Finding Buried Treasure Online: Speaker Videos

Actually, this treasure is not exactly buried, but the number of views indicates that not many are aware of it.

The YouTube videos in question are posted by Liberty University and are best accessed by typing “Liberty Convocation.” Apparently they use the word convocation differently than I do. In my part of the world, a convocation is an annual event that usually involves a graduation of students. For Liberty it is a weekly assembly, a definition backed up by dictionary.com

The other item here worth mentioning is that I tend to think of Liberty University as a somewhat conservative institution. But their list of speakers includes some popular favorites, including Kyle Idleman, Francis Chan, Pete Wilson, Ken Davis, Jon Acuff, Andy Andrews, David Platt, Steven Furtick, Jim Cymbala, Eric Metaxas, Wess Stafford, and a powerful message by Phil Vischer.  Last night we listened to Naomi Zacharias McNeil*, director of Wellspring and daughter of Ravi Z. 

I am determined to listen to all of these eventually. Tune in to hear what today’s emerging next-generation authors and pastors and Christian leaders have to say to the authors and pastors and Christian leaders of tomorrow.

*use this link as a starting point if you’re not finding the channel. The channel includes a number of music-related things; typing “Liberty convocation” is your better search bet.

Tributes to Chuck Colson

Christian journalists and bloggers pay tribute to Christian author and Prison Fellowship founder Charles (Chuck) Colson:

David Shuringa at Think Christian

Colson’s legacy is enormous. Convicted in 1974 as part of the Watergate scandal, Colson – then White House special counsel – was sent to federal prison. Paroled in 1975, Colson began Prison Fellowship the following year, helping to put prison ministry on the church’s radar. When society was saying, “Lock ’em up and throw away the key,” Colson was echoing Hebrews 13:3: “Remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison.” He reminded the church of Jesus’ words: “I was in prison and you came to visit me.” No one can think of prison ministry without Chuck Colson coming quickly to mind.

Sarah Pulliam Bailey at Christianity Today

In many ways, Colson’s life encapsulated the eclectic nature of evangelicalism. His example shaped how evangelicals would promote ministry and social justice, evangelism and ecumenicism, cultural and political engagement, radio and writing, and scholarship and discipleship. 

Ginny Dent Brant at Christian Post

In November of 2009, the Manhattan Declaration was born in the heart of Chuck Colson. This document encouraged Evangelicals, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians to stand for their convictions on the issues of the sanctity of human life, traditional marriage and religious freedom. With nearly 525,000 signatures including well-known religious leaders, this document clearly reminds us what Chuck Colson said in a speech at Harvard Business Schoolin 1991, “A society without a foundation of moral absolutes cannot long survive.”

Chuck Colson trained a new generation of church and lay leaders. He challenged us by warning, “There’s too much of the world in the church and not enough church in the world.”

Emily Belz at World Magazine

A Southern Baptist, Colson remained politically and theologically conservative his whole life, but Prison Fellowship gained a reputation for working with both Republicans and Democrats for criminal justice reforms focused on transitioning prisoners into society. Colson also gained a reputation for working across theological aisles, helping to launch the 1994 Evangelicals and Catholics Together initiative and becoming co-author of the 2010 Manhattan Declaration, a statement on conscience and marriage endorsed by a broad spectrum of Christian leaders and now with over half a million signatures.

Mollie Hemingway at Get Religion

One of the things that made Colson so interesting, of course, was that he actually became a born again Christian prior to going to prison. He was converted in a bipartisan Bible study group.

Here is the essential fact — he converted prior to pleading guilty. He’d been charged with conspiracy to cover up the Watergate burglary right after his conversion. He told prosecutors he wouldn’t plea bargain and he hadn’t done what he’d been charged with. But, he told them, he had obstructed justice and if they wanted to charge him with that, he would plead guilty. They did and he did.

Andrew Jones (Tall Skinny Kiwi)

It was always a joy to respond to Colson. He had an approachable manner, apparently something that he also carried in the White House. And unlike many EC [Emergent Church] critics who never turn up to discuss or defend their criticisms, Charles Colson interacted with us, influenced us, and was influenced by us.

Dale Tedders

The Church of Jesus Christ lost a mighty saint today. His influence will continue to be felt, both here and for all eternity.

Ed Stetzer

Colson’s legacy, like every persevering Christian, is one of a man brought low by his sin, but made new in Christ– and used for his purposes in ways he would have never imagined. When Colson converted to Christianity, the timing of his conversion (1973) led many to speculate about the sincerity of his claim to faith– they thought this might be a “jailhouse conversion.” But nearly 40 years later, Colson’s perseverance lends credit to his testimony.

Other Tributes at Church Blog

Prison Fellowship Video Tribute at YouTube

Colson Center Obituary

Charles W. Colson Quotations

Wednesday Link List

Welcome to Wednesday Link List Leap Day Edition, or as we prefer to call it, WLLLDE.

Here’s my social media observation for the day: Pinterest is to Facebook what Tumblr is to WordPress.  (Five years from now they’ll be quoting that in business textbooks.)

CT Stories

• There may be some changes afoot at Christianity Today as to who can access articles online, so we’ll do these while we can.  First, in one we missed in January, T. D. Jakes revealed he’s now regarded as heretic by both mainstream Evangelicals and one-ness Pentecostals.
• A brief rare interview Rob Bell did with CT earlier in the month. Doesn’t let the cat out of the bag as to what he’s currently working on, though. (But if you’re really into Bellmania, flash back to this piece Tony Jones did exactly one year ago, which remains in his all time top five.)
  
• “A century ago, a novel called In His Steps convinced generations of Christians that Jesus would, among other things, oppose the sport of prizefighting. That novel became the ninth best-selling book of all time, and the book’s thesis found new life in the ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ movement.” So begins a look at the ethics of cage fighting with three viewpoints.
• “Here’s what you can do in a New York City public school after hours: You may gather people together once a week (or more often). You can start off with praise choruses and Bible reading. Someone can stand up and teach that Jesus is Lord, that he rose from the dead to save us from sin, and that he is coming again. Then you can break bread and pray together.  Here’s what you can’t do in a New York City public school after hours: Hold a ‘religious worship service.’” Another look at the strange situation in NYC.

Les autres links

• With just weeks to go before release, Donald Miller and Steve Taylor sit down to discuss how Blue Like Jazz, the collection of short stories, ended up as Blue Like Jazz: The Movie, with a more cohesive storyline. 
• Signs of the Times: There is now actually a blog with the name Church and Synagogue Security News. Tagline: Covering security and safety at places of worship and religious institutions worldwide.
  
• Sarah Bolme reviews Peace Child by Don Richardson; an absolute classic missions story that many of you have never heard of. “In the book, there is a quote from a missionary talking to Don before Don embarks on the mission field. This gentleman says, “You must be prepared in the strength of the Lord, to do battle with the prince of darkness, who, having held these hundreds of tribes captive these many thousand years, is not about to give them up without a fight.” Sarah says Christian authors today face similar obstacles.
  
• Zac Hicks looks deeply into the sometimes thorny issue of church membership. He offers five compelling arguments for moving from adherent to member. Which type of weekend service attender are you?
  
• Who to date.
  Where to go to college.
  Who to marry.
  Where to move.
  What job to take.  — Steven Furtick thinks that knowing God’s will for your life isn’t the main point.
  
• Mark Buchanan is blogging sample chapters of his forthcoming book, Your Church is Too Safe. Check out chapter five and chapter thirteen, a most interesting consideration of the types of spirits that showed up when Jesus ministered, some of which show up in our churches today.
  
• In other Zondervan book news, one of my favorites from last year is being released in a teen/youth edition; look for the bright red cover for Not a Fan Teen Edition by Kyle Idleman (no link).
  
• How do you get KJV-only teens revved up for the next youth conference? How about a Marine Corps themed promo video with the bold proclamation “In 1611 God forged a sword.”  Apparently before 1611 God was a little deficient in terms of a means to save the world.
  
• Donation request: Tony Jones (aka Tall Skinny Kiwi) needs about $5,000 US to ship his truck from Turkey to New Zealand, where it will serve as an operations base. Funds are needed rather soon.
  
• If you’re like me, you’ve probably tried at least once to learn Biblical Greek. Tyler Blanski thinks the key is learning to love parts of speech that aren’t so important in English.
  
• People Department: I always look forward to Brad Lomenick’s monthly Young Influencers List; here’s the one for February.
  
• I’m always interested when slightly more insider church references make it into the comics pages.  Wikipedia notes that Pluggers “…runs in 60 newspapers, mostly in the Southern, Mid-West, Plains, and Rocky Mountain states… In the context of this strip, ‘pluggers’ are defined as blue-collar workers who live a typical working-class American lifestyle, accompanied by a mentality characteristic of the veteran and Baby Boomer generations. In the comic, pluggers are portrayed in the form of anthropomorphic animals, most often a plump bear, dog, chicken, or rhinoceros…”

Jews for Jesus: Ministry Life on the Frontlines

For this writer, a sidebar to the Jesus Movement of the early 1970s was what might best be termed the Messianic Movement. As a young Christian, I remember hearing the middle-eastern-flavored music of the groups Lamb and Liberated Wailing Wall, and as someone trying to find relevant resources to communicate the Christian worldview, I was intrigued by a series of rather crudely drawn tri-folded 8 1/2 X 11 tract-substitutes called ‘broadsides’ which tended to be reflective of current events and trends.

The common thread between the music and the literature was an organization called Jews for Jesus. But it turned out there were many groups involved in evangelism to the Jewish community where I lived.  In later years I would attend a Friday night service in Toronto as part of a congregation whose worship style was not much different than the synagogue I’d passed a mile down the road, but whose belief in Jesus Christ as the Messiah constituted a great divide.  I would later learn the difference between Messianic Jews (the type of service I’d attended) and Hebrew Christians (whose worship style was more like any given Baptist group on a Sunday morning.)

But when Jews for Jesus came to Toronto and held a major rally in a Toronto high school, I knew I had to be there. 

It turned out I was not the only type of person who wanted to attend. The event was met with protests by the Jewish Defence League. Shouts of “Jews don’t switch” greeted attendees, and once the event itself got underway, it was constantly interrupted by high-pitched whistling that may have come from human or mechanical sources, or both.

Unfortunately, I’d made the mistake of inviting my parents to join me, and in all their years of attendance at church and evangelistic meetings, they had never had to deal with counter-protests, and their discomfort throughout the entire meeting was evident; though I think we were all a bit on edge that night.

Flash forward several decades: When an opportunity to review a new biography of Moishe Rosen, the founder of Jews for Jesus, I was not to let the opportunity pass by.  The book Called to Controversy: The Unlikely Story of Moishe Rosen and the Founding of Jews for Jesus is written by his daughter, Ruth Rosen with the intimacy and passion that only an immediate family member can bring, and published by Thomas Nelson.

Like so many others, Moishe Rosen and his wife experience estrangement from their families when they ‘come out’ as believers in Yeshua and begin attending a local Baptist church.  But the calling to ministry takes place over a number of years, and Rosen actually serves 17 years with another mission before spinning JFJ off as a separate entity.

Early chapters of the book highlight something my wife and I felt after twice attending Missionfest: While this type of ministry is unique, there are in fact dozens of organizations tripping over themselves trying to reach the Jewish community with the good news of Jesus. The zeal is common to all, but the methodology often differs greatly.

The book also presents the challenges a Christian leader faces when their vision places them as leader of a team. With my previously mentioned acquaintance with the ministry, I always viewed Rosen’s greatest strength as frontline evangelism, but the book shows him struggling with administration, staff recruitment and training and organizational politics.

While the Bible promises that all who endeavor to live Godly lives in Christ will face persecution, this multiplies many times over when the stated goal of the mission is to convert people steeped in a belief system so very foreign to Christianity, yet joined by a common book (the ‘first covenant’ of our Christian scriptures) and history.  I actually learned a term I had not encountered before: The word “antimissionaries” describing those bent on preventing groups like JFJ from delivering their message.

I very much enjoyed reading Called to Controversy, though some background familiarity with this type of ministry is somewhat necessary to fully appreciate Moishe’s story, since some details are narrated but not fully explained. 

Despite the opposition, Moishe Rosen believed that doing ministry should be fun. Yes, fun. He was fully energized by what he did and all that Jews for Jesus accomplished and could accomplish in the future. While Ruth Rosen does not hide her father’s faults and foibles, there is no denying is qualification as a great 20th century Christian leader.

Shalom.

Thanks to Book Sneeze, a program of Thomas Nelson Publishers for a print copy of Called to Controversy.

Here’s a link to a video of vintage (1973) Liberated Wailing Wall performing Blessed Be the Lord. While the group Lamb wasn’t directly a part of JFJ, their music was better known than LWW among ‘goyim’ like myself. This is their song The Sacrifice Lamb.

Sending Your Pastor Back for a Road Test

This first appeared here in January, 2009.

With my mind wandering during a post-supper phone call, I wondered what would happen if, just as some jurisdictions require you to do a fresh road test after 20 years in order to keep driving, your pastor had to appear before a doctrinal committee like the one that ordained him (or her) originally. Just to make sure all his (or her) doctrinal oars are still in the water.

But why target pastors? Board members and Sunday School teachers would be next, followed by you, the average Joe (or Joanne). After a couple of decades serving on committees or helping in the nursery or whatever it is you do; you’d be brought before a group of examiners to make sure that you still have a grasp on, and still hold to the basic tenets of, the core of what we call the Christian faith.

Would people be as nervous leading up this event as they would be if they had to do a fresh road test to keep their driver’s license? Do you think you could pass? Would you be praying they asked easy questions? Do you consider, “Why did Jesus have to die?” to be an easy question?

Wednesday Link List

It’s a busy week for most so I’ll keep the list short(er) this week…

• Yes, I do list the links in order of importance, so for this week, it’s got to be a Christianity Today story in celebration of 50 years of Youth With A Mission (YWAM).
• “Does it really make sense that God is a loving, kind, compassionate God who wants to know people in a personal way, but if they reject this relationship with Jesus, they will be sent to hell where God will eternally punish them forever?”   That question, included in the online, advance-publication announcement for Rob Bell’s forthcoming Love Wins, may explain why the title is with HarperOne, and not with Zondervan.
  
• The Amish are causing problems for building contractors in Philadelphia where they are underbidding local companies on jobs, and then leaving town without spending any money.
  
• Lots of time to answer our poll question from yesterday — Should audiences still be expected to stand for the playing of the Hallelujah Chorus?
  
• A look at Brad Lomenick’s “Young Influencers List” for December led to the discovery that he’s been doing this list for a few years now, with some names you might recognize.
• If you own a business in Dallas, Texas, you’d better not be substituting “Happy Holidays” for “Merry Christmas” or First Baptist Church will put you on their “Naughty or Nice” list.
  
• It’s minus 12 degrees Celsius, or 10 degrees Fahrenheit in Fairbanks, Alaska.  What better time for an outdoor baptism service.
• Because of remarks made by Canadian Pastor Charles McVety, the National Post reports that Crossroads Television System (CTS) has been found to be in violation of Canada’s strict “anti-hate” Canadian Broadcast Standards.
• Cedric Miller, a New Jersey pastor “believes the forbidden fruit had a QWERTY keyboard and came with status updates.”  He’s ordered his church leaders to either quit Facebook or resign.
  
• Canadian readers:  Don’t forget you have less than two weeks to help us fill our Salvation Army iKettle.  No matter where you live, donations stay with the S.A. Family Services branch closest to you.
  
• Joel Spencer doesn’t blog frequently, but if you like your bloggers with tongues firmly planted in cheeks, you might enjoy his catalog of Jesus action figures for 2010.
  
• Bonus link:  In the days before Weird Al, there was Ray Stevens (Guitarzan, The Streak, Bridget the Midget, etc.) filling the novelty music category.  He’s back with a commentary on U.S. immigration policy.
  
• Today’s cartoon is a 2009 entry at ShoeBoxBlog, while today’s picture is none other than Shane Claiborne at the White House which appeared — National Enquirer style — at the blog OutOfUr.  BTW, you need to drop by your bookstore to actually see, touch and feel what Shane is doing with his new book, Common Prayer.
  

Sometimes Bigger IS Necessarily Better

I’ve been thinking (not out loud) all day about this one.

Sometimes a church or ministry organization will begin a period of rapid and accelerating growth.   They hire new staff.   They add new programs or services.   They need larger premises in which to conduct their activities.

All this time, there are people critics standing on the sidelines suggesting that they’ve created a monster, and now all their energies need to be spent feeding the beast.

And that’s often the case.

Sometimes growth is a natural product of the effectiveness of a church or parachurch organizations ministry.   If it’s working, if it’s blessing people, if it’s bringing people into the kingdom, we want to see it grow, right?

Now… I know there are people reading this who have an issue with “big.”    They like to give to niche mission organizations and perhaps their weekly worship thing is a smaller congregation or even a home church.   Is that you?   Then trust me, I’m on-side.  I know the intimacy that comes through worship in a smaller group, and I know that your missions giving yields more bang for your buck when the people in the office and the people ministering on the front lines are the same people.

I’m not, across-the-board, in favor of “big.”

But I also realized today that there are some major liabilities that can take place when you have a ministry that is powerful and effective, but somewhere along the line you failed — or were unable — to build an organization.

This isn’t about the fact that as president of my own company, I occasionally empty the wastebaskets or clean the toilets.   I don’t mind modeling servant leadership.    In fact, there’s nothing I would ask any employee to do that I don’t do or haven’t done myself.     I believe good leadership involves getting your hands dirty.

I’m just realizing that perhaps as a leader, I failed to set my sights on greater possibilities, and am paying the price today for not bringing in more strategic partnerships.

Because I think that sometimes, bigger is better.   Even in church and ministry.

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lower image: AllPosters.com (click link)

Send This To Your Pastor’s Wife

And send it right away.

Tomorrow — Tuesday, September 7th, and for five weeks following, there is a special “virtual conference” available for women in ministry and especially the wives of pastors.    No hotel.   No airline ticket.   No major rescheduling.   No charge.

All that’s needed is a computer with enough bandwidth to capture the feed at either one of these times:

• Tuesdays at NOON (Eastern), 11 AM (Central), 9 AM (Pacific)  OR
• Tuesdays at 9 PM, (Eastern), 8 PM (Central), 6 PM (Pacific)

and this website:  JustOne Conference.

Speakers and contributors include some names you may not recognize until you look twice at the surnames:   Amy Groeschel, Brandi Wilson, Kay Warren, Holly Furtick, Patty Wyatt, Heather Whitaker; and also some names that will just be new to you; all of whom donated their time to make this possible at no cost.     Eighteen speakers over six weeks!

Did I mention this is free?   Don’t let someone on your e-mail contact miss out on this through not having heard.

(HT: Without Wax)

Here’s the link to add to an e-mail to your pastor/pastor’s wife/woman in leadership; just copy & paste into an e-mail: www.paulwilkinson.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/send-this-to-your-pastors-wife

Leader Man vs. Servant Leader

Here’s a re-post from two years ago.   Back in the day, WAY-FM morning radio personality Brant Hansen blogged at Letters from Kamp Krusty which was on everyone’s daily reading list.   He tried to start it up again around Christmas last year, but simply has too many media projects on the go.    This article was one of the best pieces on it.   Reminds me of a thing that Maranatha! Music’s Ministry Resource Center put out years ago, Superstars and Servants,  that talks about how some people serve under covenant, while others will only serve under contract.   I think the author was Carl Cronje.   If anyone has that, it should be posted online for all to read.     But Brant’s piece here is equally good at making the point…

I’ve had some people say, effectively, “Dude, you critique leadership, but don’t you think you’re leading people, too? Aren’t you worried about that?”

Nah. Not really. Shoot, I’m honored if I’m allowed to lead somebody, if I have an influential role in someone’s life. We need leadership — properly understood, the Jesus-type of “leadership” — like crazy. What we don’t need is the type of leadership I satirize.

We don’t need any more of “LeaderMan”. What we need are servant leaders, men and women who are gifted for leadership, whom people naturally follow, who point those people toward Jesus alone, our Teacher.

Granted, as always, I may not know what I’m talking about. But below are some off-the-top-of-the-head attempts at distinguishing one from the other.

———–

Servant Leader: Has something to say

LeaderMan: Wants a platform on which to say something

———–

LeaderMan: You almost feel you know his family, because he’s your Leader

Servant Leader: You allow him to influence you, because you know his family

———–

LeaderMan: Wants you to know he’s a Leader

Servant Leader: You’re not sure he knows he’s a leader

———–

LeaderMan: Loves the idea of the Gospel, and the idea of The Church

Servant Leader: Loves God and the actual individual people God brings across his path

———–

LeaderMan: A great speaker, but self-described as, “Not really a people person.”

Servant Leader: Makes himself a people person

———–

LeaderMan: Helps you find where God is leading you in his organization

Servant Leader: Helps you find where God is leading you

———–

LeaderMan: Gets together with you to talk about his vision

Servant Leader: Just gets together with you

———–

LeaderMan: Resents “sheep stealing”

Servant Leader: Doesn’t get the “stealing” part, since he doesn’t own anyone to begin with

———–

LeaderMan: Wants the right people on the bus

Servant Leader: Wants to find the right bus for you, and sit next to you on it

———–

Servant Leader: Shows you his whole heart

LeaderMan: Shows you a flow chart

———–

LeaderMan: A visionary who knows what the future looks like

Servant Leader: Knows what your kitchen looks like

———–

LeaderMan: If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing with excellence

Servant Leader: Not exactly sure how to even calculate “worth doing”

———–

LeaderMan: Talks about confronting one another in love

Servant Leader: Actually confronts you in love

———–

LeaderMan: Impressed by success and successful people

Servant Leader: Impressed by faithfulness

———–

LeaderMan: Invests time in you, if you are “key people”

Servant Leader: Wastes time with you

———–

LeaderMan: Reveals sins of his past

Servant Leader: Reveals sins of his present

———-

LeaderMan: Gives you things to do

Servant Leader: Gives you freedom

———–

LeaderMan: Leads because of official position

Servant Leader: Leads in spite of position

———–

LeaderMan: Deep down, threatened by other Leaders

Servant Leader: Has nothing to lose

Wednesday Link List

There you go.   We’re number one.   Because e-mail is now mostly a mobile thing; social networks and blogs currently dominate online computer time.   Click the image to read the full report.

…I’m not exactly sure about this, but I think I am:  I got an e-mail this week from someone I’ve been e-mailing  for many years, who perhaps didn’t realize that when I send her something and it appears on her screen in blue with a line underneath, that’s a LINK and she’s supposed to click on it.   So just in case anybody here is missing the point, these little bullet points are not an end in themselves.   They are LINKS and it’s expected that you’re clicking on the ones that interest you.

• The producers of the movies Fireproof and Facing The Giants have a 5-minute documentary on the website for their new movie, Courageous.
• Can you handle another Bible translation?   Coming soon to a bookstore near you:  The Common English Bible.
  
• John Ortberg asks the musical question, “Who speaks for Evangelicals?”  Or to make it more personal, “These days, who speaks for you?”  [Related on this blog, see trend # 10 for 2009]
  
• Self-styled “pastor of the nerds,” Tony Kim provides a rundown of his visit to Comic Con.
• Here’s the video for the book trailer of Peter Hitchens’ book (the brother of atheist Christopher Hitchens) The Rage Against God:  How Atheism Led Me To Faith (Zondervan).
• The church that markets coffee mugs proclaiming “Islam is of the Devil” has a Quran burning ceremony scheduled for September 11th, though not every Christian group agrees with their tactics.
• Time for some time-travel with David Fisher:  If you could spend a summer afternoon with any of the saints who are no longer with us, who would make your short list?   Check out his sixteen saints.
• Another video link, this is a beautiful worship song; check out Keith & Kristyn Getty’s  Creation Sings the Father’s Song.
  
• Talbot Davis suggests a different reason for introducing change in our local churches:  Because it creates muscle confusion.
• Should an Anglican priest have slipped a communion wafer to a dog who went forward?   An interim priest in Toronto did just that, and now the Bishop isn’t very happy.
• Megan Hyatt Miller — daughter of Thomas Nelson’s Michael Hyatt — comes face to face with her inability to embrace the current social justice movement because she just doesn’t like the poor.
• Many of you know this story, but for those who don’t here’s an interview Mark Driscoll did with Randy Alcorn explaining why Randy doesn’t keep his book royalties, and why he works for minimum wage.
• Matt at The Church of No People blog suggests, “…when Christians can’t find the words to share Jesus, a much easier method of evangelism is available.  All you have to do is become a walking billboard.”  Check out Christian socks.
  
• This has been up for over a year, but I found it interesting that the people from xtranormal.com (the text-to-movie site) took a script from Lifeline Productions (those little comedy moments you hear on Christian radio) about trying to earn salvation, and turned it into a video.   Watch 1,000 Points.
• Is she in or she is out?   Vampire author Anne Rice is either out or simply challenging some definitions of  ‘Christian.’  Another author, John Shore, tries to sort it all out.  (No, she writes about vampires, she isn’t one herself…)  As does the Christian Q&A guy, Russell D. Moore who sees this as a definite leave of absence from the faith.
  
• Piper gets asked if it’s okay for a guy to listen to Beth Moore, or female speakers in general.   His answer is somewhat conditional.
  
• Speaking of women in ministry, Pam Hogeweide has an interesting perspective in Happy Christian Women, which Kathy Escobar then picked up as a natural lead-in to three(1) more(2) posts(3) which deal with “Spiritual Refugees;” people who have been displaced from the church.  Each post includes a 12-minute video.
  
• On the topic of links, if you have a blog, consider adding Thinking Out Loud to your blogroll.
  
• Hoping to save marine life after the BP Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a 67-year old man has modeled his rescue project on Noah’s Ark.
  
• Our cartoon this week is from Rev. Fun.  You see these on various websites and blogs rather frequently, but there’s also a print version that went on sale this summer.   For that person who isn’t internet connected, check out Rev. Fun … Offline from Zondervan.