a few words, Church, indian metal, and Book Recommendations of 2007

a)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

b)

Some of you know I care a lot about the Church. I think the only kind of Christians who aren’t serving, attending, and sharing their lives with others in a Church are disobedient.

That’s been a bit of a problem this year for me. We definitely go to Church, but the last week was difficult. Its kinda lame. Because it was “advent”, we didn’t have sermons, we had presentations on the Christmas traditions of different countries.

As inspiring as it is to know that in India, New Zealand, and Korea they all eat lots of food (shocking…), I’d prefer to hear the Word of God heralded. Anyways, that combined with the fact that sometimes singing Christmas carols sometimes seems more like a nice Christmas tradition than a time of Praise has made my enthusiasm for my Church here much lower.

Whattaya do? As I thought about it, I remembered reading Stop Dating Your Church and hearing other people talk about commitment to a Church. I remembered that a Church is a family and a community.

In New Testament times, if you were in Philippi and didn’t like the food they were serving at the Lord’s Table or weren’t too hot on the Spiritual Song selection going on, you couldn’t just jump ship and go to Philippi Presbyterian. There was only one deal in town. Commitment to a Church means sticking together, not about going to be entertained and served, no matter what kind of Spiritual language we try to use to make it sound less selfish (get fed, meet my Worship needs).

Today was Sunday, and we often do this really long prayer thing... in my pride, I thought of how easily I would be able to reform this practice to make it more orderly and edifying, and less awkward and long were I in charge. I knew I needed to pray for humility and a God-honouring attitude on Sunday mornings.

c)

HOWEVER, last week at Church there was a Christian-Tamil-Metal band that played a few songs at Church. SOOOOO good.

d)

Another year has come and gone, and I have read a bunch of books. I’m gonna recommend some – these are not ones that were just great for me, but ones that I think are accessible to most Christians.

First:

John Piper

I planned on reading two Piper books this year. I read four. Piper sometimes jokes (or the Piper-equivalent of joking) that all his books are about the same thing. That’s not true – I’ve heard and read a tonne by him and been taught by people who have heard and read a tonne by him but I’m still impressed by almost every book I read at how much insight he has. What I guess I’ll note this time - “What’s The Difference” which is about gender roles. An extremely careful work, this helped me better understand the difference between the roles of men and women.

- Knowing God by JI Packer

If 400 pages of meditation on the character of God does not sound like fun to you, its not that you are a bad Christian, its that you are missing out on some of the most transcendent experiences of beauty this side of eternity. Read this book, pray that God will open the eyes of your heart, and you may just encounter the Living God

- Christ my Mediator by CJ Mahaney

Maybe a little easier to swallow, this is a real short, readable reflection on the Cross and its implications for our lives. The Christian life never moves away from a need for a deeper understanding of the Cross, and CJ Mahaney is a great guy to learn that from.

- Sex isn't the Problem Lust Is by Josh Harris

Its been said of another book on this topic, “it’s like dragging your mind through the mud”. This book isn’t –its pg, easy to read, honest, and incredibly God-centered. Harris is underrated and unfortunately stuck as the “Kissed Dating Goodbye” guy. This isn’t just an attempt to cash in on his previous success, this is a good book.

- Here I Stand: The Story of Martin Luther

I’ve written about this in an earlier post. Not as difficult as you’d expect, and very fair approach to examining the man’s life. And Luther’s an incredibly interesting guy.

Anyways, if you’ve still got boxing day sales to check out, get ‘em