#musicmonday: Body and Wine | Jars of Clay

Rusty ground and dusty roads
It's been a while since you were king
Undermined and overthrown
You tried to run it on your own

Forget the birds with broken wings
Under piles of things on things
No one stops and no one stares
Seen it all and no one cares

What if this was all that we were made of?
This was all that we could make of love
If there wasn't more, I wouldn't be here
Hero and crime, body and wine

Drove my heart toward the sea
Passed the graves up over hills
Saw the spires hit the ground
Voices raised without a sound

What if this was all that we were made of?
This was all that we could make of love
If there wasn't more, I wouldn't be here
Hero and crime, body and wine
Hero and crime, body and wine

What if this was all that we were made of?
This was all that we could make of love
If there wasn't more, I wouldn't be here
Hero and crime, body and wine

What if this was all that we were made of?
This was all that we could make of love
If there wasn't more, I wouldn't be here
Hero and crime, body and wine
Hero and crime, body and wine
Body and wine

notes.

#musicmonday: The Pieces Don't Fit Anymore | James Morrison

It's time to surrender
It's been too long pretending
There's no use in trying
When the pieces don't fit anymore
The pieces don't fit here anymore

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On returning to say goodbye.

#musicmonday: I Am Not Alone | Kari Jobe

It's been a while since I had:
a) A Kari Jobe song
b) A Medium post.

Sunday Setlist

But THIS.

#musicmonday: You are Good | Kari Jobe

 

I WROTE A THING.

#musicmonday: Pursuit | Daniel Bashta

/strip everything away until all I have is You/

and I wrote a related thingy here.

#bookreview: Subversive Jesus by @craigasauros

Subversive Jesus: An Adventure in Justice, Mercy, and Faithfulness in a Broken World by Zondervan Publishing
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

From its very title, Subversive Jesus: An Adventure in Justice, Mercy, & Faithfulness in a Broken World, is meant to make you stop and think.
Greenfield shares the story of his journey from New Zealand to the slums of Cambodia (more of that in The Urban Halo: A Story of Hope for Orphans of the Poor), to Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where he spearheaded a community that ministers to the poor and neglected. Nestled between ministry anecdotes and life stories are nuggets of truth about the way Jesus meant us to live.

Subversively.
Generously.
Openly.

You probably won’t have the same call that Greenfield had to minister to the poor in developing countries, or to live in the slums amidst the desperately poor and the drug addicts. Or you may (and now you have a model to look at). But that isn’t the point. The point is to shake you out of your comfortable Christianity that only seeks the blessings of God, and puts you back into the mission field, remembering that even from the start, from when God called Abraham, that we are blessed to be a blessing, so that all peoples on earth will be blessed. The point is to remind you that the mission field isn’t just out there in other countries, but right here, at your doorstep, amidst the communities that you live in, in the middle of your heart and your passion.
And whilst God calls some to go, he calls many of us to stay.

Read my reflections:

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11

View all my reviews

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Craig's book launches on April 26th. Do go pick up a copy here!

Pre-order Subversive Jesus and get these resources free:

• A 14-day devotional e-book: 14 Days of Jesus, Compassion, and Justice: Rethinking your Faith in a Broken World.
• A 4-week e-book Small Group Discussion Guide.

(Head over to http://www.craiggreenfield.com/ to see how you can do that!)

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Writing goals for 2015

I don't like making goals. I don't like the fact that I almost always never achieve them.

Anyway, a couple of days ago I created a file in Google Docs to track submissions. Because I decided I'm going to get round to writing and submitting stuff. And since I do better with short stories anyway, that's what I'm going to work on more proactively this year while I figure out what I really want to do with the fairy tale novella that's kind of hanging and the rest of my 50K nanowrimo novels that are desperately in need of [dire] edits.

So I figure the idea is to write more short stories and submit them. And if they get published, all well and good. If they don't (or if I miss the deadline), well, by the end of the year or maybe next year, I'll have enough shorts to compile into a book that I'll title "Misfits: an anthology of short stories that didn't fit anywhere else". Or something like that.

I also want to get round to writing the script for Ruth and Joseph, and there's an Easter/Cheng Beng idea somewhere in there. All these half-written, half-thought out ideas really need to be finished.

There's also the collection I started on Medium that I should work on. An article a month doesn't sound like too much, though I am lazy and unmotivated. We'll see where that goes. If any of you want to contribute, e-mail me at posts [at] annatsp [dot] com. That's where I compile all the e-mails that have to do with things I'm posting on behalf of people, such as this Medium thing (if you have a Medium account, I'll just add you as a contributor), guest posts, book tours, blog tours, and all that kind of stuff.

Single & Female

Okay. Actually, that looks like a lot of goals. Let's see how it goes.

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On a not-quite-writing related note, I'm coming to a point where I'm wondering whether the whole creative arts dream I have is really what I want to do. I mean, I want it to happen, and I think that Penang AND the Church desperately need it... but at the same time, I think that the piece of it I'm gravitating towards is actually just writing the scripts. I don't really care if I do act in them or not. If I could find someone else to deal with the rest of it, I don't mind just sharing the vision.
.sigh.

Hey, I posted on Medium!

Today I'm on medium talking about being a 29 year old virgin.

If you missed my first medium post on writing (which was posted here first), check it out here.