I’m skating near the edge of the criteria for favorite authors because in Andrew Peterson’s case, I’ve most benefited from his songwriting, which I wasn’t planning to venture into here. Even more to the edge, I’ve only read one of his books.
I am not a big fiction reader. At least I wasn’t until recently. As our kids are getting older I find myself wanting to expose them to a broader range of good prose, good poetry, good music, etc. The hardest thing to get them hooked on is a wide range of good music. Peterson gives us some of both. Here’s a piece of a note I just sent to some friends about his work.
He has an incredibly keen eye to relate the flow of redemptive history to the gospel and the gospel to the grind of life in a fallen world. Having been through 2 of his cds and recently finished reading his novel to the boys, I’m starting to think that pretty much whatever he comes out with, I intend to get (if I can afford to).
Some places to get acquainted with his stuff:
- Resurrection Letters Volume 2
- Behold the Lamb of God (2 cd set – “live” and “remixed”; if you only picked on I’d recommend the latter)
- On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness (novel, Wingfeather Saga, vol 1)
- North, or Be Eaten! (Wingfeather Saga, vol 2, just released)
Some favorite songs from the projects I’ve heard:
- Hosanna (Letters)
- All Things New (Letters)
- Invisible God (Letters)
- All You’ll Ever Need (Letters)
- The Good Confession (Letters)
- Deliver Us (Lamb of God)
- O Come, O Come Emmanuel (Lamb of God; instrumental)
Some of his songs have serious teaching potential and seem to have been written expressly for that purpose (Matthew’s Begats; So Long, Moses; It Came to Pass – more of the stuff on the Behold the Lamb of God project).
One more snippet that I think gives a sense of the man behind the work was this portion from his blog. He was talking to his band about his idea for the upcoming tour of concerts:
“The concert has two parts,” I told them. “First, we’ll break the ice by playing in the round. You do a few songs, I’ll do a few songs, we’ll tell stories and let the audience get to know us. Then after the intermission we won’t talk anymore. We’ll just play the songs.”
Now, if you’re familiar at all with concerts by Christian artists, you know that if there’s one thing we love, it’s introducing songs. Sometimes the introduction is several times longer than the song itself. Sometimes this is good, most of the time it’s bad. For the Behold the Lamb half of the concert, though, I was resolved that the songs should do the work of telling the story. I wanted the audience to lose themselves in the story (which, by the way, is a good picture of what our response to the Gospel ought to be). Let me tell you, that was a scary thought. To play ten songs in a row with narry a word between meant there was no way to gauge the audience, no way to change songs mid-set to accommodate a lukewarm crowd, no way to break the ice with a good joke. We had to trust that the story was good enough.
And, of course, it is.
I just found (yesterday) that North Or Be Eaten! was available. The boys don’t know the second book is finished yet. It should arrive next week. Can’t wait to see their faces. Can’t wait to read the book.
