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FREE Derek Webb album download for 48 hours only!

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

UPDATE: The album is no longer up, but clicking the link below will take you to a page where you can download the super-controversial single “What Matters More”  off of the album.

Hey everyone, I just wanted to plug this.  This morning at 9am I got an email from the Derek Webb mailing list saying that on Noise Trade you can download Derek Webb’s newest album, Stockholm Syndrome for free for the next 48 hours.  Which means it should be up until about 9am Friday morning (02/26/2010).  You have nothing to lose, and an amazing album to gain.  Here’s the link:

Download “What Matters More” from Derek Webb’s album Stockholm Syndrome on NoiseTrade.com for free

Also…

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Catholics Aren’t Crazy (New Series)

/ Paul Burkhart / 9 Comments

As some of you may have noticed, weekends are pretty quiet here on the blog. In an ideal world, I would post every day during the week and then take weekends off (as I’m not too sure people are surfing much on the weekends. Am I wrong?).  Anyway, I want to try something.  Beginning yesterday, I’m trying to start a little tradition where on Saturdays I’ll post a more personal, meditative post and Sundays I’ll do the series I’m kicking off today.

I was raised in the Bible Belt as a Southern Baptist where there is absolutely no diversity in Christian denominations: there are only Baptists and Catholics — nothing else. This was, at least, my exposure growing up in Dallas, Texas. Throughout my years as a “good ol’ boy” Southern Baptist, I was regularly taught by my Sunday School teachers that Catholics aren’t actually Christians. Let me unpack this briefly.

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It’s that time of year again….Lent.

/ Paul Burkhart / 8 Comments

I was just reading the article I wrote last year when I gave up Facebook for Lent. So much has changed. I remember that last year I saw fasting during Lent as some Catholic thing that might be a good idea to do. Also, my reason for giving up Facebook was to help me in the areas of procrastination and discipline.

On the discipline front, it’s funny to have watched how things have played out since then; even more so in light of this year’s Lent. As I finished up that second semester of seminary, my procrastination and discipline issues only worsened.As I dropped out and spent the summer woefully unemployed and poor, my nights got later, I became completely unproductive on nearly every front, and my soul seemed to shrivel because of my lack of discipline and consistent pursuit of God.

In the Fall I moved to a new church community and slowly started to become revived. For the first time I began to understand Calvin’s assertion that theology is only truly theology when it’s lived out. I can no longer divorce orthodoxy from obedience. As time went on, I got swept up in the various means of grace that God has given his church (to be talked of more later), and I was drawn to Him. In the midst of my “dry season” (as we charismatics call them) I feebly reached for a few resources to keep the dwindling flame alive. I eventually got my hands on a sweet copy of the Book of Common Prayer. As of about a month ago, after getting some help, I actually began getting up at a consistent early time and doing some morning devotions. I’ve even been doing some evening devotions as well. I’ve been more consistent in my thinking, writing, and planning. It’s been amazing. I feel my soul revived. After reading that Lent post from last year, I can’t help but wonder if this newfound discipline and productivity are the fruits of the grace obtained in last year’s Lent season.

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Blog Closed for the Day Due to Weather (reading assignments attached)

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

[photo by David Schrott]

Yeah, I know, I had the last post in that Transgenderism series (Part I, Part II) due today.  But, as of today, Pennsylvania has just received the most snow ever on record.  It’s pretty nuts.  So, today I’ve just been lazily hanging out with some friends from seminary and did not feel up to devoting the time and care I would have wanted to give to the post.  So, here are some things I read today that might interest all of you.  Stay warm!

Holy Day Meditations: Jesus Presented at the Temple

/ Paul Burkhart / 9 Comments

The backbone of my morning and evening meditations and prayer has become the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. It has taken me a while to figure out how to use it (with a lot of help from a friend), and I’m still clumsily trying to make my way along, but it is an amazing book. It gives just the right amount of both freedom and structure to give me both guidance and excitement. I’m really enjoying it. Secondly, I am a relatively new member of a church that belongs to the Reformed Church in America. Both of these things has led me to encounter ancient church documents, creeds, and traditions I was never exposed to as a Bible Belt Southern Baptist.

One of those newfound traditions that is really becoming a major part of my life is the Church Calendar. According to the calendar, we are currently in the season of Epiphany, where the church celebrates the travel of the Wise Men to see Jesus, therefore declaring him King and Lord among all the nations, and today is the Church Holy Day on which we celebrate Jesus’ presentation by His parents in the temple (forty days after Christmas) (Luke 2:22-40). As I went through the Daily Lectionary this morning, I found that focusing on this event and meditating on it bore some very real personal fruit that I wished to share.

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White-Knucklin’ It (a blog filler post)

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

Personal goal for next week: write like nobody’s business.

I hate that it’s been almost two weeks since my last “real post”.  I’m sorry.  I need to be okay with using this blog actually as a blog and not a magazine where I’m the sole writer.  I want to engage you all more.  As has been my unattained desire for the past year, I want to do shorter posts, more audience engagement.  I know my track record sucks, but I really do have other platforms more appropriate for my larger writings, and I’m so infinitely frustrated at myself for how I treat this blog, that perhaps, maybe this time, I just might be able to make blogging a bit more of a regular habit that you all will want to read and actually comment on.  We’ll see.

Sorry for yet another filler post.  Starting Monday, I’m hoping to blog your faces off.  Until then…

Music, Politics, & other sundry things.

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

I don’t know why, but I’ve been in an increasingly political mood recently.  My blog-crastination (my perusal of blogs and news outlets to avoid doing other things with my time) has been almost exclusively centered around politics rather than my usual intake of theology, evangelicalism, and culture.  So, expect some political writing for the next while on the blog.

I sat down last night to write an article on health care, politics, and economics last night to try and post it here today.  But, as is typical for me, I’m not even done with it and it’s already six pages long.  So, in my ever-failing attempt to put up shorter posts here, I’m going to see if that full article might work if I submitted it to some other sites.  If not, I’ll whittle it down to a manageable size and post it here.  I don’t know that it’s that profound, but there might be some substance there.  So, for my apology for not having any new material today, I’ll just pot the song/EP that have been going on repeat on my iPod.

Ladies and gentleman, I give The Civil Wars performing “Poison & Wine”.  Lyrically, one of the best relationship songs I’ve heard in years.  Musically, (at the risk of sounding cliche) it’s haunting.  Enjoy:

(Live version here)

i’m alive… barely

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

Hey blogosphere –

it’s been a little while since I posted anything and a while since I posted a really substantive post up here.  Apologies.  I have several articles in the works that I’m really excited about that I’m working on for both this blog and other places.  The past couple of days I’ve been absolutely knocked out of commision by a stomach virus of some sort that has kept me perpetually near both my bathroom and bedroom.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been this sick.  So, if you’re the praying type, please do so for me.  If not… well…. wish me luck?  Here are the things that have been keeping me company as I’ve been sitting on the sidelines trying to survive:

Some Lord’s Day Meditations on Paul’s Thorn | 2Cor 12:7-11

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

I’m almost done going through 2 Corinthians, and last night I came across that oh-so-familiar passage of 2 Corinthians 12:7-11:

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I thought I’d share some of the things that really spoke to me as I meditated on it:

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just a little reminder of my life . . .

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

I was updating my Author page on this site tonight, and I was reminded once more of this quote that struck me so powerfully by poet Joe Weil.  It’s from a great interview posted on Patrol Magazine a while back.  I wrote about it when I originally first found it almost exactly a year ago.  It’s incredible and describes the nature and substance of my faith like no other set of words I have encountered before or since–coarse language and all.  I hope it speaks to you as well:

“I once described faith as something I got on my shoe and can’t kick or wash off. I’m stuck with it. My poems are the trespasses and blasphemies of a malpracticing Christian, one who can’t stop ogling an attractive leg, or wanting to be first, who is venial, foolish, seldom at peace, horny and lonely, and so far from the kingdom of God that his whole life becomes the theme of that distance, someone knowing he is in deep shit. It’s the perfect place to be, where you can’t fool yourself into thinking you’re on the right track… The only thing I have to offer God is my sins. I am interested in mercy when it appears in places where you would never expect it. I am interested in love that shovels shit against the tide. I am interested in grace… It is better to be annihilated and crushed by God, if you are in love with God, then it is to have no relationship at all. Better God smite you then merely be absent. God does not ‘tolerate’ me. God loves me.”

How do these words strike you?

Writing in Hope & Angst (a Lament, a Praise)

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

Okay, now for a personal post. I usually don’t do these, but some encouragement/wisdom from others might help. I don’t know what exactly has been the cause, but the past few weeks have seen my desire to write and effect change rise to a level I’ve previously never known, only to be brought low by information on every side.

If I had to guess, I think my increase in desire and confidence to write has been inflamed by several fronts. First, intellectually, I’ve been experiencing a clarity and creativity of thought concerning books I’ve been wanting to write. Books that have been rolling around in my mind for about a year finally have some shape, structure, and direction. Also, I’ve been feeling more confident in my ability to think and subsequently express those thoughts in writing. This little slavery and atheism series I’ve been doing has been giving me a chance to flex some muscles I didn’t know were there. This has led to lots of affirmation and encouragement from others concerning my writing prospects. This has put writing in the front and center of my mind.

But, anxieties and insecurities ensue, both from within and without . . .

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Consider Sponsoring a Child with Compassion

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[This is also posted at the Come and See blog]

This is what a friend at another Liberti campus recently sent this out.  She’s been asked by a ministry called Compassion to look for a sponsor for a 9-year old Ethiopian named Dinku Dejene.  His birthday is August 21; he lives with his stepfather, mother, and sibling; and his favorite activities are soccer, running, and hide-and-seek.  (Click here for his full-size Compassion card.)

Meredith writes:

“The goal is to find a person to sponsor him on a committed, monthly basis for $38 per month by December 31. The children Compassion serves receive (among other things): the opportunity to hear the gospel and learn about Jesus; regular Christian training; educational opportunities and help; health care, hygiene training and supplementary food if necessary; a caring and safe Christian environment to grow in self-confidence and social skills; and personal attention, guidance and love.

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What an Ex-Seminarian gets for Christmas

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

In order from left-to-right:

“O Sovereign, Come” (an original Advent hymn)

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

On this beautiful White Christmas (at least where I’m at), for those precious few of you that will make it online today, I wanted to put up a hymn I wrote a about a year ago.  I pray this encourages you and creates anticipation for the Advent that is to come. Merry Christmas.

O Sovereign, Come

Our chains behind us, our sin before us
showing all our crippling need.
Your Grace within us, Your Spirit upon us
transforming our every deed.

After our freedom and we pass through the Red Sea,
let us not forget the desert comes.

Refrain:
Rip through the clouds, tear through the skies;
Let us see that you’re God on High.
O Sovereign, Come.  Seize our hearts.
Show yourself as Beautiful.

Your triumph of Glory, You crimson Cross
heralding Your Sovereign Way
of life through our death, enduring our thorns,
completing Your sufferings in ourselves.

Let us embrace your cross that’s set there before us
and know that it precedes the crown.

Refrain

On that day, when freed from sinning,
how I’ll see Thy lovely Face.
Clothed then in blood-washed linen,
how I’ll sing Thy Sovereign Grace.

Refrain

For Advent: A Reform & Revive Repost by David Schrott

/ napoleonsays / 21 Comments

In honor of this Advent/Christmas Eve, I decided to repost an article on Reform & Revive written almost exactly a year ago by my good friend (and incredible photographer) David Schrott.  He is an amazing writer (and here) and an even more amazing friend.  This article reflects much on the year that brought the writing into existence with anticipation for the year to come.  Well, having been with him and watching him for that year, it was an amazing moment for me to read this and see all that has been done in his life.

The article has all that Advent is about.  It’s a reflection on the work of God in the past to build your anticipation for the work of God to come.  May this article stir you, sober you, and give you a sense of both the fallenness of the world that is and the glory of the world to come.  Here’s the full link:

http://reformandrevive.com/2009/12/24/there-is-no-one-like-you-adv-days-2324-hellogoodbye-0809-repost/

Also, feel free to check out an article I wrote for Going To Seminary magazine for Advent called “The Beauty of Theology (an Advent Call)”

Lastly, if you’re in town (Philly, that is), my church Liberti: South Philly is doing what should be a beautiful Christmas Eve service tonight (details).

Merry Christmas Eve