Holiday Link List

With both Christmas and New Year’s Day falling on a Wednesday, we offer this mid-point link list today, with the regular schedule returning January 8th. (Actually, I think that’s supposed to say, “returning, Lord willing on January 8th…”)  If you’re new here, there was a corporate takeover of the link list in July, so all roads below lead to Out of Ur, the blog of Leadership Today magazine.

• If you don’t like the translation choice on your boxed Christmas cards, you have to do some minor editing, like this person did (see above).
  
• One Christmas song making the rounds this year — and showing the liabilities in the “songwriting by committee” approach — was this 11-minute video presented December 22nd at North Point Community Church…
• …But nothing was funny about a theft a few miles away where Christian radicals in greater Atlanta deliberately stole nearly 200 wall calendars considered morally inappropriate from a mall kiosk.
• In Canada, a Christian bookstore spread good cheer by placing a clamping “boot” device on cars using spaces assigned to her store. It cost drivers $85 to free their vehicles.
• In England, a Muslim worker was placed on cash register duty at the checkouts at Marks & Spencer, but then refused to process sales of holiday champagne.
• World hotspots don’t disappear, they just get bumped off the news cycle by more recent skirmishes. On Christmas Eve, the focus shifted to South Sudan.
• Essay of the Week: A London writer takes Lilac, his six-year-old daughter, on a tour of the houses of worship of other faiths.
• Bonus Essay: A Canadian Catholic writer with 14 children — 12 boys, 2 girls — ponders the gift from God that each child is.
• Double Bonus Essay: A year after PSY’s song Gangnam Style rocked the YouTube video charts, a Reformed seminary student and former resident of Gangnam considers God’s purpose and plan for music.
• For this one, I think the title says it best: My kids are now the “Public School Kids” I used to judge. (Sourced at Homeschoolers Anonymous!)
• While coverage of the death of Harold Camping focused on the May 21, 2011 “Judgment Day” date-setting by the radio pastor, other dates are significant: He and his wife were married 71 years.
• The Washington Post recently re-ran a 2010 study with six maps showing religious concentration and diversity in the United States…
• …but we found these U.S. maps charting the Seven Deadly Sins far more interesting.
• Elsewhere, spiritually it’s a different world. In Turkmenistan, a house church raid can get your electricity cut off, and a fellowship operating as a choir practice is shut down because “singing about God here is banned.”
• Get reading! Jon Acuff invites his blog community to take The Empty Shelf Challenge.
• Video of the Week: Watch it now, bookmark it for next year… This Christmas by the band 7eventh Time Down.
• An article on logos could be about the Greek word for “word,” or it could be about church brand identification. In this case, it’s the latter; the Top 100 (or so) church logos.
• In counseling pornography addiction, sometimes it’s helpful to identify the motivation. Here are six reasons people watch.
• Vocational Ministry Department: Seven things that stress pastors out. (Don’t miss the comments.)
• The United Methodist minister asked to surrender his credentials for performing a gay wedding — his son’s — is appealing the decision.
• In 1887, the founder of Hollywood, California “envisioned the land as the perfect site for a utopian-like community for devout Christians, where they could live a highly moral life free of vices…” Well, that didn’t exactly work out.
• At Mark Driscoll’s blog, a musician explores the benefits of reworking old hymns with new arrangements…
• …and long after the Mars Hill Seattle pastor is forgotten, this publishing industry issue may still be discussed.
• Unfinished Christmas business: So when the Good King Wenceslas looked out and the snow lay ’round about, what exactly were they commemorating on The Feast of Stephen? (Okay, it’s that Stephen, the one in Acts 7.)
• Looking ahead to Christmas 2014? If you want ideas you can’t do better than the winners in the UK’s The Nativity Factor, but I warn you, there are about 50 videos here. (I liked the Jerry Springer-esque interview with Joseph and Mary.)
• CNN reports the Pope’s approval rating is sky high. Ya think? His Christmas message included an encouragement to atheists to work with believers, something that wasn’t in his prepared notes.
• From Alpha Course founder Nicky Gumbel, a trio of devotional thoughts reflecting three very different types of Bible literature.
• That wraps up the holiday edition of the Wednesday Link List. Time for a snack, which will probably include the Ezekiel 4:9 cereal I got for Christmas.