into the new year

I've often found Matt Perman's blog to be a thoughtful resource. This piece is no different - I especially appreciated his comments on defining priorities for the new year, focussing on 3-5 primary things that you want to accomplish this next year. It's good to take time to reflect on larger-than-usual tasks.

Lessons from recent history

Gill Corkindale writes that, in the past year, she hasn't needed to "explain how globalization drives change and that leaders must adapt to a fast-changing world" because the lessons have been driven-home by the crisis of the past years. Those lessons she identifies as "to develop new competencies: self-awareness, being able to deal with ambiguity, manage continual change, devolve leadership, and coach their people...[these] are critical to their survival."


How many of those are also applicable to the life of the church and the work of the ministry?

Redefining Greatness

I found this article over at HBR an interesting and helpful read, with insights for both leadership and pastoral care/spiritual formation.

helpful articles on depression

You'll find a couple of helpful articles on depression here and here.

the new leadership

Seth Godin is always worth reading. Often, his musings get me thinking about church life in a new way. Try the following, with that in mind:

When you follow a right path, then, the people following you are happy to bring others along. When you open doors for people (instead of closing them), your followers are more likely to open doors for others. When you are inclusive (instead of excluding), then others seek to include their peers.
For far too long, leadership has been about management and management has been about control. We push those that follow us to fit in, to do as they are told. We decide who is good enough, who is obedient enough, who is acceptable. Many institutions have been built by strong-willed men who think they have the right answer, and aren’t afraid to be bullies if it helps them achieve their goals.
But now, people have a choice. More options in how they spend their day, their money and their passion. And over and over, we see people voting with their feet. Sure, there are the frightened (and angry) that are willing to act out at a rally or carry signs that they don’t actually endorse. But this is the not the behavior of a thriving movement, it’s a desperate reaction from a dying anachronism.

Analog Rituals

Over at 99%, Scott Belsky makes some interesting points about what he terms 'analog rituals' and the value of repetitive actions - what he terms "the granularity of prioritization".

It strikes me that there's a lot of (unintended) biblical wisdom in the article, in particular the creational nature of 'analog' experiences: we were made not simply as able to see & think but also to touch & taste. Whilst the digital lifestyle offers much, it also has the capacity to remove, by making redundant aspects of sensory perception.

The 3 Best Books I've Read This Year

There were other very worthy contenders, but here's my pick of what I've perused during the year:

Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods

Peter Steinke's A Door Set Open (seemingly only available on Kindle)

The Best Kept Secret Of Christian Mission by John Dickson

Learning from 'Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques'

It makes for an interesting article on its own - but maybe more so if you ask yourself the question, How do those suggestions apply to the task of preaching?

How to preach badly

I know - I don't need much help on that score! But this is good.

Doing the main thing

"Given the contents of the New Testament, one might expect local congregations of Christians to be entirely devoted to the spiritual formation of those in attendance. What we actually find in most cases is constant distraction from this as the central task: By the demands of the organization; and by the requirements of our 'faith and practice'—our traditions. Often there is the recognition that what we wind up 'having to do' is not what we really feel it should all be about."

Dallas Willard, quoted by John Ortberg

Pamela Stephenson: reflecting on Strictly, life and work

From an article in today's Guardian, a couple of paragraphs worth pondering by those engaged in ministry:

My experience on Strictly has highlighted two difficult truths in my life: first, that, although it is an important developmental task for my age group, I am not finding it easy to face my own mortality, and dancing gave me brief respite from that painful, inevitable process. Second, over the years, the job I do has taken its toll on me – as it has on many of my colleagues. Mental health professionals are on the frontline of the war against human anguish, angst and antisocial behaviour. However well trained and capable we are, it is impossible to be a receptacle for the shadow side of humanity with absolute impunity. I have been surprised to receive many positive messages from colleagues. I had thought they would ignore my flight into fantasy, but rather, they have let me know that dropping my professional demeanour and giggling like a seven year old in public has actually found their favour. In a strange way, I may even have acted out some of their own fantasies of escape and soothing. Anyway, it's healthy to get fit, to laugh, to do something you enjoy, to dance.

Dancing is the physical expression of our emotional selves, and personally I have found it to be a life-affirming path to a new-found style of happiness. I have only one regret from the entire experience – I never got to dance my Argentine tango (which would have been in the final round). But I believe it's good to have one dream left unrealised; it keeps hope alive, and the longing can remain poignant, omnipresent and painfully bright.

Logos 4 & Customer Service

For years I've had a number of great resources in Logos format (Libronix) - Word Biblical Commentary (60 vols); IVP Reference Library; Theological Journal Library and more. Trying to load them onto my Windows 7 PC was proving to be hard - well, impossible, truth be told.

An email to Logos Customer Services has resulted in all being sorted - and sorted very quickly - so I now have access to all those great resources once more and in the hugely-impressive format of the new Logos 4 (see below).

What can I say but: kudos, Logos!

The use of 'Christ' in Peter's first letter

Peter refers several times in his first letter to ‘Christ’. Almost universally those references are focussed upon the sufferings of the Messiah, the exception being 5:14.

Is Peter simply specifying that Jesus suffered (which of course is true) or is his language intentionally incorporative? That is to say, is he using 'Christ' as shorthand for ‘the Messiah and his people’?

with head bowed

I'm taking a few moments just to bow my head and give thanks for my Dad, who passed away 5 years ago today. I sat with him whilst he took his final breath - nothing could have been more painful, yet strangely privileged too, commending him to God's care.


He was flawed, but warm and loving and always wanting to make others smile.

I miss him lots.

managing the creativity of ministry

This article by Cal Newport is not ministry focussed but has some helpful principles for managing the creative demands of regular ministry

The Moon in Lleyn (R S Thomas)

The last quarter of the moon
of Jesus gives way
to the dark; the serpent
digests the egg. Here
on my knees in this stone
church, that is full only
of the silent congregation
of shadows and the sea's
sound, it is easy to believe
Yeats was right. Just as though
choirs had not sung, shells
have swallowed them; the tide laps
at the Bible; the bell fetches
no people to the brittle miracle
of bread. The sand is waiting
for the running back of the grains
in the wall into its blond
glass. Religion is over, and
what will emerge from the body
of the new moon, no one
can say.
            But a voice sounds
in my ear. Why so fast,
mortal? These very seas
are baptised. The parish
has a saint's name time cannot
unfrock. In cities that
have outgrown their promise people
are becoming pilgrims
again, if not to this place,
then to the recreation of it
in their own spirits. You must remain
kneeling. Even as this moon
making its way through the earth's
cumbersome shadow, prayer, too,
has its phases.

i think i should start saving my pennies now

Fujimura - 4 Holy Gospels from Crossway on Vimeo.

friday night spotify: dazzle ships

Having enjoyed the duet with The Masked Badger on 'Great Albums...', here's something a bit different and worth a listen: the commercial failure that was OMD's fourth album, Dazzle Ships.

It's quirky but tuneful.

Welcome back, 1983; we missed ya.

the great albums (xv) - rumours

So, the last great album in my list - what a lot of fun this has been. There are so many others that ought to have been on here but Spotify isn't playing ball - Blood on the Tracks (Dylan); Blue (Joni Mitchell) and many Beatles albums, for example. Others are near misses - Plastic Ono Band (Lennon); Achtung, Baby (U2) spring to mind.

But I'm opting to include - for all the reasons given in the Spotify review - the all-time high-point for Fleetwood Mac. Some would even say that Rumours in the high-point of all AOR and I wouldn't take them to task if they did.

Full of tension and tunes, it deserves every accolade it ever received. It was in the album charts for years and crept up on me in late '84/early '85. Maybe it tails off towards the end but that would be entirely in keeping with all that it's handling.

Finally: enjoy!

whichever way you look at it...

this is a (Kindle) bargain:


For the Fame of God's Name (essays in honour of John Piper)


27 essays for £5.97 = 22p per essay!

the great albums (xiv) - innervisions

Stevie Wonder was a regular part of my Radio 1-filled days back in the 70s. I liked some of his singles a great deal; others were just ok. Always a good tune. But he never really figured for me in terms of albums (unsurprisingly, I wasn't buying albums when he was making his most celebrated ones).

So I'm late to the party - but I'm really glad I made it. Especially for the sake of Innervisions. It's got great tunes, anger that is gritty and righteous anger and a shot of (somewhat unfocussed) hope. The kind of album you don't play for ages and, when you give it a spin, wonder why on earth you haven't.

the blue nile

Only 4 albums in 26 years (so far). And, as far as I can see, no vast reservoir of bootlegs to expand the canon. Which means that in The Blue Nile you have a band that is manageable; compassed and defined. But the music on those 4 albums just won't be constrained: its emotional range and musical delicacy defies you to try.


Well I, for one, won't.


A Walk Across The Rooftops
Hats
Peace At Last
High

skinny river

If you had to cut-down Springsteen's sprawling double-album, The River, what would you keep and what would you ditch? And how would the survivors line up?

Here's my version of a skinny River.

the power of a rhetorical question

Whilst reflecting on the life and ministry of Francis Schaeffer, Martin Downes asks a rhetorical question that reminded me just how powerfully they can be deployed: noting that Schaeffer's ministry was largely undertaken in obscurity, Martin asks,

How did we ever get into the mess of thinking that the best men to follow are easy to spot because they occupy the biggest platforms?

No answer needed.

the great albums (xiii) - sweet dreams (are made of this)

It was their breakthrough album, after the interesting but transitionary In The Garden. And it may be surpassed in some minds by the next-up Touch; for me, their final album (to date) Peace is the equal of this choice, but (getting to the point) Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) is Eurythmics at their most stunning - far warmer than Touch, witty without being clever -  confident and positioned, soulful and unafraid.

It has weaker moments, of course, but the whole is definitely greater than the sum of the parts. Go listen!

the 500th post

I know that things
are bad
when I catch myself
no longer caring
all that much,
either way;
worn down
by endless abrasion,
I'm ready to let
go,
taking whatever is
at hand and hand
over the collated
pretensions,
the harboured security.
Letting go
of what cannot save,
cannot heal,
cannot trace
a vivid line
through the soul
and out into
eternity.
Yes, things are bad
when everything seems
lost;
but someone said
that loss is gain
when filtered
through a
cross.

why bother exploring the deepest issues?

Larry Crabb offers 3 reasons for going deep into our hearts, to expose the pain and the thirst:

1. Freedom from compulsive sin requires an awareness of deep thirst.
2. Sin will be understood superficially - and therefore dealt with ineffectively - without an awareness of deep thirst.
3. Without an awareness of deep thirst, our pursuit of God will be disciplined at best. With it, our pursuit can be passionate.

I think those are worth every pastor having before him in every counselling instance.

how to get at 'the thirst'

...far too often hard questions get buried beneath a pile of memorised verses and stricter conformity to local standards of Christian conduct. The tough issues seem resolved when in fact they're merely shoved out of sight. They continue to take their toll on (a person's) well-being, but now subtly rather than overtly. Sometimes the pastoral encouragement to be a better Christian protects the pastor from having to grapple with threatening concerns more than it gives the bewildered (person) clear direction for living.

Larry Crabb, Inside Out

the uncertainty principle

Ever heard of Heisenberg's principle? OK, smarty-pants; most of us haven't heard of it. But I came across a reference to it in an article in the NYT on learning habits and was intrigued.

Apparently it stems from quantum physics and is simply stated in Wikipedia as stating that

by precise inequalities...certain pairs of physical properties, such as position and momentum, cannot be simultaneously known to arbitrarily high precision. That is, the more precisely one property is measured, the less precisely the other can be measured.

Which got me thinking: how often does that happen in life? You look intensely at one thing, you lose the ability to correctly perceive another. Step back; take stock. Keep the bigger picture in view.

Kudos, Mr Heisenberg.

Larry Crabb: on unmet desires

We simply must get rid of the idea that the obedient Christian is supposed to feel good all the time. The springs of living water bathing our deepest longings with His presence now and His promises for later do not eliminate the pain of unmet desires at other levels. We therefore should not measure the quality of our walk with the Lord by the absence of unhappy feelings.

from Inside Out

like the angels

Where there is no death there is no need for procreation, and so the exclusive relationship within which procreation takes place is no longer appropriate: "they neither marry nor are given in marriage". This is not to say that there is no love, but there is no need for the exclusivness and jealousy which are an essential part of married life on earth. We may hope that Jesus speaks not of something lost , but of something gained in heaven.

R. T. France, Mark (The People's Bible Commentary) p.161

the great albums (xii) - after the goldrush

He's already figured here - and I passed over the opportunity to make this selection at that time - but I just cannot avoid another Neil Young album: the absolutely-essential After The Goldrush.


Everything that needs to be said about this has probably been said elsewhere - lyrical, joyous, angry, confused, sad and relentless. It may stand as his greatest ever work.

sanctification: just do it

Mike Bird is concerned that "some are beginning to replace the imperative element in Christian sanctification...with the need for more knowledge of the indicative " I think he is absolutely spot-on & has said with his usual clarity what I had been mulling over in my usual fogginess for some time.

He elaborates:

I am concerned that the "now go and do this" and "in response let us live like this" or "don't do this" that we find in the Scriptures are being marginalized in the name of a piety that is largely cognitive rather than transformative, a piety that is cerebral rather than practical

And then concludes:

Good theology, godward passion, and christocentric interpretation is not enough. Based on the words of Jesus, Paul, and James I'm willing to say that the differences between the sheep and the goats, between the followers and the fans, between hearers and doers, and between wearing a cross and carrying one, is whether one earnestly struggles against sin and earnestly seeks after godly virtues in the power of God's Spirit. It is mediation on grace, imitation of Christ/God, transformation of the self, and actively pursuing application that will make us godly people.

the failure of succession

Colin Hanson makes some fine points in this article - none more so than his suggestion that "Perhaps God isn’t so concerned that churches should pass from glory to glory, if history is any indication."

in murren (iii)

in murren (ii)

in murren (i)

absolutely no comment!

on lake thun (iii)

on lake thun (ii)

on lake thun (i)

from the schilthorn (iii)

from the schilthorn (ii)

from the schilthorn (i)

taking in the view from the campsite

the great albums (xi) - the pleasure principle

I can't say I expected this to figure on here, either, but recent listens have convinced me it ought to see the light of day.

Almost a concept album (Numan was virtually a concept per se), it took aspects of Kraftwerk and Bowie (to my ears, at least) and melded them into a pop approach that worked for a few short years. There was always more going on than people gave him credit for - but disaffection, isolation and fear hardly endear themselves to the populace.


The singing isn't accomplished, nor even all that pleasurable, but it didn't need to be. That wasn't the point.

And Cars is one of the all-time great songs - you know you agree.

kindle in the uk (soon)

And, equally as soon (like, end of August) in my grasp - I've pre-ordered a wi-fi only version (see here for details).

If I get cold feet over the next few weeks I can always cancel the order I guess.

Better make sure I wear some warm socks then...

if two walk together...

...they must be agreed on their posture!

(Photo supplied by Albert)

is that email a tiger?

“Always on” may not be the most productive way to work. One of the reasons for this will become clearer in the chapter on staying cool under pressure; however, in summary, the brain is being forced to be on “alert” far too much. This increases what is known as your allostatic load, which is a reading of stress hormones and other factors relating to a sense of threat. The wear and tear has an impact. As Stone says, “This always on, anywhere, anytime, anyplace era has created an artificial sense of constant crisis. What happens to mammals in a state of constant crisis is the adrenalized fight-or-flight mechanism kicks in. It’s great when tigers are chasing us. How many of those five hundred emails a day is a tiger?”

(from Your Brain At Work by David Rock, quoted by Matt Perman)

Church Going (Philip Larkin)

Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new-
Cleaned or restored? Someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate, and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort or other will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognizable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation - marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these - for whom was built
This special shell? For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

on the church, active & passive

As we let Paul form our understanding of what goes on in church, what strikes us is that the church is primarily the action of God in Christ through the Spirit. God and Jesus are the subject of nine active verbs that tell us what is going on in church: Jesus is our peace (Eph. 2:14), he made us one (v.14), he broke down the dividing wall of hostility (v.14), he abolished the law (v.15), he created one new humanity (v.15), he made peace (v.15), he reconciled (v.16), he put to death (v.16), he proclaimed peace (v.17).

And insofar as we are included in the action, the action is not something that we do but something done to us. Paul uses five passive verbs to tell us how we get included in the action: we are brought near (v.13), the Spirit gives us access (v.18), we are built upon the foundation (v.20), we are joined together (v.21), we are built together (v.22). Simple copulas name the identities that we acquire by God's action, We are identified as citizens and members of the church. When we are pulled into the action, it is God who pulls us in. We acquire our identity not by what we do but by what is done to us.

Eugene H. Peterson, Practise Resurrection, p.117

the great albums (x) - pet sounds

It's a brilliantly sunny summer's day, with just the faintest breeze, cooling you enough to stay on the beach. All is relaxed and life is as good as you'd ever hoped it could be. But, slowly, and almost without being noticed, the clouds begin to gather, away on the horizon and slowly invade what was unbroken blue above you. The faint breeze strengthens and the clouds darken; the threat of rain is not empty words. And you know that life will never be so simple again.


The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds is everything you ever heard it was. And probably more.

a fresh translation

Actually, the NRSV isn't all that fresh now, in the sense of being newly-done. But its handling of 'that we may walk in them' (good works) in Ephesians 2:10 struck me in a fresh way:

"For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life."

on acquired passivity

Grace originates in an act of God that is absolutely without precedent, the generous, sacrificial self-giving of Jesus that makes it possible for us to participate in resurrection maturity. It is not what we do; it is what we participate in. But we cannot participate apart from a willed passivity, entering into and giving ourselves up to what is previous to us, the presence and action of God in Christ that is other than us. Such passivity does not come easy to us. It must be acquired.

Eugene H. Peterson, Practise Resurrection, p.95

on the sentence that is ephesians 1:3-14

Who can resist this marvellous, tumbling cataract of poetry that introduces us to the vast and intricate complexities of this world in which we live? Not many. Paul is playful, extragant and totally engaging as he tells us what is going on in this God-created, Christ-saved, Spirit-blessed world into which we have been born and are now growing up. This is no small, cramped world in which we live from hand to mouth. The horizons are vast. The heavens are high. The oceans are deep. We have elbow room to spare.

The sheer size, the staggering largeness, of the world into which God calls us, its multi-dimensional spaciousness, must not be reduced to dimensions that we are cosily comfortable with. Paul does his best to prevent us from reducing it. Sin shrinks our imaginations. Paul stretches us. He counters with holy poetry. If we calculate the nature of the world by what we can manage or explain, we end up living in a very small world. If we are going to grow to the mature stature of Christ, we need conditions favourable to it. We need room. The Ephesian letter gives us room, dimensions deep and wide. Ephesians plunges us into ocean deeps, and we come up gasping for air. This is going to take some getting used to.

Eugene H. Peterson, Practise Resurrection, p.54

on truly hating sin and not just its consequences

A man who only opposes the sin in his heart for fear of shame among men or eternal punishment from God would practice the sin if there was no punishment attending it. How does this differ from living in the the practice of the sin? Those who belong to Christ, and are obedient to the Word of God, have the death of Christ, the love of God, the detestable nature of sin, the preciousness of communion with God, and a deep-rooted hatred of sin as sin to oppose to all the working of lust in their hearts.

John Owen (quoted in Tim Chester You Can Change, p.126)

on the ascension

Knowing this [the ascension of Jesus], with the knowiug elaborated and deepened in worship, the church has the neccesary room to live robustly under the conditions of resurrection. If we don't know this, the church, its imagination conditioned by death and the devil, will live timidly and cautiously.

Eugene H. Peterson, Practise Resurrection, p.44

growing up in church

Maturity develops in worship as we develop in friendship with the friends of God, not just our preferred friends. Worship shapes us not only individually but as a community, a church. If we are going to grow up into Christ we have to do it in the company of everyone who is responding to the call of God. Whether we happen to like them or not has nothing to do with it.

Eugene H. Peterson, Practise Resurrection, p.36

on the death of sin

No sin can be crucified either in heart or life unless it first be pardoned in conscience, because there will be want of faith to receive the strength of Jesus, by whom alone it can be crucified. If it be not mortified in its guilt, it cannot be subdued in its power.

William Romaine (quoted in You Can Change by Tim Chester, p.49)

on study leave & reading books...

This week is study leave for me. Over the past few months I decided I'd like to look at the topic of transformation - how people change, how they grow to spiritual maturity. To help me with that, I've chosen a number of conversation partners (otherwise known as 'books') and in a variety of forms:


You Can Change - Tim Chester (online edition)
Virute Reborn - Tom Wright (paperback)
Pastoral Ministry According to Paul - James Thompson (Kindle ebook)
Inside Out - Larry Crabb (Kindle ebook)
Practise Resurrection - Eugene Peterson (paperback)


To help me work through them, I'm using Todoist - I've set-up a project category called Books I'm Reading (fairly obvious, huh!) and added each book as a task in that project, with each chapter listed as a sub-task. As each chapter is read, so it gets ticked as 'done'; when all sub-tasks are done, the book is read.


(The project list also has other books I'm currently reading - my brain will frazzle soon)


You'll notice that I'm reading in a variety of forms - online, ebook and good old paper. That's only semi-intentional - I bought the ebooks largely due to easy availability and price. I can also add notes to them, which is helpful for a study week. And it means, via the iPod, that I can take them with me should I choose to study other than at home, without being weighed down by too many physical books.


Will I get through all I'd like to in this week? Will Todoist help? And will I tire of reading Kindle books on the PC & the iPod and order a proper Kindle? Only time will tell...

the great albums (ix) - 461 ocean boulevard

Some albums are 'great' because they break new ground, musically or lyrically. Others are 'great' because they represent some kind of pinnacle. Others are 'great' simply because they do what they do with aplomb and are just a huge bundle of enjoyment, wrapped in one small package. Eric Clapton's 1974 461 Ocean Boulevard is, for me, one of those bundles.

A great mix of styles, mainly rooted in the blues, and some fine, fine playing (as expected but nevertheless welcome). It doesn't make any grand statement, other than the sheer delight of music itself.

Which is probably enough.

If you want a real treat, pair it with Slowhand in a playlist and you've got a perfect combo.

blood types & personality

Here's an interesting article, on the relationship between blood type and personality.

If you know your blood type, does it match-up?

judee sill: the kiss (OGWT)

the great albums viii - tapestry

Carole King's masterpiece, Tapestry, is my next choice on this road of reminiscences. My own history with the album goes back to college days in 84/85 but the album itself dates from '71.


King was an already-noted songwriter when this album appeared but this was something else - the writer singing her own material. And doing it with great success.


It gets off to a fairly lacklustre start (I Feel The Earth Move was never one of my favourites) but after that it's chock-full of great songs. So Far Away was a signature song for a young lady & I, longer ago than I care to remember; You've Got A Friend is a standard and Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? a masterpiece.

Listening to this album, for me, is probably the equivalent of comfort-eating, but don't we all need some of that? Warm, honest and with the aroma of freshly-baked bread. Pour me a glass of chardonnay and we'll be fine.


The spotify link is to a 'legacy edition' album - the original ended at track 12.

bartimaeus as exemplar

Mark's gospel regularly handles the issues of discipleship - what it means to follow Jesus, truly and faithfully. And the disciples regularly get it wrong.

At the close of a lengthy section in his gospel, Mark presents us with the account of the healing of Bartimaeus. Physical blindness has already been used in this gospel as a pointer towards the spiritual myopeia of the 12. And now, it seems, Bartimaeus is held up as an exemplar of the kind of faith disciples ought to display:

he asks (cf. 9:28f - the disciples seem not to have been prayerful)
he asks for mercy (cf. 10:37 - James & John seek honour)
he persists
he has the highest view of Jesus ('Son of David')
his focus is on his fundamental need (he needs his sight; the disciples look for greatness - 9:34)
he honours God's power to do the hardest thing (his sight)
he follows Jesus on the way, the way that leads to a cross (cf. 10:32, the disciples' astonishment on the way)

frumptarn guggenband

We were at the Shepley Folk Festival today and noticed a brightly-clad group of musicians passing by, with a terrific assortment of instruments between them. They seemed to go by the name of Frumptarn Guggenband. We set to discussing where they were from. Germany? Not sure, said the wife (she was unsure because of the 'umpt'). Well, maybe Austria I suggested. We asked one of the organisers of the festival (one of Iola's teachers, as it happens).


Well, they come from Barnsley - they come 'frump tarn' ('from town') and play Guggen music - not quite oompah; a collection of professionals and more rough players (I take it she meant their musical abilities).


Anyway, you can read about them here.

if you twitter

you might notice I've added a link on this blog to my twitter stuff - it ain't much, it won't ever amount to much, but fwiw it's there.

not sure

what all the fuss is over Stieg Larsson's series of novels. All I know is he died before achieving fame, which isn't much to go on. But the Kindle version of the first novel, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was on sale for under $5 so I decided to check it out for myself.

grisham: ford county stories

A collection of short stories by a man best known for his legal thrillers, Ford County Stories is an enjoyable read that won't tax your brain too much but will occasionally give you pause for thought. The first story is further proof that John Grisham is no mean comedy writer; the second tale then ups the ante with its closing account of an execution. The other stories make for pleasant reading - he's never an author who makes unreasonable demands on his readers. The closer makes a neccessary point about discrimination, with the emphasis on sadness rather than sharpness.

the transformation of a ministry

Very interesting interview on Out of Ur with Francis Chan.

emmylou harris: pancho & lefty (OGWT 1977)

don't remove the poetry

There's a beauty to imperfection. This is the essence of the Japanese principle of wahi-sabi. Wahi-sabi values character and uniqueness over a shiny facade. It teaches that cracks and scratches in things should be embraced. It's also about simplicity. You strip things down then use what you have. Leonard Koren, author of a book on wahi-sabi, gives this advice: Pare down to the essence but don't remove the poetry. Keep things clean and unencumbered but don't sterilize.

Fried & Hansson, p.182

gifts & the giver: an integrated life

For me, this post by Doug Wilson hits many nails on many heads - the importance of the physical, the resurrection, enjoying God via the gifts he gives and so on.

And the comment about glorified saints being difficult to shop for would be worth the price of the article, were the author charging for it.

social media: questions, but no answers

christians & guilt

A really helpful piece by Kevin DeYoung.

Here's a taster:

2. Christians tend to motivate each other by guilt rather than grace. Instead of urging our fellow believers to be who they are in Christ, we command them to do more for Christ (see Rom. 6:5-14 for the proper motivation). So we see Christlikeness as something we are royally screwing up, when we should it as something we already possess but need to grow into.

what's going on here?

becoming a christian

Asked about his conversion and if he found Christians he admired, Tim Keller responds very interestingly,

I saw a small group of people. They seemed thoughtful. You have to have a group of people who embody the kind of Christian you would be if you became a Christian. You say, "These are people like me, or people I would like to be like," and, "I see how their Christianity plays a role in their life so I can start to envy that role and maybe I would like to have it too.

I find that a fascinating insight - and an important one for the church. Of course, it's not a rule. But I do think it's a helpful observation.

david powlison on god's sovereignty in suffering

Especially helpful talk on suffering. Worth sharing as widely as you can.



HT: Justin Taylor

keller: justification & justice

From Out of Ur's report of a talk given by Tim Keller on the topic of justification & justice:

As Keller describes them, the justification people are all about justification by faith alone. Only after being justified can a person live as he/she ought to live. While Keller was in full agreement with this doctrine, he said the unfortunate implication for many of the justification people is the belief that "we are mainly here to do evangelism" and they view "justice as a distraction."
The justice people, on the other hand, tend to downplay or completely ignore the doctrine of justification by faith. Instead they can focus on language about "defeating the powers" or seeking the renewal of communities. Also good ideas, but not if justification is lost in the mix.
Keller believes this rift between justification and justice is completely unbiblical. "Justice and justification," he said, "are joined at the hip. They are a seamless cloth."

Worth pondering.

saturday night spotify: the gabe dixon band

Well, indeed: who? It's funny how a search for one artist (in this case, Mindy Smith) leads to the discovery of another (The Gabe Dixon Band). It's not country but it isn't non-country; it's rock but neither soft nor otherwise. It's a little bluegrass, a little not. You need to give it a listen to get it.


And, yes, Mindy's on there for one song, the lovely Further The Sky.

mary chapin carpenter: i have a need for solitude

atkinson: lamb of god

If you want some well-written, thoughtful meditations on Jesus as the Lamb of God that take you into a deeply-satisfying theological reading of the text, you won't go far wrong with David Atkinson's little book, Jesus Lamb of God.

taking directions from...the dark side

HT: pda-247

the great albums (vii) - dare

The first Human League album after half the band left to work together as Heaven 17, Dare was a triumph, of style, of hype, of synths, of pop.


The sound is about as clean as it could be (and such a contrast to their long-delayed follow-up, Hysteria) and could be argued to be the pinnacle of the electronic pop of the day. You can sing along to it, you can dance to it and it sounded great on the radio.


What's it about? The usual stuff - life, love, loss. It isn't profound; it is mildly pretentious. And it's hugely enjoyable, as a child of its times.


For an added bonus, I've linked to the coupling of the original Dare album and the subsequent release of various 12" remixes, Love & Dancing.

the church & the world

Fried & Hansson offer wisdom on ignoring your competitors, in not letting what they're doing set your own agenda.

"...worrying about the competition quickly turns into an obsession. What are they doing right now? Where are they going next? How should we react? (That mindset) leads to overwhelming stress and anxiety. That state of mind is bad soil for growing anything...When you spend time worrying about someone else, you can't spend that time improving yourself. Focus on competitors too much and you wind up diluting your own vision...(and)...You wind up offering your competitor's products with a different coat of paint." (p.148)

Their words have real application to the life of the church and its mission in the world. Of course, the church needs to know the world it is engaging with, no question about that, and to know it well and deeply. But that kind of knowing is to be grounded in a settled vision (gospel) that allows for the engagement to be redemptively creative.


Or so it seems to me.

ebtg: acoustic

Ben & Tracey: thank you so much, for so much, over so many years. And now I find this on spotify - an unexpected, joyous gift.

I have to say, I never expected to hear EBTG singing Springsteen (Tougher Than the Rest is on here) but it works amazingly well.


All in all: delightful!

thinking out loud 3 - the birth of hope

When we suffer, we need hope. And if we have hope - real, solid hope - we can go on and, somehow, get through the hard times.


I don't doubt that that is true. But I want to set it in the light of Romans 5:4,5 where Paul is speaking about Christians doing the seemingly-odd thing of glorying in their sufferings - how can that possibly be so? He tells us that it can, and does, happen because

we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. (v.4)

In his formulation, hope is at the end of the process; it grows out of the development of attested character, which is itself the product of persevering under trial.

If I had been asked to write that sequence I would have opted for suffering-hope-perseverance-character, or possibly with perseverance and character reversed. But I definitely would have put hope next to suffering as the dynamic which alone will allow for perseverance and character, however they are then ordered.


Can we persevere without hope? In 1 Thessalonians 1:3 Paul is quite clear that the endurance seen in that church was the product of hope. I don't think he's suggesting in Romans 5:4 that hope is entirely absent until character is securely formed on the back of perseverance. But maybe he is suggesting that the energising reality of hope is most securely-grounded where perseverance and attested character are the soil in which it is birthed.


Does this mean, then, that such hope is a human construct or achievement, since it depends (at least in part) on perseverance and character? Perhaps Romans 5:5 helps us here: the hope in which we can boast and rejoice will not ultimately be seen to be empty because God has poured his love into our hearts through the gift of his Spirit.


But maybe the even more important question is how we can help those who are suffering - do we simply urge them to hope in God, giving solid biblical reasons for doing so? Clearly that is never out of place and can be of great value. But maybe we need to somehow help them to just keep going, even in the absence of deeply-felt hope, standing with them, holding them up insofar as we can, seeking to encourage the perseverance that develops character and that then gives birth to a deeper, more secure hope.

jeanette winterson: on poetry

A poem is an act of memory. Poetry was first forged out of the need to remember what would otherwise be forgotten – in an oral tradition record-keeping is an art, not an act of administration.

You can read the whole piece here.

nichole nordeman: brave

Brave is a gently rocky, poppish album with some lyrical depth & substance. You might want to give it a listen.

george herbert: the call

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life!
Such a Way as gives us breath,
Such a Truth as ends all strife,
Such a Life as killeth death.


Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength!
Such a Light as shows a feast,
Such a Feast as mends in length,
Such a Strength as makes his guest.


Come my Joy, my Love, my Heart!
Such a Joy as none can move,
Such a Love as none can part,
Such a Heart as joyes in love.

friday night spotify: sound affects

The Jam's penultimate album and from the height of their popularity and prowess. The only shame is it didn't include the single, Going Underground, from a few months earlier - possibly their best moment ever.

powerpoint is dangerous

This article is an interesting read, but for more than just its comments on powerpoint. It was commented that it is dangerous "because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control...Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable." And the problem with bullet lists is that they "take no account of interconnected political, economic and ethnic forces."

I think that's also a salient warning against bulletized theology. We want to be in control but grasping after it we fail to see the problem for what it really is, we miss the connections that would make us pastorally more helpful to others. We forget that life is too complex for neat solutions, even biblical ones.

sons of korah: psalm 23