In our own congregation over the last 16 months, Trinity has experienced several signs of healthy growth:

• Attendance at our modern worship service (9:00 am) has experienced a 44% increase over the last 16 months [comparing the four-month period, Oct 2025 – Jan 2026, with the same time span 12 months ago, Oct. 2024 – Jan 2025].

• When we factor in the attendance at our classic service (11:00), our church has experienced a 29% overall increase in total worshipping attendance from Oct. 2025 to Jan. 2026 compared to the same timeframe 12-16 months ago.

Moreover, I sense that God is at work more than simply in our rise in attendance.  After all, not all church attendance is created equal: not all surges in church attendance in America is “healthy” nor can it be linked simplistically or automatically with “spiritual vibrancy”. Equally important is the health of the body of Christ and the fruit of its members, and in this, also, I am greatly encouraged.

Simply put, our church is seeing:

• Pockets of genuine repentance and life change in our midst.

• Enthusiastic participation in prayer services (about 1/3 of our worshipping congregation recently attended one of the three times of prayer in early January). For American churches, the prayer service often represents “the most boring” type of service. I firmly believe that the body of Christ at Trinity is growing in prayer. Hallelujah!

• Increased hunger for community and Life Groups with people increasingly warming to the idea of being spiritually formed by the simple rhythms of grace – worship, prayer, scripture, relationship – all focused on Jesus.

• Greater enthusiasm for relational outreach in inviting people to participate in the community of faith.

• New believers and people coming back to the Christian faith after a season of dormancy in wanting to get plugged into the life of faith, read scripture together, inquire of baptisms, and generally become re-engaged with Jesus.

The question is – is Trinity part of a national trend or are we experiencing something more localized? Simply put: Is America in Revival?

I, for one, would love to be leading a church where the cultural zeitgeist of the era seemingly paves the way for a massive and authentic influx of people into the church. This would be fruit-picking time for church leaders! I have a friend in Ethiopia who is training and equipping young Ethiopian leaders 22-25 years old to pastor churches of 2,000 to 5,000 people all around the country as the culture has decidedly tilted towards Christianity. The same phenomenon has amazingly occurred in various sub-Saharan African regions over the last 40 years. If this were to happen in America, it would mark the realization of many prayers and hopes for the American church, a kind of Third Great Awakening since the First Great Awakening (1730s-1740s) happened before the signing of the Declaration of Independence while the Second Great Awakening (1790s-1840s) occurred before the Civil War.  

Recently, I’ve encountered at least three national voices that have been encouraging church leaders to “pump the brakes” with the Revival Talk. Why is that the case?

First, the level of Christian identity has been steadily declining over the last 25 years, from 83% to 71%, according to David Kinnaman of the Barna Group. (You can listen to Kinnaman’s interview podcast with Carey Nieuwhof here.) Kinnaman and Nieuwhof cautioned church leaders on the recent national headlines about the possibility of revival amongst Gen Z, beginning with the Asbury Revival of Feb. 2023, due to the overall framework of institutional church decline.

The framework consists of this: (1) people who identity as Christians are decreasing (83% to 71% over last 25 years, (2) the average size church in America is decreasing (the median church size which was 137 people in 2000 has dropped to 60-65 people today, which means that over the last 25 years, the average church size in America has been more than cut in half), and (3) overall church membership is decreasing as well as the number of times/month that people typically attend a church even if they are a member.

Working with another set of data, the Religious Landscape Study (RLS), indicated a 15% decline of US adults who identity as Christian from 78% (in 2007) to 63% (in 2024) though there has been a stabilization of the decline over the last 5 years. To put this decline in perspective, 15% of the US population (of 330-340 million) equates to nearly 49.5 to 52 million people who no longer identity as Christian. This decline represents a massive down-turn of Christian identity in America over the last two decades!

Second, Ryan Burge’s article entitled “Perspective: What the data really says about religious revival and Gen Z: the reversal of a trend would require a transformation unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times” also serves to pump the brakes on the hopeful optimism for revival in America. Burge argues that the narrative of a massive return to church is not born out by actual statistics:

“It seems that a large segment of the American public is eager for any sign that the rise of the nones is over and that churches might begin to fill back up in the years to come…. As the share of adults with no religious affiliation climbed from just 6% in 1991 to nearly 30% in 2020, it would certainly make headlines if that march toward secularism suddenly stopped — and even more so if the ones leading a return to church were teens and 20-somethings.”

Burge argues that anecdotal narratives have often replaced actual statistics amongst mainstream media outlets.

Burge makes much of the idea of “generational replacement”, arguing that “every day, older Americans die and are replaced by young adults turning 18. This process unfolds slowly — almost imperceptibly — in the short term, but over five or 10 years, it can produce profound shifts in the overall landscape.” Burge is making a case which is pretty easy to understand: older adult Christians are dying and are not being replaced in the church at the same rate as those entering adulthood at age 18.

When you compare generations, the pattern is obvious. The youngest members of the Silent Generation were born in the early 1940s, and just 7% report no religious affiliation. In less than a decade, they — and a growing share of Baby Boomers (18% unaffiliated) — will disappear from survey samples.

Meanwhile, millennials are moving solidly into middle age, and 36% of them say they have no religion. Generation Z, all of whom will soon be adults, are even less religious: 43% are nones. That’s 25 points higher than the Boomers they’re replacing. So if the overall share of nones sits around 28% now, it will inevitably rise as generational turnover continues.

Third, Burge argues that even singular cultural events have not typically sustained any measurable rise in religious attendance in the United States over the last quarter century. Many remember the churches filling up after the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001 only to quickly return to normal. “Likewise, the Asbury University revival of February 2023 received wall-to-wall media coverage, but follow-up reporting showed no lasting change in local religiosity a year later.”

Thus, whereas talk of a full-scale “revival in America” seem to be overblown, there are nonetheless some encouraging signs amidst the overall institutional decline of the church in America:

• 48% of Gen Zers and 44% of Millennials recently responded “Yes” to the idea: “I am open to Jesus, but do not consider myself a Christian today.” There seems to be a general openness to authentic ways of living for, and talking about, the way of Jesus amongst the younger generations.

• Bible sales were up 11% in 2025 compared to 2024.

• Reversing a decades-long trend, men (45%) are now significantly outpacing women (36%) in church attendance with married fathers taking the lead in going to church. Whether this is a net positive (where did all the women go?) over the long-haul remains to be seen, but the hope would be that as fathers take the lead in church attendance, the entire family might follow dad to church in the future.

The Rise of the Nones. Institutional church decline. Declining church attendance. None of these phrases sound overly hopeful for the future of the church in America. Yet these statistics themselves need to be set within the God-centered universe that the scriptures declare is our reality. Two scriptural phrases come to mind which help put these gloomy statistics in their proper place.   

“But God.” Ephesians 2 begins with terrible news: we were dead in our trespasses and sins (vs. 1). We were walking under the influence of the world and following the power of the devil (vs. 2), simply living for the passions of our flesh (vs. 3). No dystopian movie ever produced could give a bleaker, blacker, and more dismal  view of our situation than when Paul says that we “were by nature children of wrath” (vs. 3). That’s personally cataclysmic on an eternal scale! But then Paul reaches for the great phrase – BUT GOD.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:4-5.

Church trends are nothing compared to the great “But God” of his saving power.

The second scriptural phrase that seems apropos to remember in this cultural moment occurs in Matthew 19. The disciples are incredulous at Jesus. The bar of salvation seems too high to climb for the disciples. The disciples were “astonished” and began saying, “Who then can be saved?” (vs. 25). Jesus was telling his disciples, “Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (vs. 24). Within the worldview of first-century Judaism, great wealth was often simplistically equated with great spiritual blessings from God. If the wealthy were only saved – with enormous difficulty – what hope was there for everyone else? That’s when Jesus reminded his disciples of the Lord’s great power to save: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (vs. 26). Yes, there it is! With God all things are possible.

No matter how dark the culture or how toxic the politics or how declining the church, believers would be wise to remember: With God all things are possible. The possibility of revival is always over the next hill and horizon. God is always free to move with great saving power, bringing his beloved children into his church.

Jesus Christ is, after all, the Head of the Church. I trust that the Great Shepherd of the Sheep (Heb. 13:20) will always pastor us with grace and love whatever season the church is in: whether in retreat or advance, whether in revival or decline. God is still on the throne, whatever the trends say and whatever the culture decries.

With God all things are possible.

Soli Deo Gloria.

In our era, “evangelical” has become a highly contested word, often associated with political movements in our nation and world. For years, I have reminded our congregation that “We are not a red church. We are not a blue church. We are a Jesus church” because we long to “keep the main thing, the main thing”. As a church family, we desire to be spiritually formed by the simple rhythms of grace – worship, prayer, scripture, community – all focused on Jesus.

Over the last 15 years, many evangelicals have given up on the term “evangelical”, viewing the word as severely compromised by the toxic political divisions in our country. Indeed, many people outside the church view the word as simply another moniker for a certain voting bloc or aligned with a specific demographic politically. They rarely realize the word has a long religious history.

Despite the recent attempt to colonize the word from the religious realm to the political sphere for its own ends, the word “evangelical” has a longer history than America’s recent political divisions. The word evangelical goes back 2,000 years to the New Testament Greek word euaggelion which is translated “gospel” or “good news”, appearing most prominently in the key thesis verses of Paul’s book of Romans:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel (euaggelion) for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” – Romans 1:16-17

During the Reformation era, it was Martin Luther who sought to recover the gospel (euaggelion) and the righteousness of Christ that is ours through faith. The Protestant Reformation represented a vibrant spiritual recovery of the gospel of Jesus and what it meant to be an “evangelical Christian” – a believer who personally trusts in the gospel of Christ alone for salvation.

The 95 Theses of the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther called Christians back to the simple biblical gospel.

During the 20th century, an evangelical in America eventually came to be distinguished from fundamentalist Christians during the 1940s and 1950s. Whereas fundamentalists became increasingly separatist, anti-intellectual, and often legalistic vis-à-vis the modern cultural era, evangelicals sought an intelligent cultural engagement while keeping its grounding in the gospel of Jesus, in the inerrancy of scriptures, and in the substitutionary atonement. In the 1980s and 1990s, evangelical Christians left behind some of the “narrowness” and “legalism” of its fundamentalist forebearers through making major strides in scholarship by the writing of biblical commentaries, by setting up major seminaries for an emerging generation of leaders (i.e. Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School), and by becoming missiological thought leaders through major conferences like the Lausanne Congress of World Evangelization in 1974 organized by evangelical leaders like Billy Graham and the British theologian and churchman John Stott.

American evangelist Billy Graham and British theologian John Stott were central leaders of the Lausanne Congress of World Evangelization, held in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1974.

Therefore, when I utilize the word “evangelical”, I have three horizons in mind, none of which have to do with American political ideology. The first horizon is biblical – I use the word “evangelical” to describe a person whose affections have been captured by “the gospel” of Jesus. Simply put, an evangelical strongly believes in the simple biblical gospel to radically transform lives. The second horizon is historical – an evangelical is a person who is buttressed by the robust theological tradition of the Protestant Reformation and its five solas: salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone as revealed by the scriptures alone. Though many 21st century evangelicals are increasingly abandoning this rich theological heritage in favor of a non-theological and rather vanilla and shallow emotionalism based on the categories of self-help and pop-psychology, my own understanding of evangelicalism is anchored by names like Luther and John Calvin, with a historical thread continuing through the English Puritans John Owen and Richard Baxter, and sprinkled with intrepid names like the American theologian Jonathan Edwards and British preachers Charles Haddon Spurgeon (aka “The Prince of Preachers” -19th century) and Martin Lloyd Jones of Westminster Chapel (20th century) culminating in the post-WW2 evangelistic crusades of Billy Graham. Historically, modern evangelicalism boasts a robust preaching tradition which combines intellectual rigor with an evangelistic heart. The third horizon is cultural – evangelicals have often been unafraid to tackle the societal challenges for faith arising in the modern and postmodern eras, whether the rise of science, the challenge of poverty, the problem of abortion, and the question of marriage. This unafraid cultural stance, epitomized by William Wilberforce who successfully campaigned the British Parliament to put an end to the Transatlantic Slave Trade, drives the modern evangelical impulse. A culturally winsome evangelical longs for the Christ-centered renewal of all things both at home (homelessness, prison ministry) and abroad through its global missionary efforts (unreached people groups, church planting, majority world theological institutions).

The British evangelical Christian, William Wilberforce, courageously and tirelessly campaigned against the Transatlantic Slave Trade, with the British Parliament passing the Slave Trade Act on March 25, 1807.

One of the most famous definitions of the modern evangelical movement is described in the so-called “Bebbington quadrilateral”, proposed by historian David Bebbeington in his 1989 book Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s, where he argues for four distinguishing characteristics of evangelicalism:

(1) Biblicism – a high view of the Bible as the Word of God and the ultimate authority in faith and life.

(2) Crucicentrism - a central focus on the atoning substitutionary work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

(3) Conversionism – the belief that men, women, and children all need to be spiritually transformed through being “born again” through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

(4) Activism – believers inherently express their gospel convictions through personal efforts in evangelism, missions, and societal reform.

What does this all mean? Evangelicalism, when it fully embraces its healthiest forms and expressions, can unabashedly drive forward the gospel of Jesus Christ in this broken world by being thoroughly committed to a high view of the scriptures through a laser-like focus on the cross of Christ in being unapologetic in calling all people to a personal relationship with Jesus while simultaneously working tirelessly and courageously for cultural renewal and the missionary enterprise in furthering the Kingdom of God.

On our best day as a church, we long to be biblically, historically, and culturally “evangelical” in the best sense of the word: committed to the gospel, committed to a high view of the transformative Word of God, committed to the simple message of the cross of Jesus that saves sinners, and committed to a winsome cultural engagement and to strategic missionary activity in all the world.

In a recent sermon, I highlighted the disturbing sociological research coming out of the Barna Group, namely, that the typical adult spends between 6 and 7 hours per day, of their leisure time, on their digital devices! That’s up to 49 hours a week!

David Kinnaman, President of the Barna Group, in his work Faith for Exiles, coined the term “Digital Babylon” in which he compares the impact of our screen time to the ancient Jewish experience of living as exiles amidst a foreign, pluralistic, and overwhelmingly pagan city like Babylon.

Kinnaman is warning the church: the vast amount of time you spend on digital devices is teaching and training you who you are to be, what you are to think, and how you are to live in this new Digital Babylon.

Digital Babylon is after your discipleship! Silicon Valley’s overarching goal is to make you a disciple of their screens. The new technology of the age is not only informing you but radically shaping you and discipling you in various ways!  

The role that parents, teachers, coaches, youth pastors, and spiritual directors might have played 50 years (or even 500 years) ago are now being exchanged in favor of Digital Screens. The results have been disastrous. Western culture is awash in mental health problems and severely handicapped in maintaining healthy relationships across all generations, most acutely affecting younger generations (aka “the digital natives”).

Sociological research tells us that our culture is witnessing:

• a widespread epidemic of loneliness and depression,

• a wave of heightened forms of chronic anxiety which debilitates us,

• shallower sleep patterns which affect our bodies, and

• decreased attention spans which affects our minds (just to name a few).

That is, the consequences of capitulating to Digital Babylon shows up in body, soul, mind, and strength – the very aspects of our personhood from which we are called to love God and love others. Critical aspects of our personhood are being discipled – and compromised by – our capitulation to this Digital Babylon.

Bed Rotting: A New Phenomenon?

“Bed rotting” is now part of the American experience in this Digital Babylon. The vocabulary of bed rotting is already in the lexicon of college-aged students and young adults. Last week, I asked a college student: “Do you know what bed rotting is?” The college student replied: “Yeah, we talk about it all the time.”

Bed rotting is simply spending long stretches in bed with no physical activity, scrolling on digital devices.

Here are the harrowing statistics on bed rotting in our culture:

• Gen Z spends 21 days per year bed rotting.

• The Average American spends 15 full days bed rotting.

• 57% of Americans have taken a PTO or Sick Day to bed rot.

Gen Z was most likely to bed rot in the evening while afternoon bed rotting was most common amongst Baby Boomers.

If you want to dig further into the phenomenon of “bed rotting” as part of our experience in an Age of Digital Babylon, you might want to read: “The Rise of Bed Rotting: How and Why Americans are Doing It.”

I find the sociology both fascinating and disturbing, at once a wake-up call and a solemn warning for Christians seeking to navigate this cultural moment in the 21st century.

The Challenge for Christians

Christians have only two choices: be conformed to this world or be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Rom 12:1-2) by being people who “Push Back” against this Digital Babylon in being “People of the Word”.

Here’s the solemn conclusion:

If you cannot name the real and tangible ways that you are intentionally “pushing back” against the Digital Babylon of our age, then it’s probable that you are being conformed to this world.

How are you pushing back and living with intentionality? 

Do you need to take a long “fast” (break) from social media?

Do you need to eliminate Netflix (or other steaming services)?

Do you need to get serious about internet filters and/or an accountability partner to deal with sexual struggles and addictions?

Here’s my favorite counsel: Put the Word before the World.

In the morning, before you are ambushed by the onslaught of the world (by reaching for a digital screen), go to the Word (The Bible and Prayer) as a way of intentionally pushing back against Digital Babylon. At night, finish the day in prayer and with a Psalm instead of falling asleep to a digital screen.

Paul encouraged the Colossians to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Col 3:16). The word of Christ - alone - has the power to push back against Digital Babylon and fortify your life with the only story worthy of our lives.

1.     Why God makes sense in World that Doesn’t, Gavin Ortlund

What’s going on with the Ortlund family? Other than the magisterial Jesus as the Victory of God by N.T. Wright, Dane Ortund’s Gentle & Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Suffers is my favorite book on Jesus. His brother, Gavin Ortlund, has also written one of the best apologetical books that I’ve ever read. Why God Makes Sense in a World that Doesn’t was my absolute favorite book that I read in 2025.

Ortlund sets up his apologetic shop at the intersection of beauty and truth: “Beauty is a powerful tool for…apathy because it has a kind of persuasive power that reaches down to the heart,” (pp. 7). In short, the book taps into the longing for beauty inside every human heart. By narrative story-telling, Ortlund describes the truth of Christianity wherein people, even outside the faith, might say: “I want this to be true. I ache for this to be true, because this Christian vision of a life with God is so beautiful and compelling.” This is an apologetic that is a far cry from the arid “5 Proofs of God” but rather a compelling invitation to “taste and see” that the Lord is good.

2.     Rejoicing in Christ, Michael Reeves

This is a beautifully written book on Christology that will accompany our sermon series “The Incomparable Christ” via a Church Wide Study guide written by our own Rev. Mike Elmer.

Simply put, my soul was profoundly moved by Rejoicing in Christ. It caused me to worship. It caused me to stand amazed and contemplate – in awe – Christ’s person. I believe this book will cause you to want to follow Christ with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. I cannot recommend this book enough!

Michael Reeves tackles a theological topic – Christology – in a way that reads more like a sermon than a book. Pithy. Profound. Unforgettable. You will enjoy this book. It will be good for your soul.

3.     New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional, Paul David Tripp

A simple, gospel-centered devotional that is not all fluff and flowers but rings with the truth of the gospel, sings with practical ways to live out the faith, and frequently calls for heartfelt repentance and confession of sin that warms the heart towards God? Sign me up!

If you utilize this devotional, you will have the affections of your heart stirred for Jesus Christ. New Morning Mercies is the best daily devotional book that I’ve ever read.

4.     Daily Doctrine: A One-Year Guide to Systematic Theology, Kevin DeYoung

Want to sharpen your theology but not yet up for tackling thousands of pages of theology? Daily Doctrine offers a succinct summary of all the major loci of theology. I am still enjoying this theology refresher alongside New Morning Mercies. Reading both these books together captures the head and the heart in wonderful ways!

Each “daily doctrine” consists of only about 500 words which compels DeYoung to give concise explanations of complex theological doctrines. With 260 entries, Daily Doctrine a joy to read.

Reading Hint: If this is your first attempt at systematic theology, I’d suggest potentially skipping the first major section of “Prolegomena”.

5.     Spurgeon: A Life, by Alex DiPrima

A fascinating biography of one of the greatest preachers the English language has ever witnessed. The book is replete with edifying lessons of faith from the life of Charles Spurgeon (aka “The Prince of Preachers”) without neglecting the history of his life and times.

For Spurgeon, you might imagine that his pastoral life went from mountaintop to mountaintop as he oversaw one of the most explosive periods of Protestant growth in the history of the city of London at Metropolitan Tabernacle. Not so fast. Spurgeon was attacked by the press, fought with “wild beasts” within the church (like the apostle Paul in Ephesus), and suffered from kidney disease, rheumatism, and frequent bouts of the gout which made him often fight for his faith through these seasons of “melancholy” and “the dark night of the soul”. 

6.     A Heart Aflame for God: A Reformed Approach to Spiritual Formation, Matthew Bingham

Our staff is reading together A Heart Aflame for God at my encouragement. Undoubtedly, the book will vie for numerous Christian book awards at the end of the year, as it was published in 2025.

What does spiritual formation mean? How can you “keep your heart” warm and alive towards God? Bingham highlights what he calls the “Reformation triangle” of Bible reading, meditation, and prayer which are at the heart of the Reformed vision of spiritual formation. For the last 50 years, evangelical have typically sought resources outside the Reformed tradition to do spiritual formation’s heavy lifting, yet Bingham argues that the Reformed stream of spirituality is more than up to the task! This is a book of robust theological retrieval of Puritan authors, where you feel power of the Reformed vision of spiritual formation by having your own heart strangely warmed by the Lord in your pursuit of the spiritual life.

7.     Faith Alone, Thomas Schreiner

In 2017, a series of five books on the 5 Solas of the Reformation were released to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation as Martin Luther nailed the 95 Thesis to the Door of Wittenberg Castle Church. Faith Alone is the best book, by far, in the series. Respected New Testament scholar, Thomas Schreiner, provides simple clarity and helpful historical background while providing his prototypical careful exegetical insights of key New Testament texts. I maintain that the “5 Solas” embody the most succinct expression of Reformed theology, and “faith alone” is a great place to start (i.e. 5 Solas = salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone according to the scripture alone to the glory of God alone).

8.     The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith, Hagberg and Guelich

I preached on Breakthrough: The Journey through the Wall in the series “How do People Change?” The six stages of faith come from The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith. It’s a helpful framework-type of book which helpfully identifies and gives voice to the experiences of Christians at each stage of faith. The Critical Journey provides “next steps” for people “who have gotten “stuck” at “The Wall” or at various stages of the life of faith. As long as you recognize that the book tilts more towards sociology than biblical theology, you can appreciate the book for what it is.

9.     The Valley of Vision (A Puritan Prayer Book)

I came back to using The Valley of Vision regularly again in 2025. The Puritan Prayer book serves me by priming the pump for my own prayers. Do you ever wake up groggy? Overwhelmed? Not feeling like you want to pray? On those days, I begin with The Valley of Vision before I open the Bible, and these biblically rich and theological robust prayers suddenly jump-start my own prayer life in wonderful ways. The Valley of Vision is a wonderful resource to keep next to your Bible.  

(Hint: The Leather Bound edition is well-worth the money.)

10.  FUN BOOK: Big Dumb Eyes: Stories from a Simpler Mind, Nate Bergatze

A very funny book by comedian Nate Bergatze.

For a long time, my favorite comedian has been Brian Regan. I still believe the best hour of comedy on YouTube is “I walked on the moon” by Regan; his clip of the differences between men and women is hilarious. Nate Bergatze’s clip of time travel is memorable and funny; his bit about trying to check-in at the airport is fun times; Washington’s Dream at SNL was an instant classic. In Big Dumb Eyes, you can definitely hear his distinctive comedic voice coming through the stories he tells. It was a fun page-turner to wind down the night.

The last three months have seen assassinations, inexplicable violence, and a maelstrom of bewildering emotions and vehement responses cutting across the geographic, cultural, and social media landscape of our divided country.

Charlie Kirk’s assassination (Sept 10) at Utah Valley University.

Evergreen High School shooting (Sept 10) near Denver left 1 dead and 2 wounded.

Annunciation Catholic School shooting (Aug 27) in Minneapolis left two children dead and 21 people injured, including 18 school children.

Iryna Zarutska (Aug 22), Ukrainian immigrant, was killed on Charlotte’s public transportation.

Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and husband Mark were assassinated (June 14) in their home outside of Minneapolis.

The two words that have come to my mind in these last days, weeks, and months are “madness” and “evil”. Violence has a long history, winding all the way back to the Bible’s second generation when Cain killed Abel. One of the best titled books on the doctrine of sin comes from Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. entitled “Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be”. These last three months have increasingly felt like “not the way it’s supposed to be”.

Three short phrases are rattling around in my soul at the present moment.

(1) Evil is a reality. (2) Lament is a necessity. (3) Jesus is still our only hope.

Evil is a reality. As Andrew Delbanco writes, “A gulf has opened up in our culture between the visibility of evil and the intellectual resources available for coping with it.” I am thankful that our Christian tradition has the resources for naming evil, identifying evil, and (ultimately) triumphing over evil because of the cross of Christ. Our secular neighbors, bereft of the Christian story of redemption, have a much harder time coping with the basic storyline and complex plot of evil in our world. I wish that our culture would take the advice of Charles Haddon Spurgeon when he succinctly suggested, “Of two evils, choose neither.” Yet, that is not the reality of our world. Evil is an ever-present reality in our world.

I don’t know about you, but I am definitely having a hard time wrapping my mind and heart around the madness and the violence and the evil that is taking place in our country. Friends, this is precisely the nature of evil! The nature of evil is inexplicable. Think of the sudden appearance of the serpent (Satan) in the Garden of Eden. How did he get there? In the middle of God’s good creation? In the middle of Paradise? It’s one of the biggest mysteries of the entire Bible, right up there with the Trinity and the Virgin Birth. Evil is a reality yet often inexplicable by its very nature. So you are not alone in being saddened, bewildered, and upset. This is not the way it’s supposed to be.

Lament is a Necessity. I actually preached on lament on June 8, 2025 with these words:

“Why should you embrace the prayer of lament in your life? Because if you don’t suffer in a biblical way, you will suffer in a secular way. You will stuff the suffering down deep into your soul (until it eventually explodes out onto others). Or, you will flit around on the surface and shallowness of life.”

Lament is not despair. Lament is not crying into the void. Lament is bringing our pain, our sadness, our grief, and our questions before God in prayer. Lament prayers engage in a “piety of protest” for justice and healing and the reign of God not to tarry. Lament is a necessity when we see evil encroaching into our world.

“Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust” (Mark Vroegop). I find myself thinking: “Yes, that’s what I want to do, O Lord, in the midst of evil.” I want to establish a posture of prayer in my life that leads to greater trust in the Sovereign God of Love!

If that’s what you long for, I encourage you to lament:

Lament before you scroll. Lament before you post. Lament before you open your mouth. Lament before you go to see where the latest cultural battle lines are being drawn up on social media. Lament before you watch your favorite TV talk show host.

Friends, evil is increasingly becoming a social media phenomenon. So guard your soul. Pray before you scroll. Do you hear me? Pray before you scroll, especially when evil abounds.

Jesus is still our only hope. “God did not abolish the fact of evil: He transformed it. He did not stop the Crucifixion; He rose from the dead” (Dorothy L. Sayers). The victory of Jesus on Calvary’s cross is God’s  gigantic “NO!” to the evil in our world. Evil will cease. Tears will be wiped away. Death is on a short leash held by God. Yet, as we live “in between the times” – we wait.

But here’s the deal: we wait with hope!

Jesus will reign. Jesus will be victorious. Jesus is still our only hope.

That’s a truth that brings rest to my soul. That’s a truth that brings freedom from “trying to figure it all out”.

In my bewilderment. In my righteous anger. In my compassion fatigue. In my conversations with friends. Jesus is still my only hope. That’s a truth that I can take all the way to the bank of eternity.

So friends: do not lose hope. Jesus is still reigning and ruling!

Rev. Dr. Jason Carter

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P.S. In October and November, the pastoral staff at Trinity will be offering a class entitled “Christianity and the Public Square”. See the details below.

Christianity and the Public Square

Community Hour (10:15 – 11:00)

9 Weeks | Sundays in October & November | Seminar Room

Purpose:

1. Expand our understanding of the biblical and theological basis for Christianity’s role in the public square, including our winsome engagement with our post-Christendom culture as a Jesus follower.

2. Increase (and practice) our ability to engage others with kindness, understanding, civility, charity, and love with those who disagree with our beliefs on politics and socio-cultural issues with a view towards re-establishing the church as a community which models honest dialogue full of grace and truth for a watching world. We will practicing “hugging it out” at the end of our dialogues together!

3. Become conversant with a few frameworks and paradigms for understanding the Christian’s engagement in the public square with a view towards talking winsomely about the cultural stumbling blocks in our divided age with grace and truth.

OCT 5: Framework Building Block #1: Christianity and Culture

OCT 12: Framework Building Block #2: Four Approaches to Race, Politics and Gender | The Carter Framework for “This Cultural Moment”

OCT 19: What is a Healthy Patriotism as a Christian? What is Christian Nationalism? (Round #1)

OCT 26: Social Media and the Public Square

NOV 2: What is a Healthy Patriotism as a Christian? What is Christian Nationalism? (Round #2)

NOV 9: Loving Our Enemies | The Sermon of the Mount Applied

NOV 16: A Short History of Revival: Theology, Themes, and Traits

NOV 23: The New Sexual Revolution: A Way Forward with Grace and Truth

NOV 30: Race & the Bible: A Beginning Word on Racial Tensions, Immigration, and the Call of the Christian

At Trinity, the focus of our leadership culture is that pastors and elders come together to seek the mind of Christ for the good of our church. In the leadership space of our church, we are not primarily trying to host “business meetings” across the leadership landscape of our congregation but to cultivate a true spiritual community consisting of a humble, collaborative, Fruit of the Spirit leadership culture where leaders are – in community – increasingly growing in their walk with the Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church.

Our leaders long to model what the apostle Paul audaciously communicated to the church in Corinth: Follow me, as I follow Christ (1 Cor. 11:1). Our leaders also recognize that “All ministry is Christ’s ministry” which means that Christ as the Head of the Church is the One who gets all the glory, honor, and credit for any good thing which happens in our midst.

What does this look like in practice? Over the years, our leadership has adopted a number of ideas and practices for leaning into spiritual health in the leadership space.

First, our Session leadership has adopted six “Leadership Culture Principles” so that our leadership teams remain healthy and focused on the mission of Jesus. We covenant together to speak grace and truth directly to one another (rather than gossip), honor one another (rather than criticize), and believe the best about one another (rather than cultivate a culture of mistrust and suspicion). We even covenant together to utilize email communication with each other to the glory of God!  

(You can read all six principles here.)

Second, several years ago, Session decided that the way of wisdom for Trinity to lean into greater health for our organization and greater unity within the body of Christ and to increasingly model a life of discipleship for our congregation at the leadership level was to create a LEADERSHIP PIPELINE for current and future leaders of the church. All within the congregation are invited but Session has mandated that all elders, deacons, and session team members go through this leadership pipeline (known as “The Way: Apprenticeship with Jesus”) at least once during their three-year term leading the body of Christ.

“The Way: Apprenticeship with Jesus” is about 20 Sessions combined in the Fall & Spring; we meet at 6:00-7:30 pm the first, second, and third Thursday of the month – we eat together and pray together and study together and practice the spiritual disciplines together. Sign up here.

Third, we pioneered the inaugural “Leadership Lab” recently in our congregation. The purpose is two-fold:

• The first goal is to provide equipping and training on select topics and themes with a view towards the deep discipleship of our church. Think of it as “ADVANCED DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING” that we cannot explore from the pulpit or can be difficult to delve into even in a Life Group setting.

• The second goal is to help our church family and leadership teams get on the same page so we can continue to be the church family that God is calling us to be.

Fourth, for the last several years, I have urged our new elders to listen to “Turning Sessions into Spiritual Communities”, a leadership talk by Doug Resler at the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC)’s National Gathering. [NOTE: “Session” is the highest governing body in our polity consisting of sitting elders of the church.] The ideas inculcated by Doug Resler deeply resonate with me: the practice of praying and eating and studying together – becoming a Spiritual Community – is not incidental but a key aspect of what Session is called to do as our elders serve and lead the church in the way of Jesus Christ.

Thankful for Jesus who shows us the way,

Rev. Dr. Jason Carter

***View the blog post as a PDF here.