Finished reading: Christ-Centered Preaching by Bryan Chapell 📚
Can’t imagine a preacher who wouldn’t be helped by this volume.
Kristyn and I finally sat down to watch Conclave last night. A gripping film that raises some rather unsettling questions. Worth a watch for sure.
I’ve had a contrarian streak that dates back to when I was much younger, though it seems to be waning in recent years. Perhaps that’s a normal cycle of development…? Anyway, one negative consequence of being a contrarian is that you miss out on some really good things for the simple reason that too many other people like them. This means that now, in my mid-thirties, I’m appreciating authors/artists/etc that I could’ve been enjoying for decades. A few examples:
- C. S. Lewis: Lewis's ubiquity in Christian circles certainly made him suspect in my eyes, but there was also the alleged theological squishiness. As a new Christian who quickly gravitated to the austerity of the reformed tradition, I viewed his "flowery language" as evasive. I'm now doing penance by working my way through all his books, which I expect to do, Lord willing, several more times over the course of my life.
- The Beatles: There's really no excuse here. My mom had every Beatles album on vinyl. I was just convinced that the whole world was wrong; there was no use arguing with me about it. I now understand, only recently, what others have known since the '60s: that the Beatles are the best band of all time.
- Tim Keller: I've always had a general respect—a vague appreciation—for Keller. But I still didn't get why there were so many fanboys. As my ministry journey has shifted toward planting a church in a fairly large and culturally vibrant city (Austin), I figured it was time to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out: Keller was absolutely the real deal. Center Church was a revelation for me. His preaching is so helpful and easy to follow, yet completely impossible to emulate. His ability to synthesize large swaths of intellectual history into coherent and practical (!) resources is perhaps his most under-appreciated skill. I'll be learning from him for decades.
I’m sure there are more, but these come to mind at the moment.
Cardón, State of Oaxaca (1887) by José María Velasco:
The Great Comet of 1882 (1910) by José María Velasco:
Finished reading: The Wounded Healer by Henri J. M. Nouwen 📚
Nouwen’s work is simple, yet penetrating. This one is no exception.
Perhaps the main task of the minister is to prevent people from suffering for the wrong reasons. Many people suffer because of the false supposition on which they have based their lives. That supposition is that there should be no fear or loneliness, no confusion or doubt. But these sufferings can only be dealt with creatively when they are understood as wounds integral to our human condition.
Therefore ministry is a very confrontational service. It does not allow people to live with illusions of immortality and wholeness. It keeps reminding others that they are mortal and broken, but also that with the recognition of this condition, liberation starts.
No minister can save anyone. We can only offer ourselves as guides to fearful people. Yet, paradoxically, it is precisely in this guidance that the first signs of hope become visible. This is so because a shared pain is no longer paralyzing, but mobilizing, when it is understood to be a way to liberation. When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.
Religion in the United States (source):
Without hope, we will never be able to see value and meaning in the encounter with a decaying human being and become personally concerned. This hope stretches far beyond the limitations of one’s own psychological strength, for it is anchored not just in the soul of an individual, but in God’s self-disclosure in history. Leadership therefore is not called Christian because it is permeated with optimism against all the odds of life, but because it is grounded in the historic Christ-event, which is understood as a definitive breach in the deterministic chain of human trial and error, and as a dramatic affirmation that there is light on the other side of darkness.
Every attempt to attach this hope to visible symptoms in our surroundings becomes a temptation when it prevents us from the realization that promises, not concrete successes, are the basis of Christian leadership. Many ministers, priests, and Christian laity have become disillusioned, bitter, and even hostile when years of hard work bear no fruit, when little change is accomplished. Building a vocation on the expectations of concrete results, however conceived, is like building a house on sand instead of on solid rock, and even takes away the ability to accept successes as free gifts.
Hope prevents us from clinging to what we have and frees us to move away from the safe place and enter unknown and fearful territory. This might sound romantic, but when we enter with our fellow human beings into the fear of death and are able to wait for that person right there, “leaving the safe place” might turn out to be a very difficult act of leadership.
In fact, it is an act of discipleship in which we follow the hard road of Christ, who entered death with nothing but bare hope.