This week Pastor Owen Lee completed his five-part Work Life series with Applications for Employees and Employers. We continued our October focus on worship, creativity, and art with articles on beauty, emotions, and creeds. And we are still giving away bundles of books recommended in SOLA Book Recommendations for College Students (and Beyond), so follow us on Facebook and Instagram to find out how you can add a few of these to your collection.
Our upcoming SOLA Leaders’ Dialogue seeks to equip pastors and church leaders to thrive and aims to address various aspects of becoming healthy leaders. Tim St. John (Lighthouse Community Church) will speak on cultivating emotional health. Michael Lee (All Nations Community Church) will speak on cultivating organizational health. And Harold Kim (Christ Central Southern California) will speak on cultivating relational health. Mark your calendars for Thursday, October 24th from 9:30AM – 12:00PM at Living Hope Community Church in Brea, California. Register for free and RSVP on our Facebook event page.
I spoke with SOLA editor Hannah Chao via podcast about our favorite SOLA reads from August and September, upcoming articles in October, and behind-the-scenes stories from SOLA and our personal lives. This was first made available to our SOLA newsletter subscribers. Subscribe today to get our next installment. If you have any links or recommendations to share, please tweet me @musicgoon or email me at aaron@musicgoon.com.
Link Roundup
1. Catherine Ceniza Choy: Why Are There So Many Filipino Nurses in California?
This article speaks to my profession but also my interest in how culture intersects with our career choices.
2. Karen Swallow Prior: Screens Are Changing the Way We Read Scripture
Writing for Christianity Today, teacher and author Karen Swallow Prior examines the way we read and the need to read well. For more, check out Why (More Than Ever Before) You Need to Read Deeply by Greg Bailey for The Gospel Coalition.
3. Brian Hu: The 20 best Asian American films of the last 20 years
Movies have a major role in shaping the culture. Here is a look at Asian America’s most popular.
4. Hannah Chao: What would you do with $1 billion?
Our own Hannah Chao writes in her newsletter about the Christian call to generous giving. For more, read Luke: Evangelist to the Rich by Kevin DeYoung for The Gospel Coalition.
Weekend Recommendations
1. Albert Mohler: The Missing Backdrop to the NBA and China: Criticism and Freedom of Speech in Democracy and Totalitarianism
In the latest episode of The Briefing, Albert Mohler provides some larger commentary on the ongoing drama between the NBA and China.
2. John Piper: The Explosive Power of the Resurrection — Now
“Jesus’s resurrection not only guarantees that we too will rise, but that we can taste steadfast, heavenly joy here and now — even in suffering. John Piper preached this sermon at the Sing! Conference in Nashville.”
3. Aaron Lee: Book Reviews
This week I reviewed Keri Folmar’s Zeal: A Bible Study on Titus for Women.
From SOLA
1. Owen Lee: Work Life Series: Applications for Employees and Employers
“Because the Gospel changes us and frees us, we can approach how we choose our work in a way that is beautifully different from our culture that obsesses over financial security and social status.”
2. Judy Lee: Seeing By Light: Redeeming Beauty to God’s Standards
“We look in the mirror. We see all the little imperfections on our faces. Then we scroll through the photos of models, celebrities, or friends in our lives who seem to have better hair, better eyes, and a better body. We sigh and ask ourselves: Why did God create some people to be beautiful and not others? More specifically, why didn’t He create me to be beautiful?”
3. Daniel Potter Kim: Conveying Our Emotions and God’s Truth In Our Praise
“Music inherently creates an emotional response in us. We’ve all felt pumped up during an anthemic song and melancholic yearning during a ballad. I believe God gave us the gift of music so that we could fully convey the emotions of our hearts. This is because music helps us to express what our words alone cannot. Or more precisely, music allows us to color our words to more accurately convey the emotions behind them.”
4. Michael Agapito: Explaining the “Blessed Trinity”: Why the Athanasian Creed Matters
“You may have heard various analogies used to explain the Trinity, such as: “The Trinity is like the three different states of water: liquid, ice, and vapor.” Or maybe you’ve heard that the Trinity is like a three-leaf clover or the different parts of an egg. What many people don’t realize is that most of these analogies (if not all) are akin to the ancient heresies that the early church had dismissed centuries ago. But if none of these analogies are appropriate to describe God, then what is?”
5. Thank God It’s Friday: Weekend Roundup
In case you missed it, here are some headlines from last week: 9 Things You Should Know About Christianity and Communist China, 4 Key Factors Influencing Cultural Adjustment and Retention of Chinese Missionaries, Learning to Dream Again, and Master’s Seminary Grad Preaches the Gospel at a Kanye West Concert.
6. SOLA: TGIF Subscription
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