Well, I can now cross out “Illustrate a book” from my list of 50-things-to-do-before-I-die (yeah, just 50, I’m not ambitious). I’ve had the privilege of illustrating the latest book by my friend Bill Tuck. He asked me to illustrate his new book on the character of Christ with some of my ink drawings. The book, titled The Compelling Faces of Jesus, is published by Mercer University Press and is available through various outlets. Here is the book description:

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If you have ever talked to someone about the Christian Year who isn’t familiar with it, then you may recognize the blank stare on their face that you get in return. Use the Seasons of the Spirit’s “The Seasons of the Church Year” poster, and you have a great starting point for this discussion.

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Eight years into the new millennium has diminished the novelty of that turn of the calendar. I can’t remember when was the last article or workshop I’ve seen with a reference to how to anticipate and address some concern “in the next millennium” or “in the new millennium.” And I, for one, am glad of it.

Reading history gives perspective and I try to read as much of it as I can. I finally got down the “to-read” books pile deep enough to pull out a book nine years in the waiting. And Robert Lacey’s The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium (New York: Little, Brown and Co., 1999) was worth the wait.

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Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I think I heard more voices than ever this year suggesting that we consider toning down the cultural excesses of Christmas gift-giving.  We’ve certainly not eliminated gift-giving in my world of family and friends, but it has become more modest in recent years.  Counterintuitively, Christmas has not become less important to us; if anything, the opposite is true, because it offers us time as family to be together.

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Americans love good fiction, says pollster George Barna, which seems to be a peculiar opening sentence for a report on his recent survey of what Americans believe about some familiar Bible stories - - including the virgin birth.  It’s not clear what Barna regards as fiction, but the subjects of his survey believe the story of the virgin birth to be literally true .  In fact, of the six stories included in his survey, this one was accepted as an accurate depiction of an historical event by three out of four adults.

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One of my favorite and often-visited websites is that of the Project Gutenberg. There are over 20,000 free books (electronic texts) in the Project Gutenberg Online Book Catalog, a bibliophile’s dream! It’s been a great source of reading material for my very cool SONY Reader.

The good folks at Project Gutenberg have a nice collection of recommended Advent and Christmas readings. Most of these are short enough for a daily reading in addition to your daily lectionary readings.

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Peace - it sounds like such a nice word, but what does it really mean? What does peace really look like? How do we preach peace - especially every year at Advent?

These are just a few questions that went through my head as I was preparing to preach last week.

Below is the sermon I preached last week, Dec 9th, on the second Sunday of Advent.

Title - Yeah Right!
Texts - Isaiah 11:1-10, Matthew 3:1-12
Focus - Peace takes work
Function - To challenge

Other information:
Size/style of congregation - average 150 in attendance on a Sunday, Pastoral Style
Spirituality - Head
Advent themes - Hope, peace, joy, and love (some churches focus on peace first and then hope).
My position - Associate Pastor - preaching as a “second chair”
Technique - I like to “weave” the text with present and real life issues and situations, even if it is a line or two here and there.
Other - Some of the organizations listed are particuar to my congregation and surrounding city

Enjoy:

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Our tour bus pulled into the “modern day” city of Bethlehem, just six miles southwest of Jerusalem. After years of mental images associating this small town with Christmas, Magi, and angels, the reality is a disappointment. Bethlehem today is a small Arab town at the outskirts of the major centers and tourist attractions in the area. If it had a twin sister city in my state we’d call it a “hole in a wall” kind of place. Aside from the tourist-trap shops and the unlikely ubiquitous presence of obnoxious street vendors, there is no hint that anything interesting exists in this dusty little town.

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Against the prevailing but uninformed notion that “I am spiritual, but not religious,” Barry L. Callen (professor of Christian studies at Anderson University, editor of the Wesleyan Theological Journal and founding editor of Anderson University Press) counters that religion and spirituality must coexist. In this book, Authentic Spirituality: Moving Beyond Mere Religion (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001. 271 pages. $18.99. ISBN 0-8010-2288-6) he demonstrates how religious practice and tradition are necessary for authentic Christian spirituality.

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