Coram Deo ~

Looking at contemporary culture from a Christian worldview


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THIS & THAT: A Gathering of Favorite Articles and Quotes

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FAITH AND WORK: Connecting Sunday to Monday

Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles

  • Is Work a Blessing or a Curse? On this episode of the Ask Pastor John podcast, John Piper responds to the question “Can you tell me whether our work today is a blessing or a curse? Much of our work seems to be cursed, based on Genesis 3. But a lot of our work also seems to be a God-given blessing, according to Ecclesiastes. According to the Bible, is my nine-to-five job a blessing, or is it a curse?”
  • Mere Christians: David Platt. On this episode of the Mere Christians podcast, Jordan Raynor visits with David Platt about six steps to following Jesus fully at work.
  • Called to Lead. My book Called to Lead: Living and Leading for Jesus in the Workplace is available in both a paperback and Kindle edition. Read a free sample (Introduction through Chapter 2).
  • How to Work Well When Your Children Are Sick. Fernie Cosgrove shares a few things she’s learned about managing work when a child is sick.

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  • The Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week
  • My Review of The Leader’s Journey: Accepting the Call to Personal and Congregational Transformation (Second Edition) by Jim Herrington, Trisha Taylor and R. Robert Creech
  • Quotes from the book You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly Kapic

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The Power of Connecting with Those You Lead


I have always seen leadership as a privilege, something I was called and blessed to do. When a servant leader has the privilege of leading a group of people, they don’t see their team members as members of a team, as just an analyst who has certain skills that are valuable to a team, for example. No, they see them as unique individuals created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), with their own hopes, dreams, fears, etc. Continue reading


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MUSIC REVIEWS and NEWS


Only The Strong Survive – Bruce Springsteen
***

Only the Strong Survive is Bruce Springsteen’s 21st studio album and second covers album, following 2006’s We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. The 15-song album was made during the COVID lockdown during “off hours” (Springsteen, co-producer Ron Aniello and engineer Rob Lebret called themselves “The Night Shift” due to their working hours). On the album, the 73-year-old Springsteen covers a selection of his favorite – many of them obscure – soul songs. Springsteen actually tossed out the first album he completed, and ended up with Only The Strong Survive, which is listed as Covers Vol. 1, giving the impression we’ll hear more songs at a later date.

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  • Song of the Week Lyrics ~ Beautiful Day by U2

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BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS


Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story by Bono. Knopf. 576 pages. 2022
****

U2’s Bono was born Paul David Hewson in 1960. He grew up middle class in a Dublin suburb, the son of a Catholic father Bob (whom he refers to as his “Da”), and Protestant mother Iris. His mother died of a cerebral aneurysm when he was 14. Living with his father, and brother Norman, his mother was never spoken of again in their home at 10 Cedarwood Road. Bono writes that it stopped being a home and was just a house.
This massive (nearly 600-page book) about faith, family, music and activism, begins with an account of Bono nearly dying in 2016. The forty chapters, each titled after a U2 song, and beginning with an illustration which is explained in the Appendix, tell Bono’s story as a member of U2, a Christian, family man and activist. During the COVID lockdown the band reimagined these forty U2 songs for a Songs of Surrender album that was recently released.
Bono’s best friend is his wife Ali, his childhood sweetheart. They have four kids. He writes that family has always been at the center of who he is.
The book generally moves along in a chronological manner, with Bono writing about each of U2’s albums, events such as Live Aid and apologizing for working with Apple to put the band’s 2014 album Songs of Innocence on every iPhone free, which the band was roundly criticized for.

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BOOK REVIEW ~ More of this review…
BOOK NEWS ~ Links to Interesting Articles
BOOK CLUB ~ Providence by John Piper
I’M CURRENTLY READING…. Continue reading


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The Christian Battlefield by guest contributor Martha Ross

Dad at basic training. He took tank training at Fort Knox, KY.

My granddaughters and I were recently looking at pictures of my dad as a very young man entering the Army in WWII. His uniform was crisp and new, and his shoes very shiny. At the time, I’m sure he had no idea what that uniform, and his future, would look like.
Shortly before he went into the hospital for his last time, at age 91, he looked me straight in the eye and said, “You don’t ever want to be on the battlefield.” I thought at the time, what an odd thing to say. But later, I realized he may have been “making his peace” with whatever experiences he had in the war, knowing his time was short.
As a young man, he had been musical, and wrote fun, creative little poetry. One of his dear friends also told me that he had a sentimental side, which I didn’t really see as a child. Thinking about the extreme experiences he had as a young tank commander in France, Italy, and Germany, what he must have seen, and how it changed him forever, I suddenly saw a parallel to the Christian life. Continue reading


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THIS & THAT: A Gathering of Favorite Articles and Quotes

  • 3 Advantages of Understanding Identity Politics. Understanding the history of identity politics helps us to understand how we as Christians are complicit in that. And it’s useful for helping us to avoid a Pharisaic attitude towards others. Check out this short video from Carl Trueman.

  • Meet The Resurrected You. Randy Alcorn writes “Resurrection — Christ’s and ours — is a cornerstone of the Christian faith. Yet how many of us ponder what our resurrected selves will be like? You might think Scripture doesn’t say much. In fact, it tells us a lot, and gives us solid reasons to deduce much more.”
  • What is Transgenderism? Rosaria Butterfield writes “Transgenderism, from the perspective of Scripture, is related to the sin of envy. Specifically, transgenderism is, at root, sinful envy of the sexual anatomy of another.”

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FAITH AND WORK: Connecting Sunday to Monday

Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles

  • Why Don’t We Take Our Spiritual Gifts to Work? John Pletcher writes “Subtly or not-so-subtly, church leaders communicate that our special, Christ-given abilities should only be relegated to Sunday services, ministries within churchy walls, and officially church-sanctioned missions in the community or ‘round the globe’.”
  • How Should Christians Respond to the Current Worker Shortage? Russ Gehrlein writes “Undoubtedly, among these millions of Americans, there must be a large number of Christian men and women who have opted out of the workforce. I want to plead with and challenge my brothers and sisters in Christ with this word of encouragement: you have unprecedented opportunities right now to add light to the darkness and salt to a decaying world by bringing God’s presence with you to work.”

Stop Running from Rest. Steve Graves writes “What everyone wants is the very thing that we need more than we realize. Rest. True biblical rest. A real break from the weight and pressure of life and work.”

  • Working Our Jobs as a Way to Love God and Love Our Neighbor with Russ Gehrlein. In this episode of The Kirby Laing Centre podcast listen to a conversation with Russ Gehrlein, author of Immanuel Labor–God’s Presence in Our Profession: A Biblical, Theological, and Practical Approach to the Doctrine of Work. In the book and in this conversation, Russ seeks to bust some of the myths that many of us have received about our work, like: ‘the only truly important work is paid church or missionary work’, and ‘for the rest of us, our jobs are only valuable as an avenue for evangelism and to earn money in order to tithe’.

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  • The Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week
  • My Review of Leadership Not by the Book: 12 Unconventional Principles to Drive Incredible Results by David Green and Bill High
  • Quotes from the book You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly Kapic

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Why It’s Important to Get Off to a Good Start in Your Job

It is very important to get off to a good start in any job. Why? Because people begin making impressions and forming judgments about you – your attitude, your work ethic, your approach to your work, how you handle yourself, your relationship to your boss and teammates, etc. – the minute you walk in the door and show up for work. In her book Crush Your Career: Ace the Interview, Land the Job, and Launch Your Future, Dee Ann Turner writes “The first ninety days of any new job are critical. You never get a second chance to make a first impression, and that is exactly what the first ninety days are – a first impression.” She goes on to state that “The relationship with your new boss is the most critical element of success in your new job.” It’s very difficult to overcome a rocky start with a new boss. Dee Ann adds “Of all the reasons I have seen people fail in their career, by far the most common is the inability to build positive and productive relationships in the workplace.” Continue reading


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MUSIC REVIEWS and NEWS


Bellsburg: The Songs of Rich Mullins – Various Artists
****

Rich Mullins went home to be with the Lord following an accident near Lostant, Illinois on I-39 on September 19, 1997, on the way to a benefit concert in Wichita, Kansas, where he lived. Mitch McVicker was also in the vehicle, and though badly injured, he would survive. To commemorate the 25th year of Mullins’ homegoing, a new double-length album of his songs has been released. The album (and future documentary) was recorded in the living room of Mullins’ old house in Bellsburg, Tennessee, where he often crafted songs on the same piano that his parents acquired by trading for a cow from the family farm. Each of the 16 new folk/acoustic interpretations of recordings are by artists who were greatly impacted by the original versions. Each of the artists featured in the project has a personal connection with Mullins or has been deeply influenced by his music. Each side of the project ends with an original, never commercially released demo from Mullins.

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  • Song of the Week Lyrics ~ Unconditional by Matt Redman, featuring Matt Maher

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