The Squire And The Parson is a song based on a local fable that features the titular squire and parson, a struggle in the dark, and mistaken identity.
Whimsical fun.
The Squire And The Parson is a song based on a local fable that features the titular squire and parson, a struggle in the dark, and mistaken identity.
Whimsical fun.
This is a fascinating exercise.
David Cook – preacher and teacher of preachers with decades of experience audits the preaching of the denomination whose preaching conference he’s hosting.
From Cook:
In conducting the audit I listened online to 40 preachers, with at least one from each of the 13 Presbyteries in the state. The preachers included students for the ministry, ministers and lecturers. Age-wise, about one-third were in their 20’s and 30’s; another one-third in their 40’s and 50’s and the final one-third over 60. I tried to listen to the sermons as close to the first Sunday in November as I could.
Read his observations and conclusions at AP Online.
Closer Than A Brother by Josh Garrels.
A reminder from Chad Bird that life as a disciple of Jesus is life with the Church; and growth as a disciple of Jesus with the church is a slow-cooker experience, not a microwave experience.
The work of Jesus in our lives, and in the life of his church, creeps along like that Matthew genealogy. It’s not radical, explosive, immediate, incredible, or any other dazzling adjective you can select from the Thesaurus of Spiritual Excitement. There’s no microwaving this sacred meal. It’s going to take time. It’s going to be humdrum most of the time. Worship won’t be an ongoing string of wow! mind-blowing! incredible! experiences that leave us tingling with the skintight closeness of the Spirit.
Jesus is more of a take-his—sweet—time gardener than an applause-inducing circus performer. Novelty is not his way. We often want it to be. Indeed, as the devil Screwtape brags in one of his letters to the junior tempter, “The horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the human heart.” Unsatisfied with the built-in rhythms of change in daily lie, “the horror of the Same Old Thing” demands novelty for novelty’s sake. “Unchanged” comes to mean “stagnant.” But think advent, not adrenaline, when you picture life in Christ’s church.Chad Bird, Your God Is Too Glorious, Baker Books, 2018, 127.
