Since we've been on furlough I've have had more time to read. I've been reading a number of "cross-centered" books, but have also had time to read some more diverse books. Here are a few:
Living the Cross Centered Life by C. J. Mahaney
This book is easy to read, but the concepts are wonderful! I've been on a six-month quest to think through the implications of cross-centered living and ministry and this book helped me.
The Cross of Christ by John Stott
I'm reading an older edition (McGrath doesn't show up), but this book has given me a deeper understanding of the cross. Stott is great for pointing out things that I'd never noticed in the text before (e.g. Jesus was "saying" "Father forgive them...", not just "said").
The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose
This has been the most fascinating book I've read this year (I read it on my Kindle). It's about a student from Brown University who goes to Liberty University and pretends to be a Christian. He experienced in one semester more of college life than I think I experienced in four years at my Bible college. He writes from a secular persective and sheds light on many aspects of Liberty's culture and the way that American college students view the Christian faith. There are a few things that are a little rough around the edges, but I felt like I was living in the Liberty dorms with Kevin. Highly recommended for you Bible college deans out there!
Cross-cultural Servanthood: Serving the World in Christ-like Humility by Duane Elmer
Pastor Will loaned me this one and I enjoyed it. I thought that most of the book was common sense, although I know that that isn't always that common. We need to model openness, acceptance, and trust in order to serve people as Jesus did. The author shares a number of moving illustrations of these truths. Note: this book is not just for missionaries. If we look around we need cross-cultural servanthood almost every day in a lot of the U.S. (Today in Ames I interacted with two people from Colombia, a friend from Morocco and a lady from Israel).
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I just ran across a site that offers free-of-charge hymns that are Christ-centered. I've only sung "His Robes for Mine," but it brought tears to my eyes. Wonderful piece!
Church Works Media
We used Innovative Graphics for our first prayer card, and Nate Horton did a great job. I was thinking about using his services again, but a missionary told me about a way to do it myself. Note: I'm a second termer now, so I tend to think more about the budget (if I spend less on the cards I can spend a little more on conferences this year).
I designed our new card in Photoshop Elements. The key is to use large images and set them to a resolution of 300 DPI. We had to get a copyright release from Target to be able to use the photo for our prayer card. The only other thing that I had to learn about is that they should be formatted in CYMK (cyan, magenta, yellow, key [black]) for printing, rather than RGB (which is for graphics on your screen). Photoshop Elements can't do that, but the Copyworks in Ames has the full version of Photoshop which can easily convert the file.
Once the design was ready, I went to Overnight Prints (thanks Jim Leonard for telling me about this site!). 1,000 glossy cards only cost $115 plus shipping!
Here's the front of our new card: