Wednesday Link List

Copyright © 2011 The Zondervan Corporation

Wednesday List Lynx — two, actually

Time for another round of Christian blog and news links for the whole family. In the past we would often begin and end here with cartoons, but the whole question of fair use gets muddy sometimes, especially when humor meets illustration. I’ve studied the permissions statements of some of these and can’t reconcile what I read with what seems to be ubiquitous online. So we decided to run one, since it’s been awhile. Click the image to visit Reverend Run’s site.

• The question many reading this may face: Should a Christian go for counseling with a secular therapist?
• Essay of the week: The New Music Business, or Why I am No Longer Friends With Derek Webb.  No, it’s not what you think.
• Social justice and religious freedom: The ten worst countries in the world when it comes to persecuted for Christian belief. The list and a video.
• Meanwhile in the relative Christian security of the U.S., lists are published of the top five churches using social media best. 
• A ministry leader affirms all the good things he learned from Willow Creek, while at the same time confessing to the sin of methodolatry.
  
• What to say when someone is suffering. Your theodicy is probably determined by your theology. And that affects how you answer the “why” questions that will never fully go away.
• At the risk of continuing yesterday’s theme here ad infinitum check out Wade Burleson’s How To Kiss Calvinism Goodbye.
• Most of us have heard of Mormon baptisms for the dead, but in the first half of LDS history, baptisms for health were more common.
  
• Looking to give a book to a non-Christian friend, neighbor, relative or co-worker, but sure which one to give? Lots of good ideas can be found at Books for Evangelism.
• Lest someone think we have a vendetta against James MacDonald, we’ll bury this story in the middle of the link list: A popular teacher is dismissed from a Harvest day school for questioning the authenticity of church camp conversions.
• Taking their cue from U.S. federal politics, the Southern Baptist Convention yesterday re-elected their first black president, Rev. Fred Luter. Church Curmudgeon tweeted: “Houston, it will take much prayer and fasting to cast out this denom.”
  
• What if you have a calling to local church ministry, but also an understanding that you’re not quite ready? Here are eight tips on what to do in the meantime.
  
• Your Bible translation dollars at work: A Bible for Texans. “Don’t y’all not know that y’all are the temple of God?” 
• But in North Texas, another high school graduation speech is cut short for its references to God and faith.
  
• Okay, serious translation issues: How the ESV managed to change two words to singular case while every other translation had the words plural.
• The Christian Reformed Church and the Reformed Church of America have jointly produced Lift Up Your Hearts,  a brand new hymnbook with over 800 entries. Wait a minute; what’s a hymnbook?
• I’ll let this one introduce itself: “I love Al Mohler. I love 99% of his articles. I didn’t love his 2013 Summer Reading List. What a litany of bloodshed, suffering, death, and destruction! I’d hate to see the Winter Reading List.” Then he offers some alternatives.
  
• Here’s some reading for any woman considering the transition from SAHM to working mother. It’s sometimes a decision of career vs. tentmaking.
• And now Queen Elizabeth is being dragged into the gay marriage debate.
  
• Enough with the Sunday morning announcements already: Here are seven alternatives for your church to consider. Some people won’t like #5, though.
• For the church webmaster — and everyone else — to consider: Is your church website attractional or missional? This article could revolutionize your online presence.
• From our Folk Theology corner: Twenty theological urban legends. You may be guilty of accepting a few of these yourself.
• Sometimes worship leaders find themselves faced with a very popular worship song that people want to sing that they happen not to personally like.
  
• Don’t like the priest or rector touching the communion bread or wafer? Maybe he should get a Purity Communion Solutions Host Dispenser. And yes, it’s an older video, but the item is still available.
• One year after we first mentioned it, Cardiphonia is still offering entire album downloads for $1, or even less.
  
• Just in time for summer at a church near you: Why VBS Scarred Me As a Kid.  Is that scarred or scared? Guess it’s all the same.

Don’t forget to get your link suggestions in by 6:00 PM, Mondays, EST; and as always, for breaking links, you can follow me on Twitter. Look for @PaulW1lk1nson (change the letter i to a number 1).

Wednesday Link List

This is a picture Shane Claiborne posted on Twitter of the community where The Simple Way ministers in Philadelphia: Sprinklers open for cooling on a hot day

Be sure to read the post which immediately precedes this one, about Calvinist propaganda for kids… And now for another day on the links…

• “If a church tells the Scouts they are no longer welcome to use their facilities a whole bunch of kids, most of whom are not gay, are going to get one clear message: You’re not welcome at church. Fighting the culture war has already hurt the Christian image, as we are much more recognizable for the things we are against.” Before your church has a knee-jerk reaction to the situation, take 90 seconds to read this including the updates in the comments.
• And speaking of people we make unwelcome in the church, here’s a story like no other: A particularly buxom young woman (i.e. size DD) unravels a sad tale of a lifetime of being marginalized by the local church.
• Another great, concise (about 12 minutes, I think) sermon by Nadia at House for All Sinners and Saints on Hope. Realistic church motto: “We will disappoint you.” Click this link to the text, then click the internal link to listen, then click back to follow along as you listen. 
• 30 Churches in Holland, Michigan are covering their individual church signs this week with burlap on which is painted “One Lord, One Church.” This is a movement designed to promote unity between the denominations.
• The White House has issued a statement pressing the Iranian government for the release of imprisoned pastor Saeed Abedini, but Iran does not recognize his U.S. citizenship. 
• Yesterday’s Phil Vischer Podcast was the best so far! Phil and panelists Skye Jethani and Christian Taylor are joined by anthropologist Brian Howell discussing short-term missions.
  
• Teapot tempest or major issue? A Methodist pastor refuses to stand for God Bless America. Hours later, The Washington Post has to run a separate article to showcase all the responses the first article got.
• For the pastor: A different approach to mapping out your fall (and beyond) adult Christian education program. 
• Also for pastors: What to teach about tithing? Andy Stanley teaches percentage giving. But as Jeff Mikels points out, some people don’t like that concept.
  
• The K-LOVE Fan Awards are out! Guess what? They like Chris Tomlin. Wow, there’s a surprise! See the winners in all nine categories.  
• If you don’t mind wading through a lot of posts to unearth some classic wit and wisdom — and several bad worship team jokes — there’s always Church Curmudgeon’s Twitter feed.
  
• Rob Bell is on the ‘cover’ of Ktizo Magazine, an e-publication built just for tablets.
  
• Porn is an issue for women, too.  Maura at the blog Made in His Image shares her struggle and suggests that step one is sharing your struggle with another person.
• Also at the same blog: Christian women, should you buy that itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polkadot bikini? Rachel says its a matter of exercising God-given responsibility.
• We mentioned the blog Blessed Economist once at C201, but I’m not sure if we did here. It’s economics — the real thing, not personal finance — from a Christian perspective. Here’s a short piece to whet your appetite, there are some longer case studies there as well.
• A friend of ours who graduated recently in film studies has posted a 17-minute short film about a band of orphans Fleeing through the wilderness of post-apocalyptic British Columbia in search of food and shelter who take refuge in an abandoned church and face a horrifying choice.
• Also on video, a group of high school teens at Camp Marshall got together in 2011 to produce a rather artistic video of the hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing that serves as a music video and a camp promotional video. 

Found at Postsecret, but this post actually isn’t very secret; a lot of people express this same sentiment online

Soulwinning in Africa

Great quotation from Stuff Fundies Like, though you might want to click through for the photograph, which really makes this sing:

“People are so much more open to the gospel in East Botswana than they are here in the USA.”

Somehow the willingness of people to take tracts (that they can’t read), listen politely to a Romans Road presentation (that they don’t understand), and allow themselves to be coerced into saying The Prayer(TM) (that they can’t possibly grasp) translates into the idea that the rest of the world is still open to the Gospel while cold-hearted and money-minded Americans just aren’t that interested anymore. This, of course, means that money is much better spent on planting Independent Fundamental Baptist churches in Guinea-Bissau than caring for the homeless people who keep making a mess of the street in front of our church.

If you believe that the most effective evangelism is done in foreign lands by people who have little formal training, don’t understand the culture, and barely speak the language…you might be a fundamentalist.

Wednesday Link List

Regular readers will know this already, but I’ve never quite come out and said it: I find it somewhat snobbish when bloggers publish link lists where anything older than 2-3 days is considered obsolete. A true link sleuth will unearth some great material and won’t be concerned if the post is dated 30 days ago. If it was true then…

• Essay of the week: Church Planting in Montreal. A somewhat typical couple has been living together for ten years but has never gotten close to having any kind of spiritual discussion. And that’s just one challenge. The Quebecois version of Hybels’ “unchurched Harry” is quite different from “Harry” in the rest of North America. 
• Runner up: Remember that feeling when you were young and you came home from school only to find nobody home and you immediately thought everybody had been raptured?  Well, it happens to not-so-young college students, too.
  
• Okay, so that video about how to write a worship song wasn’t the first time Jordan at BlimeyCow waded into Christian music criticism. Or church camp. And different types of churches. 
• While everyone else on Sunday night was watching The Bible miniseries on History, one blogger was putting the final period on his review even as the credits rolled. I guess that way you get to say, “First!”  (The cable channel show beat all the big networks in the ratings.)
  
• If you know people whose Christian faith is characterized by what they are against, may I suggest you copy and paste this article and email it to them.
  
• For people who don’t know how to use a “table of contents” in a book, The Alpha Bible presents the Bible books in… well you know.
• Given the success of The Book of Mormon, a Broadway production by The Foursquare Church denomination on the life of Aimee Semple McPherson probably seemed like a good idea at the time. 
• The idea of gospel tracts probably seems somewhat archaic to most readers here, but the concision of these short presentations actual suits present attention spans. Now 31 Good News tracts are available on audio.  
• Matt Hafer comes out of church leadership hibernation with five ways for pastors to tell if people are truly on board.
• I know I often link you over to Christianity 201, but I really want you all, if nothing else, to catch this video.
  
• In some ways connected to a link we had here last week, a Christianity Today women’s blog suggests a little bit of Christianese is OK.
  
• As someone whose entire wardrobe was purchased at Goodwill and Salvation Army stores, this is scary: Pat Robertson allows the possibility that those shirts and sweaters could have demonic spirits attached. (That’s why Pat buys professionally tailored suits, I guess.)
• Once we know the name of the new Pope, the new Pope has to choose a name. Past Pope picks included these. (You remember Pope Urban, right?) 
• How is it possible that this great song by the Wheaton College Gospel Choir has had less than 2,500 views in two years?  If this don’t bring a smile to your face, your mouth is broken. Watch, copy the link and share.
• Jon Acuff finds himself in a prayer meeting with someone who gives a whole new meaning to the phrase too much information. 
• If you missed it January, Shaun Groves shares songwriting secrets for worship composers. But ultimately, “I think worship writers have parted with standard songwriting practices because they’re creating with the live experience in mind. So their priorities are much different from those of a traditional songwriter.”
  
• The people at Thomas Nelson flatly refused us a review copy of this, but I’ll be nice and tell you about it anyway. Jesus: A Theography is a new book by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola combining theology and biography with –[free review time expired]
• …Mind you, that was already better than this guy’s review. “After a while, I finally put the book down and said enough.” (When you accept a free book you do agree to finish reading it.)
  
• Remember Anne Jackson? Well she’s still kicking around, still writing, and apparently this Friday is a special day. 
• Nadia Bolz-Weber, the Lutheran with attitude, shares her struggle preparing to preach on The Parable of the Vineyard. (Open the audio link in a new tab, then click back to follow the text; the whole sermon is about ten minutes.) Actual quote: “…you’d think that I’d totally remember a parable where poop is mentioned.”
• Meanwhile Steve McCoy’s kids, age 12 and 14, are taking sermon notes while he preaches.
  
• On our fifth birthday, we introduced you to Derek the Cleric. We had a tough time that day choosing between two cartoons and thought we’d stretch the written permission we received to do just one more.
  

Wednesday Link List

In the first link today, I want you to join me in a promotion project for a deserving songwriter and embed the video on your Facebook page, your blog, or whatever it takes to spread the word.

• Our first link today is the above video. I’ve been corresponding with the creator of this for some time, but it couldn’t go public until now.  “An uplifting song that furnishes a concept of peace and oneness for humanity in deliberate contrast to John Lennon’s iconic anthem, ‘Imagine’.”  Here’s the story behind the song. I want to encourage you to share this with everyone you know! 
• Here’s an article I wrote for C201, that I may yet reblog here. It’s about Jesus’ last words to his disciples, and they may not be the words you’re thinking of right now. 
• And another C201 post that is both packed with scripture and introduces the new Chris Tomlin song, Whom Shall I Fear.
• Essay of the week: Canadian Dave Carrol explains his faith, his faith journey, and his ‘conflicted’ Protestant and Catholic sides to a largely secular audience in his city’s newspaper.
  
• The Harvard Theological Review is postponing publication of a major article on the papyrus fragment in which Jesus seems to refer to his wife, raising further doubts about a discovery that was set to turn Christian history on its head. More at Religion News. 
• Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove critiques a PBS special on the abolitionists; noting what the producers missed and what he is pleased they included.
• If you’ve been following the Jack Schaap story, you’ll want to know that First Baptist Church in Hammond (IN) has hired a new pastor, John Wilkerson. More also at the church website.
• Meanwhile in another casting call, how about Brad Pitt as Pontius Pilate?
• Would Brian McLaren be a good fit to replace Louis Giglio at the Presidential bash?
• And what if a letter from Barack Obama to Louis Giglio looked something like this letter?  Plus, I couldn’t overlook a piece that Gabe Lyons wrote on how Louis was ‘bullied off the stage.’
• Pushing past the controversy, Christianity Today reported on Louis Giglio’s signature event, The Passion Conference. Between Passion and Urbana, it’s easy to see what American Christian youth were up to over the holidays. So why does a search for Urbana at CT turn up nothing?
  
• While it doesn’t have a Christian message, this 3-minute public service announcement from the Australian government should give you good reason to slow down in all areas of life.
• As the countdown begins to the Big Game in the U.S. (February 3rd, if you’re wondering) poet Greg Asimakoupoulos: laments that these sports extravaganzas now routinely happen on Sundays. As game day approaches, you might want to copy and paste this to the American football fans you know.  [HT: David Fisher]
  
• The issue of prayer at civic events switches this week to a debate about the subject at West Point Academy.
• Mike Duran is closing in on 300 comments for a piece he wrote about websites that put evangelicalism under the microscope or simply put it to ridicule. Some of the language is edgy, but if you’re okay with that, check out, The Anti-Evangelical Hate Machine. Later, in an effort to better understand one of the bloggers, he interviews Darrel Dow of Stuff Fundies Like.  (SFL is also the source for today’s lower graphic.)
• A few weeks ago we attended a New Year’s Eve-Eve night of ‘clean comedy’ with Timmy Boyle, and learned that a number of comedians in Canada are creating a family-friendly comedy circuit. Here’s a story of Matt Falk, a similar entertainer whose debut album topped the iTunes comedy category on its day of release. 
• Also for my Canadian readers, next Monday night at 8:00 PM on CBC TV’s Mr. D., history teacher Gerry Duncan wades into religion with this line, “Jesus was Jewish and even he was Catholic.” Sigh.
• Ending with a video since we opened with one: Cindy Jacobs tells an interviewer about the ‘miracle’ of her shoes not wearing out.

Wednesday Link List

These are some of the pages my browser history tells me I visited…

• Married? So what about other opposite sex friendships? Here’s an answer you may or may not like. Check out the fifth video in this collection at Parchment and Pen. And the other videos, too.
• An update from Heaven is for Real co-author and dad Todd Burpo on how life has changed, how it’s the same, and the movie version of the book.  
• A longtime Baptist minister was beaten to death inside his church in suburban Fort Worth, Texas.
  
• Rachel Held Evans responds — at length — to Kathy Keller in particular and others in general on accurate Biblical interpretation as it affects her controversial new book. 
• Martyr’s Prayer is a CD that is also available as a live concert featuring the music of Michael Glen Bell and Duane W. H. Arnold with guests, Phil Keaggy, Glenn Kaiser, Jennifer Knapp, Randy Stonehill, Kemper Crabb, Margaret Becker and others. Learn more here.
• The picture at right represents my wife’s contribution to this week’s links. Click the image for source.
  
• The link you’ll be forwarding to your friends: Someone takes a hidden camera inside Mormon Temple rituals.
• Go deep: How the belief in annhiliationism diminishes the gospel message.
• Bookmark this for later: Tyler Braun offers ten things to say to people who are mourning.
• Another new video from Worship House Media: Check out every Christian cliché you’ve ever heard at Stuff Christians Say..
• Tony Jones considers Shane Hipps a friend, so his brief review of Selling Water By The River is somewhat telling.
• Tobymac opener Jamie Grace may be the world’s only musician with Tourette syndrome, ADHD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, echolalia, anxiety disorder — and a Grammy nomination. Read the interview.
• Christianity Today is re-launching the Today’s Christian Woman brand.
• Congratulations to Canada’s oldest gospel choir, The Toronto Mass Choir, on 25 years of making a joyful noise.
• A year ago we visited The Likeable Bible — all your favorite verses to be sure — and a year later it’s still online.
• Retro link to September: John Ortberg looks at the unparalleled life of Jesus in an excerpt from Who Is This Man?
  

If you’re a Wednesday-only visitor here, be sure to check out the Weekend Link List from Saturday.

Wednesday Link List

We either start off with really serious issues and end with something silly, or we do it the other way around. Today leads off with the latter:

• Psalm 42 in the Pirate translation. Seriously. Why would I lie about that?
• Which is just a warm up for SFL’s grand old hymn of the week, I’m Not Going to Hell.
• Which takes us to that other “stuff” site, SCL and the issue of inviting friends to church: “It doesn’t matter how great your church is Sunday after Sunday. On the one day you actually invite a neighbor for the first time, there’s a moment of panic that passes through you.”
• Hey, remember that 30-minute film you watched in youth group about a factory worker who finds a music box? It never went to DVD, but turns out it’s been on YouTube for five years.
  
• Eight weeks later, Jamie The Very Worst Blogger remembers she has a blog and updates it a second time on her birthday.
  
• Karen Spears Zacharias has met the enemy, and the enemy is talk radio.  Or maybe that one belongs in the next section…
  

Okay, we need some serious links also, right?

• Here’s a re-issue of a classic 2004 Michael Spencer post at iMonk where the fallibility of those in vocational ministry hits full force.
• In another re-print, Pete Wilson quotes Peter Scazzero on the American Church and the American Dream.
• Or check out Will Mancini’s take on how success in ministry adversely affects pastors.
  
• Here’s an interesting thought: If your church permits women preachers or allows women as elders, who ‘permits’ and who ‘allows’? Chances are it’s men. Hmmm. Kathy Escobar elaborates.
  
• The sad story of Jack Schaap continues with a plea agreement, followed by being taken into custody on the 20th, with a first court appearance scheduled for today (26th).
  
• Brian McLaren guests at CNN’s religion blog to discuss Islamaphobic Evangelical Christians in light of recent events in the Arab world. Also a response and video interview from Tony Jones.  
• Also at CNN’s Belief Blog/News page, the 15 Amish people who last fall “sheared” the beards of other Amish people could face ‘recommended’ prison terms of 17 years. 
• October 28th to November 4th is WRAP Week (White Ribbon Against Pornography) an annual event that creates a useful opportunity to raise the issue of pornography within the Church, and to call all Christians to renewed lives of sexual purity and freedom; and a project of the Salvation Army USA. Here’s the poster. Here’s info about the film Somebody’s Daughter. 
• Veteran Christian Band The 77s are touring in October. If you missed them, here’s an audio of one of my favorites.  (Two Ontario dates are available!)
• After Monday’s post about canonization, I realize how little I know about other faith traditions… Just when I think I have the rosary figured out, there’s prayer ropes for the Orthodox.
  
• I was wrong last week; the national Canadian Christian talk show hosted by Lorna Dueck has actually been out under the Context format (with a live audience that Listen Up never had) for over a year.
  
• Two articles on supporting your pastor(s): One from Lisa Robinson at Parchment and Pen, and one from Keith Brenton at Blog in My Own Eye.
  
• Sometimes I find about blogs from the “God Blogger” segment on The Drew Marshall Show. This week it was Timothy Dalrymple.
• Also this week discovered the blog, Hieropraxis while trying to track down a female apologetics expert, Dr. Holly Ordway; one of a few in what is otherwise more of man’s game.
• The funny graphic at the top of this post is actually from a very serious 2011 article, The Mega-Problem of Mega-Churches.
• …And the closing cartoon is from Dave Walker at CartoonChurch.com, but when I tried to find it for a proper link, I couldn’t.  This one is from the blog Digging a Lot.
  

Not enough links for you? The new Top 200 Church Blogs list is out.

Microblogging Monday

I guess there’s a part of every serious blogger that once in awhile wishes they had a Tumblr blog.  They could just post a picture or two and be done in five minutes or less!  Here are some things that were lying around the picture file.  Unfortunately, I don’t know where some of these originated. 

The first one is labeled “Jesus Bus.”  Ever met someone who would be likely to drive this? I have.

Maybe they know these people. Just think how many people get saved each time these vehicles drive by.

This next one poses an interesting theological problem: What sport does God watch?

This next one repeats a theme we’ve shown here before.  I guess an obvious pun is worth repeating. Obviously. It’s rather unfortunate however that the image lampooned here has become so recognizable.

This one appeared here years ago, and I firmly believe it was inspired by a certain church in Garden Grove, CA.  Welcome to Lego Church!

I think this one is Jon Birch at ASBO Jesus.

Here’s where Bible study meets practical advice:

This one is from Worth1000 a site with weekly contests for photographers and (more often) photo manipulators! It’s one of the first pictures I ever downloaded. (Okay, it’s not manipulation, it’s art.)  It’s called Nations in Harmony.

I could keep this up all day, but shouldn’t we be doing something more productive?  I’ll leave you with this one, a church made out of matchsticks. If you’re bored, you can grab some matchsticks and see what you can produce.

If you would have preferred something of greater substance, there were some good posts here over the weekend, and of course you can type “Wednesday Link List” into the search bar at right, and you’ll be connected to nearly 90 link collections each having a minimum of ten connections to the best of the Christian internet.

Celebrity Guest Post … Sort Of…

Celebrity Christian Blogger

I’ve noticed recently that while a number of the more prominent Christian bloggers have people do guest posts at their blogs, you don’t see these same celebrity Christians anywhere in the rest of the blogosphere.  So I thought it was a particularly unique opportunity when I uncovered this ten minute video was available to add here — until the blog police catch up with us — by Jon Acuff at the always witty and insightful Stuff Christians Like, though proper blog etiquette dictates that all of you will now click over and watch it there, right?  Please do, since SCL is now copyrighted by the sales and marketing division of Dave Ramsay’s organization, and we don’t want to upset them just in case we need some investment advice moving forward.

Seriously, this video was actually produced by lifechurch.tv as the first in a series of four for high school students, though the hope is that its content will be suitable for people of all ages who find themselves in the middle of a “desert road” experience.

Wednesday Link List

Wednesday List Lynx - The lynx is considered a national animal in Macedonia where it is featured on the five denar coin

I’ll have whatever links she’s having…

• Let’s start out with some great music: A new song by Northpoint Community Church’s Eddie Kirkland; help yourself to a free download of Here and Now.
  
• Maybe your marriage isn’t in trouble, but it’s in struggle.  Justin and Trisha Davis offer four reasons why some marriages are hurting.
  
• Julie Clawson has a very short, but very profound piece about how the spiritual conversion journey does not end with finding Jesus; in other words, finding Jesus doesn’t complete the process.
  
• It’s possible that Charles Spurgeon’s view of Arminian theology wasn’t shaped so much by reading as it was by the stage in history where the movement was when Spurgeon wrote.
  
• InterVarsity Press, aka IVP, has purchased Biblica Books, a publisher whose 170-plus titles are truly a great fit for the Illinois-based company.
  
• At The Ironic Catholic, this take on Genesis 3: 16-19 — “There are three aspects taken from a casual reading of the passage: 1) God makes childbirth painful, 2) Eve and all women get cursed by God as a punishment for sin, and 3) Adam appears to get off way easy.”
  
• Not sure of David Brooks’ spirituality, but this NY Times article shows how certain kinds of inequality are tolerated, and certain types of inequality are not.
• I know there’s a word that means “fear of the number 13,” but what about phobias about “666″??  Refusing to wear the number on religious grounds got this Georgia man fired.
• Of the making of Calvinist/Arminian T-Shirts there is no end.  The one pictured at right is for those who prefer the middle of the road. Click the image if you want to buy; click here for the backstory at More Christ blog.
  
• For those of you who use small-group discipleship curriculum, this video about a whole new paradigm from Downline Ministries is going to rock your world.
  
• Jon Acuff explains why it’s possible to have the congregation extend you some grace when yours is the first cell phone (that’s mobile for you Brits) to go off during a church service, but why you don’t want to be the second person to have it ring.
  
• Some of you may know more than I about the Duggar family, but apparently they are expecting their 20th child.  (HT: Clark Bunch)
  
• Michael Hyatt thinks novelists should offer a “director’s cut” of their work at their blogs; along with twelve other blog ideas for writers of what we could call non-non-fiction.
  
• C201 highlights this week: A 30-minute video interview with N.T. Wright, and a summary of C. Michael Patton’s Why Do We Love C. S. Lewis and Hate Rob Bell?
  
• Tomorrow at Thinking Out Loud: Remembering Family Circus cartoonist Bil Keane.  Today the comic is drawn by “little Jeffy” who is actually, at age 53, not quite so little, and continues to feature church-based themes like this one from a week ago Sunday: