Wednesday Link List

“For what we are about to receive…”  The human and the dog seem sincere but cats are always overly dramatic. (And why does the cat have a marking that looks like another cat’s tail? Photoshop? No way!)

Time for another link list. Try to have your suggestions in by 6:00 PM Eastern on Mondays. More during the week at Twitter.

• Hey! We finally made the Church Relevance list of the Top 200 Ministry Blogs, at number 143. Now what will I complain about? A giant shout-out to Kent Shaffer at Church Relevance.
• From the weekend: Best Mother’s Day graphic.
• Michael Patton notes that while Calvinists uphold ‘perseverance of the saints,’ he often encounters some among that group that lack assurance of salvation.
  
• At Red Letter Christians: The Six Worst Things About American Christianity. Wait, there’s only six?
  
• I once heard that Billy Graham once said his calling to ministry was simply that he was trying to do what Charles Templeton started but never finished. That, and the fact my father once served in ministry with Templeton draws me to articles like this one whenever they appear.
• Do-Not-Do-This Department: BibleDude offers six ways to ruin a mission trip.
• Does Greg Boyd think that, despite their different beliefs about Jesus, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are saved? Check out this five minute video.
  
• Diane Lindstrom offers a six-part series on The Sneaky Sins. (The link is to the intro, then click the banner and scroll through malice, deceit, hyprocisy, envy and slander.)
  
• Recurring theme: This time in Northern Ireland, another printer is threatened with court action over refusing to print material that goes against his beliefs.
• This week at Rachel Held Evans, we were introduced to a young Assemblies of God pastor Jonathan Martin (that’s two links to RHE.) And here’s a short preaching sample.
  
• Dannah Gresh does a TED Talk at Penn State University on the subject of virginity.
  
• A blogger calls into question the youth ministry concept, in light of areas where he feels it has failed us.
  
• A former pastor and church planter now finds himself roaming among various churches and offers ten observations now that he’s not an insider.
• “I know who made the environment,” Mark Driscoll reportedly said. “He’s coming back, and he’s going to burn it all up. So yes, I drive an SUV.”  More in a Religion New Service piece comparing Driscoll to Pat Robertson.
  
• Music video link # 1: Two years ago we did a story here on a Nepalese worship band, Aradhna. I was going to run a link to something more recent, but opted instead for one of their earlier videos which includes English translation.
• Music video link #2: If this hadn’t existed I would have added it to my own YouTube channel. Classic Maranatha! Music worship as Erick Nelson sings Fairest Lord Jesus.  This was posted a few months ago and has only seen a handful of views. Let’s change that.
• Music video link #3: Classic British TV footage of Cliff Richard covering Randy Stonehill’s First Prayer. Whether or not you believe in “praying the prayer;” this is a type of song that models Christian behavior; a type of song we just don’t hear anymore.
• Music video link #4: From our own channel, the 1988 kids album with no kids, Prism Red rocks out Amazing Grace. Heck, let’s add it below.
• From @philvischer ‘s Twitter: “Got a Groupon ad for a 3-pack of ‘Jezebel Panties.’ Yes, the most evil woman in the Bible now has her own line of underwear.”
  
• New blogs added to my 700+ bookmarks this week: The Nuance with Zach J. Hoag and a multi-author blog, Christian Blessings.
• Looking for more links? Ed Cyzewski offers five posts from Christian blogs you’ve never seen.
  

Songs with substance: Classic worship

If you check the right hand margin over at Christianity 201, you’ll see that all of the various music resources that have appeared there are listed and linked alphabetically. Take a moment to discover — or re-discover — some worship songs and modern hymns from different genres.

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.

Mark Driscoll to UK Church: You Suck

His offensiveness knows no borders. I wrestled with the headline (post title) for this one, but there’s no polite way to encapsulate the partial transcript of this radio interview with Seattle’s Mark Driscoll and Surrey, England’s Justin Brierley host of the radio show Unbelievable, whose wife happens to pastor a local congregation across the pond…

This is just a sample, click the link at the end to continue reading –if you dare! — or just click over now. (The link in the first paragraph takes you directly to the full podcast.)  Commentary is by Chris Massey.

Justin Brierley, the unfailingly polite host of the British radio program, Unbelievable, recently podcast the entirety of his hour-long interview with Mark Driscoll.

Things did not go well.

There are many moments in this interview that could provide fodder for discussion. For example, Christians in the UK may be rather non-plussed by Driscoll impugning their entire country for not having, well, Mark Driscoll:

Driscoll: I go too far sometimes. Almost every other pastor I know doesn’t go far enough and that’s okay ’cause the church tends to be led by people who are timid and fearful of going too far. I mean, let’s just say this. … Right now, name for me the one young good Bible teacher that’s known across Great Britain.

Brierley: Hmm …

Driscoll: You don’t have one. That is a problem. There’s a bunch of cowards who aren’t telling the truth.

Brierley: So you think that the Bible teaches …

Driscoll: You don’t have one. You don’t have one young guy who can preach the Bible that anybody’s listening to on the whole earth.

I’ll leave it to the Brits to decide whether their churches suffer from a glut of cowards and a want of controversial celebrity preachers.

Much of the interview revolved around Driscoll’s views on women and their role in marriage and the church. When Brierley confessed that his own wife is, in fact, the pastor of his church, things got incredibly awkward:

Driscoll: I’m not shocked by the answer, by the questions you ask. I love you, but you’re annoying. ‘Cause you’re picking on all the same issues that those who are classically evangelical, kind of liberal, kind of feminist do.

Brierley: I think it’s because those are the issues here that people are thinking about. … [Brierley says he's impressed by much of what Mars Hill Church is doing].

Driscoll: ‘Kay, let me ask you a few hard questions.

Brierley: Go ahead, go ahead.

Driscoll: So, in the church that your wife pastors, how many young men have come to Christ in the last year?

[It's clear from the tone of Driscoll's question that this is not a bona fide inquiry about the souls in Brierley's church. It's a veiled criticism. Driscoll is going to prove that women pastors can't get the job done (i.e. attracting men to the church) and he's going to belittle Brierley's wife & church to do it.]

Brierley: Well we’re not a huge church, unlike yours, but I’d say there’s two or three probably in the last year who certainly, yah, I’d say have come to Christ in a pretty meaningful way.

Driscoll: Okay and in the church, what percentage is young men, single men?

Brierley: It’s difficult to say off the top of my head, but I’ll freely say it’s certainly not a big percentage, no.

Driscoll: Kay, and are you okay with that? Do you think that’s the best way to go?

Brierley: No, but can it be so easily put down to the fact that the church is being run by a woman? I mean, is that …

Driscoll: Yup. Yup. You look at your results, you look at my results, and you look at the variable that’s most obvious.

[Yes, he did just say that. His results are better than hers. And it's because he's a man and she's a woman.]

…continue reading Mark Driscoll’s efforts at international diplomacy…

Wednesday Link List

Yes, it's that giant drum kit from last week; only now we know it's at Breath of Worship church in Livingston County, NY and played by pastor Dr. Mark Temperato. See below.

Don’t just sit there; click something!

• Like I said earlier this week, I don’t agree with everything James MacDonald does, but I love this quote in reference to T. D. Jakes, “I don’t think that throwing grenades in his lap as he seeks to ascend the hill of biblical orthodoxy represents the behavior ethic of Christ.”  The article is over MacDonald’s resignation from The Gospel Coalition.
  
• An anonymous pastor clarifies once and for all that the kind of “church discipline” we read about in the recent Andrew story is Biblical but only where the person has not confessed their sin.  In the now well-traveled story, the Biblical injunction is being wrongly applied.
  
• A 72-year old priest in St. Louis had a tendency to go off-script when he could adapt words from his sermon to better suit the theme of his prayers. But the “new English-language translation of the missal may have given bishops an opportunity to rein in freewheeling priests who have been praying in their own words for decades.”  So the Rev. William Rowe was fired.
  
• For their final album, the David Crowder Band cracks the Christian charts in the #1 position, earning this writeup from Billboard Magazine.
  
• Roast Pastor Department: “Only in the church will you find people who constantly disagree and argue with someone who has devoted their life to diligently studying the Scriptures.”  Read this great analysis of a problem that’s more widespread than you might think.
  
• Okay, so the drum set pictured in last week’s WLL here is legit, and it is located in a church.  And the drummer is the pastor.  And the “Dr.” in Dr. Mark Temperato refers to not one, but three doctorates, presumably from School of Bible Theology Seminary and University in San Jacinto, CA. Try to look away, but you know you want to read this.
• Here’s a story we missed last month: Australian tennis legend Margaret Court (as in tennis court; bet she’s never heard that one) is now a conservative Evangelical pastor with the expected conservative Evangelical view on marriage in general and gay marriage in particular.  But the location of the Australian Open is named after her.  So a movement started to try to rename the stadium, spearheaded by — just to confuse us in North America — someone named Phelps.
  
• Christian Music:  The Canadian music and media site Your Music Zone has the announcement about a companion book to go with the song and CD Blessings by Laura Story.
  
• Also at Your Music Zone the word that Downhere and Hawk Nelson are among contemporary gospel nominees for a Juno Award, the Canadian equivalent of the Grammy Award in the U.S.
  
• Christian Publishing: The book Heaven is for Real has now spent longer — 53 weeks versus 52 — sitting atop a New York Times bestseller list than The Shack.
  
• I never thought that reading a devotional piece about the hymn, Abide With Me, would turn up a reference to an interview with Chris Martin of Coldplay, but he’s quoted as saying, ” that of all the songs he had looked at, he found that 18th century ish hymns expressed joy and pain in the same song best.”  It’s interest to re-read the hymn’s words in that context.
• You are expected to whisper in the library so you don’t disturb other patrons, but a man in Seattle is free to watch porn on the public library computers, in full view of another patrons seven-year old and ten-year old daughters.
• A pastor leaves a sealed envelope in his desk addressed, “Read to [the congregation] in the event of my untimely death.” Then, two months ago, he is killed with his wife in a car crash. What words did he want his church to hear?
  
• Jeff Bethke’s “religion” spoken word video finds an ally in David Bowden who says, I Believe in Scripture.  Meanwhile, James White takes 51 minutes to respond to a Muslim who responded to Bethke.
  
• Reporters aren’t allowed at the National Prayer Breakfast, but the Washington Post reproduces the transcript of President Obama’s speech.
  
• Lots of music links this week, here’s the new video from the band The City Harmonic, “I Have a Dream (Feels Like Home).”  Great song, guys!
  
• Kent Shaffer crunches more numbers and comes up with a list of the top U.S. churches to watch and learn from; assuming you want to limit your study to the American church, and limit your role models to Evangelical megachurches.
  
• With just a few months to go before the Olympics in England, churches are coordinating evangelistic efforts.
  
• Tim Challies has started producing his own infographics; his Books of the Bible chart is a must-see.  Click a second time for a full-sized image; I guarantee some of you will be copying and forwarding this one.
  
• If you still find yourself wanting more to read, here’s a link that will take you to Dan Kimball’s ever-growing series of Wednesday Weird Bible Verses.
  
• We close today with a video from YouTube channel Get out the Box.

Join us tomorrow at Thinking out Loud for a non-interview with Todd Burpo, pastor and author of Heaven is for Real.

My Letter to Andrew

Andrew is the central character in a story about church discipline at Mars Hill Seattle which has blown up in the Christian blogosphere since Matthew Paul Turner posted part one on January 23rd.  (Covered on this blog, here.)

Or at least he was the central character. More of the recent conversation concerns ecclesiology, and church discipline in general and opportunity for ad hominum remarks concerning Mark Driscoll.

So I’m wondering if anyone is really reaching out to Andrew in all this…

Dear Andrew,

It’s never a good idea to offer advice where it wasn’t asked for, nor is it a good practice to listen to unsolicited advice from people you don’t know.  I’m admittedly half a continent away, and equally separated by age; and there are those close to you who more suited to speak into your life.

I just wanted you to know that besides re-blogging what Matthew Paul Turner wrote, I also prayed for you. James 3:2 says, “We all stumble in many ways…” Welcome to the community of the broken.

In hindsight, you probably weren’t ready to get married. You know that now, and I know there is much remorse attached to your story. You are no doubt much wiser today than you were just a few months ago. Of all the fruit of the Spirit, self-control is the most needed when facing temptation that is being constantly fed by a 21st century worldview of sexuality.

One of the things about your story struck me very early on in MPT’s version of it: “Andrew was born and raised Independent Fundamental Baptist, so not only was Andrew accustomed to Mark’s anger-laced fiery style of sermon, he had a deep appreciation for it.”  It never really occurred to me that people could be attracted by an authoritarian leadership style, but if that’s what you grew up with, I can see that it might have been a comfortable fit, once you got past a few of the doctrinal differences.

But then — and at this point someone would normally write, ‘through no fault of your own,’ except that it was, after all through a fault of your own’ — you saw the other side of how this authority plays out when someone apparently crosses the line from “in” to “out.”  To be labeled a “wolf,” or called a “predator.”  That’s strong language. There are some who would say you had suffered enough at this point; you were repentant, remorseful and humbled (if not humiliated) and that it was time for restoration; time to move on to the next phase, of living and walking in the fullness of all God created you for, because if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We can know the feeling of being ‘washed clean’ of our sin and get back up on our feet standing in the righteousness of Christ.

Galatians 6:1 Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently…

I don’t get the spirit of that verse playing out in the email you received when you felt changing churches was the option you wanted to pursue, and I certainly don’t get it from the letter that was sent to the membership.

But you know what?  It doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t matter what men do or even what church leaders do.  Your ultimate judge is God himself.  He is the one you answer to. Yes, under his sovereignty pastors and leaders are appointed, and we’re told to honor that office and pray for them, but they are fallible.

In the meantime, Andrew; hang on to God.  Keep praying.  Continue to read and study your Bible.  Find a place where you can engage in corporate worship with other believers who don’t know you or know this story.  Maybe find a Christian counselor or mentor who can continue to help you work all this out over time.  But don’t allow discouragement or disillusionment to take over your life.

And pray for the people at Mars Hill.  Not a prayer that comes from a smugness nor from bitterness, but simply pray that God will lead them to be both forthright in their application of the gospel, but agents of grace in how they allow that to play out. Pray for them to get better at it, to improve in their understanding of the mystery of grace.

Pray because there are going to be other Andrews.  There’s going to be a ‘next time’ involving someone else, and the next Andrew may not be able to handle it in the manner that you did.

And don’t write that church off, either.  Church congregations are like small cities, with as many stories taking place as there are people.  There are, to be sure, countless people there who are doing good, growing in faith, and deepening their understanding of the ways of God; because of the leadership there, and sometimes in spite of the leadership there. 

Nor should you be in distress when someone you meet follows the instructions given to them in the membership letter and shuns you.  It’s far easier for humans to believe something bad about someone, and people subject to authoritarian church leadership will, after all, do what they are told. 

In the meantime, church history is filled with people who experienced rejection for a variety of reasons, including rejection from the religious establishment so you’re actually in good company.

As you choose a permanent place of worship, and enter into future relationships, I know you’ll do both with a wisdom you have gained from this process.

Your brother in Christ,

Paul Wilkinson.

Wednesday Link List

The rug and lamp cozy living room theme from Grace Community Church in Fremont, Ohio as seen at the blog, Church Stage Design Ideas

Why are opening remarks called an introduction, but concluding remarks are never called an extroduction?

• Emotionally stirring:  Caiden Hooks, eight-years-old, lost his eyes to cancer.  He shares his faith in a baptism video produced at LifePoint Church in Columbus, Ohio: “We live by faith and not by sight.”
• Frank Viola attempts a classification of Evangelicals into four distinct streams.  It’s actually part two of an article he posted in May.
• Last week I found myself in the middle of a discussion concerning a Catholic parent whose eight-year-old daughter is being invited to Bible study run by Evangelicals.  It’s good to see both sides of this scenario.
  
• Or how about this one which goes all the way back to December 30th — that’s so last year — where he’s Baptist and her parents are Church of Christ and insist he convert before marrying her.  They say that otherwise, he is “leading her to hell.”  Yikes.
  
• When a faith healer like Todd Bentley reports of crusade miracles taking place, it would be helpful if there were sufficient information to verify the claims. Update: Bentley has just been refused admittance into Australia.
  
• Here’s a fun idea; the world’s most popular provider of cosmetic beauty — Photoshop — marketed as if it’s a consumer product that actually changes people in the real world.
  
• Haiti for Christ was in line for much needed financial support from Mark Driscoll’s network of churches, but when they found out the organization had a female pastor, they pulled the plug on that support.
  
• Comment of the week: At an article at Reformed Arminian about KJV Onlylism, this response: “I am KJVJSB — KJV Just Sounds Better. I can’t bear the ugly English in the NIV in particular. So I swap between the NKJV and the KJV…”
  
• An excellent piece from across the pond about the ongoing value and need for the ministry of Christian bookstores.
  
• Speaking of Driscoll, Todd Rhodes thinks we’ve gone from speaking too little about sex, to talking too much; especially Pastor Patrick Wooden. (Note: Audio clip content is unnecessarily and uncomfortably graphic.)
  
• One of the worst things about being newly — or not so newly — married is hearing the same question over and over and over and over again: So when are you having kids?
  
• Meanwhile, over at Mandy Thompson’s house, the topic of contention is FDT or Family Devotion Time; somewhat complicated by the fact that he’s the preacher and she’s the worship leader.
  
• Often by promoting a moral high ground, the church unknowingly is pushing sexually active young people toward having abortions.
  
• Polish pop star Doda this week was fined the equivalent of $14.95 — no, make that $1,495 — by a Polish court for comments she made in 2009 suggesting the Bible’s writers were drunk and on drugs.  Doda disagreed: “If someone is a deep believer, I would not think such words could offend someone.”
  
• How about a blog that mixes video games and theology?  That’s what David is trying to do at Reclaimer 105.  Or maybe you’re in youth ministry and just need a good game analogy to get a message across.
• Still lots of heat over a July piece here concerning Perry Noble’s charge to his congregation, ‘Show up on time for church, or else.’
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day last week, turned up a rare 30-second clip of King’s humorous side when he guested on The Tonight Show.
  
• So why is the Pajama Diaries comic here today? It was the words “Sunday School Tuition” that got me. We use the phrase in one context and forget that it means something entirely different in a Jewish context. Besides, most church children’s programs don’t charge fees, while the various synagogues I checked online were charging between $200 and $550 per child.
  

Mark Driscoll on Marriage and Sex: Candid as Usual

The man who doesn’t mince words, is not surprisingly equally candid when it comes to comes to marriage and intimacy in marriage.  In Real Marriage, Mark teams up with wife Grace and reveals much in the way of personal details of their own marriage, both in its early days and presumably as recent as yesterday.  It walks the fine line — without truly crossing it — of too much information; while at the same time making your marriage the focus of the book’s content.

The full title is Real Marriage: The Truth about Sex, Friendship, and Life Together though a proper disclaimer would warn you that the book is divided into two parts, with sex being the theme of the second, and probably being the focus of much that will be written about the book both before and after publication.  The book does warn more conservative types — and less urban types — to sit down while reading the Q & A chapter on what types of sex are permissible within the bounds of Christian marriage.

First person narratives written by two authors can be as awkward to read as they are tricky to write, so there are sections of “… I (Mark)…” interspersed with sections of “… I (Grace) …” but beyond that the book flows well and Grace’s background in public relations means she was undoubtedly a gifted writer long before this.

Mark — no stranger to print with more than a dozen previous books and tons of online copy — is especially vulnerable here as he is brutally frank about everything from his own sex drive to various conflicts that have arisen in their married life.  As with so many pastors today, the availability of online audio and video means that you can almost literally hear Mark speaking as you read.

God does not give us a standard of beauty — God gives us spouses.  Unlike other standards of beauty, a spouse changes over time. This means if your spouse is tall you are into tall. If your spouse is skinny, you are into skinny. If your spouse is twenty, you are into twenty. When your spouse is sixty, you are no longer into twenty, but rather into sixty. And if your spouse used to be skinny, you were into skinny, but now you are into formerly skinny. We are to pour all our passion and pursuit of sexual pleasure into our spouses alone without comparing them to anyone else in a lustful way.   (p. 108-9)

Mark’s take on this subject is born not just out of theory and research, but from thousands of interactions with individuals and couples as a pastor and conference speaker.  Just a page past the above quotation is this anecdote:

He had a beautiful wife but was never sexually satisfied.  His mind was filled with sinful fantasies from pornography he had viewed, as well as sexually experiences he had enjoyed before marriage. Some would have been sinful to do even with his wife, others were not sinful but she was opposed to them because they violated her conscience. Over the course of some years in their marriage, rather than killing these sinful desires, he occasionally nurtured them by daydreaming about what it would be like to make his fantasies realities.  One day he did — with another woman.

He decided to never tell his wife because in his flawed mind, it was better for her not to know the truth and be devastated. He actually considered his lying somewhat loving but she could tell something was different and so she pressed him for answers. Eventually he confessed.  As we met during their counseling session, while his wife wept continually, he tried to downplay what had happened by saying it was only one day of their life, he did not love the other woman, and similar inane efforts to make his sin seem less sinful.

Nothing seemed to get through to him until I (Mark) simply told him he was not only an adulterer but had become an adulterer because he was first an idolator. The first commandments are that we are to worship God alone. If we obey, we then do not worship other people and things as functional gods. When we disobey we then continue to worship but do so as idolators treating people and things as gods. His sin was not just sleeping with a different woman, but sleeping with another woman as a worship act to another god. Sex was his god, a bed was his altar, their bodies were their living sacrifices, and he was a pagan priest committing idolatry.  (pp. 109-10)

Again, I don’t know of anyone else who is a forthright as Mark Driscoll and who delivers a message with such passion and authority. With sections dealing with oral sex and masturbation, Mark (and Grace) face no question too difficult to deal with.

While I probably disagree with Mark’s doctrinal position in other books dealing with other topics, I was intrigued by how he would handle this, and I was not disappointed. The book has value to engaged couples, newly marrieds, and people like my wife and I who are a few decades in.  Real Marriage releases January 3rd from Thomas Nelson.

An advance copy of   Real Marriage was provided by Graf-Martin Communications, a Kitchener, Ontario firm which works with North American publishers and author agencies to provide additional promotion and publicity for books and book-related products.

Looking for more details? Check out Aaron Armstrong’s review of the book at The Gospel Coalition.

Wednesday Link List

So what’s your take-away from today’s cartoon?  It’s from the book God is Dog Spelled Backwards by Julia Cmaeron and Elizabeth Cameron; not for sale at your local Christian bookstore.

• The Seattle Mars Hill church (Mark Driscoll) decided to go after other Mars Hills churches to try to protect its brand.  But then the church realized its reaction was a little over the top.
• Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter becomes the latest Christian author, signing a two-book deal with Zondervan.
• The Occupy London protesters forced the closing of St. Paul’s Cathedral mostly due to fire concerns.
  
• Speaking of the UK, a man there writes on his Facebook page that he believes marriage is meant to be between a man and a woman, and next thing you know he’s demoted at work with a 40% pay cut.
  
• If you have an iTunes account, you can click this link for an interview with Steve Carr, the founder of the non-profit Flannel film company that produced Rob Bell’s NOOMA videos and Francis Chan’s BASIC series.
  
• Paul Crouch, Jr. has left the family business, aka The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) to “pursue other work.”  The departure was rather sudden.
  
• Americans can donate to missions at the left click of a mouse; but as the U.S. dollar slides against foreign currencies, overseas mission projects are hurting for funding.
  
• In one of his best pieces to date, Trevin Wax imagines a somewhat ideal media interview with a pastor on the homosexual debate.
  
• Lots of rumblings from the Calvary Chapel churches over the visits of the ever-controversial Jerry Boykin to various CCs, mostly because of Boykin’s Jesuit connections.  While this website looks somewhat sensationalist, it does contain a lot of documentation,  perhaps this one boils it down more concisely.
• Josh Wiley collects 22 Awesome C. S. Lewis Quotations.
  
• Comedian Tim Hawkins has Three Requests for Worship Pastors.
  
• October 31st: JesusWeen.  Seriously. Someone came up with this.  To non-Christians it’s a bit of joke.  To Christians it’s somewhat unnecessary.
  
• October 31st: Hell Houses.  Russell D. Moore has seven reasons why Judgment Houses or Hell Houses miss the mark.
  
• It took presidential hopeful Michelle Bachman only a few days to note that presidential hopeful Herman Cain’s “999″ economic program is simply “666″ upside down.  She remarked, “The devil is in the details.” Jeremy Myers examines 666.
  
• Just in time for Reformation Sunday: Zac Hicks’ worship song including the five “solas” Sola fide (pronounced “FEE-deh”) – faith alone; Sola gratia (pronounced “GRAT-see-ah”) – grace alone; Solus Christus (pronounced “KREE-stoos”) – Christ alone; Sola scriptura (pronounced “skrip-TOO-rah”) – Scripture alone; Soli Deo gloria (pronounced “DEH-o GLOH-ree-ah”) – to God alone be the glory. (Don’t forget to roll the r’s.)  Click the audio player in this link.
• Insert your link here.  Seen something online this week that I missed?  Add your suggestion to the comments.  Note that not all links will posted; anything commercial or inappropriate won’t be accepted.
• With apologies to Margaret Fishback Powers, I thought we’d end with an “almost” version of Footprints.

Elephant Room Conference: The DVD

If you missed the Woodstock music festival in 1969, you had to wait a full year for the movie; but just weeks after James MacDonald convened the Elephant Room one day seminar which was simulcast to two dozen cities, the DVD is already available for purchase, so we decided to jump in and bought one for ourselves and a couple of extras.

The phrase, “the elephant in the room” is used to denote the thing that is hovering over a discussion, but is never mentioned.   The idea here is that pastors have things they wrestle with that are discussed backstage when they meet up at major events, but are never shared with a larger audience.  The goal was to bring those subjects into open discussion.

The seven pastors were MacDonald, Mark Driscoll, Greg Laurie, Perry Noble, David Platt, Mark Chandler and Steven Furtick who was cast as a bit of a newcomer to this “big league” group.  Actually, Furtick came across very well, presenting some very timely insights into the subjects, and the very nature of the debates themselves.  Topics included:

• Building numerically versus building depth
• Responding to culture
• Compassion and social justice
• Unity and discernment
• The multi-site church trend
• Money issues
• Loving the doctrine of the gospel but not sharing the gospel

An eighth session dealt with questions that had been texted in during the conference and was actually the most interesting in many ways. 

Over the past few years we’ve seen a growing interest in ecclesiology — the study of what constitutes ‘church’ –  among what would have been traditionally called “the laity.”  Books that would have formerly been written for the exclusive reading of pastors and church staff are now being purchased and discussed by the widest range of Evangelicals, many of whom are forging ahead with startups of home churches or alternative churches.  In a sense, the things the pastors discuss quietly backstage at conferences are being discussed in church lobbies, living rooms and over kitchen tables back home. This DVD set, and the topics it discusses are thereby of interest to everyone.

But it’s not the major takeaway from watching the seminar.

What is most striking is the camaraderie that exists between the pastors themselves.  While they do disagree on some minor points, there is a genuine agreement on the things that matter; what Driscoll well-defines as the difference between national borders (which wars are fought over) and state borders (for which wars are not fought.) 

There were some highlights and lowlights in the video.  One highlight was the overall production quality.  Another was the way they kept the discussion moving, with a moderator and two rotating key opponents followed by a more open forum that allowed the other four pastors to contribute.   Another highlight was seeing that with issues such as multi-site — so much on the minds of people as changes take place quickly — the pastors themselves do not undertake moves lightly, but truly agonize over the ramifications of growth.   A lowlight — and it really has to be said — is the way James MacDonald dominates every discussion, rolling over everyone else like a freight train at times.  I guess it was his party, so he got to call the tune.

I do love the concept, however.  This was a great series of conversations and I would hope that either MacDonald’s crew, or somebody else, would put something like this together this time next year, perhaps with a different mix of pastors and church leaders.  Rather than attempting to describe it further, you can watch a few sample clips here and here. 

What we call church really matters, and you don’t have to be among the ‘professional’ clergy to care.

Read another review of the conference here.

Link here to an index Trevin Wax provided of participants who live-blogged the event.

Wednesday Link List

Another mid-week pause to look at some reading I did this week.

• Our upper and lower comic selections this week are some Christian themes found at the daily newspaper comic, Pardon My Planet.  (Click the individual images…)
  
• Here’s a controversial youth ministry concept:  Killing off the youth group as a separate entity within the larger church.   Links to video.
  
• In the wake of the whole Glenn Beck thing, Parchment and Pen dusts off the classic question, Are Mormons Christians?
• Even back in Augustine’s day, the church wrestled with the issue of celebrity conversions, and you may be surprised by his conclusion.
• Here’s a trade review (for bookstore people) of a little 300-word title for kids and parents titled Our Home is Like a Little Church, a local-church publishing project that got picked up for national distribution.
  
• If you found late-night TV Bible teacher Gene Scott quirky, you’re gonna see a similarity in these video clips from corporal punishment advocate Mike Pearl.
• Another HT to Zach at Vitamin Z:  What constitutes “regular” church attendance?   This is a real issue both for families and for church leaders.    Here’s a comment from a pastor at one of Mark Driscoll’s satellite campuses.
• Speaking of Mr. D., here’s a sometimes heated 12-minute discussion between him, Mark Dever and James MacDonald on the whole wisdom of multi-site churches.
• Zac Hicks looks at the lack of spiritual warfare themes in modern worship in a piece on Why the Devil Hates “A Mighty Fortress is our God.”
• Pete Wilson introduces Stephanie, who is willing to step out and share her story in a five-minute video, highlighting how so many of us have a need for approval.
  
• On the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of RZIM, Ravi Zacharias appoints Rick Pease as the new president of the apologetics ministry organization.   Link opens direct to an mp3 file of their radio broadcast.
  
• Yes, as a matter of fact some people have updated Bishop Eddie Long’s Wikipedia page.
  
• Was it atheists and agnostics or Evangelicals who scored the highest on the ABC News response to the Pew Forum religious knowledge test?  Watch the video or read the story.