More from Church Curmudgeon

He’s now closing in on 75,000 followers on Twitter. On the other hand, not everybody is on Twitter and this deserves a wider readership, not to mention preservation since Twitter offers little in terms of accessible archives. Welcome back to more from my favorite presence in the Twitterverse, Church Curmudgeon:

• Any shop clerk wishes me “Happy Holidays” and I’m going to sing “‘Twas the Birthday of a King” at the top of my lungs.
• The candlelight chili supper was an explosive success.
• The shepherds washed their socks by night / By day they let them dry / They wore them with their sandals / And made the Baby cry
• Pastor’s in his study, quietly hermeneutering the passage.
• Red and yellow, black and white / We just pick our sides and fight / Jesus, save the little children of the world
• You know it’s going to be a good cantata when the Homeschool Separatist Handbell Choir shows up with a fog machine.
• That rise in humidity is church guitarists sweating because of Sunday’s Christmas music with weird chords and no rehearsal.
• Interesting how energy drinks didn’t become a thing until people did nothing but use their thumbs.
• The worst part about music piracy for me is how much the postage costs to send out the bootleg Gaither tapes.
• Our pastor needs a hip replacement. He’s just not cool enough for our deacon board.
• If you’re going to offer a long prayer to open the men’s breakfast, please pray that the eggs get hot again.
• Please tell the secretary not to abbreviate the Worship Team Fellowship Bible Study in the bulletin.

For more, look for
@ChrchCurmudgeon

on Twitter.com

Wednesday Link List

Here’s this week’s collection, with the hope that you’ll be my Valinktine.  Click anything below and you’ll find yourself at PARSE, the link list’s exclusive official owners and operators! (Or just click now, it’s easier to read there.)

• The Christian Song Competition at Praise Tracks is narrowed down to the top twelve finalists.
• It’s like a flash mob, only everybody ends up at church, so I guess it’s actually a flash mass. (Or a mass mob. Take your pick.)
• Know someone who is questioning their faith? Here are eight important questions to help them qualify what they mean.
• Canadian Christian TV host Lorna Dueck travels with a group of journalists to bring a Christian perspective on the Burning Man Festival. (see pic below)
• Church Appreciation 101: A writer for the National Catholic Review sees some things her church can learn from Willow Creek. Days later at the same site, a Willow Creek-er turned Catholic responds.
• Last week we linked to a confession by Donald Miller that he skips church more than occasionally. This week, a lengthy reply to the many comments received.  (And a long-form sample of those comments.)
• You may choose a church because you like its music, but blogger Tim Challies is somewhat drawn to a church that sings poorly.
• Maybe there are atheists in foxholes, but not in plane crashes, as in the plural crashes, as in one near miss and two crashes.
• As my kids would say, “I didn’t know that was a thing.” But this week we went to a U2charist. The music of U2 and… I’ll let Wikipedia explain.
• Missional Moment: An interview with Michael Frost on the release of his newest, Incarnate.
• Singer/songwriter Darlene Zschech provides a health update on her blog after her first round of chemotherapy.
• Increasingly, church leadership and participation is a young man’s game (or women’s) but there are advantages to getting old and ugly at church.
• Speaking of which, you didn’t seriously think I was going to link to that NBC story about the nudist church in Ivor, Virginia did you?
• Prognostication of the Week: Could organ music at church be ripe for a comeback? Actually, the article is about more than music.
• This is a recurring theme lately, but this UK article has some hard stats: Children no longer know the most basic Bible stories.
• Was some grassroots campaigning effective? This year’s Superbowl ads were a lot less sexist.
• You won’t find it on the Zondervan website yet, but the company is releasing Faith Commander, a 6-week curriculum based on Duck Dynasty with editions for children, teens or the whole church.
• Church Growth Department: The atheist church in Tennessee has added a second service. (There’s also a documentary airing in May on CNN.)
• The MovieGuide Awards, sometimes called “The Christian Oscars” were handed out last Friday.
• Nadia Bolz-Weber gets into the topic of jargon, and while I always like what she writes, you gotta read the comments on this one.
• Allegory of the Week: Author Tyler Blanski teaching a friend how to drive with a manual transmission on his Honda Civic is likened to moving beyond his Baptist roots.
• How to create a marketing strategy like Steven Furtick’s, so that your book ends up on the New York Times bestseller list. (For at least one week.)…
• …and now NBC News in Furtick’s hometown is tracking sales of the book at the church.
• Carlos Whittaker on how the nature of (and demand for) worship leadership is changing.
• Perry Noble definitely has his detractors, especially when he teaches on tithing. This one spares no punches.
• More links: I meant last week to include Brad Lomenick’s latest list of young influencers.
• Kidmin Korner: I didn’t get paid for this, but Phil Vischer’s What’s In the Bible is now available as a church curriculum. (But they know where to mail the check.)
• Pastors burnout and bloggers quit often because they’re living a top-heavy life.
• When President Obama’s State of the Union address had ended, one pastor presented God’s State of the Union address.
• Been invited to a same-sex wedding yet? Check your mailbox. And then check these three articles to consider your response.
• Okay, one last response to Donald Miller, but only because you insisted. Unless, of course, this isn’t how you learn.
• Finally, a Christian fiction title for serious readers who normally don’t touch fiction.

After winning the silver medal in linking at the 2008 Bloglympics, Paul Wilkinson settled into a quiet life of writing at Thinking Out Loud.

If you watch all four parts of the documentary about Burning Man linked above, you discover that all photographs taken at the event become part of a commons that photographers agree to share. It’s part of an overall philosophy that guides the event and why there’s no photo credit here.

Latest from the Church Curmudgeon

On the one hand, he has 63,300 followers on Twitter. On the other hand, not everybody is on Twitter and this deserves a wider readership, not to mention preservation since Twitter offers little in terms of accessible archives.  Welcome back to more from my favorite presence in the Twitterverse,  Church Curmudgeon:

• Our drummer hasn’t seen many dangers or toils, but he’s sure gone through a lot of snares.
• Who among you, if his son asked for a donut, would give him a scone?
• Worship leader found the old choir music closet. I told him they’re Greek manuscripts. Doesn’t know the difference.
• When Noah realized how long he was going to be on the ark with those animals, he felt like he’d been hit with a 2 by 2.
• A guy got caught stealing an idol from our local museum in hopes of auctioning it off. Baal has been set at $50,000.
• The church cut the Senior’s group budget to 20 bucks per event. So tonight we’re going to party like it’s $19.99.
• Please pray for the children’s director, who fell off a ladder and suffered injuries to her head and shoulders, knees & toes, knees & toes.
• I tried to cancel my meeting with Hank from the King-James-Only church, but he didn’t receptus my textus.
• Headed over to the seminary barbecue this afternoon. Otherwise known as casting a pig into a herd of D. Mins
• They kicked the guitarist off the worship team, and won’t let him come back until he finds Gsus.
• It would be easier for the congregation to lip-sync if they’d put the right words up.
• It’s one thing to be at a loss for words in worship. It’s another to write a song called “Jesus, I’m All, Like, Dude”.
• When my pastor’s discouraged, I’ve always found that a note reminding him how to do his job helps me feel better.
• If you leave your Bible at church, we highlight all the really weird passages to make your children wonder about you when you die.
• Blowout deals on hymns at How Great Thou Mart.
• You can’t debunk someone who had nowhere to bunk in the first place.
• Today, in an effort to be more accurate, the tech team is just going to type in what they think we’re singing as we go.
• Changing our vision statement from “Excellence in All Things” to “Somebody Has to Be Below Average”.
• Joel Holstein – Your Best Life Cow
• People don’t care about how much you grumble unless you grumble about how much they care.
• I love how people who mock the Bible for having food laws change their whole diet on the basis of a Facebook link.
• Pastor’s “attending” a webinar today. I’m assuming this will lead to a degree from a webinary.
• If our creepy puppet ministry saves one creepy kid, it will be worth it all.
• What’s the SleepNumber® on your pew?
• In a better world, there would also be a theologian named OT Wong.
• If you don’t think God is patient, forgiving, and long-suffering, consider that He has read ALL of Twitter.

Well that covers about a 90-day window, but is just a small part of the 4,600+ Tweets on the curmudgeon’s feed.

So is it just me, or is Church Curmudgeon a Christian publishing deal waiting to happen?