Click through for this week’s Getting Ethan comics. Follow Getting Ethan on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!

This summer, the kind folks at Church At Charlotte have invited me to display my visual artwork in their gallery. It is a tremendous honor for me, as this is my first opportunity to exhibit a collection of my non-musical work anywhere on earth. It will be on display from now until early August, so if you live in/near Charlotte, NC, or if you feel like flying in from your native England, feel free to visit the gallery. Church At Charlotte SouthPark Campus 2500 Carmel Rd. Charlotte, NC 28226 704.364.5913 Monday-Thursday 9am – 5pm Friday 9am – 2pm Sunday 8:15am – 12:30pm *During the week, those wishing to visit the Gallery should stop by the church office and a staff member will open the gallery space for them.

Click through for this week’s Getting Ethan comics. Follow Getting Ethan on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!

Click through for this week’s Getting Ethan comics. Follow Getting Ethan on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!

On June 17th, join Jeffrey Overstreet, Christianity Today’s senior film critic, as he shares how movies inspired and rejuvenated his faith and transformed the way that he hears God speaking in the world today. Includes a morning session and a guided tour through a challenging film that can change the way you look at movies, art, and creation. This full-day seminar, including a film screening and discussion, will run from 9:00am to 4:00pm, with a bonus screening to follow in the evening. Where: Christ Center Community Church 2700 South Lemay Avenue Fort Collins, CO 80525 Source: Looking Closer: Beauty, Truth, and Evil in the Movies Tickets, Sat, Jun 17, 2017 at 9:00 AM | Eventbrite

By last night when our donation-matching ended, hundreds of you helped raise the funds needed to get Every Moment Holy on its feet. We actually crossed the finish line several days early, and ended up with about 140% of our $23,500 goal. Thank you! What happens now? Thanks to your willingness to go the extra mile, we’ll be looking at ways to add value to the finished book in the form of leather binding, gilded edges, embossing, bookmarks, and other special treatments above and beyond what we might otherwise have been able to afford. And we’ll also begin planning what comes next (Every Moment Holy Vol. 2 and beyond). Please pray for Doug and Ned as they continue their creative work on the project. Doug puts a great deal of thought and time into each liturgy (he has nearly 50 left to write) and each of Ned’s linocuts require a lot of energy, both in the development of the image and the carving of the block. He and Doug have long hours of work ahead of them this summer and deadlines are looming. We’ll continue to share previews of the content as production moves forward. Every Moment Holy will be available this fall. If you’d like to be among the first to hold a copy in your hands, consider becoming a Rabbit Room member. We’ll be sending out copies of the book to all of our members as part of our third-quarter thank-you gift (as long as you join no later than August). Once again, thank you for being a part of this book. We couldn’t do this without your help.

Click through for this week’s Getting Ethan comics. Follow Getting Ethan on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!

Click through for this week’s Getting Ethan comics. Follow Getting Ethan on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!

Jennifer Trafton’s can’t-keep-’em-in-stock, best-selling, kid-pleasing, monkey-sneezing*, middle-grade reader Henry and the Chalk Dragon is now available on Kindle. And TODAY ONLY, it’s just 99 cents! Already read it? Review it here! *monkey sneezing not guaranteed

When we think of liturgy, we tend to think in terms of a church service or “responsive reading,” as it was called in the tradition I grew up in. But the word actually means “the work of the people” —and that’s why we want to invite you to participate in the creation of Every Moment Holy. Author Doug McKelvey has almost half of the book’s liturgies already written, and he’s hard at work on completing the project, but from the beginning it’s been part of the plan to open the brainstorming up to you, the people. To that end, we want to invite you to suggest topics for liturgies you’d like to see Doug write for the book. Are there ordinary moments of life for which you wish you had a specific prayer? What milestones or annual events might your family want to mark with a liturgical reading? Are there daily or seasonal rituals and routines, or fleeting incidents whose importance is too often overlooked and might be well served by a liturgical moment of preparation? We’re interested in any and all suggestions. We’ll gather your ideas together and give them careful consideration to determine which are best in line with our vision for the book, and if we choose one of your topic suggestions to use, you’ll receive a complimentary copy of the finished book as our token of thanks (we’ll contact you via the email on your comment if we choose to use your suggestion). Disclaimer: Doug already has a list of well over 100 liturgies he’s drawing from, so as the Rabbit Room community makes suggestions, we’re looking for new ideas we like better than the ones he’s already planned. We anticipate that as you submit topic ideas, there will almost certainly be some overlap with what we already have—but don’t let that stop you from brainstorming! We’ll give credit where credit is due. Note that we aren’t asking for the liturgies themselves (that’s Doug’s job), just potential subjects or titles, like “A Liturgy for Sunsets,” or “A Liturgy for the First Day of School,” or “A Liturgy for a Meal Eaten Alone.” (Those are all liturgies that will appear in the book.) Leave us your ideas in the comments section, and if you like someone else’s idea, click the like button on their comment to let us know. Suggest as many as you like. We won’t necessarily pick those that get the most likes, but it’s a great way to let us know what you’re interested in (and who knows what may follow in volume 2—yes, we’re already thinking about volume 2). Don’t forget, all donations to the project during the month of May are being matched by a generous donor! Help us put this over the finish line financially. Your contributions—both financial and liturgical—are what is making all this possible. Click here to visit the campaign page. Oh, and please share the project with your friends (click here)!

Click through for this week’s Getting Ethan comics. Follow Getting Ethan on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

When my kids were little we were talking at the dinner table about our favorite words. I remember Mrs. Roberts, my ninth grade English teacher, writing her favorite word, EDIFY, on the chalk board and regarding it with delight—its visual appeal, its meaning, the enjoyable way it rolls off the tongue—and from then on I kept watch for my own, personal favorite word. For the last several years it’s been CONFLUENCE. (Isn’t it just perfect?) That’s the word that comes to mind when I listen to The Orchardist. Imagine several rivers, one fed by C. S. Lewis, another by Nickel Creek, another by N. T. Wright, another by Caedmon’s Call, and another by Wendell Berry, all coming together in one dancing, laughing, passionate rush of music called The Orchardist. The instrumentation is pleasing and solid and tasteful, the lyrics are rich, the vocals and phrasing are spot-on (I’m a sucker for good phrasing)—and, perhaps most striking, there’s a masterful ebb and flow to the arrangements, a musical narrative arc that’s perfectly suited to what’s happening in the lyric. Forgive me while I beat this river analogy into the ground: Tyler Rydosz’s mandolin hops like a wren along the riverbank; Camille Faulkner’s violin soars and dives like an osprey; Janie Townsend’s vocals are a white swan on the surface; and lead vocalist Drew Miller, who formed the band and wrote most of the lyrics, is like some Port William character in a canoe, riding the current and telling us with a wisdom beyond his years about what he sees. (That was exhausting, and I want to punch myself.) But you get the picture, I hope, that this happy band from Nashville is something special. I love that these four songs are just the first part of three. I love that the cover looks like a Wes Anderson film. I love how lovely the lyrics are. I love how obvious it is that the band worked really hard on the arrangements and the recordings; there’s never a throwaway moment in these songs. I love that with every listen I hear more, delight more, am more impressed with the songwriting and musicianship. And I love that the confluence of all those influences I mentioned before leads me, most of all, to think about Jesus. Friends, this is good music. Today is the official release of “act one” of the People, People project, and you get get it for a whopping $6 in the Rabbit Room Store. I hope you’ll support these guys, and most of all I hope you listen to this EP enough to realize how wonderful it is. And this is just part one. (Here’s a video, just to whet your appetite. Keep your ears peeled for The Great Divorce.)

Today is Doug McKelvey’s birthday, and he’s decided to give all of you a gift. Wish him well, open it up, and enjoy. Click here for your present.

Besides being a brilliant writer, Flannery O’Connor wrote quite a bit about the craft of writing. In this six-week online course, we will look at O’Connor’s essays about writing in Mystery and Manners, examine ways that she implemented her principles in her short stories, and implemented her principles in her short stories, and implement those principles ourselves in short writing exercises. My goal as instructor will not be to get you to mimic O’Connor, but to help you find your own voice—to help you write in your native tongue, just as O’Connor wrote in hers. Though O’Connor wrote more or less exclusively about fiction, most of her principles are equally applicable to non-fiction narratives. Below is a look at the introductory lecture of the course. Click here for full details. Class begins May 15.

Click through for this week’s Getting Ethan comics. Follow Getting Ethan on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

We just updated the campaign page with a video in which Andrew Peterson and author Doug McKelvey talk about the genesis of the project and even give a few peeks at some of the liturgies the book will contain. All donations will be matched during the month of May! Help us make this project as beautiful as possible. Here’s a link to the campaign page.

Yesterday saw the release of Douglas McKelvey’s illustrated edition of The Angel Knew Papa and the Dog, and today I want to talk about his next project, Every Moment Holy. Last year, Doug pitched us the idea of putting together a book filled with liturgies for the everyday events of modern life. He cast a vision for reminding the world that the sacred is hidden within the mundane, and it felt like a rallying cry for all the Rabbit Room stands for. There’s holiness to be found lurking beneath the movements of a story, within the labor of laundry, in the wonder of a storm, even in the depths of grief or on the shores of the sea, and the thought of having a liturgy at hand for those kind of moments, liturgies to call out the hidden graces at work in the world, was a project we knew we couldn’t pass up. From the beginning, we recognized that this was going to be a far bigger project than anything Rabbit Room Press had undertaken before. The book would contain around a 100 liturgies, and that would require a mountain of time on Doug’s part. We knew we wanted it illustrated with artwork that would recall to mind medieval woodcuts and ancient, sacred texts, and that would require working with a world-class illustrator. We wanted a book that looked and felt as meaningful as the words it kept: leather, bookmark, gilded pages, debossing—something that might be an heirloom rather than a trade paperback. And that is just for volume one. Yes, we’ve got further plans. All that comes with significant cost, and so last year we began asking folks like you to come alongside us and help make this project a reality. We received enough early support the pull the trigger and put Doug to work, having faith that we’d find the rest of the funds along the way. Since then, Doug has written dozens of beautiful liturgies. I’m not making this up: every time he emails me a new batch, I read through them and end up in tears. He’s got a gift for finding ways to tease out unexpected connections and meanings in the simple things of life, and I’m in awe of his work. His liturgy for home repair completely wrecked me. Think about that. He made me cry by suggesting the eternal significance of plumbing. That’s an amazing gift. We’ll be sharing some of these liturgies with you throughout the month of May (as well as asking you to suggest subjects of your own). We’ve also brought aboard Ned Bustard to illustrate the book. Ned specializes in Christian symbolism and medieval art and his work is a perfect match for the book. We’re so happy to see how he’s caught the vision for the project and we can’t wait to share his work with you (stay tuned). We’re at the point now that the rubber is about to hit the road. We want to have the book available for Hutchmoot this year. The production deadline is right around the corner and that means we need to buckle down and raise the funds to see the project to completion. And here’s a huge piece of good news: A gracious supporter of the project has come forward and offered to match donations throughout the month of May. This means that if you donate $25 to the project, they’ll match it with an additional $25 donation. The same applies if you donate $100 or $1000—it’s matched. Better yet, they have offered to match the yearly commitment of new members. So if you sign up for membership through the Every Moment Holy campaign (a monthly donation of $25 or more), the annual value of that commitment will be matched immediately. This means that if you sign up for $25 now, the matching donor will throw in $300 ($25 x 12)! If you’ve been a part of one of Doug’s liturgies (at Hutchmoot, or Rabbit Room Live, or the Local Show, or another event) and it’s resonated with you. If you are one of the many we’ve talked to who recognize the value of having this resource available at family gatherings, or moments of transition, or moments of numbing mundanity. If you find yourself often in need of a reminder that the world is fraught with meaning and charged with the grandeur of God, consider supporting this project. We believe we’re creating something special, and we need your help to bring it to completion. Visit the campaign page for more information, and please share the project with your friends on social media (click here to share now). We’ll be talking more about the project throughout the month of May as we bring you sample liturgies, samples of the artwork, interviews, and some other fun stuff. Click here to visit the Every Moment Holy campaign page.

Click through for this weeks’ Getting Ethan comics. Follow Getting Ethan on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter!

I have always loved the Bible story of Balaam’s donkey (from Numbers 22). On the one hand, it’s a folksy, earthy, homey story. On the plains of Moab, a man has trouble with a stubborn donkey. Man beats donkey. Donkey talks back. Man and donkey get into an argument. Donkey wins argument. Told that way, the episode sounds more like a folk tale or a joke than a Bible story. And yet, swirling around this homespun story, and driving it along, are huge forces—prophets, kings, political intrigue—and, more to the point, cosmic forces with eternal consequences—the anger of the Lord Almighty, an angel with his sword drawn, a false prophet who cannot help but tell the truth. That farm girl is the narrator of The Angel Knew Papa and the Dog. Her voice—both thoroughly American and also steeped in the imagery and language of the Bible—is a big part of what makes The Angel Knew Papa and the Dog so appealing. She makes sense of the events she narrates in terms of the stories her father has read to her beside their cabin hearth. Her baptized imagination gives her eyes to see what has been true all along. The Angel Knew Papa and the Dog was originally published in 1998 by Penguin. It has now been re-released by Rabbit Room press in a paperback edition beautifully illustrated by Zach Franzen. You can get your copy at the Rabbit Room store. Now Available!

I’m so pleased to let you know that David Taylor will be our Hutchmoot keynote speaker. I met David last year, thanks in part to the famous (infamous?) video he produced, featuring a conversation on the Psalms with Bono and Eugene Peterson. I wrote a response to that video that created some more conversation, and next thing you know I was on a panel led by David, along with Charlie Peacock (!) and Ashley Cleveland (!) here in Nashville. David and his lovely family came over to the Warren for tea the next day, and I went from being a fan to having made a new friend. Not only is David brilliant, but he has one of the sweetest spirits—and heartiest laughs—I’ve ever shared a room with. David came to one of our Texas shows on my Edge of Dawn Tour with Audrey Assad this spring, and I sort of made a fool of myself. I asked him if he’d be willing to come and speak at Hutchmoot, but told him I wasn’t sure if he did that sort of thing. I knew he was smart. I knew he was a professor. But did he do keynote-type stuff? I hadn’t found anything online in my quick search, other than his academic accomplishments—his formidable academic accomplishments, I should say. David, bless his heart, literally blushed and fumbled for a second before telling me, “Yeah, that’s basically what I do.” He texted me the next day, after I apologized for my ignoramus question with this: Hey no worries, brother. It didn’t bother me at all. I don’t tend to feel comfortable tooting my own horn, and I don’t put my CV on my blog, so it’s not surprising that you wouldn’t know any details about my public speaking habits. It’s all good. But I do enjoy the experience, and I’ve enjoyed the challenge/opportunity to speak to different sorts of groups: seminaries, colleges, churches, conferences, retreats, small groups, small closets full of hermits, etc. ???? My topics tend to revolve around vocation and the arts, spiritual formation and the arts, theology and the arts, worship and the arts, culture and the arts. My latest avocational interest is in science fiction and the Christian faith. It’d be an honor and a privilege to speak at Hutchmoot. How could you not love that guy? Here’s what the Fuller Seminary website says about him: David Taylor joined the Fuller faculty in 2014 and is an assistant professor of theology and culture as well as the Director of Brehm Texas, an initiative to revitalize the church through the arts. Prior to his appointment at Fuller, Taylor served as a pastor for ten years in Austin, Texas. Born and raised in Guatemala City, he has lectured widely on the arts, in both academic and popular settings, from Thailand to South Africa. An ordained Anglican minister, Taylor edited the book For the Beauty of the Church: Casting a Vision for the Arts (Baker Books, 2010), serves on the advisory board for IVP Academic’s series, “Studies in Theology and the Arts,” and leads an annual retreat for ministers to artists at Laity Lodge in central Texas. His most recent project was producing Bono and Eugene Peterson: THE PSALMS. I’ll say it again. How could you not love that guy? We’re so honored that he’ll be joining us. Today, Fuller Studio (the platform that produced the original Bono/Eugene conversation) released five more clips: an extended conversation between David and Bono about the Psalms, Jesus, and the arts—which made me an even bigger fan of both David and Bono. You can watch all the videos here, but this is one of my favorites.

Click through for this week’s Getting Ethan comics. You can follow Getting Ethan on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter!

In the vast amount of music I’ve listened to over the years, there are only a few albums that I’d call “transcendent,” and that looks awfully dramatic now that I see it in writing. But I don’t know how else to put it, other than they refuse to stay in the background whenever I listen to them, or I can pop them in the CD player anytime and feel carried to another place. Anyway. What I’m trying to say is Death in Reverse, Jeremy Casella’s 2014 album, is on that special short list. I like to pull it out around Holy Week or the first turn of spring, when I need songs of warmth and resurrection. And if you haven’t had a chance to hear it yet, well hey, you can download it for free right now! And you must, because it’s perfect for your Easter soundtrack. Just click here and scroll down a bit to sign up for his email list. And to read about the making of the record, take a trip through The Rabbit Room Archives to find his story here.

With our new membership program, each quarter we’re sending a gift to our members as a way of saying thank you for helping us do what we do. If you were a member for at least 2 out of the 3 months of the first quarter, check your mailbox. For the past year, Rabbit Room Press has been working on Jennifer Trafton’s Henry and the Chalk Dragon and this month we finally set it loose. We’re enormously proud of this book and it’s thanks to the support of our membership that we were able to issue such a beautiful illustrated hardcover edition. In your thank you package, you’ll find a signed first edition, first printing (already sold out!) copy of Henry along with a little something extra in the form of an exclusive stone Rabbit Room coaster. Thank you for your support. We couldn’t do this without you. [For more information on Rabbit Room membership, click here.]

Getting Ethan is back for week two! Click through for this week’s comic strips. You can also keep up with Getting Ethan on my Patreon, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter!

Ghost of a King was one of our favorite albums of last year, and we’re super excited to hear about this new project. Here’s what David and Licia have to say about it: Community has been a huge part of The Gray Havens over the past four years. Our listeners have hosted us in their homes, churches, colleges, kickstarted ALL of our records to date, entertained our little two year old (Simon) during sound-checks, written us emails, letters, sent us packages, and prayed for us. Thank you! Our last record was called Ghost of a King, and was produced by Ben Shive. Think of a producer like the construction manager and the artist as the architect who comes to the studio with a rough set of blueprints to start building with. Both are equally important and essential to the success of any given recording project, and Ben happens to be a ninja-level producer (steel-belt, 25th degree). The FIRST part of this Kickstarter is to help fund OUR NEXT RECORD, produced, once again, by Ben Shive! Woot! We’ve already spent some time in the studio together, whittling down a list of song sketches and rough ideas to our absolute favorite to make this the best record we possibly can. The SECOND half of this Kickstarter is for our first ever LIVE RECORD! We had the honor of touring our Ghost of a King album last fall alongside a band and string sections from colleges around the country. We had this crazy idea to score all-new string parts, get some band members together, and hit the road to bring the fullness of Ghost of a King to the stage, and it worked! We caught it all on audio. The record is currently being mixed for listening ears like yours to hear, and we can’t wait to share it! The album will feature all the songs from Ghost of a King PLUS an additional three encore songs with the band (“Silver,” “Far Kingdom,” and “Train Station”). **All backers at the Casual Backer level and above will receive a digital download of the Live Record as soon as the Kickstarter concludes on May 2nd at 11:59pm! The production timeline is thus: we’re scheduled to record with Ben over the summer should have everything finished up in time for all of your rewards to arrive in your mailbox by mid-December! (Christmas presents anyone!?) Check out the Kickstarter page for complete information. Here’s the video (don’t tell anyone, but there’s a preview of a new song at the end!).