The Friday Five (8.14.26)
A Few Things for My Friends
Hey!
Every week, I share five things to encourage and equip in life with God.
This week, I chased a theme as it came together. I hope it encourages you!
Why Read Church History?
Reading Less More Deeply | Joel J Miller
Keeping Sacred Time
This I Will Remember Well
You Make it Beautiful
Have a great weekend!
MK
⬇️ Check out my book on who you’re becoming and how to grow in Christ! ⬇️
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1. Why Read Church History
This week, I sat with a young man in our congregation and talked about the question of authority in Church History. Who has authority over the church, what (or who) do we submit to, and what importance does the historical opinion have when it comes to what we believe? These are all important questions - and live ones in culture.
While there are waves of people looking for a historically grounded faith (and who are willing to overlook—or are unaware of—differences that make a difference), there are just as many who think just because it’s accepted fact in their generation, then it must be how things have always been.
One of the things I’ve loved about my PhD studies has been the perspective gained to see just how much things have shifted over time. When I think about the rate of change across the world from 1600-1800, it is an incredibly dense period of change that has born great and grave impact on the modern world. Getting perspective on the history of our faith helps us discern what to embrace, what to reject, what to reform, and how to sleep well at night.
I got an email recently from Banner of Truth advertising a small $4 booklet from J. Philip Arthur entitled, Why Read Church History? and the excerpt below illustrates my point above. It takes work to build your perspective, but it is important work. As you’re picking your fall reading, pick a time period and jump in. Just find something and start - don’t worry about getting it right. If you need a suggestion, drop a comment and I’m glad to help.
Here’s Arthur:
Gaining a Long Perspective
Another advantage is that history gives us long perspectives. It can be all too easy to assume that evangelical normality is represented by the Christian scene that we ourselves have known and what we have learned from the generation immediately before us (and in some cases reacted against). During my lifetime, evangelical Christianity in Britain has been dominated by two influences. Both have been extremely pervasive. The first was the high-profile campaign evangelism that made its way to the UK from North America in the second half of the nineteenth century. The second has been the Charismatic movement. The earlier Pentecostal movement came to Britain as recently at 1905, the newer Charismatic development of it came during my boyhood in the 1960s. How easy it would be for anyone born in the present century to assume that what they knew from their own experience was the norm. Speaking personally, when I first came under pressure from Charismatics who wanted me to believe that the way to spiritual power was to buy into their package of second-blessing theology and the resultant gifts, I was able to use the past to throw light on the present. Men of God like Whitefield and Spurgeon lived out their days before these emphases became fashionable, yet knew far more of the power of God on their ministries than most moderns.
2. Reading Less More Deeply
I’m a new reader to Joel J Miller’s writings, and really enjoyed his comments in a review of Joel Halldorf’s work, Reading Matters: A History for the Digital Age.
Miller writes of the tension between a contemplative, monastic type of reading, rooted in a time where books were copied by hand and the author’s argument worked its way into the scribe’s heart by sheer meditative time spent with the work. It’s not unlike when people copy sections of scripture by hand, as the task itself necessitates a slower pace and single minded attention.
From a contemplative, copying of books, the world moved into a reading for research for my argument, which grew with the advent of the printing press and exponential availability of texts.
Miller quotes Halldorf, who is optimistic about the future of books when he says:
…we need practices that allow us to step out of the whirlwind: slow down, take a breath, gather our thoughts, and simply be present. Books can help us do that—if we use them as the old monks did: not merely as vessels of information but as tools for contemplation. Unhurried reading without distractions offer a much-needed refuge from the acceleration originally set in motion by the printing press. Printed books are a technology that can augment our ability to be attentive.
I think the opportunity for us to sit with a book is impaired often by the opportunity of all the books. The writer of Ecclesiastes told us the writing of books would not end, and in our age, the scribes would never be able to keep up with what computers have made possible. We have to discipline our hearts to read meditatively, selectively, and thoroughly. Otherwise, we’re skimming across the surface and will remain people of less density than those whose hand-copied works we have inherited.
Read Joel Miller’s thoughts here, you’ll enjoy them!
3. Keeping Sacred Time
Sometimes you read books and they stick with you for years after. Andrew Root’s work, The Congregation in a Secular Age: Keeping Sacred Time Against the Speed of Modern Life, is one of those that won’t let me go. Root engages with Hartmut Rosa’s work, Resonance, and brings it down from the top shelf to just where I could reach.
A core theme in Root’s work is the idea of acceleration and how for the sake of progress, we embrace acceleration even as it thins out our daily lives. We lose connection, we lose vibrancy in our relationships, we feel harried. A clear example is when you have dinner with friends, the food is good, you’re around a table, but no one is present because they keep dipping into their phones, ask few questions and speak of themselves or the news. I’ve left those dinners feeling full of food and empty of heart. Juxtapose that from an evening where you leave the meal and think, “Oh man, that felt different. I feel full in my heart, not just my stomach, because we talked and laughed and were present together. No one was in a hurry, dipping into their devices, or in a rush.” That second feeling? That’s resonance. Density of life, connectedness, a real sense of showing up to your life with the people around you.
Root writes:
Resonance….is a journey of seeking a narrative of connection to the world and those in the world who call out to us. Hartmut Rosa’s three-dimensional look at resonance leads him to organize resonance around two axes: one vertical and the other horizontal. The vertical axis represents things like religion, art, nature, and history. We often feel a transcendent call in these locales. These locales pull us out of ourselves to remind us that there is mystery and meaning in the world that we can share in.
There is also a horizontal axis made up of love (not just romantic love), friendship, and parenting/family. In these locales we encounter resonance through attachment. We discover that acceleration’s gift of speeding us up for the sake of a freedom to be and do whatever we want, in the end, is unveiled (shockingly) as no freedom at all! The closer we get to such “freedom,” the more we’re alienated from life itself. Rather, we discover life, to draw from Luther, not in being free from others but in the freedom to be with and for those we encounter in attachments of love, friendship, and parenting/family (care).1
Root’s writing is helpful, but not for the faint of heart. If you like philosophy, are in ministry, or interested in the impact of Silicon Valley on our souls, then you should give it a look.
If you’re a pastor who preaches and teaches, who shapes what and how your congregation engages with the rhythm of the church, then I think you should read it.
Here’s a great video that Root and his team put together to help explain the topic:
4. This I Will Remember Well
That quote from Root reminded me of some affirmations that I have long used to guage resonance in my life - things I can say are true when I have the presence of mind to look up and take in life as it’s happening around me. They help ground me to not miss what’s happening, and not simply observe it either - but to live the moment and drink the cup to the dregs. I came across them in Arthur Boers’ great work, Living into Focus: Choosing What Matters in an Age of Distractions.
Boers describes how Albert Borgmann led a class by providing these affirmations:
Borgmann developed four focal affirmations that he now uses with students, asking when they were last able to affirm the following:
There is no place I would rather be.
There is nothing I would rather do.
There is no one I would rather be with.
This I will remember well.
Folks around the table were sophisticated, well educated, articulate, and thoughtful. They grew hushed as Borgmann told this story; they recognized its truth. He called his retreat conversation an experience of “kairos, the moment of grace where things are properly centered in a way that we don’t have to unsay them or surpass them at a later moment.” There are times in life when everything feels properly ordered, when all seems right with the world, where nothing more is needed.
But think about those affirmations. Even now, over a decade later, people who were present at the consultation tell me that this was the most important moment of the meeting.
No place one would rather be? Much technology…seductively lures us into being significantly present elsewhere, but not here. Our culture promotes attention deficits.2
Boers goes on to write:
I want to live in a way that enables me to offer these focal affirmations often. I want to be fully where I am. I want to wholeheartedly do what I am doing. I want to intentionally spend time with the people around me. I want to spend my days in ways worth remembering. While complicated and challenging, living a life with focal affirmations in view is not impossible…how can we all move toward lives that are less distracted and alienating, richer and more fulfilling?3
Do you hear it? Resonance is calling.
5. You Make it Beautiful
This I will remember well. In thinking of how to end this week’s newsletter, I landed on a song. For each of us, music can immediately put you into a memory, so much so you can feel the same emotions as the moment the song imprinted in your brain.
Just over 13 years ago and some change, Carly and I were in the hospital in Dallas, as Carly gave birth to our first child.
We listened to one artist on repeat for hours, as the labor stretched through the night and into the following afternoon. Every focal affirmation from above was exponentially true as labor ended and our daughter was born.
I hadn’t thought of the album in years. Two more kids were born, and life moved on. Recently, I heard them on the radio in our kitchen, and I was swept back to that little room in Dallas, holding my child. You might be think it was a weird choice for the L&D room, but I held that tiny human in my hands grateful for the Lord and his kindness.
Here’s a song from the album that anchors that moment:
Is there a song that makes a moment of resonance for you? What is it?
Thanks for Reading!
If someone forwarded this to you, I write two kinds of emails: one on select Tuesdays about life with God and the other every Friday, where I share things I’ve found during the week. If you want to subscribe but can’t afford it, email me, and I’ll take care of it—no questions asked.
I pastor, teach, and lead at The Village Church, serving as an Elder and the Executive Director of Discipleship. I’m also working on a Ph.D. in Church History, studying Jonathan Edwards and character formation. I’ve written A Short Guide to Spiritual Disciplines: How to Become a Healthy Christian.
Thank you for reading and supporting my work as I seek to shepherd with compassion and wisdom, equipping people to embody God’s truth for all of life.
Talk soon,
Mason
Root, The Congregation in a Secular Age, 216
Boers, Living into Focus, 185
Boers, 186