Another Excerpt From For the Beauty of the Church

David Taylor has posted an excerpt of my chapter from the book he's edited, For the Beauty of the Church: Casting a Vision for the Arts. He was just at Calvin last weekend leading a few workshops during Calvin College's annual worship symposium. Susanna and I took him out for some Indian food later that evening. I had to order this dish they called "Rogan Josh" because I wanted to know if something with my name in it could be tasty. Good food with a good brother--something that was good for my soul too. It is really nice to pick up where we left off with David last time. An aside: it was four years ago that we first met with David in Grand Rapids. Susanna was presenting at Calvin's Festival of Faith and Writing and David had just made his contact with Baker to sign a publication agreement. It was also during that weekend that I made my first visit to Hope College and began the interview process to take the postion I now have with Campus Ministries. It is faith building to consider what can happen in four years.

I met with the head editor of Baker at the end of the summer for lunch and we talked a bit about who exactly will be the readers of this book. Of course we want pastors and lay leaders to read it, but the question is how to get it into their hands. Maybe artists will need to read it first and then tell their pastors about it. So, here is another plug to try to get the word out. Less than one month till its release! I'll admit that looking through the table of contents on Amazon gave me butterflies in my stomach. It is hard to believe my chapter is in such amazing company: David Taylor, Eugene Peterson, John Witvliet, Lauren Winner, Jeremy Begbie, Barbara Nicolosi, and Andy Crouch.