Wednesday Link List

I was looking around for pictures of the 2014 Wild Goose Festival, and found this one from 2013.  Anyone know the backstory on this?

Now that the eye burn-in from weekend fireworks has faded, it’s time to see what people have been reading over the past few days:

• Meet Bibliotheca, the 4-volume esoteric Bible edition that’s taking Kickstarter by storm. You have 18 days to order for Christmas.
• “She was forced into prostitution and suffered unimaginable abuses for twenty years. Miraculously, she survived” Lynne Hybels on Lisa’s Story, and how blog readers made a difference.
• Imagine this: You’re a nurse applying for a job and you get this response, “Due to the fact that…you are a member of AAPLOG [American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists], we would be unable to move forward in the interviewing process.”  A lawsuit is in the works.
• …In other legal news, WWJD is now a registered trademark.
• Under changes made last week, Anglican Priests in Australia who listen to parishioners confessing to serious crimes are no longer under obligation to keep the confessional confidential.
• Charts and Diagrams Department: Learning to distinguish between cardinal beliefs and non-cardinal beliefs, and how your choices describe you.
• Just when I thought I’d sorted out all the issues in the Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision, it turns out to be more complex.
• Two thought-provoking articles on Internet Monk this week. First, Mike Bell looks at the migration that takes place between Evangelical and liturgical traditions…
• …Days later, Chaplain Mike (different writer) looks at the idea of Patriotic Sunday as seen through the lens of a broader worldview.
• Quotation of the Week: Former Chicago Bear Israel Idonije on his communion cups business; “Its not about how many people I tackle each day. It’s not about how many hundreds of millions cups we sell at the end of the day, it’s about the platform.” Coming soon: A pre-filled wine option.
• For Missionary Kids, returning to life in North America can be a challenge.
• Missions meets technology. To be in the know of what’s taking place in Bible translation and distribution is to be aware of Galcom and MegaVoice and Faith Comes By Hearing.
• Essay of the Week (1): Brian Zahnd on listening to the echoes of voices from another time and another place; the not so pop blasts from the past.
• Essay of the Week (2): Gospel Coalition, meet the Anabaptists. Sample: “Due to its reluctance to crown any one theological voice, Anabaptism is multi-voiced and dialogical.”
• Essay of the Week (3): An in depth analysis of the “rave sermon” at the 2014 Wild Goose Festival. (Sermon meets dance party; you do that at your church, too, right?)
• Let’s all take a deep breath and try this one on: Women can’t teach but they can give sermons…
• …The book was certainly the most-talked-about book this week. In a subsequent blog post, Jeremy Bouma excerpted author John Dickson’s main points.
• Re-post of the Week: Renee Robertson’s letter to her boys on why they are the only ones not clutching a phone or iPad…
• …However, if your parenting style varies, YouVersion reports the latest from Bible App for Kids is Two by Two, the story of Noah…
• …And then there’s “the fence metaphor;” useful in talking sexuality with your kids…
• …Finally in our Parenting Department: I wish I’d seen this three weeks ago, in time for Father’s Day. Then again, I wish I’d seen this ten years ago.
• Practical Pastoring: How to organize your library; a 3-minute video.
• As Christian publishers continue to offer specialty or boutique imprints, Thomas Nelson introduces Refraction.
• Millennials may long for transcendence more than coolness. Honestly, I read the entire article before I noticed who wrote it.
• At least he was honest: Singer Shaun Groves is asked by a retired financial planner, “What’s the least I can give?”
• Jesus welcomed everyone to the city: This pre-World Cup poem can just as easily be adapted post-World Cup…
• …and while we’re on the topic of poetry, how about a sample section of The Psalms of David in Metre, first published in 1991. (Great for adults who never outgrew their Arch Books.)
• Missed this one a month ago: The President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary granted admission to a practicing Muslim.
• In Sudan, another church is bulldozed as members watch.
• First, John Piper wrote, “Farewell, Rob Bell.” Now he writes, “Goodbye, Burger King.”
• Last week a blogger posed a good question: If we do things in ‘heaven,’ will everything we do be right the first time, or will some things require a do over?
• According to Facebook data, Momastery is the number two Christian blog.
• Dealing with homelessness: A tale of two cities.
• Video of the Week: Tye Tribbett wins this week for so many reasons. (Turn up the volume and get on your feet!)
• Also making sound waves this week, all 7-minutes of This I Believe, a new video from the new Hillsong album.
• Video classic: Just rediscovered the band Adam Again and the song Life in the First Degree, from 1986.
• Links to more links: Another month-end list of young influencers from Brad Lomenick.

Not sure of the origin of the picture below. It was captioned, “What Happened to the Dinosaurs” and the picture file was labeled “Shoo!”

Wednesday Link List

Clicking anything below will re-direct you to PARSE, the blog of Leadership Journal who snapped up the rights to this weekly aggregation of linkage before Salem Communications could even submit a bid. From PARSE, click again on the story you want to read.

• Don’t question your leader. That’s the message this week in several Mars Hill-related (Mark Driscoll) stories like this one…
• …and a number of Lampo-related (Dave Ramsey) stories like this one
• This one is suitable for framing: 25 Bloggers summed up in a single sentence.
• Last Friday, CT documented church demolitions in China with photographs of officials removing the crosses from churches.
• Justin Welby became the first Archbishop of Canterbury to host a live call-in program, but same-sex marriage questions took up 20 minutes of the hour.
• Essay of the Week: Jen Hatmaker writes about parenting troubled teens.  (You might also enjoy the article’s prequel.)
• A recent book about Dietrich Bonhoeffer challenges the idea that he was an assassin that is sometimes used to justify redemptive violence.
• After the passing of Maya Angelou, many Christian writers hand-picked quotations to join the general tributes; but in this clip, her faith was more pluralistic.
• Even as confused Left Behind followers are thinking the “new” movie is actually the fourth in the old series, the trailer for the remake of the first movie is now out introducing Nicolas Cage in the lead role.
• Must read: Proverbs for people who use social media.
• With over 500 comments, here are some reader suggestions on what an all-Fundamentalist TV station lineup might look like.
• This week we decided to ‘love on’ our friends at the Dictionary of Christianese who examine the phrase ‘love on.’
• Did Fred Phelps have a late-in-life change-of-heart on some issues?
• If there’s a modern worship song that’s unique to your congregation but deserves a wider audience, let the writer know about the Sing It Sunday song contest.
• Should church staff be allowed to start new ministries nearby existing ones? Will they take parishioners with them? A look at non-compete contracts.
• A Christian author feels that Franklin Graham’s desire for leaders to stand up on moral issues is based on a false understanding of God’s holiness.
• A former student of Bill Gothard’s ministry now believes the entire ministry should be shut down.
• Your mileage may vary, but this writer thinks the reason we go to church is not sermon and not worship.
• A 29-year old woman describes her bi-vocation as a Catholic teacher and a tattoo artist, “the best of both worlds.”
• …Meanwhile the creators of the Jesus Tattoo advertisement lost their lawsuit over a rejected ad in a school publication.
• If you know someone who faces discouragement in ministry, this story is for them. (It’s also a reminder that results don’t happen overnight.)
• Jefferson Bethke has a new “spoken word” album. (That was the genre that launched Word Records all those years ago.)
• Faced with a “No Prayer” edict at their graduation, these students simply ignored it.
• One in four Canadians belong to the “nones,” but they are surprisingly religious.
• WLWJS or What Language Would Jesus Speak? The Pope and Israel’s Prime Minister squared off over this recently, and a BBC reporter gets two paragraphs in, but then can’t resist asking if Jesus existed at all.
• If you’re a religion writer, you can write about anybody’s faith, but articles about witches are still off-limits.
• From earlier last month, the video of the 20-ton boulder that just missed a Boston area church.
• Among Brad Lomenick’s latest list of young influencers, was Ben Houston, lead pastor at Hillsong’s Los Angeles location.
• Here are some thoughts for those of you who want to get your church to have a Bible study culture.
• Do not do this: Top 5 worship leader fails.
• Starting July 2nd, Churches in Canada need to be careful about sending unsolicited email, as new anti-spam legislation carries fines up to $10M.
• Here’s the teaser: Holiness, toothbrushes, sex and cars.
• Stewardship Department: Is it time to pray about your cable bill?
• It may be an innocent kid ministry song to you, but to Christians in communist China in 1972, it formed a secret code.
• If you need to brainwash your congregation to tithe more, you could take some tips from this guy.
• Classic video: Check out how this church performs How Great Thou Art.
• More recent video: Malcolm Gladwell spoke at Saddleback in March. Gotta catch up on that, but it’s 66 minutes long.
• Finally, after linking last week to Skye Jethani’s piece about long sermons, we’re wondering if a concentration of Sunday morning services ever show up on Wind Map.

So that’s this week’s list. We didn’t even steal anything from iMonk or Rachel H.E. Tune in next week; same bat time, same bat channel; or visit during the author during the week at Thinking Out Loud, C201, or Twitter.

Hitler’s Pants after the assassination attempt. Some feel that surviving the event only empowered him more. Source: Rare Historical Photos

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.

 

Wednesday Link List

Wednesday List Lynx

The links are at the post… They’re off! (A bad mash up of blogging and horse-racing.) (You should never have to explain the humor.)  Click through to read these links at Out of Ur, the blog of Leadership Journal.

• Why do Christian college and university educations get so expensive? Here’s a detailed explanation from someone who knows.
• In an effort to emphasize “values not rules,” staff at Moody Bible Institute, and subsidiaries like Moody Publishing can now consume alcohol, but rules remain strict for students.
• Jon Acuff took the platform he earned blogging at Stuff Christians Life into a job with America’s best known Christian financial planner, Dave Ramsay. Then, suddenly, he announced he’s leaving that job.
• Video of the Week: Flagrant Regard is back, this time with a wild take on an old hymn that’s actually based on an idea my son came up with. You just might recognize the tune.
• Essay of the Week: A Reformed blogger wants to show a distinction between those who consider themselves Reformed and the more prevalent perception of what is usually called Calvinism.
• Too many pastors know the story of George, who frequently gets invited out for an attack lunch.
• Does your church have a children’s sermon in the middle of the worship time? Perhaps you can learn from a popular AT&T television ad campaign.
• Some Baptist Churches are abandoning sponsorship of the Boy Scouts, and are instead supporting the newly formed Trail Life USA.
• Lee Grady thinks it’s good for several reasons that judges chose an Indian-American Miss America.
• Sometimes the questions people have aren’t the ones we expect. For example this pastor is asked, Why do we say Amen at the end of prayers? (The answer includes a couple of times not to.)
• Question of the Week: Should sporting events preempt church services?
• I’d seen this two-minute video before, but appreciated Michael Hyatt’s reminder of The Power of Words.
• An article I hope you never need but might want to bookmark: How to minister to the parents of a stillborn or miscarried child.
• For only $777.00 and a new pair of spandex pants, you can attend the first ever fan weekend hosted by the band Stryper.
• This Eschatology primer not only provides definitions, but suggests which favorite Bible teachers fit into which end-times-view camp.
• A Tennessee judge rules that a child in that state can keep the name Messiah after all, overturning a lower court decision. (Will his friends call him ‘Messy’?)
• In what is no doubt an often repeated story in North America, a church in New Brunswick, Canada tells a gay 20-year old he can no longer volunteer in their children’s ministry…
• …While across the continent, a philosophy professor at Azusa Pacific University is dismissed after he comes out as transgendered.
• Deep Bible Study Department: For all of you who find this column shallow and superficial, does the “I am the Bread of Life” passage in John 6 have a sacramental application, i.e. to the Lord’s Supper?
• Two years later, Christianity Today — parent to this Out of Ur blog — wraps up its This is Our City feature with a visit to New York City.
• Marijuana. That’s what caused the Colorado floods. Just sayin’.
• Skeptics are somewhat … skeptical about a Charismatic Bible teacher’s claim to have witnessed the restoring of a cheek bone lost in an accident.
• A Seventh Day Adventist Church in Las Cruces, New Mexico is in trouble with the city for failing to comply with an ordinance requiring churches to have business permits.
• On both sides of the Atlantic, churches wrestle with how to deal with the situation arising when someone presents a new idea or concept.
• An Anglican bishop in Wellington, New Zealand challenges high income earners to consider salary cuts.
• Finally, at my own blogs, a look at worship hand-raising; and, when we say “God spoke to me,” there are different ways this can take place, each with different degrees of fallibility.

Paul Wilkinson is available to speak at your next battleship christening, or if you prefer, follow him on Twitter.

Wednesday Link List

Is it Wednesday already? Time for another list of links of interest to people like you from blogs and websites great and small. But wait! None of the links below actually work; you need to click through to the Wednesday Link List’s new home at Out of Ur, the blog of Leadership Journal.

• How about a 19-second video to kick things off? (Apologies to those who clicked!)
• Frank Viola offers a completely different take on the spiritual life of John Lennon.
• What did the Pope really say in that in-flight news conference? One writer thinks it’s not exactly what was reported.
• You thought there were fewer this year and you were right. Stats on why not as many churches are doing VBS.
• Got the standard 2.3 kids? John Wesley would not approve. I suppose you could call this an article about being procreative.
• A UK church organist, 68, was walking to a midnight Christmas Eve service as he had done for 40 years when two men, both 22, beat him to death in a motiveless attack. Now, his widow offers a message of forgiveness.
• Essay of the Month for June (but you may not like it): The atheist daughter of a noted Christian apologist shares her story so far.
• Related: An Atheism, Theism, Agnosticism, Gnosticism infographic.
• Essay of the Week: Ten things church worship leaders want the rest of us to understand.
• Related: What if we looked at our church’s corporate worship time as a spiritual discipline?
• The year isn’t even over and already we have a winner for the worst reporting of a religious story in 2013.
• I’ll let Michael Frost Tweet this intro: “The conservative journal Christianity Today makes the case for welcoming same-sex couples to church.”
• A blog to know about: Jesus I Will Follow You is a tumblr that answers questions from young readers on tough subjects.
• From my own blog this week: A blog summary on the Presbyterian Church USA’s “In Christ Alone” hymnbook controversy and a look at same sex marriage in the Anglican Church of Canada.
• It’s easy to deal with what’s appropriate beachwear for women when you’re on a Christian radio show. It’s harder when it’s your own 13-year old daughter.
• Rob Bell is offering two more of his 2-day conferences in September and October that are already renowned for their lunch break to go surfing.
• Music to brighten your day: Shine Bright Baby’s song from their new album Dreamers; enjoy Beautiful Love.
• A link that takes you to more links: An Arizona pastors offers a 6-part blog series on the sins pastors commit including letting their wives manage everything on the homefront.
• Here’s a March post which is a link to ten articles at the blog “Canon Fodder” by the author of The Question of Canon on — wait for it — ten things you should know about the New Testament canon.
• In searching through blogs I had bookmarked months earlier, I landed on this very succinct post which I offer for your prayer consideration.
• Before you hit the FWD button next time, here’s four reasons that Christians need to stop forwarding hoax emails.
• A historic Roman Catholic Church that is already a shrine to a saint whose legacy is devotion to animals plans to set aside a memorial space for Fido and Fluffy.
• Your assignment: Write a modern worship chorus utilizing the titles of television soap operas. [Warning: Consumes 4.5 valuable minutes]
• Finally, a reminder for the end of the week, end of the month, end of the summer, or anytime you need a reminder.

I have no idea where the first graphic — the premise of which I’m not sure I agree with — originated; but the comic books below are purported to be real.  For additional wit and wisdom, follow me (please!) on Twitter. And one last time, here’s the link to today’s Wednesday Link List without the Linkectomy.

Wednesday Link List

In the first link today, I want you to join me in a promotion project for a deserving songwriter and embed the video on your Facebook page, your blog, or whatever it takes to spread the word.

• Our first link today is the above video. I’ve been corresponding with the creator of this for some time, but it couldn’t go public until now.  “An uplifting song that furnishes a concept of peace and oneness for humanity in deliberate contrast to John Lennon’s iconic anthem, ‘Imagine’.”  Here’s the story behind the song. I want to encourage you to share this with everyone you know! 
• Here’s an article I wrote for C201, that I may yet reblog here. It’s about Jesus’ last words to his disciples, and they may not be the words you’re thinking of right now. 
• And another C201 post that is both packed with scripture and introduces the new Chris Tomlin song, Whom Shall I Fear.
• Essay of the week: Canadian Dave Carrol explains his faith, his faith journey, and his ‘conflicted’ Protestant and Catholic sides to a largely secular audience in his city’s newspaper.
  
• The Harvard Theological Review is postponing publication of a major article on the papyrus fragment in which Jesus seems to refer to his wife, raising further doubts about a discovery that was set to turn Christian history on its head. More at Religion News. 
• Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove critiques a PBS special on the abolitionists; noting what the producers missed and what he is pleased they included.
• If you’ve been following the Jack Schaap story, you’ll want to know that First Baptist Church in Hammond (IN) has hired a new pastor, John Wilkerson. More also at the church website.
• Meanwhile in another casting call, how about Brad Pitt as Pontius Pilate?
• Would Brian McLaren be a good fit to replace Louis Giglio at the Presidential bash?
• And what if a letter from Barack Obama to Louis Giglio looked something like this letter?  Plus, I couldn’t overlook a piece that Gabe Lyons wrote on how Louis was ‘bullied off the stage.’
• Pushing past the controversy, Christianity Today reported on Louis Giglio’s signature event, The Passion Conference. Between Passion and Urbana, it’s easy to see what American Christian youth were up to over the holidays. So why does a search for Urbana at CT turn up nothing?
  
• While it doesn’t have a Christian message, this 3-minute public service announcement from the Australian government should give you good reason to slow down in all areas of life.
• As the countdown begins to the Big Game in the U.S. (February 3rd, if you’re wondering) poet Greg Asimakoupoulos: laments that these sports extravaganzas now routinely happen on Sundays. As game day approaches, you might want to copy and paste this to the American football fans you know.  [HT: David Fisher]
  
• The issue of prayer at civic events switches this week to a debate about the subject at West Point Academy.
• Mike Duran is closing in on 300 comments for a piece he wrote about websites that put evangelicalism under the microscope or simply put it to ridicule. Some of the language is edgy, but if you’re okay with that, check out, The Anti-Evangelical Hate Machine. Later, in an effort to better understand one of the bloggers, he interviews Darrel Dow of Stuff Fundies Like.  (SFL is also the source for today’s lower graphic.)
• A few weeks ago we attended a New Year’s Eve-Eve night of ‘clean comedy’ with Timmy Boyle, and learned that a number of comedians in Canada are creating a family-friendly comedy circuit. Here’s a story of Matt Falk, a similar entertainer whose debut album topped the iTunes comedy category on its day of release. 
• Also for my Canadian readers, next Monday night at 8:00 PM on CBC TV’s Mr. D., history teacher Gerry Duncan wades into religion with this line, “Jesus was Jewish and even he was Catholic.” Sigh.
• Ending with a video since we opened with one: Cindy Jacobs tells an interviewer about the ‘miracle’ of her shoes not wearing out.

Wednesday Link List

The picture: Don’t let padded seat backs stop you from having a place to store your hymnbook. This is North Christian Church in Columbus, Indiana.

• If there aren’t enough links for you here, and you’re into apologetics, the blog Weekly Apologetics offers a weekly link list to topics of interest to its readers.
• Michael Cheshire explores a friendship with a man that admittedly, other Christians really don’t like.  To put it mildly.  Michael was told by some they would desert him if he reached out to Ted Haggard.
• Here is the link that was added on Sunday as an update to our short piece on the Newtown/Sandy Hook shooting. Early on, it addresses that the situation is entirely unique to the United States.
• In all the outpouring of discussion on the shooting, I especially appreciated this one at the blog Shawn in the City.
• And here’s what a school lockdown looks like from the inside, especially tense in the wake of recent events.
• In just days, a quarter of a million people have signed a petition to see Westboro Baptist Church officially recognized as a hate group.
• Candid:  Author R. C. Sproul, Jr. comments on the one-year anniversary of his wife’s death.
• Here’s a sneak preview of the acoustic version of Casting Crowns’ Praise You In The Storm, from an unplugged album releasing mid-Janauary.
• Also on video, Matt Papa presents a 10-minute spoken word piece that dares to encapsulate The Story of God.
• How much of what is shared in a pastoral counseling session should the pastor share with his wife? It depends on the nature of the session, and also on the nature of the wife.
• And Cody Sanders believes that a church that skirts around the issue of the bullying of gay teenagers that’s taking place in high schools is guilty of what he terms ministerial malpractice.
• Not sure I fully get the Christian angle on this 105-page book that can be read in well under an hour, so I checked out a few online reviews of Robert Smith’s 20,000 Days and Counting. Like this one. And this one.
• And how long have you been alive in days? Use the calculator on Robert Smith’s website.
• New Blog Department: New Songs of Praise recently joined the Alltop Christian list with devotional and Bible study content.
• New-To-Me Department: The Poached Egg is an aplogetics blog that no doubt takes its name from a C. S. Lewis quotation. Lots of resources to consider and/or share.

We leave you today with a classic 2009 Time Magazine article on what was then considered a growing trend: De-Baptism. “Liberate yourself from the Original Mumbo-Jumbo that liberated you from the Original Sin you never had” But the rebellion wasn’t just against a Christian upbringing: “We’ve had Jewish people write in asking, ‘Can I have a certificate to undo my bar mitzvah?'” Somehow, I don’t think you’ll see these certificates in Christian bookstores.

Weekend Link List

What you’re looking at is the actual default font size for this blog’s text.

I chose “Silver is the New Grey” as the theme for this blog because of the wide column but noticed immediately that the font size was too small for some readers. So… for the past 4 1/2 years, I’ve been taking 10-15 seconds before posting to manually insert the HTML tag <big> in front of each paragraph. It has given this blog it’s distinctive look and style.

However, a problem has arisen this week, and the HTML tag for enlarging the typeface won’t ‘stick.’  I’ve investigated some different themes, but because the entire history here is encoded for larger type, the end results end up looking HUGE.  Since this blog has operated for nearly five years on a capital outlay of $0.00, I’m reluctant to get a custom theme, but I am also reluctant to walk away from all the existing content.  So suggestions are welcomed.

• On Sunday, Cross Point Church (Pete Wilson) hosted Bob Goff, the author of Love Does.  For the few minutes I watched it was absolutely amazing; a killer sermon. Here’s a link for it [wrong message is currently playing], and also a ten minute Q&A that was filmed for the Cross Point internet campus.  [Cross Point has a history of ‘losing’ sermon videos when they have guest speakers; they lost the Jon Acuff week entirely. So if they get it working we’ll add the link.]
• No blogger — not one — does a consistent job of narration like author Karen Spears Zacharias, as seen in this story.
• Chaplain Mike at Internet Monk proposes some rather interesting parallels between worship and sex.
• More than one in twenty atheists and agnostics pray every day. 
• In a world of online addiction where sexual ethics have been shattered, some resources to help face the problem.
  
• An outraged pastor suggests that sending out or posting your ultrasound pictures is completely inappropriate.
• The Very Worst Missionary is now back in the U.S. operating as The Very Worst Pastor’s Wife. (Catch her  as a guest today on Drew Marshall — see link under radio at right.)
  
• Here’s another short film from Moving Works a Film-making ministry: Father of the Fatherless.
• Well, here’s hoping you can read this in one font size or another…

Wednesday Link List

I appear to have spent my link list capital this weekend by turning links I had banked for today into full stories. Sigh! Please have your link list suggestions in by Monday night around 7:00 PM EST. (For my European and Aussie/Kiwi readers, that’s 19:00 New York City time.)

• Jeremy Mann writes at The Evangelical Post on the lack of good pastors and why this is happening. 
• Somewhat related, Perry Noble unearths a year-2000 email from the early days of New Spring, where he is averaging 60 people in attendance and running out of room! He encourages struggling pastors to remain faithful. 
• A rather complex article by Bruce Epperly that is, one one level, an examination of the theology in James MacDonald’s Vertical Church, but also deals with the contrast between God’s transcendence and God’s immanence, and also how we translate scripture and update hymns. So basically, you want to read this twice.  
• Frank Shaeffer is blogging and has chosen Patheos as his blogging home.  The Blog is titled, Why I Still Talk To Jesus  – In Spite of Everything — if you know his story, you’ll get that — and he kicks off with a four parter titled, The Blessed Hypocrisy “Method Acting” of Salvation. (Link is to part one.) 
• Okay, something a little lighter… from this week’s blog discovery, Annie Blogs, a piece about God’s love with a video embed of Love Came Down a Bethel Live song covered acoustically here by Brian and Jenn Johnson.
• If you can’t get enough of the whole link thing, Rachel Held Evans usually has a great list every Sunday, like Ben Howard’s Christian Denominations are Like NLF Teams (sure you have to be American to get it fully, but the premise is interesting), or at The Axiom Monastic Community blog, a motorcycle pilgrimage in search of St. Francis of Assisi. 
• But of course, that would force us to mention Rachel’s own rather shocking re-examination of Esther (yes, the “for such a time as this” Esther) who RHE sees as far from a Disney Princess; sparking over 100 comments. Quote: “And if we’re going to be faithful to scripture, we must learn to love it for what it is, not what we want it to be.” 
• Most popular at GodTube this weekend, Unlike Christ, a church/sermon video clip from Worship House Media.
• And since one good sermon clip deserves another, here’s the one they showed in one local church on the weekend, simply titled Masks. (Well, the first three minutes, anyway.)
• Christian Week (Canada’s Christian news source) story of the week concerns a Kitchener MP who wants to reopen the debate about human life and origins with a call to define the term “human being.”  
• Christianity 201 marks 900-posts.
  

Wednesday Link List on Saturday

List Lynx

I thought it was only fair to give you weekend lurkers a window into what happens here during the week. Maybe W.L.L. can also stand for Weekend Link List.

• Given the season, we’ll kick off with a feel-good, flashmob video; Deck the Halls as it sounded at the Carlson School of Management.  Don ye now yer gay apparel.
• Veteran Christian blogger Andrew Jones notes that 2011 was the year we talked about hell. “How can someone say that hell contains literal fire that scorches your butt while heaven contains metaphorical wine that you cannot enjoy? That’s not consistent. It’s also bad news for wine drinkers. And how can all the words for ‘hell’ in the Greek be interchangeable while the words for ‘love’ are highly nuanced?”
• In response to the child abuse scandals that have rocked on particular denomination, a UK sculptor reminds us yet again in this pixelating piece titled Cardinal Sin.
  
• Here’s a 2012 book title that looks interesting: Imaginary Jesus by Matt Mikalatos. From the book blurb:Imagine Matt’s astonishment when he finds out that the guy he knows as Jesus . . . isn’t. He’s an Imaginary Jesus: a comfortable, convenient imitation Matt has created in his own image.” Here’s the video preview.
  
• Pastors must love it when parishioners are literally ‘overflowing’ with the weekend message; saying that they “knocked it out of the park.”  Check out Free Will vs. Free Will.  The preacher in this case is Mark Vroegop of College Park Church IN INdianapolis INdiana, IN case you were wondering.
• Move over Martha Stewart Department: What Christmas table wouldn’t be complete without some Christmas Eve Mice desserts?   Mine, apparently; until I read about them at Daily Encouragement where they’re known as Church Mouse Cookies. Bet the Church Mouse name came first and then it got P.C.-ed. Looks too good to eat, though.
  
• While this video was posted to GodTube a few days ago, I think I’ve seen this one before; the one where the little girl either steals the show or ruins the show depending on whether or not you had kids in this particular Christmas production. Note: Earplugs recommended.
• Christian Week profiles Luke Gilkerson of Covenant Eyes and his summary of Five Ways Porn Warps Minds.  Sample: “It taps into the neuro-circuitry of our brains, making us desire the rush of sexual energy from porn again and again.”
• Some Evangelicals may not have liked Christopher Hitchens, but the renown atheist kept us on our toes. Hitchens passed away Thursday at age 62.  Doug Wilson offers a Christian reflection at Christianity Today.
• At Christianity 201, I offer up two videos to try to contrast the difference between apologetics and evangelism, featuring two people who are very skilled at both. Longtime readers here will recognize the first vid.
• At Stuff Fundies Like, it’s time to reveal the truth about Christmas — and Rudoph — in this classic sermon based on ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.
• Lastly, Roger Morris is a Christian in Australia who confesses that his kids have done the whole Harry Potter thing, and then goes on to recommend doing so, “in a controlled and supervised fashion.”  Read his reasoning at Christian Today.