This is the last day of my vacation. In just a few hours I’m going to be heading back to the city and getting back to real life. How disappointing. Thankfully this was a good and relaxing week. Since I am not feeling too reflective today, I thought I’d ramble a little bit about what I accomplished did this week.

Read. I read four complete books and got most of the way through another. I guess that averages a couple of hundred pages per day. I even read one book that had absolutely nothing to do with Christianity (something I only do a few times per year).

Friends. A couple of sets of aunts/uncles/cousins came by and I spent a good bit of time with them. I also caught up with my friend Gerard (who posts in the forums as drareg) and his family. This was the first time I really had the opportunity to meet his wife and his children. It was great to see that he has done awfully well for himself!

Sunset. I’m not sure why, but for some reason I watched only one of the seven sunsets I could have seen. Our dock looks over the lake and the sun sets below the far shore. It is quite a sight.

Swam. I hate swimming, but I forced myself into the water three or four times. The fish were really active this week and everyone was remarking about getting bitten. Thankfully most of the fish are of the toothless variety (sunfish, etc). It is more annoying than painful to have these fish nibbling on toes, fingers, moles or whatever else they might confuse with dinner.

Ate. Too much, but I’m on vacation so allowed myself some leeway. Shame on me.

Blogged. Not as much as I usually do, but I decided to keep blogging through my vacation. While I posted every day, I was not able to track the subsequent discussions as my connection up here is discouragingly slow and I have to dial-up over a shared phone line.

Worshipped. We had a great time of family worship last Sunday with Phil Johnson standing in as preacher. None of us remembered to bring along a sermon tape, so I snooped around my hard drive and found a collection of Phil Johnson sermons I downloaded a couple of years ago. We listened to a sermon (or perhaps a seminar) on justification that was very well-done.

Played. I’m not one of those parents who really enjoys playing games with the kids, but I’m usually up for some sports or other fun. So I played with the kids, read to them, and made sure we had a good time together.

Dated. Aileen and I celebrated our anniversary this week with a nice trip to Kingston, a nearby city that is beautiful and fun to visit.

Sold. My parents sold the cottage this week. So this is my last year at the cottage I’ve visited every summer since I was born. In fact, I was here before I was born, as my mother remembers sitting with the next door neighbour as they dangled their feet in the water and talked about their pregnancies. A couple of weeks after I was born, the neighbour gave birth to Nick who has long been a great friend, though one I see only very occasionally.

Today I am going to hang around for a little while and then pack my bags and leave. I will swing by again next weekend to pick up Aileen and the kids, as they’ve decided to stay up here with the rest of my family for another week. So I will be “baching” it for the next few days, something I am quite looking forward to as it will allow me to work extremely long hours and get a lot of work done.

I feel completely disorganized. My usual workweek involves sitting at my desk for the full 40 hours. From Monday to Friday I sit at my desk from 9 AM to 5 PM with very few exceptions. I have developed a nice little routine. The past two days I have spent very little time at my desk. Yesterday I drove into Niagara-on-the-Lake for meetings with two sets of friends and clients and then had more meetings that took up most of this morning. While all the meetings were great, and it was especially nice to meet Kevin (an occasional reader and all-around nice guy), I am now officially out of sorts. I have prepared nothing to post today, so am going to do little more than provide some links you a little bit of this and that. Mostly ramblings.

Over the past four days I’ve been reading Jack by George Sayer. I decided I’d read 100 pages a day and was quite easily able to meet that goal. It is a biography of C.S. Lewis written by one of Lewis’s close friends. Sayer is clearly a master of the English language. While I had no great interest in the subject matter, I was drawn into the book primarily by the strength of the author’s writing. Having read the book I have to rate it as one of my favorite biographies, not so much because of the subject, but because of the author. I’ll post a review of it soon enough.

While we’re on the subject of Lewis, I’ve decided that I should read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe before the movie releases later this year. It has been a long time since I have read the series, so I will need to refresh my memory before I see the movie.

I will probably be making a few changes to this site in the coming weeks. I am hoping to add a couple of new features. Unfortunately they require some tricky CSS work, so it may take me a little while to develop and test them. Stay tuned.

Justin Taylor, (who?) whom I have often denied knowing in any way, is apparently an esteemed Reformed scholar. The proof is to be found at George Grant’s blog. I am quite sure that no one has ever called me “esteemed.” And I know that no one has ever refered to me as a scholar. I kind of doubt anyone ever will. Maybe if I go to seminary…

I assume that everyone is already reading PyroManiac’s series on the Fad-Driven Church. If not, you probably should. P.J. is still the flavor of the week in the Christian blogosphere. His PyroMarketing campaign has paid dividends!

That’s all you’ll be getting out of me today. I have got to do some work before all my clients desert me.

I’m so tired today I can barely think. And I’m not quite sure why. Thankfully it’s a Sunday afternoon - a time perfectly constructed for naps. So as soon as I hit the Post button I’m going to turn on the ball game, settle on the couch with a Coke (actually, a Diet Coke with Lime) and have a snooze.

I may be tired because yesterday I helped clean someone else’s house. And it was the messiest house I’ve ever seen. Think of the worst mess you’ve ever seen inside a house, mutiply it a few times, and that’s what we were dealing with. We’re talking about a house in which we felt the need (not merely the desire) to wear masks just to go inside the place. Anyways, I spent most of the day cleaning and lifting heavy things and it took a lot out of me.

And while I’m rambling on, I thought I’d tell you that my sister now has a blog. That’s right. My younger sister Susanna has begun blogging at Letter’ Rip. She is a very capable writer (much better than I am, I should think) and I hope she keeps on blogging. She began months ago, posted a couple of times and then forgot about it. But she has picked it up again and ensures me she intends to stick with it this time. She’s got a good article about my Aunt Nancy, whom I wrote about a couple of months ago.

A friend of mine from across the pond has also begun blogging. Andrew spent a couple of years living in Canada before deciding to head back to his native land far across the ocean.

And before I close and head for the sofa, Phil Johnson has promised more BlogSpotting posts as the week goes on. Merely by finding some witty way of talking about him or his site or one of his posts, you can get a link from his site that is sure to pay off with some visitors. So find a way of posting a meaingless and gratuitous link to his site, and I’m sure he’ll give you a shout-out. Prizes go to the person who does the most shameless job of begging a BlogSpotting link.

That’s all you’re getting out of me. I’m so tired I’m just about drooling on the keyboard. It’s time for me to go catch some z’s. Enjoy the rest of your Lord’s Day!

Adrian Warnock, who is one of the reviewers for the Diet of Bookworms book review program wants to begin reviewing commentaries. I told him that I in my opinion there would not be enough interest among readers of blogs. After all, the book review program only makes sense to publishers if the people reading the reviews are interested in the book. I thought a 352 page linguistic, literary, and theological commentary on the first four chapters of Genesis would not have popular appeal. He disagreed, so we decided to take it to a poll. You can vote at Adrian’s site.

A couple of months ago Albert Mohler mentioned that he would provide some commentary on D.A. Carson’s book Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church. He has finally posted the first part of his review which you can read here. I am not sure how many parts there will be to this article series. Part two will be posted tomorrow.

My friend Dan has just completed his 13-part mega-series on The Christian & the Business World. Dan, please create an index, at least on the first and last articles! While I have given the series a quick read, now that it’s complete I will go back and read it carefully. You might just benefit from doing the same.

Jollyblogger is selling I Think Therefore I Blog t-shirts. You know you want one! I can file this away in the “I wish I’d thought of that first” files…

And finally, Phil Johnson has a wonderful obituary for Dr. Jack MacArthur who died two weeks ago at the age of 91. He sums up MacArthur’s life with beautiful words from Scripture. “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord … that they may rest from their labours” (Revelation 14:13).

As some may have noticed, this was a busy week in the forums, and particularly in threads relating to Rick Warren (of which there are too many!). Richard Abanes has made some helpful posts where he tries to clarify certain matters. There have been many back-and-forth exchanges with him and various readers. Richard is publishing a book, set to release next month, and has agreed to an interview with me before then. So sometime later this month I will ask him all the tough questions that those who disagree with Purpose Driven teachings would like to ask of one who defends them. I will also be reading and reviewing his book as soon as it becomes available.

Coral Ridge Ministries is giving away a free book if you’re interested. It is entitled Save A Marriage, Save Our Nation and is written, of course, by D. James Kennedy. The description is as follows: “D. James Kennedy looks at the personal and public importance of marriage in this eye-opening examination into why marriage matters for all of us. Happy homes it turns out, make for a healthy culture. Dr. Kennedy also speaks candidly about what it takes to make your own marriage work, offering insight and biblical teaching to help you be everything you (and your spouse) want to be as a husband or wife.”

And finally…

Earlier this week I read a quote about preaching that caught my attention. I guess it interested me because I have been doing lots of reading about preaching this year, having read books like Famine in the Land, 9 Marks of a Healthy Church and Rediscovering Expository Preaching. Each of these books teaches that expository preaching is most faithful to the biblical model.

One defining characteristic of expository preaching is that it does not dwell on non-biblical examples. It does not focus on stories, jokes and anecdotes. Instead, it seeks to stay focused on the text in question.

Here is the quote. Realize that who said it is not the point, but rather, it is the words that matter. “I do believe in confessional preaching. I believe that you should confess both your strengths and your weaknesses. You don’t dwell on yourself, but in many ways the minister is the message. The word must become flesh. The best kind of preaching is incarnational preaching. The most effective message is when I am able to get up and say, ‘This is what God is doing in [the pastor’s] life this week. This is what I am learning. This is what I need to believe, what I need not to believe, what I need to do, what to not do.’”

I’m wondering if this type of preaching can be consistent with expository preaching. Does the pastor need to share what he is learning and what he needs to believe, or should he instead try to stick closely with the text? Or as this person says, is the minister the message, or should the minister try to do the exact opposite and fade into the background so that the message is the message and the minister is but a mouthpiece?

Help me out here as I try to understand different types of preaching…