Welcome to the online home of Tim Challies, blogger, author, and book reviewer.
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I am in the unique and enjoyable position of receiving copies of most of the latest and greatest Christian books and I like to provide regular roundups of some of the best and brightest of the bunch. Of all the books I have received recently, here are the ones that appear most noteworthy. Rhythms of Grace by Mike Cosper. “Confusion abounds over how to define the term “worship.” Is it singing? A service? Something that encompasses all of life? Helping …
While most of what finds its way into my mailbox is books, I also receive a surprising amount of music. This works out well since I happen to love listening to music while going about my daily work. Here are a few of my favorite recent albums. Jesus in My Place by The Summit Church. This is an album of modern worship that focuses on the good news of the gospel. The artists say, “Our prayer is that these songs deepen …
The Santorum Predicament – I enjoyed Dr. Mohler’s take on The Santorum Predicament. “Rick Santorum is still a long shot for the Republican nomination, but his candidacy and its coverage in the mainstream media tell us a great deal about the fate of conservative candidates and conservative convictions in the public square.” Bethlehem Succession Plan – It’s interesting to read about Bethlehem Baptist Church’s succession plan for John Piper. It is an unusual process to have to go through–to seek …
One of the happier musical developments in the Christian world over the past few years has been the resurgence of hymns. Though there are many contemporary worship songs that have excellent content and are ideal for congregational worship, we just can’t afford to lose the hymn. There are two different kinds of contemporary hymn. In the first place, we have artists writing new hymns that come complete with new tunes. Alongside that we have artists who are finding old hymns …
The band All Star United has released some good and fun songs over the years. Unfortunately I’ve sometimes found them to toe the line a little bit with their humor. On the whole, though, they write some memorable songs and songs that tend to speak to some of the trends in the Christian world. They have an album coming out in a few weeks and one of the songs is called “Song of the Year.” Written by Ian Eskelin, who …
Andrew Beaujon has a strange fascination with Christian music; though he is not a Christian, he enjoys listening to this music and has spent a great deal of time seeking to trace its history and to understand the genre and the subculture it has inspired. Body Piercing Saved My Life is the result of his investigation. The book’s title is inspired by a t-shirt he saw at Cornerstone Festival, which showed a picture of Jesus’ nail-pierced hands and that same …
Paul Jones, organist and Music Director at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia is, by all accounts, a very talented individual. He was privileged to serve alongside James Boice (who once said “Paul is everything I ever prayed for in a music director”) and now works closely with Philip Ryken in serving one of America’s foremost Presbyterian churches. Singing and Making Music, subtitled “Issues in Church Music Today” is Jones’ attempt to distill and share some of his years of accumulated …
Reformed Christians are increasingly divided over how they ought to worship God. For many Reformed believers, this is an issue of great urgency. D.G. Hart and John R. Muether wrote With Reverence And Awe (Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship) to address this topic. They call the book a primer on worship, “a brief overview of how Reformed theology informs the way we think about, put together, and participate in the worship service. Our aim is to help church …
The most enduring memories I have of my grandfather involve sitting with him at the Legion Hall while he and I at a big plate of brown beans and he recounted some of his memories of the war. He was always so proud to take me along and show me off to the other Veterans who seemed to spend so much time at that Hall. At one point I even interviewed him for a high school project in which we …
Too often, when Christians discuss worship, they go little further than arguments about styles of music. The “worship wars” that have plagued the modern church are a prime example of this. Many churches have fallen apart and many Christians have been deeply hurt over styles of music. Churches that have sought to be progressive and contemporary have often done away with hymns, throwing away hundreds of years of Christian tradition in the process. Other churches have refused to sing any …