Journaling -- Book & Discipline

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Beards make me want to journal!

Adam Feldman's new book, Journaling: Catalyzing Spiritual Growth Through Reflection, may be just what you need to spark a new discipline of journaling. Or maybe your love for journaling has grown cold and this book can be a refresher for you. Either way, Journaling is only $0.99 for Kindle right now and I want to encourage you to check it out. Simple with lots of tips and ideas and questions to prompt you on. 

I've found journaling difficult, but I'm eager to press on. I bought the book before it got this cheap! From the book...

You can expect journaling to be difficult for many reasons. For instance, journaling takes a chunk of time, so you may initially resist letting go of something in order to start journaling. Journaling is also highly reflective, and this may bring up some difficult or disturbing thoughts that you have previously been afraid to acknowledge. Journaling is also a means to catalyze spiritual growth, so you can expect the enemy, Satan and his emissaries, to throw every kind of distraction at you and to whisper every sort of “reasonable” excuse for why you “cannot” journal today.

Just sit down and start writing. 

Get Journaling. 

Kristen Gilles - "Chase Away My Unbelief"

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If you don't have time to listen now, please save this post somewhere and come back to it. This song may be a tremendous blessing to you or to someone in your family or church who is suffering. I encourage you to find time to really listen. I don't often find songs that hit me so deep and make me long to share it with others (especially those in pain). 

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I received the new album from Kristen Gilles in the mail and have listened to a little. Now I'm completely stuck on one song, "Chase Away My Unbelief." This is from the website of Kristen Gilles...

After our son Parker was stillborn, we cried out to God. Many of those cries came together in the form of this new song from our upcoming album Parker’s Mercy Brigade, “Chase Away My Unbelief.” This is a song for everyone who is broken by the thought of what might have been. A child who was never born. A child who was, but whose stay on earth was all too short. A broken home. A broken heart. A chilling medical diagnosis. A betrayal. Bankruptcy. Addiction. An inner conflict that causes you to say, “God, if you’re up there, if you’re powerful, and if you’re good, then why is everything so messed up?”

If you ever feel like God is far away, that he won’t answer you, let this song be your cry. If you ever feel like you’ve become a slave to your current circumstance, or that you have trouble seeing a larger perspective, let this song be your cry. If you ever hear about children starving and evil raging around the world, and your spirit groans, let this song be your cry.

Let me be honest: I don't cry easily. Partway through "Chase Away My Unbelief" I did begin to cry with the Gilles' over their loss and was provoked to cry out to God concerning the brokenness all around and in my own life and family and church. I think I have a lot more to cry over in my life that I have been avoiding. This song is helping me do so. What a beautiful lament for our time. Listen below and follow along with the lyrics. Hear more and pre-order Parker's Mercy Brigade at KristenGilles.com.

"Chase Away My Unbelief" 

Lord, when I think You’re far away 
Returning silence for my prayer, 
When I’m reminded of old doubts 
That You still reign, or that You care, 
Teach me how to doubt no more, 
To know You’re found by those who seek, 
And my emotions can deceive; 
Chase away my unbelief. 

In the face of deepest loss, 
Blinded by my bitter tears, 
Broken by what might have been, 
A slave to things as they appear, 
Then whisper peace into my soul 
In midst of pain and piercing grief. 
My own perspective’s incomplete. 
Chase away my unbelief. 

When I suspect You’ve lost control 
Or You’ve forsaken what You made, 
When children starve both near and far 
And love has wilted under hate, 
Remind me of Your promises: 
A kingdom full of life and peace! 
Help me to trust eternity. 
Lord, chase away my unbelief. 

Cause my emotions can deceive ... 
My own perspective’s incomplete ... 
Help me to trust eternity, 
Lord, chase away my unbelief.

Cheap Kindle Books 2.17.14

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Preaching the Word Series ($2.99 each)

Street Drummer

I'm gonna watch this more than once. A popular street drummer on Pitt St. in Australia.

It looks like he goes by Gordo Drummer on YouTube. Here's one he posted...

My Baby Makes Me Gravy

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I saw Dale Watson by accident one night  on Austin City Limits and he started with this song. I can't not share it. This isn't from that performance, but it's pretty hard to mess up this song. It may be the greatest song of all time.

Book Review: In Search of Deep Faith

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The Gospel Coalition published my review of In Search of Deep Faith (Amazon|Kindle) by Jim Belcher. It's one of the best books I've read in some time, mostly because it wasn't just trying to tell me something. It took me somewhere. My family and I have started to read it aloud together and it's changing the way we think about God and what He is doing with us. Here's a couple of paragraphs from the opening of my review. Please go read the whole review. I encourage you to pick up this book. 

After reviewing Jim Belcher’s first book in 2009, Deep Church, I was eager to get my hands on In Search of Deep Faith. I’m thankful for the opportunity to offer a review, as this book deserves a wide audience.

I’ve been a pastor for the past 10 years and have a wife and four children. Belcher founded and pastored Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, California, until he stepped out of ministry in 2010. He pastored there for 10 years. Jim is also married with four kids. There are obvious reasons for me to resonate with his story. Like this:

What I really needed was spiritual rest. I needed to take stock of my life, rediscover where I came from and where I may be going. I wanted to take a year to walk in the steps of my heroes, read their books again and marinate in their lives—go deeper into their stories and learn from them all over again. It was going to be like a pilgrimage, a time to spiritually and experientially connect with the places and people that had most influenced me. And, most importantly, to reconnect to God. (13)

This is the backdrop for a book about the Belcher family’s pilgrimage to some important places where faithful disciples who have gone before us have lived and served. Some of them suffered, and all of them died with deep faith in God. You don’t need to be a pastor or have young kids to resonate with this pilgrimage. You just have to be a disciple in search of the same deep faith.

Please go and finish reading my review. I'm very thankful for this book.

Lots-o-Links 2.12.14

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New Phantogram, Voices, is really compelling. Stream the whole thing FREE right now.

It's poppy, dark, electric, fun, grindy, and more. If you had any love for Chvrches, you just might love this one too. Make sure you make it at least through the third song, "Fall In Love." Trust me.

Race, Religion, Puritans: An Interview With Richard Bailey | Richard is a good friend and author of Race and Redemption in Puritan New England (Kindle). A sample...

Moore: It is not well known that Jonathan Edwards owned slaves.  How should we think of Edwards in light of this reality?

Bailey: I am not 100% certain how to answer this question, David. I am glad that this fact about Edwards is becoming more commonly known and I am glad that my book can have something to do with that fact.

But how to think of Edwards? Well, Jonathan Edwards is certainly more than simply a slave owner. He is an important figure in the development of American evangelicalism and the modern missions movement. He is one of America’s most prominent philosophers and theologians. He certainly ought to be remembered for those sorts of legacies. But he also was a purchaser of human flesh. He actively defended and participated in the slave trade. And I’d argue he must be remembered for that, as well. I think that is what it means to take on the virtual amnesias of our pasts.

The one way I would encourage people NOT to think of Jonathan Edwards is as “a man of his time.” That sort of phrase doesn’t really mean anything; rather, it is a way of not thinking about Edwards. And I hope people will continue to think about him, relying of the historical work of George Marsden in Jonathan Edwards: A Life (Yale University Press, 2003) or the recent novel by Susan Stinson, Spider in a Tree (Small Beer Press, 2013) to get a more complete picture not only of the man, but also of the society and culture of which he was a part.

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The Seven Benefits of Keeping a Daily Journal by Michael Hyatt | I don't do this but this makes me want to do something like this. Here are his points, but he elaborates on each and offers a lot more context on his website. Be sure to read the whole thing.

  1. Process previous events. 
  2. Clarify my thinking. 
  3. Understand the context. 
  4. Notice my feelings. 
  5. Connect with my heart.
  6. Record significant lessons.
  7. Ask important questions. 

Alt-J had my #2 album of 2012 with An Awesome Wave. Their coolest song among an album of quirky coolness is "Fitzpleasure." This is an amazing acapella version...by what appears to be a group of UK schoolboys? 

HGM: Bad Debt

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Every so often an album comes along that reminds me why I search for good music far beyond what's on the radio and being advertised. I want music that makes me think and feel. I want music that makes me search through the lyrics to dig in deeper. I want hints at the backstory of the life of the songwriter, someone who writes out of their own experience. Those albums are great albums.

Bad Debt is the almost-new album by Hiss Golden Messenger (M.C. Taylor) and it's right in the sweet spot of that kind of greatness. Taylor recorded these songs at his kitchen table while his family, including his firstborn son, was sleeping in the winter of 2009. The original release of the album didn't last long after the CD stock was destroyed in the 2010 London riots.

Now given a proper release, we get to hear this remarkable album. It's just a man, his guitar, and his songs. Lo-fi. Simple. Oh so simple. You feel like you are sitting on the other side of a narrow room listening to songs that were written long ago and have never been so relevant. I encourage you to pick it up and sit under their spell. 

Reviews worth reading --> Pitchfork 8.2/10 - "an album deeply concerned with the nature of faith and man’s relationship with his Maker" | Paste 8.6/10 - "just fundamentally phenomenal" | Slant 4/5 - "utterly ageless, like a surviving relic from time immemorial"

Mohler: The Conviction to Lead

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I was around Dr. Albert Mohler as a student not too long after he lead a massive turnaround at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. What he accomplished and the stories I heard from his lips and the stories I've heard for many others ring in my ears on the days I need to remember that things can change, that God can change things, and that He calls us to lead change. Because of that, I want to recommend to you his book The Conviction to Lead. It's $4.99 for Kindle right now. 

10 Creative Rituals

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Thought-provoking ideas about how to sustain creativity: "10 Creative Rituals You Should Steal." I've listed them and given you one in full so you get the idea. But you should check out the whole article. 

  1. Take a Quarterly Vacation
  2. Hold a “Retrospective” After Projects
  3. Write Every Day
  4. Create an “Interesting People Fund”
  5. Keep “Tear Sheets” to Get Inspired
  6. Nap Every Day
  7. Envision What You Will Be Remembered For
  8. Brainstorm at the Bar
  9. Get Out of the Building
  10. Engage in “Morphological Synthesis” 

One full example from #9 "Get Out of the Building"...

Radio host Garrison Keillor makes sure to get into the “observable world”:

I don’t think that one should sit and look at a blank page. The way around it is to walk around with scrap paper and to take notes, and simply to take notes on the observable world around you. If you walk into this room and see these great columns and think this was once a savings bank, you could put those two things together, and make some notes here – that would be the start of something.

I think everything – everything – starts with the observable world, and even though you may cut that out of your final go, nonetheless I think this is where it always starts, and with overheard conversations. There are a lot of conversations here that could be overheard, and you’re probably more likely to get them in the back of the room.