My Influences This Week

Why?

Full disclosure. Kind of a bibliography. Also, it's fun.

When?

I started writing this Sunday afternoon. I'm trying to catch up, get these posted BEFORE Sunday, so I'm going to try and complete the next one by Friday.

What?

Matthew 15-21 - That's what I read last week, besides the reading plan along with the church. This week I plan to finish Matthew. I'm taking detailed notes as I go as well. Once I'm done, I'll start again, and do one more review of the notes I've written before giving them to the congregation.

The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer - A lot of my message this week came from the first section of this book. Bonhoeffer was a conservative theologian, and a radical resister of the Nazis in 1940s Germany. He was executed for plotting to assassinate Hitler. He took the call to follow Jesus very seriously, and it cost him his life. The second part of this book is three chapters on the Sermon on the Mount, so I'll probably start reading those next week.


This Beautiful Mess by Rick McKinley - This book is written by the pastor of Imago Dei (Image of God) in Seattle. He's also Donald Miller's pastor. Donald Miller wrote Blue Like Jazz. Anyway, the book deals with the subject of the Kingdom of Heaven in a conversational and practical tone. Some of the ideas in my Sunday message that dealt specifically with repentance came from this book. It's lively and challenging. I've read the first part, and will probably finish the book this week.

Dan Friesen's Blog - In Juniour High, this guy taught me a course called "Grazing Through Galatians". Later, he was the primary preacher at a church plant I was involved in. When I began preaching there, he was a mentor of mine as I learned to preach. He loves to preach and study the Bible. I ran across his blog quite accidentally last week after not speaking to him in years. He just happened to have written about a text that I already had in my notes. This entry gave me a lot of content for the conclusion of my message.

Rob Bell preaching at Willow Creek - Rob Bell has the honour of being #28 on "Stuff Christians Like", so you've probably heard of him. This message was called "Dust of your Rabbi", and he has a lot of great information about the process of education and discipleship for Jewish people in first century Palestine. I really enjoyed the message, and used a lot of the cultural stuff from this message in my own.

Rob Bell exposed - Here's the deal. Lots of people don't like Rob Bell. But lots of people don't like lots of people. In fact, if you're a preacher with any presence on the internet, there are probably websites and blogs dedicated to how wrong you are. Back in the day before I'd read a lot of Mark Driscoll, I looked him up on the internet and decided that he must be terrible for all of the anti-Mark websites out there. When I actually gave him a chance, I discovered that he actually has more to say that I like than stuff that I don't. So I ignore the stuff that I don't, and study the stuff that I do. If you ever think that you've found a preacher that you agree with all the time every time (including me), I'd caution you to look again. Anyway, there were a couple of things in Rob Bell's message that I didn't agree with, and scores of websites about why he wrong. Though I usually avoid teachings about things that aren't true (anti-teachings) or websites about things that are wrong, I thought I'd do my due diligence and find out what the complaints were. Turns out that they were the same as mine. They just made a bigger deal about it. I didn't use that stuff in my message.

NIV Study Bible - Good stuff.

Esword - Great for checking the definitions of biblical words in their original languages. It's a free Bible program. Check it. I did a lot of looking into the words "Come" and "Go". Seriously.

Inception - Saw it for the first time with Kate this week. I liked it. It isn't the best movie Christopher Nolan's ever done, but I liked it.

Gogol Bordello - I love this band. I have for a while. I listened to them a lot this week.

Bob Dylan (Times They Are a'Changin') - This song made me mad this week. If I had more time to write this entry right now, I'd tell you why in greater depth. Basically, for the first time this week I heard it not as an anthem of youth, but as an anthem of an arrogant and again generations. The boomers failed. And they lied. The hippies weren't interested in turning the power over to the have nots. They just wanted power for themselves. Yup. The same generation that avoided the Vietnam war led America into Afghanistan and Iraq. Times a-Changin' had nothing to do with them. Times just change. That's what time does. Let's not make the same arrogant mistakes they did when the power transfers into the hands of the millennial generation. Because it will. Soon. Thank God.

Larry Norman (Great American Novel) - I love this song. It was in my head all week. It reminds me of Bob Dylan. But it doesn't make me mad.

Acoustic Chaos Thursday at DV8 - Yup, I went to an acoustic punk open mic night this week. I'll go again next week. Rawk!