These Things

Introduction

“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (3 John 4)

Research

One of my supervisors said that the early part of a thesis, book, or any written project is the most exhilarating. He is correct, of course. Finding resources and seeing who the dominant or competing voices are is where a student feels like they are truly learning something. Of course, such learning is proved and publicized through the writing process, but we are not there yet.

Some resources will likely be my companions over the next several weeks:

• The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, Elizabeth Eisenstein (Cambridge University Press, 1982)
• The Bias of Communication, Harold Innis (Spinebill Press, 1951)
• The Gutenberg Galaxy, Marshal McLuhan (University of Toronto Press, 1951)
• Understanding Media, Marshal McLuhan (MIT Press, 1964)
• A Social History of the Media, Asa Briggs & Peter Burke (Blackwell Publishers, 2002)
• Communication as Culture, edited by James W. Carey (Routledge, 1989)
• The Book in the Renaissance, Andrew Pettegree (Yale University Press, 2011)
• The Library: A Fragile History, Andrew Pettegree & Arthur der Weduwen (Basic Books, 2021)
• The Bookshop of the World: Making and Trading Books in the Dutch Golden Age, Andrew Pettegree & Arthur der Weduwen (Yale University Press, 2020)
• The Business of Books, Booksellers and the English Book Trade, James Raven (Yale University Press, 2007)
• Scholarship, Commerce, Religion: The Learned Book in the Age of Confessions, 1560–1630, Ian Maclean (Harvard University Press, 2012)

Reading

We’re starting to develop, ever so slowly, rhythms of reading and personal devotion. The next goal is to better solidify our evening routines, particularly catechism, bible reading, and prayer.

• The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America, Frances Fitzgerald (Simon & Schuster, 2017)
  • Not my favorite read. This felt somewhat as if an outside reporter looking in on a safari, filling the narrative with impressive sounding pieces of evidence. A history of evangelicalism in America at over 400 pages, the reader will feel that they are being rushed through the first 300 years of history to focus on the most recent few decades. This becomes clear on page 265, where a massive section on Jerry Falwell begins to reveal the real emphasis on the book. Although the subtitle hints at this, the book is actually a monograph on the rise of the Christian right with an extended introduction on evangelicals in general.

Real Life

It’s become common parlance to state that grief is a non-linear experience. We don’t expect someone going through a deep loss to immediately and always improve. Sometimes there are better days, and sometimes there are days that you not only feel worse, but feel bad because you feel bad. A disruptive move can sometimes feel like a grieving process. Sometimes a day clicks into place, and at other times it all falls apart. Non-linear.

And that’s okay. A huge help? Healthy churches being healthy churches.

Those who know us know that the past few years have been difficult when it comes to finding a church home in which we feel like God’s Word is both professedly and effectively submitted to. Where preaching is both humble and confidently tied to a text. Where community is not a slogan, but an ethos. Where weaknesses are acknowledged because it points them and others to Christ. And finally, where a congregation sings as if they are already in heaven.

We may have found such a church, and it has been a balm to our weary souls.

Local churches have no idea the ministry of service they provide simply by being healthy and carrying on their business with a welcome hand to outsiders. It should be second nature to churches, but so many times newcomers are welcome to a body and immediately drafted into one side of a power struggle. Or they are told that the church is behind a big project or event, with the implicit message being “if you aren’t along for the ride, maybe you should go somewhere else.” This church (not yet named) eschews such tribalism, and while it is aware of its place in a denominational and community, it also places far more emphasis on the simply amazing task of a church. It breathes in God’s Word as much as any body we’ve seen, and we are excited to see how the LORD might use our time in this body.

Conclusion

Lindsey – There is a song that has rattled around in my head for the better part of 10 days that ultimately became the prayer that I asked of the Lord. When considering the grief that is experienced in leaving something/someone/some place behind, I want to be proven that my belief in God’s goodness is real. So instead of asking God to fix my sadness, or take me home, I simply want to know what it’s like to functionally find my hope and comfort in his kindness to me through Jesus Christ on the cross.

I have trusted in Your mercy

For Your mercy I will wait

As I lift my voice to You

Oh, Lord, would You increase my faith?

-How Long by Jon Guerra