Coram Deo ~

Looking at contemporary culture from a Christian worldview


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MUSIC REVIEWS and NEWS


The Commons Chapel – CXMMXNS
*** ½

Worship collective CXMMXNS (Commons) was formed by Grammy Award and Dove Award-winning songwriters Ben Fielding and Reuben Morgan, two of the most influential writers in modern worship music. From their pens have come some of the most widely sung anthems including “Goodness of God,” “Who You Say I Am,” “What a Beautiful Name,” “Cornerstone,” and “Mighty to Save” – songs sung by tens of millions of believers every week across the world. Birthed in Sydney, Australia, CXMMXNS is passionately committed to gathering worshippers worldwide and serving local churches with songs that everyone can sing.

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  • More of this review
  • Music News
  • Song of the Week Lyrics

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BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

From the Rising of the Sun: A Journey of Worship Around the World by Tim Challies and Tim Keesee. Zondervan. 186 pages. 2025
*** ½

This book by Tim Challies and Tim Keesee reminded me of the excellent Dispatches from the Front documentary films that Keesee made with Frontline Missions that “highlighted the marvelous extent, diversity, and unity of Christ’s Kingdom in our world”. In this book (which has accompanying streaming videos that you can access via a code in the book), Keesee joins Tim Challies on an odyssey that took them from the rising of the sun to its setting, from one side of the earth to the other.
The world is divided into twenty-four time zones. The authors decided to aim for about twelve episodes, or a country in roughly every second time zone. Once they had chosen countries, they began to search for churches within them. They found faithful churches that align with a variety of Protestant traditions. All were bound together by a deep commitment to Scripture and sound doctrine.  This book is about their visits to those churches and worship services all around the world.

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BOOK REVIEWS ~ More of this review…
BOOK NEWS ~ Links to Interesting Articles
BOOK CLUB ~What Is Wrong with the World?  The Surprising, Hopeful Answer to the Question We Cannot Avoid by Tim Keller
I’M CURRENTLY READING…. Continue reading →


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My Review of The Sheep Detectives

The Sheep Detectives, rated PG
***

The Sheep Detectives is a murder mystery with plenty of comedy that will be enjoyable for the entire family. The film was directed by Kyle Balda (Minions: The Rise of Gru; Despicable Me), written by Emmy winner Craig Mazin (Chernobyl), and is based on the 2005 novel Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann.
George Hardy, played by Oscar nominee Hugh Jackman (Les Misérables) is a shepherd who lives in a trailer outside the English town of Denbrook. He is a widower, who loves his sheep. Each evening, he reads them a mystery novel. The sheep hang on every word, and they come to understand all the twists and turns of a typical murder mystery novel.

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THIS & THAT: A Gathering of Favorite Articles and Quotes

  • What is Spiritual Formation? Matthew Bingham states “The term spiritual formationis not explicitly used in the Bible per se, but the concepts behind it are very much biblical.”
  • Because of Jesus, Our Best Years Are Always Ahead of Us. Randy Alcorn writes “The words “finish well“ mean more to me than they ever did, and I am more determined than ever to complete my race to the glory of God. Especially because I know that after the finish line, what awaits us is eternal goodness, glory, beauty, a restored earth, and a depth of relationship with God and each other beyond what we can imagine.”
  • Is Sunday a Sabbath, a Secular Day or Something Else? Paul Sadler writes “Scripture may not bind every Christian to a Sabbatarian framework, but it does call us to recognize that this day uniquely belongs to the risen Lord. How do you honor the Lord on the Lord’s Day? In what sense do you see it uniquely belonging to Him?”

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  • Favorite Quotes of the Week

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FAITH AND WORK: Connecting Sunday to Monday

Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles

  • Christian Work Ethic: Busy for Christ. In this video, Dr. Joel Beeke sits down with Costi Hinn to talk about how Christians should be set apart by their work ethic and how one should wisely steward their time for the glory of God.
  • A Leader Worth Following. My new book A Leader Work Following: 40 Key Leadership Attributes and Applications to Masteris available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions. Read a sample of the book (found under the book cover in the above link).
  • 4 Axioms from Spurgeon’s Leadership. J.A. Medders writes “If we boil down his profound insights on leadership, we can create four simple axioms or truisms that apply to church planting and all of pastoral ministry.”

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  • More links to interesting articles
  • The Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week
  • Faith and Work Book Review~ Hints of Hope: Essays on Making Peace with the Proximate by Steven Garber
  • Quotes from the book Working for Better: A New Approach to Faith at Workby Elaine Howard Ecklund and Denise Daniels

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Leadership Attributes: Leaders Must Sacrifice  

In our series on leadership attributes, we now look at how leaders must sacrifice. One of the leadership laws included in John Maxwell’s classic book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, is “The Law of Sacrifice”. Maxwell writes that the heart of good leadership is sacrifice, not personal gain. He states that if you desire to become the best leader you can be, then you need to be willing to make sacrifices in order to lead well, understanding that the nature of the sacrifice may be different for each person.
That got me to thinking about some of the sacrifices leaders must make. Here are just three areas in which leaders must sacrifice to get you started thinking about this subject: Continue reading →


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MUSIC REVIEWS and NEWS

Hope – Petra
***

Petra was one of my favorite bands when I was a new believer in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and I continued to follow their music through 2003’s Jekyll and Hyde. Hope is their first new album of all new material since Jekyll and Hyde. It is a mix of rock, mid-tempo songs, and ballads. The album sounds like classic Petra, with memorable hooks, strong guitar work from Bob Hartman, keys and synths from John Lawry, and powerful vocals from John Schlitt. The lyrics are scripturally based, as you can expect from Petra. Bob Hartman wrote, or co-wrote all of the songs, and Petra produced the album.

I really enjoyed this new release. It’s great to have a new Petra album.

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 More of this review
 Music News
 Song of the Week Lyrics ~ “O Church, Come Lift Your Eyes” by Jordan Kauflin and CityAlight Continue reading →

Book Reviews


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BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

Go Forward in Love: A Year of Daily Readings from Timothy Keller. Zondervan. 384 pages. 2024  
****

Tim Keller was the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, co-founder of The Gospel Coalition and Redeemer City to City, and the author of twenty-four books. He died at the age of 72 in May 2023 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. This book is comprised of short daily readings from his books. I used it as a part of my devotional readings for the past year and would recommend it to you.

Here are 20 helpful quotes from the book:

  • Sin is not simply doing bad things; it is putting good things in the place of God.
  • Remember this—if you don’t live for Jesus you will live for something else.
  • Religion operates on the principle “I obey—therefore I am accepted by God.” But the operating principle of the gospel is “I am accepted by God through what Christ has done—therefore I obey.”

Click on ‘Continue reading’ for:
BOOK REVIEWS ~ More of this review and a review of The Westminster Shorter Catechism
BOOK NEWS ~ Links to Interesting Articles
BOOK CLUB ~What Is Wrong with the World?  The Surprising, Hopeful Answer to the Question We Cannot Avoid by Tim Keller
I’M CURRENTLY READING…. Continue reading →


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What is Biblical Stewardship?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to finish well for our good and God’s glory. To finish well, we need to embrace stewardship. The concept of stewardship is defined as the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care. For the Christian, we can refine this definition as the management of God’s resources – time, talent, treasure, and creation – according to His purposes. Christians know that the resources we have – money, giftings, talents, property, etc. – are not our own, but we are stewarding them for God. Continue reading →


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THIS & THAT: A Gathering of Favorite Articles and Quotes

  • Retirement: What are you retiring from? What are you retiring to? Keith Knight writes “Most of us can expect to live 20 to 30 years after we reach retirement age. That’s an entire career! Prayerfully take a sabbatical to determine where God wants you to serve next and who you should be mentoring. Then approach this new chapter in your life with the same zeal that you had in your former career.“
  • Daily Grace. Each weekday morning, I watch Bryan Chapell’s Daily Grace video devotional as he takes us through the Bible.
  • Why Our Age Celebrates Desecration. Carl Trueman writes “This world isn’t characterized simply by disenchantment. It’s also characterized by a delight in the destruction of things once considered sacred.”
  • We Can Simultaneously Make Room in Our Hearts for God, People, and Animals. Randy Alcorn writes “One of the strangest assumptions people sometimes make is that if we love animals, we can’t sufficiently love God and But love is not a zero-sum game.”

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  • More interesting article links
  • Favorite Quotes of the Week

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