Wisdom For Your Weekend: your weekly installment of things we’ve been reading around the web.
Infographic of the Week
How History’s Greatest Thinkers Managed Their Time. This is a fascinating look into the daily rhythms of some great minds. It’s surprising to see what many of these have in common (usually cardio and tobacco)—but perhaps even more striking how insanely different their habits were from one another. My takeaways? 1. Very few of these people worked for more than 8 hours a day, and most had intentional and lengthy periods of rest. 2. I’m a Charles Dickens type (but married to a Gustave Flaubert type), and 3. Honoré de Balzac was absolutely, out-of-his-gourd, crazy.
Articles of the Week
The Noah Movie is out – And Christians love it! (And hate it!), Trevin Wax. “I don’t ever recall seeing evangelicals so divided about a film. By and large, we stick together. Evangelicals en masse rejected Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ. I was just a kid then, but I remember hearing about this ‘blasphemous’ movie. On the other hand, we flocked to Prince of Egypt, an animated though reverent portrayal of Moses’ story. And, of course, The Passion of the Christ stands out as the biggest biblically-themed blockbuster of all time. In the decade since Mel Gibson’s Jesus hit the screen, we shrugged at Evan Almighty, ignored the TV movie of Noah, and rallied around Sherwood Baptist Church’s films. But then came Noah.”
Six Lessons in Good Listening, David Mathis. “Listening is one of the easiest things you’ll ever do, and one of the hardest. In a sense, listening is easy—or hearing is easy. . . . But despite this ease—or perhaps precisely because of it—we often fight against it.”
Aged Out of Church, Michelle Van Loon. “Ask anyone who’s hit midlife, and they’ll tell you: this stage is no joke for us. The emotional, spiritual, physical, and relational shifts that occur at midlife can lead to disconnection from old social networks and a profound sense of loneliness, which brings with it serious health risks. At this point, many also feel drained by the increasingly common occurrence of death, disease, divorce, and the changes that redefine old friendships.
And yet, rather than engage these important but uncomfortable issues that come with aging, our culture—including, at times, the church—would rather laugh it off.”
Seven Reasons to Slow Down as You Preach, Nicholas McDonald. It actually takes a fair amount of courage to slow down and leave intentional pauses in your preaching. But both the preacher and the congregation benefit when you slow down. McDonald explains why.
On The Lighter Side
“Is the Internet Changing Our Memory?”
“We know that using the internet changes our brain. Everything changes our brain. Thanks to neuroplasticity, the more you do something, the more those areas of the brain are strengthened. Cells that fire together, wire together.” But what exactly does the internet use do to our brains?
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