Around the Horn

So I guess I decided to take a week off of blogging. It was totally an accident. Here's the latest cyber-round up:

- Tim Suttle asks what the chief political concern of the Bible is.

- NPR selects its three-minute fiction winner (via Tony Jones). Wow, this is good. Gotta go hug my kids now.

- Two new TV shows, one I'm really excited to watch and one I am kind of excited/marginally interested in watching. Hatfields and McCoy's and Longmire.

- Katie's book - Whirlybirds and Ordinary Times - came in the mail this week in bound galley form, which is a pretty well edited, but not quite finished version of her book. She is supposed to send these to famous people in order for them to lavish her with praise on her all around general awesomeness. No, she's not asking me to write for the back cover because I will get her nothing in terms of publicity, but as you can see I would be good at it. (I love you).

- Walter Brueggemann shares a few words on the art and goal of preaching.

- Ron Benefiel was guest lecturer at this years H. Orton Wiley Lecture Series in Theology. He gave four lectures around this theme: Mission Ecclesia, Missio Dei: A Wesleyan Perspective on the Church in Mission. As a Nazarene and alumn of PLNU this makes me happy!

(image via flickr, cc)

Around the Horn - Homosexuality

As I watched the internet catch fire with the news that North Carolina voted to pass an amendment banning same-sex marriage, I thought it might be helpful to try and gather a number of perspectives for this weeks Around the Horn.

- Al Mohler is mad at Andy Stanley for not outright condemning homosexuality in his last sermon. Andrew Marvin and Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra have the take.

- Listen to Andy Stanley's sermon here. Listen from minutes 24-41. It's kind of long, but still an interesting way for a conservative to navigate the issue.

- Justin Lee, the Executive Director of the Gay Christian Network, responds to the North Carolina vote.

- So does Rachel Held Evens.

- Barak Obama supports same-sex marriage.

- Mohler responds to Obama, opposed.

- Daniel Kirk on marriage, sex, and procreation.

- Kevin DeYoung offers Five Reasons why Christians should continue to oppose gay marriage.

- Out to Dinner w/ Zach Wahls. A short video. (via Doug Harrison)

- Ed Stetzer on homosexuality and future of the Evangelical response (he's opposed).

- Debra Dean Murphy talks about reading Scripture poorly. (via Matt Cromwell)

- Rick Warren opposes gay marriage.

- Doug Harrison on North Carolina's Ammendment.

Around the Horn: Friends w/ Books!

This weeks "Around the Horn" is geared towards friends who wrote books that are coming out soon.

Public Jesus: Exposing the Nature of God in Your Community by Tim Suttle. Check out one of the accompanying videos. Here's the description:

Religion is personal and private. 

Many people are raised to believe religion is personal and private and should be left out of public life. But even if we wanted to follow the dictum “religion is personal and private,” doing so would be impossible. God is out and about in cultures and societies, working in every corner of creation to bring about God’s good purposes. God belongs in the public square because the public square belongs to God.

Yet, what it means to say that God belongs in public life is far from clear. Is it the street preacher shouting on the corner about the coming judgment? Is it backing Christian candidates for public office? Is it relief efforts, fundraising, Christian music, books, and concerts? What if the answer is as varied as the number of humans on the planet? What if the way God is present in public life is through you and me?

Answering these questions will require great imagination and ingenuity. It will require much more from all of us than we will be comfortable giving. It will require that we embrace Jesus’s call to take up our cross and follow him. Ranging from vocation to politics, Public Jesus invites us to wrestle with all kinds of questions about what it means for us to live our faith in public and what role we play in embodying the coming kingdom.

A Seat at the Table: A Generation Reimaginng Its Place in the Church by Shawna Songer Gaines and Timothy R. Gaines. Here's the description:

Why are so many 20- and 30-something Christians disappearing from the church? 

They are told how much the church wants young people, yet there is growing suspicion among young believers about who is in and who is out of the scope of Christian orthodoxy. Through this suspicion, a rift between the generations has emerged. In the face of frustration, of being cut out because they don t seem to fit, young believers often take their gifts and leave the church.

This book helps those who feel displaced by this generational collision to find a sense of place and welcome with a church that is still becoming all that God wants it to be.

If you are a young person who wonders if there is a place in the church for someone like you, or if you want to know if your own church can be the kind of body in which young people are welcome, A Seat at the Table will give you a new personal and kingdom perspective. Embrace the challenge to re-imagine your relationship with the church in light of this generational collision, not seeing it as an unredeemable rift, but as an opportunity to give and receive hospitality.

Whirlybirds and Ordinary Times: Reflections on Faith and the Changing of Seasons by Katie Savage. Okay, so as my wife she's more than a "friend" to me, but we're still friendly with each other :)  There's no official description for this one yet, but it's a collection of essays loosely based on a seasons of the church year.

If there are others of you, my friends, who have a book coming out soon and you are not here, you should be. It's either because I forgot, or don't know about it. So, tell me (again)!

Around the Horn

Wow, I thought I was developing a good rhythm for blogging, but apparently this week (with the additional mental bandwidth required for writing a sermon) has knocked me off my game. I hope to get back on track next week. Nevertheless here are merely a few things that been happening around the horn:

Have an extra 12,000 pieces pf paper to spare? Consider making this. Josh Ritter, Love's Making Its Way Back Home.

Some scattered thoughts by Rachel Held Evans on "Christian Industry."

Here's a series I just caught wind of. A guy named Jake Bouma is hosting a Cancer and Theology series on his blog. He's already got a few of them up.

A good post from Katie. Have I told you she has a book coming out in November?

Rowan Williams is stepping down as the Archbishop of Canterbury. This brought to mind one of my favorite Rowan Williams moments ever (read here).

*above image from

My Music Patterns

Since my last post on music, I started to became aware of a pattern in the way I listen to music that I thought I'd share in hopes that maybe some of you would share your own patterns because what, when, where, and how we listen to music these days is just fascinating.

Just yesterday I was remembering back when I was in Junior High and how we had to sit in front of the radio, waiting for our song to come on so that we could his the record button on the cassette tape! We were making these mix tapes of our favorite songs, which included all the DJ intros and outros for each song. Do you remember that!? Did you ever do that? So, you never actually heard the whole song because there was always some voice at the beginning and the end. It was a mess but it's all we had. The invention of the single download option was revolutionary indeed!

I find these days that if I listen to music at certain times of the day that I am prone to certain tendencies as to what I listen to. It seems that the time of the day governs what I listen to, or don't listen to, for that matter.

In the early morning I want silence. Always. No exceptions. Well, okay, maybe a few exceptions. I get up before everyone else, which tends to make this possible, although not always because of our little gremlin children, but I try.

In the mid morning, if I listen to music, I listen to "Olafur Arnalds" radio on Pandora. It's kind of a contemplative, simplistic, wordless sound governed mostly by the cello and violin. From this starting point, Pandora finds me a good blend of other similar artists. I'm typically in my office at the church when I listen to this.

In the mid afternoon, if I listen to music, I listen to "Probe" radio. My wife makes fun of me for this, but because of the steady, rhythmic electronic beats of this mix, I find a new kind of head space that helps me stay focused because let's be honest, it's tough sometimes to work after lunch and I'm not too contemplative in the afternoons. I'm either in my office or at a coffee shop when I listen to this. The social atmosphere works well for me in the afternoon.

In the evenings, if I listen to music, I listen to "Abdullah Ibrahim" radio. His piano playing is soft, crisp, and deeply simple, and it leads into the world of John Coltrane and company. I'm not typically working at this point of the day, which makes this music great to have on as you slip from evening into night, with dishes to sort and kids to play with. Any worry about your work for the day subsides, finding its proper place in the cosmos.

What about you? How do you listen to music? What do you listen to? When do you listen to it? Where do you listen to it? How does Spotify change all of this?  :)

Also, feel free to respond to my previous post on music where I put my iPod/iTunes on shuffle and recorded the first ten songs that came up.

*And by the way, the art featured above is called "Transition" by Suzanne Cheryl Gardner

Quote from Katie Savage (my wife, by the way)

"Confession is like bed making when you consider the slow and deliberate repetition. Tucking the sheets. Smoothing the comforter. Plumping the pillows. It's work that should be done daily, or at least as often as the untucking, the crumpling, and the smooshing occur. My resistance to confession probably comes from the same place as my resistance to making the bed: doing something that I know with certainty that I will have to do again soon. Over and over again until I am too old or weak or sick to do it or until my children are old enough to take over doing all the unpleasant household tasks. (Don't tell my son Miles, but the option to delegate the worst chores to our offspring was high up on Scott's and my list of Reasons to Have Children.) There is also the matter of enforcement to consider. None exists. No one knows or cares or sees that my bed is unmade, no one knows or cares or sees that my confessions are unsaid, and if a sheet is untucked in a forest with no one there to see it, is it really untucked?"

- Katie Savage, from her forthcoming book, which is scheduled to be released in November and likely to be called Whirlybirds and Ordinary Times: Reflections on Faith and the Changing of Seasons

My wife, the writer

It came in the mail today!

I'm proud and thrilled to say that my wife has received the contract for her first book! It hit me today that I can't wait to hold the book in my hand and read the final version. I've been reading it in bits and pieces over the past few years, but to read it cover to cover in its final edited form would be a complete and utter delight.

It's being published through Howard Books (a division of Simon and Schuster) and is set to come out in November. The title, at least for now, is Whirlybirds and Ordinary Times: Reflections on Faith and the Changing of Seasons.

Be looking for it!