Music of Late

Meg and I watched a movie the other night called Once and were blown away by the soundtrack so we grabbed it off of iTunes the next day.  Most of the tracks are by a guy named Glen Hansard and are flat out ridiculously good (“Falling Slowly” and “When Your Mind’s Made up” are my [...]

Where No Todd Has Gone Before

This morning I ventured to a place I’ve never been before: 1.11.7 of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion.  I’ve tried two other times in my life to set myself to reading Calvin’s massive work and today I surpassed the furthest point I’ve ever made it (which, admittedly, isn’t really that far).
Here’s to a year [...]

Introducing: Project 2 Pillars

Some of you know me better than others. Some of you know all about this, some of you know a little bit about this, and others of you don’t know anything about this.
About two and a half years ago, I began sensing God calling me out of my current career path. The short [...]

Mercy and Evangelism

“The ministry of mercy, then, is the best advertising a church can have. It convinces a community that this church provides people with actions for their problems, not only talk. It shows the community that this church is compassionate.”
–Tim Keller, Ministries of Mercy (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing), p 212.

Hearts Like Paul’s

This past Sunday I had the privilege of preaching at Believer’s Church up in Hannibal, Missouri (a little hour north of St. Louis).  My friend Sam is the pastor up there.  I first met Sam through the Acts 29 Network – he was one of my assessors at the bootcamp we attended back in October.
I [...]

January Residency Starts Today

This morning I’ll be heading down to Covenant Theological Seminary for a week long residency spanning this morning through Saturday noon while I take vacation time from my day job.  This is part of my pursuit of my M.A. in Theological Studies there at the seminary and is my second of three residencies that I [...]

Grudem Systematic Reading Plan

One of the reading projects I’m tackling this year is a large portion of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. All total, I’m planning to read 20 of the book’s 57 chapters. In order to break it down and plan it out over the course of the year, I created [...]

Worshiping a Figment of Your Heart

The quote below is from my morning devotion time today and serves as a constant reminder to myself to check my vanity and to check my pride and to humbly submit myself to Scripture.  To come under it rather than at it.
Indeed, vanity joined with pride can be detected in the fact that, in seeking [...]

WordPress Oddity – Spell Checker

I’ve always found it odd that WordPress’s spell checker doesn’t recognize the words “WordPress” or “blog”.

Reading List Updated (Why I Hate WordPress)

I finally updated my reading list on the right side-bar.  It’s been stale for about 2 months now because WordPress makes updating it a pain.  If only they were down with Shelfari….
Anyway, the list is updated so you can see what I’m reading and how I’m chipping away at my 2009 Reading Projects.

Mercy – Where is My Neighbor?

“Mercy is a command of God, yet it cannot simply be a response to a demand. It must arise out of heats made generous and gracious by an understanding and experience of God’s mercy. It is the hearts of the congregation that must be melted until they ask, “Where is my neighbor?”
–Tim Keller, [...]

Who Would Jesus Smack Down?

The NY Times recently ran an article titled Who Would Jesus Smack Down that highlights the ministry of Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church. It’s worth your time to give it a read.
Update: After further thought, I probably should have offered my take on the article and not simply post a link to it.  [...]

Do You Have the Spirit of a Deacon?

“Those of us without the spirit of a deacon are too proud to do little things and too lazy to do big things. Our service is mediocre; it transforms no one. But a deacon will do it all.”
–Tim Keller, Ministries of Mercy (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing), p 139.

Random Nerd 1.9.09 – Spreadsheet Art

I love Excel, but this takes the use of spreadsheets to a whole new level.

Another Best of 2008 Albums List

Kevin Cawley is a church planter in K.C.  Here’s his list of favorite albums of 2008.  I found his 2007 list via some other blog and began following Kevin’s blog thereafter.  His 2007 list yielded many hours of listening enjoyment via MySpace and resulted in a few new albums purchased for my collection.  I’m sure [...]

The New Work Ethic

Mike Elgan has written a challenging and provoking article over at internetnews.com with regard to the new work ethic.  Below are a few quotes, but I’d encourage you to go read Work Ethic 2.0: Attention Control yourself for a spot-on analysis of a new generation in the workforce.

The industrial revolution didn’t arise out of nowhere, [...]

Random Nerd 1.2.09 – Triadic Interaction and Huggable Robots

Via Engineering TV:
The Huggable companion robot from MIT is designed to be much more than a fun interactive robotic companion. It is designed to function as a team member that is an essential member of a triadic interaction. Therefore, the Huggable is not designed to replace any particular person in a social [...]

The Discipline of Reading (2009 Reading Projects)

This year I’m determined (resolved?) to add some discipline to my reading habits. This means adding some structure and planning. There’s always a vast amount of books that I want to read and I’m always buying books faster than I read them.
With this in mind, I sat down with my Moleskine and pen [...]