Hope you all have a wonderful Independence Day and enjoy the long weekend.
I have 3 tickets to the Coldplay show in Portland this coming Friday. I’m trying to either sell them or sell 2 of them to friends so I can go with them. Let me know if you are interested or know someone who is.
Blogs
- The top 10 objections to Twitter with answers by Michael Hyatt.
- Adam Walker Cleaveland with some interesting thoughts on pastoral compensation.
- Matthew Paul Turner’s letter to God.
- A post that resonated with me a big way. Thoughts on Michael Jackson’s death and not caring about it.
- Good list of books to read on church leadership.
- For those of you who have been following the Derek Webb drama, here is the song that caused all of it.
News
- How high school students really choose a college.
- Some incredible desktop wallpapers that you can use.
- Funny story of a 13 year old trading in his iPod for a Walkman.
- A pastor who recently cut jobs at his organization is now building a $4 million home for his family. Yuck.
- It is unbelievable how much money Simon Cowell makes. Unbelievable.
- The lone survivor of a plane crash that killed over 150 said she didn’t feel a thing.
Those of you who are around Portland. You don’t want to miss the first 2 songs at Sunset tomorrow morning. Going to be awesome in both the 9am and 11am.
I was thinking about how many great songs Hillsong United has come up with. We are talking about a LONG list. They’ve been pumping out great album after great album for over 10 years now. After thinking long and hard about it…this is my favorite:
All I Need is You (you can listen to it here).
Kurt and I were recently talking about topical and exegetical preaching. I saw this video and showed it him to, and that framed our conversation (RSS readers you can watch it here):
- Topical preaching:
- Looks at what the whole of the Bible has to say on a specific subject.
- Speaks directly to subjects relating to today’s world.
- Exegetical preaching:
- Looks at the Bible as it was written, piece by piece.
- Focuses on specific books of the Bible, with a few supporting verses from outside the main text.
- What does this specific text have to say about God and us?
(This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive description list of topical and exegetical preaching.)
Couple thoughts:
- I tend to prefer exegetical preaching, though there are few things more inspiring than a great topical preacher.
- There are a lot of pastors who kind of mix topical and exegetical preaching I can’t name very many who are good at it.
- If you are looking for immense Biblical support for one or the other, be prepared to look for a while.
I’ve been reading The Cost of Discipleship by Bonhoeffer the past few weeks. It has been recommended to me so many times that I finally decided to pick it up used at Powells a while back. And now I know why it was recommended…phenomenal, just phenomenal book (and I’m only 2 chapters in).
So far this one section has stood out to me the most. I know this is a long quote but stick with it, it just may change how you think of God’s grace for you (it did for me).
“If grace is the data for my Christian life, it means that I set out to live the Christian life in the world with all my sins justified beforehand. I can go and sin as much as I like, and rely on this grace to forgive me, for after all the world is justified in principle by grace. I can therefore cling to my bourgeois secular existence, and remain as I was before, but with the added assurance that the grace of God will cover me. It is under the influence of this kind of “grace” that the world has been made “Christian,” but at the cost of secularizing the Christian religion as never before. The antithesis between the Christian life and the life of bourgeois respectability is at an end. The Christian life comes to mean nothing more than living in the world and as the world, in being no different from the world, in fact, in being prohibited from being different from the world for the sake of grace. The upshot of it all is that my only duty as a Christian is to leave the world for an hour or so on a Sunday morning and go to church to be assured my sins are all forgiven” (emphasis mine).
If that doesn’t feel like a punch to the stomach I don’t know what will.
(Photo: Dave Ross)
The sovereignty of God is such a key theological subject that many other subjects hinge on. How much does God control? How much do we control? Did we choose God? Did God choose us?
(An example of this is how can we reconcile Jonah 3:10 and Isaiah 46:9-10)
These are the kind of questions I’ve been wrestling with and continue to do so. I’m hoping that this series can help bring some clarity to the subject from many people I respect.
This summer I’m spending some time doing a study of the Bible and a book on the sovereignty of God. Soon after starting I had an idea of not only learning from the book and from conversation with Kurt, but also to hear the perspective of some of the best bloggers out there.
To make sure you see all these posts you can subscribe to the RSS feed here. I’d also really appreciate you helping get the word out about this on Twitter and your blog.
The subject is fairly open because sovereignty is such a broad subject, but all the bloggers will share how their life experiences and studies have led them to interact with God’s sovereignty (or lack of sovereignty).
Here is the schedule of posts over the next 2 months:
Mon July 6th: Jeff Patterson // Sovereignty post
Wed July 8th: Jonathan Brink // Sovereignty post
Fri July 10th: John Saddington // Sovereignty post
Mon July 13th: Kyle Welstad // Sovereignty post
Wed July 15th: Anne Jackson // Sovereignty post
Fri July 17th: Ross Gale // Sovereignty post
Mon July 20th: Eugene Cho // Sovereignty post
Wed July 22nd: Adam Walker Cleaveland // Sovereignty post
Fri July 24th: Aaron Ivey // Sovereignty post
Mon July 27th: Kurt Brandemihl // Sovereignty post
Wed July 29th: Justin Wise // Sovereignty post
Fri July 31st: Jenelle D’Alessandro // Sovereignty post
Mon Aug 3rd: Jake Bouma // Sovereignty post
Wed Aug 5th: Tammy Hodge // Sovereignty post
Fri Aug 7th: Jake Belder // Sovereignty post
Mon Aug 10th: Rhett Smith // Sovereignty post
Wed Aug 12th: Ryan Guard // Sovereignty post
Fri Aug 14th: CS Lewis // Sovereignty post
Mon Aug 17th: Tyler Braun // Sovereignty post
Wed Aug 19th: Andrew Jones // Sovereignty post
Fri Aug 21st: Brent Hodge // Sovereignty post
Mon Aug 24th: Ric Wild // Sovereignty post
Wed Aug 26th: Scott Burns // Sovereignty post
Fri Aug 28th: Jan Owen // Sovereignty post
Mon Aug 31st: Rose Braun // Sovereignty post
Something about summer in Oregon gets me excited. Light until well after 9pm, cools down enough to open up the windows at night, no need for a/c…I promise you, it doesn’t get any better.
Blogs
- What the church will look like in 2034.
- Great post on cultivating the “blog instinct.”
- My buddy from Austin, Texas released an album this week that found its way to #1 on iTunes for Christian music. Way to go Aaron.
- John Saddington on the danger of transparency online. Let me just say that I totally agree. We like to guise it in “authenticity” when really it is just oversharing.
- Some important things to ponder on local churches and short term mission trips.
- 20 questions to ask leaders when you are around them.
News
- The Oregonian ran a “Life Story” on Scott Resnick last Monday (thanks Melinda).
- Any church that has this on their sign should just close their doors.
- Interesting article on Iran, theocracy, and its discontents.
- How an indie musician can make $19k by using Twitter for 10 hours.
- The Iranian government has banned a few of their soccer players for life because they wore green.
- This is a funny video but I’m thinking if I was on that flight I’d just be annoyed:
Have a good weekend.
