Come down, O Love divine (Ortega)

Here's a video of Fernando Ortega talking about his latest album (HT: Justin Taylor):

Come Down O Love Divine from fernando ortega on Vimeo.

And if you want to listen to it on Spotify, click here.

The Darker Side of Productivity

Driven onwards in ministry by the need to be effective and yet you have the nagging feeling you're simply being efficient? Reading this might help.

Piper: misperceptions about what is needed in missions.

John Piper has spoken of 4 waves of change in missions - here's the third of them:

I pray that this conference would blow away the notion that missions can stay home now because all the nations have come to us. My neighborhood is currently reported by CityVision to be “the most ethnically diverse single neighborhood in America with 100+ languages spoken.” That changes a lot in the way we do missions. But one thing it does not change is the fact that the Joshua Project catalogues not a few hundred, but 6933 peoples globally without a self-sustaining gospel presence. Another misperception I would like to see blown away is that Westerners should just send money rather than go as missionaries. My paraphrase: Let others give their blood. We give our bucks. Realistically, most of the unreached peoples do not have anyone with better access to them than we have. “Unreached,” in its fullest sense, means: there’s no missionary in the people group to whom you could send money if you wanted to. So wave #3 would result in doing it all: missions to the unreached peoples that are here, support for missions from other sending churches, and especially mobilizing our own people to reach the thousands of people groups without access to the gospel.

A minister's good depression

I believe there is a good depression that all pastors/ministers have to go through to be used by God. This is the deep sadness that one must go through which enables each one of us to give up things we somehow became attached to as central to our own identity, but really these things are not essential to God’s Mission. In ministry, there are things like “I’m a great preacher” or “I will lead a certain kind of change in this neighborhood for Jesus” or “I will show my worth by being a mega church pastor executive” that somehow have been allowed to become part of my identity. I hold onto to these things. Being freed from these identity markers will allow us to become the instruments anew of what God is doing in Mission.  I fear most pastors never allow themselves to die to their ministry ego markers (whatever they might be) because this requires a good period of depression. As a result, ministries shrivel and churches die.

David Fitch (read the article for his take on good & bad tired etc)

Are you a creative leader?

The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it’s to create a culture where everyone can have ideas and feel that they’re valued. So it’s much more about creating climates. I think it’s a big shift for a lot of people.

from Ken Robinson On The Principles Of Creative Leadership (it's worth reading the whole thing)

Your Words Influence Your Perspective

There is a fascinating article over at Psychology Today on how words influence our perspective (of course it works the other way, too, but don't be pedantic).

I really liked this bit:

When someone told him that friction makes shoe leather wear out, [Feynman's] response was “Shoe leather wears out because it rubs against the sidewalk and the little notches and bumps on the sidewalk grab pieces and pull them off.” That is knowledge. To simply say, “It is because of friction,” is sad, because it is empty definition.

HT: Lifehacker

The STEP Project

Going Deep

Gordon Macdonald suggests here that Cultivating people of spiritual depth is a pastor's top priority.

What d'ya htink?

How to frustrate your employees

Well, I don't have any (unless giving the children pocket money counts as employment?) but, anyway, these 13 'rules' from Michael Hyatt have wider application.

The Climax of the Covenant

(The Best Books - no.9)

You didn't know that Tom (N.T.) Wright was at the centre of some raging theological storms? Where ya been, dude? Whether you approve or not of all his theology (you don't do that with hardly anyone, do you?), you'll have to concede that Tom writes in a compelling and provocative manner. But I've chosen one of his books that draws the least flak, presumably because it's his most technical and, therefore, least read. It's also the least polemical of his non-popular writings.

A series of papers on a variety of topics that have been collated under the twin themes of 'Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology', this was the first of his works that I read and found it compelling stuff, even where you feel you can't go all the way in agreeing with him. The essay on Philippians 2:5-11 left me stunned and worshipping - no mean feat for technical exegesis.

Of course, you can't ignore the rest of his works, nor should you. But don't let this one pass you by.

Creative Hands

Creative Hands from UFM Worldwide on Vimeo.

Appreciating Peake

I've never read Gormenghast and the other Peake stuff but I know a man who has and he says it's good. So here's a worthwhile read from The Guardian.

Learning from 'Good to Great'

It's a book you see quoted all over the place. It's on my read-this-someday list. But here is a great summary (by Jim Collins himself) of some of they key lessons of the book, Good to Great. It strikes me that many of them have a deep resonance for churches and ministry.

Receiving the New Testament

The Kimyal People Receive the New Testament from UFM Worldwide on Vimeo.

Yali Jubilee 2011

children in the wilderness

This week I intend to preach on Genesis 21:14-21, which is the story of Hagar and Ishmael. If these were ordinary times - if I were twenty years younger - I'd be making an orderly passage through the Gospels and Epistles before I turned to Genesis again. That was my custom, and I have always felt it was effective as teaching, which is really what all this is about. Now, though, I talk about whatever is on my mind - Hagar and Ishmael at the moment.

The story of Hagar and Ishmael came to mind while I was praying this morning, and I found a great assurance in it. The story says that it is not only the father of a child who cares for its life, who protects its mother, and it says that even if the mother can't find a way to provide for it, or herself, provision will be made. At that level it is a story full of comfort. That is how life goes - we send our children into the wilderness. Some of them on the day they are born, it seems, for all the help we can give them. Some of them seem to be a kind of wilderness unto themselves. But there must be angels there, too, and springs of water. Even that wilderness, the very habitation of jackals, is the Lord's. I need to bear this in mind.

 (Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, p.135)

Kiss On My List (Hall & Tunstall)

Copenhagen (Lucinda Williams)

Thundering news hits me like a snowball 
struck in my face and shattering
Covering me in a fine powder and mist
and mixing in with my tears

And I'm 57 but I could be 7 years old,
Cos I will never be able 
to comprehend the expansiveness 
of what I've just learned

You, have disappeared
You have been released
You are flecks of light
You are missed

Somewhere, spinning round the sun
Circling the moon
Traveling through time
You are missed

Walking through unfamiliar streets
and I'm shaking unfamiliar hands
and I'm hearing unfamiliar laughs
and lovely language I don't understand

It's late October in Copenhagen
The skies are grey, the snow is falling
I see my breath outside, I'm freezing
I'm motionless, I'm disbelieving

You, have disappeared
You have been released
You are flecks of light
You are missed

Somewhere, spinning round the sun
Circling the moon
Traveling through time
You are missed

You can't do it all? Then say so...

Saying you can't do it all is not a failure of leadership, it is effective leadership. But despite all the books and articles, like Jim Collins' Good to Great, that preach such reasonable humility, the culture of heroic leadership persists. Consequently, resources are wasted, false hopes are raised, and quagmires persist. When a leader comes along who is willing to offer a realistic assessment of strengths and weaknesses, and to state what an organization — or nation — should not do or should stop doing, that leader should be received with gratitude and not mockery.

from Good Leaders Acknowledge What Can't Be Done.

Albert's GCSE Prom

Having completed their GCSEs, Albert's school year had their leavers' prom last night. Here's the young man in his finery....