Wednesday Link List

Okay, so this was everywhere online this past week, but if you missed it here’s an explanation of the Biblical phrase Gird Your Loins. (click image to link)

Here are the news and opinion pieces from the past week that stood out. You can also read today’s links at PARSE by clicking here.

• The world of Christian publishing: A guide to who owns who, and who isn’t owned.
• Why didn’t I think of this? VBS for seniors. Are curriculum publishers paying attention?
• The grandson of Robert H. Schuller, Bobby Schuller is now officially the new host of the Hour of Power telecast and now officially lead pastor of Shepherd’s Grove.
• For those of you who have the time to run these weekly rabbit trails, you’re going to need 42 minutes for this one, and about halfway through you may be tempted to bail, but I guarantee you there’s nothing like Kirk Cameron’s address last week at Liberty University as he explains the forthcoming movie Saving Christmas.
• I really hope you can’t relate to this new book’s title, but I suspect some might: When Bad Churches Happen To Good Pastors, coming soon from Beacon Hill Press.
• A dozen elderly Iraqi Christians were told to convert or die; they chose to die and were released instead.
• Churches liable for sexual solicitation? “The suit alleges that the churches put [the youth worker] in a position that allowed him to manipulate and sexually exploit children. It also says that despite…not properly being trained to deal with children, Second Baptist encouraged him to foster bonds with them.”
• Worship Moment: Here’s a new song by Keith and Kristyn Getty, co-written with Graham Kendrick, My Worth Is Not In What I Own from a new online-only album.
• Andy Stanley and North Point Community Church now top the list of the 100 largest churches in the U.S., though admittedly numbers from Lakewood and Lifechurch aren’t showing.
• For college and university students, their freshman year is often a spiritual valley.
• The YouVersion Bible app has over 700 languages and now, one thousand translations.
• Are they fronts for abortion providers or, as this article suggests, are pregnancy help organizations “the best kept secret in the pro-life movement?”
• The co-founder of the UK Christian network, GOD-TV is withdrawing from ministry due to moral failure. Rory Alec’s wife, author Wendy Alec will assume management of the channel where she has overseen programming for 19 years.
• For this one, we take you all the way back to 2012: The Dark Side of Pastor Appreciation Month.
• Speculative Theology Department: What if we keep incarnation and resurrection, but have a Christianity without the cross.
• This next one is about **pauses to sip from water bottle** the annoying things people in ministry say and do from the platform.
• In Nepal, a celebrity singer and actress converts from Hinduism to Christianity and refuses to sing material venerating a Hindu goddess.
• Ministry Refresher Course: Why senior pastors should take a turn teaching the preschool class. (Link to a 2-page .pdf)
• From our agricultural news department, this year in the Jewish calendar, 5775, is a sabbath year which makes growing crops a challenge. Sample: “But people have to eat, so a century ago rabbis found a way to bypass the law so no one goes hungry.”
• This book isn’t new, but it offers the counterpoint to Left Behind rapture doctrine.
• Story coverage from the other side: The Freedom From Religion Foundation contests the “Bible-like” cover of an elementary school yearbook.
• Congratulations to my editor of these weekly bullets, Paul Pastor, on winning Multnomah University’s Distinguished Young Alumnus Award for 2014.
• Essay of the Week: We return to the subject of whether the children should sit through the worship service, and one pastor’s compromise.
• Wait, it’s not the end of the year yet! Beating the rush with a subject-indexed top ten books list for church leaders which contains 150 titles.
• He’s got the #5 position on this week’s Billboard Top Christian Albums chart. Check out Matty Mullins song My Dear, and note the lyrical similarity to the Jesus Calling books.
• U.S. economic health is sometimes measured by mobility, but many Americans are staying put because moving would mean changing churches.
• Video of the Week: From July, a young Autistic man has his own “Heaven is for Real” experience and reflects on its impact.
• The internet loves an infographic, especially if measured by the reposts and re-Tweets of this detailed explanation of what it means to ‘gird up your loins.’
• Apparently those “terms and conditions” boxes we click when downloading can have serious spiritual implications.
• In the name of religious accommodation for Ultra Orthodox Jewish men, passengers on a New York to Tel Aviv flight encountered a number of flight delays.
• Separation of Church and State Trooper: Should a policeman proselytize while he’s got people pulled over for routine traffic stops?
• Tim Tebow can but a Muslim football player can’t. So now the NFL is reviewing the rules regarding touchdown celebrations.
• Diversion 1: Preaching to an older demographic means making sure you are heard correctly.
• Diversion 2: This direct telephone to God is featured this Christmas in a catalog used by a number of Christian bookstores. “Compliments Any Décor.” Operators are standing by.
• A movie we missed: Believe Me opened two weeks ago in select markets and satirizes Christian culture.
• Finally, even if you don’t play the video this is funny. But it gets really strange when you do.

Because this is Blogger Appreciation Month, you can catch Paul Wilkinson at Thinking Out Loud, Christianity 201, or @PaulW1lk1nson on Twitter.