Good conversation, music and reading

Just back from a lovely day in Didcot planning next year's Baptist Assembly. It's shaping up to be a good one, so look out for publicity arriving through the autumn (if you are baptistically inclined, of course).

In the car on the way there and back I was listening to the new albums from Imogen Heap and Athlete - both of which are really cool. The final track of the Athlete album, Rubik Cube, is one of the best songs they've written. I also listened to the Radiohead albums that have just been re-issued in bumper editions - Kid A, Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief - and found them to be more satisfying and tuneful than I remember - Pyramid Song from Amnesiac still sends chills down my spine when the drums come in half-way through.

I'm preaching away from home on Sunday morning - at Welwyn Garden City - on Building a Better Body. I'm doing the introduction to an autumn series loosely based on my book (which is a little surreal - certainly a first for me!). I'm going to reflect on what the church is for from a missional perspective using Philippians 2:12-18.

Still finding Hirsch's book richly stimulating. He's got some very good things to say about consumerism as a threat to discipleship. He argues - convincingly to my mind - that it is more of a threat to genuine Christianity in the West than either Islam or the New Age movement.

He talks about discipling believers being the key to creating missional communities in a section where he comes close to echoing Michael Gorman's theosis argument in his Inhabiting the Cruciform God. I need to read it again, however, before I reflect on it.

Time for a glass of sauvignon blanc, I think...