Wednesday Link List

Our opening graphic, “Biblical Disaster,” is from an Auckland, New Zealand artist, Glenn Jones.  Click the link to see more.   Our closing graphic is proof that some book covers are simply funnier in Spanish.

Once again, we continue our symphony of shortcuts to articles and stories you may have missed. BTW, I do check comments both at my blog and Out of Ur; so let me know what you think of the mid-week madness. 

Click to read this week’s links at Out of Ur, the blog of Leadership Journal, a division of Christianity Today.

• “Leading Sunday worship — the thing [clergy and lay leaders] know how to do, were trained to do and want earnestly to do better — simply isn’t as important as it used to be, and it isn’t where they need to be devoting so much time.” Time to rethink Sunday morning.
• If nobody is singing, longtime members are upset, and attendance is spotty; a North Point affiliated pastor in Canada suggests you might be doing everything right…
• …On the other hand, some reasons why it’s important that we do sing together.
• “One of the reasons why Chaplains and Christian groups are so accepted in [UK] prisons is that the value of what the Christian faith can offer to those whose lives are a mess is fully appreciated.” The church and restorative justice.
• On the spot counseling: How would you answer a young man requesting prayer for a pornography addition? Or a couple living together who feel they are spiritually married?
• I ended up doing a blog post on this TV station investigation of a west coast group that prefers faith healing to the practice of medicine; so it got left off last week’s link list. But you need to read this continuing story of recurring names on the cemetery plots of young children.
• Interview of the Week: With the “Pastor of Witch City.”
• This one is somewhat extreme: Touched off the the controversy surrounding Steven Furtick’s new house, here are ten instances where you might stop giving. (Which is an abridged version of this article.)
• Based on 12,000 court rulings from last year, here are the top five categories of lawsuits against churches…
• …And a U.S. federal judge has ruled that the clergy housing allowance — worth up to 10% of pastors’ paychecks — may be unconstitutional.
• An advocate for small churches suggests you can do more with less, something he teaches as The Closet Rule.
• Essay of the Week: The afterlife belief systems of tadpoles and butterflies.
• Some thoughts on the aftermath of moral failure; a very close-up look at what happens next.
• On my own blog this week: The attention of the world was focused on the antics of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, but not all mayors in Canada’s largest city are painted with the same brush. This one played a pivotal role in the founding of a denomination.
• Here are five suggested local church spending priorities for the new year. The writer talks about “expenses that will push the ministry forward.” Do you agree with these?
• And here are five things that are often mistaken for evangelism, but aren’t evangelism.
• The Heaven is for Real movie, based on the bestselling book by Todd Burpo, is set to open in theaters on Easter weekend.
• After the YouTube success of Beatbox Christmas, Gavin Tyte has pushed through the rest of the Gospel of Luke, and the hip-hop scripts are online. (“One time a professor set Jesus to the test / On a quest the pious expert in the holy law expressed / Life eternal is my aim and I wanna inherit / Yo Teacher, I beseech ya, tell me how can I get it?”)
• Ligonier Ministries, an organization founded by R. C. Sproul has introduced Blueprint, an online discipleship tool for local churches.
• Do you have to follow the teachings of Jacob Arminius if you are to be considered Arminian? (Or do we know exactly what he believed?)
• 2,600 comments and counting at Time magazine? All because Costco put a “fiction” sticker on one particular Bible edition? (Sample: “You can bet that if this was the Qur’an the Costco people would have to go into protective custody.”)
• Science meets Religion: A University of Finland study reveals that “atheists get sweaty” when daring God.
• Shortest article in this week’s links: We say we’re inclusive, but in so doing, we’re using the language of power and control.
• Another picture of Pope Francis with a very disfigured man. A picture that’s hard to forget.
• How to tell if it’s time to quit blogging. (He’s not talking to me, is he? What makes you think he’s talking to me? Who’s getting defensive?)
• Parenting Corner: This time, for parents of teens, a physician offers five solid principles.
• Kid Min Corner: The maker of last week’s Bible Jeopardy game has one for the under-13 set.
• Don’t forget, just four weeks today we celebrate our Savior’s birth with crass commercialism. Why not give a couple of these?

The rest of the week, Paul Wilkinson rants at Thinking Out Loud, and assumes a much more pious posture at Christianity 201.