Our Move to Tennessee and New Projects
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - In the last podcast, Pastor John,
00:00:06.360 | you mentioned living now in the middle of nowhere
00:00:08.280 | in Tennessee, and this is the first time
00:00:09.720 | we've recorded and asked Pastor John
00:00:11.840 | from two different states.
00:00:12.960 | I'm in Minneapolis still, and you're in Tennessee
00:00:15.080 | for the next 14 months.
00:00:17.280 | Give us a personal update on the recent move,
00:00:20.440 | and maybe give us an update on some projects
00:00:22.400 | you hope to work on in the next 14 months.
00:00:24.760 | - Tony, we drove down to Tennessee
00:00:28.840 | with a 1/3 full Penske 16-foot truck.
00:00:32.640 | I think I overestimated. (laughs)
00:00:35.240 | We didn't bring furniture, we just brought books
00:00:37.600 | and stuff we'd need for a year,
00:00:39.340 | 'cause we were renting a furnished house
00:00:41.240 | from one of Noel's cousins.
00:00:43.220 | And bless their heart, Marshall Siegel and Stephen Green
00:00:49.240 | drove the truck for us, and we drove our car.
00:00:53.200 | And so we got here and moved into this place
00:00:57.820 | and are getting our, even as we record right now,
00:01:00.800 | still getting our offices in order.
00:01:02.640 | Talitha's gonna have a little place in her room
00:01:04.920 | 'cause she's gonna do college courses online
00:01:06.880 | while we're here for this year.
00:01:08.480 | Even though she's a senior in high school,
00:01:11.280 | she's gonna be taking college courses
00:01:13.800 | that count for dual enrollment.
00:01:16.440 | Noel's getting her little study set up
00:01:18.640 | in this master bedroom here so that she can work
00:01:21.360 | on her biography of Esther Nelson,
00:01:23.360 | who's a missionary nobody's ever written about.
00:01:27.440 | And she hopes to get that basically done,
00:01:30.620 | I think, this year.
00:01:31.700 | And for me, I hope to work on "Ask Pastor John."
00:01:35.400 | (laughs)
00:01:36.720 | - Well, thank you.
00:01:37.900 | - So we've got a phone connection.
00:01:39.200 | Actually, there's a few other things.
00:01:41.720 | We're gonna be working on a new creative
00:01:44.540 | Bible teaching vision through Desiring God
00:01:47.020 | that we hope to roll out in a few months or so
00:01:49.180 | that we'll tell the people more about later.
00:01:51.520 | And then there are at least three book projects
00:01:54.220 | and a fourth that I'm not decided on yet.
00:01:56.100 | One is called "Five Points Toward a Deeper Experience
00:02:01.000 | of Grace" to help believers know what has happened to them
00:02:06.000 | so that they can enjoy God more and love him
00:02:09.160 | and feel the sweet thankfulness that comes
00:02:13.440 | when you know what he really did for you
00:02:15.740 | and can help you then spill over
00:02:18.080 | in gospel telling for others.
00:02:20.240 | So it's a book about Reformed soteriology
00:02:23.840 | at its most basic level.
00:02:25.500 | And my desire is that people would see
00:02:29.840 | that these things are for our joy and for our steadiness.
00:02:34.840 | And they're not mainly about arguing or debating.
00:02:40.240 | They're right at the heart of what gives us peace
00:02:43.800 | and sweet communion with the Lord
00:02:46.980 | because of the majesty of his salvation in our lives.
00:02:50.280 | So that's number one.
00:02:51.800 | Number two is called "A Godward Heart,
00:02:56.140 | Treasuring the God Who Loves You,
00:02:58.680 | 50 Meditations for Your Joy."
00:03:00.960 | It's a collection of 50 short readings.
00:03:03.720 | And the vision behind this is that we've published
00:03:08.720 | a "Godward Life I" and a "Godward Life II"
00:03:13.080 | and let's see, "Pierced by the Word"
00:03:18.080 | and "Life as a Vapor."
00:03:20.880 | All those are collections of short readings
00:03:23.200 | that I've written over the years.
00:03:24.920 | And our aim is to try to get that number up to 365
00:03:29.440 | so that we can then publish a series of volumes
00:03:33.600 | in which we have a reading for every day of the year.
00:03:36.560 | So this is a step in that direction.
00:03:38.960 | And then the third one is called,
00:03:41.760 | it's a new Swans book,
00:03:43.160 | volume six in "The Swans Are Not Silent"
00:03:46.480 | called "Seeing Beauty and Saying Beautifully,
00:03:51.360 | The Power of Poetic Effort"
00:03:53.640 | in the work of George Herbert,
00:03:55.880 | George Whitefield and C.S. Lewis,
00:03:58.240 | which is kind of a surprising combination, I think.
00:04:01.680 | But I think George Whitefield is the surprising member,
00:04:06.240 | I think, in that trilogy,
00:04:08.140 | because he was an evangelist and a preacher
00:04:10.520 | rather than a poet.
00:04:11.760 | And yet when you see how he preached,
00:04:16.280 | there is a way that he had his own peculiar poetic effort,
00:04:21.280 | and I'll try to define that,
00:04:24.140 | that I think gives a kind of unity
00:04:26.400 | to these three heroes of mine
00:04:29.640 | that I hope will be very helpful to people.
00:04:32.440 | But here's the overall goal for this year away, Tony.
00:04:35.160 | I do plan to move back to Minneapolis
00:04:37.320 | sometime in summer of 2014.
00:04:41.160 | And the reason for getting away is,
00:04:43.080 | number one, to make as much freedom for Jason Meyer,
00:04:46.680 | my replacement in the pastoral role at Bethlehem,
00:04:51.040 | and for God to give me discernment
00:04:55.000 | for the next chapter of my life.
00:04:57.800 | If God gives me 10 years,
00:05:00.520 | that's how long my dad was really lucid.
00:05:03.400 | I remember hearing my dad preach when he was 77,
00:05:05.680 | that's 10 years older than I am,
00:05:07.280 | and it was a powerful sermon.
00:05:09.400 | I've got a video of my dad preaching at 77.
00:05:11.560 | I said, "Boy, if I could preach like that at 77,
00:05:14.640 | "I would be so thankful."
00:05:17.240 | So if God, I mean, I think we should always plan for life,
00:05:22.240 | but never presume pun life.
00:05:24.340 | And so I'm gonna plan for it,
00:05:26.140 | and the question is, what is the configuration
00:05:30.440 | of teaching at Bethlehem College and Seminary,
00:05:33.000 | and producing audio and video and written content
00:05:37.320 | for desiring God, and speaking at conferences,
00:05:40.800 | and ministering to missionaries, and encouraging pastors,
00:05:43.680 | all those things that are possible now.
00:05:46.660 | Lord, show me.
00:05:48.280 | So I would ask people as they listen to this,
00:05:50.640 | just join me in prayer that this year
00:05:52.440 | would be a year of great illumination
00:05:55.080 | so that the last chapter could perhaps,
00:05:57.840 | in God's mercy, be the most fruitful of all.
00:06:00.520 | - Thank you, Pastor John,
00:06:02.220 | and thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:06:03.640 | We do appreciate your prayers for Pastor John
00:06:05.360 | in this next year.
00:06:06.920 | And if you have any questions,
00:06:08.840 | please email those to us at askpastorjohn@dc.org.
00:06:10.720 | At desiringgod.org, you'll find thousands
00:06:13.920 | of other free resources from John Piper.
00:06:15.760 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:06:16.920 | Thanks for listening.
00:06:18.000 | (upbeat music)
00:06:20.580 | (upbeat music)
00:06:23.160 | [BLANK_AUDIO]