What Else Is On My Mindgrapes #16
I’m am 3 weeks into my 12 week sabbatical, and I have some reflections. I will share those in a future post (or book, if Cindy convinces me it's worth it). Anyway, here’s what I’ve been up to.
The Texas Heat dome has put me into a particular bad and depressive mood. As many of you know, I love being outside, and while Houston summers are always oppressive, it’s usually not this oppressive in June. I hate it! Our dog, Rev, we think, has been suffering from heat exhaustion. She’s thrown up twice this week and after our early morning walks, sleeps even more than normal.
With both my daughters spending most of the summer away from home, Rochelle and I have been home by ourselves. We’ve seen this as preparation for when we become empty-nesters. We suck at it so far. We will get better. We just can’t sit around waiting for the girls to call or stalk their social media. It’s a process, I suppose.
Books I Read This Week:
To enter my sabbatical I read Mark Buchanan’s The Rest of God. The beginning and end were great and absolutely needed.
I also read Nikki Erlick’s The Measure, a quasi-sci-fi examination of life, death, and what really matter and the decisions we would make if we knew when we were going to die.
I also finished Bonnie Garmus’ Lessons in Chemistry. Y’all this book is TERRIBLE! Like, it’s soooooo dumb! Liene, on YouTube, tells you exactly why. I agree 10,000,000,000%. In fact, I don’t usually tell people when I hate something, but I hated this book so much that I am willing to shout it from the rooftops.
Movies I Screened
Here’s the list. You can read my reviews over at Letterboxd.
65
Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse
Asteroid City
A Little Christmas Charm1
Christmas on My Mind2
The Blackening
3:10 to Yuma
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
The Supreme Court
I have thoughts. I will keep them to myself.
Why Preaching Matters
I rewatched this video from my friend, Rick Atchley. I deeply appreciate Rick’s love of Jesus and love of preaching and the fact that he will legitimately send me a text or give me call when he thinks I’m not using enough scripture in my sermons. Y’all, that what we all need from the generations ahead of us; committed and loving honesty.
The Compelling Preaching Initiative
My preaching imagination was shape primarily by three preachers, Jerry Porter, who preached at my home church when I was in Jr. High and High School. He will never know how much his approach to preaching shaped my vocation.
The second was Dr. Jack Reese who was my undergraduate preaching professor ate Abilene Christian University. I dedicated my book, Speaking By The Numbers, to Jack.
The third was Mike Cope who I believed to be the Gold Standard for preaching when I was in college, and maybe for nearly 25 years. His sermon The Long Wait given at the Pepperdine Bible Lectures may be one of the greatest homilies EVER given. FULL STOP! It is certainly he greatest sermon I was ever present to hear.
Mike, in his position at Pepperdine is creating spaces for compelling preaching, and I have been blessed enough to be invited to serve as a resource. He talks about what he intends HERE.
My wife likes to watch Hallmark Movies.
Hallmark Nonsense