Lord willing, tonight after our church’s corporate gathering, my wife and I will head out to Breckenridge, Colorado. It will be our first vacation in over three years.

Our three little boys will remain in Texas with gracious family and friends and so a week of quiet, unhurried time in the Rockies awaits. We couldn’t be more excited.

BOOKS FOR THE MOUNTAINS

The blog will thus be silent until September 22nd. I’m taking a cadre of books, but here are the three I hope to read from cover to cover:¹

God’s Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America by Larry Eskridge. The Jesus People movement was a unique combination of the hippie counterculture and evangelical Christianity. It first appeared in the famed “Summer of Love” of 1967, in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, and spread like wildfire in Southern California and beyond, to cities like Seattle, Atlanta, and Milwaukee. In 1971 the growing movement found its way into the national media spotlight and gained momentum, attracting a huge new following among evangelical church youth, who enthusiastically adopted the Jesus People persona as their own. Within a few years, however, the movement disappeared and was largely forgotten by everyone but those who had filled its ranks.

God’s Forever Family argues that the Jesus People movement was one of the most important American religious movements of the second half of the 20th-century. Not only do such new and burgeoning evangelical groups as Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard trace back to the Jesus People, but the movement paved the way for the huge Contemporary Christian Music industry and the rise of “Praise Music” in the nation’s churches. More significantly, it revolutionized evangelicals’ relationship with youth and popular culture. Larry Eskridge makes the case that the Jesus People movement not only helped create a resurgent evangelicalism but must be considered one of the formative powers that shaped American youth in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Burning Hearts: Preaching to the Affections by Josh Moody and Robin Weekes. Affection is often a neglected theme in our generation of Bible believing Christians. It has not always been so. Previous generations thought a great deal about the centrality of the heart in the Christian life and the need to preach to it. This book will prove a valuable resource as we learn about the place of the affections in our walk with Christ and in preaching Him to ourselves and others. D.A. Carson says, “For some, this little book will be a healthy reminder; for others, it will revolutionize their preaching.”

Yawning at Tigers: You Can’t Tame God, So Stop Trying by Drew Dyck. When was the last time you were overawed by God’s majesty? Have you ever stood in stunned silence at his holiness and power? In our shallow, self-centered age, things like truth and reverence might seem outdated, lost. Yet we’re restless. And our failed attempts to ease our unrest point to an ancient ache for an experience of the holy. Drew Dyck makes a compelling case that what we seek awaits us in the untamed God of Scripture—a God who is dangerous yet accessible, mysterious yet powerfully present. He is a God who beckons us to see him with a fresh, unfiltered gaze.

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