As of this post my stats tell me this site has been viewed 100,104 times. Thanks to all who read, and especially to those who interact with ideas of truth and culture here.
It looks like hit #100,000 was someone who came to my site from a yahoo email to my video sermon post and then went to my homepage. If that was you, then you've won lifetime access to the beautiful Joe Thorn Buddha bobble-head. Enjoy!
With all apologies to all my SBTS professors that are dear to my heart, I may have decided on a favorite. Hershael York has, in great detail, just posted on his experience at the Blackalicious and G Love and Special Sauce concert he and his wife attended with their son in Nashville.
Hershael is fun and insightful in the classroom, and this post is right in that vein. He leaves some reflections on the evening as well, and I'm thankful for them.
Memorable quotes...
I think it is safe to say that I am probably the only professor at Southern Seminary who has ever been to a G Love and Blackalicious concert.
I am not a hip hop fan, though I confess that I have a certain admiration when they 'freestyle.'
"She's got sauce--your baby's not sweet like mine" was a crowd favorite, as was "Booty Call," which was about precisely what you think it was about. "Two Birds" flew through the set and "Don't Drop It" didn't get dropped, but I kept hoping for him to do "Cold Beverages," a favorite of mine, though he never did.
Tanya and I...inadvertently found ourselves standing in the middle of the drinkers, smokers, and tokers. We could hear dying brain cells gasping their last shallow breaths.
I felt neither uncomfortable nor offended. I had seen all this before. I used to have my own band years ago, after all, and things haven't changed that much.
You want to know something strange? Do you know what I did during the concert? I prayed. My heart was breaking for many of the kids around me. In the middle of the music and surrounded by the revelry, mostly I felt sad. I knew that most of these kids did not understand that they are playing with fire. They didn't seem to consider the consequences that their actions lead to. But I did. I have counseled husbands whose wives were sexually promiscuous and it haunted them. I have had to sit with patients dying of aids that they contracted sexually. I have listened to men who have no attention span and cannot hold a job lament that they burned out their brains with drugs. I've counseled girls who had abortions, girls who had babies out of wedlock, young adults who have become addicted to alcohol and drugs. I am the guy who helps people put the shattered pieces of their lives back together after they realize that much of their fun is really bondage.
I was...reflecting on Richard Blackaby's poignant message on grace and entering the world of those who need it rather than just scolding them You can hear it here). Still, I thought, I just don't know what to do now that I am in their world.
Here are a few albums that I find enjoyable in different circumstances.
Dirty Three: Cinder
My take: A beautiful, mostly instrumetal (guitar-drums-violin) album. Very mellow and relaxing.
Usage: Good for reading late with candles lit and a beverage you want to sip.
Dusted says: "With a solid emotional through-line and a few sonic surprises, Cinder is a musical novella, whose narrative compels you to its last luxurious line."
The Go! Team: Thunder, Lightning, Strike
My take: Active and fun beats, hip-hoppish, often lined with cheerleader background vocals. A thrill-ride of an album that induces foot-taping and head-bobbing throughout. Check out my family video that includes two clips from the CD.
Usage: When you feel like jumping on the bed or dancing in your underwear.
musicOMH.com says: "Effortlessly cool and implausibly inventive, Thunder Lightning Strike is that rare thing, an instant classic. Let The Go! Team become the new soundtrack to your lives."
My take: Dream-inducing, magical, haunting, and enveloping songs. Thoroughly blissful. I can't stop playing it.
Usage: Close the door, put on high-quality headphones, turn it up slightly too loud, dim the lights nearly off, put your feet up, and head off to neverland.
musicOMH.com says: "Takk's songs are...epics of over seven minutes that generally take at least half of that to get going, and they evoke euphoria, delight and wonder."
Free music downloads; videos ("Glosoli" is incredible)
I'm blogging on Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places with Scot McKnight and a few others over at Jesus Creed. Well, the few others haven't appeared yet, but they will.
Check out the first post and join in the conversation.
Several months ago my wife and I attended Harvest Bible Chapel (James MacDonald) inPalatine, IL. We tried very hard to make sure we were at the main church on a day MacDonald would be there. We got there and found out he wasn't there, but Joe Stowell was preaching. Okay, cool. Feed me. Uh, it was Stowell on video from an earlier service.
Right now I'm ten minutes into Mark Driscoll's sermon "Jesus Took Our Wrath" and he hasn't started the sermon yet. That's actually not a strange thing for Driscoll, especially since he has about an hour and five minutes left. He is explaining how Mars Hill has been growing in leaps and bounds. Faster than they can accommodate. And they are looking for ways to make space, and space is hard to come by. Wouldn't we all like to have their problems. One quick solution that won't last for long is adding a fifth service on Sunday. As a pastor that sounds like a nightmare for my physical/emotional well being.
So instead of just killing the pastor and staff along the way, they have chosen to make some of the sermons video sermons. Driscoll will preach the first service, it will be taped and used at a service or two that day. That takes care of the killing the pastor/staff part, but I'm a bit concerned at the direction of good churches that I highly respect who are turning to this option. I wonder if this isn't an abuse of the gifts of modernity, rather than using these gifts in a way that truly benefits the church.
Let me just give a few thoughts as to why I don't like this trend. I don't mean to pick on Harvest or MHC or MacDonald or Driscoll, but they have triggered my thoughts.
1. There's a dynamic that isn't there when the preacher isn't standing in front of his people. Every sermon I preach changes because of how the audience responds, how I feel, the sense of "unction" and so on. I don't think these are repeatable things, and so the dynamic is lost. If I have the story right, Martyn Lloyd-Jones didn't like his sermons audio recorded (though they were) because he felt like you couldn't replicate the experience so it wouldn't be the same.
2. Video preaching is, it seems to me, a way of doing an 'end run' around the real need: more preachers/more churches. We are to pray for workers for the harvest, not for digital machines that can video-photocopy a sermon and reproduce it. If God's providing the people to join the flock, I want to believe that God is providing enough pastor/preachers who can shepherd the flock. I know the philosophy at MHC behind why they don't want to share the pulpit, but I'm not sure I fully buy it as the better option.
3. Video preaching seems like the result of personality-driven ministry. The preacher is so important and so beloved that no one else can fill their shoes well enough to preach in their place. I hope this isn't the case, but guys like MacDonald and Driscoll are very charismatic and certainly some are coming who would not if they weren't there.
What do you think?
Read Doug Wilson's "The Marks of a Pharisee."
We do not widen our phylacteries; we have floppy Bibles with ribbonsin them. We do not offer lengthy prayers in the synagogues; we do in the churches. We do not look at the woman caught in adultery with contempt; we look at the immodestly-dressed college girl with contempt. And in a basic display of a censorious and religious bookkeeping system, our hearts (and sometimes our mouths) are full of phrases that rhyme with "that’s not fair!"
May God deliver us.
I don't think I've linked to the Mark Driscoll's Seattle Times articles before. I think it's a great example of how to interact with the culture in a way they can understand and in a way that points to ultimate issues.
Free download of "God Moves" from Worship Matters (song link at top right).
Eugene Peterson's follow up to Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places is called Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading and is due out at the end of December. Very cool. This is the second book in a five book series Peterson is planning on spiritual theology.
I am one of a handful of guys who are "mega-blogging" Christ Plays at Jesus Creed. It should be starting soon and I will post on it when it does.
(HT: Prodigal Kiwi)
Every week I deliver a biblical and counter-cultural message to our congregation, often challenging the ways of our world, the problem of insurmountable sinfulness in humanity and in each of our hearts, and pointing to God who became flesh as the answer and end of all our searches for meaning and escape from the consequences of our sin.
But I only make it into the local paper when a 1 inch hole pops through a water main on our street causing nearly no real problems or issues.
Al Mohler recently gave a series of lectures on "A Christian Vision of Beauty" at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. The audio should be at the CHBC website soon, but for now he is publishing the transcripts on his site.
Scot McKnight (Jesus Creed) invited me to come this Monday to North Park University (Chicago), where he is a professor, to hear Dr. Donald Hagner lecture and then eat dinner with them as well as some NPU professors.
I showed up a little early for an absolutely riveting discussion on divorce (link shows short video) between Scot, Don, and Kermit Zarley (a former pro golfer who has funded the lecture series). Then Dr. Hagner delivered part one of his lecture series on "A Positive Theology of Judaism from the New Testament." Interesting and provocative. Learn more about the lecture series here, and here's Scot's short post on it.
It was an enjoyable day: I learned some new things, met some good people, and ate some great Italian food at Via Veneto.
Tim Challies has interviewed Derek Webb about his new CD, Mockingbird (which sounds very good), his thoughts on social justice, favorite books, and more. Interview: Part 1 & Part 2.
From Part 1...
It's like once you come down the aisle responding to the call for salvation - you come down the aisle and you pray the prayer and as you're walking out they give you your little gift bag. And your little gift bag is all of your politics and sexuality and culture and art and all wrapped up, it's all been thought out for you. Just take your gift bag and you're going to be fine. And we just can't be people who are satisfied with that. That is completely oversimplifying issues that are very difficult and very detailed and are very nuanced. We must have a more meaningful discussion about these issues in the church because you simply cannot be as predictable as we have become as the Western church. You cannot be that predictable and follow Jesus. You cannot! Jesus was not predictable in his politics. I do think Jesus makes quite a few very political statements, but he was in no way predictable. There were moments where he might have looked very conservative as we might try to put our terms and categories on him today and look back, but there are also moments where he looked like a flaming liberal. There is nothing we can do about it. If your concern is in following Jesus and that is what you really want to do, as opposed to following some kind of subcultural caricature of a political idea, you're going to have to be willing to follow him back and forth and back and forth. You're going to have to be willing to have people, even in the church, call you a liberal, which can be very derogatory when used by these people. I think the more we align ourselves with political parties in the church the more it makes it impossible to follow Jesus.
From Part 2...
I think that one book that has been tremendously helpful to me is a book by this guy Steve Turner, it's called Imagine. Steve Turner's a guy who studied at L'Abri under Francis Schaeffer, and he wrote this book. It's probably the most thorough and biblical and liberating treatment of how a Christian might engage in the arts. It is one of those books that will take the roof off the house. I read it every couple of years just to remind myself of what's true because when it comes to the arts the church has really mixed up ideas about what the role of art is in culture and especially church culture. So that book really has blown my mind a number of times and I think that should be required reading for anybody.
Harry Potter, er, Daniel Radcliffe (who plays Harry on screen) has a 'celebrity playlist' up at iTunes. I thought it would be interesting to see what he picked. I liked the list, but I found a few of his explanations of the songs curious. Notice the interesting mix of meanings.
FYI for non-iTunes users, they usually have the celebrity pick 10-15 songs and describe something about what they like about each song.
"Gouge Away" (Track 7): "Biblical imagery, half whispered vocals and an incredible chorus..."
"Me Ves y Sufres" (Track 8): "An incredibly sad song. To me it sounds like it's about someone who, because of their own actions, has no hope of happiness."
"What I'm Looking For" (Track 9): "A song that seems to me, to be saying, 'Hey, there may not be a meaning to life. So let's all just enjoy living it.' A good attitude to have."
I'm excited about the new movie Walk the Line about the life of Johnny Cash. Rotten Tomatoes, as of the time of this post, has it at a 93% (meaning 93% of reviews are positive, so far) including two thumbs from Ebert and Roeper.
Russ Moore likes the movie, and is a big Cash fan. Get out and see it.
I love this. Al Mohler and Mark Dever stand in line to get Maureen Dowd to sign her new book.
It's not every day that you get to meet the leading feminist columnist for The New York Times. Ms. Dowd did not disappoint. She was clever, winsome, and glad to sign a copy of her new book, Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide. The book is important in several aspects, and I will publish a review in an upcoming commentary.
Ms. Dowd, whose caustic wit ranks with Dorothy Parker, demonstrated her sense of humor in signing her books. After I introduced myself, she wrote a message right under the title question: Are Men Necessary?. She wrote to me: You are! For Dr. Dever she wrote: Absolutely!
Well, it's not every day that two complementarian evangelical men get their existence affirmed by Maureen Dowd. It's true -- these are strange times.
I wish I could say I didn't expect this, but I did. Someone has claimed the death of Kyle Lake is God's message to the EC: "God Sends Shocking Message to the Emerging Church." Does God electrocute Emerging Church pastors?
Bob Hyatt is bordering on livid, and writes a short post with his email response to the author.
Maybe God's message is, 'Stop baptizing people.' Sheesh. Every pastor or theologian who dies young will have their reputation and that of their "movement" Ananias and Sapphira'd. What about Jonathan Edwards, for crying out loud? You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Oh, and one more thing, I think if God is going to kill someone, He is going to make sure we know that He did it. He will not share His glory with electricity or a microphone.
Al Mohler wrote "Jimmy Carter's Endangered Values" in response to President Carter's new book. And Jimmy Carter has read and responded to Al Mohler's review.
