Author: Jonathan Dodson

Fight Clubs Now Available!

Posted on August 1, 2009

Summary

If you’ve struggled to follow Jesus by veering away from the gospel into duty-bound legalism or moralistic indifference, then this book is for you! Fight Clubs is a radical call to fight the fight of faith in the strength of the gospel. Jonathan Dodson calls us to join the fight against sin, legalism, and license by looking to Christ and His gospel. Fight Clubs equips us to fight the fight of faith by exposing the fleeting promises of sin and drawing us into the grace-saturated promises of God. Displacing defective forms of discipleship, Dodson keeps the gospel central by tapping into various layers of biblical motivations that promote joyful obedience to Christ. The book also provides a strategy to fight sin as the church—small fighting communities called Fight Clubs. Read this book; form a fight club; and start fighting in the strength of the gospel.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Why Fight?: The Call to Fight

2. Fighting for the Church: The Failure of Accountability

3. How to Fight: Motivations for Discipleship

4. Fighting with the Church: The Three Conversions of the Church

5. Fight Club: Practical Gospel-centered Discipleship

Appendix 1: Gospel-centered Questions to Ask

Appendix 2: Gospel-centered Resources

Get the Book

Download the e-book in PDF format

Buy the book

Fight Clubs Book Released!

Posted on August 1, 2009

My first book, Fight Clubs: Gospel-centered Discipleship, is now available! Click here for an explanation of the book and the Table of Contents. You can get it in the following formats:

This book was written for the church, for disciples who struggle to follow Jesus well. It’s intended to equip you to fight the fight of faith in the power of the gospel, and to do so as Jesus intended, in community. My hope is that it will strengthen your resolve to fight the good fight of faith well (1 Tim 6:12), and in the strength that God provides (1 Pet 4:11). I hope it helpfully dismantles legalistic and loose patterns of discipleship and frees you to follow Jesus by grace. May it inspire you with the rich gospel motivations God has given us in the Son and the Spirit to follow hard after God!

Are You Parenting with Grace?

Posted on August 1, 2009

Are you parenting with grace? How is the gospel working out in your home. How are you raising your children to cherish and follow Jesus, to be good citizens and saints? How are you passing on your understanding of the gospel to your kids and the next generation?

Cheap Grace Parenting

Consider this quote:

Seeing grace as an excuse not to parent your children within the boundaries  of godliness is equally repugnant to God. It is not grace that condones the crooked paths of our children may take. Rather it is cowardice, laziness, and selfishness. – Tim Kimmel, Grace-based Parenting

How is your parenting? Do you allow your your children to be undisciplined, disrespectful, and disobdient in the name of “grace”? This is a poor reflection of the gospel for our kids. Grace does not surrender truth, love does not translate as laziness. Our children need bold love and deep grace to guide them into true contentment and good development. They need fathers who are firm but loving, disciplining but sacrificial, truthful and playful. They need mothers who are faithful and faith-filled, sacrificial but strong, patient but not pansies. Grace is not a cop-out.

Legalistic Parenting

However, grace is also not law. It is not unflinching enforcement of household rules that punish for failure to perform. To be sure, grace upholds the law (assuming your household rules are good, true, and consistent), but it does not confuse law for grace. Our children need to be instructed and held accountable to what is good, true, and right. They need to learn God’s Word and his ways, but like us, they need more than punishment to obey. They need grace. They need to be instructed about the strength of Jesus in their weakness, the power of prayer in the face of stubbornness, the importance of confession and repentance when confronted with their sin, the hope of grace in the difficulty of growing up.

Gospel Parenting

Kids need the mirror of God’s Word to see who they really are, but they also need the lamp of his Gospel to warm their hearts. To parent with grace is to labor to keep truth and love together, to uphold law with grace, to show our children both the mirror and the lamp. If you lean towards cheap grace or legalism in parenting, take a few minutes to confess your sin to God and ask him for grace to change your heart. Talk your parenting over with your spouse. Press into the gospel for yourself and for your children. Be parented and parent in grace.