I find it increasingly difficult to keep up with all the music being released these days. And, perhaps due to my increasingly crotchety old man disposition, I find myself favoring old-timey indie rock (although, I still enjoy plenty of current music, as you’ll see below).
So, without any further caveats, here is some of the music (and music-related) stuff I liked from this past year:
My experience, within mostly evangelical Protestant circles, with practices such as Sabbath, fasting and the liturgical year has been limited mostly to academic study and/or suspicious caution. That’s why I was glad to see the Ancient Practices series released, which covers many of these practices. As followers of Jesus, we miss out immensely when we ignore the wisdom of those who have pursued Christ wholeheartedly before us.
While it might lack the immediate appeal to adults or older kids that, say, VeggieTales might have (with their Monty Python-referencing irreverence, snappy one-liners and fully-orchestrated songs), we have found that the little ones in our church enjoy Max Lucado’s animated Hermie series. My six-year old daughter was pretty excited to receive our copy of Skeeter and the Mystery of the Lost Mosquito Treasure for review.
I recently received a copy of Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear, by Max Lucado for review. As the title suggests, Lucado employs his warm narrative approach to encourage readers to break free from their fears and live faith-filled lives in Christ.
In order to do this, though, we must first recognize and identify how great a hold fear has on many of our lives. As Lucado writes in the first chapter:
The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity by Soong-Chan Rah, opens the door to hard conversations that we, as followers of Jesus, must no longer avoid. Talking about race, reconciliation and idolatrous captivity of the church is uncomfortable but, if we are serious about redemption (both within and through the church) we must engage these sensitive issues.
I am increasingly exasperated by those who write off Soong-Chan as an “angry Asian man,” and nothing more. In the introduction, Soong-Chan explains:
There are portions of the book that are intended to provoke. There may be times when the reader may react with anger, derision, defensiveness and so forth. But as you read through the major arguments of this book, I hope you will find my deepest concern for the church, the body of Christ… The true intention of the book is to bring reconciliation and renewal to the church in America.
headsparks* 