Darryl Dash's Blog

Curated links for your weekend reading:

These Seven Biblical Truths Can Bring You Great Happiness

Ironically, it’s easier to be restored to a positive relationship with God than with any other being.

One Habit That Helped Me Stay Sane in My Darkest Days

Writing a prayer letter encouraged me in this principle and made me more grateful.

What Is ChatGPT (AI) For? And What Humans Alone Can Do

Since we have an immortal and rational soul, humans alone can do what only humans can do, namely, contemplate inte...

“I have something I want to ask you,” my friend said. “How is your relationship with Paul?”

I felt uncomfortable. I’d recently lost my cool with Paul. I was wrong, and everyone knew it. I’d taken some superficial steps to put things right, but I still hadn’t owned my mistake — actually, my sin.

“I think we’re okay,” I mumbled, but I knew that my friend was right to ask the question. I needed a prompt to put things right.

When someone corrects me, I automatically feel a little defensive. I think of ...

Big Idea: Marriage requires a love that is costly and unbreakable, boundaries that protect the relationship, and a pursuit that never ends.

I’ve had the privilege of presiding over many weddings, and I love the entire journey. It's a joy to support couples from their engagement through premarital counseling to their wedding vows. I sometimes get to accompany them for years, seeing them build their lives, welcome children, and grow together.

As I watch couples drive away after their wedding, I ofte...

Curated links for your weekend reading:

Why I Chose the Church With Worn-Out Bathrooms

Their hearts and their budget were set more on people than on their facility.

What to Do After Your Pastor Preaches a Bad Sermon

What do you do after your pastor preaches a sub-par sermon? What happens when your pastor is a normal guy who preaches normal sermons?

Here are a few practical steps.

How Much Church Can I Miss to Serve?

Serving children in Jesus’s name is beautiful and God-pleasing. Gathering for worship i...

Every sermon should include the gospel. I agree with Charles Spurgeon, who said, “A sermon without Christ in it is like a loaf of bread without any flour in it. No Christ in your sermon, sir? Then go home, and never preach again until you have something worth preaching.”

We can't afford to give moralistic sermons devoid of the gospel. The good news of Jesus needs to be the primary message that we preach and the centerpiece of every sermon.

One way to preach the gospel is to include it at the end. ...

Big Idea: A healthy marriage deepens through conflict and pursues joyful, holy intimacy that’s a reflection of Christ’s steadfast love.

I am a product of a single-parent home. For most of my childhood, I lived with my mother and my siblings but not my dad.

For that reason, I never had the privilege of seeing what a healthy marriage looked like. I’ve only seen hints of what a healthy marriage looks like from other couples, but that’s not the same as experiencing it consistently.

So I made a delibera...

Curated links for your weekend reading:

A Word to My Students

Sooner or later the time will come — perhaps in a job interview, or an interview for a place in a graduate program, or your second week in a new job that doesn’t have you in front of a computer all day — when your lack of the skills you claim to have will become evident, to your great embarrassment and frustration.

The High Price of Watching Nudity

Here are my reasons for why I’m committed to this kind of radical abstention from anything ...

I follow around 150 blogs and skim through a couple hundred posts each week. Over the past decade, that adds up to more than ten thousand blog posts. Yet, only seven have profoundly impacted my life.

Reading them again, I realize how many of them are simple, and yet they've shaped how I think, live, and serve.

Here they are, along with a summary of each and why they stood out to me.

Gospel + Safety + Time = A Church Where Anyone Can Grow

This is what our churches must be: gentle environments of gosp...

Curated links for your weekend reading:

How Social Media Shortens Your Life

Social media platforms have been stealing our time using a sneaky trick: they’ve been speeding up our sense of time — effectively shortening our lives — so we think we had less than we did, and don’t notice some of it was pilfered.

Questions Every Pastor on Social Media Should Ask Themselves

Your people don’t really need your social media presence, but they do need your actual presence.

What Does It Take for Pastors to Stay i...

Many people think they know the answer, but I’ve found we’re often not as clear as we should be. What is a wedding, and what is a marriage?

It's important to base our understanding on what the Bible teaches to ensure it aligns with God's design. Lack of clarity about weddings and marriage leads to confusion in our personal lives, society, and the church.

In his book Christian Ethics, Wayne Grudem provides this helpful definition:

Marriage is… a lifelong relationship between a man and a woman that i...