Wednesday Link List

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

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

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

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

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

No Women Bishops in the C. of E., For Now

There are probably more female clergy in the Church of England and its north American counterparts — The Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church in the U.S. — than in many other Protestant denominations. But a glass ceiling formally exists preventing women from rising to the rank of bishop (literally ‘overseer’ in scripture).

Superficial media reports suggested that the recent attempt to change the rules failed because the two-thirds majority required for change wasn’t attained, but that’s an oversimplification of how the vote took place.

In fact, what was required was a two-thirds majority in each of the three “houses” that are represented at the annual conference: Bishops, clergy and laity.

The bishops themselves — by definition all male — were actually the least opposed to the idea. If it were just an overall popular vote needed to carry the resolution for change, their overwhelming majority support would have been enough to reach the two-thirds needed.

The clergy weren’t so overwhelming but also supported the need for change.

It was — and this is the under reported part of the story — in the “house” consisting of lay people appointed to the General Synod where the two-thirds majority failed.

The House of Bishops voted 44 in favour, with three against and two recorded abstentions. In the House of Clergy, 148 voted in favour, 45 against and there were no abstentions.

But in the House of Laity, 74 voted against, compared to 132 in favour with no abstentions.      ~ BreakingNews.ie

Honestly, I would have expected the three votes to be the other way around; the rank and file pushing for a more progressive situation, and the powers that be wanting to maintain the status quo. But what do I know about Anglicans?

At least one traditionalist, who ought to be happy with the outcome, is still upset that the vote happened.

And the Huffington Post, never wanting to miss out on sensationalism said the church “faces growing pressure to rip up its rulebook to allow the ordination of women bishops.”

The newly appointed archbishop feels it’s just a matter of time, and expects to consecrate a female bishop during his term of office.