S.E.E.D.S Music Video: Design Post

A while back I posted about a Christian Rapper named Canvas that I though had real talent and had pure Gospel in his lyrics.  I had the privilege of working with him for the past few weeks filming a video for the title track S.E.E.D.S.   It was a lot of fun, not just shooting the video, but also sitting around talking about Jesus with him.

At any rate, the video is included below:

Mondays With My Old Pastor

When I picked up Mondays With My Old Pastor, I was afraid it might be just another sentimental reflective book. But the preface—and the entire book—captured me with its’ stunning allegory, parables, and tangible storytelling.

The book starts with a discouraged young pastor whose wife suggests he visit his “old pastor”—a term of endearment for the man who trained him as a young man. What follows is a tightly-knit story about passing the mantle, filled with refreshingly new stories and parables to illustrate the point.

This book has intentional structure, where each chapter is a visit, and is represented by a new rose that grows in the old pastor’s garden. With each rose is a chance to pray and reflect after the visit—for the reader as well as for the leading character. In this way, the structure and literary devices prepare the reader for worshipful moments and meditation.

José Luis Navajo is no stranger to good storytelling, and it certainly offers ample illustrations that could be used for sermons or teaching. The story moves at a good pace, and I always felt that the “meetings” ended too quickly, wanting to hear more instead of feeling lectured.

I highly recommend this book, without reservations. I already have a list of people who would like to read it after me. It is both interesting and encouraging. I hope you will have the pleasure of reading it as well.

Buy the book for $11.38

I received this book from the publisher for review. All opinions are my own.

From the Library of C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis is arguably the greatest Christian author of the 20^th century.  The Chronicles of Narnia are revered alongside Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings as one the greatest fantasy series ever written, but even more pronounced in the church are his Christian works like Mere Christianity, On Pain, The Screw Tape Letters, etc.

However, and this is a lesson the mass of Christian writers publishing today should take note of, C.S. Lewis’s writing ability was not just natural talent.  It was honed through years of studying the great writers of yesteryear and his contemporaries. He was a literary professor after all.

For that matter, His Christianity didn’t exist in a bubble either.  He read the church fathers, writings of the Catholic Saints, the scholastics, the reformers, the transcendentalists, and even the Pre-Raphaelites of the Victorian period.

The idea that we are somehow separate from the history of the church is a pernicious falsehood that stems from postmodernism’s crazy idea that there is no over-arching story in the world, that every generation sits in its own little bubble.

And while C.S. Lewis lived in the era of modernism, there were elements of postmodernism starting to surface in his time, some of which he championed and some of which he mocked, particularly the ideas of Marx and Freud, saying that they were “sawing off the branch that they were sitting on,” but that’s a whole different discussion, and I ought not follow that rabbit trail less this review become an academic paper, but I do think including some of the authors Lewis severely disagrees with in the book would have helped build the picture of his spiritual journey. 

Overall, From the Library of C.S. Lewis, does an excellent job drawing a loose sketch of the authors that Lewis favored in his lifetime by including several excerpts from the most influential ones. The book arranges the excerpts by topic like “God’s Love”, “Our Love for Christ”, “Christ’s Sacrifice” etc, which makes the excerpts a lot more approachable than just randomly throwing them together. 

If you’re interested not only in what influenced C.S. Lewis, but in the history of the church, and those who have followed Christ through the years, this is a good place to start, but be forewarned, if you do pick this book up, you may find yourself buying a few more books from the authors whose excerpts have been included.

Buy the book for $9.20

I received this book from the publisher for review.  All opinions are my own.