Busy week ahead! This is the week that pastors in the Evangelical Covenant Church gather for professional development, spiritual renewal, and fellowship at the Midwinter Conference. This isn’t my year to attend, but that doesn’t mean I can’t participate. All the worship events are live-streamed here. Meanwhile, those of us who can’t be in San Diego are covering pastoral duties on the home front. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for creative writing. Good thing I can read faster than I can write, and this seems a good opportunity to share some reading (and viewing) material that jumped out at me this past week.

In fact, I may take a cue from Rachel Held Evans, and do a weekly synopsis of web links that I think you might find useful or enjoyable. She calls hers “Sunday Superlatives” but Monday Mash-Up makes more sense to me – what church musician hasn’t been thrilled to discover two songs fitting together in unexpected ways? See if you can find this week’s theme (and no, it had nothing to do with the Super Bowl).

This is the blog that started it all, from a photographer who doesn’t enjoy being on the other side of the camera.
Then there was Cameron Russell’s TEDx Talk, and over at Her.Meneutics, this thoughtful response to it from Caryn Rivadeneira.

Eugene Cho’s piece is more than a year old, but surfaced this week in a friend’s feed, and includes a video that is still worth watching.

And this  from Kim Gentes popped up on my LinkedIn feed this week. Be sure to read the comments.
Finally, Jeff Scheetz chimes in with a broader question.

So how are you being authentically who God made you to be? What are the implications for worship and spiritual health in all this?

I haven’t forgotten that I owe you a post about breath for singing. It’s coming, I promise…