Most of my readers would know my love for the band Beirut. It's current, yet aged. It's creative, yet often stunningly simple. It's beautiful, often powerful, and always wonderful. One of the best bands working, in my opinion. Match that with what is probably their most stunning video to date for "The Rip Tide." The simplicity of the first 2 1/2 minutes turns into a rush of colors. Love the concept. Very impressed with this video. I hope you will enjoy it and pick up their great albums: The Rip Tide | Gulag Orkestar ($5.49 right now) | Lon Gisland EP| The Flying Club Cup | March of the Zapotec.
The salternlite blog transcribes 10 "evangelism tips" from Tim Keller. I believe these come from this talk. By the way, for some reason blog trolls love commenting on how "preach the gospel" isn't on the list. If you assume Tim Keller isn't talking about preaching the gospel in and through these things, you are dense and your comments will not be appreciated. For those of us who are thinking about how we can bring the gospel to our neighbors, these suggestions should be simple and helpful. A bit more context is given at the end.
Let people around you know you are a Christian (in a natural, unforced way)
Ask friends about their faith – and just listen!
Listen to your friends problems – maybe offer to pray for them
Share your problems with others – testify to how your faith helps you
Give them a book to read
Share your story
Answer objections and questions
Invite them to a church event
Offer to read the Bible with them
Take them to an explore course
Keller suggests, according to salternlite, to start with 1-4, move to 5-7, and then 8-10. Too often we start at the bottom.
Once you grant the main premise of the Bible—about the surpassing significance of Christ and his salvation—then all the various parts of the Bible make sense. Because of Christ, the ceremonial law is repealed. Because of Christ the church is no longer a nation-state imposing civil penalties. It all falls into place. However, if you reject the idea of Christ as Son of God and Savior, then, of course, the Bible is at best a mish-mash containing some inspiration and wisdom, but most of it would have to be rejected as foolish or erroneous.
Pick up Brandi Carlile's EP, Live At Bear Creek, for free below. Her album, Bear Creek, is out now and I'm loving it. Strongly encourage you to pick up her new stuff, as well as her previous albums which are some of our very favorites to play in our house: Brandi Carlile | The Story | Give Up The Ghost | Live At Benaroya Hall.
The wonderful album by M83, Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, is only $3.99 as of today (22 tracks!). The first two videos from the album are intense visions about children with powers in dystopian society. Watch the first two videos in order: "Midnight City" and "Reunion." Pretty cool.
Vespers: The Fourth Wall - Wow, I am loving this. So is my family. I catch my kids singing it through the day. It's as if the Avett Brothers were sisters & believers. I've had the first track, "Better Now," on repeat.
I got an email from my friends at Crossway on a great opportunity to get a massive grant. Please help, give, spread the word! From the email..
As you may know, Crossway is a not-for-profit ministry that relies in part on gifts from people like you to accomplish major ministry projects worldwide.
We’ve recently been presented with an extraordinary opportunity. Generous donors have offered an all-or-nothing matching grant if we are able to raise $270,000 by May 31st—just days from now.
This grant could not have come at a better time. In God’s kindness, we currently have unprecedented opportunities for creating, translating, and delivering ESV Bible resources for Christians in great need—especially in China, India, and multiple countries in Africa.
Will you help us toward meeting this matching grant before the end of May? ...a gift of any amount will help Crossway provide significantly more Bibles and Bible study resources to the church worldwide.
We would be grateful for your generous response to this urgent opportunity.
Over the last couple of weeks I've been enjoying working out with Jerram Barrs audio from his two classes on Francis Schaeffer (Early Years & Later Years) at Covenant Seminary. Specifically, I've been listening by streaming through the Covenant Seminary Worldwide Classroom app on my Android phone.
I've thought for several years that one of the best things that could happen in American churches is that we would take a more L'Abri-like approach to our mission. You can read the Schaeffer's ministry at L'Abri in The Tapestry (out of print, but I just picked one up used but in perfect condition for $25) and L'Abri. I think churches like Soma Communities are doing this kind of thing better than most.
Get new The Welcome Wagon EP for free, or leave the artist a tip! If you don't have their first album, Welcome to the Welcome Wagon, you are missing something great. Get the free EP or try out samples below.
I made a discovery today. Streaming free today is an album by a band (dude) I've never heard of. Gregg DellaRocca is American Gospel. Tomorrow American Gospel's album, Tall Tales Volume 1, is out. I'm guessing very few of my readers have heard of this album and I hope you'll check it out. Gregg is the vocalist/singer for The Republic of Wolves.
The album is DellaRocca on nearly every instrument and vocals. Gregg writes...
Tall Tales Vol.1 combines story telling and personal experiences to deliver a fun, compelling, and sometimes dark, multi-genre musical experience. From a production standpoint the entire album was DIY, and for the most part I’m playing all the instruments (with an exception to the horns). Because most of the songs are about stories I could go on and on about them, but for the sake of time I thought I would sum them all up for you on this track by track.
The name, American Gospel, first intrigued me. As a preacher of the Gospel and I often talk about the American version of the Gospel vs. THE Gospel. Match an interesting name with an album titled "Tall Tales" and I had to give it a shot. I had no idea what to expect, but what I found was a creative, thoughtful, and at times provocative album. Listen to it for free today and buy it tomorrow if you like it. Let me know what you think.
Here's "Bayonet" followed by Gregg's explanation of the song...
This is a song that deals primarily with religion, death and trying to understand my own purpose in life. Written shortly after the passing of my great grandmother, “Bayonet” is about finding your place in the world, and being able to make the decisions to get to that place on your own. Structurally it’s short and constantly building, It’s broken up into three sections that don’t repeat themselves. In comparison to the opening track “I Know”, “Bayonet” is much more minimal in design, thus creating a strong point of contrast and setting the tone for track to track dynamics for the remainder of the album.
