My Yahoo LAUNCHcast Radio Station and Why I Listen to Lectures and Sermon Audio

You can listen to my LAUNCHcast Station here

It plays

• Christian artists like Jennifer Knapp and Chris Rice
• Worship artists like Chris Tomlin, Vicky Beeching, David Crowder Band, Shane & Shane, and Delirious?
• Christian artists who sing "secular music" like U2, Lifehouse, Bob Dylan, Bruce Cockburn, and Johnny Cash.
• Non-Christian artists like Toad the Wet Sprocket, Matchbox Twenty, Gin Blossoms, Indigo Girls, Alanis Morissette, and Pearl Jam who I like because of their thoughtful words and/or great melodies.

Note:

I have to turn off ("disable") my Norton Internet Security pop-up blocker to play the station.

Disclaimer:

I freely admit I am not a very artistic, musically-astute listener. I last played an instrument when I played tuba in 8th grade. I don’t prioritize buying CD’s or buying concert tickets. The height of my musical appreciation was listening to lots of top 40 radio from 1986-1994 (jr-high and high school).

My listening habits:

I can listen to all the LAUNCHcast radio stations commercial-free because I have SBC DSL high-speed internet at home. Find the LAUNCHcast station guide here for lots of stations like Contemporary Christian Station or the Praise and Worship Station which you can listen to with commercials.

I have a cord from my laptop (from the headphone jack) to my stereo so I can listen to it through my stereo speakers.

At work, I can’t get LAUNCHcast to work because of the settings at the school so I sometimes listen to Christian radio at K-Love here.

Often times in the morning, I listen to NPR (National Public Radio). I listen to their Hourly Newscast 5-minute news summary, the NPR Program Stream or stories that look interesting. I have blogged about this before here and here and here.

Still, I most often am found listening to sermons and lectures online. My post here gives a great list of Sermons and Lectures online. This may be my most valuable post.

I have written posts after listening to a number of the sermons and lectures. (See here about William Lane Craig and here about John Perkins and Erwin McManus and here about Wangerin, McLaren, Buechner, Capon, Foster, Groome and here on John MacArthur).

I listen to stuff on the internet a lot because:

1. We don’t have TV but we can watch DVDs and videos.
2. I often prepare to teach class at home and watch 10-month year-old son Ryan.
3. I do the laundry and cleaning around the house.

The discipline of study vs. the discipline of silence

Sometimes I have felt guilty for not practicing the presence of God like Brother Lawrence. I have felt bad for not practicing the discipline of silence. In chapter 7 of Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster writes: "Our fear of being alone drives us to noise and crowds . . . We buy radios that strap to our wrists or fit over our ears so that, if no one else is around, at least we are not condemned to silence." I take his prophetic warning seriously. There is a place for silence in my life and surely needs to be cultivated more.

But I think there is also a place for thinking about "whatever" is worth thinking about (Philippians 4:8). (I just realized that this is equivalent to Richard Foster’s "discipline of study" (ch. 5 of Celebration of Discipline) and he in fact quotes Philippians 4:8). I hope that I can turn what I am listening to into prayer. "Lord, help me to sort through what I am hearing and use it to serve you better."

Another option is to listen to Scripture read aloud. See Biblegateway’s Audio here or listen to the New Testament in Greek here like NT Wright used to do. See my post about him here.