For those of you who have already registered for Together For The Gospel 2010, the free books and resources have already begun.  Check your email inbox for the free audio books shown below!

If you haven’t signed up yet, you really should.  If it stays true to form, it will be a three day soul vacation where you will be encouraged, convicted, built up and full.

Checking out this feature for mobile updates.

Somewhere a year or so ago, I posted on a WSJ piece about then President Bush and Karl Rove’s reading competition that they annually engaged in and how that was a motivation for me to read more this year.  It would appear that it worked pretty well.  36 books (commentaries not included) that I actually read, and another 15 or so still waiting to be read.  Everyone does their top 10 books of the year, so I’ll be a bit different and simply grade the books I read by letter grade for those who might find such rankings helpful in your 2010 reading purchases.

Here are the A’s in the class of 2009.

Here’s a word from Matt on where God has he and his wife as they deal with a serious medical trial.

Audio isn’t the greatest but it is the best video available with the least amount of Oprah in it!  Awesome on CD.  Was blown away when I saw this on TV as they performed it on Oprah pitch perfect.  Beautiful.  Enjoy!

Last of a 4-5 series of posts from Kevin DeYoung over at Gospel Coalition.

Give them a God who is holy, independent, and unlike us, a God who is good, just, full of wrath and full of mercy.  Give them a God who is sovereign, powerful, tender, and true.  Give them a God with edges.  Give them an undiluted God who makes them feel cherished and safe, and small and uncomfortable too.  Give them a God who works all things after the counsel of his will and for the glory of his name.  Give them a God whose love is lavish and free.  Give them a God worthy of wonder and fear, a God big enough for all our faith, hope, and love.

From Kevin DeYoung again.

I love the line from Robert Murray M’Cheyne: “What your people need from you most is your own personal holiness.”  I’ve given that advice to others dozens of times, and I’ve repeated it to myself a hundred times.  Almost my whole philosophy of ministry is summed up in M’Cheyne’s words.  My congregation needs me to be humble before they need me to be smart.  They need me to be honest more than they need me to be a dynamic leader.  They need me to be teachable more than they need me teach at conferences.  If your walk matches your talk, if your faith costs you something, if being a Christian is more than a cultural garb, they will listen to you.

Pt. 3 or 4 from Kevin DeYoung.

Church people are not stupid.  They are not incapable of learning.  For the most part, they simply haven’t been taught.  No one has challenged them to think a deep thought or read a difficult book.  No one has asked them to articulate their faith in biblical and theological categories.  We have expected almost nothing out of our young people, so that’s what we get.  A couple generations ago 20 year olds were getting married, starting a family, working at a real job or off somewhere fighting Nazis.  Today 35 year olds are hanging out on Facebook, looking for direction, and trying to find themselves.  We have been coddled when we should have been challenged.

As a church plant that has been striving to grow and center on Christ, the gospel and true Christian community, the time is now for us to begin the process of going deep with the Scriptures and being challenged to think deeper thoughts, make deeper connections between Old and New Testament, and glorying in the reality that our God is much bigger than we ever thought, and perhaps bigger than want.  I’m looking forward to teaching again soon.

Ouch!  Got drilled right between the eyes with this one.  Kevin DeYoung is fast becoming one of my favorite “voices”.  Piper, Mahaney, Carson, Lloyd Jones, Mohler, Keller, Chandler, Driscoll and The rest of the T4G guys serve as my mentors and pastors through what they have written and what they preach.  DeYoung is reaching that level as well.  Here is one of his latest posts, the first in a series that no doubt will be worth reading.  I’ve pasted a couple portions of it for you here.  Take a look, and take some thought after reading.  It will be worth your time.

There have been times as a pastor where I’ve been discouraged by the slowness of growth in my congregation.  I’ve thought, “Why is that church over there so successful?  Why did they go from 150 to 1500 in three years?”  I’ve even been borderline snippy at times,  “Lord, if I get to heaven and find out there was some secret musical style or movie clip or new program I was supposed to use in order to be successful, I’m going to feel pretty bummed.”  But in my saner moments I’ve come to see two things:  One, it’s more my sin that wants success than my sanctification.  And two, the secret is that there is no secret.

We cannot pass on what we do not feel.  Whitefield blasted the church in his day because “the generality of preachers [in New England] talk of an unknown and unfelt Christ.  The reason why congregations have been so dead is because they have had dead men to preach to them.”  The next generation, every generation really, needs to hear the gospel with personal, passionate, pleading.  There is a time for dialogue, but there is also a time for declaration.  People don’t need a lecture or an oration or a discussion from the pulpit on Sunday morning.  They need to hear of the mighty deeds of God.  And they need to hear the message from someone who not only understands it, but has been captured by it.