Wednesday Link List

Wednesday List Lynx

Lots of good stuff this week. Take the time!

• The Seventh Day Adventist Church is celebrating a 150-year anniversary, though as a group that believed in very immanent return of Jesus, the anniversary is a bit of an embarrassment.
• Clay Gentry goes really deep on those “phantom” scripture verses, including some principles many people think are contained in the Bible but aren’t…
  
• …And here are two other verses you know well which the author of this article says technically don’t exist the way you know them.
  
• When the leader of a seminar on marriage is asked how many times a week a couple should be intimate, it’s probably safest not to give a direct answer.
• Sorry to learn of the passing yesterday of Billy Graham crusade soloist George Beverly Shea. He was 104 years old. Yes, 104. “I’d rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today…”
  
• Know someone in ministry who is in their 60s but has the outlook of a 30-year old? Or someone who is 40 going on 75? The Leadership magazine What’s Your Ministry Age? survey from 2009 is still online!
  
• Song of the Week: How about an Indian flavor for How Great Thou Art.
• Readers weigh in on a concern about a woman who dresses inappropriately at both church and her work as a middle school teacher.
  
• Ever heard of the TLV? It stands for Tree of Life Bible.  Guess you don’t read Bible Hunter. Much more info there on obscure Bibles, be sure to look around.
• Speaking of Bible translations, here’s five questions that I guarantee some KJV-Only advocates can’t answer.
  
• This is weird. An entire blog seemingly devoted to frustration over Tim Challies’ penchant for possibly deleting more blog comments than he accepts. Or so it seems to that blogger.
• Rob Bell is blogging. Well, that would be too mainstream, it’s actually a tumblr. 
• Our son Chris sent us a demo of a song he recorded a few months back.  Click here to listen to Afraid and click “show more” in the description to see the lyrics.
  
• Homeschooling: Two items — Why more people are homeschooling and a theory on why the U.S. administration wants to deport the German homeschoolers.
• A UK church offers hymns and readings for iPad over the church’s wifi for the visually impaired.  (HT) 
• The book isn’t brand new, but here’s a review of When Helping Hurts a title growing in popularity as it seriously studies the short term missions industry.
• Canadian street preacher Nathan Colquhoun guests on Moody Radio’s Up for Debate show.
  
• Pensacola Christian College sued one of its alumni over an internet domain name. This from a college that teaches Christians aren’t supposed to resolve disputes in court. 
• Later this year, a hymnal printed in 1640 could get $30 Million (US) at auction.  It could be the first book ever printed in what is now the United States. 
• There was a link list here on Sunday… please visit and add your comment re. the graphic at the bottom.
• Why wait ’til next Wednesday? Follow me on Twitter.
  

About the Blogroll: This blog has a rather interesting link list in the sidebar. Blogs mentioned are chosen because they are (a) faith focused and (b) posting regularly. The doctrinal flavor of the blogs listed is quite varied, but I don’t include blogs that appear to have more “agenda” than content. Some blogs are listed somewhat permanently, some disappear and return a month later. Together, they represent almost one fifth of the bloggers that I have bookmarked in my computer and read regularly. Some of the blogs appearing in the Wednesday link list end up on this page later on, while others have a key post that I feel is worth mentioning, while at the same time I haven’t gotten to know them well enough yet to establish them as a link or imply endorsement. Recommendations are invited.

Skye Jethani: Multi-Site is Biblically Counter-Intuitive

This quotation is from the Phil Vischer podcast (episode 23) and occurs starting around the 32:00 mark, with this text around 35:00

If I’m going to go and sit in a room with a bunch of strangers and watch a screen anyway, why not just sit at home and watch the same thing and not have to deal with the parking headaches… Here’s the irony: In my mind: of all the religions out there, Christianity is the one for whom incarnation is absolutely essential. It’s the foundation of our faith; God became flesh and dwelt among us. That’s the incarnation. And now we are disincarnating the Church … the pastor’s just a projection of pixels on a screen, I don’t really know the people around me because it’s such a massive community that I’m just anonymous in it. And I think, frankly, that although these trends are happening… I don’t think it’s going to last…

Here’s the thing… I can come in as a guest speaker. I know a little bit about your community, a little bit about that congregation. I can say some things, I can drop some bombs, I can fly away. But when you are incarnate in that community, like this pastor [where I was last week] he’s telling me what’s going on in this church, people who are sick, families that are struggling, the nitty gritty of living life together in community and he knows these people… He takes that knowledge of his sheep into the pulpit with him as he crafts a sermon and studies the word of God, brings the reality of his congregation’s unique challenges and struggles together with the word of God. This is what you see Paul doing in Paul’s letters writing to specific churches. He’s combining the truths of the gospel with the reality of the church… The reason why God has given leaders to the church, shepherds in particular, is so that somebody on the ground is incarnate, who knows God’s sheep and can help them each with his word and the reality that they are experiencing individually and corporately in the body.

~Skye Jethani

The Perils of Successful Online Churches

On Sunday Andy Stanley looked right into the camera and said (more or less), “If you’re watching this online you need to turn off the computer right now and get dressed and find a local church.” I just about fell out of my chair. 

“That took courage;” I whispered to my wife.

In a series of articles at the blog, Church Marketing Sucks (yes, it’s called that) Jon Rogers notes the success of the online church service:

LifeChurch.tv has surpassed their physical audience as their church online experience already tops 3 million unique visitors in 2012 (there are around 100,000-120,000 unique visitors at Church Online each week). However currently there aren’t metrics for tracking those who only attend online and how often.

If your church is considering putting your service online, there is much useful practical advice here.

• The Pixelated Church, part one
• The Pixelated Church, part two

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.

Weekend Link List

Normally there are links here on Wednesday, when the week is half over; today there are links here on June 30th, when the year is half over. Profound, huh? So have you stuck to all those resolutions from January 1st?

• Dr. Grant Mullen‘s appearances on the Drew Marshall Show always draw a lot of phone calls.  Last week’s — all 49 minutes — is now available on Drew’s site.
  
• And over at SkyeBox, more episodes of The Phil Vischer podcast are available. Had a blast last night listening to # 4 — the interview with Eric Metaxas — all 49 minutes. (Or 53.)
  
• Justin Davis gets transparent about how lack of intimacy, or worse, false intimacy can lead to behaviors which can destroy a marriage.
• More than 60 New York City churches that were facing eviction from meeting in NYC schools caught a break this week, but the city is fully expected to appeal the decision.
  
• Several dozen Mormons will resign en masse today (30th) in protest over LDS church doctrines and policies; but those who leave pay immense social and business consequences.
  
• Click over to C201 for a dose of apologetics: Ravi Zacharias on good versus evil; and a reading of C. S. Lewis on free will that you might want to listen to twice.
  
• I discovered another lost worship song — from two decades ago — this week. Enjoy “To Be Like You” from Calvary Chapel Downey with Pam Fadness.
• Also of worship interest: Gospel-driven worship can become obligatory when in fact, songs can be used to drive various points and aspects of both God’s nature and Christian experience. Bob Kauflin reposts some great advice.
• Earlier this month Tim Stevens listed five reasons why you shouldn’t do church online, but show up in person. But then he had four reasons why churches should provide online services.
• Yes, I know I list lots of links on this topic, but there is much discussion going on and many people affected. This blog  is called Coming Out Christian: Conversations about being gay and Christian in America.
  
• Local-Boy-Makes-Good Department: A Canadian, Lawrence Wilkes is currently the interim pastor at the famed — and troubled — Crystal Cathedral. [HT: Bene]
  
• A two-day rally is planned for Sept 28 and 29 in Philadelphia under the banner, America For Jesus 2012. Organizers have been part of previous events in Washington.
  
• Temptation Department:Author Steven James reflected on the storylines of his recent suspense novels and came up with a non-fiction title, Flirting With The Forbidden which features 15 first-person narratives from scripture.

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

The timely graphic above has been making the rounds on Facebook.

• Who was where, and when?  This Bible Gateway timeline of Holy Week is worth studying.  Click to see the post, then click again to see the image, and click a third time to enlarge it. You’ve never seen the Good Friday & Easter story in such detail.
  
• And if you’re looking for a meaningful Easter song, go back a year on this blog and revisit this one.  Or this one.
  
• A Christian group prayed over a section of highway leading into their town and anointed it with oil.  An atheist group decided to wash off the blessing. My favorite quote from this article: “What is inexplicable to me is how atheists or secularists could possibly be affected or  ‘offended’ by prayers when they don’t view them as having any real value?”
  
• A Delta Airlines passengers refuses to shut off his iPad showing a child-centered pornographic film. The flight attendant refused to intervene.
  
• Teens can see the Bully movie in Canada, but can’t in the U.S. In the meantime, the movie is drawing out discussion to a level that gives the issue some profile.
  
• Mark Driscoll has stepped down from chairing the Acts 29 church planting network, turning responsibility over to Matt Chandler, which in turn relocates the ministry to Dallas from Seattle.  But he’s also stepping down from the council of The Gospel Coalition. 2-in-1 story at Wartburg Watch.
  
• The blog Church and Synagogue Security News, now has a section devoted to security issues arising on mission trips.
  
• CNN’s Religion blog gets inside the spiritual heritage of Oikos University, the Christian college in California where Monday’s shooting took place. Excerpt: “Korean-American Christianity probably represents the fastest-growing part of the Asian American religious landscape…”
  
• If you enjoyed yesterday’s post by Alicia Yost from America’s Next Top Mommy, here’s another of her well-written adventures in parenting.
  
• If October Baby isn’t playing at a theater near you, here’s the official trailer.  And here’s a review: Jeff and his wife really liked it.
  
• Check out a couple of (very) modern worship songs from Harvest Bible Chapel in Oakville, Ontario.
  
• Seductive faith: If it feels good, you’ve done it right. But consider the source of that kind of thinking.
  
• Meet Jason Meyer, touted as the successor to John Piper at Bethlehem Church in Minneapolis. Elsewhere, Piper says, “The reason we are moving forward with the succession plan now has to do with a strong conviction that good pastoring is more than preaching.”
• Financing a Christian college education ain’t easy. But a “miracle” can happen if you’re willing to work for it!  This Canadian story mentions a few principles that may apply more widely.
• Nobody puts their hand up anymore in school, or elsewhere.  It’s all done with clickers.  Even the kids at the Bible Quiz at Southgate Church of Christ got mentioned in this New York Times technology story. They’re using 150 of them to record answers to 180 multiple choice questions.
• Want more links? There’s always Lisa Buffaloe’s Links to Blog Blessings. Or check out The Read and Share File at Master’s Table.
  
• Note to regular readers:  The link to the Christian Blog Topsites that usually appears in the sidebar has been removed as the site was apparently hacked. My computer did not entirely avoid some consequences, but is at least functional. Citing health concerns, proprietor Mark Strohm has decided to take the site down. We thank Mark for his years of service to this blog, introducing us to new blogs and introducing new readers to ours.

Outsourced: Contracting Out Your Church’s Announcements

"Don't forget to sign up with Pastor Smith for the missions trip after today's service."

Just when you thought everything possible with today’s technology had been exploited comes pro-nounce.com; a company more than willing to take that pesky burden of doing announcements off your hands and give it to professional pitch-persons who will make the announcements the high point of your weekend services.

Where is the Wittenburg Door ‘Loser of the Month Award’ when you need one?

It’s a minimum $99 per week (or $429 per month) up to $249 weekly (or $1,079 per month) which seems high to me, but is probably a better deal than paying the guy who hangs out in the tech room by himself all week recharging the batteries in the cordless microphones, and doesn’t show up for staff prayer meeting on Tuesday mornings.

So before a few observations from me, let’s take a moment to allow you to look around the site, and then we’ll return.  Note: The sample videos — be sure to watch a couple — are powered by the same kind of server that powers Vimeo, so unless you’re on a super high-speed connection, this is going to take more than a few minutes; so you can choose your background music depending on your internet speed:

Jeopardy Theme (1 minute)
Hey Jude – Beatles ( 7 minutes, 10 seconds)

Note: these are not real links, I just really hate Vimeo.

…

link to pro.nounce.com

…

Okay, we’re back.  And I hope you all signed up for that mission trip, or else Pastor Smith is going to be really disappointed.

So here are some observations:

1. Capitalism is alive and well in the United States.
2. In a large church, people will assume the presenter is someone they haven’t met heretofore.
3. In a smaller church, where people know each other, this is going to seem very artificial.
4. Slick is the new sincere.
5. I’ll bet the disciple we don’t hear much about in the New Testament — Nathaniel — was the one who did the announcements.
6. I think pro-nounce.com missed the point, we don’t find doing the announcements tedious, we find sitting through the announcements tedious. There’s no volunteer shortage for this task.
7. The designer of the red dress didn’t get a credit at the end.  If you’re going to do this up in style, there should be hair and fashion credits.
8. (5 con’t) Until the disciples chose Matthias.  Then Nathaniel handed the announcements over to him.
9. If the worship team needs some rest and relaxation for a week, can we outsource their part of the weekend service as well?
10. Why didn’t I think of this first?

I’d spend more time on this topic, but I need to start working on my business plan for a company that will come to your church and take up your offering.  As we leave each week with the money, at least you know where you stand.

Wednesday Link List

Wednesday List Lynx as seen in Australia

Time for another one!

• Actually going to kick off with an internal link, because when I wrote this review back in May, I never imagined that Kyle Idleman’s book, Not a Fan would do as well as it has.
  
• You may have seen Jessica Latshaw in A Chorus Line, or you may have seen her on YouTube singing on the A train in the New York City subway with hair in pigtails. The daughter of a Maryland pastor, JL explains how it all went down.
  
• A Danish study shows that victimization of children on the internet is significantly reduced when parents are aware of the kids’ online activity.
  
• Buried in one of those articles about all the new laws that came into effect in 2012: “California also becomes the first state to mandate the teaching of gay history. A new law requires schools to include in the public-school curriculum the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, along with disabled persons and others…”
  
• Mark Driscoll’s book on sex and marriage — which now has a video trailer –  is being overshadowed by Ed & Lisa Young’s latest sermon series and book, Sexperiment. One blog suggests it’s not necessary, while another, Master’s Table, agrees with Internet Monk that it’s hard to think over the noise of the Evangelical circus.
  
• I swore we were done with Christmas links, but this is so good and I want to be able to track it down 11 months from now.  This is The Christmas Story as told by the children of St Paul’s Church, Auckland, New Zealand.  HT: Walt Mueller.
  
• Matt Chandler offers a gospel-centered interpretation of the story of David and Goliath; and you’re not David in the story.
  
• Country music fans: Canada’s Ali Matthews has released the full — nearly six minutes — video of her song Carry Me Home.
  
• Hope the churches using older wireless microphones got the message that they now risk fines of over $100,000 US and imprisonment.
  
• I’ve heard a number of people talk about the Biblical emphasis on hospitality.  But not so much lately.  I remember Jesus Movement icon Lonnie Frisbee telling me, “The early church fellowshipped from house to house and we fellowship from restaurant to restaurant.”  Here’s a short article to start the hospitality discussion where you live.
• This just in: Preachers sin.  Who knew?  Some encouragement for those in pastoral ministry from Peter Mead, which is part of a series on issues which can disqualify people from ministry.  And here’s a classic from March I had bookmarked where Peter talks about moralism as preaching element which can strangle the gospel. 
• Also for people in vocational ministry, here’s a list of Rick Warren’s ten things to remember as we begin a new year, as reposted at Leadership from The Heart. 
• And we don’t want to leave out worship leaders: Here’s Chris Vacher’s take on a possible alternative — in some instances — to using CCLI as a source for legal worship song charts and parts.
• If your church is wrestling with the idea of ditching Sunday morning children’s ministry, you should read this apologetic for Sunday Kid Min.
  
• B o n u s :   W a t c h   f o r   m o r e   l i n k s   o n   S a t u r d a y !
  

When There Are Only Twelve Churches Left in the Entire U.S.

By the year 2020, there will only be a dozen Evangelical churches left in the United States.  All other local congregations will be video satellite campuses of those twelve.

Several months ago, I left this comment or one very similar to this in the response section of another blog.   I left it, more or less in jest.   Now, I’m not so sure.

Bob Hyatt has written an excellent post on this.   For several minutes, I have been wrestling with the thought of cutting and pasting his entire piece here, knowing from my stats the percentage of people who actually click on links.   But I think what follows is sufficient to whet your appetite; when you’re done, backtrack to read the whole article here.

First came architectural improvements to increase the range of a speaker’s voice. Then microphones to throw the voice even further. Then radio, television, tape and CD ministries, podcasts, vodcasts… and the seed of the video venue, the “overflow room.” All with the goal of taking the gift of preaching and extending its reach and impact. So far, so good, right? But now, we have all this technology. We’re not only recording the sermon, we’re video taping it and we have discovered we can send that video, not just to the next room, but to a building across the campus, across town, across the state, around the world… Now, the preaching gift of one person has the ability not simply to reach the back row, but the next town, state, continent. And we’re not just talking about Spurgeon publishing his sermons or Schuller putting his on TV or Driscoll putting his on iTunes… NOW we’re talking about not just influencing local preachers by making the “best” communicators’ sermons available… we’re talking about replacing those local teaching elders. Talk about pushing something to an extreme. The technology that once enhanced the preaching of others, influenced and enriched it? It’s making it superfluous.