Celebrating Father’s Day

As we celebrate Father’s Day, I thought I’d link to some of my posts on fatherhood: 10 Things Nobody Tells You About Being a Dad This is, by far, my most popular post. In this I share some serious and some not-so-serious reflections on the surprises of fatherhood. 5 Things Every Daughter Needs to Hear […]

Chocolate Faith

 Within the church of the living God, we must become excited about the gospel.  That’s how we pass on our heritage – D.A. Carson If you want to impress the woman you love and happening to be traveling through the northwest suburbs of Chicago, my advice to you is to spend a significant amount of […]

God’s Adjustment Bureau

Several years ago, I sat with a trusted counselor, seeking wisdom on how best to counsel a friend crushed under the weight of his upbringing in an abusive home. With tears, I poured out my frustrations at my friend’s parents, whose hypocrisy and heavy-handedness had warped the soul of their son. The counselor’s response reset […]

What Pastoring Taught Me About Spiritual Growth

As a lifelong Christian, I’ve always known the importance of spiritual growth. But when I became a pastor, suddenly my ideas about this were bigger than simply what was going on in my life. As an undershepherd of God’s people, now the spiritual growth of other people is my concern. You could argue that this […]

Is there something wrong with our love?

I’ve been preaching through the book of 1 Peter for our Exiles series at church on Sunday mornings. It’s a powerful book. Just this Sunday I preached on 1 Peter 1:22-25 where Peter calls the church to a deep kind of love. What struck me most about this chapter is a simple, seemingly throwaway line, […]

Your Jehoida Moment

Few have entered the world with such a dramatic story as Joash. Born in the midst of a bloody revolution in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, Joash barely escaped the edge of the sword wielded by his Grandmother, Athalia. Athalia was a ruthless monarch, who clawed her way to the throne after her husband’s death […]

Wanted: 10 Book Bloggers

I’m continually working to get the word out about my book, Real, Owning Your Christian Faith. I really believe in the message of this book: that those who grew up in the faith are as desperate for God as those who haven’t. So, I’m looking for ten bloggers willing to blog about my book this way: 1) […]

What Is Your Thing?

As a pastor I meet a lot of interesting Christians. I have people who attend my church, people who call or stop by to promote their ministry in our church, and/or people who send me information via email or mail. The common theme is that every Christian seems to have a “thing.” That is to […]

The Launch of My Book, REAL

So July is the official launch of my latest book, REAL, Owning Your Christian Faith. This book has been on my heart for years and I’m glad to see it finally coalesce into a book. I wrote Real for a few reasons: I wanted to give voice to the struggles that many second-generation Christians face growing up […]

Drew Dyck on Real

I was honored to receive this endorsement of REAL by Drew Dyck, editor of Leadership Journal: “Second generation faith can be a little like next day pizza—cold, stale, and tough to swallow. Darling’s book is for those weary of subsisting on spiritual leftovers. He understands the sometimes stultifying effect of the evangelical subculture on spirituality […]

Real Book Trailer

Here is the book trailer for my new book, REAL, Owning Your Christian Faith. Many thanks to my brother, Tim Darling, who worked long and hard on this: