A Project in Audio Format

I have never really liked trying to find Christmas gifts for every member of my family. For some reason, I really love buying Ali things, but when it comes to aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents, these things get more complicated.

I end up buying gift cards or something that ends up meaning very little.

Are you resonating?

This year, I really wanted to do something that would actually mean something to my family. On Thanksgiving, my grandparents were telling us about their first few months of marriage. How my grandfather was 25 and my grandma was 19 and they were living in a rented apartment above the home of an elderly couple, baring making the bills as grandpa taught at the local junior high school. Imagining my grandparents as young and unsure of their future was so interesting to me. Beyond this, it was really my grandparents who started the legacy of following Jesus fully in my family. Without them, I'm unsure how I would have heard the gospel, and the same goes for my mother and her siblings and my siblings. They were highly influential.

When I heard them telling their old stories, I thought, I have to get this on record.

I am a fan of stories. I love good stories, that's partly why I read. But I think more than written stories, I love when people tell stories orally.

So I sat down with Grandma and Grandpa for about 4 hours one Friday afternoon and we recorded everything they could remember that was of some significance. I managed to edit it down to about an hour, and I wanted to share it with you all. This took me a lot longer than I thought, but thanks to Christmas break and a brief stint in unemployment, I was able to put my time to good use.

I would encourage you to do something like this in your family, even if you don't like them at all. Make a movie, write a book, or whatever. Due to the information age, I think we assume historical record will happen for us. But I think the more options for technology we get, the less we care about what we actually use that technology for. So we update our status' but don't record our legacies.

Blogger has trouble posting audio, or maybe it's just because it's a LOT of audio...not sure. But I'm linking to my other blog that I don't really publicize, one I use for the purpose of another hard drive. I've cleaned it up a bit, and so here it is, the story of my grandparents, Gary and Norma Poppinga.

Click Here

Feel free to download it, share it, whatever. The volume changes because I'm an amateur. Disclaimer disclaimer.

Sustaining Grace

October/November of 2007 were very difficult times in my life. While suffering has not ceased in my life, the reality of the human condition certainly struck me during those two months. Before that time, God gave me this poem by John Piper called, "What is Sustaining Grace?" I quoted this in a sermon I gave during that time on the victory of God in midst of suffering. It not only helped my soul, but it intellectually provided me with the knowledge of how strong God's grace is over all time.

Recently, Justin Taylor quoted the poem; it has stayed in my mind for years.

"What is Sustaining Grace?" by John Piper

Not grace to bar what is not bliss,
Nor flight from all distress, but this:
The grace that orders our trouble and pain,
And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.

The Nerve!

This guy thinks he can just take a call in my history of ancient philosophy class? Well, he was right; no one said anything...pretty sly.



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John Piper on C.S. Lewis

For the past 22 years, Pastor John Piper has held a conference for pastors at his church in Minnesota. Whatever you think about Dr. Piper's philosophy, theology, or preaching, he is a great help to a lot of pastors. He is probably the only old preacher I am aware of who stresses and encourages passion amongst the younger generations. He is incredibly well read and lives a simpler life than many, many people.

Each year at his conference for pastors, he holds the tradition of presenting a biography of a great Christian man during one of the speaking slots. This year, he presented the life of my greatest intellectual influence: C.S. Lewis. The link will take you to the manuscript (which has an impressive amount of footnotes), but you can also watch it or listen to it. Lewis lived such an interesting life and I just thought I could use this platform to point you in that direction.

I greatly benefited from it, and it was awesome to hear such an intense Bible scholar like Piper praise and thank God for such a guy like Lewis who was in no way a Biblical scholar, and who was never once in pastoral ministry.

"The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is ‘to glorify God and enjoy Him forever’. But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy him.”

-C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

Conquered Words: January

This is my monthly post where I tell you what I have read and (ever so briefly) what I thought about each work. If you haven't read these books, then read this blog and pretend that you did!

Well it's a new year and I'm super excited about it. In 2010 I, among other things, will get married to the my favorite woman (who also happens to be incredibly beautiful), hold a new job, graduate from college, and read tons of new books.

Here, then, are those books which I have already conquered this year. Since I have started another term of school, I will list the books I read for classes at the end, which I will not tell you about because I have to tell multiple professors about them and that would be both a waste of time and boring. While it may seem like a read a lot of books, I also have read more scripture this month than I think any other month. It's been great to dwell in some of the most powerful and beautiful words humans have uttered.

Here's what I read:

1) The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction by Eugene Peterson (Eerdmans, 171 pages) I was so close to finishing this that I just want to lump it in to December. But here we are in the January edition. I think I finished this on the 3rd or something like that. Peterson is, as I have said before, such a brilliant and completely unique voice in Christian thought and is another one of my new favorites. His closeness to God can be noticed in his writing. This book, which came in my life at the right time, is a wonderful meditation on the pastorate. Peterson has worn many hats, but he always prefers people call him "pastor." He has great thoughts about the life of a pastor and what it really means biblically to shepherd and guide a group of people in the ways of God. It was an extremely humbling read.

2) Counterfeit Gods by Tim Keller (Dutton, 240 pages) I love Tim Keller. He is my total role model pastor and teacher. Unfortunately, I will never be exactly like him because God built me this way. But next to C.S. Lewis, Keller is the man. If we look back in 20 years and recognize a few people who are responsible for this whole urban church planting phenomenon, we'll mention Tim Keller for sure. This is his book on idolatry where he argues the preeminence of idols in current American Culture and their effect on the Spiritual vitality of the world. It is more biblical than the rest of his books, while at the same time he keeps a very good eye on modern culture. Pretty good for a dude pushing 60. I couldn't say enough good things about Tim Keller.

3) The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis (HarperOne, 208 pages) YES, I've read this before. But due to what was going on in my life, I needed to read it again. This is Lewis' best work; a smattering of lectures and sermons he gave in local churches in London and elsewhere. The topics are all over the place but are simply a delight. It also includes the last sermon Lewis ever delivered, "A Slip of the Tongue," which speaks to the person who can believe in God but just can't surrender it all to Jesus. Fitting. "The Weight of Glory" is the title to one of his lectures at the beginning of the book. I had some guys I'm discipling read it and we had an amazing discussion over Lewis' words...he is close to scripture.

4) Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts by Les and Leslie Parrot (Zondervan, 176 pages) I first met Les Parrot when I walked in to Psych 103 at Seattle Pacific University. He was an ego maniac. I did not like him, I'll be honest. He made us read one of his books and write a review about it and then tell us in class only the good things about it. Yeah...So when Joel and Joy (our premarital counselors and long time friends) told Ali and I to read this book, I was a bit skeptical seeing as I would be reading marriage advice from a guy with the last name Parrot and I bit of an ego problem. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT...wasn't so bad. The couple is renowned for their marriage tips and they attach seven questions you should be able to answer at the time of your wedding and their thoughts have been very good for me to steep in. It has provided Ali and I great conversation and I'll most likely write a little bit about it here later.

5) Your Jesus Is Too Safe by Jared C. Wilson (Kregel, 287 pages) This was the first book given to me by Jeff Patterson, my new boss at Willamette Christian Church. He said that this was the best book he read all year as he gave it over to me. With such high expectations, it is good to report that this is a wonderful book. I know nothing about this author except for his vision of who Jesus is which is biblical, historical, and transformative. Wilson walks through different aspects of Christ: Promise, Prophet, Man, Shepherd, Judge, Redeemer, King, Love, Savior, and many others. Essentially his argument is to much credit of Driscoll, Elderidge, and pretty much anybody who speaks out against the "safeness" of Jesus. In some ways this book is not unique at all as Wilson's idea is perhaps as old as Paul. However, Wilson's rhetoric is refreshing and not repetitive, which is something Christian authors fall into ALL THE TIME. Anyways, if anything, this book gave me more Jesus, which I could always use.

You'll notice I read a lot of Christian books, which is something I don't always do. But I read a lot of Christian books because of the changes God was throwing at me, but also because I'm in the middle of the school year and in the middle of the school year I have low amounts of vitamin D and read a lot of very dry, scholarly books. HEY, don't get me wrong, everything listed below I really did LOVE. I just can't comment on them. Here's what I read in class:

Plato's Meno, Republic, and Ion
Random scholarly articles from Ph.D's in Rhetoric and Composition
Bonk by Mary Roach
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace

Wow. I didn't realize I read that much. I guess those two weeks of unemployment really helped out. Some of these books were just finishing them up after I started them over Christmas break. ALSO: NO CABLE TOTALLY HELPS.

Keep reading, friends.

Why I Hate the Word "Nice" and Love the Word "New"

"A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world - and might even be more difficult to save...God became man to turn us into sons: not simply produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man."

-C.S. Lewis


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How 'bout This Here Technology

Well I'm now part of the movement of iPhones...it's very difficult to write a paper after you buy one of these things. But having an iPhone and saving 30 bucks a month on my cell phone bill is a whole different story...or post. By the way...check out how I'm posting this by looking at the bottom of the post.

Peace!


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