Wednesday Link List

Link and the world links with you…  The cartoon? See item 4 below:

• First and foremost here this week: Pray for blogger Keith Brenton and family.
• Here’s an obscure 2009 blog post that proves that pastors do indeed get asked the toughest questions. Betcha never heard this one.
• So that everyone gets a fair start to the race, here’s a five minute video as to how to become a Pope. 
• Peter Enns notes that the bloggers are again off and running, criticizing the Rob Bell book they haven’t read. 
• Save Saeed: Over 333,000 individuals have signed the petition to save American Pastor Saeed Abedini; imprisoned in Iran. He is cut off from contact from his wife and young children; he has no voice.  Yet, each time someone signs the petition for his freedom, they lend their voice to the fight for his freedom.
  
• Essay of the Week: Jenny Rae Armstrong — The Missionaries Brought the Bread of Life But We Choked on the Packaging.
• Not every day I click over to the religion page at Canada’s National Post and see a giant picture of Larry Norman.
• The Amish are buying power tools. Sort of. This a link to a five-minute NPR (audio) story recorded at an Amish trade show. There’s also a written report on Amish computers.
• A researcher discovers a classic 19th century hymnal with “social justice themes … reflected in hymns protesting against child labour and slavery.” And hymns lamenting “unrighteous taxes.”
  
• A Florida student is forced to change out of a t-shirt that encouraged abstinence into one that raised its own moral questions.
• While these articles abound online, someone reading this right now may need to look at these six warning signs of depression. 
• Anabaptist theology is becoming… well… trendy. Here’s one blogger’s list of those who he considers either recent or long-term members of the Anabaptist camp. (Some of them unofficially…)
• You might never find this on an album, so enjoy Steve Bell’s song to his wife on their 30th anniversary.
  
• We mentioned professor John Walton here a while back, here’s a 30-minute video of him teaching on the book of Job. 
• Not sure if I’ve linked to this before or not: In its third year, the online Dictionary of Christianese. Here’s an example of the detail they get into with the phrase red-letter Christian.
  
• BibleGateway.com has added The Voice — a translation using dramatic script style — to its list of available Bible versions. Users of the online service get instructions in how to use this unique text.
• Know a worship leader looking for ideas? You can’t do better than clicking all the links in the comments section of this week’s Sunday Setlists.
• Also worship related: A New Zealander analyzes the CCLI Top 25 list for his country to see where popular worship songs originate.
  
• Or how about a written response to that currently popular video on writing a worship song.
• And now, courtesy of Ron Edmondson, we pause for a word to the small town pastor.
• Got a question about Satan aka Lucifer aka The Devil? Michael Patton provides some answers that I 98% agree with.  Okay 99.
• Here’s a very detailed album review of Zion, the newest from Hillsong United.
• Our cartoon is a favorite around here, Mike Morgan’s For Heaven’s Sake. If you don’t get the punchline click this.

Memories of Cornerstone Festival and Magazine

If you remember Cornerstone Magazine after which the festival was named, you might remember the Oboe Jones comic by Kevin Frank which appeared 27 times in the mag. In 2011, Kevin uploaded all the comics. You choose an edition and then click on the image, and then click the little magnifier thing to see it full size.

Now, I know Kevin doesn’t like it when bloggers embed his stuff — physically impossible with these anyway –  so you’re going to have to click through for this one, but the particular link here is a great memory of the Cornerstone Festival, in this case the one from 1994. (But somewhat representative of all of them, the last one I attended being 1986.) If your internet connection can handle something 5,000 pixels wide, click through for Postcards from the Web. (The teaser sample here is just a very small part of a much larger scene.)  You might even find Waldo, though I’m not sure if Waldo is there to be found.

You can also catch up with Kevin’s more recent work at KevinFrank.net

Wednesday Link List

• He didn’t originate it, but the above graphic was found at Tony Jones’ blog who discusses the topic-we-haven’t-done-here involving a fast food restaurant we-haven’t-named-here.  Tony has another link here, too. 
• Our top link today is to one of the blogs by Camille who has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and writes on how to be a blessing to friends with chronic illnesses.
  
• No link on this one, but there’s a guy who comments on several blogs I read under the name Eagle, who came down with a mystery illness a few weeks back. It was so good to see how the blog community came together to encourage him and pray for him and keep one another updated.
• We took a week off from the link list last week only to have Clark Bunch encourage his readers to visit the link list that wasn’t here. So from our Returning-The-Favor Department, here’s a link to The Read and Share file at The Master’s Table.
• My wife and I find so many church-based ‘friendships’ are really task-based and disappear when the project ends or people change churches. So I liked this quote: “People frequently think they have friends at work—or church or the tennis club or any location where like-minded people gather—when in fact what they have are ‘work neighbors.’” The rest of the article is more for women and those middle-aged, but I liked that ‘work neighbors’ concept.
  
• Worship leaders not only articulate theology but in a real way they also shape theology. So they really need to know of what they sing. Zac Hicks explores this with advice for both musicians and pastors.
  
• Jim Henderson talks about the thesis of his book The Resignation of Eve in the light of a new report from Barna Research about the role of women in ministry.
  
• Bring your church bulletin to a restaurant on Sunday and get a discount. Seems like a fairly typical promotion, right? Well, a complaint has been filed with the Pennyslvania Human Rights Commission for just that special offer.
• In other protest news, the man who symbolically burned a box of cereal on the front lawn of General Foods died a few days later.
• The replacement for the “Touchdown Jesus” statue on Interstate 75 is just about ready to be put into place; and this time it’s fireproof.
• Did I mention Phil Vischer’s podcast lately? Seriously, you need to listen to one of these; you’ll be hooked on the series. Here’s the one where his guest was his brother Rob Vischer though honestly, Episode 13 is much funnier. So you have a choice: serious or silly.
• Cross Point’s Jenni Catron guests at Outreach Magazine suggesting that in church leadership, red tape was made to be cut.
  
• How small is our God? Richard Beck counterpoints the ‘Your God is Too Small’ rhetoric with a piece about finding the small-ness of God.
• There are definitely more than five things belonging to the realm of mystery in theology, but for C. Michael Patton, these are the major ones. (We might use this at C201 today, too!) 
• Twenty years after his death, Christianity Today provides a lengthy tribute to the influence of Christian musician Mark Heard.
  
• Meanwhile, at a venue quite familiar to Mark Heard, The Choir performs a final song on the final night of the Cornerstone Festival.
• And here’s a 5-minute recap of the whole event. 
• If you find yourself in remote parts of Africa, James Brett wants you to know how to build a rocket stove.
  
• Oops!-I-Said-It-Again Department: Pat Robertson stands by guys who won’t date a woman with three adopted international children because in Pat’s view they might grow up weird or have brain damage. Russell D. Moore goes appropriately ballistic in response. “This is not just a statement we ought to disagree with. This is of the devil.” (I think his co-host would be wise to quit after this incident.)(Pat’s not Russell’s; Russel doesn’t have a co-host.)
  
• The oft-cynical Naked Pastor, aka David Hayward pledges his new blog will be the up-side to his popular blog’s rants.  And the blog Pastor Jeff’s Ramblings announces that he is shutting down the blog, and then, a day later announces the start of Pastor Jeff’s Reviews.
  
• Below, one of several new panels at Sacred Sandwich:
  

The Value of Words

At this blog and at Christianity 201, I frequently re-blog material from other writers, sometimes in part, but at C201, usually in whole. Only once in a combined 3,000 posts at both have I ever had an author request their material be removed.

But heaven help me should I decide to use a comic or a cartoon here without permission. You may have noticed that the Wednesday Link List is not adorned with as many comic panels as it once was. I don’t know if the cartoonists are as litigious as the people who own rights to photographs, but their “permissions” pages are rather threatening and I don’t need the added tension.

Cartoons and comics take more technical savvy than just sitting at a keyboard typing words. It either requires expensive software or a drawing table with many types of pens and markers. But does the technical sophistication mean the finished cartoons are somehow worth more — and to be protected more — than the ideas and concepts conveyed in words?

Local churches increasingly use clips from popular movies to illustrate a sermon point or draw in listeners. Those movie clips have to be licensed for public performance, even if they’re only 90-seconds long. But the same churches that pay fees to show a brief scene from Spiderman don’t think twice about streaming a clip of Francis Chan teaching.

Does that mean that the technical sophistication of a major film — with sounds, costumes, lighting, big name cast, etc. — gives it a value that a man simply talking on a stage to a group of teenagers does not possess?

Similarly in church we pay license fees to project the lyrics to modern praise and worship choruses. I have no problem with this, and encourage churches to join CCLI. Better safe than sued. But then later, in the sermon,  the pastor’s onscreen notes will include several slides’ worth of an excerpt from a book by Max Lucado or N.T. Wright.

The books are actually subject to copyright, but no pastor ever thinks twice about copying out a couple of pages of text for use with PowerPoint or printed out for a sermon outline or for quoting in the church newsletter. Does that mean that worship song lyrics are somehow worth more than an author’s prose?

What I’m saying here is that I think we tend to worship the product of more complex technology more than the more simple rendering of straight talking or written text.

By so doing, we ascribe more value to things drawn, composed, acted out, etc., than we ascribe to the power of words.

Wednesday Link List

It’s Wednesday, but Friday’s a-coming!

• A very well-crafted response from Eric Metaxas over the decision by Lifeway Christian Resources to pull a  DVD off their shelves — a movie that was described by some as saturated with Christian values and example.
  
• Should churches use automated voice-message systems? People find them annoying, but email isn’t really effective.
  
• Not surprisingly, lots of flack from Mormons over their cover story in Bloomberg Businessweek.
  
• Meanwhile, here are five points from a Canadian cult expert on where LDS teachings diverge from Christian orthodoxy.
  
• A Christian and a Muslim join together to urge hotel executives — not on religious grounds but in the name of decency — to rethink the pornographic television channels in their properties.
  
• A rare video interview with the entire Hybels family: Bill, Lynne, Shauna and Todd.
  
• Jenni Catron debriefs the rather brief appearance of protesters from Westboro Baptist at Crosspoint Church last Sunday. 
• Eighteen years after her 1994 album release on Sparrow Records, Cheri Keaggy is back with a new CD, So I Can Tell. 
• Exodus International, a ministry to gays and lesbians, has just undergone what Scot McKnight calls a “colossal shift” in its position on reparative therapy.
  
• Got 40 minutes?  Enjoy a sermon by Substance Church pastor Peter Haas, a young communicator with a young church in Minnesota/St. Paul, author of the forthcoming book, Pharisectomy. (Teaching starts at 7:59) 
• Got $2.2 million (US)?  You could be considered a serious buyer for pastor Ed Young’s house.
  
• Rob Horsely reviews Part of Me, the documentary on gospel singer turned pop sensation Katy Hudson aka Kate Perry; while at the same time the singer is on record as praying for acceptance of same-sex marriage.
  
• Does your worship leader sport tattoos? Jon Acuff thinks the church bulletin should have a note explaining the symbolism.
  
• It’s a short meditation that’s worth the click: Carlos Whitaker on Prayers that Scare the Crap Out of You.
  
• Does your church march in local parades? If churches in your area do, they often send counter-productive, negative messages. But progressive churches need to do it differently to reach the large crowds. 
• Meanwhile, USAToday’s religion page is suggesting that an increasing number of churches are switching to Wednesday Worship during the summer.
  
• A “Spiritual Themes” panel for cartoonists and fans happens at the most recent Comic-Con.
  
• Love finding free music. Probably this is old news, but here’s a free six-song download of Rich Kirkpatrick’s Drink The Divine. Or just listen.
  
• Note re. submissions: If any part of your blog or website is “powered by Google” it is increasingly unlikely that it will end up linked here. Page loads are taking up to ten times longer.
  

Wednesday Link List

I always type a ‘filler’ introductory paragraph here when I start, only last week, I didn’t update it and you were left with the rather lame, “Wednesday is here again.”  If you’re reading this, I didn’t catch this one, either.

• For one week, Talbot Davis cancels the morning service at Good Shepherd United Methodist in Charlotte in favor of having multiple home church meetings instead, though they do gather at the church later in the day.  “You don’t bring your family to church… but we are living, breathing churches; the temple of the Holy Spirit, so we actually take the church with us to the campus each Sunday to celebrate in community what God is doing is in the home.”
  
• For some people, the upcoming weekend just hurts, and church services just amplify that hurt. Those are the people dealing with infertility. Russell D. Moore rethinks Mother’s Day:”What if pastors and church leaders were to set aside a day for prayer for children for the infertile? In too many churches ministry to infertile couples is relegated to support groups that meet in the church basement during the week, under cover of darkness…”
  
• Save the date: June 21-24 — The second Wildgoose Festival in North Carolina; with the most amazing mix of musicians and speakers. If I could get to only one U.S. summer festival, this would be it.
  
• Here is Proverbs 1:8-9 in the new Social Media Bible: “My followers, read your father’s tweets & do not delete your mother’s messages. For they will be retweetable.”  The genealogies in Matthew are especially interesting.
  
• Antioch Baptist Church pastor Ken Hutcherson says, “I am the gayest man I know.”  But then he explains what that means. “…Hutcherson is not a homosexual, nor does the happily married man have a same-sex attraction of any kind. He is, however, on a mission to take back words, phrases and symbols he believes groups…have “hijacked” from the American lexicon.
• Michael Belote thinks that both at home school and public school, children aren’t learning how to learn.  “…we have become a nation of individuals who are firmly entrenched in philosophies that we do not understand: we are loyal to paradigms of which we remain mostly ignorant with regard to detail…”
• Rebecca St. James narrates Mother India, a documentary premiering this fall about the real backstory in another film,  Slumdog Millionaire.  “…a compelling documentary following the adventure of 25 courageous orphans living as a family along the railway as they make pivotal decisions that will directly impact their future… filmed in January 2012 in southern India with a small production team…”
  
• Karen Spears Zacharias has released a true story highlighting the impact of child abuse. A Silence of Mockingbirds is released through MacAdam Cage Publishing, which means this one may not be at your local Christian bookstore.
  
• Does your church sing a lot of worship songs that are exclusive to your church; songs that were written by your own worship team leaders?  Bobby and Kristen Gilles recommend finding a place of balance.
  
• An interesting dinner date: Canadian cult-watcher James Beverley dines in New York with Peter H. Gilmore, head of the Church of Satan. “…His positive characteristics are nonetheless evidence of God’s common grace…”
  
• Don’t know where Tim Challies finds these things, but here’s an interesting blog about an Australian couple now serving in Mongolia.  This is a general link, scroll back and follow recent developments in a country where even buying a chair is a major accomplishment.
  
• Michael Kruger suggests five different ways technology is affecting us in Rescuring Church from a Facebook Culture.  “…It is a low-commitment and low-accountability type of interaction.  We control—and entirely control—the duration, intensity, and level of contact.  At any moment, we can simply stop.   But, the Christian life, and real Christian relationships don’t work like this…”
• Here’s another piece about technology at church, as in Matt Hafer’s Showing VHS’s to a Blu-Ray World. “Our financial giving isn’t where it needs to be and we brainstormed on why. One of the reasons that was plain to us is, we pass a bucket around and tell people the drop in cash or checks. The problems is, no one in 2012 carries cash and most people under 35 write a check about once a month…”
• To post or not to post?  Matthew Paul Turner found this picture of a rather disturbing piece of fashion he called The Jesus Mini-Skirt.  If the image isn’t here, then you’ll have to click; it means better judgment prevailed.
  
• Not exactly a Christian story, but CBN News reports on Chinese students being given IV hookups to amino acids to boost energy as they prepare for college entrance exams. It’s controversial, but not believed to be harmful.
  
• Eugene Peterson didn’t just get up one morning and start translating the Bible. Several steps led up to the creation of The Message including: “…He read translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, from Greek to English. He discovered the translation principles use by these translators.”
  
• The Grace Television Network now claims to be “Canada’s Largest 24/7 Provider of Christian Programming.”
  
• As I type this, on Monday, Jon Acuff is at Stuff Christians Like #1199, but if I remember to update this, he will have passed the twelve hundred mark. [Later...] SCL #1200 was inspired by some people who chose to talk all through the service on Sunday… while sitting in the front row!
  
• If you feel you must criticize something your pastor did or didn’t do, save it for Tuesday. Many pastors have a tougher time getting through Monday than Sunday.
  
• Click the images to connect with more comics from ASBO Jesus (above) and For Heaven’s Sake (below).
  

Wednesday Link List

If you missed it, be sure to check out the special-edition link list that appeared here on Saturday.

• When President Obama time-shifted the Hanukkah celebrations at the White House to fit his Christmas vacation, one observer notes something also shifted with the Menorah that he used.
  
• Ivar at News That Matters reports on the implications of the appointment of the first Hindu chaplain in the U.S. military.
  
• If you purchase the 2012 Masterpeace Calendar, you might notice a painting by Pennsylvania artist C. Michael Dudash.  If art is your thing, take some time to check out his blog.
• Donald Miller quotes a letter Beethoven wrote to his brothers …which of course reminded me of this classic “you decide the ending” story.
• For the third week in a row, a Rachel Held Evans link.  This one suggests that while some stop women from become preachers, they might instead become prophets.
  
• How about a link list within a link list? Brian LePort assembles a collection of Christian writers reflecting on the death of Christopher Hitchens.
• Scott Hilburn’s comic, The Argyle Sweater is new to me, but I spotted the panel at right over at the blog A Different Story and couldn’t resist.
  
• Not so amusing to people in New Zealand is this billboard showing Mary reading the results of a home pregnancy test.  Worse, the large sign was erected by a “progressive Anglican church known for its provocative advertisements.”
  
• Michael Hyatt believes that our vocabulary shapes our attitude. Sample: “I don’t have to stop by the grocery store on my way home; I get to stop by the grocery store. What a privilege to live in a place and at a time where we don’t have to forage for food.”
  
• In Saturday’s list there was a reference to a forthcoming book by author Matt Mikalatos. Here’s a review at Mark Braye’s blog of one that’s available right now: Night of the Living Dead Christian.
  
• In the last decade the definition of church has been rocked.  Check out the Kansas City Boiler Room, a community of artists, a community of prayer, a community of the disadvantaged.
  
• Christmas can be a painful time if you’ve lost a loved one; especially when that loved one is the very person you want to tell how you’re feeling.
  
• After 9.5 years at Blogger, Joe Boyd of Rebel Pilgrim joins us here at WordPress.  Here’s a good one to start with, where Joe looks at Christianity as improv.
  
• Canadian singer/songwriter Ali Matthews has a huge following, but this is the first time I’ve seen a trailer for a music video.  Guess we’ll have to wait 24 hours for the finished product.
  
• Some people claim to have seen an image of Jesus or Mary in food, but others are deliberately burning an image of Jesus on their toast, as CBS News reports.
  

Wednesday Link List

With so much to see in the Christian blogosphere, why would anyone want to spend time on Facebook?

• There are always a significant number or “religion” stories at Huffington Post.  In this one, author Tim Suttle examines what he sees as the three failures of the megachurch movement.
• I liked this article enough to make an e-mail forward out of it.  Trey Morgan lists seven things your children desperately need to hear you say.  Great for all parents, but I think especially for dads.
• Okay, so about the t-shirt. I thought I’d tripped over an example of subtlety in evangelistic casual wear; a sort of, ‘our best efforts at holiness and righteousness are never enough,’ a la Andy Stanley’s How Good Is Good Enough?. Works for me. But alas, I had simply typed “Christian tees” and the designer is Andrew Christian. Still, if you’ve got the $38 US…
• There’s something about Mark Driscoll’s new website, PastorMark.tv, that has me wondering why this site seems to exist apart from the Mars Hill Seattle site.  Just wondering.
  
• A link you may have missed in last week’s George Bush story, as it was added as an update on Monday:  A Tyndale University faculty member voices his opinions in a guest post to Christian Week.  However…
  
• Surprise! The George W. Bush thing in Toronto happened after all.
  
• Fifteen years in the making, but the final pages of the first handwritten, illuminated Bible commissioned in 500 years is just about done. With more than 1,150 pages of text and 160 illuminations, The Saint John’s Bible now goes on tour.
  
• The latest in a series of YouTube vids contrasting Christ-centered worship with me-centered worship parodies some of today’s most popular choruses.
• Meanwhile, if your church has had enough of cell (mobile for my UK readers) phones going off during services, this one-minute YouTube video should make the point clear once and for all.
• Let’s go three-for-three with videos: This downloadable youth ministry video clip contrasts storing up treasure on earth and storing up treasure in heaven. Actually you could use this Bluefish-TV clip on a Sunday morning, too.
  
• Jenni Catron is Executive Director of Cross Point Church in Nashville (Pete Wilson) and discusses her personal discipline in approaching Sunday morning services, and her recognition that not everyone can muster the same enthusiasm.
  
• But if you can’t make it to the service physically, you can always be there virtually, especially at North Point Community in Atlanta, where they’ve added three more broadcast times for the ‘live’ stream which includes baptisms and worship songs. Check it out at 9:00 and 11:00 AM and 2:00, 6:00 and 10:00 PM at NorthpointOnline.tv
  
• In a somewhat depressing piece, Washington Times editor Julia Duin says that Evangelical singles are living a promiscuous lifestyle. Interesting paragraph: “Have you ever noticed how singles never get touched? It’s living in this bubble of no hugs, no physical contact whatsoever. Small wonder so many revert to pets… and professional massages. I once suggested to my small group at church that we give each other back rubs. I was looked at as though I had suggested we all get undressed. “
  
• Readers at Rachel Held Evans’ blog ask questions of Justin Lee, director of the Gay Christian Network. (You can also read the 255 comments containing questions that were submitted.)
  
• Back in May, I introduced you to the band, The City Harmonic.  The band is nominated for five Covenant Awards — Canada’s equivalent of the Dove Awards — and the video is closing in on one million views.
  
• Speak German?  Hirten Barometer is a site for evaluating the performance of priests and ministers.  Just like Trip Advisor, only church service instead of hotel service. The clergy rating site apparently has it sights set on sites in English for North America.
  
• And just before we sign off, thanks to regular reader Brian for sending us an actual lynx news story, with a valuable lesson about what happens to people who cheat.
  
• I chopped the seasonal summer reference off this panel of Mike Morgan’s For Heaven’s Sake, but wanted to share the concept.  I wonder how many others think this is what a certain website is about?

• Very lastly — as opposed to just ‘lastly’ — here are the results of the CNN Religion poll taken in the wake of Pat Robertson’s remarks that it is okay for the spouse of someone with Alzheimer’s to divorce that person.  This was as of 9:00 PM last night, but as you look at the numbers, you’ll have to admit they’re somewhat inconclusive. ;)

Wednesday Link List

Time for another episode of Link-O-Rama…

• Our opening graphic is a t-shirt from Café Press which can be yours for only $27.00 U.S.  It’s called “The lamest sin.”
  
• In a single-shot sermon from a guy who always preaches in series, Andy Stanley delivers the strongest-ever apologetic for small group ministry in a message titled Stumbling Along.
  
• Bill Hybels addresses delegates to this year’s Leadership Summit as to why Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, was pressured by the gay community into cancelling his signed contract to be a speaker at the event.
  
• In this week’s chapter of Schullergate, the big glass church gets told they can’t decide not to sell, but need  to accept one of the bid offers.  Details at Orange County Register, but follow the Register for updates on this as the story changes regularly.    This just in: The Roman Catholic diocese has raised its bid.
  
• CBN News reports an affiliate of a well-known terror organization is using four animated cartoons to recruit children.
  
• 

  Kanon Tipton - Pint Sized Preacher

  A kids story of another kind: Kanon Tipton, the 4-year old “pint-sized preacher” gets interviewed on NBC’s Today Show.
  

• Here’s another one of those online prayer request sites.  I’m not sure about all this.  I still think your best bet is to be involved with a group of brothers and sisters who will come alongside to pray with you when you need them.  Fall is a good time to join a small group.  If your church doesn’t have them, find one that does which allows outsiders to join.
• Fall kickoff got you bewildered?  Here are ten reason to under program your church from Jared Wilson.  Sample: “If a church looks like it’s doing lots of things, we tend to think it’s doing great things for God. When really it may just be providing lots of religious goods and services. “
• The boomers aren’t going to accept being called “seniors” which raises other questions about how we do “seniors’ ministry.”  Start at Trey Morgan’s blog and then link through for more from Thom Rainer.
  
• It’s not just hell and heaven.  Some Evangelical scholars are questioning the whole “Adam and Eve” thing.  Start at Tony Jones’ blog and the click through for the full NPR story.
  
• The current Miss Canada, Tara Teng, kicked of the Ignite the Road to Justice Tour on Monday, traveling from Vancouver to Ottawa thru September 4th to raise awareness of human trafficking.  More in this story at B.C. Province.
  
• Speaking of which, Dr. Robert Peterson of Covenant Theological Seminary offers a video response to Rob Bell’s Love Wins.
  
• Pete Wilson gets embedded deep behind the lines at Saddleback Church and does some serious Megachurch myth-busting.
  
• Indie music link of the week: Toronto-based Every Spare Second — click the titles in the left margin to play full songs.  Similar to Owl City and To Tell.
  
• Greg Laurie says that casual, consensual sex is hurting America.
• Christianity Today talks to the cast and director of the movie, The Help.
• Pastor Michael Minor decided the best way to fight the obesity epidemic was to begin in the church fellowship hall.  Might not be a lot finger-lickin’ going on at his Tampa church.
  
• On Thursday, Regent Radio, the internet broadcast arm of Regent College, begins an 11-lecture series by historian and missiologist Andrew Walls.  The lecture series “From Tertullian to Tutu: 2,000 Years of christian History in Africa…” was delivered live at Regent. One free lecture per day at Regent Radio; click the play arrow in the middle of the page.
  
• “People can’t worship while bats rain droppings and urine over them. Services have had to be cancelled.”  That’s the complaint over at St. Hilda’s Church in Ellerburn, somewhere in the UK; but an environmental group is preventing the church from evicting the bats.
  
• A gay website — no I’m not a regular reader, thanks for asking — is reporting a Princeton Review study saying that Wheaton College is the least LGBT-friendly school in the U.S.  Gee, ya think?
  
• Here’s a break from all the seriousness with Beaker from Sesame Street performing Ode to Joy. Join the fifteen million viewers to date.
  
• Our Christian-flavored cartoon discovery of the week was Cake or Death by Alex Baker, and I hope to soon go through the archives and read every single one of them.  Here are some recent entries:

Wednesday Link List

The linkology lecture resumes; with this week’s being more diversionary than anything else…

• Pete Wilson has now posted the full 20-minute interview he did with Heaven is For Real authors Todd and Colton Burpo.  The full interview was played in all services on Sunday as part one of the church’s 3-week Glimpse series.
  
• The Christian Post reports that rapture prophet Harold Camping was heading home from hospital on Monday after suffering a mild stroke.  (HT: Bene)
  
• Christianity Today returns, a year later, to talk with Adam Young, aka Owl City, but the musician’s excessive shyness forces an email interview.
• Michael Krahn looks at the “me, myself and I” individualism in modern worship music, but also cautions about over-correcting.
• Southern Baptists are facing declining numbers, especially in an area near and dear to their faith: Baptisms are at lowest numbers since the 1950s.
  
• Ron Edmondson offers seven ways to get the most out of your overall experience of church life.
• There were a couple of pieces at Christianity 201 this week that I was quite pleased with, though they’re too long to run here.  One was a Christian counselor discussing what it means to put something “on the altar.”   The other was a piece by Rooms author James Rubart remixing the story of the Prodigal Son.
• J. Lee Grady looks at baby Storm, the Toronto child whose parents want to raise him/her as an individual without specific gender; and the resulting confusion that creates.
  
• James MacDonald says that the congregational form of church government is from Satan.  Yes, he really said that last week.  The firestorm resulted in this response on Monday.  Is it tongue in cheek?  (In tomorrow’s Our Journey devotional, readers will discover that MacDonald believes that we should pray to God and not to Jesus.  I read the paragraph three times to make sure, and that after getting a phone call on it.)
  
• An unusual request for a minister to receive:  We want you to marry us, but just don’t mention God.  Should he do the wedding?
  
• Her-meneutics writer Karen Swallow Prior thinks that when congressman Anthony Weiner says that texting isn’t adultery, he’s actually illustrating the mind-body dualism known as Gnosticism.
  
• Yes, heaven is for real, but didn’t we already know that?  Greg Thornbury is worried about the weight being placed on an extra-Biblical account.
  
• Time for a couple of video links.  This one is from 2007 and was filmed using all the latest technology.  (HT: J-Walk)
  
• Unless you have pre-schoolers at home, or have no sense of musical integrity, you’ll need a strong stomach for this one, but Darrell at Stuff Fundies Like has uncovered The Potato Chip Song, a bus ministry song on YouTube.  Maybe you should read the article first.
  
• And this fits right in:  If your church sends out postcards or notes when you miss Sunday worship, perhaps there’s more to those notes than what you see.
• Our cartoon this week is from Mick Mooney at the blog Searching For Grace; a new comic with only eleven strips so far.