(upbeat music) - In the last podcast, Pastor John, you mentioned living now in the middle of nowhere in Tennessee, and this is the first time we've recorded and asked Pastor John from two different states. I'm in Minneapolis still, and you're in Tennessee for the next 14 months. Give us a personal update on the recent move, and maybe give us an update on some projects you hope to work on in the next 14 months.

- Tony, we drove down to Tennessee with a 1/3 full Penske 16-foot truck. I think I overestimated. (laughs) We didn't bring furniture, we just brought books and stuff we'd need for a year, 'cause we were renting a furnished house from one of Noel's cousins. And bless their heart, Marshall Siegel and Stephen Green drove the truck for us, and we drove our car.

And so we got here and moved into this place and are getting our, even as we record right now, still getting our offices in order. Talitha's gonna have a little place in her room 'cause she's gonna do college courses online while we're here for this year. Even though she's a senior in high school, she's gonna be taking college courses that count for dual enrollment.

Noel's getting her little study set up in this master bedroom here so that she can work on her biography of Esther Nelson, who's a missionary nobody's ever written about. And she hopes to get that basically done, I think, this year. And for me, I hope to work on "Ask Pastor John." (laughs) - Well, thank you.

- So we've got a phone connection. Actually, there's a few other things. We're gonna be working on a new creative Bible teaching vision through Desiring God that we hope to roll out in a few months or so that we'll tell the people more about later. And then there are at least three book projects and a fourth that I'm not decided on yet.

One is called "Five Points Toward a Deeper Experience of Grace" to help believers know what has happened to them so that they can enjoy God more and love him and feel the sweet thankfulness that comes when you know what he really did for you and can help you then spill over in gospel telling for others.

So it's a book about Reformed soteriology at its most basic level. And my desire is that people would see that these things are for our joy and for our steadiness. And they're not mainly about arguing or debating. They're right at the heart of what gives us peace and sweet communion with the Lord because of the majesty of his salvation in our lives.

So that's number one. Number two is called "A Godward Heart, Treasuring the God Who Loves You, 50 Meditations for Your Joy." It's a collection of 50 short readings. And the vision behind this is that we've published a "Godward Life I" and a "Godward Life II" and let's see, "Pierced by the Word" and "Life as a Vapor." All those are collections of short readings that I've written over the years.

And our aim is to try to get that number up to 365 so that we can then publish a series of volumes in which we have a reading for every day of the year. So this is a step in that direction. And then the third one is called, it's a new Swans book, volume six in "The Swans Are Not Silent" called "Seeing Beauty and Saying Beautifully, The Power of Poetic Effort" in the work of George Herbert, George Whitefield and C.S.

Lewis, which is kind of a surprising combination, I think. But I think George Whitefield is the surprising member, I think, in that trilogy, because he was an evangelist and a preacher rather than a poet. And yet when you see how he preached, there is a way that he had his own peculiar poetic effort, and I'll try to define that, that I think gives a kind of unity to these three heroes of mine that I hope will be very helpful to people.

But here's the overall goal for this year away, Tony. I do plan to move back to Minneapolis sometime in summer of 2014. And the reason for getting away is, number one, to make as much freedom for Jason Meyer, my replacement in the pastoral role at Bethlehem, and for God to give me discernment for the next chapter of my life.

If God gives me 10 years, that's how long my dad was really lucid. I remember hearing my dad preach when he was 77, that's 10 years older than I am, and it was a powerful sermon. I've got a video of my dad preaching at 77. I said, "Boy, if I could preach like that at 77, "I would be so thankful." So if God, I mean, I think we should always plan for life, but never presume pun life.

And so I'm gonna plan for it, and the question is, what is the configuration of teaching at Bethlehem College and Seminary, and producing audio and video and written content for desiring God, and speaking at conferences, and ministering to missionaries, and encouraging pastors, all those things that are possible now.

Lord, show me. So I would ask people as they listen to this, just join me in prayer that this year would be a year of great illumination so that the last chapter could perhaps, in God's mercy, be the most fruitful of all. - Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.

We do appreciate your prayers for Pastor John in this next year. And if you have any questions, please email those to us at askpastorjohn@dc.org. At desiringgod.org, you'll find thousands of other free resources from John Piper. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)