Reading

  • Worth your time

    Some reading for the week: I had the feeling I was missing something over the last few years when it came to sports. I love reading sports pages, sports reporting sites, etc. In the past few years so many times I would click on an article thinking I was getting analysis for an upcoming game… Read more

  • Renovare Ministries was started by a group led by Richard Foster several decades ago. The focus was to turn the Church back to the joy of spiritual formation and help the Church walk in transformation. This week’s email letter was thought-provoking as I wrote a post about trying to tackle Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. My… Read more

  • It is doubtful I have reread any book as much as Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton. It is far more moving to me than Augustine’s Confessions. The story of coming to faith, the journey, along with Merton’s prose, deeply move me. Read more

  • Worth Your Time

    I try to note what I’m reading or listening to personally, so I will try, from time to time, to share links to what is inspiring/challenging me. I keep coming back to Tish Harrison Warren and David French because week after week they write things that are continually worth reading to me. I subscribe to… Read more

  • Addicted to Success

    I think a close cousin of being “addicted to success” is being addicted to relevance. It’s a problem. “It is often believed that President Teddy Roosevelt called social comparison the ‘thief of joy.’ Whether he said it or not, it’s true: researchers have long found that social comparison lowers our happiness. But you hardly need… Read more

  • Aging properly

    A few months ago I began to process what “the last third” of my life should look like. I have been more earnest about that mainly because of the work of Arthur Brooks. I listened to a talk he gave a few years go, then an article with the same basic material, and I knew… Read more

  • Love overcomes cynicism

    “Cynicism is the greatest barrier to love. It is rooted in doubt and despair. Fear intensifies our doubt. It paralyzes. Faith and hope allow us to let fear go. Fear stands in the way of love. When we take to hear the biblical insistence that ‘there is no fear in love,’ we understand the necessity… Read more

  • Worth Your Time

    A couple of columns I came across this past weekend are worth your time. First, Christian Nationalism IS real. Far more real than the sneaky “CRT” conspiracy a lot of people hold to while they declare they are NOT Christian Nationalists. David French gives a solid example of what this looks like in real time… Read more

  • No surprises for God

    I am beginning a brand new book out called Shaky Ground: What to Do After the Bottom Drops Out by Traci Rhoades. It is an invitation to learn from the broader Church and its history rather than one narrow slice of what we have experienced in our lives. Read more

  • I am working my way through Dante Stewart’s book, Shoutin’ in the Fire. When he was in college, he found himself accepted in white evangelical circles (especially within Reformed circles) as long as he left being Black at the door. Read more