Flotsam and jetsam (12/1)

• Adam McHugh argues the need for A Counter-Cultural Quiet in Advent.

In our world, quiet is counter-cultural. I’m not only referring to quiet on the outside, but also quiet on the inside. In fact, it may be easier to shut out the external voices than it is to silence the internal noise. It’s often those inner voices, especially the unacknowledged ones, that compel us to fill our lives with movement and agendas and spending and eating. Our behaviors and hurry are echoes of our inner doubts about our worth. Sadly, in many ways the nature of our holiday celebrations reveal how incompletely we have embraced the actual message of Christmas.

• iMonk reflects on Living in the In-Between.

It can be frustrating living in-between. Any blessing, sustenance, attainment, contentment, or security we latch on to now is imperfect, incomplete, and temporary. That’s not to say we can’t enjoy the crumbs we taste now, it’s just to look at them honestly and identify them for the crumbs they are. And when we or others around us don’t even get to enjoy many crumbs at times, it casts a shadow on the whole enterprise.

• Brian McLaren discusses how to plan a preaching ministry around the “lifespan” of your congregation. HT

• Christianity Today wants to know if we should ban Christmas carols with bad theology.

• Koinonia is giving away a copy of Harry Lee Poe’s The Inklings of Oxford. The NLT blog is offering a chance to win two NLT study Bibles and some money for a ministry you nominate (HT).

• You can now download for free the audio and video from D.A. Carson’s 14-part series on The God Who Is There, an overview of the Bible’s storyline.

• And, Google’s new online bookstore should be opening soon. Whether it will be the Amazon-killer that people have suggested it could be, has yet to be seen.

Google Editions will have a significantly different sales model from most competitors, such as Amazon’s Kindle store or Apple’s iBookStore. Instead of purchasing books through a single online store, Google will let users buy them either from Google or from independent bookstores and then tie them to a Google account, which will enable them to read the books anywhere and on any device they please.