I haven’t blogged much over the past two weeks. Apparently, in order to resist the temptation of mindless surfing, I’ve stayed away from the computer while at home except to perform a very specific task (like budgets and purchases). My media fast ends at the end of the day on Saturday. I’ll be back blogging, [...]
On Sunday I started a two-week media fast. This was a concept that God first introduced me to when I was a youth pastor. I had taken the youth to a retreat and in the retreat we were all challenged to examine our lives and see what changes might need to be made. God made [...]
For my 15 minutes of quiet time tonight, I was led to do something I’d never done before… a listening prayer. With my notebook in my lap, I asked God for guidance in a specific area of my life where I felt I needed great help and then I waited and listened and then wrote [...]
I turn 41 in a few days and the process of self-reflection always gets amplified during this time of the year for me. This year it seems to have gone into overdrive due to the following facts:
I’ve come to an epiphany regarding my unwillingness to put forth effort because I tend to believe that very [...]
While at the Transforming Culture Symposium, each day we corporately read aloud a prayer based upon the prayer below. They did modify it quite a bit for the symposium to make it more obviously Christian and, it appears, a bit more succinct - here is the original:
Herbert Whittaker’s eloquent “Prayer for the Artists” was originally [...]
Finally plenary - notes unedited
Revelation 21
Hopeful subversion - we should all specialize in this
In Revelation, rather than moving from the present to the future to determine the future, God moves from the future to the present.
The Holy Spirit moves from the future to the present
God’s future erupts into our present
6 Things the Spirit does to [...]
This was the final session and it was a discussion with all the plenary speakers… this set of notes is very incomplete as there was a lot said and much was good, but I’ve captured a good bit (plus I wasn’t there right at the beginning)
Question: What is discouraging and encouraging to you right now [...]
Well, we got here a little early for the final day, so I’m sitting here finally typing up my notes from the first plenary session on day one with Andy Crouch. So, once again, here they are… unedited.
Gen 2:4-15
The best definition of culture: what we make of the word, in both senses
raw material fashioned
perception of [...]
Once again - these are raw notes…
There are two kinds of people
People who are artistic
People are supposed to support them
Art is becoming hip to support, but it’s hard to define who artists are though
how are we to respond to that
the domain of the beautiful
the cross of the artist
The Beautiful is the terrain of the artist.
John [...]
Again - I’ll be typing notes directly here - unedited with the same goal of reacting to this incredibly relevant discussion about a purchase mentality versus a practice mentality… (I pray these notes bless you as much as it blessed me to be take them down… this was a fabulous session, I’ve become a huge [...]
Hopefully, you see in these writings a man who is staying The Course and pursuing The Path amidst the pitfalls and selfish ways of being a son of Adam. I pray earnestly that my writing would encourage some of you by showing you that this journey - though arduous and sometimes tragic - is a journey of great satisfaction. A satisfaction greater than our greatest imaginings. The trials and refining fire of tribulation are to be recognized as a small shadow of the suffering of our Savior so that we can rejoice, as Peter and the disciples did, to be counted worthy to suffer for the sake of the Name.