very alternative colleges that are keeping real education alive, and the reformers who are trying to (slowly!) retake their departments at Leviathan State University, I’m not those people. Most of you aren’t either. And even if they win, let’s face it, the victory trickling down to the point that it transforms your local high school English department is still probably two generations off. So in the meantime, while we earnestly pray for God to bless and multiply their efforts, the question remains:

What do we do?

There’s an older model of education that doesn’t require that kind of institutional muscle. It’s simple, direct, and available to you this week: work outside the system. Take a work you know and love — a painting, a poem, an essay, a novel, a concerto — and share it with someone who’s never met it before. Put a little thought into how to help them love it like you do. You won’t do it perfectly the first time; that’s fine. Keep trying.

The Great Works have never been more accessible than they are right now. You have several lifetimes worth of literature, drama, dance, music, and more at your fingertips on the same device you’re using to read this. (And you’re reading me? I’m honored. But next, read something from a different century!) The near-term future of the humanities is in peer sharing groups, private mentorships, and self-education. Not hundreds in lecture halls, but twos and threes at the kitchen table before work on Thursdays.

The truth is, few things could be more traditional. The Great Conversation has been going on for millennia in all sorts of settings, not just universities. Timothy learned the Hebrew Scriptures while he made tents with Paul. Innumerable children learned the basics at the parson’s kitchen table, because he was the most educated person in the village. Quietly and without fanfare, plenty of education has always been happening outside official channels.

The only thing that changed is that we forgot. We built institutions to do it for us, and became victims of our own success. For a while, they were so good that going outside official channels seemed pointless. It’s not.

And now it’s our turn. The Great Conversation continues…if we let it. Plenty of people are still drawn to the true, the good, the beautiful. If you don’t know how to approach that on your own, find someone who does, and walk with them a while. If you know me and you’re interested, hit me up. There are still plenty of us out there who love the best of all that’s been thought and said. Let’s share it!

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Posted by Tim Nichols

My Friend Dick

27 April 2026

Of all the teachers I’ve ever had, Dr. Richard Seymour is the one I underestimated the most.

Not because he didn’t have good content—he had *great* content, really good, fundamental, life-building stuff. And he was incredibly down to earth for a professor; he spent his days in the classroom, but he started his very early (about 4:30) mornings grabbing a cup of coffee at Denny’s with the cabbies who were coming off the night shift. He’d always tell us “You can call me Dr. Seymour on campus, but when you introduce me to your friends, say, ‘This is my friend Dick.'” He loved to talk about Jesus, and he never wanted credentials to get in the way.

So why did I underestimate him so badly? It’s just that…well…I already knew so much of what he had to say. (Some of you can already see where this is going. What can I say? I was 18.) I was at college to learn; there were other profs with other things to teach, things I didn’t already know. Don’t get me wrong: I took Dr. Seymour’s classes, and enjoyed them. I thought of him as one of the pillars of the school, for sure, but not really one of the leading lights of my education.

About 10 years passed; I became a seminary prof myself. Then one day it dawned on me: all those fundamental things Dr. Seymour taught, the things I already knew—where’d I learn them? I’d known those things as long as I could remember; learned them from my parents.

…who learned them from Dr. Seymour, at Florida Bible College in Coconut Grove, way back in 1969. That man made such an impression on my parents that they named me after him (my middle name is Richard). For his part, he taught them so well that when I showed up in his classroom nearly 25 years later, I already knew all his best material. That is an effective teacher. I’ll always be grateful I dug up his contact info and reached out, a decade late, to thank him for the great impact he’d had on my entire life. He was (predictably) very gracious.

A few years later, I found myself at an FGA conference as part of a brace of panel discussions on a highly charged, controversial topic related to the gospel. As I was getting settled in behind my microphone, I looked up and saw Dr. Seymour sitting in the audience! I don’t mind telling you, that was a little intimidating. I didn’t know exactly where he stood on the issue, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. I was very pleased (and more than a little relieved) when he thanked me afterwards for the things I’d said.

Yesterday, “my friend Dick” stepped into eternity. Today before the throne he joins many, many people who met Jesus through his witness. I imagine he is delighted to be with them all, but especially to be reunited with his beloved son, who preceded him some years ago. And I know my dad is getting a kick out of being with him again! He is survived by his wife, daughter, and thousands of students around the world who are faithfully passing on what he taught them, just like my parents did to me. See you soon, sir. And once again, thank you!

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Why Do They Leave?

21 April 2026

Among the many, many things they don’t prepare you for in seminary is this: people are going to leave your church. It is going to hurt. Not every time; every now and again there’s a blessed subtraction. (If their presence was a chronic pain, their absence is something much more like relief.) But most of the time, if you’re shepherding well and you care about your people, it will hurt.

When it’s unavoidable, it doesn’t necessarily hurt less, but it’s easier to live with. One of your key couples is moving cross-country to take care of her aging parents, say. Hurts to lose them, of course it does, but they’re doing the right thing, and you wouldn’t seriously want them to do anything different. You wish mom lived nearby, of course, but it is what it is. You swallow hard, say your goodbyes, and talk on the phone every once in a while.

Sometimes, it’s a serious disagreement of one sort or another. Maybe it’s the sort of thing that makes a parting of ways inevitable. Maybe it’s not that sort of thing, and yet they’re leaving over it anyway. Those can be extravagantly painful.

But the hardest ones to live with are the ones where there’s no reason. They just disappear. You call them up and ask, and they say they’ve just been busy. You hear through the grapevine they’ve visited a couple other churches. Maybe you ask again, and still don’t get a straight answer. If you’re in a polity where you can push a little harder for consistent attendance, they resign their membership; otherwise, they just drift away. Six months or a year later, word trickles back that they’re going someplace else…or not going anywhere at all. Nobody seems to know why…or at least, they’re not willing to tell you.

Of course it may have nothing at all to do with you, but it’s a good occasion for self-reflection. “This person clearly feels like he can’t just tell me what’s wrong. Is there something I’ve done or said that is contributing to his reluctance?” It’s important to consider the question. A lot of ministers have learned to say the right things about being open to hearing other people’s concerns, but in practice they’re so high on their own rightness that they don’t really listen. They’ll let someone talk, but only so they can explain to him why his concern isn’t valid and he needs to think more like they do. Some of these folks will make the conversation so extraordinarily and unnecessarily painful that nobody wants to bring a concern to them twice.

Of course you’re not like that.

Are you sure, though? It’s hard to tell from the inside. Here are some tells to consider:

  • Has this person brought a concern to you sometime in the past couple years? If so, how did you handle that conversation? If you’re thinking something like “Well, now that you mention it, yeah…but it wasn’t anything serious, and I got him straightened out” — are you sure? I wonder if he sees it that way.
  • You experience a persistent pattern that runs like this: you announce a new program/initiative/idea, someone raises a concern about it, you explain to them why they need not be concerned, everything seems fine and you proceed on schedule, but three months later that family seems to have drifted away. If this happens regularly, you’re winning the argument so you can do it your way, but you’re not shepherding your people, and they’re voting with their feet.
  • When is the last time a parishioner raised a concern that changed your mind about something substantial? Is that something that happens often, or very rarely? If I asked around your congregation, would they agree? Nobody thinks of everything; if the general consensus is that you don’t really change your mind much, then odds are you’re not listening to your people.

Perhaps you’re a great listener and this isn’t the problem. That’s fine. But opportunities like this don’t come up every day (hopefully!), and it’s worth the time to ask the questions. It would be very convenient — too convenient, probably — if it turns out the problem is all with the person leaving, and there’s nothing you could/should have done differently. Pays to be a little suspicious of oneself.

But then, if it takes two to tango, it only takes one to walk away. Sometimes they do, and they won’t talk about it. That’s a tough situation. Best I can do is this: if I’ve asked all the questions, examined myself as best I can, done what I can do, and they’re still unwilling to talk about it, then better they’re gone. People should be shepherded by someone they can talk to; if that’s not me anymore, then they should find someone else.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

When Mom Fails…Crickets

7 April 2026

There’s an online account with a growing following (or so it seems to me; I can’t know the numbers for sure) who recently delivered a noteworthy public error. I think it’s worth discussing. See the screenshot below (the commentary is on top, reacting to the embedded screenshot below).

Do you notice something missing here?

Of course, we could start with the embedded notion that young women have no moral agency. He’s right that youth need guidance, but the overall impression he gives is that the poor girls never had a chance and bear no responsibility for the entirely predictable results of their own choices. Come now. But you know what? Let’s give him that one for now. Far too many of these girls really did follow the advice they were given, which turned out to be horrible. The advisers bear a lot of responsibility, and a bunch of them were in the church. That’s our problem, so let’s reckon with it.

Notice how he immediately points the finger at fathers, grandfathers, teachers, pastors? That’s appropriate. When something bad happens to the sheep, we want to know why the shepherds failed, as we should. If we believe the elders of the church are responsible to “shepherd the flock of God” as Paul commanded them to do, and that the elders should be “the husband of one wife,” and therefore men, then it follows that the women of our churches need to be shepherded by godly men. Paul wasn’t afraid to do this; he addressed the responsibilities and sins of women throughout his letters (see, for example, Phil. 4:1-3, Eph. 5:22-24, Col. 3:18, Titus 2:1-8, 1 Tim. 2:9-15). If we are going to follow his example, then we will too.

But do you notice something missing? Re-read that comment: he talks about young men, young women, older men…and that’s it.

What about the older women?

Nobody who knows how to fill out a 2×2 grid could possibly miss this, but more importantly, nobody who has been taught by the Scriptures could possibly miss this. If you need a little help, read Titus 2:1-8. Again, Paul is not shy about exhorting women directly; he does it throughout his letters. But here, he also tells Titus that the older women should teach the younger women. What’s the curriculum? “To be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands.” The exact things, in other words, that our paradigmatic young, single millennial woman didn’t get, and that as a well-traveled 36-year-old cat lady, she’s still missing.

And honestly, this is kind of obvious. Loving your husband, loving your children, being a homemaker—we all know these things are hard work. They don’t come automatically; they need to be taught, and as with any skill, your best resource is the people who are actually doing it. Which is to say, godly older women. So when our commentator is considering the problem, why did he completely leave them out?

Because he’s terrified, and with good reason. This is exactly how the church world works. Blame for everything that goes wrong flows to the formal male leadership, and those men are not allowed under any circumstances to annoy the middle-aged and older women. Those ladies control the decisions about what the family will participate in—volunteer activities, youth group, giving, church attendance, all of it—and if the pastor annoys them, they will leave and take their family with them, or they’ll run him out of the church. So he keeps them happy. That means that when their daughters aren’t turning out the way they’d hoped, he blames the fathers, he blames the grandfathers, he blames the young men who won’t step up, he blames the church staff, he even blames himself…but he’d sooner cut his own throat than say that mom and grandma failed this girl, and so did the other women of a certain age in the church. Some of these guys are so brainwashed into the limitation, they don’t even think it’s there. Finding fault with the middle-aged women is literally unthinkable for them. They can’t process it. Others are more aware, and more cynical. But either way, they don’t shepherd the older women, and they don’t call them to do their job.

Why would I think this particular guy falls into this category? Because I brought the matter to his attention. I said—this is a direct quote—”[Name], you’ve made a glaring omission here. While the men bear their responsibilities, there is another group that has a direct biblical commission to teach young women on exactly these matters: older women (Titus 2:3-5). You entirely neglected to mention them. Why is that?”

You want to know what he had to say for himself? So do I. Crickets. Zero response.

Because, let’s face it, there’s just nothing to say.

So ladies, let’s do better with the next generation. You know that the things you do—conducting a successful marriage, raising children, managing a household, stewarding and multiplying the wealth and advantage of your family—you know those things don’t just happen by accident. None of it is easy; it all takes discernment, strength, subtlety, and lots of hard work. So teach the skills. Teach them to your own daughters. Teach them to the girls at church that aren’t getting taught at home. Mentor. Guide. Lead. You’ll be glad you did—and so will everybody else.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Having Something to Show

3 February 2026

Several years ago, a new friend asked why we don’t invest more heavily in worldview and apologetics training in our ministry. Initially, I was surprised, because I think we do invest quite a bit in those things. But what he meant was hosting weekend seminars on Critical Race Theory or how to prove Jesus rose from the dead. Great ideas, but not where we put our focus. Here’s my account of why we do it the way we do.

Clearly, the evangelical church has utterly failed our youth; the American church is losing them in droves. I agree that training in worldview and apologetics is absolutely essential, but at the same time I know plenty of people who’ve had that training and wandered away anyhow. I’d say there are a couple other necessary ingredients for the apologetics training to bear fruit.   

For instance, consider a guy like Russell Moore. He’s had those classes; he has all the access to apologetics resources you could ever want, and just look at him. On the other hand, remember Kim Davis, that county clerk from Kentucky who refused to issue marriage licenses once they told her that two men or two women could constitute a marriage? She was definitely not the articulate spokesperson we would wish for in a highly charged cultural debate, but she had courage enough to stand firm even when she didn’t know what to say. Kim Davis needs apologetics training, but teaching someone like her what to say is much easier than discipling someone like Moore out of his idolatrous lust to sit at the cool kids’ table. 

Apologetics is hard work, and well worthy of study. I’ve written a whole year of worldview and apologetics curriculum with that in mind, and I’ve taught the apologetics portion of that in multiple churches, schools, and other venues. But years of practical ministry have shown me that apologetics training is the last thing, not the foundation. Apologetics gives you good things to say, but it’s character – love for God and others – that moves you to step up and say them. Apologetics training only helps if you have the courage to stand up and speak to start with.

Part of growing that character is getting grounded in the Story of Our People, getting your loves and loyalties rightly ordered, and learning what to expect in this part of that Story.  I agree with you that there’s a lot of rough water between where we are now and the obvious, end-of-history winning, when Jesus breaks the pagan nations with a rod of iron. But I also think we need to grasp what winning looks like in the middle of the Story. There was a day when winning looked like God Himself being nailed to a cross by the very sinners He came to save. On another day, it looked like Stephen praying for his murderers; on another, they stoned Paul and left him for dead. This to say, God always leads us in triumph, but I don’t expect it to look good from the vantage point of the people who write headlines. They’re going to dance on our martyr graves – and we’ll still be winning.  We took Rome in three centuries, and they were killing us the whole time.

So we need to conduct ourselves like we’re winning, even as we expect to be persecuted, driven from the public square, deplatformed, marginalized, and even martyred. We proclaim the truth, and God uses it to confound the “wise ones” of this world, even as they do their worst to us. Our testimony is a powerful part of the total picture here: loving God, loving our neighbor, loving what is true, good, and beautiful. If our marriages are thriving while theirs are falling apart, if our children are healthy and whole while theirs are neurotic and desperate, if we live with purpose while they drift rootless–that’s very hard to argue with, even if they think they have arguments. Apologetics training helps us highlight those things to pagans who are programmed not to see them. But it’s all for nothing if we got nothing to show. 

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Wanting vs. Needing

14 October 2025

What people need and what people want are frequently two different things. In ministry, the observation “That’s not what the sheep want” gets used to justify all kinds of defections. “I’d love to teach more Bible, but it’s not what the sheep want!” “I’d love to have more prayer in our church, but that’s not what the sheep want.” “I’d love to care more for the poor, but that’s not what the sheep want.”

The sad fact is, these things might be true. But it’s the shepherd’s job to lead the sheep where they need to go, not where they want to go. They have their own will and they get to make choices, but that doesn’t relieve us of our responsibilities. If they’re headed the wrong way, we chase them down and turn them toward what they actually need. If their desires are disordered, it’s our job to help them want the right things. Let’s get to work!

I have to admit, leading the sheep toward what they need is a lot harder than giving them what they want. Bright-eyed guys coming fresh out of seminary and hoping to just be good shepherds and make a living wage at it may well be disappointed, and it’s discouraging to see ear-ticklers prosper while good shepherds struggle. But remember Who we’re following: foxes have holes, etc. While there’s nothing wrong with making a paycheck in pastoral care, that’s a relative rarity across the sweep of history and cultures.

Even in our prosperous times, shepherding work is mostly not what churches pay for, at least in my experience. My pastor father was a great shepherd, in a place where they certainly had the means to pay him. He got paid for teaching Christian school and media distribution; the shepherding he did–which was a lot–he did on the side, for free. I once served a church for two years with the title “Pastor of Discipleship and Ministry Logistics” and got zero support for the discipleship side of things. Nobody above me on the org chart ever asked how discipleship was going — not my boss, not any of the elders, nobody. My spending request for curriculum (a whopping $60) was turned down; I ended up buying what I needed out of my own pocket. I got plenty of support and accountability around making sure the bulletin got done and we didn’t run out of copy paper, though. Part of the answer here is to adjust your expectations; churches, like sheep, don’t always want what they need. Helping them want what they need is the job.

That particular church is where I learned this lesson the hard way. They’d hired me because they knew they didn’t know how to disciple or shepherd. They wanted me to bring those skills to the church, and I did. I expected them to support me intelligently in the task. I look back at that now and think, “Well isn’t that cute!” Of course intelligent support is a reasonable thing to want, but it’s very naive to expect people that don’t understand your job to support you well. Of course they didn’t know how to support me, for the same reason that they needed to hire me in the first place — they didn’t understand discipling or shepherding! The wise course of action would have been to actively train the leadership in how to support my work. Instead, I was struggling to do my job in spite of them, and was therefore constantly frustrated at the lack of support. As I say, that was the place where I learned this lesson. Feel free to profit from my error: go thou, and do un-likewise.

But mostly, that’s not a problem shepherds have. Most of the shepherds in Christ’s flock, most of the time, support themselves. Even Paul did, sometimes — if he’s not too good to make tents, who are we to balk at it? I can tell you, self-supporting ministry comes with a certain kind of freedom. If you’re self-supporting and you have a small network of godly men who will provide wisdom and accountability for your work, you don’t need anybody else’s approval. Just go forth and shepherd, and be glad you have the time to do so! During a big chunk of that two-year stint I mentioned above, I was tracking my time in 15-minute increments. Since I found the practice helpful, I continued it for a while after I left that position. Fun fact: in the weeks after I left, I spent *more* time shepherding than I had when I was on a church payroll, ostensibly being paid to shepherd and make disciples. Fewer distractions, you see. No marathon staff meetings. No copy paper to order. No bulletins to make. Just people who needed pastoral care. So I cared for them.

Effectiveness comes from focus. Focus is mainly about what we don’t do.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

The Anatomy of Apostasy

1 July 2025

When someone has–as far as we can tell–come into the faith, but then walked away again, it can be hard to tell exactly what happened. Three things are possible:

1) This person was hanging out with us, being a social chameleon to ‘try on’ Christianity, and never believed any of it. That’s certainly possible–it’s been a time-honored way to access a Christian dating pool, for example. (It’s also a little dangerous; people who start out like this have a way of meeting Jesus if they hang out for long enough.)

2) This person did not understand the gospel and was trying to work their way into being a Christian. Your group may present the gospel clearly, but as every preacher knows, people hear very selectively, and it can be hard to overcome their prior programming. The ‘folk Christian’ idea that good boys go to heaven and bad boys go to hell is very, very strong, and some people will hear absolutely everything you say through that filter. These folks leave because nobody can actually live the life they’re trying to live. They’re exhausted — of course they are! — and they don’t want to keep up the pretense anymore. Who could blame them?

3) This person understood and believed the gospel, and then left the faith for whatever reason. Often this is because Scripture told them a hard truth they didn’t want to hear. Sometimes it’s a costly moral demand, and they’d rather retreat from the faith than grow into obedience. For more status-conscious people, it’s often a realization of just how much their faith — if they take it seriously — will separate them from the cool kids. For prophetically gifted people, it’s often a preference for demonic lies over the hard truths of the Spirit. But then, sometimes it’s none of those things. Sometimes it’s exhaustion from faithfulness, as the readers of Hebrews were experiencing.

Happily, we don’t actually have to know which of these things happened to know what to do. Where this person belongs is back in the fold, walking with Jesus. No matter whether that will be a prodigal son returning or a fake believer becoming a real one, we preach the gospel to them and the goodness of God that calls them to repentance. Paul preached the gospel to the Romans (Rom.1:1-17) even when they were faithful. We can certainly preach it to the faithless, confident that it’s what they need to hear.

If it turns out this person actually grasped the gospel all along, great! This is an opportunity to help them see how the same truths they’ve already grasped work out in daily life. For MANY Christians, their honest answer to Paul’s question in Gal. 3:3 (“Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?”) would be “Yes, of course! How else would you do it?”

Anytime someone says “I just couldn’t do it anymore,” I always ask them what it was they were doing that they could no longer stand to do. Because, mark it down, they didn’t get sick of all the Spirit-produced love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control that was overflowing in their life, and wish instead for hatred, misery, conflict, short-temper, cruelty, evil, coarseness, betrayal, and impulsiveness.

But something happened. Listen. Find out what, if you can. But even if you never figure out what happened, bring them to Jesus. That’s always the answer.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Places I’ve Been

13 May 2025

If you read the gospels carefully, you will discover that Jesus goes to the places and the people who are totally respectable, and to the people who are…at the other end of the spectrum, shall we say. (Note Luke 7:36-39, which nicely encapsulates both ends of the respectability spectrum, or compare John 3 to John 4, or Luke 11:37 to Matthew 9:9-11//Mark 2:14-16//Luke 5:27-30, Luke 19:2-7, Matthew 11:19). There was a point in my Christian life where I noticed that fact in a more-than-theoretical way, and it’s had a profound impact on me. For your amusement and edification, Gentle Reader, here are a few of the places I’ve been….

Bacon, Beer, and Body Paint

Once upon a time, I had a minor role in launching/promoting an event to benefit an oil field worker named Dan who’d been handicapped in a vehicle rollover. Insurance covered his medical expenses and bought his motorized wheelchair, but didn’t cover the necessary modifications to his house so he could get around in there. Doors needed to be widened, etc. And of course, he also needed a new job, and training for it. Dan’s brother had a few thousand bucks, but that wasn’t nearly enough to fund everything that needed to get done.

But Dan’s brother was also a good salesman and knew a little about event planning. So he piled the money into a fundraiser: a beer-and-bacon festival. He got a local business with a big parking lot to let us use their property for the weekend, and a handful of other businesses to sponsor the event with give-aways, door prizes, etc. They had a couple of breweries, Denver Bacon Company, I think some insurance and real estate brokers, a local pot shop, that sort of thing. They got musicians, face painting for the kids, all kinds of stuff. A good friend of mine worked for one of the businesses, and asked me to help promote the event. I took posters to businesses in high-traffic areas, personally invited everybody I knew, everything I could do to promote it.

Come the day, I showed up and hung out most of the day. I still have a set of 4 tin cups from Sailor Jerry’s rum that I won in the door prize drawing. It was all going swimmingly until the spokesmodel from the pot shop visited the face painters. I recall passing through that area and noticing one of the painters doing a piece on her back, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Half an hour later, I see a huge crowd over by one corner of the building. I wander over to see what’s going on and discover this same model doing an impromptu photo shoot wearing nothing but her Daisy Dukes and expertly applied body paint. So then I get to decide, do I just leave? Do I just avoid her? Something else?

Right on Target

I was down at Centerpoint chatting with one of my regular guests. He was a bit drunk, as is usual for him, and he asked me to pray for him about something. I did so. When I finished, he thanked me, and then he grabbed my shoulder and said “Now I’m gonna pray for you.” I didn’t want to tell him not to, so I let him. In minutes, there were tears in my eyes — without knowing it, this Jesus-loving drunkard was praying for the deepest concerns I had that week. Was he in active sin? Yes. Was he being led by the Spirit despite that? Undoubtedly.

“Tim won’t go!”

Went to a friend’s thirtieth birthday party. She’s one of my favorite felons, and has a friend group to match. We closed the restaurant where we started out, and then tried to go to a pop-up haunted house down by the highway (this was in mid-October). By the time we’d re-convened in the haunted house parking lot, they were closing. So we’re standing in the parking lot as the last carload of our people arrives. Someone catches them up on the situation and explains that we’re trying to decide where to go next. One of the guys says, “Titty bar!” My friend vetoed it immediately: “No, because Tim won’t go.” She wasn’t just assuming (although she was right); she’d been there when I declined an invitation from her boyfriend a few weeks earlier. 

If it’s spiritually risky to be like Jesus, it’s spiritual suicide to knowingly refuse to be like Him.

Suicide by Tim

I’m sitting at a kitchen table with a man who’s threatening to kill me. It’s not an idle threat; he’s a combat veteran, a Marine turned cop. I know he’s drunk; I assume he’s armed. If you were watching through the window, the scene would look pretty calm. Samuel (not his real name) is talking; I’m sipping a glass of water. Below the table, I’ve quietly drawn and opened my carry knife. Plan A is talk him down; Plan B is “I go home to my wife, no matter what happens to him.” At the moment, the most likely approach is to send the water glass flying at his face while three inches of very sharp steel comes in low for whatever I can reach, before he can draw whatever he’s carrying.

This was not in my plans for the day. I’d gone down to the Springs to spend an afternoon with my friend Jack on his day off. We’d eaten and talked, and I hung out for a while at his church’s coffee shop while he worked a volunteer shift. (That shop itself is a cool story for another time.) Afterwards, we went back to his house, and a bunch of his friends and coworkers came over to hang out. The beer and whiskey flowed freely, and in due time Samuel took offense at something I said. The initial threat was just a generic “We can take it outside” type of thing — I forget the exact words — but things turned ugly when Jack tried to intervene.

“You don’t want to do that, Samuel. Tim would do you. Just let it go.”

That was like pouring gas on a fire. “I’ll kill him!” Samuel said. “I don’t care!”

He didn’t, in fact. Samuel’s squad had been on patrol when their humvee got hit by an IED, killing his three buddies. He had a massive case of survivor’s guilt that he medicated with whiskey when he was off-duty. Samuel really didn’t want to be alive; the only reason he hadn’t killed himself was because he was afraid to face God after committing suicide. Jack’s attempt to deter Samuel had the opposite effect: Samuel wanted to die, and Jack had just told him I could get it done for him. He escalated and threatened my life in a roomful of witnesses in order to create a situation where I’d kill him. But that didn’t mean he’d go down easy.

Until He Stood Up

Back when I first started Centerpoint, I would have one of the guests assist me in serving the Lord’s Table. One night a fellow I’ll call John asked me if he could assist me. He had been interacting reasonably well during the service, so I didn’t see any reason why not, so I said yes. He stood up next to me, and it quickly became apparent that he was drunk enough that he wasn’t going to be able to continue standing without help.

By this time, we were serving, and I couldn’t see how to swap him out for someone else without conveying a rejection I didn’t want to convey. So I got my arm under his elbow to give him a little extra stability and soldiered through. Right decision? Probably not, but I couldn’t see my way around it in the moment, so I went with it.

And So On…

Am I telling you that you should be willing to go anywhere, with anybody, anytime? No. Please note, they knew I wouldn’t go to the strip joint. If a particular place or group of people presents you with a temptation you can’t handle, then don’t do it. “Flee youthful lusts,” remember? If you can’t go to the place and be with the people and give God thanks, then turn down the invitation. “Whatever is not of faith is sin.”

But if your misgivings about going to the place or being with the people are founded in some ridiculous notion that Christians are supposed to be country-club respectable, if you’re worried about what other people will think of you, if you think “it’s just a bad testimony,” for vague and unspecifiable reasons…repent. You need to re-read the Gospels and have a hard look at how Jesus ministered, who He was willing to talk to, what He was willing to be accused of. They called Jesus a glutton and a drunk that pals around with traitors and whores. When’s the last time anybody accused you of that? Never? So that would be a way you’re not like Jesus. A servant is not greater than his Master. Repent.

I’ve got more such tales. I wouldn’t handle them all the same way now that I did then. Sometimes that’s a matter of brainstorming after the fact and coming up with a more gracious or wiser approach. Other times, I’ve grown in discernment and interpret things differently than I used to. I didn’t do everything right in the past, and I have no illusions that I’ll do everything right in the future. And you know what? Back when I refused to go to those places and spend time with those people, I never made any of those mistakes.

But avoiding people and places that Jesus wouldn’t avoid was just one more thing I needed to repent of. I did, and I’ve no regrets. If it’s spiritually risky to be like Jesus, it’s spiritual suicide to knowingly refuse to be like Him. Get out there. Whoever those people are for you, Jesus loves them. You should too.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

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