Rambling Snookery

This is not the end.

[nathanstam-blog]

My Top 5 Albums of All Time

5. Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys

4. Achtung Baby by U2

3. Long Gone Before Daylight by The Cardigans

2. The Alchemy Index by Thrice

1. The Joshua Tree by U2

[nathanstam-blog]

If I Could Make You Listen to these Songs and Like Them I Would for They are Good for Your Soul.

1. Death, Be Not Proud -- Audrey Assad

2. Open Letter -- My Epic

3. White Privilege -- Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

4. A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall -- Bob Dylan

5. Symbols and Signs -- Beautiful Eulogy

[nathanstam-blog]

Top 5 Books I’ve Read in the Last 15 Years

5. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

4. The Island of the World by Michael O’Brien

3. The Road by Cormac McCarthy

2. Silence by Shusaku Endo

1. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark

[nathanstam-blog]

Best Movies of 2016 (So Far)

1. Zootopia

2. Jungle Book

3. Midnight Special

4. The Conjuring 2

5. Captain America: Civil War

Special Note: Finding Dory probably belongs here somewhere as well, but I slept through half of it so don’t feel like I can include it with any sort of integrity.

[nathanstam-blog]

Top 10 (or so) Albums of 2015

Mumford and Sons -- Wilder Minds

John Givez -- Soul Rebel

Death Cab for Cutie -- Kintsugi

Mat Kearney -- Just Kids

John Foreman -- The Wonderlands (technically 4 EPs)

Jgivens -- Fly Exam

Dustin Kesrue -- Carry the Fire

Falling Up -- Falling Up

Civil Twilight -- Story of an Immigrant

MUTEMATH -- Vitals

[nathanstam-blog]

New Heavens and New Earth! Eschatology from Lifehouse!

[nathanstam-blog]

More Owl City! My Everything!

[nathanstam-blog]

3 of my favorite songs. Back to back to back.

[nathanstam-blog]

Helpful video on the letter to the Hebrews.

[nathanstam-blog]

Owl City! Verge!

[nathanstam-blog]

Heelllooooo! This makes me want some snow!

[nathanstam-blog]

Top 10 Movies of 2014

Captain America: Winter Soldier

Snowpiercer

The Babadook

Boyhood

Interstellar

Edge of Tomorrow (Live. Die. Repeat.)

The Lego Movie

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

How to Train Your Dragon 2

X-Men: Days of Future Past

[nathanstam-blog]

Top 10 (or so) Albums of 2014

Kye Kye -- Fantasize

John Mark McMillan -- Borderland

Needtobreathe -- Rivers in the Wasteland

Colony House -- When I Was Younger

Anberlin -- Lowborn

Switchfoot -- Fading West/The End of the Earth

From Indian Lakes -- Absent Sounds

Kings Kaleidoscope -- Becoming Who We Are

Brooke Fraser -- Brutal Romantic

The War on Drugs -- Lost in the Dream

Young the Giant -- Mind Over Matter

Fever Fever -- Aftermath

New Empire -- In A Breath

Canopy Climbers -- Blindfold EP

[nathanstam-blog]

Love this song, the cover, this band and the virtual choir

[nathanstam-blog]

The groans of Nature in this nether world, Which Heaven has heard for ages, have an end, Foretold by prophets, and by poets sung, Whose fire was kindled at the prophets' lamp. The time of rest, the promised Sabbath comes!

William Cowper

[nathanstam-blog]

Preaching as an Encounter

"Preaching must thus be an encounter, an encounter not with a part of a person, not only with his reason, or with his poetic feeling, but an encounter with the entire person, with the whole man, as he exists in this world, as he is in flight from God, as he plays a role in that tremendous drama that is enacted between God and the rebellious human heart."

J.H. Bavinck

[nathanstam-blog]

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.

Martin Luther King, Jr. from Strength to Love