Month: April 2008

Shopping for God

Posted on April 23, 2008

Interesting article on an interesting book:

Perhaps most helpful is Twitchell’s explanation of the economic concepts of branding. He writes, “While thinking about believers as customers seems almost too vulgar, thinking about consumers as believers is precisely what modern marketing is all about.” Purchases determine identity. Church leaders can’t afford to ignore the effects of living in a consumer culture. Today, the way people choose a church is almost the same as how they shop for groceries.

HT: GR

Van Til on "Culture"

Posted on April 22, 2008

Henry Van Til defines culture as:

that activity of man, the image-bearer of God, by which he fulfills the creation mandate to cultivate the earth, to have dominion over it and to subdue it. The term is also applied to the result of such activity, namely the secondary environment which has been superimposed upon nature by man’s creative effort. Culture, then, is not a peripheral concern but of the very essence of life. It is expression of man’s essential being as created in the image of God, and since man is essentially a religious being, it is expressive of his relationship to God, that is, of his religion.

Henry Van Til. The Calvinist Conception of Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2001), xvii

Jacob Dylan on Sermon Writing

Posted on April 22, 2008

In the May issue of Interview, Jacob Dylan had this to say about song-writing:

I mean, I’ve always had this disciplined approach to it. You have to have a work ethic and you have to be educated in what you’re doing. You have to take it seriously. It doesn’t mean that everything you do has to be serious. But you’ve got to have the tools. There are certainly a lot of people—and I won’t name names—who are getting by simply on expression. And I guess that’s valuable in some sense. But songs are not better just because they’re emotionally honest. To write a song well, you have to put some work into it and grind it out.

Great advice for both song and sermon writers. Too often we bank on emotion to get us by in our songs an sermons. Dylan pulls us back center by emphasizing education, tools, thoughtfulness in our communication, in our art. There are a lot of songs and books being written these days that glorify being “emotionally honest,” but if these pieces aren’t complemented by thoughtful, educated reflection and hard work then they may not even be worth putting out there. Song and sermon writing are a craft. Heed Dylan and treat them as such. Get your tools and work them.