Archive for the ‘living the christian year’ tag
Week in Review: What’s your story? How do you tell it?
What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.
1. Inhabiting God’s story? Over the past several days Tom hosted Bobby Gross, National Director of InterVarsity’s Graduate & Faculty Ministry. They had a number of conversations with faculty, pastors, and friends of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. As part of the visit, Bobby participated in an Ascension Day service at First Presbyterian Church, York, PA. The gathering was in partnership with Hearts and Minds Bookstore. One of Byron Borger’s recent blog posts related to the event, Living the Christian Year author Bobby Gross to speak here on Ascension Day (5/10/2010) commends several books on the topic. In another post Byron shares that the beginning of Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God is worth the price of the book. Here’s an excerpt he highlights:
“Most of us think of ourselves as ordinary people living quiet lives in unremarkable places. We are merely hobbits in our shires. But listen! We may not be caught up in dangerous drama like Frodo and his loyal companion, Sam, but we nonetheless live inside a big story, one that started long before our birth and that will go on long after our death, one that’s as wide as the universe and as old as eternity: the Story of God as centered in Jesus the Christ.
Our personal narratives take their fullest shape and deepest meaning in relation to God’s purposes for us and for the world. As Eugene Peterson puts it, “God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.” A very large context and very long plot indeed. — Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God (5/11/2010)
2. Want to know Why Amish businesses don’t fail (Geoff Williams, CNN Money, 5/4/2010), then read Erik Wesner’s new book Success Made Simple: An Inside Look at Why Amish Businesses Thrive. By-the-way, the 95% success rate Wesner uses is based upon a 2009 report by Elizabethtown College sociology professor Donald Kraybill, who has spoken for two Central PA Emerging Scholars Network events. HT: Scot McKnight, Business folks, what do you see here? (5/13/2010).
“studying several Amish settlements, Kraybill found failure rates ranging from 2.6% and 4.2%; interviews with loan officers, accountants and industry professions in other Amish regions yielded additional anecdotal evidence of closure rates significantly south of 10%.Compare that to the average five-year survival rate for new businesses across the United States, which hovers just under 50%. So what’s the secret?” — Why Amish businesses don’t fail (Geoff Williams, CNN Money, 5/4/2010)
3. The New War Between Science and Religion (Mano Singham, The Chronicle Review, 5/9/2010) opens
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Before the Presence of God
No Week-in-Review this week. May this quotation from Living the Christian Year help put your Christmas in proper perspective.
So in this season we come once more to Bethlehem in the poverty of the shepherds and humility of the Magi. We bow before the feedbox which holds the Bread of Life, the gift by which we’re enriched. We find our words, even our poetry, failing us, as Dietrich Bonheoffer so eloquently discerned:
“Our words rush out at the sight of the divine child; we try to put into language what is implied in the name: Jesus. But at the bottom these words are nothing except a worldless silence of adoration before the ineffable, before the presence of God in the shape of a human child.” — Bobby Gross, Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God, InterVarsity Press, 2009, p.74.
Week in Review: Advent Edition
What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? Anything special with some time off or is there too much going on with the holiday?
As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. In addition, if you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.
1. Sabbath? Who has time for a sabbath? – Regular reader Tobin sends us this from the always funny PhD (“Piled Higher and Deeper”) Comics.
2. Are you desiring to become more familiar with the lectionary as we begin Advent? If so, swing by Christine Sine’s post Daily Bible Readings For Advent, consider Living in the Christian Year, and/or visit the daily posts of Following the Star (HT Arlene). Note: If you have suggestions to throw in the mix, please comment or drop us a note for inclusion in next week’s post.
3. More on Living the Christian Year. IVP has Lauren Winner’s foreword and the first chapter, “Discovering Sacred Time,” available for free download. Also, a Facebook group has been created for those who want to live the Christian year together.
4. Looking for stocking stuffers? Listen to Christmas Books, Part 2 (Podcast, posted 11/30/09) in which Stan Guthrie and John Wilson discuss some good books to give and receive. Any additional suggestions you have for our Christmas Wish List?
5. An early Christmas gift for science buffs: The Royal Society (the world’s oldest scientific society, founded 1660) has created Trailblazing, a timeline of landmark scientific papers and events, with links to the original Royal Society articles. We’re talking important stuff here: Newton’s theory of color and light, Leeuwenhoek’s discovery of microbes, Benjamin Franklin’s famous kite experiment, an examination of an 8-year-old Mozart…you’ll waste at least an hour looking at these.
