843 Acres

Here is a blog you should be aware of, if you're not already. It's called 843 Acres, a devotional blog from the Park Forum. They use a two-year adaptation of the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan, and every weekday, they post a 400-word devotional to go with the day's reading. It is a simple way to do daily bible reading, and every year you read all of the New Testament and the Psalms and half of the Old Testament.

C. S. Lewis on Affection

"Of all natural loves, Affection is the most catholic, the least finical, the broadest. The people with whom you are thrown together in the family, the college, the mess, the ship, the religious house, are from this point of view a wider circle than your friends, however numerous, whom you have made for yourself in the outer world. By having a great many friends I do not prove that I have a wide appreciation of human excellence. You might as well say I prove the width of my literary taste by being able to enjoy all the books in my own study. The answer is the same in both cases—'You chose those books. You chose those friends. Of course they suit you.' The truly wide taste in reading is that which enables a man to find something for his needs on the sixpenny tray outside any secondhand bookshop. The truly wide taste in humanity will similarly find something to appreciate in the cross-section of humanity whom one has to meet every day. In my experience it is Affection that creates this taste, teaching us first to notice, then to endure, then to smile at, then to enjoy, and finally to appreciate, the people who 'happen to be there.' Made for us? Thank God, no. They are themselves, odder than you could have believed and worth far more than we guessed."

C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, 1960, Reprint (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 1988), 37.

Sermon writers block

This was a helpful article. You can find it at Gottesdienst Online: Sermon Writer's Block. Here's a quote:

Here is the first thing you need to know: writer's block is not real. It is just laziness. Call a dog by its name and it is more likely to come.

Laziness, though not sloth, is overcome by work. That distinction is another post. But what work will overcome laziness? Not study. Laziness loves study. It goes like this, "Oh, I don't know what to say, so I'll read more." Wrong. That won't get a sermon written. A sermon gets written by writing. Just write. That is the work that needs to be done. That is the best way to overcome laziness. Vomit on the page. Clean it up later. Just write.

Word cloud for 2 Timothy 3

I'm studying 2 Timothy 3 for a lesson this Sunday. I thought this might be a useful tool.