Pop Goes The Church

I had the opportunity to read an advance copy of Pop Goes The Church, a new book by Tim Stevens, and make some review comments. I thought I'd share with you what I've gotten out of this book. It's seriously going to challenge church leaders in the way we relate to the culture aroud us. I've been quietly (or not so quietly) beating this drum around Schweitzer since I came on staff. My initial thought about the book is that I'm buying a copy for everybody on the staff. It's that good. I figure if our senior pastor can pass books out to everybody why shouldn't other people?

The book includes an outstanding collection of examples from churches of various size, age, and location. It includes practical steps for any church evaluating how it relates to pop culture. Tim tells his own compelling story including his very first movie experience. Pop Goes The Church is incredibly well researched and it presents a balanced view about the church's relationship to the culture around us and the dangers of connecting inappropriately with the culture. Ultimately Stevens wants the church to engage pop culture, but the approach is Biblically sound and cautions about embracing culture for the wrong reasons. I'm incredibly excited to see what happens as this book gets released and church leaders read it.

The Blogging Church

When I ordered The Blogging Church from Amazon I screwed something up and it shipped normal ground rather than with the two day shipping for my Amazon Prime account (which is a great thing), so it just showed up yesterday. The timing was actually really good though. My illness has made me worthless for anything but sleeping, reading, and watching TV. I opened the box this morning and have already read three chapters.

So far I'm incredibly pleased with what I'm reading. It's directly in line with the conversations I've been having around Schweitzer about why the leadership of our church should be blogging. There seems to be a fear in our leadership about this type of technology and the authenticity it helps facilitate. I think it's mainly because we've had some former staff behave badly when it came to things like myspace, xanga, etc. Jim, our youth pastor, has a blog, but he's only posted once. He gets this book when I'm done with it.

I'll write a more thorough review after I've finished the book. 

Junior League Cookbooks

I'm a huge fan of Junior League cookbooks. I think they contain some of the best recipes available. They also contain great examples of regional food. I try to pick one up anytime I'm travelling someplace new. When we were in Savannah, GA a few years ago we got Southern Style which is the Savannah Junior League cookbook. It kicks things off with a punch recipe that measures ingredients by the gallon - alcoholic ingredients no less. I don't think I'll have occassion to make a spiked punch for 200, but if I need to the ladies of Savannah have given me the recipe.

It's starting to feel like fall here in Springfield and the raininess of Sunday made me think of soup. One of my favorite soups is the Stuffed Spud Soup from The Bess Collection - the Independence, MO JSL cookbook (named for Bess Truman). This soup is amazingly easy it consists of butter, green onion, frozen hashbrowns, cream of chicken soup, milk, and then is served with fresh parsley and cheddar cheese. Matt & Meredith brought a salad to go with the the soup and fresh bread. We enjoyed dinner and the Amazing Race season premier. Good times. 

French Cooking in 10 Minutes

Sarah got me this 1930 Edouard de Pomiane book for Christmas. I highly recommend it. I say this without having cooked anything from the book, but it looks great. It comes with a recommendation from MFK Fisher, so it has to be good. The general notion is that with proper planning (and simple menus) it is possible to cook a multi-course meal in just 10 minutes. Meals that would be appropriate if you came home for lunch. A lot of the recipes are for one, so you would need to adjust if cooking for more people, but who says you can't make yourself French food for lunch.

Here is a sample menu:
- Velouté soup with tarragon
- Chicken sautéed with mushrooms
- Green salad
- Cheese
- Cream puff

There you have a five course meal which theoretically could be prepared in 10 minutes. The recipes all include tips for speedy preparation.

The book is also well suited for those of us living in areas where fresh produce is not available year round (there are only a few things I think ship well enough to eat out of season) because in 1930 if something wasn't in season it wasn't available fresh. The recipes call for canned goods, many of which can probably be substituted with frozen if you so desire. I'll let you know how some frozen substitutions go.