You Can’t Throw Money in the Kettle if You Don’t Carry Cash

For 120 years, The Salvation Army’s Christmas kettles have been synonymous with the holiday season and the spirit of giving. Kettles are already on the streets in more than 2,000 locations across Canada, collecting spare change and cash from passersby to help us serve more than 1.7 million vulnerable people in 400 communities across the country each year.

After a break of a few years, we’re back with another year of providing our online friends in Canada an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of people in need. (American readers: Just wait a few paragraphs!) The program in Canada is called iKettle. Any of my Canadian readers can host a kettle with a few clicks of the mouse.

So first this is where my Canadian* blog readers kick in. You can’t toss spare change in the kettles anymore because you pay for everything with plastic cards, and you don’t get change. Any bills in your wallet are probably there for emergencies. Plus, while it pains me to say this, a lot of you shop online and don’t even have the collection kettles in your face anymore. (Maybe that’s why you shop online!)

So here’s where you go to contribute*

Donations stay in the community where you live, so if that’s Winnipeg or Calgary or Ottawa or Halifax or some place in-between, that’s where the money will be applied to the Salvation Army Family Services branch; including smaller towns where they have an active presence.

I really hope you’ll help us launch this over this weekend. We will be repeating this appeal on the blog several times during. Our giving can meet the needs both in overseas relief and development and in the cities and towns closer to home. This is an opportunity to do something on the domestic front in yet another year that’s been rough on many people.

*For my American readers there is a secure online donation website just for you.

There are also online opportunities to give in most parts of the world where the Salvation Army operates.

• Salvation Army USA Official Site | Online Donations
• Salvation Army UK Official Site
• Salvation Army Canada Official Site | Online Donations
• Salvation Army Europe – Find Specific Country Territory
• Salvation Army Australia

This is a trusted, respected ministry. When you give, you’re giving locally. But don’t just give. Consider volunteering. Share the link to this article with Facebook friends. And by all means, find one of the many books that tell the William Booth or Salvation Army story and read every page.

• Also check out these Booth quotations.
  

Do your giving
while you’re living
so you’re knowing
where it’s going.

Strike Up The (Salvation Army) Band!

At this time of year, my thoughts always turn to the great work done by The Salvation Army around the world. It’s too bad that William Booth wasn’t Roman Catholic, because he would definitely get my vote for sainthood. Or to be more particular, I see William (along with wife Catherine) as:

• the patron saint of all who do urban ministry
• the patron saint of all who work with the poor
• the patron saint of all who help people dealing with addictions
• the patron saint of all involved with what we now call missional outreach

The first and second may appear similar but they’re not. Urban Ministry deals with more than just poverty, and poverty can strike those in the suburbs. (Trust me, this I know firsthand.)

As to my 4th point, I’ve written here before how in some respects the Booths invented missional. Their story should be required reading at all junctures of ministry training. I’ve posted this here and on Twitter more than once:

Q: Why are there no Salvation Army bloggers?

A: While everybody else is writing about it, The Salvation Army is out there doing it.

This year the Army celebrated its 150th anniversary. While reading an infographic on the back page of the Canadian edition of Salvationist I learned a few things.

• Although 1865 is considered the year of its founding, it was 1877 before Elijah Cadman began introducing military terminology
• A year later, The Fry Family introduced the first Salvation Army band in 1878
• The Army is now active in 126 countries
• The Army has built 350 hospitals, health centers and clinics
• The Army has founded 2,700 schools

In my part of the world this is the time of year the local corps (congregation) raises its entire year’s budget for the Family Services division. They can’t shake the sleigh bells anymore — retailers think it’s too disruptive, though the atmosphere it creates is great — but they are present in or at a number of grocery/department stores here.

Many people here don’t carry cash anymore. For that there are online kettles in most parts of the world where the Salvation Army operates.

• Salvation Army USA Official Site | Online Donations
• Salvation Army UK Official Site
• Salvation Army Canada Official Site | Online Donations
• Salvation Army Europe – Find Specific Country Territory
• Salvation Army Australia

This is a trusted, respected ministry. When you give, you’re giving locally. (Do your giving / while you’re living / so you’re knowing / where it’s going.) But don’t just give. Consider volunteering. Share the link to this article with Facebook friends. And by all means, find one of the many books that tell the William Booth or Salvation Army story and read every page.

Also check out these Booth quotations.

 

 

 

The Blogging and Congregational Outreach Analogy: 3 Types of Churches

I met Glenn Schaeffer years ago when he was a pastor in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada; and for many years his very colorful blog, Go and Make has been linked here. These thoughts really resonated and I wanted to make sure you had a chance to think this over!

You Find It … Hyperlinked … Embedded … What is the Tendency of Your Congregation?

I have been blogging for a few years. As I compose articles I find there are times when, either for the press of time or simply out of sheer laziness, I simply mention a resource and hope the reader will take the initiative and find it online. (This is not my usual practice!) There are times I will hyperlink to a resource so with a simple click of the mouse the reader will be taken to the website.  Other times, I embed the material right into the blog so that the reader simply scrolls down … clicks and watches what has been embedded into the blog.

I can’t help but see a parallel with congregations and their attitude toward their mission to the lost people in their community. Some congregations have the attitude that, “We’ve let people of this community know we are here. We have built our building, erected a sign and we have a website.  Now, it’s up the people of this community to find us.”

Other congregations “hyperlink” to their community.  Vacation Bible Schools, community workshops, worship services in local senior centers, brochure distributions, radio ads, preschools, “block parties” and home Bible studies make it easier for people in their community to find them.

Other congregations “embed” themselves into the social fabric of their community.   Member’s volunteer in a variety of community organizations … foster friendships with their unchurched friends or coworkers … develop relationships with seniors in senior care homes … invite immigrants into their homes to introduce them to western cultural practices … develop working partnerships with local organizations in their community or the neighborhood around their church building.  The people of the community encounter members of “embedded” congregations almost everywhere.  “Embedded congregations” don’t wait for people to find them … they find the people and serve them … love them and tell them about Christ!

What is the tendency of your congregation?

 

 

We Don’t Want You to Serve, We Want You to Join In

This first appeared six years ago here at Thinking Out Loud and has been edited and updated…

. Several decades ago, I was hired by a Christian sports resort, a prestigious residential facility two hours north of Toronto, Canada offering one-week programs to the children of the well-heeled. Not coming from a ‘camping’ background, I suppose that I brought a different skill set in my toolbox, and was told that I was a helpful person to have around. Later, I learned that this meant I was able to bring strong leadership skills, especially the ‘upfront’ abilities needed to chair a meeting or an event, or facilitate a discussion group. Basically, I could get up in front of a group of people and talk and engage their interest.  In later years, I learned that having ‘profile’ really feeds the ego — and prevents others from having a turn — and that a better place of service might be at the back of the room instead of the front, or perhaps behind the scenes altogether. I am now comfortable serving in either capacity. However, more recently, I’ve been aware of situations where neither gift of service — profile, or behind-the-scenes — is called for. Case in point: Each year, people in our town organize to present an annual Christmas Dinner on Christmas Day. This event is put on for the sake of people who can’t afford a fancy Christmas dinner, or simply don’t want to be alone on the 25th. At this event, no one is ’serving’ anyone else. True, there is a core team of volunteers; but they sit together with everyone else; there’s no ‘us’ and ‘them.’ There’s no ‘doing for,’ it’s about ‘doing with.’The plates are on the table as they would be at a family Christmas dinner, and everyone at the table is equal. It’s about being among. Clearly, a different mentality is needed if a thing like this is going to be effective. The problem is that so many — okay, I’ll say it: so many of us – have been ‘bred’ for either upfront profile service or even behind the scenes service, that it can be difficult to fit into a new ministry paradigm. Or is it? I think that anyone, if they take about thirty seconds to think about it, can buy into a different way of thinking. And years later, I did actually buy-in. The ministry my wife pioneered to people living in a dilapidated motel centers around a weekly dinner. For the first 2-3 weeks, I would eat at home first, and then show up to help serving. But my wife didn’t need people to ‘help serving’ and the people there didn’t need ‘help’ to scoop up a slice of roast beef and mashed potatoes. They needed people who wanted to be their friends. The problem is, being behind the scenes or being up on a platform or stage is really, really safe. Especially if it’s a ministry to the poor. You don’t have to share serving utensils; you don’t have to breathe the air if someone has a bad cough. Sadly, it’s those safe ministry roles that people are still being trained for and still being ‘bred’ for; and those in leadership are still taught to keep a buffer zone, or safe distance, between leaders and parishioners. That ministry paradigm is just not always applicable or helpful.

 

Update: As time passed, it was necessary to have some servers roaming around between tables. Eventually, this group grew too large; people wanted or needed to be there, but perhaps didn’t want to admit this, so they rationalized their service as a ministry opportunity and perhaps missed an opportunity to be ministered to. Nonetheless, the event has grown to the point where this year, it is being split into two dinners in two locations.  A lot of people are lonely on Christmas Day… What can you do in your city or town or small corner of the world to make a difference?

Wednesday Link List

A Happy Independence Day to our U.S. readers and a one-day belated Happy Canada Day to readers in the land north of the 49th. On with the linkage…

• I’m not sure what the major story is here: That Eric Metaxas has finished a new book on Miracles or that veteran talk show host Dick Cavett is guest-hosting the next Socrates in the City event.
• What’s in a sermon series title? Reading this short devotional, I wondered what would happen if Andy Stanley’s popular series Guardrails had been called Rumble Strips.
• For preachers, there is a difference between messages that exhort and messages that evoke.
• Here are some questions to ask as you’re sitting around the campfire: Can we sin in Heaven? Also, Doesn’t God need to have had a creator? Or, you could just go in the cabin and play Dutch Blitz.
• David Fitch says you can’t be missional and be multi-site.
• Quotation of the Week? “…Prayer is like a shot of WD-40 into my brain. It unsticks things. It loosens things up. I run more smoothly after I pray.”  How I learned to pray like a Catholic.
• When a major issue faces your denomination, you can form a task force to spend several years looking into it, or you can let your denominational college’s scholars provide direction.
• Another hidden story: A United Methodist minister who officiated his gay son’s wedding is reinstated; but the final paragraph reveals he has two other gay children.
• In New Zealand, you can’t suggest in media advertising that anointing oil and prayer brings healing.
• I have a great respect for bloggers who do investigative writing, especially when there’s lots of intrigue.
• More than simply architecturally significant: A new house of worship in Berlin is a mosque, a synagogue and a church.
• A UK writer brings focus to someone usually not considered in the story of the detention of Meriam Ibriham in Sudan.
• Essay of the Week (1): A look at a new HBO series based on the novel The Leftovers, and what the writer calls “the power of rapturology.”  (Also coining the word, “apocalyptabuse.”)
• Essay of the Week (2): In making Christianity all about ‘going to heaven’ we’ve basically tricked an entire generation with a flawed sales pitch.
• Though he already has great daily stats, apparently Tim Challies struck a nerve when he briefly stated that he doesn’t allow his kids to attend or host sleepovers.
• Christianity Today’s July/August issue debuts its list of 33 young leaders under 33 in this summer cover story.
• In the wake of previous issues, Tyndale House Publishing has scrapped Resurgence, a specialty imprint of Mark Driscoll, and canceled the fall release of a new Driscoll title.
• An explicit article for the sisters: “we have got to stop focusing so much on virginity that we forget to include purity in our discussions.”
• Five takeaways from Monday morning’s Supreme Court victory for Hobby Lobby.
• Looking at a Focus on the Family Study that indicates your college-bound kids don’t have to abandon church and faith.
• The Trinity Western Law School story continues to develop as the province of New Brunswick’s Law Society breaks ranks with its counterparts in other provinces and approves the school.
• Even the curators of Calvinism at Reformation21 got involved when Instagram shut down an account over a cute baby picture.
• Under new proposals, officials in Northern Ireland would be able to have in-house visits with homeschool families to monitor progress.
• The medium is the message: So, did Samuel really return from the dead and speak with Saul?
• Michael Newnham runs this same blog post every Wednesday. (This sidebar to the story may make you cry.)
• If you like a real preaching challenge, you could try Revelation 8 and 9.
• While the web page is trying to sell a book, the principle is worth considering: That care-giving should be in your church growth toolbox.
• This links to a very short piece, but one that strikes a nerve in my own home. What’s it like returning to the church where spiritual abuse has taken place? How does it feel on that first Sunday?
• Music corner: The Canadian band Lightfall has already played some prestigious gigs and has a new 4-song EP.
• What do you do when your dad is pastor of one of America’s largest megachurches, and you find yourself 13 and pregnant? Years later, Sarah Jakes is becoming a role model.
• Here’s a complete list of all the people Jesus placed under church discipline or excommunicated.
• The Underground interviews Christian Electronic Dance Music artist Beckah Shae.
• Not only does the title contain a pun, but it poses a question you may have had about Catholic church services: What’s the Smoke For? And Other Burning Questions About the Liturgy.
• Finally, the holiday weekend question that’s on everybody’s back bumper: Got KJV?

When not playing one of the 820 Solitaire variants while listening to sermon podcasts, Paul Wilkinson blogs at at Thinking Out Loud, edits the devotional blog Christianity 201, and provides hints of the following week’s link list on Twitter.

Learned this wisdom on this week’s edition of the Phil Vischer Podcast

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.

Review: Awakening of Hope – The Video

Several months ago I reviewed the book Awakening of Hope by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, which looks at several of the elements of what is sometimes called the new monasticism.  While there’s no mention of vows of poverty or silence, and nobody is wearing matching robes (or even hoodies), the book is an excellent study of everyday people who either choose to live in community, or find themselves living communally due to circumstances. The link in this paragraph leads you to a list of the six topics actually under study, which include the concept of a shared meal and the importance of pacifism.

I was quite taken by the book. The text is rich, and JW-H has a wealth of travel and experience to draw from in his writing. But all this time I was dying to know what the accompanying video would be like. Finally, I got my wish.

If your perception of Zondervan curriculum involves packages hosted by Philip Yancey or Andy Stanley, you’d be a little out of your depth with this one. Owing more to NOOMA than anything else, the six 15-minute sessions involve some very raw footage — with varying sound levels — that may or may not be in focus. In the very first minute Shane Claiborne is interrupted by a child at the door of the house where he’s filming, Chris Haw is distracted by backyard chickens and the people whose dining room Shane is using come home to find a film crew in their house.

More to the point, the segments are more of an extension to the printed book. When you’ve read the chapter and people have gone around the circle and discussed the various take-outs, you then start the DVD and are immersed in the topic on a whole different — and probably unexpected — level. The interviews — including one with L’Arche founder Jean Vanier — complement rather than continue what the book was discussing. (The book also contains the DVD study questions, there is no additional resource needed.)

I asked Gary O’Dwyer, a local pastor friend who is working with both the book and the DVD to confirm this and he agreed,

“The video is not tied directly to the book. The main portion of the video does offer some very interesting/inspiring individual examples of Hope as well as living Christ’s message.”

The six segments are somewhat equally hosted by Shane and Jonathan, and the DVD also contains nine short bonus clips, including Shane’s story of how The Simple Way got started.  Running time is about 90 minutes total with a U.S. retail of $26.99. Click the image above to watch a three minute preview. If you can only choose one item to purchase, I would suggest getting the book.

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.

---

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.

A Snapshot of Monastic Living 2012 Style

While we connected at concerts and music festivals, I never did get around to seeing Jesus People USA‘s operation in inner city Chicago. Long after Cornerstone — both the festival and the magazine — had faded from memory, my interest was piqued again listening to Shane Claiborne talk about The Simple Way in Philadelphia.

But nothing demonstrates the essence of living in Christian community like a read through Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove’s latest book, The Awakening of Hope: Why We Practice a Common Faith (Zondervan, paperback).  Wilson-Hartgrove’s name be familiar to those of you who invested in Common Prayer, a sort of devotional on steroids which offers a complete liturgy for each day of the year.  He’s an associate minister at St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church in Durham, NC, but is probably best known as a leading spokesperson for a movement usually referred to as The New Monasticism, and his blog The Everyday Awakening.

The Awakening of Hope should not surprise anyone by being a type of apologetic for Christian community. Chapter subjects include:

1. Why We Eat Together
2. Why We Make Promises
3. Why It Matters Where We Live
4. Why We Live Together
5. Why We Would Rather Die Than Kill
6. Why We Share Good News

which are also covered in a 6-part DVD. (The print version also includes a chapter on fasting.)

But there’s something here that has a much, much broader application to all of us. You don’t need to have lived in community, toured one, or even known anyone who chose to spend any amount of time in one in order to appreciate the implications of what he writes on those of us who call the suburbs (with 2.4 children and 2.0 vehicles) home.

This book will make you rethink your current expression of faith.

But as I read this book, I could not help notice an uncanny similarity to another Zondervan writer, Philip Yancey. As I wrote for a book trade review these similarities include:

• written from experiences made possible by extensive world travel in that present-tense voice used by travel writers
• honest and personal and engaging
  
• rich text — any one paragraph could stand on its own for study and further consideration
• relevant to the situation we find ourselves in, which probably isn’t a monastic community
• healthy doses of scripture verses that are somewhat cross-indexed or juxtaposed

So we have (a) challenging subject matter that is foreign to the Christian experience of many of us, (b) a writer who knows this subject with great intimacy, (c) a writer who delivers a quality product.

In other words, this is a powerful book.

I’d especially recommend Awakening to anyone who read Shane Claiborne’s Irresistible Revolution, the aging rockers who well remember Chicago’s JPUSA, anyone who lived in community at YWAM or some similar training mission, anyone who spent the summer on staff at a Christian camp, anyone who spent time in a mission station overseas, and anyone who has ever wondered what it might mean to sell the house and the SUV and live out their Christian life in a new way.

For a very brief excerpt from the book, click here.

 

Wednesday Link List

Insert your own introduction here.

• Another Christian leader is brought down by a sex scandal. Not to be flippant, but we could probably do a weekly link list just on stories like this one.
• Or this one.
• Rob Bell is doing a January conference in LA for 50 pastors to spend two 12-hour days learning to improve their writing craft. (With a break for surfing.) (No, not internet surfing.) If that’s you, find out more about CraftLab.
• I like this piece about making a faith-identification with people in the broader community, and then deciding if you and they want to get into a faith discussion.
• In England they count as deaths, and more than a quarter of all deaths there are due to abortions.
• In another link to The Christian post, a megachurch pastor questions the hype when his fellow megachurch pastors describe every Sunday as “super” or “biggest” or “best.”  Actually the one he used was “megamonster.” He thinks the hype is unsustainable.
• The New Zealand Herald thinks Christianity is losing its world dominance, but one blogger doesn’t think we should accept that conclusion.
• A reporter for the LA Times — who is looking to gauge success solely from the Billboard charts —  seems to think that Christian rock music is making a comeback.
• An American currently living in Canada finds her present location gives here a fresh perspective on U.S. election issues.
• So author Janette Oke wrote eight “Love Comes Softly” books, but when they got made into DVDs they added two prequels. 8 + 2 = 10, right? So when you buy the 10-disc box set why is there an 11th empty slot in the packaging? Answer: It’s for this one.
• Here’s a new church video clip on the subject of insecurity. (Reminder, you have to buy these; they aren’t expensive; don’t stream them live during your service.)
• Earlier in the summer,  James MacDonald & Co. boarded a bus for the 40-city Vertical Church tour. Here’s a video recap.
• Memorized any Bible verses lately? A Canadian author once put this list together of 50 verses you should know by heart.
• Drew Marshall had Bob Smietana as a guest this week. The Tennessee writer is an expert on snake-handling churches, but because newspapers are now denying access to their files, we can’t read his landmark article. Here’s a summary. as well as a version written originally for USAToday.
• You’re trying to participate in an outdoor mass in Poland, but it’s so crowded the only place to stand is at the door of a sex shop.  Personally, I hate when that happens.
• And while we’re on that subject, a hotel in Europe has replaced the Gideon Bibles with copies of 50 Shades of Gray. Author Shannon Ethridge takes a look at sexual fantasies in The Fantasy Fallacy. reviewed here.