Here’s the latest edition of “The Weekend Wanderer” with Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed winning Nobel Peace Prize, Walter Kim as new NAE head, Christianity as the most diverse movement in history, and so much more.

This morning our staff at @EastbrookChurch heard church leaders and international workers from around the world discuss how they bear up for Christ in the midst of difficulties, pressures, and hard places of ministry. Their stories and reflections were so rich and wise.

Here’s the latest edition of “The Weekend Wanderer” with tensions at Syria/Turkey border, evangelicals in Jordan, SBC sexual abuse scandal updates, LGBT rights, N. T. Wright’s Gifford lectures, and more.

Annie Dillard on Christian worship, mixing TNT on Sunday morning, and the need for crash helmets.

Here’s the latest edition of “The Weekend Wanderer” with conversation around Brandt Jean’s forgiveness of Amber Guyger, church movements in Iran, InterVarsity cleared at Univ of Iowa, Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz sixty years out, and more.

“Returning to Square One: Eugene Peterson on the Essence of Christian Spirituality” - Last Friday I read a pointed, pastoral call to basic attention to God and His word throughout our lives, and it resonated so deeply with me that I wanted to share it.

Textured beauty: an autumn sky hangs over a willow trunk fallen in water near the Wehr Nature Center at Whitnall Park.

Here’s the latest edition of “The Weekend Wanderer” with Alan Jacobs on “evangelical,” Esau McCaulley on racial diversity in Bible translation committees, free speech in Chicago and China, Hopkins’ poetry, declining bird populations, and more.

Tim Keller’s categories of idolatry in Counterfeit Gods is a very helpful listing of the ways in which the human heart is masterful at twisting all sorts of things into idols.

Our second child just submitted all his college applications last night. It’s hard to believe we are on our way toward two children in college by next Fall. How did they get so old when I haven’t changed in age at all?

Here’s the latest edition of “The Weekend Wanderer” with Hart on Hell, Catholicism made Onsi Kamel a better Protestant, Willow Creek doesn’t want a pastor, Philip K. Dick and Christianity, William Blake at Tate Britain, and much more.

Here are some reflections on pastoral ministry in conversation with John Chrysostom’s brief but powerful book, On the Priesthood.

“Solitude Brings Coherence”: When we are attentive to our inner voices and more intimate thoughts, we have the opportunity to come to a more comprehensive internal order with God and ourselves.

John Chrysostom on Preaching to please God and not for human praise.

When I first encountered this “Litany of Humility” attributed to Rafael Cardinal Merry Del Val it moved me so powerfully. I hope you enjoy it, too.

Here’s this weekend’s edition of “The Weekend Wanderer” with the passing of Jarrid Wilson, STEM’s corruption of education, skim reading and our brains, Wendell Berry, Jerry Falwell, and so much more.

A lot of what I do is help people learn how to listen: to God, to Scripture, to others, to themselves, to the world…

Here’s the latest edition of “The Weekend Wanderer” with Father Chito from the Philippines, Philip Jenkins on “Shifting Images of Terror,” being filled with the Spirit?, a throw-back on Thomas Oden’s paleo-orthodoxy, Miles Davis’ trumpet, and more.

Here’s the latest edition of “The Weekend Wanderer” with a majority-world perspective on world mission, Liz Dong on being a Chinese Dreamer, loneliness on university campuses, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the voice inside your head, and more.

After re-reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, I am even more moved by it than before. The combination of carnage and beauty, death and hope, in the midst of the world that seems alternately godless and God-rich is marvelous. 📚

There’s nothing quite like the oncoming sound of kids excitedly running out from the school building to the playground. It’s like a freight-train of joy rushing toward its destination.

I feel like this tree could be a parable, like “If your roots are strong, you can hang in there,” but I don’t want to diminish the sheer wonder of this particular tree growing in this particular way.

He pulled the boy closer. Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.

You forget some things, dont you?

Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.

Cormac McCarthy, The Road, p. 10.

Here is “The Weekend Wanderer” with reflections by Michael Frost, Russell Moore, & David French on Hillsong’s Marty Sampson, plus J D Vance’s Catholicism, Esau McCaulley on preaching about racism, & more.

Spending time studying the prayers of St Paul in his epistles is such an interesting experience, raising so many questions. Why did he pray the way he did? What was it in certain churches that brought certain prayer responses? What can we learn for our own prayer lives from Paul?