A while back, I blogged about a book on visiting the sick by a faithful Louisville pastor I know named Brian Croft. It’s a delight to share with you that Brian has written another practical ministry book on the external call to ministry. It’s entitled Test, Train, Affirm & Send into Ministry (DayOne, 2010). It comes with a foreword by Al Mohler and endorsements by folks like Tom Schreiner, Thabiti Anyabwile, Donald Whitney, David Platt, and Jim Hamilton. Some of... Read more
Today at 11am CST (in a few minutes) Trinity International University will announce a new partnership with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. Go here to watch the live-stream for free: http://tiuproductions.com/livestream/ This is a special chapel service of the university. In addition, you can watch a free live webcast of a special Henry Center-sponsored event entitled “Apologetics Beyond the Pew” at 2:30pm CST today, April 12, 2010 at http://tiuproductions.com/livestream/ The event will last for roughly 1.5 hours and will feature a... Read more
There’s been much discussion in the blogging world of late about whether to target cities or not in church planting efforts. In light of that conversation, consider David Brooks’s most recent NYT piece. He argues based on some studies that suburbs will blossom in coming years: Over the next 40 years, Kotkin argues, urban downtowns will continue their modest (and perpetually overhyped) revival, but the real action will be out in the compact, self-sufficient suburban villages. Many of these places... Read more
Greg Gilbert’s brand-new What Is the Gospel? (Crossway–IXMarks, 2010) is dynamite. Pick this book up to remind yourself of the essential of the essentials. A short (127pp), small, readable, punchy text, What Is the Gospel? dispels the cloudiness surrounding the exact character of the gospel today. Pastors, disciplers, Bible study leaders, and many others would find this a great book to pass on to believers, young believers, and unbelievers. The book’s subject matter is deceptively easy to obscure. There are... Read more
I am loving Al Mohler and Michael Horton chopping up the significance of Good Friday. These two guys think and speak clearly. Michael Horton has written very helpfully about modern Christianity and its shortcomings (start with The Gospel-Driven Life). I also enjoyed Josh Harris’s program on his new book Dug Down Deep (Multnomah, 2010). Of course, many callers wanted to talk about I Kissed Dating Goodbye (Multnomah, 1997). Running down this rabbit trail, I wonder how many questions Harris has... Read more
Are you watching Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution? It’s viewable online and is quite entertaining in a reality-show kind of way. Even if Jamie does cry a bit much for my tastes. The show showcases the hideous and death-inducing eating habits of many people, some of whom don’t know any better and aren’t in a position to help themselves. We’ve transferred our indulgences to our children, and they are unhealthy and impoverished as a result. It’s a sad and sickening situation. In a... Read more
The booklist for Band of Bloggers has been released, and it includes such brand-new titles as David Platt’s Radical and Kevin DeYoung’s The Good News We Almost Forgot. There are less than 40 spots left, so to get these and more than $200 of deeply edifying works, sign up post-haste. This is your final boarding call. ********** Relevant just interviewed Ben Stiller, star of Greenberg. This film sounds culturally insightful (featuring a deficient man) but very morally problematic. ********** Andrew... Read more
David Brooks poses an interesting question in his column today: Two things happened to Sandra Bullock this month. First, she won an Academy Award for best actress. Then came the news reports claiming that her husband is an adulterous jerk. So the philosophic question of the day is: Would you take that as a deal? Would you exchange a tremendous professional triumph for a severe personal blow? He concludes his editorial with this–it’s worth chewing on: [M]ost of us pay... Read more
If you haven’t read recent texts by Westminster West professor Michael Horton, you should. He’s a cultural critic of evangelicalism and has much good to say. Here are some videos to check out. ************** While we’re on the subject of cultural critics of evangelicalism, we visit historian Darryl Hart’s blog for a provocative piece. I heard Hart at the recent Wheaton conference on the early church, where he jokingly called the church fathers the “church parents” in light of gender inclusive... Read more
Slate recently ran a story about men they called “Omega males.” Definitely not Alpha, not quite Beta. Essentially, this class of men is drifting through their post-college and thirtysomething years, not making much of themselves, struggling to find love, and making little dent on the world. This kind of guy seems to have proliferated in the current day, and that is a problem, even for mainstream cultural commentators. Here’s a snatch from the piece: In the social hierarchy of a... Read more
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