A couple of reminders that I’m not creative enough

I’m told that this staircase was a bright idea:

And perhaps something only slightly more achievable by those of us who don’t design buildings:

(It’s stamps on a very persuasive person’s passport)

Handel's Messiah by Calvin R. Stapert

This book takes Handel’s theology, biography and musicalality, and combines the three to tell a wonderful historically accurate story to show the birth of this famous piece of music. Of particular interest, Stapert goes on to develop an investigation into whether Handel’s Messiah was originally intended to be for the church, or the theatre.

The most important thing about reviewing this book, I think, is to bear in mind its primary audience. If you have no interest in history or music, I’m pretty certain this will bore you to tears. That said, if you have any glimmer of interest in either or both, I’d be surprised if you didn’t love every minute of this book. The story is interesting, and if you are going to listen to Handel’s Messiah at any point soon I’m sure this will serve you very well and enrich your experience.

There are times at which the sheer level of historical and musical knowledge that is being thrown at you becomes a bit overwhelming but providing you’re ready for this, and aren’t treating it as casual reading, I think you’ll do very well.

For someone with enough motivation to want to apply this to their life I think that there are valuable lessons for Christians to learn here in terms of how a piece of artwork can be appealing to a secular culture and remain high quality while retaining the truth of the gospel, but again, if you’re looking specifically for this, I don’t think you’ll get it here without some follow-up brainstorms.

In terms of the audio experience, this is up there as perhaps the best audiobook I’ve listened to. The narrator’s voice is excellent (as well as being British), and you are treated to hearing the oratorio as well, highlighting this as a particularly good buy.

I got this audiobook for free from christianaudio.com. I’m not required to give a positive review.

I don’t like creativity in church

Just a thought but a lot of people seem to be getting caught up in new expressions of church and Christianity, particularly on the internet.

Now don’t get me wrong – tradition for tradition’s sake is just legalism under another title but often a tradition becomes a tradition because the concept behind it was very good.

I think we ought to stop questioning and changing everything, and instead dig into why we do what we do in order to improve the whole church experience. Neo-monastic communities? Keep ‘em.

And those of us who value the true biblical, gospel-centred expressions of Christianity let’s get more active on the internet to overtake these randoms!