Canada Connect

Since there won’t be a Wednesday Connect column this week, I wanted to share four things which developed over the weekend that are of Canadian interest, but also worth sharing with the larger readership here.

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Overwhelmed, little Ayo Moran gets the view from the stage as he meets his new Canadian church family yesterday in Abbotsford, BC. (Facebook)

🇨🇦 First and foremost, Ayo is home in greater Vancouver, British Columbia!

This is an adoption nightmare that shouldn’t have happened. The general feeling is that the Canadian government simply didn’t do all that it might have done. The story just didn’t get the publicity it deserved, and it wasn’t in the politicians’ interests to make things happen. So this family languished on the back burner, having to fly back and forth to Africa for months because their son, Ayo was at that point theirs, so they couldn’t abandon him at that point. 

The Province (BC) reported,

Not in their worst nightmare could Kim and Clark Moran have imagined it would be almost one year before the three would be together at their home in Abbotsford — 50 weeks of taking turns flying to Africa to look after now three-year-old Ayo while red tape and runarounds Kafka would’ve blushed at using as plot devices made them dizzy and despairing.

The couple are pastors at Abbotsford Pentecostal Assembly.

In November, we linked to a story from the CTV News Network where the couple had hoped their son would be home in Canada by Christmas. In fact, it would be another six months. At one point the couple was accused of trafficking him.

Here’s the updated report from the Vancouver Sun:

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🇨🇦 Next, the Anglican Church of Canada did not ratify same sex marriage. The vote would have required a two-thirds majority from three constituencies consisting of lay-delegates, clergy and bishops. It was the bishops who failed to reach the two-thirds, coming close at 62.2%.

The Anglican Journal reported on Saturday morning:

The Anglican Church of Canada will maintain its traditional definition of marriage after a vote to amend the marriage canon failed to pass at General Synod 2019.

The 42nd General Synod voted against Resolution A052-R2, which would have amended the marriage canon to allow for same-sex marriage, after the resolution failed to pass by a two-thirds majority in all three orders. While two-thirds of the Order of Laity (80.9%) and Order of Clergy (73.2%) voted in favour, less than the required two-thirds (62.2%) voted in favour of the resolution in the Order of Bishops…

…The announcement of the result left many synod members visibly in shock. A scream could be heard. Many members began crying, and one young delegate ran out of the room in tears…

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🇨🇦 Canada’s David Wesley’s latest acapella video has really connected with people. It’s hard to quote numbers here because the count is rising so fast (about a third of a million as I type this) but you should give this a listen. It’s 1500 years (560-2017AD) of Christian music crammed into 7.5 minutes. I’ve embedded here — which will still count as views — but if you want to see some of the over 3,000 comments, click this link.

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🇨🇦 A Canadian gets a first-hand look at the process faced by the many Middle East refugees in Germany for the visit to the immigration office.

On a rainy Friday morning it seems like there are a couple of hundred people waiting in the corridors of the Landratsamt (that’s District Office in English), waiting for their number to appear on the screen, waiting to see an immigration official.

Everyone wonders if they have filled out their paperwork properly. So many pages, so many questions. What happens if you make a mistake? Will they send you back to the country you fled?

Arabic seems to be the most common language. The little German I hear comes from translators, which many have brought with them. It does seem though that everyone here speaks a little bit of German, just not enough for a formal interview. I understand that – I’m in the same situation…

Labor Day Monday Music

It’s Labor Day, or as we call it Canada, Labour Day. Today I want to feature some worship songs that have appeared at Christianity 201. These aren’t necessarily the newest — many are >5 years old — but may be unfamiliar to some of you…

Apologies to those of you still on dial-up

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Bonus track: Relevant magazine featured this song on a post last week, it’s been stuck in my head ever since…

Breaking new music: This is the song I mentioned on Wednesday’s link list. In future we’ll do a compilation like this of the various tracks that have been Video of the Week on past lists…

Wednesday Link List

Too much rain in England, too little in California. Snow and ice in Texas, a balmy 70-degrees at the Winter Olympics. Whether you believe these are the end times, or simply attribute it to global warming, either way, it’s time to pour a coffee and read this week’s link list. 

This Wednesday feature is owned by PARSE, the blog of Leadership Journal, a division of Christianity Today.Clicking anything below will take you there, where you can click on individual stories.

• What if the people who put their energy into this pessimistic, satirical church website had instead created an actual fruit-bearing church that non-Christians would want to attend?
• The face of Evangelicalism in the UK is somewhat monopolized by programs managed by the ministry conglomerate, Holy Trinity Brompton.
• One of the stars of National Geographic’s Snake Salvation is dead of a snake bite. He is also reported to have refused medical intervention.
• One survey is suggesting that only 11% of young Christians could come up with an answer to the “Why Wait?” question.
• Move over, Systematic Theology, there’s a new theological textbook in town.
• A Philadelphia reporter looks at a Catholic and a Mormon congregation experiencing very different states of financial health.
• Christian rapper Bizzle has reportedly received death threats following the posting of a video that is a response to a song sung at the Grammy Awards.
• The latest faculty member at Southern Evangelical Seminary & Bible College in Matthews, N.C is a robot. Current duties include frightening a cat, but its role will increase in a study of human-machine relationships and ethics.
• Pastors: Check out this succinct summary of three lessons learned in an art gallery on maintaining unique ministry vision in a copy-and-paste world.
• Not sure if there was a swimsuit competition, but one writer has composed a list of the top 60 Evangelical theologians…
• …but one astute reader noted that absent from the list was Roger Olson.
• Kirk Cameron’s Unstoppable film from Provident Pictures tops the Christian DVD chart this week.
• Reconciling the Old Testament God and the New Testament God may be rooted in a wholly Trinitarian understanding of both.
• Straining at gnats and swallowing camels? Forget the young-earth/old-earth controversy, the in thing this week has to do with camels in Genesis.
• Tired of the same old ministry models? How about a marijuana ministry that offers cannabis compassion?
• Missional churches are naturally opposed to the big-box, attraction church model, but even in that context, there is a need for collective, corporate gatherings.
• From the land down under — you may need enhanced internet service — 10 rules for preaching the parables.
• Uber-blogger Tim Challies has kicked off a new series dealing with “some of Christianity’s most notorious false teachers.” Begin with Arius, who didn’t believe Jesus was co-eternal with God.
• A Mennonite pastor notes that his church’s discussions about sexuality often omit specific references to sin.
• Lost video treasures: Here’s an alternative rendering (that’s a clue) of the popular worship song 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord).
• Essay of the Week: What kind of world do your kids choose to live in?
• A blogger who is in the middle of converting from Christianity to Judaism interviews someone who has ‘de-converted’ from Christianity to atheism.  A Christian writer says such stories “are like blood in the water for circling skeptics.” Read her reaction.
• Not sure why they published this as a women’s book, as I know a few guys who also feel their world is crashing: You’re Going to Be Okay is the newest from Holley Gerth.
• The latest conflict between pro-life ideals and abortion inducing drugs doesn’t involve an organization concerned about health care spending; this time it’s about a pharmacist.
• When a converted lesbian spoke at Wheaton College, some students organized a demonstration, though not necessarily against the choice of chapel speaker.
• Despite being in a “people business,” many pastors are terrible at leading their own staff. Clout author Jenni Catron suggests three reasons.
• Okay, just hypothetically, what if Evangelicals had this type of website? (Catch the last video, Attending a Mormon Church Service — three hours with no coffee break — also on YouTube.)
• Who knew? There’s a blog with a high Technorati rating called Theology For Girls.
• I liked this book, but with some language issues, it’s not for sale at CBD.
• If you transition from a megachurch to a small church plant, you’ll need to adjust your worship singing volume.
• Finally, I just had to go to Yahoo Images and look up Salvation Mountain upon hearing that its creator died this week. (Technically, it was God that made the mountain…)

Paul Wilkinson blogs daily at Thinking Out Loud, but has been known to name-drop this Christianity Today connection in conversations. Suggestions are welcome, but make sure they’re real stories.

Upper photo: sourced at Matthew Paul Turner’s blog, who got it from Tumblr. Click image to link.

Clark Bunch includes one of these CoffeeWithJesus.com panels in his Monday blog post each and every week.

Wednesday Link List

Apparently this marks the 12th time we’ve used a For Heaven’s Sake cartoon here.  Mike Morgan’s weekly comic can be seen in selected newspapers.

Find the links that go with these stories at Wednesday Link List’s new home at Out of Ur.

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If you don’t click all these links, how will you know they’re not talking about you?

• The Gay Debate Continues: How can we pick and choose which Levitical laws continue into the present age and which don’t?  That’s easy.  Acts 15 tells us which ones carry forward.
• An appeals court in Tehran rejected the appeal of American Pastor Saeed Abedini, a U.S. citizen, and refused to reduce his 8-year prison sentence.
• An Anthropology professor, writing in the New York Times, takes an academic look at speaking in tongues.
• No doubt about it, in churches of all stripes, Bible reading is notable for the presence of smart phones.
• “I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau…” English Bible translations use the love/hate motif but the passage raises translation and interpretation issues that are a lot more complicated.
• If you’re a church leader and you’re constantly dealing with how to disciple messy, new believers, then it probably means you’re doing something right. Conversely, if everyone in your church is spiritually mature, then something is terribly wrong.
• Russell S. Doughten, Jr., the man responsible for the making of the landmark Christian film A Thief in the Night, died on Monday at age 86.
• Thom Rainer thinks that church membership is relatively stable, but that the decline in church attendance is more connected to frequency of attendance.
• Part-time pastor: A bi-vocational minister looks at logistical sustainability problems in bi-vocational ministry.
• Here’s a worship song from the UK that gained a lot of traction here over the summer, Let it Be Known by Worship Central.
• So who are your non-Christian friends? Better yet, if we were to ask your neighbors, do they have any Christian friends? Maybe not.
• If experience teaches me anything, lots of you will click through to read an article called Getting Naked With Your Friends.
• Rob Bell’s next book is titled Zinzum.  Yes, Zinzum: God’s Secret for What Makes Marriages Flourish.  Other than that it’s a book about marriage, I have no idea what the title means, and that doesn’t surprise me.
• Bonus video: The song Jon Acuff recently called his current favorite, Josh Garrels’ 2011 update of Farther Along.
• A woman who supported her gay daughter’s campaign for health benefits has been kicked out of her Tennessee church.
• Canada’s public broadcaster highlights 50 different responses to Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
• Nominations for The Dove Awards — the Christian Grammy Awards equivalent — have been announced, including Lecrae and Chris Tomlin. (I feel I should know that second name…)
• Bahamas’ pastor Thabiti Anyabwile believes that many of us discussing homosexuality are unnecessarily suppressing our gag reflex.
• Steven Furtick is building momentum for a 2014 book, Crash the Chatterbox, dealing with the voices that chatter fear, insecurity, condemnation and discouragement by inviting people to join a movement of people called Chatterboxers.
• Social Media Sins Department: Facebook is now the theme of a gospel choir song.
• Remember, parents; if nothing else, your parenting techniques can always serve as a bad example. 
• It would be great if I was getting a kickback for this rather blatant advertisement, but it turns out the Christian kids’ classic Bullfrogs and Butterflies is still available. Can Psalty the singing songbook be far behind?
• And speaking of children’s music, I can’t think of a better ending this week than this nugget of wisdom.

Today’s column with links activated appears at Out of Ur. Paul Wilkinson is a writer and prognosticator who blogs at Thinking Out Loud and whose Twitter handle does that annoying thing where numbers are substituted for letters, hence @paulw1lk1nson (he forgot to switch the ‘o’ for a zero.)

Thursday Link List

Thursday List Lynx

Because it’s more interesting than the story about trying to replace a headlight on our car.

• Vitamin Zach had this really unique music video on his blog yesterday with the group Kings Kaleidoscope using a tune you might recognize. Check out All Glory Be To Christ. Refreshing!
• I have some friends who were talking about the whole idea of rethinking the annual choir cantata at their church, when suddenly I came upon this story, Killing the Christmas Pageant.
• In 1854, a young Charles Spurgeon preached his Christmas Eve sermon on Isaiah 7:14-15; the wonder of the ages, God with us — a 4-minute video somewhat reminiscent of “That’s My King.”
• C. Michael Patton offers his fellow Calvinists some advice on how not to respond to tragic events, including trying to overly theologize (it’s a word now) the moment.
• Having done new year trend predictions myself, I’m always interested when someone suggests what 2013 will look like in The Church.
• Did a Christian radio host predict his own death? Frank Pastore succumbed to injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.
• “In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight.” If that lyric fragment matches up to a tune in your brain, you’ll want to know that singer Frankie Valens is now a church pastor.
• You can’t have prayer in school, but you can have yoga. As parents protest, what is at stake is the definition of religion.
• For the kid who has everything, Eric Metaxas now has a website selling his Uncle Mugsy series. Yes, Uncle Mugsy, a confirmed bachelor — bachelor bulldog that is.
• Who’s up and coming? Brad Lomenick’s Young Influencers list for December is now online.
• It’s not new, but I’ll leave you with a modern worship song that was running through my mind all day yesterday: Great Are You by Downhere.

Wednesday Link List

Happy 12-12-12

• Ketzel The Cat Menorah can be ordered here and was discovered, with lots of other Hanukkah kitsch here. If you don’t know the story behind this symbol, read this.
• Speaking of kitsch, I never thought the introduction this fall of Theologian Trading Cards — yes this really happened — would lead to people wanting to collect cards that have been autographed.
• He seems a bit young, but someone has already written a Rob Bell biography.  Here’s another review of Rob Bell and a New American Christianity.
• Mark Driscoll’s home state, Washington, recently legalized small-quantity possession of marijuana. He reflects on this, noting, “people tend to stop maturing when they start self-medicating.”
• Di Jameikan Nyuu Testiment (the Jamaican New Testament) represents four years research work and US$350,000; funded by was the American Bible Society, Wycliffe Group of Companies, British and Foreign Bible Society, and Spring Harvest through the Bible Society of The West Indies. Read more about the Jiizas Buk here and here.
• Jen Wilkin writes a must-read for parents on guarding Sabbath-rest for your children.
• Maybe it’s just me, but the idea of someone buried in a glass-sided coffin especially here in North America just creeps me out; even if the guy was/is a saint.
• Here’s a skillfully-written list by Rachel Held Evans of five things you don’t have to walk away from if you leave conservative fundamentalism.
• If you show up on Wednesdays looking for pictures to use on your blog, you might want to get to know Catholic Memes (Facebook page) or Catholic Memes (website).
• “In an irony of history, the time of spiritual preparation and silent waiting has become the busiest, most frenetic season of the year.” Read more from Philip Clayton.
• Here’s an article I wrote a year ago about what was then the top news story for at least month, concerning a popular college football coach and his inappropriate relationships with kids too young to attend the college in question. It’s interesting to read this now that we know how the story ended.
• And from exactly a year ago, Steven Furtick bats it out of the park at a Liberty Convocation. I am really enjoying this series.
• A Jewish music preservation group sets out to make the definitive Hanukkah compilation and ends up with an album dripping with Christmas cheer.
• And speaking of music, I don’t know who wrote this song, or who is singing, but it gets my award for most costume changes in a four-minute praise video. This had ‘zero views’ when I discovered it.

 

Wednesday Link List

Christmas List Lynx

Here’s this week’s list; remember to have your suggestions in by 8:00 PM on Mondays to make sure that they get considered.

• North Point Community Church’s “Be Rich” campaign breaks all previous records for giving to local charities as reported at CBS News Atlanta.
• For those of you who missed the last decade completely, the BBC re-traces the history of the WWJD slogan in light of its re-emergence in the Occupy Protests.
• This week’s top music video release introduces recent Nashville resident, singer-songwriter Jesse Santoyo.
  
• The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision not to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling means the end of churches meeting in schools in New York City and eventually, beyond.
  
• Vital question for worship leaders — and others — at Zac Hicks’ blog: Is the Lord’s Supper a Funeral or a Feast? s
  
• Churches in Santa Monica, California are almost completely shut out of the 21 spaces where they normally erect nativity scenes because of strategic planning by atheist groups.
  
• If you’re into Bible translation issues, here are three academic presentations on video by NIV, ESV and HCSB representatives, and a Q&A and response video with all three, from Liberty University’s Bible Translation Symposium.
  
• Lost files found: This has been bookmarked in my computer since February; it’s a short article by a Minneapolis author, Tyler Blanski who has a book with Zondervan forthcoming later in 2012.  This deals with rethinking sexuality or you could check out his blog.
  
• Lost files found #2: Another February flashback, Perry Noble asks if there’s anything you’re holding on to that God wants you to let go.
  
• From our Pastor True Confessions Department, Kevin Rogers gives his personal reasons for not practicing the spiritual discipline of fasting.
• Video recently posted, but apparently dating back to 1989, here’s a cultural artifact guaranteed to make you smile. Or something.
• A Kentucky pastor reports he has canceled a church vote banning interracial couples. But you get the impression this fight ain’t over.
• This video is from last year, and we may have linked to it then, but I needed something seasonal, right? Enjoy The Digital Story of the Nativity.
• Mark Galli says there’s a need right now for more chaplains and fewer leaders. Sample: “We find ourselves in an odd period of church history when many people have become so used to large, impersonal institutions that they want that in their church as well.” This discussion really swims against the current.
• Another Christianity Today item: Anthony D. Baker surveys what’s going on in church life, particularly as it affects our children, and finds us doing all manner of things except actually teaching the gospel.
• First there was Rachel Held Evans’ 2010 list of 13 things that make her “…A Lousy Evangelical,”  and now it’s Michael Camp’s 31 reasons why he “…Left Evangelicalism and Became a Progressive, Not a Liberal.”
  
• Big Bang Theory Department: Scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider believe they have confirmed the existence of The God Particle.
  
• Ever been in a group of people where someone outside the circle only asks the husbands the “What do you do for a living?” question? Michelle Garred guests at Eugene Cho‘s blog.
  
• Sadly for some, this time of year is just an excuse to drink, even if they do so in the name of remembering ‘the reason for the season’ as this advent calendar found at Ironic Catholic indicates:

Wednesday Link List

Another collection of things my web history says I visited this week:

• The Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit simulcast happens for Canada September 29th to 30th with the rebroadcast of  speakers from the U.S. event plus Canadians Tim Schroeder and Reginald Bibby. 
• Clergy, or people doing the work of clergy, are entitled to IRS tax breaks in the United States including a generous housing allowance. But this doesn’t get applied in denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention that don’t offer ordination or equivalent credentialing.  So as applied by Baptists the housing allowance becomes a sexist issue.
  
• And speaking of tax issues, is this another case of the head of a charity being overpaid? I refer to the case of lawyer Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice.
  
• New blog of the week — except it’s over a year old — is More Christ by K.W. Leslie where you’ll find some serious devotional articles, but, inexplicably, also a Jesus Junk page where you can purchase the t-shirt at right.
  
• With the school year in full swing, Jon Acuff asks, When should you let your kids use Facebook?  130+ comments and counting.
  
• Like most of you, I always keep a Salvation Army Captain or two on speed dial, and mine also happens to blog at Il Capitano Inquisitore. This week, he’s dealing with the contrast between the S.A.’s statement on gay and lesbian issues, and what it doesn’t say about when those same ‘welcomed’ people want to step into a leadership role. He tells me the comments pale in comparison to the off-the-blog mail…
  
• Juanita Bynum updates Pentecostal and Charismatic distinctive theology by introducing typing in tongues on her Facebook page.  To which I say: fsdgklhs ddtowyet scprnap.
• “…The man told me in the letter that he had seethed in a quiet fury and then picked up his Bible and walked out…”  Russell D. Moore tackles the thorny issue of “closed communion” or “fencing the communion table” in a piece at Touchstone appropriately titled, Table Manners.
• Meanwhile, back at his own blog, Moore looks at the internet debates between people of different denominational and doctrinal (D&D) stripes as not much different than the Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) club debates of his high school.  “The Dungeons and Dragons clubs came to mind because those guys, at least in my junior high school, seemed to be obsessed with something that seemed to have no relevance at all to their lives, or to anyone else’s. But D&D became their identity.” Read more, or rather, read Moore.
• Glen Scrivener has written a poem that takes three minutes to read and contains 106 phrases that the King James Bible introduced into the language. He calls it a King James-themed something or other. (It may turn up here in full on a slow day, but you can read it now!) It’s also a video which you can watch here, or literally watch it here in the comments section.
  
• Shawn Stutz offers his rant about Bible Gateway’s ‘sanctified’ version of Farmville.
  
• Are you ready for “The Great Atomic Power?”  That’s the theme of a bluegrass/country song by the Louvin Brothers.  But as Darrell at SFL informed me, Ira Louvin’s story is a little checkered.
  
• This one stretches all the way back to late July, but I guess this really hot breaking Christian news story took a little longer to reach us here.
  
• This week’s cartoon — in keeping with our green t-shirt theme — is from No Apologies Allowed, which describes itself as “Weekly apologetics cartoons and quotes for the faithful, the faithless, and the full-of-its.” The blog consists recently of responses to atheists and Mormons.

Wednesday Link List

John McPherson of Close to Home fame kicks off and ends this week’s link list.  Click the images to view more.  I wonder if Rob Bell bought the print or t-shirt of the one above?

• Is the term ‘Evangelical’ losing its meaning or become too broad a term?  Randy Alcorn digs deep into that question.
• A year too late, as it turned out, I discovered Lance, who made some of the best fan videos for Christian music songs I’ve ever seen.  Check out God of this City.  Anybody know if he’s making these under another user name?
  
• And speaking of music, Dan Kimball returns — I think he’s covered this before — to question the whole notion of “worship equals music” which can cloud our thinking about true worship.
  
• How could I not link to an article titled, “Oral Tradition of the Gospels and Justin Bieber”? Actually, Dan Rodger makes a good point about the reliability of scripture.
• Can I still use the word “missional” without sounding dated?  Andrew Jones aka Tall Skinny Kiwi has a great video embed titled Church Without a Wall.
  
• You’d be forgiven for not knowing this, but the Roman Catholic Church has done some serious thinking about the use of worship music in its services.  Read about this at Internet Monk.
  
• Anyone who has ever dealt with foreign language issues knows the absurdity of some of our Bible translation debates, as Dana illustrates with a couple of Spanish examples.
  
• As her book Not Afraid of Life is published, Bristol Palin talks about abstinence with Christianity Today.
  
• Brad Lomenick gets Jon Acuff to say funny things.  BTW, Jon guested at Cross Point Church at all the weekend services; audio/video is at iTunes.
  
• As promised we end with another John McPherson.  If I’m remembering correctly, back in the day John had a book or two of his religious-flavored panels published by Zondervan.