Wednesday Link List

Each week, I get paid to write teasers for some great online resources, as well as some quirky ones.

• After 40 years as a writer, Philip Yancey looks at The Golden Age of Publishing.
• Analysis: Some hints as to a recent survey showing that the love Evangelicals have for Jewish people is not reciprocated.
• Someone you know may need this book: An interview with author J. J. Jasper on grieving the loss of a child.
• Christians in Mosul ordered to leave this city found their homes identified with a painted letter ‘N’ for ‘Nazarene.’
• The drive home and the Sunday dinner: A look at how to debrief the weekend sermon with your children.
• I have an inkling about this one: A movie probing the friendship between J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis.
• The McCormick Ridge Holiness Church in Whitleyville, Tennessee begins life after buying back its building from the Wesleyan Church denomination after a dispute that began over what the pastor considered unethical investments in the pension fund for ministers.
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  You can also read today’s links at PARSE, a Christianity Today website; click this image

  If your church grows (like you want it to) some key people may lose their favorite seat. (And parking spot.)
• Canadian North Point affiliate pastor has a great back-catalog of leadership articles on his blog. Recently posted, 21 signs that a “closed” sign may be heading for your church, unless things change…
• …and another article which shows that, while you may not read tea leaves to spot societal shifts, you can read into 5 things Netflix can teach us.
• A Pentecostal who frequently writes as to why the (capital C) Church should permit women in ministry offers seven reasons why the same (capital C) Church often does not.
• Christian Leadership Parental Complications: When your child is dating a non-Christian. (The author says to skip the “unequal yoke” bit.) …
• …Related: “What if a daughter’s father took some responsibility not just in vetting a young man, but in investing in him and preparing him to make much of Jesus in dating and marriage?” How to date your daughter’s boyfriend.
• Some people think the Bible is just an ancient book that belongs in a museum. Now, that museum is becoming a reality.
• Perseverance (and preservation) of the saints: R. C. Sproul seems to allow the possibility of “falling past the point of no return.” Or appearing to have “irretrievably fallen.” A Reformer looks at apostasy…
• (…Which of course reminded me of the Steve Taylor song, Not Gonna Fall Away, which seems to exist on YouTube only in this 8-minute remix.)
• A North Carolina Baptist pastor takes scripture memorization to extremes.
• Do I really have what it takes to lead this missions trip? That and four other questions leaders ask while packing their suitcase.
• Flashing back to ’90s Christian culture: If I had a Kindle, I’d probably download this book, the title of which is…uh…
• Pastors have problems with what people think about them. That and nine other things they don’t admit publicly.
• Teaching teens that, over the long term, monogamy makes sense.
• A seemingly impossible story of pregnancy, pregnancy termination, and a live, healthy birth.
• After the upcoming Exodus: Gods and Kings movie releases, director Ridley Scott plans to tackle the life of King David.
• A social media ‘Dear John’ letter, only this one begins, “Dear Facebook…“
• Ten ways the seniors in your church can be integrated into youth ministry.
• Essay of Last Week: With 40 links last Wednesday, some things were edited. This one is Anne Marie Miller’s take on why discussions on modesty are often misdirected.
• Essay of This Week: Perhaps the way some Evangelicals do communion is “too painless.”
• 12 signs of abusive leadership in churches that pastors should not tolerate.
• This acoustic version of Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) was posted by K-LOVE back in October, but given the popularity of the song today, I mention it here.  The top ten video versions at YouTube have a combined viewership around 31,500,000…
• …while a group that often covers other artists songs, Worship Mob, is our Video of the Week with a 7-minute original song.
• Symbols Quiz Time: You have a fish on your car, and you know the dove represents the Holy Spirit, but what about the pelican?
• Moving forward, your church’s website will need to be mobile-compatible.
• Christian singer Natalie Grant makes her film debut in the movie Persecuted, an American political suspense thriller involving an evangelist framed for murder.
• Remember when the front of the church consisted of the choir loft, communion table, wooden pulpit and overstuffed high-back chairs?  That’s no longer the case.
• Here are three very disparate false assumptions that worship leaders can make…
• …also from Canada, this report on swimming upstream: A music society fights for the preservation of hymns by condemning modern worship leaders…
• …and concluding our music links trio, this writer calls the various distractions one encounters during worship time, Worshiping in the Wild. (Please do not feed the animals.)
• Finally, proving that the American-biased, success-based teaching of Joel Osteen has absolutely no application outside of, for example, the G20 nations, there is the website Third World Osteen.
• Well…I don’t know about you, but I could keep doing this all day, but…  Our closing image comes from The Master’s Table (click below) and was photographed at WalMart. (The upper image is also a t-shirt from Gardenfire.)