Links, books, and other things I love – December 2015
1 SECOND EVERYDAY – November edition
[click here if you can’t see the 30-second video]
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AROUND THE WEB
• Social Media Doesn’t Define You {No Matter How Pretty the Word Pictures Are} by my keeping-it-real blogging friend Michelle DeRusha
• 25 Best Board Games for Christmas Gifts This Year (I might pick one of these for our Dirty Santa gift…shhh)
• Reaching Out to the Elderly – An encouraging podcast at Focus on the Family about alleviating loneliness in nursing homes.
• 28 Reasons to Not Hate Winter – It’s my least favorite season. Alas. I need to read this article frequently because I’m already cold.
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ON READING
• 15 Books that Are Good Enough to Give from the writers of Her.meneutics at Christianity Today. It’s a very strong list.
• If you don’t have a Daily Advent Reading Schedule, this is one our church is following.
• Books I recommend from my November reading, including quotes from Brené Brown’s Rising Strong, Nadia Bolz-Weber’s Accidental Saints, and Bob Kauflin’s True Worshipers.
• Currently reading:
- Every Little Thing: Making a World of Difference Right Where You Are (Deidra Riggs)
- When to Rob a Bank: And 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants (Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner)
- How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World (Steven Johnson)
- A Geography of Time: The Temporal Misadventures of a Social Psychologist, or How Every Culture Keeps Time Just a Little Bit Differently (Robert V. Levine)
- Awe: Why It Matters for Everything We Think, Say, and Do (Paul David Tripp)
- Dirty Faith: Bringing the Love of Christ to the Least of These (David Z. Nowell)
• Daily Bible Reading
In my daily Bible reading I’m finishing Ezekiel in the Old Testament (finally!). In the New Testament I’m in 1 Corinthians.
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THINGS TO WATCH
• I love Adele’s song “Hello“. And how it gained popularity so quickly. This SNL parody is so funny.
[click here if you can’t see the video below]
• Have you seen the movie “Woodlawn”? Church of the Highlands does a great “At the Movies” sermon series for 4 weeks each fall, and they feature “Woodlawn” in this lesson you can watch. One of their campuses is at Woodlawn now.
• What about “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 2”? I haven’t seen it yet! Before you see it, here’s a quick refresher about the previous 3 movies.
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THINGS I LOVE
• A warm Thanksgiving Day with my family (missing Fuller)
• Getting to serve at the House of the Harvest with Kelly (an awesome friend) and Lindsey (an amazing niece)
• This amazing sunset and skyline from the 8th floor of public housing
• Spending time with super special friends Sue and Ken while on a road trip to Maryland
• We have to laugh about this, right?
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ON THE BLOG
- Get in the arena this Advent – Be vulnerable – Thoughts on and review of Brene Brown’s, Rising Strong
- This homeless man believes. Can you believe too? – Cowboy keeps telling me how good God has been to him
- When our love isn’t enough – It’s not because we love God so much; it’s that he loves us so much (guest post at Do Not Depart)
- Who are you avoiding? – If you could have one more conversation with the person you’re avoiding, what would you say? (And Adele again with “Hello”)
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What are you looking forward to in December? Please share in the comments.
Linking at Leigh Kramer’s
My previous posts
you make me tired. ROFL. This will be a busy month for me due to some holiday the church gets to celebrate. I will also be attending several basketball games our church kids are in, a swim meet, a Building Team meeting I lead and a whole bunch of other stuff I sometimes wish I could skip. 🙂 I’m reading Kauflin’s book (but my schedule is chewing me up and not allowing much time to read). I also have The Case for Grace in my cue as well as ordering Sleep Smarter by Shawn Stevenson and Messy Grace by Caleb Kaltenbach (you can check both out on amazon). Musically, I am listening to Tommy James’ “I Love Christmas” and Theocracy’s various Christmas entries. I’m also listening to Stryper’s new one called “Fallen” and Waken Eyes’ “Exodus.” Not everyone’s cup of tea I know. I may be 63 but I ain’t dead yet (that’s what I tell Jo when she rolls her eyes about my music). I am also trying to ride my bike indoors, do the Bowflex and not eat my body into oblivion with chocolate. Other than that…I’m doing well.
Your schedule sounds much more exhausting than mine. ha. December is such a busy month. The most exhausting part of it for me is I’m forced to go shopping, one of my least favorite activities. Thankful for online orders when I can go that route! You’ve got lots of good books going. I wonder about Sleep Smarter…I definitely need to do that! I’m in bed for the mandatory 8 hours each night, but rarely sleep anywhere close to that.
I won’t judge your love of Stryper. 😉 Jeff and I went to a Boston concert a few months ago and had a fabulous time.
Forgot: saw Mockingjay-2 the first weekend it was out. My rating was 1 thumb up.
Hmm…one thumb is better than none, but I’m hoping to like the movie more than I did the book anyway. The third book was my least favorite of the trilogy.
So…was Michael Sweet singing with them then? he sang for about a year or two with Boston to help out.
No Michael Sweet in the concert we saw (that I know of). Tommy DeCarlo sang lead as the sub for Delp. He was phenomenal. Used to work at Home Depot prior to touring with Boston. 🙂 Change of worlds, huh?
More Than a Feeling–crowd went wild when they sung that. 🙂
Forgot: he even put a Boston song on one of Stryper’s CDs’. I think it was More Than a Feeling.
You are reading some good books! I especially like Every Little Thing. 🙂 And Michelle’s post was great. I had not seen the SNL video…so funny.
Thanks for sharing the good stuff!!
I know you do like Every Little Thing! 🙂 I finished it this weekend. Loved it! Deidra is a gifted writer who has something to say to each of us.
Well I had a bad November (self-inflicted) so I’m looking forward to crawling out of it and towards Christmas. I’ve been planning to uh plan for Chistmas more mindfully this year, so now’s the time.
I’ll also be pulling together a dozen or so of the (shorter) Psalms and (with luck) make a little booklet. Next year I plan to read around the Psalms a bit (“Wearing God” in one of your links might kick me off).
David
Sorry you had a bad November. 🙁 Here’s praying that December has brought more peace in your life and less self-inflicted pain. Sometimes the Christmas season can do that. Love your idea of making a booklet out of the Psalms that are meaningful to you!
Thanks for the article about winter. That’s my least favorite season as well, mainly because of the absence of leaves and flower and color. This had some good points. 🙂
Thought that SNL parody of Hello was hilarious!
One thing I must do is stop complaining already about how cold I am. 🙂 We’re barely into December and it hasn’t even been that cold yet. ha. Maybe we can find ways to make the most of it.
I LOVE all the posts you shared.
Wow! What a busy month! That one second clip video is really cool. That’s awesome that you’re living life to it’s fullest and honoring God in the process. Good for you. I’ll use it as a boost to help me do the same!
You know I’m a sucker for a book with a catchy title! “When To Rob A Bank”. I’m in the hunt.
You’d probably enjoy When to Rob a Bank. It’s actually a compilation of blog posts from Freakonomics, so each short section is about some reality of our lives with some twist of economics thrown in. 😉 I’ve listened to the podcast for a few years and love it. I’ve now subscribed to the blog so the next time a book comes out with excerpts from it, I won’t have to read the book. ha.
It’s been a busy year!
Great post and list as usual. That SNL skit was funny and I had to check out why to like winter since like you, it is the worse season as far as I am concerned. Will need to check out The Geography of Time book sounds interesting. Have a great weekend, Lisa
So you’re not a winter fan either. At least we both live in the relative southern parts of the U.S. so it could be much worse, right? ha. Here’s to hoping for a quick season! 🙂