Weekend Link List

Happy Saturday. And Sunday. Again, some things you may or may not have seen elsewhere.

• If your church ever had Koinonia Groups, you would certainly know how to spell the word, right? For Karthik Nemmani, described as “a soft-spoken eighth-grader from McKinney, Texas,” the word was worth $40,000 in the Scripps Spelling Bee.
• God Chose Donald Trump: The Movie  “Liberty University students and faculty are making The Trump Prophecy. Students at Jerry Falwell’s evangelical Liberty University are helping produce a film that argues Trump’s presidency was divinely foretold.
• Traditionally, God’s people prayed to… well… God. So in the Christian era, when did prayer to Jesus originate? “…[I]n early Christian baptism, one called upon Jesus, invoking him over the baptized person. Indeed, in 1 Cor. 1:2 Paul refers to fellow believers simply as those who everywhere ‘call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Perhaps our earliest reference, however, is 1 Thess. 3:11-13, where God and Jesus are jointly called upon to enable Paul to re-visit the Thessalonian church.”
• Tony Campolo’s issues with modern worship include the question of tense “I think it’s wonderful that it’s captured the music that young people can relate to and they get into it with great love and emotion. But compare ‘My God reigns’ with the old hymns which say: ‘Jesus shall reign’ – it’s future tense, not present tense… The Hallelujah Chorus never says: ‘God is in control’. It says: ‘The kingdoms of this world will (when the second coming occurs) become the kingdoms of our God and he shall reign forever and ever hallelujah’.”
• A candidate for President of the Southern Baptist Convention offers a four-part strategy for revitalizing the denomination. One of those is planting new churches; “…[W]e must continue to plant churches of every style and variety in every context possible. In 2016 we recorded the lowest number of churches added to our convention since 1988—732 new church starts and 232 new affiliates for a total of 964. It is not a matter of church planting or revitalization but a matter of both/and.“
• Mixed Message: An article on how the brothers can encourage the sisters in ministry is nonetheless set in a complementarian mindset. I mean, I applaud the effort, but it doesn’t really change anything. 
• Finally, it’s apparent that Kevin Sorbo has a lock on Christian film casting assignments. He’s due to appear in The Pastor at some point this year. “In a forgotten part of town, overrun by a ruthless gang; a community struggles with its faith, as they see their neighborhoods torn-apart and their youth targeted for gang recruitment.”
  

Please note the revision to our privacy policy:

“For nothing is hidden that will not become evident, nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light.

Luke 8:17 | NASB

— Church Curmudgeon (@ChrchCurmudgeon) May 25, 2018

Weekend Link List

Tony Campolo Speaks Candidly About Bart Campolo – “I really could have done a better job of nurturing my son in the ‘nurture and admonition of the Lord.’ I could have spent more time listening to him and answering his questions. Sadly, what is done in time is irrevocable.” But then there’s this: “He brings to that humanist community all the zeal, and then some, that I have tried to bring to the preaching of a holistic gospel all the many, many years of my life. He pointed out that the secular humanists on campus had very little in the way of community, and he hoped that something of the sense of community that he felt as a teenager in an evangelical youth group might be evident among these University of Southern California students. He unashamedly declares that he wants the secular humanists to have something of a sense of mission, which he sees as all too absent among them.”

The First Church of TED – New York Times: “I grew up among Christian evangelicals and I recognize the cadences of missionary zeal when I hear them. TED, with its airy promises, sounds a lot like a secular religion…A great TED talk is reminiscent of a tent revival sermon. There’s the gathering of the curious and the hungry. Then a persistent human problem is introduced, one that, as the speaker gently explains, has deeper roots and wider implications than most listeners are prepared to admit. Once everyone has been confronted with this evidence of entropy, contemplated life’s fragility and the elusiveness of inner peace, a decision is called for: Will you remain complacent, or change?“

We Have More Contact with Social Media, But We’re More Lonely – “Mental health providers have noticed a significant uptick in ‘skin hunger.’ This is basically the adult version of failure to thrive and the core issue is that so many of us go all day without any meaningful physical or emotional contact with others… Once I started digging I found lonely women in every demographic… I identify several ‘modern day Trojan horses.’ These are things we think are a gift, so we wheel them into the gates of our lives, but eventually they turn and attack the things we most treasure, mainly our relationships. Technology is one of these Trojan horses, but certainly not the only one.”

Why Can’t We All Just Get Along? We Do! – “Never mind the outspoken Christian leaders who reject the Big Bang and human evolution; nearly 70 percent of rank-and-file evangelicals in the United States say they don’t see religion and science as being totally at odds, a new survey found… Among evangelical Christians, about 48 percent said they see science and religion as complementary to one another, while 21 percent think science and religion refer to different aspects of reality and see them as entirely independent of one another, the survey found.”

Facebook Bans Christian Organization’s Ad – All the advertisement said was, “I Am A Christian – Join the movement at: http://www.YesIAmAChristian.com”.  But Facebook replied, “Your ad wasn’t approved because it doesn’t follow Facebook’s Advertising Guidelines for language that is profane, vulgar, threatening or generates high negative feedback. Ads can’t use language that insults, harasses or demeans people, or addresses their age, gender, name, race, physical condition or sexual preference.” Wait, what? Pressed for clarification a website official replied, “Your ad wasn’t approved because it doesn’t follow our language policies. We’ve found that people dislike ads that directly address them or their personal characteristics such as religion.”

Why The Dones are Done – Small church advocate Karl Vaters copies a list of reasons people are leaving their place of worship, then notes: “None of the things people usually leave the church over are things that actually define the church. The church is two simple things – neither of which almost anyone wants to be done with. The church is people loving Jesus and loving others. When former churchgoers say they’re done with church, they’re seldom actually done with loving Jesus or loving others. What they’re done with is the extras we’ve attached to Jesus and people – often at the expense of the two essentials.”

A Never Ending Supply of Made-Up Words – “Though I myself find most doctrinal disagreements to be a major snoozefest…I have managed to acquire over the years a small set of really interesting tidbits that for me represent the highlight of the Calvinism-Arminianism debate. It’s the Calminians and the Arvinists! If you take a close look at those two words—Calminian and Arvinist—you’ll see that they are basically the two halves of the words Calvinist and Arminian that have been chopped and glued back together with their rival halves. This right here is the kind of Christian slang that moves me to the edge of the proverbial seat and makes me literally push my glasses higher on the bridge of my nose. This is linguistic gold, ladies and gentlemen.” Then, the author at The Dictionary of Christianese, pursues this in a depth greater than many doctoral theses.

For Those Who Say They Don’t Want a Funeral – “I wanted no funeral. I didn’t want people standing up to testify to what a great guy Stan was. ‘He served Christ so faithfully, for so many years.’ ‘What an example of a godly man!’ If only they knew. If they saw the laziness and self-centeredness and waywardness and mixed motives and mean-spirited thoughts, their accolades would be silenced. I didn’t want hagiography. I didn’t want people testifying to a man they thought they knew, extolling virtues that would be dwarfed by vices. Not having a funeral would avoid a sideshow. But I have changed my mind—for two reasons. One, a friend died. The family decided not to have a funeral, nothing to acknowledge him or his death.  At first I took it in stride, but then it occurred to me that something was not right with that. In not acknowledging his death, they did not acknowledge his life.”

A Defense of Infant Baptism – Kevin DeYoung: “One, the burden of proof rests on those who would deny children a sign they had received for thousands of years. If children were suddenly outside the covenant, and were disallowed from receiving any “sacramental” sign, surely such a massive change, and the controversy that would have ensued, would been recorded in the New Testament… Two, the existence of household baptisms is evidence that God still deals with households as a unit… Three, children are told to obey their parents…Children in the church are not treated as little pagans to be evangelized, but members of the covenant who owe their allegiance to Christ. Four, within two centuries of the Apostles we have clear evidence that the church was practicing infant baptism.”

One for the Road – Last week, Julie Roys’ Up For Debate radio show looked at how Lent has spread beyond its mainline roots with this opener, “Protestants observing Lent is like the English celebrating the 4th of July.” Guests on the one hour program are Bryan Litfin and Carl Trueman.

Top Image: Retail a comic by Norm Feuti (click image to link)
Lower Image: Classic Archie Christian Comic by Al Hartley (click to link)

 

 

Elderly Need Ministry, Too

Tony Campolo has written an interesting piece this morning at Red Letter Christians, which I am re-blogging here with emphasis added.

The church I attend currently has five people listed on the roster of ministry staff.

• Lead Pastor
• Associate Pastor of Care and Discipleship (a former youth pastor, currently in the process of moving to a new church, whose focus was on twenty- and thirty-somethings)
• Youth Pastor
• Director of Children’s Ministries (not quite full time)
• Children’s Outreach Director (part time)

Other than the administrative assistant, there are no other paid staff. So you see the demographic consequences here, most of the ministry dollars spent on salaries are benefit parents with young children and teens.

Tony writes:

It seems strange to me that churches should show such favoritism to the youth and do little, if anything, for the elderly. When a church adds a new staff member, it is usually someone to work with the young people in the church, even though the young people constitute only six or seven percent of those who show up on Sunday morning, whereas a third of all those in attendance are over the age of 65.

In spite of this reality, the church is ready to appoint a youth minister, but not a minister with a specific assignment to the elderly. It is assumed that elderly people don’t need special ministry, but nothing could be further from the truth. Sociological studies indicate that elderly people are more likely to lose faith in God than young people. Through the years they have seen much suffering; they have seen too many unanswered prayers; and in the face of death they face incredible uncertainties.

I’m not saying that Youth Pastors are unimportant but what what I am saying is that churches go out of their way to add a youth worker position so that this person can help build up the church’s youth ministry, with the goal of attracting more youth to come to church. At the same time, there is already a large portion of the church that attend every week, give their tithes, and volunteer in church ministries but do not receive the attention or care that is essential to their spiritual well being. Churches are in greater need of a hired hand to assist with the day to day needs of the elderly than they are for the youth.

When I was younger I never realized the amount of time and energy that it takes to be old. Today, I spend countless hours going to and from doctors appointments and part of my daily routine now includes taking a variety of different medication that helps me keep going. It’s a hard task for me and I am in good health. For the millions of elderly individuals in our churches today without the luxury of good health I can easily see the struggles of keeping up with the demands of aging.

An Elderly Care Pastor could assist the elderly of their congregation by assisting individuals with transportation needs to and from doctors appointments, ensuring that prescription medications are taken on time and in the correct dosage, and by organizing elderly activities so that these individuals are not left sitting alone at home for days on end. Too many elderly people I meet tell me stories of how they spend most of their last years sitting alone with few, if any, visitors. We, the church, can and must do something to help the elderly. The addition of an Elderly Care Pastor is the first step towards making an immediate impact in the lives of the elderly of our congregations today.

Considering that the church is made up of elderly people more than young people, what is the church going to do in response to the needs of this important segment of its membership? My suggestion here is not the only suggestion worth considering. Please contemplate this issue and see what ideas come to mind that work to provide for the elderly in your local congregations.

To be fair, the church I attend has a Parish Nurse (a term borrowed from Anglicans, I believe) on call who does provide some of the functions Tony mentioned in the 4th and 5th paragraphs. I don’t know if she is paid beyond expenses as salaries aren’t broken down in the annual report and I’ve never bothered to ask.
So what do you think?
How would churches where you live relate to Tony’s perspective here?

Send Tony some link love and check out this article at source.

---

 

• Related: Churches like to have young staff and young-looking staff. In many churches worship-leading and teaching pastor positions are given to people under 40. I wrote about this in June 2011, When 40 is Too Old to Serve Your Church.

 

Thomas Nelson Accused of Spiritual Deception

A conservative writer at WND (World Net Daily) held nothing back yesterday in an full-blown attack levied at Thomas Nelson, an imprint now part of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. In an article titled Beware the Bookseller Pretending To Be Christian — more about that headline later — Jim Fletcher writes:

Back in the day, with its marketing angle that touted the company’s roots (the company began in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1798), one got the feeling that its books were trustworthy.

Guess not.

He continues,

Thomas Nelson has seemingly not cared about being too rigidly biblical in its offerings for some time, and the current list of authors/books is disturbing to anyone who would identify as a conservative Christian…

He then systematically works his way through attacks — some detailed and others off-the-cuff — at Shane Claiborne, Tony Campolo, Rachel Held Evans, Brad Lomenick, Richard Stearns, Ron Sider, Donald Miller, Judah Smith, Leonard Sweet, and Bob Roberts, Jr. It’s hard to imagine that there was anyone left on the author roster that Fletcher hadn’t lined up in his sights.

As the article builds to a crescendo he concludes:

…They remind me of those thoroughbred running backs in college and the NFL, the ones who feint this way and that, stopping defensive backs in their tracks.

But feinting can also mean one who intentionally deceives.

Deception.

Read the full article here.

It should be noted that whether you agree or disagree with the doctrinal state of Christian publishers in general, or Thomas Nelson in particular, WND editors committed a major blunder in creating the article’s headline. (Generally, writers do not choose their header.) The article is about the actions of a publisher, but the headline implies that booksellers — brick and mortar, or online — are complicit in spiritual deception, when perhaps they have simply trusted the Nelson brand over the years. Yes, local retailers try to practice discernment, but even in these scaled-back publishing times, they can’t be expected to read every book by every author.  

So what does an article like this accomplish, exactly? It’s certainly meant to be insightful and helpful, but it comes off like a rant. I don’t agree with every word that Rachel Held Evans or Donald Miller writes, but I do find sections of their books redemptive. To a younger generation, they represent a trend where key voices in the Christian blogosphere have graduated to print. And just as there are at least three major streams in the creation/origins debate, the fact remains that Christians hold different views on Israel/Palestine.

Instead, the rant reminds me so much of, “We’ll get Mikey to try it, he hates everything.” 

Or in this case, Jim.

The article’s tag line describes Fletcher as a book industry insider. With more than thirty years in the same business, I’d like to suggest that booksellers do indeed practice discernment. If you don’t like Thomas Nelson’s offerings, shop elsewhere, perhaps focusing on classic authors from past centuries. But I’ll bet the rent that there were books back then that were considered sketchy, a few of which are still around, but also bet that there are books today that just possibly could endure as long, and I think we’d all be surprised to see what’s still being read 50 or 100 years from now.

Wednesday Link List

Today we kick off a new chapter; the link list moves to its new home at Leadership Journal’s Out of Ur website, a ministry of Christianity Today. I’ve been reading Out of Ur since long before I started blogging, so this is a real honor. Here’s a link direct to today’s Wednesday Link List. Please be sure to click through. (They didn’t take the List Lynx pictured at right however, at least not so far…) Also remember it’s just the Wednesday list that’s moving; we’ll be back here tomorrow with the content you’ve come to loathe love here at Thinking Out Loud!

UPDATE: In November, 2013, we updated the July WLL posts here to restore the links. (The first month never had them at all here in any form.) I might periodically go back and update older ones just so we have a record here of the original sources.

• Truth be told, most of us would rather the truth not be told. Finally, the case against transparency.
• The IKEA retail chain launches a new store in Winnipeg, Canada with advertising informing people that each year nearly three times more IKEA catalogs are printed than Bibles. That’ll impress Manitoba Mennonites.
• A Wisconsin elementary school has a “Gender Bender Day.” Yes, elementary school. Just when you thought it was safe to… oh wait, you didn’t.
• Citing an Associated Press report from exactly one year ago, Scot McKnight’s blog documents a foreshadowing of last month’s shutdown of Exodus International.
• Essay of the Week: Steve DeWitt’s sermon text from Father’s day last month; written under the title ‘The Almost Father,’ but updated when the baby came early.
• In a two-minute video clip for churches, Jesus is listening to prayer requests in-person at a local coffee house.
• Churches hire clergy for mostly full time positions, and laity to serve in mostly part-time positions. What would it look like if a denomination launched a living wage initiative for its laity positions?
• When it comes to Passion Week, it’s a piece of iconic fine art, yet until now, The Last Supper has never been the subject of a film.
• Atheists in Bradford County, Florida demanded an equal-time counterpoint to a Ten Commandments monument.
• Tony Campolo has a new website which dubs him The Positive Prophet of Red Letter Christianity.
• In an ideal world, there wouldn’t be a Church and Synagogue Security News website, but then people wouldn’t be breaking into peoples’ homes and cars while they’re at worship either.
• Can’t get enough of author Eric Metaxas? There’s always the website with the audio of the daily Breakpoint radio features.
• The Christian Reformed Church and Reformed Church of America join together to produce a new hymnbook. Wait a minute, what’s a hymnbook?
• Timothy Keller shares his prayer pattern: Petition in the morning, repentance at night.
• Couldn’t track back the original source on this, but it’s five good reasons why church “A” shouldn’t import the ministry model of church “B.”
• A missionary family in Africa reminds us that in foreign missions, results don’t happen overnight.
• Coming in November: Zondervan’s Counterpoints series looks at the thorny issue of Biblical inerrancy, and it has to cover Five Views to do so.
• Keeping out of the spotlight, the CEO of a popular take out restaurant quickly removed a Tweet posted after last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision.
• The Dictionary of Christianese — which treats its mission as serious academic study — recently profiled the phrases traveling mercies, and I agape you.
• A Kentucky pastor makes a Sunday morning habit of mentioning other churches in his pastoral prayer, which often causes concern that those other churches are dealing with issues.
• As he has done each month for six years, Catalyst’s Brad Lomenick has another Young Influencers List of new voices and talents to watch.
• What do you do if, as a Christian, you have to fire someone who is also a Christian? (Does Dayspring sell a greeting card for this?)
• At my own blog this week, I get all ranty and ravey when a church service video stream times out because I wasn’t a paid subscriber, and also take a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the KJV.
• Finally, if you’re not in vocational ministry and feel like an outsider, remember, there’s always the website Ordain Thyself. As online ordination sites go, it’s as a good as any.

Wednesday Link List

Apologies to subscribers whose paragraphs have had ever-increasing font sizes. WordPress doesn’t always interpret HTML tags consistently, but we’re checking each post now before it publishes. Hopefully…

• In 40 rooms in England’s Lake District, copies of The Bible in the bedside table have been replaced with Fifty Shades of Grey.
• Classic Media, the parent company of the Veggie Tales brand is to be purchased by DreamWorks, creators of Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon.
• God called me to add this link — okay, not really, but Heather Goodman things we overuse Holy Spirit language.
  
• “Accepting people is more important than agreeing with them;” is among the findings of Elastic Morality, a 2011 Canadian youth research title that’s been flying under the radar.
  
• Anglicans at The Falls Church in Virginia prove they can do modern worship songs as good as anyone else. Click here to listen to A Thousand Amens. 
• And speaking about breaking denominational stereotypes, how about this: Baptist Monasteries. Yes, they exist and they aren’t new.
• Meanwhile, conference speaker and author Gordon Dalby gets busted by a Catholic Priest for receiving communion. 
• Mixing church history and doctrine, Parchment and Pen offers a thumbnail sketch of the rise of the Catholic Church. 
• If you missed the video embed here Monday, you need to go take a look. For those who did watch, here’s another speaker from the same Lutheran youth conference, Leymah Gbowee.
• When churches close, there’s no place for no place for marginalized kids to go; and Karen Spears Zacharias knows this from experience.
• It’s not new, but here’s a classic video of Tony Campolo explaining how he came to throw a birthday party for a hooker at 3:00 AM.  
• David Platt on video talks about comparing modes of radical Christian living. 
• Two articles from New Direction Ministries that someone you know might need: (1)For the straight conservative Christian trying to repair a relationship with a gay loved one; and (2) The other side of the coin: When gay people long for reconciliation with their conservative Christian family
  
• A portrait of Joel Osteen has been removed from a Georgia Library even as the TV preacher describes his message as not so big on hell-fire.
• And speaking of preachers, this list goes back to February, but I like how Dudley Rutherford handled this listing of the top ten preachers in America.
  
• An Australian church that averages about 300 attendees is applying for permission to build a 5,000 seat auditorium.
• In the spirit of the First World Problems meme, Michael Belote offers First World Theology Problems, though I’m not sure I get all the nuances of this.
• To new bloggers just starting out on WordPress: (1) Get rid of that “Hello World” post that came with your theme template by either deleting it or writing something profound to appear as the ‘first post’ you never wrote; and (2) Replace that “Just Another WordPress Blog” with your own tagline. Please!
  
• Graphics today are from Faith in the Journey.
  

Truly Healed

“Tony Campolo tells a story about being in a church in Oregon where he was asked to pray for a man who had cancer.

Campolo prayed boldly for the man’s healing.

That next week he got a telephone call from the man’s wife. She said, “You prayed for my husband. He had cancer.” Campolo thought when he heard her use the past tense verb that his cancer had been eradicated! But before he could think much about it she said, “He died.”

Campolo felt terrible.

But she continued, “Don’t feel bad. When he came into that church that Sunday he was filled with anger. He knew he was going to be dead in a short period of time, and he hated God.

He was 58 years old, and he wanted to see his children and grandchildren grow up. He was angry that this all-powerful God didn’t take away his sickness and heal him. He would lie in bed and curse God. The more his anger grew towards God, the more miserable he was to everybody around him.

It was an awful thing to be in his presence.

But the lady told Campolo, “After you prayed for him, a peace had come over him and a joy had come into him. Tony, the last three days have been the best days of our lives. We’ve sung. We’ve laughed. We’ve read Scripture. We prayed. Oh, they’ve been wonderful days. And I called to thank you for laying your hands on him and praying for healing.”

And then she said something incredibly profound. She said, “He wasn’t cured, but he was healed.”

Living the Red Letters

Before beginning a review of the actual content of this six-session, small group DVD by Tony Campolo, I need to take a paragraph or two to wave the flag, for this is a homegrown production.

In the Canadian Christian bookstore environment, about 90% of everything of everything on offer is U.S. produced. True, Canada is the point of origin for a number of Christian music artists; and a number of top Christian authors have a Canadian birth certificate; but many of these products turn up on the label or imprint of U.S. record labels and publishers. Material produced for domestic consumption is rather rare, though The Word Guild is always reminding me that we do have quite a few talented people who haven’t made the leap to the American market. Yet.

But a DVD curriculum? There have been a few, but nothing that takes on the production and packaging ambitions of The Red Letters featuring “progressive” Christian Democrat and social activist Tony Campolo, with Colin McCartney of UrbanPromise Toronto playing the role of interviewer.  That Tony’s blog is called Red Letter Christians and Colin’s book is titled Red Letter Revolution makes these two a natural pairing.

The six sessions deal with: What it means to be a red-letter Christian; consumerism and materialism; compassion, especially as it applies to three hot button issues — homosexuality, poverty and the environment; religion and politics; personal spiritual discipline and prayer; and the Christian life as a joy-filled life.

The DVD clips run between 8 and 17 minutes. Our normal family Bible study doesn’t use prescribed questions, and so this was somewhat foreign, but we used the small group guide and went through the five sets of questions for each episode. At first I tended to approach each set as a single question, but soon realized you could take hours to properly consider each discussion subject.

The DVD was a multi-camera production filmed at Toronto’s Church of the Redeemer whose auditorium and chancel actually serve as background. Knowing this was produced primarily for the Canadian market — though available in the U.S. on A-zon — I was significantly impressed with the camera cuts and editing.

Colin McCartney is extremely relaxed as an interviewer and Tony is… well… he is, as always, uniquely Tony Campolo. If he can’t get your small group going on some of these subjects, then nobody can. There is no denying his personal conviction that to claim to be a Christian is to make living out the red letters part of daily life.

The Red Letters DVD curriculum was produced by World Vision Canada and Colin’s organization UrbanPromise Toronto. A review copy was provided to Thinking Out Loud by Graf-Martin, a Canadian based agency providing enhanced marketing support to Christian authors and publishers,who are also rolling up their sleeves on this one to facilitate distribution to Christian bookstores in Canada.

This is a product I can recommend with confidence, and on a personal note, if you live nearby, I’d be more than happy to walk your small group through all six weeks of this excellent series. If it’s a weeknight meeting, I prefer decaf. Here’s a short preview:

Wednesday Link List

I want to do something different this week and begin with a link to a page that contains about a dozen other links.  Last week seven influential pastors gathered together to discuss “the elephant in the room” — several of them actually — at the appropriately titled Elephant Room Conference. Trevin Wax does a subject-by-subject set of links to two other bloggers, Canada’s Chris Vacher and Arizona’s Jake Johnson.  It’s not full transcripts, just what you’d expect to post yourself if you were listening with two ears and typing with two fingers (or thumbs).

The Elephant Room subjects and speakers were:

• Session 1: Preaching to Build the Attendance vs. Preaching to Build the Attendees
  – Matt Chandler & Steven Furtick
• Session 2: Culture in the Church vs. Church in the Culture
  – Mark Driscoll & Perry Noble
• Session 3: Compassion Amplifies the Gospel vs. Compassion Distorts the Gospel
  – Greg Laurie & David Platt
• Session 4: Unity: Can’t We All Get Along? vs. Discernment: My Way or the Highway
  – Steven Furtick & James MacDonald
• Session 5: Multi-Site: Personality Cult vs. God’s Greater Glory
  – Perry Noble & Matt Chandler
• Session 6: Money?
  – David Platt & James MacDonald
• Session 7: Love the Gospel vs. Share the Gospel
  – Greg Laurie & Mark Driscoll

…I know, I know; now you’re curious.  There are a lot of interesting quotations from this one-day conference, which originated at one of the Harvest Bible Chapel locations and was simulcast to 15 U.S. and one Canadian location.  So here again is the magic link.  Also, Zach posted a video clip from the conference yesterday.

And now here’s the rest of this week’s blog connectivity:

• Yesterday marks one year since the passing of Internet Monk founder Michael Spencer.  His wife Denise shares Michael’s approach to adventure.
• Tony Campolo suggests to Huffington’s readers that there’s other dynamics at play in the saga that might be called, “The Rise and Fall of the Crystal Cathedral;” dynamics owing to the changing ethnic demographics of Garden Grove, California.
  
• Here’s a special link to the first chapter of former Planned Parenthood employee Abby Johnson’s book Unplanned — file opens as .pdf .
  
• If your first name is Tim and your second name begins with Ch—, chances are you have a new book about pornography.  First it was Tim Challies, and now Tim Chester.
  
• Summer is coming!  If you want to get dirty on the streets of Philadelphia with Shane Claiborne’s Simple Way community, here’s how you connect to attend events.
  
• Donald Miller buys a copy of Love Wins online and offers a straight-forward and concise review.
• For all you worship leaders out there:  Here’s how to tell if you’re a classical music nerd.
• This one’s from 2007, but our YouTube link this week asks the musical question, “What if Worship was Like an NBA Game?“
• From the blog, Small Steps to Glory, here’s a look at a modern day Goliath (well the height part anyway) which gives some perspective to the “David And” story.
• At Arthur Sido’s blog this week, I discovered this trailer for an upcoming documentary on the education system, Indoctrination.
• For all you techies out there, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to broadcast your church services on the internet.
  
• 130 Churches in Calgary, Alberta, Canada are coming together to raise $1.5M to reduce the mortgage on a transitional housing facility established in 2009.
  
• Proverbs 3 promises us, “When you lie down, you will not be afraid;when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.” So then what about those of us who simply don’t get a good night’s sleep.  Ryan rumbles through a topic that I totally identify with.
  
• If you find the links I run to religion stories at CNN and USAToday a little too American for you and you’d like to explore stories from the broader world of spiritual interest, here’s the link to the religion page of Reuters News Service.
• send your own link suggestions by 8:00 PM EST on Monday.
  
• Today’s picture:  Songwriter Mandy Thompson cures writer’s block by going analog:

• I’ve always had a huge interest in the spiritual themes that turn up in the comic pages of the daily newspaper.  Comic writers can say things in ways others cannot.  I’ve used Dennis the Menace — now drawn by Marcus Hamilton — here a few times, with the result that one of the panels now hangs in my office.  Here’s another kids-eye-view of God as only Dennis can see it:

Gay and Christian: The Jennifer Knapp Interview

By the time you read this there will probably be over 300 comments.

Christianity Today posted a long, online interview on Tuesday afternoon in which Jennifer Knapp ends a 7-year media silence, announces her new album, and admits to being involved in a gay relationship for several years, though maintaining it was not a factor in her original decision to take a hiatus.

First of all, let me say that I applaud CT’s decision to run this.   Jennifer Knapp was at the top of the “most wanted ” list of “missing in action” Christian singers.   Turns out she was in Australia for five years, but has been Stateside since September.   Interviewer Mark Moring asked all the right questions and wasn’t afraid to ask a few of the harder questions, too.

The magazine has endured some persecution in the comments, but I was more challenged by their decision to link to a GayChurch.org commentary on the “clobber verses” used against Christian gays.  (The hyperlink doesn’t work however, it’s meant to take you to this page.)  Any “reporting” of this kind is often considered “endorsement;” possibly including the very blog post you’re reading now.

This is the tough issue for the (capital C) Church.   If it hasn’t hit your church yet, it will at some point in the future when you least expect it.   My personal view is that it raises two issues:

1. Can a person be following Christ and be gay at the same time?  Notice I didn’t say “struggling” with being gay.   Those very same “clobber passages” will yield one answer, but I challenge you to get to know people in this situation and then tell them that they are not moving toward the cross.    It’s complicated I know, and many will mis-read the statement I just made.   Which brings us to the next question…
2. What is the measure of our compassion and what kind of face does our version of “grace” wear?    Many, if honest, “Hate the sin and hate the sinner.”   That’s just sin of another kind.   I’m not saying that if someone is caught in what we view as sin we should do anything other than what scripture says, “restore them gently,” but when and how we do this is going to say a lot more about us as local church or as the (capital C) Church in general than it’s going to say about the gay person.

In the meantime, the new album, Letting Go releases May 11, though she says. “The Christian bookstore thing is probably not going to happen; this isn’t a Christian record, and it’s not going to be marketed to Christian radio.”  Jennifer is back on tour, describing her audience in these words:

My concerts right now include the ultra-conservative hand raisers that are going to make this bar their worship zone. And there’s a guy over on the left having one too many, and there’s a gay couple over on the right. That’s my dream scenario. I love each and every one of them. At the end of the day, it’s music.

Her Wikipedia article claims that she recently announced tour dates with Derek Webb.    This blog mentioned Webb’s appearance at the Gay Christian Network conference early in the year.    Chris, a gay blogger writing about Webb drew this comment from Jon:

I was at said gay christian conference in Nashville this year, when Derek Webb said “If the church were to force me to pick sides [about where he stands on homosexuality], I’d be on y’all [gay people] side”. We also have very popular Christian speakers coming there. This year we had Tony Campolo as our keynote, next year, we have Philip Yancey as the keynote. Those names mean nothing to people who aren’t a part of evangelical subculture, but in the evangelical world, those are big names coming to talk at the Gay Christian Network conference.

(Sometimes these blog posts evolve as I’m writing — suddenly we find Philip Yancey’s name invoked in connection with next year’s conference.)

Another Gay blogger posts the lyrics to Webb’s What Matters More along with the music video.    I recall Webb saying at the time — but cannot locate it for you here — that he had a friend who was gay, possibly referring to Knapp.

I recognize that I’ve probably given more space to this issue than some feel it deserves, and there will be blog readers who think I’m being soft on the moral issues of homosexuality.  I’m just trying to take the focus off item #1 above and focus on item #2.

The point I want to make is that there are a number — a growing number — of people out there who are truly striving to understand what it means to be a follower of Christ but are also involved in a gay relationship, are dealing with the issue of friends who have come out, or are dealing with latent gay feelings.   Some of these were gay before they investigated Christianity, others were Christians before they confronted with the gay issue.

This issue matters.   How we interpret scripture is one thing.   Most people reading this blog would agree that scripture is very clear on this issue.   How we respond to gay and gay-inclined people in the Church at large is a very, very different issue altogether.   In fact, a poor, wrong or ill-chosen response could leave us in as sinful a state as those we would condemn.

And remember, you can’t obsess about Paul said about homosexuality and ignore what Jesus said about materialism.  And gluttony.  And hypocrisy.  And worry.  And so on…

Here’s the CT link again to the Knapp interview that started all this.

Two really good blog posts at Mere Orthodoxy on this topic:  The Objectification of Jennifer Knapp (April 13) and Why Jennifer Knapp Matters (April 14). Also Justin Wise’s post at BeDeviant, Unfriending Jennifer Knapp.   As of 10 PM last night, these were the only mentions in Alltop Church and Christianity pages, but you’ll find dozens of blog posts at this WordPress link.

UPDATE – JANUARY 2011 — At the end of 2010, I was asked to be part of a blog tour for a definitive book on this subject, Turning Controversy into Church Ministry by W. P. Campbell.  You can find my review of a small section of the book, and links to the rest of the blog tour here.