The good folks at the library at Austin Seminary let me and a buddy rummage through a bunch of old books and take our pick. Here are just some of the spoils.
Some really interesting ideas on meeting neighbors and forming community right where you live (can’t remember who shared this originally): Stoop Coffee: How a Simple Idea Transformed My Neighborhood.
From a few years back: Alan Jacobs on exhaustion, its causes and treatments
Finished reading: The Art of Pastoring by David Hansen 📚
An instant classic. I knew a few chapters in that it would end up on the Mount Rushmore of pastoring books, alongside Senkbeil, Neuhaus, Eswine, and Wells.
Finished reading: Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman 📚
A splendid book that develops several lines of thought from his earlier (and also great) 4000 Weeks. (His recent talk here in Austin was a brilliant introduction to his thought.) Burkeman’s ‘imperfectionist’ approach is a refreshing intervention into the productivity conversation. Though he patches his philosophy together from a range of sources (e.g., Zen Buddhism, the stoics, self-help gurus, etc.), I can’t help myself from seeing the clear connections and deep resonances with a Christian vision of reality, as I’ve gestured at before.
The less said explaining the sacraments, the better. Pastors administer the sacraments, and people want to know what they mean, so we do need to explain them. But for the most part I just let the sacraments be. They have their own power. They are older than we are, more important than we are, more powerful than we are, and they will be in the church, serving the church and God’s people, long after we are gone. Our job is to administer them as humble servants, prudently, with all the respect, order and modesty they deserve. […]
Sacraments are funny things. They are short and simple, they involve the simplest elements in our environment, and they require few words. The more we get out of the way the better. Yet they change people. People remember them for their whole lives.
Respect.
