From the category archives:

Personal

Having spoken just yesterday about the fine line between self-promotion and hiding one’s light under a bushel, it might surprise you that I would share a video at the begining of this post in which  Terry Virgo (who incidentally has recently joined Facebook) begins his slot recommending books at the Brighton conference by commending mine. There are a number of reasons why I feel very comfortable doing this, however.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, Terry’s book review segments have been a major part of my conference life for three decades. No one who has ever heard him passionately commend a book could ever forget the very helpful way he does this. After all, this is the man who single-handedly sold the entire first UK print run of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology with one announcement. Pastors would do well to watch this video and learn how to really persuade your people to get a hold of a book. One leader who seems to have learned from Terry’s skill in this matter is my own pastor Tope Koleoso, who sold 100 copies of Raised With Christ in 10 minutes! I want to permanently house a video of Terry at his memorable best.  This is a man who’s love for Jesus spills over into a love for books.

During such recommendation slots in the past Terry has routinely mentioned his own and his wife’s books. He does it always in a disarming way, for example saying “and this is a book by my wife’s husband…”   He does it humbly but boldly because nobody invests the ridiculous amout of time it takes to actually write a book unless they believe passionately in its message.  I make no apologies for suggesting that you buy my book.  I know that many of my regular readers have yet to get a copy (though the publisher is happy with the sales).  I know that considering the resurrection and all it’s implications can do you great good in your Christian walk.  The only reason I can think of that you should not get ahold of a copy is if you are already reading another book about the resurrection. 2010 has a few months to run yet, so please consider making sure this is the year that you read a book on the glorious victory of Christ and what it has accomplished for us.

If cost is an issue, then right now there is a great deal of 25% off at Amazon.com or over 40% off at Amazon.co.uk At those prices, why not get some copies for your church bookstore, or as gifts for friends.  Just think, you could get some Christmas shopping done early this year!  Before you say it, remember, this is not a book just for Easter time, any more than great books on the cross should only be read at such a time of year.

Finally, Terry also commends some other fine books that you should consider getting. The first is  Tom Schreiner, Magnifying God in Christ which Terry says gave him great confidence in a rickety airplane.

Next is a book called Planting Missional Churches by Ed Stetzer, who according to Terry has “five personalities pumped into one body.” Ed is well worth listening to and reading and serves us all well.

Finally my good friend Phil Moore’s books are all commended from his Straight to the heart of series. Available so far are Matthew, Acts, and Revelation

All of the above books along with many other helpful resources are available at the Newfrontiers online store

Following just over a month of this self-imposed near-total break from my online life (obviously not including my paid work!) what have I discovered?

  1. Wordpress’s auto-publish feature is bullet-proof and a real gift
  2. You hardly missed me as a result of 1. and my kind guest bloggers. Indeed, traffic remained pretty high considering it was August.
  3. Phil Moore is better than I am at explaining why digital fasts are so important.
  4. A week is definitely not long enough It took me much longer before I even began to experience digital withdrawal symptoms.
  5. It really is hard to stay away from the Internet for several weeks. My “fast” wasn’t total as the weeks drew on. I did scan-read Twitter, Facebook and a couple of blogs a little towards the end. I also started to write this post 20 minutes or so before my deadline,  and last week even wrote a couple of tweets ready for publishing later when my wife had gone away (the observant may have noticed that they appeared in my Twitter stream and were quickly deleted!) I also and scanned and deleted most of my accumulated emails on the same day. Finally, I started an Omnifocus to-do list to capture a small handful of ideas for things to blog about when they began to hit me about a week or so ago.
  6. The harsh truth is that I really don’t care about what my readers think about me as much as I thought I did (despite 5)   I trust I will continue to remember this and make sure that I take more care over being kind to my wife and children than I do over looking after you all!  Funily enough, I somehow suspect that the more I focus on pleasing my God and family, the more benefit I may be to you in any case.
  7. Learning more about how to not believe your own publicity is a vital result of such a break.  I can’t improve on what I said about this last year. Running a blog can appear to be self-serving at first glance. There has to be a good balance, however, between arrogantly pushing oneself forward, and on the other hand hiding whatever one can share with others under a bushel.  I am not sure I always navigate that tightrope entirely correctly, but, you have to believe me that I know that of myself I have nothing to offer you.  I will not ever apologize for shouting about my savior, and his death and resurrection for us. I know that if I can point you towards him, and to good resources that will help you in your spiritual journey I will have fulfilled one of the roles that God has for me in this life.  It is not the most important one, however.  That is clearly being a husband and father, which is much harder than helping at least some of people who read this blog for a few minutes a day.
  8. I remained really quite busy with secular work, preached three times, was on the radio once, and yet removing the digital piece resulted in me now feeling remarkably rested and refreshed. I may need to find some ways to lessen some of the burdens I carry.  Perhaps I need a secretary or something!
  9. Just hanging out with the kids in the evenings watching TV, playing Scrabble & Risk with them on the iPad, and being beaten at chess by my 11 year old son is a whole lot of fun. I need to carve out more time to do this better even with the blog up and running. If I could be a better husband and father and a worse blogger that would be fine with me.
  10. Having a break has made me itch to write again, and I have really enjoyed writing this post.  I won’t be giving up permanently any time soon!

First half of the year thank you to top 60 referrers

August 4, 2010

One of the things I like to do during the summer months is acknowledge the many websites that have sent traffic this way so far this year. I wish I could list the many more that have also been kind enough to send people to read material here. But, even if your name is not [...]

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Top Twenty Five Pages from this site this year

July 22, 2010

As I go off on my blog leave (though some automated pre-planned posts will be arriving most days here throughout the summer) I thought you might be interested to know what the most frequently visited pages on this site have been during 2010 so far.  Interestingly, some golden oldies are still attracting traffic, and some [...]

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Events for the rest of 2010 and resting over the summer

July 21, 2010

My diary is filling up fast. Work-wise it looks like I am going to have to be in the USA three or four times between now and Christmas as well as traveling to Europe.  So it is just possible that I might be able to squeeze in connecting with one or two of my American [...]

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Guest posts and re-run requests

July 17, 2010

Do you run your own blog? Or have you ever wondered if you should be a blogger? Have you got a great quote from a Christian book you would like to share with fellow readers of adrianwarnock.com? Do you have a favorite old post from this site that you think deserves a repeat-run? I [...]

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15 years of marriage to the best woman on Earth for me

July 15, 2010

Mrs Warnock and I have enjoyed married life for 15 years today.  As I reflect on those years I thought I would share some of those thoughts with you.  Truth be told, marriage has been both the most challenging and the most rewarding thing I have ever done. As society seeks to destroy family life, [...]

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We are not in Spain!

July 15, 2010

Just a quick note to say that one of our email accounts was hacked this morning. We are not in Spain and do not need help getting home! It seems that the password was too easy to guess. You might want to think about changing your own password right now as right now  someone else [...]

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16 Things I am grateful for by Charis Warnock

July 11, 2010

This is a guest post from my daughter Charis (aged 9). We would do well to follow her example in listing things that she is grateful to God for.  I am sure you don’t need me to tell you how pleased I was to read this, especially to see a few of the items she [...]

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TOAM10 – Guest post from Mrs Warnock on transition

July 8, 2010

I was chatting with my wife, Andrée today as we were getting the notes from Terry’s talk ready to publish. I felt like what she had to say was so insightful that I decided to ask her to share it here. So here is a rare guest blogging appearance from Mrs Warnock:
As Terry was [...]

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LAUNCH OFFER on Raised With Christ audio book

June 29, 2010

I am pleased to announce today that Raised With Christ is now available as an audio book. You can buy it from Long Train Audio now for immediate download. For a limited period only of 14 days, you can obtain an exclusive discount. The codes you need to type in are: AWUSD which takes $3 [...]

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Shingles returns, please pray

June 21, 2010

This was going to be a very busy week–both at work and church, as we have John Piper this weekend. It was meant to be so busy that I have pre-programmed some blog posts to last us until Friday. But in the last few hours I have been hit by the unmistakable symptoms of shingles. [...]

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Real men DO cry

June 15, 2010

A couple of weeks back I was on my way to the Dwell conference, an Acts 29 event. I was listening to Lou Fellingham’s new album on my iPhone. As I neared the meeting place the track “My God Cares” came on. Without any warning, I found myself moved to tears. The [...]

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Raised With Christ Study Group Session Two

June 14, 2010

I know not everyone who wanted to join the study group  has had a chance to answer last week’s questions, but I was eager to get part two up today. I only just made it!  Please feel free to pop back to last week to catch up, or just jump in right here.  I am [...]

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