Today’s Kindle deals include a few books that span the categories.
Westminster Books is holding a clearance sale to clear out some overstock; there are good deals to be had.
(Yesterday on the blog: Matt Chandler’s Radical Reminder that “God Is For God”)
5 Things We’ve Learned as We Transition from an Ethnic to a Multicultural Church
I really enjoyed reading this. It tells of a Filipino church in Toronto that has been making the transition to a multicultural church. “We started out in 1998 as a church plant of First Filipino Baptist Church in the west end of Toronto. Made up primarily of immigrants and their kids who had been in Canada for over 20 years, we began with the express desire of becoming a multicultural congregation. We’re not there yet, but, by God’s grace, we’ve made progress toward becoming more diverse.”
Introducing the Pain-Pleasure Worldview
Switching from TGC Canada to TGC Australia, here’s an interesting one that attempts to interpret the dominant worldview in Western culture today. It’s clear that we are in a time of transition, but what are we changing to? Perhaps it’s a pain-pleasure worldview.
50 Good Mental Health Habits
There’s a lot of good common sense here. “My goal in this post is to identify goals for each area of life that influences mental health: cognitive perspective, physical well-being, social context, spiritual vitality, general life management, emotional regulation, etc. Sometimes we need to be reminded that no one area of life can completely account for our mental health.”
World War II’s Other Iconic Photo
No photo from World War II is more iconic than the American flag being raised over Iwo Jima. But this one comes close. Here’s the story behind it.
Three Types of People Who Help the Church
Josh Buice: “In a recent article, I warned about three types of people who often hinder the local church. Today, I want to point to three very different types of people in the local church who are a great help to the building up of the body in love. If every church had these types of people, they would benefit greatly from their engagement in the body life. Are you a person who helps or hurts your local church?”
Why Your Small Life Is Not Meaningless
“The pale blue dot gives evidence to a living Savior. Many Christians intuitively know all this. Christ unlocks the perplexing mysteries of this earth, whether or not we can fully understand those mysteries now. But of course this is only to speak of the visible world. To understand the visible world of Sagan, we must catch a precious glimpse of the unseen world that animates it.”
Double the Trouble if You Ignore the Context
This is a good reminder not to ignore the context for any Bible passage.
Flashback: 5 Questions To Ask of a Book Before You Read It
They are far and away the most common questions I receive (beyond, perhaps, how to pronounce my name—it rhymes with “valleys”): Can you tell me anything about this author? Have you heard of this book? Is it safe to read? Sometimes people ask to avoid wasting time or money on a book that would not be worth either one, and sometimes they ask to avoid the influence of false doctrine. Since I can’t answer all the questions, and since I can’t know all the books and authors, I’ll offer a few tips on sorting it all out and do so in the form of 5 questions you can ask of any book.
The world does not need cool Christians who are culturally saturated. It needs exiles with the scent of heaven and the aroma of Christ.
—John Piper
