Miscellany: Image of God, Creativity, and Practicing the Way
Plus, more books and teaching recommendations than you could stuff into a Bag of Holding.
Welcome to Three Things.
We’re a monthly digest of three things to help you engage with God, neighbor, and culture. But this is our monthly Miscellany where we (Andy and Phillip) tell you what we’ve been reading, thinking about and working on.
Ah, the English summer. July days full of rain with temps in the upper 50s Fahrenheit. Phillip hasn’t even ascended the attic ladder to retrieve the fans. Positively, this means he can still wear his favourite winter flannel most mornings and evenings. Negatively, Phillip and family are now primed for a rude awakening when they return to America for three weeks in late August for a taste of sweltering Pennsylvania, Michigan and Tennessee heat.
Reading: Weather notwithstanding, it’s time for summer novels. Phillip is nearly finished with Leif Enger’s I Cheerfully Refuse and will quickly advance to The Whalebone Theatre afterward. On the nonfiction front, he and Christa just finished reading David Gibson’s The Lord of Psalm 23: Jesus Our Shepherd, Companion, and Host in the mornings before the girls wake up. A beautiful, rich, compact meditation that makes the familiar strange, new and compelling.
In his own attempt to make the familiar strange each week, Phillip recently finished a five-week preaching stretch on the image of God. A study highlight was Christopher Kou’s article God’s Statue in the Cosmic Temple—a bravura deep dive worthy of an entire book! Kou traces out the difference between image and likeness, offers a clarifying challenge to the “divine council” view of “Let us make the man in our image…” (Genesis 1:26), sketches a biblical theology of the image of God and, drawing on Irenaeus, puts forward a systematic treatment of Christ as the image of God that Phillip is only beginning to understand. So many depths to plumb!
Listening: Phillip’s home group is doing the Practicing the Way Course based on John Mark Comer’s new book of the same title. If you can abide by the West Coast coolness of the presenters and stay alert amidst the womb-y aesthetic, you’ll find a gentle, compelling, and deeply challenging framework for life with Jesus that goes beyond the 5 Mores of evangelicalism and offers immediate steps to take. Highly recommended for any and all church groups! (And, if you do the course, make sure to order copies of the companion guide and think about taking two weeks for each session. Watch the video one week, and debrief the practice the following week.)
Andy and family are beating the St. Louis heat in northern Michigan this week. Highlights have included summiting Sleeping Bear Dunes, the case of the mysterious engine coolant leak, the sleepy, quiet towns of Cherry Country, the bobcat prowling in the backyard, and those sweet, sweet 68-degree temps.
Reading: Fans of this newsletter will remember that 18-month period when Andy was reading the Realm of the Elderlings series. Robin Hobb’s 16-book masterpiece is one of the greatest works of fantasy ever written—and most people haven’t read it. It doesn’t get as much play as LOTR, but True Believers know it for the immortal diamond that it is. Well, Andy has fallen into the sprawling, heart-rending story again, much akin to a man who has fallen sick with a chronic disease for which there is no treatment. There is nothing for it now. The only way out is through. He will see you on the other side. (He solemnly swears that this is the only time he will mention the series in this newsletter for a period of at least five years.)
In other news, Andy is currently reading books in preparation for a lecture on how to be more creative for Christianity Today’s NextGen Accelerator. On his nightstand are the works of Malcolm Gladwell, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention, Daniel Coyle’s Culture Code, and Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull.
Games: The Werewolf in the Dark crowdfunding campaign went very well, thanks in part to the legions of Three Things readers who pledged for the game. Good on you. 3T strong.
New from The Darkling Psalter (Andy’s Psalm project):
Last But Not Least
Andy has started yet another Substack. This one is a serialized fantasy novel called The Wager Stone. If you’ve been around long enough to remember the “Robin Hobb days,” you may also remember the “LitRPG days” that lasted approximately from 2019 to… today and forever.
LitRPGs are a sub-sub-sub-genre in the fantasy family that features stories set in a game world with game dynamics. As with most things that appear in this newsletter, they are esoteric. If you are new to the genre, here are my top five picks and a general introduction to this very specific genre.
Here is a disclaimer before you begin. Neither this story nor the genre of which it is a part are for everybody. If you have ever enjoyed a game of Dungeons & Dragons, have enjoyed playing this game, know of the existence of RoyalRoad.com, or who could define the terms min/maxing, buff, nerf, OP, DM, OOC, PVP, murder hobo, or Leeroy Jenkins… then by all means, read the story.
All others, enter at your own risk. You have been warned.
"If you can abide by the West Coast coolness of the presenters" is incredible and true.