Three Models of the Chain of Grace

^{NLT.2Cor.5.20} So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”

^{The Voice.1Cor. 1.17} The mission given to me by the Anointed One is not about baptism, but about preaching good news. The point is not to impress others by spinning an eloquent, intellectual argument; that type of rhetorical showboating would only nullify the cross of the Anointed.

^{CEB. 2Tim.4.5} But you must keep control of yourself in all circumstances. Endure suffering, do the work of a preacher of the good news, and carry out your service fully.

On Saturday at C201 we looked at what I could call the vertical chain of grace; the idea of one generation passing its faith and faith-values on to the next.

There is also a horizontal chain of faith that happens when peers share their faith with friends, relatives and acquaintances (neighbours, workmates, fellow-students) who respond. One of the best stories I ever heard in church a youth service where a girl, got up and (I’m changing the names at this point, I am sure) said, “My name is Amanda…” and then went on to tell the story of how her life was changed because of a friend named Brittany. Then the next one stepped up and began, “My name is Brittany…” and told her story of coming to faith because of the influence of a girl named Crystal. Next — and you’re probably guessing the pattern already — a girl stepped to the microphone and started with “My name is Crystal…” and told her story which included being invited to an event by her friend Danielle.

You might think this all sounds too contrived to be true, but when the last girl got up and said, “Hi, I’m Danielle…” I swear there wasn’t a dry eye in the church. You could hear a pin drop.

My goodness, this works! This sharing your faith thing really, really works, and just last night we heard a very similar story involving three different peers…

…There is a third element to the chain of faith model, and as we thought in terms of horizontal (width) and vertical (length), we couldn’t think of a word to describe a depth of cooperation between various parties, so feel free to comment, but I’m calling this a trans-sectional chain of faith.

I took a picture of this page from The Message Bible to use in a presentation my wife and I shared Saturday morning. It’s from Romans 10:14.

^{NIrV.Rom.10.14} How can they call on him unless they believe in him? How can they believe in him unless they hear about him? How can they hear about him unless someone preaches to them?

What I believe sets this model apart is that it applies to a single conversion story and there may be different parties involved in the calling and sending of those who do the work of an evangelist. Different people responsible for the training and equipping. Different people responsible for the accountability and oversight. Different people who will look after the follow-up and discipleship of this one individual.

Perhaps the above verse doesn’t have this as finely tuned, but it talks about process. Believing follows an awareness of the Jesus redemption story, which follows a presentation of that same story.

Perhaps the one below is clearer, but I did want to include the above passage as well.

^NLT.1Cor.3.7 It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow.⁸ The one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose. And both will be rewarded for their own hard work. ⁹ For we are both God’s workers. And you are God’s field. You are God’s building.

It’s similar to the horizontal chain, but each part is now serving a different purpose in a single story. Each participant is one part of a chain of grace leading a single person to faith.

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Go Deeper: What’s involved in the decision making process? Refer back to this model we presented in January, 2018 at C201, The Steps to Decision.

 

Your Job is a Parable: Book Review

One of the best ways to learn how to identify the spokenness of your own job is to listen to what God might be saying through another person’s work

I have a thing for analogies.

I love it when someone can connect the dots between two things otherwise not connected. I try to file these away in my head for future use, and sometimes I am actually able to recall the right analogy and share it with the right person at the right time. Once or twice, I’ve been fortunate enough to create the parallel right on the spot.

My guess is that’s how it is with author, pastor and Ambrose University professor John Van Sloten. He seems to have the gift of analogy — admittedly not one of the spiritual gifts in scripture — that would allow him to make up instant analogies as needed. On second thought, that is the gift of teaching. And teaching through parables was the preferred form of Christ’s earthly ministry. My guess is that in our time, Jesus would be creating an abundance of modern day parables using everything from nature and agriculture (which he did) to sports, to driving a car, to scenes from movies, to technology.

Van Sloten’s parable-of-choice is vocation. In Every Job A Parable: What Wal-Mart Greets, Nurses and Astronauts Tell us About God (NavPress, 2017) no career on the socio-economic spectrum is insignificant, all have something to teach us about the ways of God. He even considered working a half day as a Wal-Mart greeter as research, but felt his friends might misunderstand! (For my UK readers, substitute Farmers in the subtitle for your edition.)

God is more present at your work than you know. And I think he wants you to know that. God wants you to see that he is there and that His Spirit is moving in you, through you, and all around you. God wants you to know him in all you do – including the third of your life that you spend working.

Not included in the book’s subtitle are a look at trash collectors, labor negotiators, photographers, electricians, recording artists, landlords, accountants, geophysicists and judges. But also be prepared to meet a crooked lawyer, immoral politician and an atheist writer. (There’s nearly 50 jobs covered.)

Sometimes an analogy is not entirely necessary. The chapter on first responders, ER nurses and physicians is a reminder that such people are, in those situations, the very hands and feet of Christ.

Reading this I was reminded of the title another book, published many years ago but also from NavPress, Your Work Matters to God. I couldn’t help but think how many people feel that their work doesn’t matter. That they’re merely trying to pay the bills so they can have some time or money left over to do work for God’s Kingdom. Van Sloten would argue that your ministry doesn’t begin at 5:00 PM or whenever you punch out at work, but rather your job is filled with ministry possibilities that can impact you, if not also the people around you. 

When Jesus wrapped a parable around a particular vocation, he was affirming the creational goodness of that job.

John Van Sloten, above, wrote another book with an intriguing title, The Day Metallica Came to Church.

There’s an interesting paradox at work as you read through. This is a book which, while structurally focused (i.e. the chapters by definition follow a specific format) it is also topically diverse (i.e. the range of colorful people interviewed provide a springboard to various broader discussions). If you’re the type of reader who likes books with pictures, this book, while it has no images or illustrations, is actually full of them.

Not everyone gets to see the fruit of their labors the same day. The example is of a scientist who publishes a research paper that is based on the work done years ago by others; and then she herself may not see the full application of her discovery.

We worship an eternal God whose plan is infinite, so for him to wait a few years or decades to manifest the meaning of our work shouldn’t be a big surprise. For God, there is a time and a purpose for everything. And sometimes his purpose, or the fullest sense of his purpose, shows up at a later time.

Each chapter also ends with a short focus section called Lectio Vocatio. It includes a number of different directives for post-chapter consideration. There’s also an index of the various vocations mentioned as well as links to YouTube sermons the author preached on various occupations, including some not in the book. 

This is the spirit-lifting book everyone needs after a hard day at the office. Or factory. Or rocket ship.

A copy of Every Job a Parable was provided by our friends at Graf-Martin Communications.
Print edition (North America) 9781631465482 | 208 pages | NavPress paperback
Print edition (UK) 9781473670662 | 208 pages | Hodder & Stoughton paperback
Watch a one-minute video trailer with the author.

When Churches Become Self-Serving

Years ago I heard someone state, “Libraries aren’t made for the public, they’re made for librarians.” While some might object to that notion, there is a grain of truth, particularly in terms of the organization of the facilities, which often leaves those of us who haven’t memorized the Library of Congress classification system or the Dewey Decimal system asking for assistance.

Are churches any different?

Many times, especially around Labor Day Weekend in the U.S. or New Year’s Day, churches will get serious about appealing for volunteer help. And the pitch is always the same: Serve in our Sunday School; join our choir; lead one of our small groups. We’ve been there.

My wife and I visited a Presbyterian Church once and after the service ended, she was approached about joining the choir, without even an inclination as to whether or not she can sing. (She can and does.) There was no qualification if she considered herself a Christian, although I suppose visiting this church on a Sunday morning increased the odds.

More recently, a local Evangelical church wanted to replace traditional membership, with a form of covenant membership that would require one be involved in an area of service at the church in order to maintain that status. The problem is, many people in that church are involved with parachurch organizations based both in the community and nationally. They are already serving, just not within the confines of the congregation.

The problem is that this has no outward focus.

Furthermore, when we give, we’re subconsciously giving to ourselves. We are the beneficiaries of the programs the church offers. Our children attend the mid-week program and consume the resource materials and goldfish crackers. We show up Sunday night and consume the video material that’s part of an adult elective. We take notes during the preaching and sing with the worship team and consume what’s projected on the giant screen (and relayed to the baby/cry room; and later posted online.)

But at the first mention that some of our donations might be spent on projects in the broader community, or to a major overseas project, we bristle at the suggestion.

Surely, there are greater needs at home; and by home we mean within the church building. (“Lord, Bless me today and my spouse and our two children; us four, no more.”)

And then there’s the strange logic of the idea that we need to develop more inwardly in spiritual depth and discipleship before we’re ready and able to reach out to the broader community. This just in: It will never happen! We’ll never reach that point where we’ve got it all together and are now prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder and reach the world. We have to reach them not having it all together. They might actually like us better that way. They might be more inclined to want to join a family of the broken than a family of the perfect…

…Are we missing something? Do our neighbors see us leave for church on the weekend and mentally follow us and ask themselves, ‘What goes on in that building?’ Indeed, what? Are we more like a community center or more like a secret society? (Especially given the current penchant for not having windows in our auditoriums.)

I think as we’re only days into a new year, we need to ask ourselves how much of our church activity, and how much of our church budget is completely self-serving.

To repeat, we need a greater outward focus.

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Graphic: Sermon video (39 min.) from Vermon Pierre at Roosevelt Church, a Gospel Coalition Church in downtown Phoenix, based on this text:

^{NLT Mat. 20:25} But Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. ²⁶ But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, ²⁷ and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. ²⁸ For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

The Steps to Decision

Two nights ago we were discussing the process by which people ‘cross the line of faith’ and identify as Christians. I looked all around for this graphic, including online, and discovered some people had improved on the one we posted in March, 2014.

Here’s what I wrote about this at the time,

A long time ago, in a galaxy rather close by, a new generation of Christians were as excited about the latest books as today’s host of internet bloggers. While we might think the universe didn’t exist until we were born, there was the same mix of academic writers as well as popular writers. One of the latter was Emory Griffin who wrote a paperback about evangelism called The Mind Changers, and in that book, he frequently quoted James F. Engel, who wrote the textbook Contemporary Christian Communications: Its Theory and Practice. I am privileged to own (somewhere in our house) a copy of both.

Engel dissected the conversion process as only a late 20th Century academic could, breaking it down piece-by-piece. But I’ve always kept a copy of this particular little chart handy, because it reminds me that making disciples (or what a previous generation called soul-winning) doesn’t happen overnight (though it can) but often involves the careful processing through of ideas and thoughts. Yes, some people encounter Jesus and the transformation can be instantaneous, but often it has to be reasoned through (or even emoted through; I don’t know if there’s a word for that) and it usually involves some other person whose gift is apologetics or just being there with love or perhaps some combination of the two.

Today, people still discuss whether or not salvation happens as a crisis experience (in a moment, in an instant) or whether it is a process experience (as C. S. Lewis defined so well in the train analogy in Mere Christianity) but if it’s a process, it might look something like Engel describes in the graphic.

I ended up repeating some of this material and going into greater detail, including a second graphic image, at this post at Christianity 201.

The Brant Continues

As most of you know blogs are called blogs because it’s a shortening of web-log. The original intention may have been more of something closer to diary, which is a void that Facebook presently fills.

A lot of what takes place in the blogosphere is ranting, therefore I propose a better name would have been web-rants, which would now be brants.

In yesterday’s brant, we looked at how Christian organizations which serve the public should be committed to the highest level of customer service. This reminded me of two other areas I’ve written about in the past, which involve the Christian commitment to excellence.

The first is church music, but I will be the first to admit that many congregations simply don’t have the vocalists and instrumentalists needed to pull of studio quality covers of today’s popular worship songs or classic hymns. There needs to be some other measurement of what constitutes good worship in those environments.

The other however has to do with answering correspondence; phone calls and emails in particular, and as I’ve stated before, this is a giant fail for many churches and parachurch organizations, which is strange because unlike the (music) example above, no special skills or training are needed to practice the common courtesy of responding to an email with an email, a phone call with a phone call, or a letter with a letter.

But I’ll stop there, because we wouldn’t want this to become a brant would we?

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Related: Excellence in the details: How’s the coffee at your church?

Intentional Evangelism

If you see the notes on my mom’s life of Christian service I prepared for her funeral, there are entries for various churches and parachurch organizations through which she served. But there’s also a line that says, “Valu Mart.”

She viewed the grocery store around the corner and down the street — or any other place she happened to be — as a mission field brimming with opportunities. No doubt she prayed that God would lead her to strike up a conversation with someone who would happen to be there.

And it did happen. She would relate names to me of people with whom she shared, one or two of which would end up in the kitchen having coffee, or she in theirs. Or people she had witnessed to who would just happen to be shopping for groceries the next time she was there.

For her, the produce aisle, or the dairy aisle or the meat aisle were places to connect with people. She was prepared. I have no doubt she was low-key in her witness, but also fully aware that people are hungry for God, time is limited and “the fields are white unto harvest.”

The question for the rest of us is, How many such opportunities to we miss? Put another way, How many people does God place in our past but we miss hearing his voice, or being obedient to his voice asking us to speak with them.

Evangelism that takes place in grocery stores like Valu Mart is intentional. It no doubt began with prayer before she left the house, and a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit once she got her shopping cart and began looking not for bargains, but for people.

The Spiritual Decision Making Process

A long time ago, in a galaxy rather close by, a new generation of Christians were as excited about the latest books as today’s host of internet bloggers. While we might think the universe didn’t exist until we were born, there was the same mix of academic writers as well as popular writers.  One of the latter was Emory Griffin who wrote a paperback about evangelism called The Mind Changers, and in that book, he frequently quoted James F. Engel, who wrote the textbook Contemporary Christian Communications: Its Theory and Practice. I am privileged to own (somewhere in our house) a copy of both.

Engel dissected the conversion process as only a late 20th Century academic could, breaking it down piece-by-piece. But I’ve always kept a copy of this particular little chart handy, because it reminds me that making disciples (or what a previous generation called soul-winning) doesn’t happen overnight (though it can) but often involves the careful processing through of ideas and thoughts. Yes, some people encounter Jesus and the transformation can be instantaneous, but often it has to be reasoned through (or even emoted through; I don’t know if there’s a word for that) and it usually involves some other person whose gift is apologetics or just being there with love or perhaps some combination of the two.

Today, people still discuss whether or not salvation happens as a crisis experience (in a moment, in an instant) or whether it is a process experience (as C. S. Lewis defined so well in the train analogy in Mere Christianity) but if it’s a process, it might look something like Engel describes here:

Terminology: Liquid Church

This blog began its life as a newsletter that was emailed to a few hundred people. While combing through the archives last night, I found this piece from Spring, 2007.

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When Michael Frost was in our hometown this winter, he introduced many people to the concept of “solid church” versus “liquid church” for the first time. I think the term actually originates with author Pete Ward. Because we use it so often internally in conversation, we thought we’d fill it in the rest of you.

“Solid” churches are visible. They have a brick and mortar building. They usually have paid clergy. They have been around for years and will continue to be around.

“Liquid” churches are usually invisible. They have no buildings. There are usually not paid staff. They, like liquid poured out on rocks, fill in the cracks where the solid churches can’t reach people groups that are distinct due to ethnicity, history, criminal records, socioeconomic status, etc. But liquid churches can also reach special interest groups, people bound by a hobby or sports-interest or just the fact they live in a certain neighborhood. Liquid churches can reach the poor, but also the wealthy.

Liquid churches aren’t so much about church “services” but about “being the church” for people who wouldn’t otherwise attend a solid church. They often begin casually, but eventually move towards what some would term “intentional spiritual formation.”

Not everybody likes this new development that’s taking place. Some would prefer to see nothing but solid churches in our future. But we need different kinds of outreach to connect with different kinds of people and our existing ways of “doing” church has been weighed and measured and it’s not as effective as we think it is. One person said, “Solid churches aren’t working, but we keep trying to fix them, or we build more of them.”

Look around you. There’s individuals and families and neighbors and co-workers and fellow-students nearby who are waiting for you to be the church for them. Not for you to drag them to your house of worship. To “be” the church.

More on The Sally Army Story

So I’m sitting listening to the Michael Coren’s  May 19th interview on the Drew Marshall Show, and it suddenly occurs to me there’s no post up today.  I’m supposed to reviewing The Way, the new edition of the NLT, but how does one review a Bible?  I’m up to the third chapter of Genesis and need to have it finished by next week. I have a feeling there are different rules for Bible reviewing.

Anyway, I’m still a chapter short of finishing the 1965 biography of the Salvation Army’s William Booth that I mentioned two weeks ago.  This is my ‘bedside reading’ title, so I’m in no particular hurry and my pace is slowed by (a) the richness of the language employed back then (and it’s sad to say that 50 years ago constitutes ‘back then’) and (b) continually setting the book aside to contemplate Booth’s pure genius.

In addition to what I wrote then, two things are standing out now that I’ve substantially made it through the book.

First, Booth was immersed in what we call today the Wesleyan tradition.  Revivalism. Holiness. Repentance. But he actually despaired of altar calls that brought church people forward at meetings. He wanted the call to reach beyond the church doors, the message of holiness and repentance to see response from people in the broader population. But of course, the church people, would get upset when he brought what we call riffraff through the church doors.

You can see why, parallel to building his social service army, he needed to start a church; and actually even that statement misses the point because for Booth, the souls of men (and women) were his primary concern. So while the visible expression of The Salvation Army was providing meals and clothing, the object of the movement was always to see many added to The Kingdom, or as they termed it, “soup, soap and salvation.”

Their motto was “Go for souls, and go for the worst.” And their concept of how to do this involved far more than witness, but really it involved their people embedding themselves among the poorest of people. This concept extended to their international outreach; they went to establish a presence in a variety of countries; I’m not sure Booth would relate to our short-term mission jaunts today. They didn’t go to take a methodology for confronting poverty, but they took a message; the gospel.

The consequences of this when Booth’s army ‘invaded’ Switzerland were large:

Booth, in his enthusiasm, and overlooked the fact that the cold proud city of Geneva was the birthplace of John Calvin, whose religion taught pre-election. The destiny of every soul, Calvinists argued, was determined before it ever entered the body: If some were irrevocably chose, others were irredeemably damned.

It was a disastrous decision–for in country outside Britain was The Army subject to such bitter persecution.  (p. 158)

But for the most part, souls responded; and while Booth’s organization is remembered today for its brass bands and annual Christmas kettle appeal, he was, without doubt, the greatest evangelist of his generation.

…[A]ll Booth’s meetings, in a sense were children’s meetings; he knew that people like to learn by picture, not by precept. Seldom did he use a word a child of primary school age couldn’t have understood, and because of this, the flying shuttle of the years wove his message in the hearts and minds of millions across thee world. “Use words that Mary Ann will understand,” he counseled his officers, “And you will be sure to make yourself plain to her mistress. If you speak only to her mistress you will very likely miss her and Mary Ann as well.” (p. 242)

Good advice for preachers today, I would say.

Second, the thing that stood out to me was the very active role The Army took in addressing poverty: They didn’t treat symptoms, they treated causes.

So while soup and soap were provided, they created business opportunities in cities and regions, building plants that manufactured bricks and matchsticks (the latter more necessary in the 1800s than we realize) as well as agricultural operations that would not only provide income but feed people (where soil and climate conditions permitted).

Today, we don’t hear so much about churches starting business operations. In North America, a church would be so cautious about doing so, so concerned about the perception of using its nonprofit status to unfair competitive advantage, so fearful of insurance liability implications, so criticized for not keeping its focus on preaching the gospel, so distracted by nay-sayers who would say, ‘What if the business loses money, we will have squandered peoples’ tithes and offerings.”

Two months ago, our church took up an offering at the end of the service for a guy in the community who was unable to pay his rent. He doesn’t really attend the church, but he’s known to some of the leadership from another outreach they are involved in. His “employability” is somewhat limited, so yes, there are cases where direct assistance is needed. (We took up a similar offering just this week; as the instigator of both collections, I may have set a precedent here, I trust that it’s a healthy precedent.)

But there are times when the church can take the skills of its people and create micro-business opportunities (as we now see happening in third world missions) or even medium sized light industrial or farming projects.

Booth recognized this was the higher solution to the problem; in fact, William Booth was all about dreaming and visioning dozens of ‘solutions’ every single day.

The potential of The Salvation Army in those days was only limited by Booth’s imagination, and the potential for your local church is only limited by theirs.

There are souls to rescue, there are souls to save… Let us not grow weary in the work of God.

See my earlier comments here.

If you’ve never heard it, click over to YouTube for the song Cliff Richard made famous, Good on The Sally Army (fast forward to 2:59)

The General Next To God: The Story of William Booth and the Salvation Army by Richard Collier.  Don’t go looking for this, I’m reading a used copy of the book published in 1965 by Collins Publishing

Wednesday Link List

If you missed the bonus edition of the link list this week, be sure to click over to Monday.

• Quotation of the day, from Arminius, after whom Arminianism is named: ““Next to the study of the Scriptures which I earnestly inculcate, I exhort my pupils to peruse Calvin’s Commentaries…” (appropriately, as quoted on an Arminian blog.)
  
• Canadian author, apologist and television host Grant Jeffrey passed away on the weekend. His independent publishing catalog was purchased years ago by Random House subsidiary Waterbrook Press, with Wikipedia listing 34 titles including one scheduled for next January.
  
• At Age 30, Chris Galanos is the youngest person to pastor a megachurch in the United States. Needless to say, it’s in Texas.
  
• If you have ever struggled to sing the bridge to “Blessed Be The Name” — the “You give and take away” part — you might resonate with this article and many comments.
  
• On the 20th anniversary of New Wineskins magazine, Keith Brenton deals with the emotional issues that arise when one reaches a crossroads in terms of their committment to their church home. To stay or to go, that is the question. 
• Julie Clawson learns the hard way that when you’re in the fitting room trying on swimsuits, you’re a captive audience for the woman who wants to stand outside the door and share her faith. Not sure if this would work at the menswear store.
  
• Lots of Bible-related links today; that’s a good thing, right? Now picture yourself sitting alone in your room reading your Bible. In the grander scheme of things, you’re not really alone.
  
• Francis Chan makes a rather provocative statement about mission and worship, and — just like Andy Stanley’s fifteen minutes of controversy last week — the words get wrenched from the heart of what he’s saying. Gee…that’s never happened before.
  
• How does a Bible translator feel when a new English version is introduced, knowing so many people still don’t have a Bible or even a complete New Testament in their language.
• The Amish weren’t supposed to have cars, but did anybody say they couldn’t fly? In a community where the official ruling was still pending, a young man takes up flying in 1917, and where the Great War is going on, he also is an exception to the practice of exemption from military duty. All this makes The Wings of Morning a rather interesting looking novel.
  
• The Gay issue. It’s the toughest challenge the church has faced in years. And each gay person is going to have contact — good or bad — with professing Christians. And for every 17 interactions, you have to hope one of us gets it right.
  
• Pete Wilson boards a helicopter for a flyover of a piece of property central to a complete relocation of Cross Point in Nashville, and also celebrates a God-blessed history in this 15-minute video.
  
• Sports Department: Victor Goetz is a championship golfer, however he’s also quite blind. He typically finishes with a score of 105. He also earned a Paralympic gold medal in lawn bowling.
  
• Pop goes the music department: A new Owl City EP released yesterday with help from Matt Thiessen of Relient K.
  
• A Lutheran (LCC) pastor thinks you can preach a perfect sermon but still get a failing grade if you’ve answered all the wrong questions or left people with the wrong mandate.
  
• Michael Hyatt sits down with the originators of a rather unique new English Bible translation, The Voice. This edition uses a dramatic script format where applicable, and I’m hoping at some point to get a copy so we can delve into it here in much more detail. (There’s a page sample from one month ago at this blog when the usual suspects got upset about a particular phrase translation choice.)
  
• For those who follow the Fundy Follies, Right Wing Watch blog is doing a series based on the student handbook at Liberty University; this link deals with the policy of random drug testing. Too bad thought-monitoring hasn’t been invented yet.
• Which is a great lead-in to twelve easy steps the rest of us can follow that provide an absolute guarantee that we’ll never be mistaken for a Fundy.
  
• ‘You and I in a little toy shop, buy a bag of balloons for the Bibles we bought…’ — They weren’t red balloons, but they carried Bibles into North Korea, and GPS tracking devices verified that they reached the target.
  
• You’ve seen the line, “If you love Jesus click ‘like.'” Does that mean that if I don’t click, I don’t love Jesus? Is Facebook theology becoming shallow, or were the FB-ers who post this drivel spiritually shallow to begin with?
  
• Now then, as to that Archie comic above. If you’re old enough to remember the “even then it was awkward evangelism” Spire Christian Comics and want to relive those memories, Carp’s Place has them waiting for you on .pdf files…
  
• …And since one Archie deserves another, I thought we’d end with TV favorite 1970’s bigot, Archie Bunker; and if you dare, a link to Archie reading the creation story from Genesis, which isn’t quite the same as Linus reading the Christmas story.