On the Importance of Reading Church History

“When I started reading (The Descent of the Dove by Charles) Williams, I was a sectarian, ‘related’ only to a small coterie of people who lived and thought and prayed like me.  When I finished, I was part of a congregation centuries deep and continents wide.” 

Eugene Peterson
Take and Read: Spiritual Reading--An Annotated List

You'll Find Your Way

Being the father of a young man who is growing up so very quickly, this beautiful song is just as quickly becoming one of my favorites from Andrew Peterson...

Who is this Jesus?

Who is this Jesus whose birth we celebrate? He is the King! But he is no ordinary king.

I've shared this video of So Long Moses before. It's from Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God, and I think it does an amazing job of capturing how we are often looking for the wrong things in Christ. May it serve as a corrective to my heart and yours this Christmas, as we celebrate the birth of our King!

Carols of Christmas...Labor of Love

Jill Phillips singing Labor of Love from Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God.



Click here to see other posts in the Carols of Christmas series.

Andrew Peterson's Rest Easy

The other day I wrote a post about Andrew Peterson's upcoming album, Light for the Lost Boy. In conjunction with the release of this album, Peterson has been holding a contest asking fans to create a video for his song Rest Easy. The winning project will net a $1000 prize for its creator and will become the official music video for the song.

David Crabb is a friend and fellow pastor, and he posted at his blog this morning that a family in his church entered the contest and just found out that their video is one of ten finalists. It's really well done with plenty of little creative nuances throughout. Check it out below.

New Album from Andrew Peterson

I've made no secret of my appreciation for the music of Andrew Peterson. Many (if not a majority) of the music-related posts on this blog have dealt with his songs. So it's no surprise that I'm looking forward to the release of his latest album, Light for the Lost Boy, later this month.

To whet your appetite for the album, I've posted two videos below. First is a video that discusses the theme of the album as a whole, and then is one that is specifically about the song Rest Easy.

Behold the Lamb of God

Once again this December, Andrew Peterson (along with Ben Shive, Andy Gullahorn, Jill Phillips, Andrew Osenga, Jason Gray, Gabe Scott, Todd Bragg, Paul Eckberg, Claire Indie, and Cason Cooley) will be hitting the road for the Behold the Lamb of God tour.

I've never seen the show, but the album Behold the Lamb of God is a favorite of mine year 'round, not just at Christmas!  If you can make it to any of the following shows, I highly recommend it.  Click here and here to access some previous posts that include music from the show.

• Huntsville, AL Dec 1
• Louisville, KY Dec 2
• Milford, OH Dec 3
• Milford, OH Dec 4
• Knoxville, TN Dec 5
• Bullard, TX Dec 7
• Wichita Falls, TX Dec 8
• Cleburne, TX Dec 9
• League City, TX Dec 10
• Austin, TX Dec 11
• Montgomery, AL Dec 13
• Charlotte, NC Dec 14
• Charlotte, NC Dec 15
• Asheville, NC Dec 16
• Durham, NC Dec 17
• Nashville, TN Dec 18

Andrew Peterson - The Silence of God

This morning I came across this video over at Kevin DeYoung's blog.  I've mentioned on a number of occasions how much I appreciate Andrew Peterson's music.  He combines beautiful musicality and rich, poetic language to communicate deep, timeless messages.  The song The Silence of God from his album, Love and Thunder is certainly no exception.

It is far too common I fear, especially in the afterglow of Easter's triumph, for Christians to become triumphalistic, to think that all our troubles have been "nailed to the cross."  The reality of life is though, that we still suffer pain, we still face hardships, and there are still times when it feels like God is absent. As Peterson reminds us here, it is helpful, especially in those times to remember:

And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought

It's enough to drive a man crazy; it'll break a man's faith
It's enough to make him wonder if he's ever been sane
When he's bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod
And the heaven's only answer is the silence of God

It'll shake a man's timbers when he loses his heart
When he has to remember what broke him apart
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not
When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God

And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob
Who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they've got
When they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross
Then what about the times when even followers get lost?
'Cause we all get lost sometimes...

There's a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll
In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold
And He's kneeling in the garden, as silent as a Stone
All His friends are sleeping and He's weeping all alone

And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God

Fool With A Fancy Guitar

I've talked before on a number of occasions about Andrew Peterson and how much I enjoy his music.  While I enjoy the musical content of his songs, what I truly love about them is the rich depth of poetry and meaning in his lyrics.

I think I enjoy listening to Peterson's Counting Stars more than any other album.  Among the many songs that I love on it, my favorite is probably his ode to marriage, Dancing In the Minefields.  Not far behind it though is Fool With A Fancy Guitar, which beautifully explores our identity in Christ Jesus.  Here is a video of an acoustic presentation of this great song (with lyrics below).




FOOL WITH A FANCY GUITAR
Words and Music by Andrew Peterson

It’s so easy to cash in these chips on my shoulder
So easy to loose this old tongue like a tiger
It’s easy to let all this bitterness smolder
Just to hide it away like a cigarette lighter

It’s easy to curse and to hurt and to hinder
It’s easy to not have the heart to remember
That I am a priest and a prince in the Kingdom of God

I’ve got voices that scream in my head like a siren
Fears that I feel in the night when I sleep
Stupid choices I made when I played in the mire
Like a kid in the mud on some dirty blind street

I’ve got sorrow to spare, I’ve got loneliness too
I’ve got blood on these hands that hold on to the truth
That I am a priest and a prince in the Kindgom of God

I swore on the Bible to not tell a lie
But I’ve lied and lied
And I crossed my heart and I hoped to die
And I’ve died and died

But if it’s true that you gathered my sin in your hand
And you cast it as far as the east from the west
If it’s true that you put on the flesh of a man
And you walked in my shoes through the shadow of death

If it’s true that you dwell in the halls of my heart
Then I’m not just a fool with a fancy guitar
No, I am a priest and a prince in the Kingdom of God

So Long, Moses

A couple weeks ago, I blogged about Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God.  Today I want to share one of my favorite songs from the album, entitled So Long, Moses.  It deals with the longings and desires of Israel over the course of centuries leading up to the coming of Christ, and the fact that the perceived foolishness of God is far better than the wisdom of men.

What I love so much about this song is the fact that it does such a good job at capturing my heart. God has a perfect plan, but I consistently and stubbornly think that my plan is better. I want what I want. I should want what God wants...it is better by far!

Not only is it a great song with a great message, but the video below is quite skillfully made.  Please check it out.  It's worth your time.



(HT: Justin Taylor)

Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God

Since 2000, each December Andrew Peterson and friends have toured the country, playing songs from his album, Behold the Lamb of God.  As Peterson puts it, the album tells the TRUE tall tale of the coming of Christ.  To give you a little bit of a feel for the album, here are two of the songs from it, performed live at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium in 2004.  The first, Matthew's Begats, is a fun diddy about the genealogy of Christ.  The second one, Labor of Love, is a more subdued, realistic look at what it might have been like for Mary and Joseph on the night that Christ was born.





If you would like to hear the music from the whole album as well as see the lyrics, click here and then click on "OPEN PLAYER."  I hope this will motivate you to go check them out this December at one of their tour stops listed below.  If you (sadly, like me) can't make it to any of the performances, then buy the 10th Anniversary 2-disc set which includes both the original recordings as well as live performances.  It is one of my favorite albums, Christmas music or otherwise, and I couldn't agree more with the Dallas Morning News which wrote the following about the original album:

If you buy only one Christmas CD this year let it be this one. No doubt, Mr. Peterson is one of the finest singer/songwriters in Christian music. On “Behold” he is joined by some of the other best of the best, including Fernando Ortega, Derek Webb, Jill Phillips and Sandra McCracken. The result is an organic album that relies on strength of writing faithful to Scripture, expert musicianship on everything from piano to hammered dulcimer and vocals that are pure and honest. What you will hear is a new classic in the making.

Click here to read another person's thoughts on the concert, and for more information about the album or the tour, visit the Behold the Lamb of God website.

Date - City

2 - Durham, NC
3 - Richmond, VA
4 - Milford, OH
5 - Milford, OH
7 - Huntsville, AL
8 - Jackson, TN
9 - Topeka, KS
10 - Lincoln, NE
12 - Knoxville, TN
14 - Montgomery, AL
15 - Charlotte, NC
16 - Nashville, TN
17 - Houston, TX
18 - Wichita Falls, TX
19 - Corsicana, TX

Marriage: Fifteen Years In

Well, today is my fifteenth wedding anniversary. I am thankful to God for having so greatly blessed me, and today I find myself quite predictably thinking a lot about marriage.

Fifteen years in, has marriage been what I expected? In one sense, yes. I had a pretty good idea what it would be like because Erin and I already knew each other so well. We had dated since high school, so we had already overcome some of the hurdles that newlyweds less familiar with each other often face.

That being said, the fact that we knew each other so well coupled with the fact that (like most people right out of college) I thought I knew far more about everything than I actually did, presented peculiar difficulties. We were typical of most couples getting married, thinking our life together would be perfect. And even though we knew it wasn’t that way for many (most/any) folks, we were confident that we would be the exception.

So have these fifteen years been perfect? Honestly, no. Like any couple outside of the storybooks, in addition to the many fantastic ups, we’ve also had our downs. Most of these have resulted from a single factor: I’m a part of this marriage.

But from my perspective, and I am fairly confident Erin would tell you the same, our marriage has been wonderful. At times it has been difficult, but marriage has been the vehicle of God’s great blessing to me. Through it I have grown both emotionally and spiritually. I have been blessed with two amazing children who have the most loving and devoted mother I could ever want for them. Year by year I’ve grown closer to my best friend in the entire world.

And I have learned a lot about love.

Usually when we talk about love we are referring to a romantic feeling in the heart, a feeling that causes our knees to go weak and the butterflies to flutter in the pit of our stomach. Or perhaps what we mean is simply that when I am with that person they make me so happy. Maybe it’s just the sense someone gives us that, as Jerry Maguire put it, “You...complete...me.”

These are decidedly not what I am talking about when I say that I’ve learned a lot about love. Oh yes. They are all present too. And that’s another area in which I am enormously blessed by God. But when I say I’ve learned a lot about love, what I mean is that I’ve learned about true love, the kind of love that Christ has for his bride (the Church). And in seeing this love, I’ve also learned how very far short I fall of his example.

Bryan Chapell writes in Each for the Other, "God loves us as a consequence of the relationship he has established with us, not because of any beauty we possess or any service we could offer. Nothing better communicates this grace than unconditional love. A husband who cherishes his wife to honor the divine covenant that binds them, rather than any good she does for him, honors both his God and his wife."

This is the kind of love that I have tried to have for my wife (though I regularly fail). Love that is neither dependent on what she can do for me, nor on how I feel about her at any given moment. Rather it is love that is dependent on the commitment I made to her fifteen years ago today. A commitment to honor her and to cherish her. And yes, a commitment to love her.

Quite frankly, it’s something my wife has probably done a better job of than I have. Of course, it’s not really a fair comparison; there’s a lot more beauty in her to love than there is in me. If she’s going to love me, it can’t be for anything I possess! But in loving me in spite of all the messiness I bring to the party, she has shown me how to love her.

You see, I find her more attractive in every way than I did on the day we married. She is more beautiful in character, in spirit and in appearance. She still simultaneously makes my heart melt and race. But when I say I love her, I’m not talking about how I feel. I’m talking about a commitment to her well-being. A commitment to be a blessing to her. A commitment that I am honored to have the opportunity to keep.

I do this because Christ made a commitment to his bride, a commitment to be about her well-being. A commitment to be a blessing to her. A commitment that he was honored to keep. And in so keeping that commitment, he makes his bride lovely.

Make no mistake. I find my lovely bride to be completely worthy of my love (and far more for that matter). But that is not why I love her. I love her because Christ loved his bride even though she was completely unworthy.

A couple months ago Andrew Peterson released an album entitled Counting Stars. When he did, I posted this entry which included the video below to the song Dancing in the Minefields. Given the nature of the date today and the beauty of the truths contained in the song, I figured it was worth posting again.

Listen. Enjoy. And I pray that you might personally know the joy spoken of in this song, the joy that I’ve been so blessed to know for these fifteen years.

New Album - Counting Stars by Andrew Peterson

I first became aware of Andrew Peterson when Kevin DeYoung posted a couple of entries regarding Behold the Lamb of God, a concert that Peterson does during the Advent season telling the Christmas story. I purchased the album and have thoroughly enjoyed it both musically and thematically, especially appreciating the emphasis that Peterson places on the Old Testament, the fact that the whole Bible is telling one big story, and that this story is that of Christ Jesus.

I've since become familiar with more of Peterson's music, all of which I've really enjoyed. He has a new album, Counting Stars, which will be released on July 27. I look forward to getting it and commend Peterson's music to you. Below is a the official video for one of the album's songs, Dancing In the Minefields. It's a beautiful song about the highs and lows of marriage with the reminder that marriage "is harder than we dreamed, but I believe that's what the promise is for."



(HT: Justin Taylor)