Josh Garrels: Love & War & the Sea in Between

It's not often I post about a new album (in fact this may be the first time), but this is a note to anyone who comes on here to go and download his last one. 

There are only a handful of albums I would call approaching perfect (some of which are listed on this blog in the best album duel with Dickie Mint) and it's early days yet with this album, but I suspect it will be up there with them.  He has a pretty unusual voice, a massive vocal range;  don't know where you'd peg the music as he changes styles frequently, but it's nearer mellow than loud, nearer poetry than praise songs - plus instrumentals and, at one point, rap.

And it's free!  Honestly, this is really good stuff.  If you don't do anything else, listen to the streaming version of White Owl through good speakers or headphones.

Introverted Leader

However, in more than a decade of Christian leadership I have come to see the significant contributions introverts make to others and have learned effective introverted models of leadership. So we must distinguish between our energy level for a task and our gifting for that same task. Just because we lose energy doing something does not necessarily indicate we are not a good fit for it. I am convinced that calling, not personality type, is the determinative factor in the formation and longevity of a leader. It was no coincidence that God met Moses in the very place that he tried to flee, nor was it accidental that Moses would later drive another flock, the people of Israel, into that same wilderness to the mountain of God. God's call sheds light on our darkest hiding places....

...and though we do not determine our vocation, we can learn how to protect it and to thrive in it through self-care, spiritual disciplines, thoughtfulness about how we expend our energy, and a healthy perspective on our role in the ministry of the church.

Perhaps the most vital ingredient to longevity in ministry for a leader is self-care. We devote so much time and energy to caring for the spiritual and emotional needs of others that we can neglect our own needs—both to our detriment and to the long-term detriment of those we care for. The less we pay attention to ourselves, the less we have to offer others over the long term....

...However, even as we are intentional about our scheduling, we must leave room for the surprising work of God. Introverts can become so absorbed in our internal worlds that we miss the needs of others around us. Our scheduling and emotional boundaries must not preempt the divine interjections that shape so much of our identity and our work. We must remember that the events that form the foundation of our calling—the incarnation of the Son of God and his resurrection from the dead—were cosmic interruptions in a world that had grown callous to God's love.

Adam S McHugh

Leadership

Move: can anyone tell?

So what are the conclusions? If you are a pastor, you are going to have to look at yourself in the mirror and ask, "Am I passionate about the Bible?" and "Can anybody tell?" Congregations tend to mirror their leaders-what do they see in you? Can they tell that every decision you make has its foundation in the Word of God?

from Review of Move

Chester/Timmis: cross-cultural at home

Claiming that the West is a mission field is now common.  But there is a big gap between the rhetoric and the reality of our attitudes.  One of the measures of that gap is the extent to which we are willing - or  unwilling - to learn from the experience of mission and the church around the world.  If we really believed we were in  mission field then we would all be reading books written by Third-World Christians and cross-cultural missionaries.

Everyday Church, p45

Postman: techno worldview war

...new technologies compete with old ones - for time, for attention, for money, for prestige, but mostly for dominance of their world-view.  This competition is implicit once we acknowledge that medium contains an ideological bias.  And it is a fierce competition, as only ideological competitions can be.  It is not merely a matter of tool against tool - the alphabet attacking ideographic writing, the printing press attacking the illuminated manuscript, the photograph attacking the art of painting, television attacking the printed word.  When media make war against each other, it is a case of world-views in collision.

Technopoly, p16.

Tripp: meditate on God's goodness

You would be surprised how many pastors have confessed to me a lack of good spiritual habits. It is sad to think of how many pastors live in functional isolation, not putting their hearts in places where they can be watched, warned, protected, and nourished. Without daily meditating on God's glory and grace, all you're left to meditate on are the struggles within you and the problems outside you. No wonder our pastoral muscles grow weak.

Paul Tripp
(article on waiting)

Postman: the monastery clock & what was never meant to happen

The bells of the monastery were t be rung to signal the canonical hours;  the mechanical clock was the technology that could provide precision to these rituals of devotion.  And indeed it did.  But what the monks did not foresee is that the clock is a means not merely of keeping track of the hours but also of synchronising and controlling the actions of men.  And thus by the middle of the 14th century, the clock had moved outside the walls of the monastery, and brought a new ad precise regularity to the life of the workman and the merchant.  

"The mechanical clock," as Lewis Mumford wrote, "made possible the idea of regular production, regular working hours and a standardised product."  In short, without the clock, capitalism would have been quite impossible.  The paradox, the surprise and the wonder are that the clock was invented by men who wanted to devote themselves more rigorously to God;  it ended as the technology of greatest use to men who wished to devote themselves to the accumulation of money.  In the eternal struggle between God and Mammon, the clock quite unpredictably favoured the latter.

Technopoly, p14-15

Postman: our culture conspiring against itself

As for change brought on by technology, this native optimism is exploited by entrepreneurs, who work hard to infuse the population with a unity of improbable hope, for they know it is economically unwise to reveal the price to be paid for technological change.  One might say, then, that, if there is a conspiracy of any kind, it is that of a culture conspiring against itself.

Technopoly p12

Simeon: preaching to lower numbers

For 12 years the people refused to let [Charles Simeon] give the afternoon Sunday sermon. And during that time they boycotted the Sunday morning service and locked their pews so that no one could sit in them. He preached to people in the aisles for 12 years! How did he last?

In this state of things I saw no remedy but faith and patience. The passage of Scripture which subdued and controlled my mind was this, "The servant of the Lord must not strive."  It was painful indeed to see the church, with the exception of the aisles, almost forsaken; but I thought that if God would only give a double blessing to the congregation that did attend, there would on the whole be as much good done as if the congregation were doubled and the blessing limited to only half the amount. This comforted me many, many times, when without such a reflection, I should have sunk under my burthen. (Charles Simeon, by H.C.G. Moule, p. 39)

From DG

Universal Solvent

But skepticism is a universal solvent, and once applied, it does not stop just because Christendom is gone. "I think, therefore I am. I think." We pulled out the stopper of faith, and the bathwater of reason appeared undisturbed for a time. But modernism slowly receded and now postmodernism is circling the drain. Our intelligentsia needs to figure out how to do more than sit in an empty tub and reminisce about the days when Voltaire knew how to keep the water hot. 

Doug Wilson

Quick Review: The Fellowship of the Ring

OK, so 25 years after I first read it, I returned to the TLOR.  Why such a long time, when many people I know have read it again and again?  Well two reasons:

1. I tend to remember the details of most good stories I read for a long time.  And as one of the most compelling things about reading for me is not knowing what happens next, I hesitate to re-read a book until a degree of fading has occurred.  This waiting has been complicated by since hearing the BBC Radio version, watching the old British movie of the first half of TLOR, playing War in Middle Earth in the early 90s, and then watching the Peter Jackson trilogy, followed by watching the extended editions.  But although I have waited long, it would appear that the original book made such an impact I still remember most of it.

2. It's this impact that made me pause: TLOR really was one of those pivotal moments, and reading it affected me deeply.  It was and is the best story I ever read, and so I was hesitant to return to it in case it didn't live up to the pedestalled memory; like returning to a childhood place which seemed huge park when we were small, only to discover it was just a normal sized garden.

So?

Well no, it hasn't lived up to the original impact.  But I don't believe this is because the book is not as good as I thought, but is more a statement of my psychology.  By which I mean:
a) I remember too much, so there is little of the suspense, the desperate need to see what happens next because, sadly, I already know.
b) Part of the power of 25 years ago was the change it wrought in me, and that work is done.  So I will not feel the impact of having my imagination stretched this time - because it is still stretched all these years later.  For example, one effect on me (and on many others) was to change the way I viewed landscape: something about Tolkien's dealing with landscape in the book meant that everywhere I went, when I saw a distant view of hills, or Dartmoor, or mountains, it had been affected or infected. But that's happened,  It can't re-happen.  Or, as another example, several scenes in the book in my memory are huge, long, epic.  Moria was like this: I can remember now being spellbound.  Or the adventure with the Barrow-Wight.  It's only a couple of pages!! What?  Surely that's huge?  No - but at the time this was all new, my brain was processing entirely new ideas - and so it seemed many pages long (cf. Andrew Adamson's comments on filming the massive battle at the end of LW&W, which turned out in adulthood to be only 2 pages long!)
c) It has revealed how I have changed.  25 years ago, the first chapters seemed to be holding up the story: "where's the adventure?!  13 years?  O come on.....".  This time my feelings were "No!  Stay in Hobbiton!  Let some other mug do it!".  Something has changed in me...probably I have found out that crisis and pain are not as much fun as one thinks, even if you call them a "quest".

But there are other changes too.  Things which seemed unimportant or irritating then, I find fascinating now.  Chief among these is Tom Bombadil: I was glad to see the back of him 25 years ago, but this time...fascinated!  Who is he?  What is Tolkien saying?  And please can I go stay at his house?  And the relationships between characters are far more significant this time round.  And the way different races interact...

And I ought to say that though I have had little time to read since starting at the beginning of the year, the time spent reading has flown by and suddenly I am at the Falls of Rauros.  It's still a great book.

25 years ago I found The Two Towers the least satisfying of the three...but this time, maybe something unexpected will happen.

Jardine: writing email like letters

It is this second version of the letter that was eventually dispatched, and which evidently satisfied its recipient, who called a truce on their differing views of Fry's influence and reputation. In early September, Woolf wrote to arrange for Nicolson to visit, adding: "I love getting your letters," and "I'm so happy you found the life of Roger Fry interesting as well as infuriating."

Two things strike me in this exchange. The first is the simple good manners both correspondents evidence in the way they address one another and present their arguments, in spite of the real, keenly felt differences of opinion.

Virginia Woolf understood the effects of letters written in haste.

 

The second is the strikingly different outcome arrived at because Virginia Woolf restrained herself from dispatching her first, intemperate draft reply and carefully modified it so as not to hurt the feelings of the young man - a family friend, very much younger and less experienced than herself.

I have, of course, dwelt on this exchange for a purpose. In it, Woolf - using established letter-writing conventions - takes advantage of the time lapses between exchanges to recuperate, clarify, recast and take control of the argument. The result has the elegance of a formal dance - a kind of minuet, in which the participants advance and retreat according to well-understood rules, until they have arrived at a satisfactory outcome.

How unlike the rapid firing off and counter-fire of email messages in which many of us find ourselves engaged nowadays as our predominant means of communicating with colleagues and friends, and even with complete strangers...

Lisa Jardine, BBC

Postman: winners and losers in technology

...the benefits and deficits of a new technology are not distributed equally.  There are, as it were, winners and losers.  It is both puzzling and poignant that on many occasions the losers, out of ignorance, have actually cheered the winners and some still do...

It is to be expected that the winners will encourage the loses to be enthusiastic about computer technology.  That is the way of winners, and so they sometimes tell the losers that with personal computers the average person can balance a chequebook more neatly, keep better track of recipes, and make more logical shopping lists.  They also tell them that their lives will be conducted more efficiently.  But discreetly they neglect to say from whose point of view the efficiency is warranted, or what might be its costs.  Should the losers grow sceptical, the winners dazzle them with the wondrous feats of computers, all of which have only marginal relevance to the quality of the losers' lives but which are nonetheless impressive.

Technopoly p9&11