Brand new album from one of my favorite bands, Deerhunter: Monomania, is out today and on sale for $5. It's one of the few albums I've anticipated weeks ahead of time in 2013. Pitchfork 8.3/10. It's excellent.
Joshua Elsom wrote a nice piece that you need to read: "Open-Air Preaching and the Missional Church." A blurb from the beginning...
The combining of the words ‘open-air’ with the word ‘preaching’ is likely to elicit a wide range of images and opinions in the mind of the person reading them. For some they bring to mind the great evangelists of the explosive revivals of the eighteenth century — Wesley, Whitefield, Tennent, and Edwards; or the prophets of the Old and New Testaments — Jeremiah, Isaiah, Peter, and Paul. While for others, these words conjure up negative images of angry street heralds, with sandwich boards strung over their shoulders, thundering down threatenings of heaven upon all who would wander unawares into their field of preaching. Whatever one happens to think about, few typically associate the practice of preaching in the public square with the missional church movement. Because the missional church places such a high priority on practicing evangelism in the context of ongoing discipleship — on mission and in community — the thought of preaching to strangers who are dissociated from church or discipling relationships may seem at first to be counterintuitive. It should not be.
Check out all my open-air preaching posts and quotes.
The Good Book Company has a growing list of solid books coming out lately. I want to recommend you check out a recent release: Serving Without Sinking by John Hindley. A blurb from the first chapter...
...this book isn't primarily about our service. It's mainly about Jesus Christ, and about His service. He said that He "did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10 v 45). He meant it. He was taken, beaten, tried, mocked, nailed, hung, cursed, judged, killed. He served. He loved.
So Jesus does not want you to measure your life by your service of Him. He does not want your service to get in the way of your love for Him. He did not come to be served by you--He came to serve you.
If we grasp this, then we will be set free to enjoy His love. And then, oddly, we will also be free to serve Him longer, harder, braver, truer than we ever could otherwise. This is joy, and we'll only find it in Christ.
Here's the promo video from John. Go get Serving Without Sinking (Amazon).
Here are the $5 albums I recommend for May.
This Huffington Post article by an anonymous writer is one of the most brutal examples of what a lot of parents think but don't say out loud. Here's how "My Wife Is Expecting Twins and I Am Not Happy About It" opens...
I've been doing some spying lately, casually asking friends and acquaintances about their experiences with having twins.
A buddy from college said of the first year: "Think of the worst thing you can imagine. That's what it was like."
An industry contact back from maternity leave said: "I literally couldn't wait to get back to work. Every weekend is way too long."
A former colleague was more blunt: "Twins were always my worst nightmare."
And now it's my and my wife's nightmare; we're expecting twins this August.
Read the rest. It's heartbreaking.
When I was in high school I worked in landscaping: trimming hedges, mowing lawns, planting trees, hooking up decorative fountains and surrounding it with decorative rock. It was hard work, but something I enjoyed as a young man. And it provided me with a killer tan.
The owner of the business lived on a farm that had a well. This wasn’t a bucket on a rope well; it was equipped with a pump. And if you’ve ever pumped water from a well you know that the pump never works right away. You have to “prime the pump” by cranking the lever a few times. A pump that hasn’t been used for a while is full of air from the pump down closer to water level. It takes a couple of pumps on the handle for the water to fill the tube that delivers it above ground. It’s those first couple of pumps that bring the water to ground level and to usefulness.
As missionaries and evangelists for the supplier of living water, we have to prime the pump in our own hearts so that we are ready to tell all of our King. We need Gospel-readiness and Spirit-reliance right there at ground level. We need to battle with sin and push back against apathy. Evangelism is one of those things that takes God-confidence, courage, and risk. We need a heart that has been primed through dying to self, a reoriented life, a renewed mind, fixing our eyes on Jesus, filled with His Spirit, meditating on His Word, loving Him with all our strength.
Too often we haven’t prayed as we should and wrestled with our fleeting emotions, doubts, and timidity. We haven’t developed a state of readiness and anticipation. We won’t dispense living water efficiently and effectively unless we prime the pump of our hearts, remembering who God is, what God has done, who we are, and what God has called us to do. We need daily motivation for Gospel-readiness.
When we drink from the stream of living water at the outset of our day, and throughout our day, we’ve already brought it to ground level and are ready to point others to it. We will not only find our thirst quenched, but we will be motivated by our own satisfaction in Jesus Christ to help others to quench their thirst.
What do you do to prime the pump for evangelism? What resources do you use other than Scripture?
This may end up being my song of the year. I can't stop listening to it. Junip's "Line of Fire" is streaming free below, and you can download it free. Their new, self-titled album is excellent. Grab it. It just released today!
I'm listening to Daniel Renstrom's new album, Jesus Wants My Heart. It's a family worship album of songs that kids and parents will both enjoy. enjoy singing together. I can tell you that right off the bat I was singing along. A wonderful balance of Gospel and theology in song.
Here are five things Daniel hopes this album will do. Go Read more at Daniel's blog.
There are songs Renstrom wrote and some hymns. I think you will love it.
Joe Thorn & I got to hang out with Greg Thornbury, our friend and author of Recovering Classic Evangelicalism (also Kindle | WTS), just before this interview with John Wilson, the editor of Books & Culture. A good, short discussion on evangelicalism and Carl Henry and "swagger." I hope many read this book. (via Crossway)
Gregory Thornbury discusses "Recovering Classic Evangelicalism" w/ John Wilson from Crossway on Vimeo.
Unfortunately, this is how a lot of us think. But it still makes me laugh out loud. Do you sometimes find yourself viewing your kids this way?
I am loving the new, self-titled Junip album. It's streaming free at Pitchfork. It's about time a 2013 album took my breath away. You can buy it next Tuesday. (HT: Brent Thomas' genius ears).
A bunch of C.S. Lewis books are cheap for your Kindle...
Stream the new album from Phoenix: Bankrupt! now through iTunes.
It's out next week. Click on album cover or here to listen free.
If I told you that in a small building, in a major metropolitan city, within a state of these United States of America there were over 100 children born into this world and then summarily executed, would you expect there to be a national outcry? Would you expect that there would be candle vigils outside this ghastly and horrific place? Would you expect that our President would call a press conference and ask the nation to be in prayer? Would you expect this to be the subject of discussion over the water cooler at work? Would you expect it to be the main story on the nightly news, the front cover of your daily newspaper, the lead story on NPR, and the subject of call-in talk radio shows? If you would expect this, then your expectations would be unrealized. Our country is in the midst of a national crisis, a crisis of conscience, a crisis of avoidance, and a crisis of morality. And the response is deafening silence.
Read more at Kevin DeYoung's blog from guest blogger Jason Helopoulos
I'm no expert on soundtracks and scores, though there are some I just love. Part of the reason some are so appealing to me is they are cohesive and I occasionally find one that is a joy to play as I work, write, study, etc. One new soundtrack that fits my tastes and is by a band I just love, M83, is the Oblivion Soundtrack. I have no idea if the movie is any good, and at this point I don't care. I'm just enjoying the sounds as I work. And it's only $5 for a short time! Go get it.
If you haven't seen them yet, here are some albums you need to check out that are only $5 right now!
Iron & Wine: Ghost on Ghost | Whoa. A whole different sound. Interested in your feedback.
The Flaming Lips: The Terror | "Sounding almost post-apocalyptic in its scabrous, searching bleakness — Coyne himself describes the album as "disturbing"..." Yikes.
The Shouting Matches: Grownass Man | Includes Justin Vernon of Bon Iver playing mostly falsetto-less blues-rock. I hear Wilco, Black Keys, & other flavors here. This isn't your hipsters' Justin Vernon. And it may be impossible for this to have been recorded in a rural cabin. Check it out.
The Knife: Shaking the Habitual | One of my favorite, creepy, beat-centric bands. Get ready for quirk.
Some fantastic books are cheap on Kindle right now...
I love Makoto Fujimura's art and reading his thoughts on art, in his book Refractions and elsewhere. Mako lists and gives some comment on his five favorite books on creativity at Christianity Today. Read his comments each book there, but here's his list...
