Getting back to blogging, and an update

If any of my faithful 10s of readers are still around, they will have noticed that my blog went "dark" at the beginning of the summer. But for a single post a couple of weeks ago, I haven't blogged at all since early June.

That's about to change! I miss blogging, as I find it to be a venue for penning thoughts that are too long for Twitter or a Facebook status, but perhaps too esoteric or fleeting to merit an actual article. In the months to come, I intend to blog much more regularly again.

Many of my readers may also be curious about the latest news in my life — there are some major changes to report! (And, in fact, it is related to my absence in blogging.)

In late spring/early summer, things began to take a turn for the church I have served as pastor for the last two years. Over the summer and into the early fall, the congregation discussed the potential and plans for the future, and in the end we agreed that the best thing for all involved would be to close the doors and dissolve the church.

Which means that my "call" as pastor to that congregation dissolves, as well. The congregation generously cared for us with a severance package, and that gives us time to make our plans for what is next.

And those plans are beginning to come together. I will write more about that after the beginning of 2014, but I welcome your prayers in the meantime.

So, look for me to return to regular blogging, now that the stress, demands, and complexity of the last six months is behind me!

For All the Saints endorsement/review

I had a chance to meet my fellow PCA pastor Ron Steel in the spring; we sat down together for breakfast in St. Louis. As we talked, it came up that I had written a few things, and he suddenly exclaimed, "I've read your book!"

As it turns out, a member of his congregation brought him a copy of my little book, For All the Saints: praying for the church sometime last year, and he had read it. I am honored that he followed that up with an e-mail that contained the following review/endorsement:

"Ed Eubanks is wise to tremble, as he says, at the prospect of writing a book on prayer, but I am glad that the women’s prayer ministry at his church in western Tennessee prevailed upon him to set aside his understandable timidity and write this practical little treatise on praying for the church. The topics covered in the space of just 88 pages range widely over a number of arenas needing focused intercession from “all the saints”. Prayer in behalf of Christ’s church is both our great privilege and the source of spiritual power in being and doing all that our Sovereign Lord has designed and destined the church to be and do. Some of these areas of focus in prayer include unity, the ministry of Word and Sacrament, church discipline and restoration, fellowship and growth, the lost, renewal and revival, suffering, church leadership and the return of Christ. The section at the end of each chapter called “prayer summary” is worth the price of the book. Together these sections compose an impressive prayer list for those committed to upholding their church in prayer. Few have been able to compose something on prayer that is sensitive to the theology of prayer while being intensely practical in providing specific guidance in what to pray. Many will find, as I have, this little book to be large in usefulness."
Ronald Steel
recently Senior Pastor of Twin Oaks Presbyterian Church, Ballwin, Missouri.

Thanks, Ron! I'm grateful for our acquaintance, and look forward to sharing more time with you in the future.

Refreshing your participation in corporate worship

Continuing in the series on refreshing your spiritual life. (For the rest of the series, see "Refreshing your personal Bible study practices, part 1 and part 2," and "Refreshing your personal prayer life.") Remember, this is from a book on transitioning from seminary into ministry-- so some of the content is written toward seminarians; it seems practical, however, for anyone.

Refreshing Your Participation in Corporate Worship

Are you worshiping well? Worshiping while in seminary can present one of the greatest challenges of that season of life. In fact, I knew a handful of classmates who confessed that they felt they had lost the capacity to worship, because (among other things) their seminary education had presented too many stumbling-blocks.

What were/are some of their struggles?

• Temptation to critique. Often, our own study of things like homiletics and worship leadership will create a default-mode of critical examination for sermons, music selections, prayers, and other parts of the public liturgy. It is easy to think, “I would have preached that sermon differently” when you are not the one preaching it.
  • Racing minds. Anyone who has been in seminary for a while has a mind that is in a near-constant state of high-gear. It is tempting to think about everything but the worship of God.
  • Burdensome work-loads. The seemingly never-ending state of unfinished assignments presents an ongoing burden of interruption to the worshiper. This is true for everyone, and no less so the seminarian.
  • Knowledge distractions. Something said (or unsaid) during worship will spark an idea that a knowledgeable mind wants to engage. We have learned so many wonderful and fascinating things! We want to allow those thoughts to mature right away— even at the cost of our worship.
  

I’m not listing these to suggest new ways to worsen your worship! Rather, my goal is to point out some of the things that might be preventing you from worshiping well.

What can you do about the struggles of worship?
You can start by seeking to be well-prepared for worship. This subject is worthy of a book in itself, but a few ways to better prepare for worship include approaching corporate worship prayerfully; reading the sermon text ahead of time, if possible; learning to anticipate corporate worship with eager expectation; seek forgiveness from those you have sinned against, and extend forgiveness to others; disciplining your heart and mind for focused, concentrated worship; and getting a good night’s rest. Strive for learning how to worship well as a member of a congregation, even in the face of the knowledge and experience you are gaining.

You should also spend concerted effort on seeking humility. Many of the struggles that I and others faced in seminary(that perhaps you are facing, as well) stemmed from a prideful approach to worship and the pastors/leaders who served us. Remember that they, too, struggled through the studies that you have taken up— and unlike you, they finished those studies! Your pastor(s) have experience, wisdom, and training that you do not yet have; it is nothing short of arrogance that a seminary student might criticize the leadership and/or preaching of his pastor the way that some do.

Remind yourself of the magnitude of the Gospel. We worship God because we are aware of how worthy of our praise He is; how much He has accomplished on our behalf; how dependent upon Him we are, daily; how much He loves us. If you’re struggling with worship, ask yourself how much you are remembering the Gospel during it. Have you forgotten His grace? Have you taken for granted His mercies, new every morning? Have you made little of your sin? Reclaim the place at His feet that He has secured for you.

Ask your professors [or your pastor(s)] how they have learned to worship well. One of the greatest indirect ministries that I received from my seminary professors was watching them worship with their families in our congregation. And one of the most interesting conversations I had with a professor was talking about how he worships with his family: they had arranged to have the hymns for the coming Sunday e-mailed to their house, and they practiced them with their children. They held hands during the congregational prayers, and sang harmonies together. They encouraged one another with what they had heard and learned during the sermons. Most of all, though, my professors (all of whom had been pastors themselves, at one point) came humbly and readily to sit under the leadership and teaching of a man they had helped to train for ministry, and they willingly submitted to their congregation in worship. Your professors may be the best models for you in worship.

Your private and family devotional life will also shape how you worship. If you are neglecting your personal Bible study and prayer during the week, of course you will struggle to worship on Sundays. If you and your wife have unforgiven sin between you, naturally you will not be ready of heart and mind for worshiping God. Attend to your private worship, be diligent in your family devotions, and corporate worship will come more naturally to you.

Commit yourself to set aside the time for worship. Worship and rest are inextricably connected in Scripture, and for good reasons— one of which is that you cannot ably worship with a mind that is not at rest. You must learn the discipline of putting aside the unfinished work that is before you: regardless of how many pages you have left to write, how much reading is still incomplete, or how big the pile of dishes you haven’t yet washed, you will never worship fully and devotedly without learning to turn away from the work and turn to the Lord.
Don’t neglect to pray that you would become a better worshiper! This is a prayer item that you will never exhaust. Pray that the Lord would teach you to worship in spite of yourself. Pray for the humility that you need, and the awe and wonder at Christ’s grace that would move you to worship Him fervently. Ask God to draw you to Him- self and bind you to others in your congregation as you worship together.

Why is it so vital that you worship well? First, because you were created to worship God, and to bring Him glory. You will never enjoy Him more fully than in corporate worship. Second, because our worship is a reflection of what we love— and if we struggle in worship, it means that we have either begun to idolize something else or our love for God has dulled. Third, because it will give you the nourishment and sustenance that you need to persevere through your work as a student (and other work).
And finally, because you may never again be free to worship God in the way that you are now free to do so. Most pastors have some level of responsibility during (or surrounding) the corporate worship that they engage in through their ministries. Many (like myself ) serve in a setting wherein we are leading a central part of worship almost every week. This may be your last season of worship that is unfettered by the responsibilities of ministry.⁶

Learn to worship well, and delight in the worship that you get to participate in during seminary.

__________________
NOTES:
6 Which is not to say that you won’t be engaged with the worship of God in your ministry! On the contrary, it is a privilege to worship God in the way that pastors get to worship weekly. But it won’t be the same— and those differences are significant.


Adapted from From M.Div. to Rev.: making an effective transition from seminary into pastoral ministry by J.E. Eubanks, Jr. (Oakland, TN: Doulos Resources, 2011).

Another book

Earlier this month, my latest book was released: From M.Div. to Rev.: making an effective transition from seminary into pastoral ministry.

This book is a guide and reference for seminary students who plan to enter pastoral ministry upon graduation; it takes them through all of the stages of getting ready for candidacy, finding good opportunities, gathering and providing the right information, making decisions, and beginning well. It is the result of seven years of work, including a research survey, follow-up interviews, gathering case studies, and also plenty of personal experience.

Obviously, it's not for everyone-- but there are perhaps one or two people I know who will benefit from it, I hope.

If you are one of those two, you can buy it at the Doulos Resources eStore; it is also available through the Covenant Seminary Bookstore, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, the Apple iBookstore (coming soon, hopefully), and a few other places.

Refreshing your personal prayer life

Continuing in the series on refreshing your spiritual life. (For the other parts of the series, see "Refreshing your personal Bible study practices, part 1 and part 2.)

Prayer

Prayer, like devotional Bible reading, can often fall prey to neglect or disengaged routine. Without repeating much of what was covered in the previous section, there is still work to be done in urging and challenging you to give attention to this vital area of spiritual formation. I offer here encouragement to pray, and how you might pray.


Ways to Refresh Your Prayer Life
Pay less attention to length, eloquence, and orderliness. Remember that prayer mustn’t be long to be effective. Sometimes a prayer may take the form of hours-long conversation with the Lord. At other times, an utterance as brief as, “oh, God!” may suffice. Likewise, how precise your language or articulation in prayer can become a distraction if you let it; remember how Paul encourages us that, when we lack words for precision, the Holy Spirit intervenes on our behalf.² Order in prayer— working through a particular list or making priorities— may also hinder you from praying freely.³ In heart-felt and effective prayer, length, eloquence, and orderliness matter far less than honesty, fervency, and earnestness.
Soak yourself in the Psalms. It is easy to forget that God has provided us with a prayer book: the 150 prayers of the Psalms are themselves a rich resource for both learning to pray and for regaining a renewed vigor in prayer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “The Psalter is the great school of prayer.”⁴ The Psalms contain every emotion that you will encounter, and they engage that emotion prayerfully in a manner that is biblically- consistent— after all, they are Scripture! Learn to pray the Psalms as a tool for prayer.⁵
Make use of good prayer resources. In addition to the Psalms, we have the blessing of generations of prayers offered before us— many of which have been recorded and offered as both models and aids for our own prayers. You may find collections like The Valley of Vision by Arthur Bennett to be a goldmine of worthy prayers. You might make use of a Book of Common Prayer or something like the Daily Offices. There are many of these available, and almost every tradition has one or more that are both consistent with the tradition’s theology and helpful to work it out in prayer.

Get quiet. It is a challenge today to get away from noise and distraction. Most of us have constant access to music, the internet, and/or television. Few settings and contexts are free of other people to speak with or, at least, to watch. Our schedules are full, and our minds are engaged. You must therefore be deliberate to find times and ways to get quiet for prayer. This may mean setting aside time in your day for undistracted prayer, be it 10 minutes in the morning before you get dressed, some moments before you go to bed, or scheduled in the middle of your day. It might be as elaborate as some hours or a whole day when you will retreat to a quiet, private place for extended prayer. Or it may be one day a week when you commit to leaving your car radio off and spending all of your commuting time praying as you drive.

Meet with others. Committing yourself to an occasional or regular time to gather with one or several others for prayer can be both an intense opportunity for fellow- ship and excellent accountability to pray. There have been seasons in my life when such scheduled meetings were the only consistent time of prayer that I had. (There have also been times when I longed for the fellowship of prayer that these represented, and that was absent from my regular practice.) For two semesters of my time in seminary, I met every week with a classmate to pray for each other in our candidacy and placement; these semesters were, for me, a rich time of fellowship and a season of great spiritual growth in learning to pray for myself and for others.

______________
NOTES:
2 Romans 8:26-27.
3 Don’t get me wrong here: often, making a list of needs for prayer, items of praise, and reasons for thanksgiving can facilitate focused prayer, and may allow you to pray more and longer than just praying off the top of your head. It may also protect you from meaningless repetition and babbling. But these tools, when held too highly, may also keep you from the intimate fellowship with God and means of grace that prayer is.
4 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Row, 1954), 47.

Adapted from From M.Div. to Rev.: making an effective transition from seminary into pastoral ministry by J.E. Eubanks, Jr. (Oakland, TN: Doulos Resources, 2011).

Refreshing your personal Bible study practices, part 2

This is part two; read part one here.

Strategies for Bible Reading

If you’re stuck in a Bible-reading rut and need some un-sticking, here are some things to consider.

All Study Is Devotional
The odds are good that even in your last year of seminary, you have one or two exegetical and/or theology classes left. These may be the key to jumpstarting your devotional Bible reading.
“Wait,” you say. “Those classes are part of the reason I feel so stuck!” It’s understandable that, when studying the Bible for a class, your devotional approach to the Bible might seem to dry up. That can be true especially when you’re asked to do things like making an analysis of the keywords in the original language or consider the text-critical differences of the early manuscripts. What do you do about the very technical and academic approach to the Bible that you are asked to regularly assume in seminary?

You must learn to embrace the spiritual value of those things, and you must learn that a division of the academic from the devotional— of the head from the heart, so to speak— is a false dichotomy. Everything that a seminary asks of you has devotional value, no matter how academic.¹ Remember, what you are doing in those classes is learning how to more closely and accurately determine the meaning and intention of the text— which means that, through the most minute details, you will learn more of what the Bible says and how it says it.

Seminary is an opportunity to learn how to connect head and heart more fully in Bible study. Like so many aspects of seminary, this is vital preparation for real ministry. You will be faced with the same kind of work on a weekly basis, if not daily, and whatever difficulty you have with this now will carry over then; it won’t get easier, it will get harder. What is more, if you cannot connect the study you are doing for sermon and lesson preparation with the devotional, heart and soul-oriented application, you will rob your congregation of the truths the Bible has for them.

Start learning how to approach your academic study devotionally. As you work through the assignments and exercises, ask yourself what application each assignment draws out for you. Consider how the information you gather through the exercise may aid in explaining the meaning of the text to others, and how it helps you understand the text on a personal level. Think about how this new knowledge might affect the way that you would preach or teach that passage. Determine whether the conclusions you draw lend clarity to the meaning, and decide if those conclusions are necessary and/or useful in a devotional sense.

Finding Time
Approaching your academic work with a devotional spirit is helpful, not only because it re-shapes the way you do your assignments, but also because it means that you’ve done some devotional reading already that day!

But you don’t have those assignments every day, and there are times when you may have trouble finding time to do the devotional reading you want to do. It can be a lot easier to find time than you might think.

You probably own more than one copy of the Bible. Try keeping copies in different places all over your house. A Bible in the kitchen, another in the bathroom, one in the living room, and a copy by your bed— suddenly, anytime you have a few spare moments, you can grab a Bible and read it. Keep one in your car, too; how many times are you waiting in a drive-through line and could read a verse or two?

Remember that we must be careful not to be legalistic in how much time we must spend reading the Bible to consider it “devotional” reading. Is 15 minutes enough? How about five? How about just one minute, reading just one verse two or three times through? The length of time is not as important as how much God’s Word is hidden in our hearts where we might meditate upon it. If you use a calendar to organize your day, look over it for occasions when you have small windows of time spent waiting. Maybe in the moments between when you get to class and when the lecture begins, the few minutes after you’re ready but before your carpool picks you up, or the time in the grocery store line as you await checkout, you could grab some quick devotional reading.

Routines (Good & Bad)
Sometimes we can find help in routines for our devotionals. At other times, they can become a prison.

Perhaps, like me, you have struggled over the years with the warring desires of rising early for a lengthy and satisfying time spent reading God’s Word, and the lure of a comfortable bed during the sleepy moments of waking. I have tried time and again to develop this discipline, to no avail.

I want to be careful not to fall into a mystical or legalistic concept of morning devotionals. I don’t believe that rising early for devotional time is inherently any more special or powerful than Bible reading at other times during the day. But I love the thought of rising early and spending the waking moments in God’s Word and in prayer.

Your routines, or desires for them, may be different. I had a friend in college who didn’t feel like her devotionals were complete if she didn’t have a cup of coffee with them, sitting in a certain place, and with absolute silence in her apartment. I knew someone else who felt like their time had been violated if they had an interruption— and he would bark at his wife or children if they spoke to them, “I’m having my Quiet Time!” How contrary!

Familiarity can be good, and the routines you establish for devotionals may be a great aid to you for their regularity. But they might also become enslaving, preventing you from any sense of having communed with God in His Word unless things were “just right.” Or they could become mystical, where the very practice of certain activities (like nestling into a favorite chair with a cup of coffee at your side) take on voodoo-like ritual qualities. Use routines well; be careful that they don’t begin to use you instead.

Re-Starting
If you have fallen out of the habit of reading the Bible, all you have to do is start again. I once had a member in a congregation I served who came to talk to me about feel- ing distant from God. I asked her if she prayed regularly; she replied that she did, but that her prayers felt repetitive and dull. Then I asked her if she read her Bible. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I try to read all the way through my Bible every year!” “That’s wonderful,” I said. “How is your progress lately? How far have you gotten?” She thought about it, and she couldn’t remember. I asked her if she had read it that week, and she said no. I asked if she could remember the last time she read it, and she thought for a moment before replying that she couldn’t. After a few more minutes of interrogation, it turned out that she had begun her reading plan in January, but had gotten bogged down in Leviticus sometime around early February and had stopped reading then. (It was June when we spoke.) After a few weeks of unfulfilled good intentions, she never started back up again, because she was so far behind she knew she would never finish her reading plan within the year. She figured she would just wait and start again next year.

I believe her problem is an all too common one: when we think about our aspirations for Bible reading, we often aim too high. We set a goal that we cannot reach, and therefore we are always discouraged. As I told my congregant, I think that reading through the whole Bible in year is a wonderful goal; but I also think that abandoning Bible reading altogether when it becomes clear that the goal won’t be attained is a tragic consequence of too-lofty ambitions.

When you haven’t read the Bible for a while, just pick it up and read. Open to a Psalm and read just one, or if you’re ready for more then read two. Or go to one of the smaller epistles toward the back of the New Testament and have the satisfaction of reading all the way through a letter in one sitting! (Nevermind that it was only 15 verses.) Try the same with one of the Minor Prophets. Or just read the opening chapter of Genesis, John, or Acts.

In other words, ease back into Bible reading; don’t approach it with a level of ambition you won’t yet have the stamina to sustain. Work up to those larger goals.

Notes:
1 I acknowledge that this is true more often in evangelical seminaries than in others; nevertheless, even in a theologically-liberal seminary where the authority and integrity of the Bible is highly challenged, there can be devotional aspects to the most critical exercises. Those men I know who came through a more liberal theological education with their faith intact did so because they saw every note of criticism and every challenge to biblical accuracy to be an opportunity for them to strengthen their own understanding and belief in Bible truths.


Adapted from From M.Div. to Rev.: making an effective transition from seminary into pastoral ministry by J.E. Eubanks, Jr. (Oakland, TN: Doulos Resources, 2011).

Refreshing your personal Bible study practices, part 1

In my just-published book, From M.Div. to Rev.: making an effective transition from seminary into pastoral ministry, I have a chapter that focuses on encouraging the spiritual life of the seminarian who is preparing for pastoral ministry. A friend (a non-seminary person!) who was reading a draft of the manuscript encouraged me to consider that this material might be useful to more than just seminary students; therefore, I'll post portions of that chapter on the blog for a few weeks, edited for a more general audience.

Bible Study

You need to be reading your Bible. This always strikes me as an almost-silly thing to say— yet, I find it easy to neglect my own Bible reading, and I know many other pastors who also struggle to read the Bible regularly. I knew a lot of classmates in seminary who were very disciplined about their devotional life, but I also knew plenty of others who, like me, have struggled with the spiritual disciplines.

If you are already disciplined about reading your Bible, I commend you, and congratulate you on a gift from God that not every Christian receives. You will still find some suggestions applicable to you in this post, hopefully.

On the other hand, if you struggle with Bible reading then I want to offer encouragement for you, as well.

Things to Remember about Christian Devotional Reading

Penance
We don’t read our Bibles as a form of penance. Most protestants will zealously reject the Roman Catholic idea of penance in the form of atoning for sin by repetition of certain prayers a prescribed number of times, etc. However, many of us do the same thing in our own way: if we missed a devotional yesterday, we’ll try to do penance by reading twice as much today. If we haven’t read our Bibles for weeks, we’ll demand of ourselves that we read for a half-hour every day without missing one.

We’ll do this for other things, too: if we were mean to our wives, ignored someone’s pain, or wasted time when we should have been working— and we feel convicted about those things— we might turn to Bible reading as a way to make up for them. Whatever our sin is, we frequently turn to self-flagellation of some sort to attempt to make atonement for it. Bible reading can be done as a form of such flagellation.

We don’t need to atone for our sins, through Bible reading or anything else. Christ has already atoned for our sins! If you are in Christ, then you are free from the guilt of your sin, and free of any need for self-atonement. (Good thing, too, because self- atonement isn’t possible anyway!) God doesn’t love you any less because of your sin, and He doesn’t love you any less because you missed a devotional, or a dozen devotionals in a row. God’s love for you is constant because Christ has atoned for all of your failings.

Love-Earning
Likewise, we don’t read our Bibles as a way to gain God’s love. Too often we approach God as if His grace and love for us is one-dimensional: He is gracious and loving toward us in our sin, but in all other ways we have to gain His favor. This leads to a life spent in attempts to earn God’s love and favor, to gain His blessing through meritorious acts.

This can be our motivation in our devotional time, also. We may think, “If I spend my time reading God’s Word, He’ll love me more! He’ll give me more blessings! He’ll be glad He bothered to save me!”

Just as God doesn’t love you any less because of your sin, neither does He love you any more because of your obedience, your service to Him, or your piety. God already loves you as much as anyone can be loved— and He demonstrated that love 2,000 years before you were born, when He sacrificed His own Son to pay the ransom for your soul. God’s love for you is never-ending, and it is already as great as it can possibly be. You do not need to earn God’s love, even through your devotional life, for it is already yours.

Life Expressing
We read our Bibles because we will grow spiritually from reading the Bible. We read them because God communicates with us through His Word, reminding and teaching us of our need and His provision. We read them because we need the truths that the Bible contains. We read our Bibles because of our identity.

We have an identity through our faith in Christ: we, who were strangers and aliens in a foreign land with no home-country, who were orphans without a family or inheritance, who were enemies with the living God— WE are now the opposite of all of these. We are citizens of a holy nation, and part of the celestial city. We are no longer enemies with God, but are reconciled to Him, so much so that He has adopted us as His own and called us children of God! We have an identity, and it is in that identity that we do all that we do— including reading our Bibles.

We read our Bibles because, as children of the living God, we need to hear the words our Father would say to us. They are life-giving, strengthening, faith-building words, and they teach us of ourselves and our identity. They instruct us in what it means to be who we have become in Christ, and in how we might properly live ac- cording to the name we have been given.

Our Bibles are worth reading, not because doing so makes God overlook or forgive our sin, and not because reading them earns His pleasure; either of those perspectives subtracts from God’s sovereignty and places the determination for our spiritual well- being on ourselves. Our Bibles are worth reading because the Word of God is good for our faith and for our spiritual health.

In part two, we'll consider some strategies for refreshing your Bible study practices.

Adapted from From M.Div. to Rev.: making an effective transition from seminary into pastoral ministry by J.E. Eubanks, Jr. (Oakland, TN: Doulos Resources, 2011).

Calvin on the visible church

When I taught my seminar on membership in the local church at General Assembly, I received a number of great questions. One of them-- maybe the best one-- asked whether I took exception to the 4^th and 5^th membership vows in my firm stance that church membership is nothing more or less than a public profession of faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. These two vows speak directly to the professing member's commitment to the church, and therefore some might infer that it is not a part of one's profession of faith in the Gospel.

I would contend otherwise-- that, in fact, our faith in the Gospel and our commitment to Christ's church are inseparable. This is an area where I hope/plan to do more thinking and writing in the next year or so. Meanwhile, here's a quote from John Calvin on the topic:

But as it is now our purpose to discourse of the visible Church, let us learn, from her single title of Mother, how useful, nay, how necessary the knowledge of her is, since there is no other means of entering into life unless she conceive us in the womb and give us birth, unless she nourish us at her breasts, and, in short, keep us under her charge and government, until, divested of mortal flesh, we become like the angels (Matthew 22:30). For our weakness does not permit us to leave the school until we have spent our whole lives as scholars. Moreover, beyond the pale of the Church no forgiveness of sins, no salvation, can be hoped for, as Isaiah and Joel testify (Isaiah 37:32; Joel 2:32). To their testimony Ezekiel subscribes, when he declares, “They shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel” (Ezekiel 13:9); as, on the other hand, those who turn to the cultivation of true piety are said to inscribe their names among the citizens of Jerusalem. For which reason it is said in the psalm, “Remember me, O Lord, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation; that I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance” (Psalm 106:4, 5). By these words the paternal favour of God and the special evidence of spiritual life are confined to his peculiar people, and hence the abandonment of the Church is always fatal.

John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Ford Lewis Battles, trans., John T. McNeill, ed. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1960), Book IV, p. 6.

General Assembly Seminar

As my 10s of readers may know, I published a booklet with Doulos Resources in February: Grafted Into The Vine: rethinking biblical church membership.

At this year's PCA General Assembly, I'll be doing a seminar on the topic of this booklet. My seminar will be on Wednesday morning at 8am, and it's currently scheduled for meeting room(s) 4A&B. I'd love to see you there, if you can come!

Endorsement for Grafted Into The Vine

T. David Gordon is Professor of Religion & Greek at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania; he is also the author of Why Johnny Can't Preach and Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns-- two books that have skyrocketed in popularity due to their poignant critique of much of our church culture today. T. David is also ordained as a Teaching Elder in my denomination, the PCA.

He was gracious enough to offer an endorsement for my recent booklet, Grafted Into The Vine: rethinking biblical church membership. Here's what he said:

"This volume clearly, gently, and biblically addresses why believers should care about and be members of Christ's visible church on earth. It is convincing without being argumentative, and instructive without being pedantic. Thoughtful Christians will be rewarded for the small amount of effort it takes to read this good book."

Thanks so much, T. David!

A new book(let)

I have a new book-- a booklet, actuallly-- that is getting released this week: Grafted Into The Vine: rethinking biblical church membership.

Doulos Resources, a publishing ministry that I've been involved with for a few years, is releasing this booklet as a part of a new series, entitled Strengthen The Church. For more information about the booklet (and about Doulos Resources), visit this website: Doulos Resources -- Grafted Into The Vine

I have repeatedly encountered misunderstandings and unbiblical practices in the church today regarding membership. So many people in many of the different congregations I have served have held to a view of membership that was completely out of accord with Scripture! I wrote this booklet out of that need, and out of a desire for others to reach an understanding of what the Bible teaches about membership in Christ's church.

There are three basic principles that I put forth in this booklet:
All Christians need membership in the local church
Church membership is nothing less than your public profession of faith in the Gospel
Church membership is nothing more than your public profession of faith in the Gospel

Following that, I briefly address two hard questions that often arise when people are confronted with these three principles together.

It is my prayer that this booklet will minister to God's people, giving them hope, encouragement, comfort, and security.

Check out my new booklet, Grafted Into The Vine: rethinking biblical church membership!

More thoughts on books, eBooks, and publishing

A while back I reflected and speculated about books, eBooks, publishing, and self-publishing. (Read those posts here, here, and here.) That was more than half a year ago(!) and, of course, things continue to progress. I've had some further thoughts, which I'll catalogue here in no particular order. (As much as anything, this is simply for my own use-- but you are welcome to interact with any of these ideas.)

• There is no disputing that eBooks are here to stay-- in fact, they are doing quite well. Sales of eBooks have skyrocketed over the past year, with Amazon (who, I think we can all agree, is a pretty substantial source for such information) first reporting that eBook sales overtook hardcover sales last summer, then that eBook sales exceeded all print sales after the holidays. One could argue that the later figure is the result of a lot of Kindle readers as Christmas gifts getting loaded up, and that those levels will drop. Is that a safe assumption, though-- after all, if there were THAT many Kindle readers sold, shouldn't we assume that at least some of them will continue to be used after the first round? Keep in mind, too, that Amazon's Kindle is only one e-reader, and that they are probably more dominant in print book sales than in eBooks (at least for now).
• "Independent" Publishing-- I'm really curious about the fact that the self-publishing community has elected to adopt the self-reference "independent publisher" instead of "self-publisher." On the one hand, this fits with other creative culture endeavors: a musician that hasn't signed with a record label, yet produces recordings for sale, is referred to as an "independent artist." On the other hand, this seems like a dodge, and an unnecessary one to boot. Inasmuch as publishing has ever been "self" executed (how long has it been since the norm in self-publishing was, start to finish, handled all by the author? I've never heard of an author who is also a bookbinder, for example), it still is; and yet, self-publishing is finally overcoming the bad wrap given it by the traditional publishing industry-- note this piece on this trend as an example. Why shirk the label just as it is regaining legitimacy?
• "Obstacles" in eReading-- I have read so many people claiming that they like their Kindle more than their iPad as an e-reading device-- not because the iPad weighs more, or because the screen is too bright (either of these I'll accept), but because the iPad lets them do other things! They say, "I want my reading device to be immersive" and apparently the allure of checking e-mail or Facebook on the iPad is just too tempting. Phooey, I say-- and then I ask, what are these guys reading? I've been using my iPad as an e-reader for about six months now, and have read probably 8-10 books on it. I like that I can check e-mail on it too, but when I'm reading a good book, this doesn't matter: the book is the immersive part. The device is simply the conduit for the goods. This is about as convincing to me as the argument for printed paper books that goes like this: "I love the way the book smells!" (Which is to say, not convincing at all. What-- you love the smell of slightly mildewed wood fibers? Okay, but just try to convince the board of Borders that this angle would have made the difference in their recent bankruptcy.) You want your iPad to be immersive? Two suggestions: learn some self-control, and read good books!
• Amazing progress in electronic publishing for iPad-- there really are some amazing things happening in electronic publishing. Magazines are reinventing themselves by way of the iPad-- check out this write-up about Martha Stewart Living. Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate recently released the first-ever iPad-only daily newspaper, The Daily (I've got it, and have read it-- it's pretty good, but it crashes a lot). Some books are being released for iPad that are challenging the very notion of what it means to read a book. Don't believe me? Check out this piece on an iPad version of Alice in Wonderland. As someone involved in both writing and publishing, I find all of it very exciting-- and I can also understand how a large, traditional publisher would feel very threatened.
• Prices will come down for eBooks-- Michael Hyatt wrote an interesting blog-post last fall, on why eBooks cost so much. He is challenging the conventional idea that there is a lot of savings found in not having to print books: no printing costs, no warehousing costs, no shipping costs. Mike is right that there are still lots of costs involved in publishing an eBook (he lists "acquisitions, royalties, editorial development, copyediting, cover and interior design, page composition, cataloging, sales, marketing, publicity, merchandising, credit, collections, accounting, legal, tax, and the all the usual costs associated with running a publishing house"). Plus, Mike lists three new costs involved in digital publishing: digital preparation, quality assurance, and digital distribution. But I have to challenge Mike on some of these. First of all, distribution isn't a new cost-- it just changes a bit in the digital context; plus, distribution is already more streamlined for eBooks than it ever has been for print books: it's more like the Amazon model (where the publisher sells direct to the reseller) than the local bookstore model (where a middleman distributor warehouses and sells books to resellers). As digital publishing matures, it will get even easier. As for the other two costs (preparation and quality assurance), these will also get easier and much less expensive. Right now, as Mike points out, there are a number of different formats that publishers must prepare if they want to fully saturate the market with their eBooks. But over the next couple of years-- I predict by mid-2012-- one or possibly two standards will emerge (there will be room on the market for one that is a static layout, like a PDF-- in fact, it will probably be PDF; and also room for one that is a dynamic layout, allowing the text reflow based on screen-size and other preferences-- probably the ePub), and this will make coding and preparation much more efficient. Furthermore, the tools for designing and laying out books are already beginning to automate the process of coding eBooks, and these will get much better (not unlike website publishing 10 years ago vs. now). Both of these factors will reduce preparation extremely: files prepared for print books will require little or no further action to convert them to eBooks, in both of the standardized formats. And it will also reduce quality assurance efforts, as only a single kind of file will need to be checked. The end result: eBook prices will continue to fall.
• Paperbacks will suffer-- A lot of people speculate about how the rise of eBooks will mean the demise of printed-paper books. I disagree. Rather, I'm with Joel Friedlander, who thinks that the main casualty of the rise of eBooks will be the cheap, disposable paperback. There are basically three kinds of printed-paper books people buy: reference books that are never read, but are used in bits and pieces; books to buy and keep, or to buy and pass around-- these are a large portion of the printed-paper market (currently in both paperback and hardcover); and the throw-away paperbacks that are sold cheaply and by the hundreds in airports, grocery stores, and of course the few remaining bookstores. When I was a kid, my dad went through dozens of these a month; we would literally have five or six paper grocery-bags stacked full of them to give to Goodwill 3-4 times a year. These will be the victims of the rise of eBooks replaced by eBooks, and I say good riddance! Especially if it is still easy to get good trade paperbacks for keeping and/or lending, OR if hardcover prices come down. (I can absolutely see the latter happening when the printing industry begins to feel the pinch of eBooks closing in on their bottom-line, making it more affordable for publishers to offer low-cost hard-bound books instead of, or in addition to, high-grade paperbacks.)
• Good self-published books won't be any harder to find-- one of the biggest concerns I hear/read about the rising tide of self-publishing-- ahem, sorry, independent publishing-- is that we will be awash in crummy books and it will be difficult to find the good stuff. Here again I say, PHOOEY! First of all, there is no shortage of absolutely lousy books being hawked by the traditional publishers; in fact, the percentage of really good books produced by big-name publishing houses seems to drop consistently every year. Second, take a walk through Barnes & Noble or a look at Amazon's website and tell me that there aren't already thousands of books to sort through-- and there were years ago, before the latest wave of self-publishing began. But third-- and this is the big, "they are missing the point" idea-- the good books are getting easier to find, not harder. The "Information Age" began a better way to find and access good books, and the "social media" age is elevating both the access and the knowledge about them. I'm never at a loss for what books to buy next, because I get book recommendations almost every day via Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and newer sources like GoodReads.

More on Self-Publishing

Start with my recent post on Publishing and Self-Publishing for background.

Now, the publishing industry is what it is: there are more people seeking publication than ever, and more book proposals and manuscripts (good and bad) being submitted than ever. Publishers still have to make money to stay afloat-- no one should begrudge them their right to make a profit. And the sub-industries around publishing are full and growing.

As I pointed out in my last post, however, there are some sea-changes taking place in the publishing industry. Probably one of the most significant ones is that the seat of power is shifting from the publishers themselves to the resellers. Another crucial change is that the "middle-man" is no longer the distributor, but now the publishing house itself, because distribution is largely consolidated among four or five huge companies that represent both distribution and re-sale-- and many of these companies offer a direct publication/distribution route to writers through self-publishing.

All of this has the publishing industry on the defensive, and there are basically two ways that they are responding: own it and figure out what part they will play in the next new era of publishing, or crab about it and insist that everyone is mistaken but them.

One example of the former is Thomas Nelson's approach: they established a self-publishing division called WestBow Press (actually resuscitating an old Thomas Nelson imprint name) which offers both self-publishing and (they claim) something like farm-team development for authors. In other words, according to Thomas Nelson, they're watching for major-league writing talent in the same way the division-I minor league baseball team in your hometown is looking for the next Albert Pujols or Andy Pettitte.

Another example of the former came recently on literary agent Chip MacGregor's blog, when Jeff Gerke, who is president of Marcher Lord Press, openly challenged a lot of the claims of conventional publishing houses. Gerke made a lot of solid points in favor of self-publishing, and pointed out that the trajectory of the industry doesn't seem to leave a lot of room for traditional publishing houses except for those who will be "pleading with people to come to them"! I feel like some of Gerke's claims are hyperbole, but he pointed out some weaknesses in traditional publishing's arguments (not the least of which is the arrogance with which so many seem to approach their place in the industry) and certainly stirred up some active discussion on Chip's blog.

And then comes the example of the latter, not-too-ironically coming in a response to Jeff Gerke on Chip MacGregor's blog. Dennis Hillman, who is publisher at Kregel Publications, had a lot to say in defense of traditional publishing. I'd like to respond particularly to some of Mr. Hillman's central points, to demonstrate why the "let's grouse about it to try to deflect some from reality" approach is so poor.

• "The author is putting up his or her own money and time to make it happen"-- this isn't wrong, but it isn't the obstacle Mr. Hillman makes of it. Many of the print-on-demand options represent a great value here, with little upfront cash required. Time is always a factor, but I'll speak more to this in a moment.
• "They are probably not authors who earn a living from writing" -- to which I would ask, how many of Kregel's authors are career writers? For that matter, how many of a company like Thomas Nelson's are? I just don't think there are that many career writers out there, period, who are looking to books as their sole source of income.
• "Will self-publishing allow an author to move into the larger general market of stores and e-sellers or the more defined CBA Christian store market? Maybe, but most often not" -- actually, this is largely untrue, as I have already demonstrated in my previous post. But where he goes from there is to say that when a book becomes a very good seller, the author needs the large, established corporate publisher and their expertise in marketing and in handling large-scale promotions, etc. This is probably true in 99% of the cases-- but this is the ONLY time when the author "needs" the large, established corporate publisher. In every other case, the marketing and promotion of the book is left almost entirely to the author (as Chip has repeatedly proclaimed on his blog, as have others). The publishing house offers almost no support to authors in terms of marketing and promotion today: if an author isn't able to establish their "platform" and have at least a somewhat-known name before they pursue publication, they won't have much chance of a contract -- and after publication, they are still on their own.
• "Publishers are going to to continue to serve authors, even though the nature of publishing is going to change radically" -- this was the line that made me laugh out loud. I find it quite a stretch to think of publishing houses as a service industry to authors. Yes, publishing is a service industry, but the order of those served puts customers first, the publishing house itself second, the resellers third, and the authors last. Traditional publishing houses are most interested in making money-- as they have every right to be-- and the service they render to authors, whatever that may be, is the lowest priority in that interest.
• "The real threat to traditional publishers is not the small, niche publisher or self-publishing. It's the disintermediation (I know—big word but an important one) that is taking place as two or three huge corporate entities replace the traditional chain of author-publisher-distributor-bookstore/online seller" -- this was the most reasonable thing Hillman said in the entire piece, and he's right that it should keep him awake at night. I've already demonstrated how that is a part of the sea-changes that are taking place. The question should be, though, why should this be presented as a problem, any more than the moveable-type printing press represented a problem for no one except the guild of scribes who made their living with quill and ink hand-copying work.

As I said above, one of the most significant sea-changes in the publishing industry is the shift of power from the publishing houses to the resellers. Another way to think about this is that the arbiters of what makes a book viable and worthy of publication are less and less the editors and publishers themselves, but the market. In other words, the readers are now the ones who will decide whether a book should be in print, not the editors at publishing houses. Why is this bad? It's not-- unless you happen to be an executive in a large, traditional corporate publishing house.

Here's where I think this is all going: following the trends of media "democratization" currently underway, self-publishing is going to break out in the coming years (even more than it already has), and the result may actually be a revival of book-reading in our culture because of the abundance of surprisingly-good and well-produced books on an incredibly wide array of topics. The large, power-holding traditional publishing houses are going to lose a significant amount of their clout and prophetic voice in the publishing industry; they won't go away (most of them), but in the fight to stay alive many of them will merge in an effort to shuffle the deck chairs around on the Titanic. Many smaller publishers, especially ones that focus on niche audiences and are nimble enough to adapt to new technologies quickly, will thrive-- and more of their kind will emerge and also thrive. And a new type of "publishing house" (if you can even call it that) will emerge, that will function more like a partner to authors by providing editorial, design, and layout services on the way to some sort of self-publishing and/or print-on-demand publication, in exchange for a share of the royalties (disclaimer: Doulos Resources, a small ministry that I work with, is actually something like a hybrid of the last two categories).

Thoughts about Publishing and Self-Publishing

One of the "big discussions" in the publishing industry is the future of publishing, and right now it boils down to two questions:

• What is the future of print-publishing (which I've considered before here; also check this good article at Cardus)?
• What is the future of traditional publishing houses vs. self-publishing?

Here's a quick summary of the lay of the land: self-publishing has always been around, and in fact was the de facto method of publishing until sometime after the movable-type Gutenberg printing press was invented. Even after that, self-publishing was a fairly common way for someone treat a completed work of research, for example, or perhaps doctoral work that was obscure enough for a relatively small audience.

As the publishing industry matured under the loving-care of its foster-parents -- capitalism and modernity -- two important shifts occurred. For one thing, more people began to write with an eye to publication. No longer were the writers who published non-fiction almost exclusively academics, pastors, political figures, and philosophers. And many who had a love of fiction and poetry also began to hope that their own stories and poems might appear in published form. Whether it was the dream of becoming the next great novelist, gaining prominence as a lecturer, a hope of earning some money from the hard work of writing, or simply the satisfaction that someone else found value in what they had written, the desire of "getting published" took on a new allure.

It also took on a new flavor. The other shift was this: those enterprises that had begun to make a name (and a profit) for themselves as publishing houses became the implicit arbiters of what is or isn't worthwhile for publication. There is something to this, really; if a publishing house is going to risk its own money on the publication of a book that may or may not earn them anything (let alone represent a real return on investment), they must be wise and discerning about where they choose to invest their money. But the shift didn't occur when publishers realized that they now had choices, and some were better investments than others. The shift occurred when the world arrived at the conclusion that the publishers knew something that others didn't: namely, which books were or weren't worthy.

I don't believe that there was some broad conspiracy among publishers to foster this impression among the outside world; I attribute it instead to the rise of the culture of experts that emerged in the 1900s. But publishers didn't eschew this impression. Instead, the fed it, and one of the ways that they fed it was to present the idea that self-publishing was far too arbitrary and unreliable-- indeed, that it was not something that serious and worthwhile writers engaged in, but was instead an act of vanity. Thus arose the label, "vanity publishers" which is what many of the long-lived self-publishing companies are referred as.

Some interesting things have happened in more recent years, however, that have caused tremors in the publishing industry-- especially with reference to self-publishing. First of all, the rise of the internet and related technology at the end of the 20^th century eventually gave way to the "democratization" of serial publishing, and it became possible through blogs and the like for someone to write and be read without ever passing through the gauntlet of queries and editors. Now anyone can write for a blog-- their own or someone else's-- in the way that someone once wrote for newspapers and magazines, though in far greater quantity. Magazine and newspaper publishers will argue that the same problems are in place: without the benefit of editors and "trusted names" in publishing, no one knows where to go for the good stuff, and there's far too much stuff "out there" that is poorly written and edited (if it is edited at all).

As most of us know, though, neither of these has become anything like the problems that the traditional publishers tell/told us they are/were. How many traditional magazines are on the verge of bankruptcy? How many newspapers are closing up shop? The problems they face are much greater than these two minor obstacles, which it turns out that word-of-mouth and the benefit of no-cost/high-frequency reading take care of handily.

Another thing that has happened is that the traditional book publishing houses have become more subject to the desires of the resellers, and not the other way around. This is largely due to the emergence of a few very large resellers that now dominate the book market -- think Walmart, Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.com -- and therefore control of how people buy books rests in the hands of a relatively few people. Publishers who set out to mass-market their books are beholden to these companies, and must accommodate their wishes to a large degree or face very threatening consequences. (More on this in a moment.)

A third thing is the subject of the other big question above-- the rise of alternative media to print publications, such as audio books, electronic books, and other forms of alternative publishing (like serializing on a blog, etc.). This means that print publications have potential to decline in ways and for reasons that have historically been non-factors, and traditional publishing houses face huge questions about what level they will participate in these new media, how they price their new-media publications (and how they justify these costs), questions of rights, etc.

These last two have already had a convergence of large scale that drew a lot of attention in the publishing industry earlier this year: Amazon faced off with MacMillan, who announced that they didn't want to work with Amazon any longer according to Amazon's terms for e-books (on the Kindle platform), which were basically, "list it at $9.99 and we (Amazon) will keep 70% of the sale price". Oddly enough, MacMillan thought they should be able to determine their own prices for the books they publish. Amazon's response: stop selling ALL of MacMillan's books, electronic AND print. Eventually Amazon brought their marbles back out to the playground, but the whole episode demonstrates how tentative the notion of who is in control in the publishing industry really is.

Finally, technology has made possible the idea of print-on-demand. Publishers once had enormous costs involved in getting a book to publication because they had to commit to a certain number of books for the "first run" -- maybe 5000, at a cost of, say, $1.60 each, which means that (in addition to the salaries of all of the people involved, the costs of marketing and promotion, any sort of advance payment to the author, and the overhead of maintaining their offices), they had an initial outlay of $8,000 just to get the book printed -- when it may not sell even half of those copies, and they were stuck with an inventory of a non-seller. According to that trajectory, a publisher might have close to $20,000 invested in a book before it ever hits the shelf of a bookstore. That's still the most economically-viable way to publish a book, because printing thousands of copies is much less costly than printing one or two at a time. But now it is technologically-viable to publish a book on a print-on-demand basis, meaning no copies are ever produced that aren't needed/wanted. The cost for a single copy might jump to triple the cost or more-- instead of $1.60, maybe it's $5.10-- but it is possible to produce a single copy of a book and no more.

How does this affect self-publishing? Because now Amazon.com AND Barnes & Noble (the nation's two biggest booksellers by a very large margin) both have self-publishing divisions, where any writer can publish their book(s) and have it appear within the listings of the respective stores. What is more, Ingram-- the nation's largest book distributor (which means they are typically the middle-men between publishing houses and resellers like bookstores, websites, etc.) also has a self-publishing division. In each case, self-publishing is done by print-on-demand, though some of these companies offer a more traditional bulk publishing option. In other words, anyone who wants to self-publish in today's market isn't stuck with selling what copies they can out of the trunk of their car; now they can say, "check out my book on Amazon.com" and (at least theoretically) no one can tell the earnest difference between their book and one published by MacMillan, Random House, or Thomas Nelson.

This is a huge shift, and there's more to say. Look for a follow-up post coming soon.

For All the Saints

Some of my tens of readers already know that I have just had a new book published. For All the Saints: Praying for the Church was just released by Doulos Resources earlier this week.

I started working on this book a little over a year ago, when the president of our Women in the Church ministry, Jane Mitchell, asked me if I could help her find a resource for the women on learning to pray for the church. (This fit well into our Ministry Focus for last year, which was prayer.) She had already looked and found nothing. I looked myself, and I couldn't find anything either. I was astonished; surely there was something out there on how to pray for the church?

If there was, I couldn't find it. So I told her I would write up a guide for them. I set out to fill a page with ideas, and that quickly became a few pages front-and-back. This evolved into a pamphlet, then a booklet, and eventually a small book.

My colleagues at Doulos Resources liked my small book, and after a few changes and improvements to the original, it became what it is today. I'm grateful to see it in published form, and I hope that it will serve the church as a useful resource.

One of the things I really like about how Doulos Resources offers books is that they want to make them easily affordable for churches. If a church wants to buy more than one copy for distribution or re-sale (like on a book table, etc.), Doulos Resources will discount the price to just $5 per copy.

Meanwhile, anyone can get a 10% discount through the Doulos Resources E-Store by entering this discount code: JF8PT64K (that discount applies to ALL Doulos Resources titles!).

Re-thinking eBooks and publishing

There has been a ton of "buzz" in the past couple of years about the coming changes in book publishing and in the print-publishing industry in general.

eBook readers are being touted as the next step in publishing technology. Sony has been marketing their eBook reader for years; Amazon jumped into that market a couple of years ago with the Kindle, which now also has a larger edition (presumably for newspaper and magazine consumption-- Sony has one too). Barnes & Noble dipped their toe in last fall, with the Nook. Now Apple has announced that the soon-coming iPad will have an eBook reader and a store, similar to iTunes and iPod.

In fact, that is the analogy that is so frequently tossed around: eventually, eBook readers will do for books what the iPod did for music.

I'm not buying that-- at least not outright. Here's why: the content publishers aren't ready. (Most of them, anyway.)

If the iPod had come out in the 80s, it would have sunk like lead. Why? Because there would be no easy way to get content from a cassette tape or vinyl record (both analog) into the iPod (a digital platform). There would not have been a straightforward path to converting existing libraries of music into the format(s) needed for the iPod (or any other MP3 player). By the end of the 90s, though, most people had shifted from tapes and vinyl to CDs, and had even re-purchased much of their libraries in the new format.*

Sure, Apple did a great job of promoting the iTunes music store as the one-stop solution for "filling your iPod" with digital music, and they (in cooperation with the recording industry) certainly stemmed the tide of online music piracy with iTunes. They also single-handedly changed the way we think about music-media consumption, from thinking in terms of whole albums/tapes/CDs to thinking in terms of single tracks.

But Apple's iTunes music store wasn't the thing that sold the iPod-- it was the fact that anyone could take their existing libraries of CDs and "rip" them into their iTunes library, thereby giving them a freedom for listening to the music they already owned on their iPods.

This was true for me with music. I had a library of almost 1000 CDs, and all of them are now boxed and stored in my attic; everything is ripped into iTunes, and thus distributed to my various iPods, iPhone, Apple TV, etc.-- a whole new music eco-system. I haven't bought an actual CD in probably five years, and have purchased hundreds of dollars' worth of media through the iTunes store-- yet by far the larger part of my library still is made up of content I owned prior to my first iPod.

This factor is the missing piece in the eBook puzzle. Book readers already own books! And we want/need some way to ensure that we will continue to have access to some or most of that content in the new eco-system, if we commit to it. Just as the music industry had modified their published content enough to allow (technologically, at least) the adaptation of other eco-systems beyond the traditional home or car stereo, book publishers must modify their content enough to make it more technologically adaptable.

I look at Thomas Nelson's "NelsonFree" program as a prime example of this. With this program, if you purchase a book (that is enrolled in the NelsonFree program, that is) in one format, then you automatically have access to others. For example, if you buy the print copy, you can also download the audio and eBook copies for no extra costs. (Check out Thomas Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt's blog post about this program for more.)

This-- or something very like it-- has got to be the direction that the print media industry goes if they hope to see the digital shift widely embraced. Magazines and newspapers should automatically give their subscribers total online access, perhaps while limiting access to non-subscribers (as opposed to, for example, Consumer Reports: my mother-in-law has given me a gift subscription for years, and I find the print copy interesting-- but what I'd really love is to have access to the online content, which actually requires a separate subscription!). Book publishers should figure out a system at least similar to Thomas Nelson's program.

It's not the cost of eBook readers that's so daunting, in my view. Folks didn't mind paying hundreds for an iPod, and they wouldn't mind paying good money for an eReader-- IF ONLY the content is easily available. They don't have to give new books away, either-- but at least acknowledge the fact that I've already bought the book at least once!


*The reason they had migrated to the new format, though, wasn't simply because it was new. This is a key part of understanding the history here: the new format (Compact Discs) offered superior quality to the older formats, and that quality improvement was quantifiable-- better frequency range, crisper and clearer sound, easier to use, longer-lasting without wearing out, etc. All of these were necessary for the shift to take place; just a few of them wouldn't have won the day (witness the 8-track tape, which offered minor improvement in sound quality and greater portability than vinyl, but didn't last nearly as long). People bought CDs because they were simply better in almost every way-- and they were willing to re-purchase their entire library (or at least most of it) for that improvement.

Lent Haiku

Fat Tuesday brings in
the beginning of a time
for self-denial

On reading, and books for January 2008

I love to read, and those who know me are aware that I read heavily: I regularly have multiple books that I'm reading concurrently, and I probably have averaged 50-75 books a year for the past decade and more. (I first realized that I had a higher-than-average tendency for reading when I set a personal goal to finish 25 books in a year my sophomore year in college and my friends and family finding this quite surprising; I hit 25 around August that year.)

As a result, I have a high awareness of good books on a variety of subjects. I've been told that I have the spiritual gift of bibliography-- I almost always have a book recommendation for a particular problem or issue. And, as an extension of that (and following in the pattern of several friends and others whose blogs I read), I thought I would start logging my reading habits here.

Most months, I finish at least two or three books during the month and begin others. Every now and then, I hit a peculiar month: while I continue to read, I don't actually finish any books! Whether its because I've spent a good bit of time writing, I've been reading magazines or other periodicals, or I've been reading parts of lots of books, I just don't make a lot of progress through any single volume.

January was one of those months. Thus, my first post sharing my reading with you is somewhat anti-climactic, I freely admit.

Just so that I don't leave it at that, here's the list of books that I am currently reading:

• The Cross of Christ by John R. W. Stott


• The Shadow of the Cross by Walter Chantry


• The Challenge of Jesus by N. T. Wright


• The Attributes of God by Arthur W. Pink


• How Your Church Family Works by Peter L. Steinke

Working on a book

If you've ever read my other blog, Placement Reflections, you may know that I started it as a repository for data, insights, and interaction with the research that I started in 2004 on pastoral placement. I initially did that research for personal reasons (e.g., I wanted to know how to place well!) but quickly became burdened for anyone who is going through a pastoral transition. As I've continued to study this subject, I'm convinced that I have developed some helpful nuts-and-bolts ideas about how to do pastoral transition well, from both the pastor's side and the church's.
At some point, I wondered if there might be a book-length project in this material, or even more than one. I first posted about this idea in July 2006-- so it is something that has been percolating for a while. Since then, I've gone through different stages of prepping for that-- including copying all of my posts into a very useful writing application (and discovering that I had more than enough material already for a book-length project-- and also realizing that about half of the book had barely been discussed); drafting a book proposal; getting great feedback from a trusted friend and fellow writer that I should divide the material into two books; writing a grant (that was rejected) for additional research for my book; actually losing the final draft of my book proposal; and putting all of it (including the Placement Reflections blog) on indefinite hold as I transitioned into pastoral ministry.
Now, the time is right for me to pick it up again over the coming months. I think there are several reasons why the timing is good:

• For starters, I've actually done the transition now, and I'm finishing up my examinations for ordination; Lord willing, I'll be ordained by mid-March. Since I first began to discuss doing a book, this has been the biggest hang-up for those who I've interacted with, and while I still believe that the research I've done could stand on its own in this regard, the added (and possibly fundamental) credibility of having actually done it means a lot.
• Next, approaching the completion (hopefully!) of ordination means that a major item that has been on my plate is finished. I'm settling into ministry well, and the other consulting and side work I'm doing is also reaching a manageable pace. So I have the capacity, I think, to re-focus on this project. Worst case, I'll start up and then slow down again, but we'll see.
• I'm eager to publish this material-- mainly because I really want to see men (and women) helped with their transition into ministry. Like I said above, I have a burdened heart for this.
• Finally, my friend Craig is setting his sights on finishing his (latest) book up this year, too-- and I think it would be cool to go through that together. Maybe we'll covenant to pray for one another in that, or at least be good support; Craig has been a great encourager of my writing in general.

Since Placement Reflections has been a great tool for prepping the book up to now, I fully intend to continue using it that way. I'll develop new ideas there on different levels over the coming months. 

Haiku #7 (Christmastide Haiku)

Son of God and son
of man, living for us and
our unrighteousness.