Two notes:

Interview

This morning I completed an interview with Welsh blogger Guy Davies, aka the Exiled Preacher. Guy is a sharp and prolific pastor/blogger. He asked some great questions, like: If Jonathan Edwards was alive, do you think he would be blogging? … Which writers have you found most helpful, and why? You can now read the interview here. I think you will enjoy it. Me enjoyed it.

Conference

Also, I’ll be out for a bit, traveling to North Carolina to attend my second 20/20 Collegiate Conference at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Conference topic: The relevance of the Gospel in everyday life.

Teachers include Daniel Aiken (Southeastern Seminary president), Mark Driscoll, Bill Brown, and C.J. Mahaney.

Last year musical worship was led by the very capable, and very cross-centered, Daniel Renstrom. I hear he will be leading again, and I look forward to it.

In the Wake Forest, N.C. area? This is a collegiate conference worth the price of admission ($25-35).

Enjoy your weekend!

Tony

“…so much that passes for spirituality these days is nothing more than middle class, 20something coffee culture. If you like jazz, soul patches, earth tone furniture, and lattes, that’s cool. But this culture is no holier than the McNugget, Hi-C, Value City, football culture that most people live in. Why does incarnational ministry usually mean hanging out at Starbucks instead of McDonalds? Jesus came to save Grimace and Hamburglar too.”

Kevin DeYoung

Voyage of the Dawn Treader was raised from the ocean floor and resumed its journey toward production thanks to 2oth Century Fox.

Any Béla Fleck fans out there? … Didn’t think so. Well, you should be. The man is crazy with the banjo. Be watching for his new documentary this spring. I’m told it’s excellent!

Documentary Website (just soak in the sounds):

Throw Down Your Heart – Béla Fleck Brings The Banjo Back To Africa

Documentary Trailer:

I love when someone asks us to help out at church and instead of saying, “no” we say, “Let me pray about it.” Really? I asked you to help me clean up tomorrow night after the youth group and you feel like that’s something you need to run passed the Savior of the world? He’s going to give you the thumbs up or thumbs down on whether or not you can help me stack chairs for seven minutes?

Sure, there are lots of situations that call for a “pause while I pray” response. But I think that 37% of the time when we say “let me pray about it” we are just saying that so we can delay the rejection and can later email the person a big no instead of doing it in person.

HT:SCL

Explained by the Los Angeles Times here.