“Church” in various languages. If anyone knows the source for this I’ll add it.
Wednesday List Lynx
Several of this week’s feature stories have multiple links. When compiling the list for Twitter, we’ll simply list the story and combine your click total.
- Today is James MacDonald’s birthday. And what better gift can we give him than the lead item in this week’s Wednesday Link List? He’s earned it with the story of him berating some students at a public assembly of the church’s high school student body. And where is that $573,000? But mostly, he’s now consigned to a teaching role at Harvest Bible Chapel and no role at all in Harvest Bible Fellowship. (Or, if you prefer, the short version.)
- What Bart Campolo can teach us: “Once you start adjusting your theology to match up to the reality you see in front of you, it’s an infinite progression.”
- Parenting Place: This article is very important for some of you, or your friends if you live in North America. How to speak with your kids about what happened in Las Vegas on the weekend.
- The Comeback Kids: I am grateful to Julie Anne at Spiritual Sounding Board and Warren Throckmorton at Patheos for alerting me to these three prominent Christian leaders who are attempting to arise from the ashes online:
►First up we have Tullian Tchividjian’s new website, Sinner and Saint. He opens with a post titled, But God… from which I’ve included an excerpt below the links here.* Not everyone is pleased.
►Second, along with his wife Grace, presumably following an invitation from Patheos, Mark Driscoll has a new blog. “Howdy;” he begins, “We hope to be helpful.” But again, not everyone is pleased.
►Finally, of Gospel For Asia fame, better known in India, and also at Patheos, K.P. Yohannan is blogging. - Leadership Lessons: A brilliant solutions for pastors dealing with constant complainers.
- Essay of the Week: “The people of God have a liturgy. It may be a deliberate, biblically grounded, historical liturgy, or it may be a contemporary liturgy dictated to us by the commercially oriented pop culture. Every church has a liturgy; yours, mine, Chris Tomlin’s.”
- Apologetics as Album Material: That’s the premise behind a new collection of songs by Aryn Michelle. Watch the video there, and then continue on to watch a song, The Question.
- Top ranking Mormon leader, Robert D. Hales “is the fourth top Mormon leader to die in the last three years. Quorum members Boyd K. Packer, L. Tom Perry and Richard G. Scott died in 2015.” He served for 23 years on the “high-level governing body called the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.”
- Roma Downey has co-founded, along with husband Mark Burnett, LightWorks.com the purpose of which is to “create engaging, uplifting and inspirational content that breaks through the clutter, building a community of sharing and igniting a movement in the real world that motivates people to celebrate and share the good all around them.” The project is a joint venture with MGM Entertainment.
- Candidly and courageously, Michelle Qureshi releases a 20-minute Vlog reflecting on Nabeel’s passing.
- “Pastors should continue to be students. They need to be readers, thinkers, and theologians. Unfortunately many modern pastors do not view themselves this way. This is evidenced by the language used to describe the place a pastor works at the church. In prior generations, it used to be called the pastor’s “study” (because that is what he did in there!). Now, it is called the pastor’s “office” (because pastors view themselves more as a CEO). One of my biggest disappointments is when I go into a pastor’s office and see that there are no (or very few) books. It is like going into a carpenter’s shop and seeing no tools.”
- Empty seats at church on Sunday morning? Invite tourists to stay overnight on Saturday (and all the other days)…
- …Or take the church to them. In Kenya, two cars in a commuter train become a church daily.
- ♫ New Music: The Royal Royal is back with a lyric video for Neon Sign.
- ♫ New Music: It all starts fairly typically with Mercy Me performing I Can Only Imagine for a wedding couple, and then things suddenly go in a different direction.
- New Hampshire Christian School teen, transitioning from female to male, “It was obvious to me that God wants me to do this.” Tri-City Christian Academy asked him not to return. (Shorter version of story.)
- Provocative Headline of the Week: Southern Baptist Preacher Affirms Polyamory. (The header was only topped by the author information, “Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood is a Baptist pastor, theologian, and activist… In addition to two bachelor and four graduate degrees, Dr. Hood holds a doctorate with a focus in Queer Theology…”)
*This is the quotation from Tullian’s blog noted above:
Thinking Out Loud 
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