the word became flesh

Peter Leithart is always a stimulating writer and his latest offering, Word Made Martyr, is no less so. In addition to a cleverly instructive use of grammatical imagery to speak of Jesus' enfleshing ( "The incarnation is the human declension of the divine Word: By assuming flesh, the Word enters into a “genitive” relation with the human condition.") he also makes the following observations that evoke worshipping gratitude:

The Word becomes flesh to transform it from within, to transfigure flesh through the cross and resurrection. In death, the Word is sown in weakness, perishability, mortality, shame, but in his death to flesh God begins to work reconciliation. He is raised with power, with immortality and imperishability, with eternal glory undiminished and undiminishable, no longer flesh but wholly infused with the Spirit.

Union With Christ (Billings)

This looks like a great book - and not too long at 180 pages (a not insubstantial point). Here's the author, J. Todd Billings, talking about it a little (there's another couple of YouTube videos to check out, plus this much longer lecture).

ministering to the depressed

the meaning of marriage

Tim Keller's talk at Google:

when men counsel women: she's your sister

This is a really helpful discussion:

gentle, biblical pastoring

Mark Roberts has been writing a series on pastoring. In his latest piece, he concludes a discussion of how Paul and his companions pastored the Thessalonian Christians with these 3 observations:

First, like Paul and his colleagues, we need to interact critically and carefully with our cultural models of "ministry." We need to determine how we are to be like other models and how we are to be unlike these models. For example, we are like psychologists in that we listen carefully to people in order to help them grow from brokenness to wholeness. Yet we are unlike psychologists in that we share our lives with our flock, rather than maintaining the professional distance required of psychotherapists. We are also unlike secular therapists in that we do not require payment for services rendered.

Second, like Paul and his colleagues, we need to wrestle with the implications of the gospel for our pastoral work. I'm not thinking here of the crucial issue of the words we use to communicate the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. Rather, I'm suggesting that the gospel determines, not just the content, but also the forms of pastoral work. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy broke with their secular counterparts by sharing their souls with the Thessalonians because this kind of vulnerability and intimacy was required by the gospel.

Third, we who pastor need to imitate Paul and his colleagues by choosing to be gentle with those we serve, like a nursing mother. Moreover, we should choose to share with them, not only the gospel, but also our own lives. Gospel-shaped ministry is not just preaching and teaching and leading and praying from a safe distance. It's opening our lives and our hearts to people. It's choosing to embody the good news of a God who saved us, not by sending a message, but by becoming a human messenger. It's deciding to imitate the Son of Man, who came, not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for others.

six years

Six years ago today
the man without side
died;
the man of ease and play
slipped away;
the man of unknown space
and story untold,
left his mark and
place.


(for Dad)

oh yeah, by the way

solo downtime

Scientists in the Journal of Research in Personality stated that just five minutes of quiet solitude is all it takes to reset the body’s stress-regulating sympathetic nervous system. In fact, when study volunteers took a solo timeout, their heart rates dropped and blood pressure stabilized. Plus, they subconsciously drew deeper breaths. This triple effect left them feeling focused, rejuvenated and 58 percent more energized.

From here.

the myth of monotasking

There is a fascinating podcast over at HBR with Cathy Davidson on how we handle multiple inputs etc. A couple of takeaways for me:

i. the value of disruption - causing us to see things we didn't know were there & couldn't see in our attempt at a singular focus

ii. we all see selectively but we don't all selectively see the same things - thus, the value of collaboration and the need for humility (no-one - not even you - sees everything)

critiquing pietism

In a series of posts earlier this year (part 1; part 2; part 3), Kevin deYoung reflected on pietism and confessionalism and what each can learn from the other. Among his critiques of pietism were that it:

• emphasises dramatic conversions
• tends toward individualism
• pushes for unity based on shared experience
• pays little attention to careful doctrinal formulation
• has tried too hard to be relevant
• has largely ignored organic church growth by catechesis
• has too often elevated experience at the expense of doctrine
• has worn out a good number of Christians by assuming that every churchgoer is an activist and crusader more than a pilgrim

Whether the categories of pietism and confessionalism are familiar to you or not, perhaps some of those critiques ring a few bells?

taking a long view

Every now and then, we in the church need to step back and take a long view. God’s kingdom is beyond our efforts, even our vision. In a lifetime, we participate in only a fraction of God’s work. While we cannot do everything, we can do something. Incomplete as it may be, it is a step along the way, a beginning, and something for God to bless. God’s grace does the rest. End results? We may never see them but only hold them trusting in God’s future promises. We are servants, not saviors. We are ministers, not messianic figures. We are prophets of a future not of our own making but for which we hope and for which we make a defense in our life. We believe God will create a new heart in us and a new world out of the old.

Peter Steinke, A Door Set Open

speaking the language of Jesus' heart

Commenting on Paul's words in Romans 8:14-16, Mark McIntosh says,

Paul is saying that what the Spirit does in us is to draw us into a relationship, a loving relationship into which we are adopted as children of God. This relationship is the relationship between Jesus and his Abba or Father. As the Spirit brings Christ's life to birth in our life, we find ourselves sharing with Christ in the most central and characteristic aspect of his life - namely the relationship that defines him and marks him as God's beloved child, his relationship with God as the loving source of his whole life. And more wonderfully yet, we find that we do not remain mute observers of this relationship but that the Spirit actually teaches us the very language of Jesus' conversation with the Father. The Spirit puts Jesus' words of loving adoration and trust in our own hearts and makes it possible for us to speak them ourselves.

(Mysteries of Faith, p.15)

learning from philip gould

A number of things struck me from Alistair Campbell's reflections on the death of his friend and Labour colleague, Philip Gould - for example, that focus groups were more about making sure lower/middle class views were not overlooked (and, so, were an expression of justice, not pragmatism). But it was this paragraph that most caught my eye, partly because it reflects some of the strengths that pastors need to display:

Like most meaningful activities, campaigns are team games. Philip was the ultimate team player and team builder; keeping spirits up; staying calm when others were falling out or falling apart; never losing sight of the big goals. Perhaps alone of the key New Labour figures, he made few, if any, enemies. He was a healer. Even in these past few weeks, he has been trying to heal some of the rifts and scars of the New Labour years.

your number's up

Apparently (althought I harbour some doubt as to accuracy) I am the 3,214,534,297th person to have been born into the world.

You can find out your own number here.

how to disarm jeremy paxman

This is a great example of clear, gracious, winsome speech.

HT: David Murray

the affections of unbelief

Nick Nowalk has a great piece over at The Harvard Icthus entitled The Christian Epistemology of Narnia. Apart from a long and judicious quotation from The Magician's Nephew, Nick offers his own thoughts on unbelief, including this:

it cannot be the case that people fail to believe in Jesus because they are not intelligent enough or incapable of evaluating the evidence coherently.  While sin smears the ways we choose to perceive the world, it is ultimately our affections that are the problem, not our brute capacity for seeing what is there.  Human beings would not have had higher IQ’s if they had not become sinners.  They would simply be more open to the truth in love instead of suppressing it in unrighteousness.  For Christians, the primary epistemological problem is humanity’s hardness of heart toward spiritual beauty.  We simply like the fantasy worlds of our own construction (where we are at the center) better than the real world where there is an awesome Lord who stands over against us in judgment and grace, calling us to account and beckoning us to align our perception of reality around Him.  

downtime & sacred space

Scott Belsky makes some fine points in this article about the need for downtime and sacred space.

It doesn't take much imagination to see his points are all grounded in a biblical understanding of life in God's image, even where unacknowledged.

the transfer of emotion

In the course of an article on Really Bad Powerpoint, Seth Godin makes these remarks:

Communication is about getting others to adopt your point of view, to help them understand why you’re excited (or sad, or optimistic or whatever else you are.)  If all you want to do is create a file of facts and figures, then cancel the meeting and send in a report.

May be some stuff in there for preachers to mull over. In a phrase, his point is that "Communication is the transfer of emotion", not just information.

being a disciple

Watching this conversation with Matt Chandler made me realise, again, that all Christians - no matter what their service - are first and foremost disciples of Jesus.