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

Faith Based 404 Explanations

Why the webpage you want isn’t loading:

8 Secondary Issues To Core Christian Belief

…It is my argument that often – far too often – conservative Christians become identified with issues that, while important, do not make or break our faith. This creates extremely volatile situations (from a human perspective) as believers’ faith ends up having a foundation which consists of one of these non-foundational issues. When and if these issues are significantly challenged, our faith becomes unstable. I have seen too many people who walk away from the faith due to their trust in some non-essential issue coming unglued. That is why I write this post…

C. Michael Patton

This week, Michael Patton presented a list of Eight Things that Do NOT Make or Break Christianity.

1. Young Earth Creationism
2. The authorship of the Pastoral Epistles
3. The inerrancy of scriptures
4. Whether the flood covered the entire earth
5. The character witness of Christians
6. The inspiration of Scripture
7. The unity of Christianity
8. The theory of evolution

Again you’re encouraged to read the entire article. There’s also a follow up piece that ran a few days later that captures the spirit of the discussion.

Wednesday Link List

Wednesday List Lynx

Insert skillfully written intro here.

• Kickin’ it off with a strange report that — literally — gets under the skin of atheists and reveals the potential, no make that the probability for beliefs in God they would never acknowledge.
• “…no one had ever done research to determine if international child sponsorship really works…” Well, now they have, and it looks good on Compassion International.
  
• Add Marcus Mumford of the band Mumford and Sons to the “They like Jesus but not Christianity” list, at least that’s what he told Rolling Stone.
  
• The petition calling for the release of Saeed Abedini, imprisoned in Iran is nearing 500,000 signatures. 
• What happens when creative worship-leader types lock horns with linear-thinking pastor types? Innovative ideas are often given the “no” treatment. Why can’t we all just get along?
  
• Got Roman Catholic friends who believe the wafer and the wine actually become the body and blood of Christ? Here are some reasons for rejecting transubstantiation.
  
• Now you can get a personalized Bible with your name inserted in 7,000 different places. Will you accept the Personal Promise edition as your personal Bible?
• Know a teen dealing with self-image issues or some kind of physical trait that erodes self confidence? Check out the story of 19-year old country music singer Chelsea Musick.
• On a similar theme: Here’s a refreshing post from an 11-year old blogger who reminds us that God made us just as we are.
• 

  Click the cover for Time’s feature story

  600,000 Americans have a 90 minute commute time … to church!  Is there nothing good closer to home?
  
• Some of Garry Wills best friends are priests. So it’s a bit of surprise that his new book is titled Why Priests? A Failed Tradition. 
• An article reflecting on Chuck Fromm’s writing in Worship Leader magazine parallels the new technology to the elevation of worship leaders in the ecclesiastic hierarchy.
  
• Are you a church mutt? These days many of us borrow what we consider to be the best elements from a variety of denominational streams.  A classic post from 2010.
  
• There is now some finality to the Canadian side of the story involving the then co-hosts of Canada’s national daily Christian talk show and money investors lost in a Ponzi scheme, in the form of a March 15th ruling by the Ontario Securities Commission.
  
• Really got into this song this week, though I first heard it a year ago: The Altar by Tricia Brock.
• Or for something more recent, here’s another new song by Josh Garrels.
  
• When the number crunching at your annual church business meeting is over, be sure to close with a hymn.
• Do we too many music links? Maybe it’s because I haven’t heard quartet music in a long time, but this two-verse hymn seems to have a barbershop harmony quality.
  
• Find yourself potentially engaging a controversy? Here’s ten questions to check yourself before you dive in. Or don’t. 
• In the weeks leading up to Easter, BBC’s Radio 4 series, “Lent Talk,” is broadcasting six lectures on abandonment, in which a journalist compares the gay community’s experience to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
• No, President Obama is not Satan, but in the Bible mini-series, there is a physical resemblance. 
• Remember to have your link list suggestions in by Monday evening
  

Local Churches are Better Together

So what happens when five local church pastors show up for four Sunday mornings at the wrong churches?

That’s what’s happening right now where I live. Actually, it kicked off last weekend. The concept has been in the planning stages since early fall, and this extended game of pastor musical chairs is called Better Together.  To be sure, these Evangelical pastors are making history.

Each week for four weeks they are preaching a sermon series that finds them in a different location. Then on week five they speak at their home church. The series culminates in a joint Good Friday service five days later, something these churches have been doing for about 25 years.  The Good Friday event is actually two services, held in the grand ballroom of a local hotel.

Participating congregations and ministers include our local Fellowship Baptist, Pentecostal Assemblies, Christian & Missionary Alliance, Convention Baptist and Salvation Army churches.  It’s a great show of unity. It’s a great demonstration to the local community that we’re not in competition with each other; that we share a single message even though we meet and worship independently.

But there’s more.

Part of the Better Together initiative is to raise both money and a labor pool for the construction of what is currently the last remaining Habitat for Humanity property in the town. The offering will be taken at the Good Friday service and the pastors have pledged $60,000; an ambitious goal in a small town. It’s the type of thing that no church in this area could take on themselves, but another reminder that we are Better Together.

Would this work where you live? I think you have to have the right spiritual atmosphere for something like this to work and I believe the annual Good Friday service has paved the way for something like this to happen. Added to this is the dynamic of the particular lead pastors currently serving in the town being in one mind on this project. 

But whether it works now for you, or in the future, I hope this idea becomes contagious.

Greg Boyd, Woodland Hills: Weighing Denominational Options

Typically, the Anabaptist movement doesn’t grow megachurches. But as evidenced by their growing relationship with The Meeting House in the greater Toronto, Canada area, Minneapolis, Minnesota’s Woodland Hills Community Church, led by pastor Greg Boyd, is looking at making an existing affinity a formal affiliation with either the Mennonite or Brethren in Christ denomination.

The Mennonite News carries the story in depth, while Christianity Today noted that, “According to data from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, there is only one other Mennonite megachurch in America: Northwoods Community in Peoria, Illinois.”

The Anabaptist movement is closely identified with pacifism, something that is at odds with the military mindset prevalent in the United States. But Boyd is also at odds with many over his teaching of open theology, a teaching that grates on those who believe that God has already factored in the predetermined outcome for every choice people will make and therefore knows every aspect of every detail of the future.  The Wikipedia article linked above notes that the teaching embodies the idea that

• God knows everything that has been determined as well as what has not yet been determined but remains open.
• Open theists do not believe that God does not know the future; rather, that the future does not exist to be known by anyone. For the open theist, the future simply has not happened yet, not for anyone, and thus, is unknowable in the common sense.

Some people render the essence of open theology as a question: What does God know and when does he know it?” Millard Erickson authored a book with this title, which was subtitled, “The Current Controversy over Divine Foreknowledge.” The Wikipedia article goes on to list four variants on the concept, and does note in passing that many of the arguments on this subject come from atheist philosophers as well as Biblical scholars.

Boyd’s education includes a Masters from Yale Divinity School and a Doctorate from Princeton Theological Seminary. While these aren’t the Evangelical movement’s schools of choice, it’s important to note that his sermons, in fact the whole tenor of his ministry, reflect a somewhat Pentecostal vibe, Anabaptist influences notwithstanding.

So Boyd is no doubt an enigma to many, and certainly a hybrid when it comes to core beliefs.

The aforementioned Hartford Institute’s list of the largest churches in the United States shows clearly that many of the American megachurches are interdenominational or nondenominational, or unknown. (After many years, a Canadian list is now being developed by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.) The Mennonite World article cited above was titled, in part, “Seeking a Tribe;” which describes the process which gives independent churches identification, pooled resources and accountability.  Woodland Hills has an average weekend attendance of 5,000.

A Field Guide to Pentecostals and Charismatics

Found this in my recent overhaul of my files. It was printed in 1978 by Jesus Outreach Ministries in Fairmont, West Virginia. I don’t believe any sarcasm was intended, rather they were trying to make the Charismatic environment more user-friendly for visitors.  I only deleted the bottom section because the person who gave it to me had written on it.

And What Church Do YOU Go To?

Sometimes, I have to admit, I need to be able to put people into a box.

It’s not that they will necessarily fit into the box comfortably, but frankly it saves time; it lets me know what set of terminology to use; it indicates to me what schools of doctrinal thought are off limits; it helps me find common ground with authors or worship styles or even Bible translation preferences.

This is not good.

However, sometimes it does cut to the chase. Give me some indicators and let me make assumptions. Is that the ESV Study Bible you’re holding? Here’s a new book from John Piper you might enjoy. You attend the Revival Center? You might enjoy the new Jesus Culture album.

I guess I think about these things a lot. And so does C. Michael Patton who has created this theological map:

But now you need to understand his terminology.

For that you need to link to this post at Parchment and Pen.

Ultimately, no two people are going to invent a map of theological systems identically. But where these things can be useful is if it starts us thinking along certain lines, and especially when we start asking ourselves, “Where do I fit into a map like this?”

Postscript: I went looking for something similar online and ended up being routed back here to this, something I got two years ago on Matt Stone’s blog:

Today’s homework:

1. Are you cautious about putting people in a box or do you find yourself doing it somewhat recklessly?
2. Do you find the first chart above a helpful shortcut to understanding where someone fits in?
3. Does all this seem judgmental?
4. Do you know where you fit in with each of the charts above?

Wednesday Link List

Maybe the guy who took this picture has a dirty mind, but I suspect he wasn't the only one who wasn't getting the message the Baptist church hoped for. Overall, I think these changeable letter signs do more harm than good.

Wednesday is here again.

• Forget the 2012 Olympics; here’s the lineup for the UK’s Greenbelt 2012.
  
• Also across the pond: An Anglican vicar quit the Church of England and took half his congregation with him… to St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, about 500 yards up the street.  Which brings us to…
  
• Canada’s national newspaper columnist and talk-show host Michael Coren has a follow-up to Why Catholics Are Right, the new book’s title is Heresy: Ten Lies They Spread About Christianity. Which leads naturally to…
  
• Elizabeth Esther is raising her kids with a denominational salad bar of church experiences.  “…by exposing our children to all forms of Christianity, we were giving them a better appreciation for the bigness of God’s love and God’s family.”
  
• Just weeks before he was about to graduate, founder of “Do Right BJU,” Christopher Peterman was expelled from Bob Jones University, after the university made a public statement that no students would be expelled for the protest.
  
• Here’s the first of two links to blogger friend Jon Rising: This deals with saxophonist and former President Bill Clinton’s affection for praise and worship music, a curiosity Jon’s been tracking for years.
• The second link to Word and Spirit is also political: With an election dawning in the land of the free and the home of the brave, people are busy re-circulating those Is Barack Obama a Christian? emails. Jon points you toward sources for answers.
• “You wouldn’t update the language in Shakespeare, so why would you want to change the language in the Bible?” Eddie Arthur spots the obvious flaw in that logic.
  
• Also at Kouya Chronicle, a link to this summary of the “Translators’ Preface” to the 1611 KJV. Sample: “It is an embarrassment (or should be) to King James-only advocates because it contains statements from the translators that are in direct opposition to the KJV-only position. It is most unfortunate that this pref­ace is no longer included in modern copies of the KJV.”  More on this here and here.
  
• If you want to review a men’s ministry title, ask the former chaplain to the Toronto Blue Jays. David Fisher reviews Dallas and the Spitfire: An Old Car, An Ex-Con, and an Unlikely Friendship. Summary: “This book journals a new style of discipleship, not your typical ’12 Steps to Mentoring a Man for Christ’ format, but one where two guys decide to get down and dirty and restore an old Triumph Spitfire.”
  
• A member of the Schuller family turns up on the platform of the Crystal Cathedral on Sunday; the choir is back to 60 members, and Kay Warren was the guest speaker. It’s deja vu all over again.
  
• Street Evangelist Leon Brown deals with the three most common objections to the gospel. [Via Zach, who saw it on Thabiti ... it's like a Tumblr reblogging!]
  
• The project we’re doing this month on YouTube involves posting obscure music that is of historical interest to the history of contemporary Christian music.  We found this one already there, but badly in need of more visits: From the era of Andraé Crouch, here’s Bili Thedford’s classic song Miracles.
• And speaking of YouTube, you can’t do any better for some quick quotations from top speakers — including Francis Chan and Michael Frost — than this collection from The Verge Network‘s recent conference. Of course, they’re teasers to encourage sales of the conference DVDs.
  
• From the Saturday links at iMonk: Need prayer, but just don’t have the time to park your car, walk into the church, kneel down and seek the Lord? No problem. This Florida church has the solution for you — Drive-thru prayer.
  
• Also from Jeff’s Saturday Ramblings:  A Brazilian actor paid the ultimate price while playing the role of Judas during the Passion Play.
  
• Remember the connection between Colton Burpo in the book Heaven is for Real and a young girl’s paintings of Jesus? Here’s a four-minute updated profile of artist Akiane Kramarik.

This one is better than the one at the top of today's post, but who exactly is it directed toward? If you're already a member, you already know this, that's probably where most of the parking spaces lie. But if you're visiting, should you walk around to the front?

Drawing the Body Together; Tearing The Body Apart

For years now I’ve been carrying on an ongoing dialog with a Pentecostal minister.  He was the one who first used the term, “the Charismatic-ization of Evangelical worship music,” while at the same time indicating that in many Assemblies of God and Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada churches, there is a decreasing presence of the gifts of utterance (particularly tongues and interpretation) such that the weekend service at a Pentecostal church now more resembles that of a mainstream Evangelical denomination, and the worship at the mainstream Evangelical church is slowly adopting elements (worship flow, extended songs, hands raised, etc.) once found only in Charismatic churches.

I was explaining that to someone this week when it suddenly occurred to me that the same time as there is a drawing together taking place along the charismatic axis, there is an increased distancing taking place along what we could label the Reformed continuum.

I call it the Reformed continuum and not the Calvinist-Arminian continuum because the issue is not predestination or eternal security. Those differences have always been, always will be, and do not come as a surprise to our Heavenly Father.  I’m referring instead to the way in which the New Calvinists, militant Calvinists, or YRR (Young, Restless, Reformed) crowd are slowly inching away from everyone else; slowly separating themselves from mainstream Evangelicalism, if — as some will want to argue — they were ever there.

I have written before how one of their number refers to insiders in their movement as “real friends of the gospel;” implying that the rest of us are not friends of the gospel; and how a popular online book distributor had to create a Reformed boutique site to earn the trust of Calvinist customers.

In August of 2010, I called this phenomenon the Cultization of Calvinism.

The larger picture is that it takes Reformed people and Reformed literature out of mainstream Evangelicalism, and takes mainstream Evangelicalism out of the Reformed sphere of awareness. It increases compartmentalization; a kind way of saying it advances what I’ve termed here the cultization of Calvinism, which, I would think from God’s perspective at least, is rather sad.

I believe one of the healthiest dynamics of Evangelicalism has been the cross-pollination that takes place through inter-denominational dialog (Br. – dialogue) and worship. Instead of conferences where only one theological brand is raised, we need to encourage events in which a variety of voices are heard. Instead of bloggers posting blogrolls where they are afraid to list someone who is outside their faith family, we need to be familiar with the much wider Christian blogosphere. Instead of encouraging Christian young people to only read certain authors and one or two particular Bible translations, we need to encourage them to study the wider compendium of Christian thought.

Two years later, I don’t want to return to that discussion here except to say that it’s notable that there is a shrinking of differences taking place along the Charismatic axis at the same time as differences become more pronounced — or perhaps, better to say borders become more pronounced — along another; not unlike the situation where the earth is at times closer to some planets and farther from others.

The subjectivity in this is huge. If you are old-school Pentecostal, and mourn the loss of tongues and interpretation, you have reason to be concerned. If you are Baptist, and find it genuinely upsetting when people raise their hands in worship, then you will dig in your heels and seek a more conservative faith family. If you are Reformed, you may find yourself become intolerant of mainstream Evangelicals if you view their views as heretical.

How this effects the corner of the Christian universe you call home I suppose depends on what potential interaction you have with people of both groups, or in which group you personally reside.

A wise person is one who will step back far enough to see the big picture, and note the trends taking place.

Image: Although the book in the graphic isn’t referenced in the article, the image was priceless, and I decided it was only fair to use the full jacket, acknowledging author Mark Johnston and Christian Focus Publications.  Learn more about it by clicking here.