Wednesday Link List

Summertime and the linkin’ is easy…Our biggest collection ever with 40 bullets!

• The major story this week was that the Church of England voted to end centuries of discrimination and will now consecrate women as bishops.
• Beyond the Titus and Timothy texts, there are other qualities that make for a great elder.
• Story of the Week: She spent her whole life within a few yards of her parents, growing up aboard a YWAM ship. And then she left for college.
• Over the years, many articles have been written on how to be the Christian wife of an unbelieving husband; but I’ve never seen it done as a catechism.
• 

  Read the list here or at PARSE, the blog of Leadership Journal (click this image)

  As you leave to “do church” each week, your residential neighbors probably stay home. That’s the subject of both a music album and a series of documentary videos. Check out The Desert Blooms Project.
• Churches and pastors wanting to share compassion in the middle of the border crisis have been told they aren’t welcome. (More at this story, also.)
• Analogy Avenue: Do we want to attract spiritual seekers, or are we looking for people to join the family? Lessons from the discomfort zone. (Complete with belly dancing!)
• Pew Research has been busy documenting the destruction of church property and facilities by governments. Worst offenders: Russia, China and Tajikistan.
• A story in pictures: Faith Chapel Christian Center in Birmingham, AL opened the door to a multi-purpose center. The Bridge has everything you want in a community recreation facility, with programming to match.
• Essay of the Week: The two types of people you meet when it’s time for worship.
• What’s in a name? This essay examines the various manifestations of what we generally term Reformed or Calvinist theology.
• The December movie, Exodus: Gods and Kings (aka the Christian Bale Moses movie) has a short trailer posted online.
• You already knew this, but to repeat, crafting a sermon and drafting a book are quite different.
• Essay of the Week: For gospel-centered preachers, it’s not necessary to go on a Where’s Waldo? quest to force Jesus to turn up in every text.
• Is social justice truly mandated for the Christ follower, or does it take place organically?
• Baptist ethicists counter the idea that a sexual revolution is taking place among Christian youth…
• …In another Russell Moore-related link, what do you do when a man in your church has confessed his adultery to God, but never told his wife? (7-minute podcast.)
• Defining ‘pastor’ and knowing what a church should expect from the pulpit and what the pulpit should expect from the church.
• Not surprisingly, the Wild Goose Festival 2014 had its detractors.
• Wow! People are really sensitive when you take their religious symbols and use them to sell blankets.
• A former Jehovah’s Witness returns to the denom’s HQ for a tour of the Watchtower Building in New York.
• The question everyone in ministry is asking this week: Does your church look like a beauty salon?
• From the UK, a metric look at church metrics. (The trick is transitioning between sizes.)…
• …while in the States, a look at how small(er) church pastors live in the tension between ministry and management.
• Jonathan Merritt accurately notes some of the tension points in Christian publishing over responding to the gay issue.
• Get Religion looks at the death, by his own hand, of a Dallas pastor, and also at the manner in which it was reported locally.
• After they fill in a welcome card, how does your church follow up with visitors?
• This week the Church of England also voted to relax the requirements for clergy dress.
• Here’s a future book topic, Sandra Stanley on a parenting methodology she calls constant conversations. (Part one of a multi-part series.)
• If your family has trouble choosing among several mealtime prayers you use, now you can always roll the die.
• Short but profound: Many of our miscommunications lie in the ambiguity when words have two meanings…
• …and more on the undermining of the meaning of “friend.” (No, it’s not about Facebook.)
• So if we can extrapolate from this story, it’s not the 98% of clergy that are the problem, it’s the 2% that make headlines.
• Sometimes a disclaimer needed: In a Sunday sermon at North Point, a recreation facility was recommended. Players compete with micro-chipped golf balls, but checking the website, alcohol is a big part of the party packages.
• Binding Satan: Do not attempt this at home.
• Okay. I don’t have a specific link, but there sure was a lot of buzz online about this book.
• Sermon of the Week: This one has Babel, Pentecost, European travel and several funny moments.
• I have no comment: The Jesus Scarecrow.
• The Pope continues to meet with American televangelists, but everyone was talking about the photo-story where James Robison gets a papal high five…
• …Finally, you can now own the same red sock the Pope wears. (They ship from Paris. How do I know this?)

While not curating the internet, Paul Wilkinson blogs at Thinking Out Loud and C201.

Wednesday Link List

Welcome to another installment of random links from Thinking Out Loud.  If you’ve been on summer holidays, the list has become the victim of a corporate takeover. We’re now at Out of Ur on Wednesdays, the blog of Leadership Journal, a division of Christianity Today. We’ve asked our Chicago-based new bosses to aim for 8:00 AM EDT !!

Check the list also for an explanation as to the above Church photo, aka “Fruitcake as building material.” 

• A subject I’ll click on every time: Greg Laurie on why is the United States seemingly absent in Biblical prophecy.
• So what about that verse about those with unruly children being unfit for leadership? Douglas Wilson kicks off a series wondering what happened to that qualification.
• Is there a hierarchy within the Trinity? Michael Patton suggests there is an order similar to the order in which we usually recite the parts of the Godhead.
• The Archbishop of Canterbury: Speaking in tongues? Yes. A personal conversion experience is necessary? No. Following Christ? It’s like getting measles. (Links like this? Priceless.)
• A CNN Religion writer suggests that as with everything else, there are six denominations of atheists.
• Coming in October to a theater near (some of) you: Watch the trailer for I’m In Love With a Church Girl.
• Readers at Real Clear Religion sent in another crop of 33 pictures of ugly churches. (We like #5 subtitled ‘Fruitcake as building material.’)
• Clergy lag behind military, teachers, and doctors in Pew survey list of most-respected professions; and this was a survey of churchgoers!
• Prime Minister David Cameron wants the default on UK home internet connections to block pornography unless the customer requests it.
• Women’s Department: A youthful group of women get together in Talking Taboo, a frank discussion about faith featuring a huge list of contributors.
• Bigger, better, louder, faster… in ministry we often want more when the model of scripture suggests maybe we need less of more.
• A song by J.J. Heller is featured in a 30-second tourism commercial for Queensland, Australia.
• Following a great family tragedy, pastor Rick Warren returns to the pulpit of Saddleback Church this weekend for the first time since March.
• Have you heard of churches wherein when the senior pastor resigns, every staff member tenders their resignation? One writer doesn’t like this idea.
• Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart is due to make a rare crusade appearance August 9th in Buffalo, New York.
• Sometimes those eBooks you get for a $1 (or less) are books that were never edited for grammar or spelling.
• The podcast On Pop Theology looks at modesty culture, purity culture, and why Christian dating advice isn’t so good. (Coarse language.)
• Somewhat related: Catholic bulletin announcement — “Dignity & Decorum: Please try not to wear beach shorts, tank tops, and flip-flops to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Thank you.” But the temp is in the 80s at the 7:30 service.
• While missing the stats, here’s another article about college students exiting non-denominational Evangelicalism for ‘high’ liturgical churches.
• Ancient Art Department: You can blame the Egyptian god Bes for how the Devil got his looks.
• Also at the BBC Culture page: They’re building an ark in Long Island, though this one won’t touch water.
• I thought it would be cool to include a Spanish link. Too bad I don’t speak Spanish. Still it’s nice to know these blogs are there, like this one dealing with apologetics, worldviews, moral relativism and ministry to postmoderns. (Maybe I understand the language more than I realize.)
• American Interest Department: What US cities are ‘saintly’ and which ones are ‘sinful?’ You might be surprised.
• A blogger thinks we spent too much time in church facing the front of the room, and not enough time facing one another.

Finally, since Out of Ur is borrowing from us today, we thought we’d return the favor with a link to this post:

Twentyonehundred Productions is the InterVarsity multi-media team. They post an infographic like this each week on their Facebook page.  Normally, that would be the end of things here, but since historically, the Wednesday Link List began or ended with a cartoon, I couldn’t resist stealing borrowing one more graphic from them…

Anglicans Install, if you will, Their Pope

“I am Justin, a servant of Jesus Christ, and I come as one seeking the grace of God, to travel with you in his service together.”

~ The Most Rev. Justin Welby
from the ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral
as reported at Religion News Service (RNS)

We have an Archbishop.

It didn’t garner nearly as much television time worldwide as last week’s coverage of the new Roman Catholic Pope. Not even close. But yesterday the worldwide Anglican communion installed their new leader Justin Welby, who has chosen the name Justin Welby. He is the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Christian Post wasted no time delving into what someone recently called “the pelvic issues” raising the g-word within the first paragraph of the story, and no, g in this case does not stand for God. Of course, some argue neither does the Anglican Church or its American Episcopal counterpart.

To many, this issue is the face of Christianity. No wonder the church is dwindling numerically.

Timing is everything, and this event occurred in the shadow of last week’s Papal election and miraculously Pope Francis’ name surfaced in this story. “Pope Francis, the newly elected leader of the Roman Catholic Church, sent his well wishes to Welby, expressing his hopes that they can maintain good relations.”

It’s probably the closest thing to anything “religious” the story had to offer.

Meanwhile, an Associated Press story mentioned the honored guests, what Welby wore and something about the choir that sang, but the story was equally dominated by the homosexual backdrop to the denomination’s continuing journey.

Can anyone provide a balanced look at what happened yesterday?

Yes, Religion News Service (RNS) strikes a balance between the pageantry of yesterday’s installation service, the relationship between the church of England and the government of England, and the gender issues the new leader will face. If you only click one link here, click that one. 

 

James MacDonald on the Royal Wedding

Yes, I know it was ten days ago and it’s now old news, but this intense April 29th post at James MacDonald’s blog is somewhat buried among some unrelated video clips posted the same day…

A Royal Wedding?

I got up early with my wife to watch the Royal Wedding of William and Kate. I did this because such things are important to my wife and I love her dearly. We have fond memories of Charles/Dianna’s wedding and like good Canadians by birth remember where we were back in 1981 for that memorable event. Some reflections:  

1) I pray for the new royal couple and ask that the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ would alter their natural course and that through faith they would come alive in a personal way to the forgiveness of sin, and the word of God and the hope of eternal life; simply that they would be saved.

2) I am thankful for the impact of regenerate Anglicans like John Stott and J.I. Packer whose ministries have impacted my life and faith for 3 decades.

3) I am grieved by the religious pomp, contrived ceremony and minimal passing gospel references in the service we and in the end, two billion others witnessed. The mumbling singing and distant glare of the couple themselves during the minister’s obligatory rambling grieved my heart deeply, knowing that this is the only church experience most watching will have this year. And will it do anything other than remind the masses why they do not church?

4) The Anglican community, deeply divided around the world over the authority of God’s word and an orthodox gospel was on display in this wedding seen by as many as 2 billion people. The service was only marginally different than a catholic mass. Reminding us that Anglicanism traces its history not to the heart cries of the reformation: Soli Fide, Sola Scriptura, Sola Christus, but to the convenience of an earthly King who wanted to remain religious while indulging himself in disobedience and unbelief.

5) I was grieved further by the seeming inability of genuine Christians to be offended at what we witnessed. Is the gospel adorned by an openly fornicating couple, forced into church by obligation, led in prayer by resurrection denying-Green Peace-ministers who care more about carbon footprints and unity at the expense of truth than fidelity to the revealed word of God and the gospel? (if you doubt it, Google Arch Bishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London)

I wish the ‘royal couple’ well and pray that they will find in their impossible task and the fleeting favor of humanity an occasion to search out the One whom to know by faith, is life eternal and who rules over a kingdom that will never end.

Thankful for King Jesus!