Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth: Spiritual Conversations Inspired by the Life and Lyrics of Rich Mullins - Softcover

Greer, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1683970403 ISBN 13: 9781683970408

Verlag: Worthy Inspired, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

Rich Mullins was a once-in-a-lifetime singer/songwriter whose impact on Christian music and the church is still felt today, even twenty years after his passing. His words and music softened and inspired the most hardened hearts to believe. His was a ragged and raw faith of a pilgrim, poet, and prophet. Now more than a dozen of today's singers, songwriters, producers, and authors gather to share never-before-heard stories and lessons that continue to influence their music and ministries today. These lessons, gleaned from Rich's own struggles and pursuits, are combined with lyrics from unreleased Rich Mullins songs that will inspire longtime Mullins fans, new Christian music followers, and spiritual seekers trying to understand the reckless love of God.

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A multiple Dove Award-nominated singer/ songwriter and respected author, Andrew Greer is known for his soulful folk-gospel sound, instinctively captured on his critically-acclaimed Angel Band recordings. Andrew's 2013 hymns project, All Things Bright & Beautiful, held the #1 position on Nielsen Christian SoundScan's Instrumental chart for twenty-five consecutive weeks. The author of Transcending Mysteries, Andrew's stories have appeared in Christianity Today, In Touch, and CCM Magazine. A native Texan, Andrew makes his home in Franklin, Tennessee.

Randy Cox has forty years of experience in music publishing, including his work at Paragon Music, where he discovered Michael W. Smith, and at Meadowgreen Music, where he first signed Rich Mullins. As publisher or representative, Randy's songs have been heard on more than eighty million recordings, including dozens of Grammy and Dove Award-winning albums. Randy lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where he also serves as adjunct professor at Trevecca University and a consultant with LifeWay Worship Resources.

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Rich Mullins was a once-in-a-lifetime singer/songwriter whose impact on Christian music and the church is still felt today, even twenty years after his passing. His words and music softened and inspired the most hardened hearts to believe. His was a ragged and raw faith of a pilgrim, poet, and prophet. Now more than a dozen of today's singers, songwriters, producers, and authors gather to share never-before-heard stories and lessons Rich taught them that continue to influence their music and ministries today. These lessons gleaned from Rich's own struggles and pursuits, are combined with lyrics from eleven unreleased Rich Mullins songs, to inspire both longtime Mullins fans as well as new Christian music followers and spiritual seekers looking for a little guidance for courageously living by faith in a world that laughs at the idea.

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Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth

Spiritual Conversations Inspired by the Life & Lyrics of Rich Mullins

By Andrew Greer, Randy Cox

Worthy Publishing Group

Copyright © 2017 Andrew Greer and Randy Cox
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-68397-040-8

Contents

Foreword by Amy Grant, 
Introduction, 
PART 1: LOVE ALONE, 
Part 1 Introduction, 
1. Bare by Cindy Morgan, 
2. Flaws and All, 
3. The Ragamuffin Truth by Brennan Manning, 
4. Reflections on Rich by David McCracken, 
5. Skin on Skin, 
6. Radical Love by Sarah Hart, 
7. Tribe and Tongue, 
8. Reflections on Rich by Lowell Alexander, 
9. The Real Deal of Humility, 
10. Listen and Love by David Mullins, 
11. Grief's Patient Friend, 
12. The Resolution of Grace, 
13. How Rude ... Not to Agree with God by Mark Lowry, 
14. Hum a Hymn, 
15. A Little Salt in the Oats by Jason Gray, 
16. A Conversation with Andrew Peterson, 
PART 2: THUNDER, 
Part 2 Introduction, 
17. Juxtaposition by Dan Haseltine from Jars of Clay, 
18. The Power of Presence, 
19. Reflections on Rich by Josh Blakesley, 
20. The Truth of a Sunset, 
21. The Reality of Mercy by Sara Groves, 
22. If These Pews Could Speak, 
23. The Wideness in God's Mercy by Melissa Reagan, 
24. Glimmers of Grace by Ian Morgan Cron, 
25. Surrender ... the Divine Permission, 
26. Reflections on Rich by Mitch McVicker, 
27. The Politics of Prayer, 
28. Bewildered Curiosity by Ashley Cleveland, 
29. The Speech of the Eternal, 
30. Change the World by David Leo Schultz, 
31. Worry into Worship, 
32. Reflections on Rich by Marita Meinerts Albinson, 
33. A Conversation with Shane Claiborne, 
PART 3: TROUBADOUR, 
Part 3 Introduction, 
34. The Bittersweet Longing by Carolyn Arends, 
35. Evidences of Eden, 
36. Reflections on Rich by Keith Bordeaux, 
37. Not Home Yet, 
38. Mercy! by Mark Lee from Third Day, 
39. The Open Table by Jonathan Martin, 
40. Body and Water, 
41. Reflections on Rich by Reed Arvin, 
42. Orphan Child, 
43. The Redemption of the Do-Gooders by Brandon Heath, 
44. The (Lonely) Road Home, 
45. Reflections on Rich by Ian Morgan Cron, 
46. Snow Day, 
47. Liturgical Living by Jimmy Abegg, 
48. A Conversation with Mike Blanton, Don Donahue, and Randy Cox, 
Afterword, 
Acknowledgments, 
About the Contributors, 
Notes, 

CHAPTER 1

Bare

Cindy Morgan

Humility is not thinking less of yourself: it is thinking of yourself less.

C. S. LEWIS

He was barefoot.

The meeting ground between something sacred and something raw and human is written throughout the pages of history.

God speaks to Moses through a burning bush: "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground" (Exodus 3:5 NIV). Adam and Eve, covered in fig leaves in the garden, when God asks, "Who told you that you were naked?" (Genesis 3:11 NIV). Jesus hanging on the cross, depicted with only a loincloth over His battered figure, His bloody feet pierced by a large nail.

Leading up to His crucifixion, I wonder if Jesus was stripped of His sandals, wilting under the weight of the beam of wood that would become His cross as He carried it down the narrow street of the "Via Dolorosa" (which translated means the "Painful Way"), His bare feet digging into sharp rocks and gravel with each agonizing step.

Bare.

It is the state in which we arrive to life, without any protection or disguise to cover our nakedness, our shame, who we are in our most raw and vulnerable form. We learn to present ourselves, to put our best foot forward. We wear our finest clothes, our most stylish statement, hiding what truly is for fear of falling short. We are afraid there isn't enough grace to cover our sin, so we desperately try to cover it up.

The last time I saw Rich Mullins we were performing an event — strangely enough, called "The Spectacular"— at Nashville's historic Ryman Auditorium. The concert was hosted during the week of the Dove Awards, Gospel music's annual awards show, as a kind of holy spectacle showcasing Christian music's brightest talent. I had been a part of the event for many years, but that year — that night — it would be different.

From the moment Rich stepped onto the stage, the atmosphere changed in that old church. While all of the rest of us donned our most expensive clothes, Rich walked out wearing a crumpled black T-shirt and jeans faded not from an artificial processing to make them look just so, but faded from real wear and real tear. His hair hung down in an unkempt, unintentional bob, the result of not giving much thought to a haircut. Then I looked down and saw the thing that made me the most surprised ... No shoes.

His brown bare feet padded across the wood floor of the Ryman stage, and as he sat down at a nine-foot Steinway piano, I imagined him pressing down the sustain pedal, how it must have been cold and slippery. But it didn't faze Rich in the slightest. He began to play "Our God Is an Awesome God." The air in the auditorium was electrified by his voice and his musicianship. By his vulnerability, his inability to care what others thought, his rawness before God and before us. It is a moment I will never forget.

At the end of the song, the audience erupted with a standing ovation, begging Rich for another song. He looked at the crowd in a sort of bewilderment and walked off the stage, never to return. I wonder if Rich was thinking that we had missed the whole point of the song ... "Our God is an awesome God," not "Rich is an awesome artist."

God is the point of our existence, not success, or fame, or looking the part, or covering up that which is unseemly or sinful or embarrassing.

Let us lay bare that which we are, the things we struggle with, all that we cannot hide anyway, and place them at the holy, bare feet of Jesus, or we may never experience the true grace and mercy of an awesome and loving God. Where the struggler meets the sacred. Where our humanity meets holiness.

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Hebrews 4:13 NIV

CHAPTER 2

Flaws and All

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

Ian MacLaren

This affective, widely cited quote is most commonly attributed to Ian MacLaren, the pen name for nineteenth-century Scottish author and theologian Reverend John Watson. Though the phraseology is charming, the admonition within is penetrating.

We all carry baggage, don't we? Some of us are weighted down with particularly dense issues. Rich certainly was. We press through difficult relationships, commit ourselves to recovery from addictions, and fight against low self-esteem and low-grade depressions. Life requires much of many of us, and so we discipline our lives, attempting to work through and around all that we lug mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. And yet, these issues persist in possessing our attention and affection.

Though the details of our lives storybook very differently, at some point, we all understand hardship.

In becoming aware of our shortcomings, we often become critical of ourselves, and of others. But when we allow our hearts to be purged of what feels temporarily good by what is eternally best, we...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Worthy Inspired
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1683970403
• ISBN 13: 9781683970408
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 289
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar