Wednesday Link List

Promised you last week when we did a feature on Kevin Frank there would be one more panel in it for you (see Genesis 8:20) …

Time once again for things on Christian blogs and news feeds you may have missed and some you’ll now wish you had. Clicking anything below will take you to PARSE, which paid $1,000,000.00 for exclusive rights to this weekly feature, plus a third-round draft pick.

• Though still imprisoned — and now hospitalized — in Iran, Saeed Abedini offered Easter prayers for Christians around the world.
• James MacDonald is joining the ranks of the televangelists.  Walk In The Word Television starts next Sunday.
• By today’s standards, these six people probably don’t qualify as Evangelical.
• Ex-Westboro Baptist member Mark Phelps talks candidly about his father, Fred Phelps and the church.
• Tough one: How does a church minister to a convicted but converted sex offender?
• Sometimes a great story comes through just after deadline; like last week when we learned that Rich Mullins is to be inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
• So now the question is, out of all those Easter visitors you had on Sunday, how many want to come back?
• A publisher with over a hundred books in his catalog offers ten things that go wrong when pastors’ sermons are adapted as books.
• The mother of a young boy talks about her life and her relationship to the family that adopted him.
• The guy who wrote the book on heaven reviews the movie based on the story of the kid who went there…
• …And the family-focused, faith-audience-targeted film fest continues with Moms’ Night Out opening in May. Watch a 3-minute trailer.
• The most important book you can read, after the Bible of course, is the phone book. Well, not that phone book, but otherwise, this writer is dead serious.
• Even though we recently linked to The Voice Bible page, the translation team is often asked how they arrived at using “Eternal One” for “Lord.”
• The next generation of atheists has rejected the agenda of railing against the religious, effectively ending The New Atheism…
• …While overall, faith among Millennials remains constant even as participation in religion declines.
• Shaun Groves’ homeschool family does a unit on generosity, “Because – like art, music and theology – generosity has to be taught.”
• A Mississippi bill gives support to religious freedom, but it’s being spun as being anti-gay.
• The man you know best in the role of Hercule Poirot has completed his NIV audio Bible, which releases Thursday in the UK…
• …Also in the UK, I’m not sure why The Christian Institute posts this tabloid-type story about a 12 year old girl and a 13 year old boy becoming parents; but it does say something about the country’s morality…
• …Which makes this story confusing: As Britain’s Prime Minister found out the hard way, it’s not politically correct to refer to that nation as a “Christian country.”
• The writing in this article serves as a major distraction, but it does raise some issues about the megachurch star system.
• Franklin Graham, Russell D. Moore and Ralph Reed discuss declining numbers of Evangelicals on ABC This Week.
• Our congregation totally loved this Skit Guys video on Sunday.
• The latest offering from Hobby Lobby isn’t for sale in the arts and crafts department, it’s a high school curriculum.
• I don’t care what part of the world you’re reading this in, renting space to hold a church service should never get this complicated.
• Meanwhile, another church we attend when in the Toronto area produced this reversed poem video.
• Essay of the Week: What if, as on TripAdvisor or eBay, there was a rating system of your performance as a Christian?
• Interview of the Week: Author and pastor Adam Hamilton ignores repeated references to Rob Bell.
• First, Tim Challies includes Pope Francis in his “False Teachers” series. Then, this heartfelt response.
• An infographic shows off the countries which have the greatest (and least) degrees of religious diversity.
• Your ‘small’ group can be worldwide when you start a Twitter Bible reading group, like #Luke2Acts.
• Taking coals to Newcastle? Apparently Grand Rapids, Michigan needs one more church.
• D. L. Moody was a big fan of Tennyson, the poet, and was given to poetic forms himself.
• The U.S. stats on deaths from war versus deaths from abortion expressed visually.
• Link to more links: Trevin Wax has indexed all of the items on his blog over the past few weeks that focused on various aspects of the atonement.
• Canada’s foremost Christian male vocalist, Steve Bell, is readying a multi-disc set celebrating 25 years.
• Dry Bones Department: Ken Ham’s Creation Museum has scored some fairly significant dinosaur bones.
• Mention does not imply endorsement: Every once in awhile it’s necessary to remember that articles like this abound online. (Great cure for low blood pressure.)
• Music Video of the Week: Teens Delaney, Zachary and Erika Daves make up the band Daves Highway (no apostrophe!) and a few weeks ago posted this Hillsong United cover with a hint of bluegrass.
• Non-Music Video of the Week: This is perplexing on several levels at once.

WordPress says this is Wednesday Link List number 200, but it doesn’t count the times I typed the word Wednesday in a hurry, or the variety of names it existed under before uniformity set in.

 

We leave you this really simple explanation of how to pray; at least according to one denomination.

Wednesday Link List

Not new, but too good just to link; you have to watch this…

• Edith Shaeffer, wife of the late Christian philosopher Francis Shaeffer, has died at age 98. 
• A member of The Church on the Way in Valencia,CA — and grandson of Jack Hayford, the church’s founder — is now back home uninjured after being kidnapped last week in Mexico.
• Singer Carrie Underwood and NHL hockey player Mike Fisher discuss their shared faith in Jesus.
• Know the song “‘Tis a Gift To Be Simple”?  Terry Mattingly says that definitely applies to the new Pope.
• Yes the Easter story really happened in a real place, and if you want, you can even get the GPS coordinates.
• And did they play that “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s a-Coming” video at your church this week? Here’s the text for all you aspiring preachers to give it your best shot.
• And don’t miss this story about church pyrotechnics gone awry. This could have ended very badly.
  
• Also at Parchment Pen: Did the author of the Gospel of Mark sleep in the nude?  The public wants to know.
• Sandy Patti is headlining at Carnegie Hall with the Manhattan Pops Orchestra and the pianist formerly (and still) known simply as Dino.
• For 32 years, Rick Warren said ‘no’ to the idea of doing a radio show. But then a year ago…
• A friend of ours, Rick Webster, pastor of The Third Space church in Peterborough has written Introducing Jesus — but he doesn’t use the word pastor, preferring Spiritual Wilderness Guide and Community Architect. We don’t normally do this here, but you can order the book online. 
• From the artist who brought us the Reimagine song, a cover of Larry Norman’s UFO song.
  
• Canadian author and blogger Sheila Wray-Gregoire says that if you are concerned for someone, you need to ask yourself three questions before you say anything.
• Another Elevation Church high-tech year end summary. Does your church’s annual report look like this?
  
• Maybe some cartoonists can illustrate complex issues, but Dave Walker finds himself somewhat lost for ideas in Uganda. 
• Okay, Doug Wilson, curiosity was killing me when you wrote Good Friday and the Death of Same Sex Envy. (And then he also discusses pattern recognition, too.)
  
• Shauna Niequist is the wife of a Christian musician and daughter of a world famous pastor. And a published author.  But she still deals with jealousy.
• Money Where Your Mouth Is Department: Michael Kelley offers us two things we can learn from the Veronica Mars movie campaign on Kickstarter.
  
• How about another 30-or-so links, all on the subject of apologetics? And don’t miss the first comment. 
• Blog flashback — one year ago: James MacDonald’s holiness test.
  
• The latest addition to our “lost song” collection at YouTube is this original version of God and Man at Table by Craig Smith. 
• And I didn’t realize until today how much this song and this song sound alike. Guess some classic gospel music or CCM just flies under the copyright radar.
  

James MacDonald Preaches about Money on Easter Sunday

A reader posted a comment to an October blog post here about debt issues at Harvest Bible Chapel.  She claimed that instead of the standard Easter sermon, James MacDonald spoke about money and fiances. Huh? What the finance was he thinking?

At first, I didn’t want to believe what she wrote. But as I write this on Monday night, I’m listening to the Easter Sunday sermon at the main campus of Harvest Bible Chapel. I can see myself having brought a coworker or neighbor to the service, and I am squirming more and more with each of the 46-minutes.

Okay, so he spins the story of Judas to fit. Even that would be an offbeat theme for Easter Sunday morning.  I’m not sure how long it’s going to be online, but if you can, watch the it at this link even if you only see the first ten minutes. (Sermon notes .pdf was at this one.) Anyway, I’ll let my reader tell it:

I’d attended an Easter service at Harvest Bible Chapel in Rolling Meadows yesterday and am so disgusted and disillusioned with Pastor James I will never attend Harvest again.  Instead of celebrating the Risen Christ on Easter, he started a new series on MONEY, stating that, for those who think he can’t start a new series on Easter about money, “WATCH ME!!” The man’s arrogance knows no bounds.

I’ve attended Harvest on and off for ten years or so and have found many things that I don’t like or agree with over that time, but this was the final straw. I even brought a friend with me, and there were surely many other guests as well, all there to listen to his latest pontifications about MONEY, on Easter, no less! No communion, no gospel, no Jesus per se. There was some “apology” about his having taught about money at Harvest for 25 years but now he’s come to find out what he’s taught was wrong and asked for grace; my first thought was how am I to know that what he is going to teach NOW is correct?! Oh, that’s right, he put up pictures of Francis Chan, Dave Ramsey and other Christians wise about money and, since he is important and well known enough to have had one-on-one conversations with them and others of their ilk, apparently now is well versed in being a good steward.

How is it that the MacDonalds are “wealthy” when Jesus didn’t even have a place to lay his head? How is it that he speaks of wonderful vacations while asking for our tithes and offerings and I haven’t been able to afford a vacation in years?

I received a phone call tonight from a friend who used to attend there … saying that she had found out Pastor James talked about tithing…on EASTER!…and that she was also told of how desperate the financial situation at Harvest really is. Perhaps this is why Pastor James felt it necessary to talk about money on such a sacred day. All it took was a Google search to find out how bad the situation is. And to think he stood up there shaming me and others about our credit card debt…on Easter, no less. Did God put this on his heart to discuss on the day we celebrate His Son as our Risen Savior?! Did the elders approve this?!

Best of luck with your megachurch, Pastor, but my soul is not being fed while you’re too busy expanding your own kingdom.

..And to think I get upset if one of the worship pieces isn’t totally on the Easter theme.  A serious lapse in judgment, don’t you think?

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Update 4/4/13

Basically what you’re seeing in the comments section is four possible responses:

• Supportive (objectively) — People who feel J. MacD. was within his rights to preach this topic on Easter Sunday because it was a legitimate message even for “Holy Week.”
• Supportive (subjectively) — People who rally around J.MacD. as their pastor or shepherd and want to defend him.
• Opposed (subjectively) — People who choose to criticize J. MacD. on whatever grounds or based on whatever leadership criteria, or choose to examine this particular topic in light of other information about James and/or HBC.
  
• Opposed (objectively) — People who — regardless of whether or not they liked the message — feel the topic was inappropriate for Easter Sunday.

It was the two objective types of comment we were hoping to have heard from here.

Harvest Bible Chapel Debt Crisis: The Real Elephant In The Room?

I’ve had three people send me the link to a website that purports to show that James MacDonald, Harvest Bible Chapel and Walk in The Word are deeply in debt in a situation similar to that which brought down the Crystal Cathedral; a site titled, The Elephant’s Debt after MacDonald’s two Elephant Room video conferences. However, a quick scan of Alltop blogs and search engine blog searches would seem to indicate not all bloggers are taking the bait on this one.

Perhaps people don’t find MacDonald all that interesting. I found that out with the Crystal Cathedral story; search engines sent everybody here because the dominant generation of Christian bloggers didn’t have Robert Schuller on their radar. Perhaps MacDonald’s influence is even more regional.

Furthermore, I often wonder what motivates people to put up this type of exposé websites. The documentation is thorough; they definitely did their homework. And they do address the question. And I’m all for encouraging churches and ministry organizations to operate frugally and within their means; not like some giant corporation. To be sure, financial stewardship matters to God; it’s a virtue He regards highly. And when any church goes down, it tends to take a lot of innocent people down with it; trusting people; people of weaker faith.

Although I grew up in Toronto’s Peoples Church when it was Canada’s only megachurch — before the term existed — the first U.S. megachurch I connected with was Chuck Smith’s Calvary Chapel in Santa Ana, California. Spending time there on five different occasions and getting to know some of their people, it was apparent that Chuck Smith was all for spending money when the money was already there. There is no greater joy than for a new facility or expansion to open completely paid for.

What a sex scandal cannot do to destroy a church, a financial crisis can. (No accident this subject comes a day after a book review dealing with the spiritual warfare we fight against unseen forces.)

Today’s pastors are in a rush to build bigger and better. To go multi-site. To add new media. To host conferences. We’ve been corrupted by the way the world does things and how success is measured; and I didn’t use the word “we’ve” there by accident. Certainly, if this road is full of pitfalls, it is important to put up a giant “danger sign” and warn others traveling the same road.

But I wish that authors Scott Bryant and Ryan Mahoney had ended The Elephant’s Debt website with a call to prayer, because that’s what needed here more than anything.

Here again is the link to The Elephant’s Debt. Each page ends with a link to successive pages. You be the judge on this one.

And here is what one reader sent as a possible response that was recently posted by the elders board of Harvest Bible Chapel.

Isaiah 30 (NLT) verse 21 is the theme verse for Walk in the Word.

¹⁹ O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem,
you will weep no more.
He will be gracious if you ask for help.
He will surely respond to the sound of your cries.
²⁰ Though the Lord gave you adversity for food
and suffering for drink,
he will still be with you to teach you.
You will see your teacher with your own eyes.
²¹ Your own ears will hear him.
Right behind you a voice will say,
“This is the way you should go,”
whether to the right or to the left.
²² Then you will destroy all your silver idols
and your precious gold images.
You will throw them out like filthy rags,
saying to them, “Good riddance!”

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UPDATE: Be sure to read the comments section for more…

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.

James MacDonald’s Holiness Test

In fairness, this is not meant to cover the entire range of what it means to be holy; rather, this was just one part of one of several points on Tuesday’s broadcast of Walk in the Word.  But the questions are worthy of your consideration:

1. When was the last time you made a crude joke or laughed at one? 
2. When was the last time you sat through a sexual scene on television, probably between unmarried people, without turning it off, maybe completely undisturbed? 
3. [Guys, especially] Do your eyes look over someone attractive in a way that would make them uncomfortable if they knew or if they noticed? 
4. Are there dirty words in your vocabulary which link you to the world and not to Christ? 
5. Do you read books that tell stories of immorality and rationalize your enjoyment of them? 
6. Do you go places where the sexual atmosphere is thick and not feel deeply troubled? 
7. Are you even now, maybe this past week, struggling with an attraction or a relationship with a person not your spouse, or if you’re single, someone who’s not a Christian? 
8. Do people sense the freedom to be off-color around you?  Do they have the impression that you will tolerate it? 
9. How do your convictions about appropriate entertainment differ from someone you know who doesn’t know Christ? 
10. What do you do that you would not do if Jesus Christ were visually present with you?

One Less Elephant in the Room

Just desserts in my opinion.

A certain discernment ministry dude who has a certain discernment radio ministry thing apparently paid his $99 registration fee to attend The Elephant Room at the mother ship in Rolling Meadows, IL only to arrive and find out his registration had been revoked.

He blogs the experience, but I really, really don’t want to include the link to this guy — first time I’ve ever done this — so I’m copying and pasting without it:

Today, I traveled to Rowling Meadows, Illinois to attend James MacDonald’s Elephant Room 2 conversations. Upon entering the event venue I was met by a security guard and Jim Rowan, an elder at Harvest Bible Chapel and was promptly told that my entrance to the Elephant Room had been revoked and that I had to immediately leave the premises or I would be arrested for trespassing.

This is truly ODD, because the Purpose Statement of the Elephant Room states:

The Elephant Room is more than an event. It is the outgrowth of an idea. The idea that the best way forward for the followers of Jesus lies not in crouching behind walls of disagreement but in conversation among all kinds of leaders about what the scriptures actually teach. We must insist on the biblical Gospel, right doctrine and practice but not isolate ourselves from relationship even with those who believe much differently.

So, I ask the very logical question how is threatening to arrest me if I didn’t leave the premises of the Elephant Room an example of NOT “crouching behind walls of disagreement”?

Seems to me that the Elephant in the Room is the fact that the ONLY voices that James MacDonald and company are willing to hear are those that agree with them.

…First of all let me say that I do not automatically endorse everything that James MacD. does.  I love the forthright style of ministry he projects on the radio and I’ve visited his church in two locations in northwest Chicago, but I’m equally convinced that back in his elementary school days, he was the schoolyard bully. Sorry. That’s just my opinion, and last I checked, I’m entitled to it. Maybe this little bit of conference theater is just what happens when two bull-headed personalities clash.

However, I’m going to side with Harvest Bible Chapel and The Elephant Room on this one.  The particular Discernment Dude in question is trouble with a capital T.  A ticking time bomb in an event like MacDonald’s one-day live broadcast conference.  A person whose spirit runs counter to the spirit of the event.

You may not agree with J. MacD. on countless issues, but the motivation for this event is simple enough that even a child can understand it, and James MacDonald paid a fairly high price to forge ahead with it against criticism from various sides. I’m sure all the pastors and leaders in the audience had varying opinions on things, but I’m betting they were more aligned with the day’s central purpose than the one — and only one as far as we know — who was refused admission.

The MacDonald/Driscoll event was complex enough as it was.  There simply didn’t need to be one more elephant in the room.

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HT: FBC Jax Watchdog, a blog we link to at this one, but one which, as far as The Elephant Room is concerned, disagrees with its presenters, disagrees with the denominational heads who permitted their pastors conference to link with the event; but seem to think nothing of siding with Discernment Dude on this one. The politics of hatred can get really complicated at times.  I think everyone involved in reporting this conference sidebar — absolutely everyone — missed the whole point of The Elephant Room.

The Elephant Has Left The Building

I was going to devote this space today to a collection of blogger reactions to The Elephant Room 2 satellite conference presented by James MacDonald.  However, the reactions among bloggers at the two Alltop aggregators (church and Christianity) were much more sparse than I expected, and the whole thing has been somewhat overshadowed by MacDonald’s resignation from The Gospel Coalition, an organization we choose not to track here. A greater degree of research is obviously required, and some attendees are still making their way back to their home computers.

So, rather than do a superficial job of this — like what you’re reading now — we’re going to put coverage of Elephant 2 off for a day or two, or longer.  If you can’t wait, Trevin Wax has expended massive amounts of verbiage on all seven sessions, and possibly used up all of the internet’s available electrons for this topic. 

Of course, if you want the closest thing to a full transcription of the whole event as a .pdf file, there’s always Tim Schraeder’s notes.

Wednesday Link List

More newsy stuff this week, rather than blog links per se…I get to play news anchor…

• Tennessee teachers supervising students at the annual See You At The Pole events are in trouble for praying along with the students at the event. “Teachers have not been banned from praying, but if they do – it must be done out of sight and earshot of students, the newspaper reported.”  Read more on this confusing development at The Tennessean.
  
• Young abolitionist Zach Hunter is now 19, and his three books, including the popular Be the Change have been reissued by Zondervan to reflect his current look.  He recently did a guest post at Huffington Post. “When I was 12 I started a campaign to end modern-day slavery. I wasn’t a theological prodigy. I was just an awkward, pre-adolescent kid trying to follow Jesus. I heard about people being bought and sold and abused day in and day out and I couldn’t imagine Jesus being O.K. with it…. Occasionally, I’ve received some criticism about encouraging this kind of passion in my generation. Mostly, it comes from people who share my faith — I’ve even been told, ‘It’s great what you and your friends are doing, but why aren’t you just preaching the gospel when your whole generation is going to hell?‘ …Continue reading at Huff Post…
  
• 

  Never was an event so well-named

  James MacDonald finds himself defending the decision to include T.D. Jakes in next year’s sequel to the one-day Elephant Room Conference.  “I believe modalism is unbiblical and clearly outside confessionalism, but I do not believe it represents Bishop T.D. Jakes’ current thinking. Whether I am right or wrong is something that will be discovered in the Elephant Room where our purpose is, as Pastor Mark [Driscoll] posted, ‘to talk to people rather than about them.'” Read more at James’ blog, Vertical Church.
  
• Oh, and here’s a recent sample of what he’s defending himself against.  Thabiti Anyabwyle writes, “This isn’t on the scale of [John] Piper inviting [Rick] Warren. This is more akin to Augustine inviting Muhammad. This invitation gives a platform to a heretic… Can the Lord squeeze lemonade out of this lemon? Absolutely. I pray He does… What should MacDonald do now? I’m not even sure.” Read more of this at TGC.
  
• If the above word, modalism, is new to you, it was covered on this blog in a lengthy article back in February, Why Are Non-Trinitarians Included Among ‘Christians’?
  
• Mexico considers solving the divorce problem by issuing a marriage license that expires in 24 months. ” Mexico City lawmakers want to help newlyweds avoid the hassle of divorce by giving them an easy exit strategy: temporary marriage licenses… that would allow couples to decide on the length of their commitment, opting out of a lifetime. The minimum marriage contract… could be renewed if the couple stays happy. The contracts would include provisions on how children and property would be handled if the couple splits. ‘The proposal is, when the two-year period is up, if the relationship is not stable or harmonious, the contract simply ends,’ said Leonel Luna, the Mexico City assemblyman who co-authored the bill.” Read the full article at Reuters Faith World.
• Another news story from Reuters Faith World…  A few years back, this was one of the few Christian blogs to look at the ban on minarets (Muslim prayer towers) in Switzerland.  Now the country’s lower parliament has voted to ban face veils as well. “By enacting a ban, Switzerland would follow other European countries such as France, the Netherlands and Belgium which have either already proscribed veils or are debating such measures, sometimes encountering sharp condemnation from civil rights and Islamic groups.”
• The supreme court will not hear a case brought against World Vision in regard to hiring practices.  “The Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari lets stand an August 2010 decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of World Vision and against three employees who were fired after the organization concluded that they did not believe that Jesus Christ is fully God.” More details at Christianity Today.
  
• A Texas oil change shop will service your car for only $19.99 if you will quote John 3:16 from memory.  Legal experts in the state can’t find the owner is in violation of anything from a consumer retail business standpoint.  But one customer didn’t recite the verse and got billed for over $46.  Is this a positive move for the business owner or a liability?  And is it a definite liability for Christians who abhor this evangelism methodology.  Dallas attorney Andy Siegel said,    “The study of Bible has many rewards, [but] I’m not sure if God intended for a lube discount to be among its many riches.”  More, with video at CNN Religion.
• Also at CNN, an in-depth review of Belieber, the book examining the faith factor in the life of pop star Justin Bieber.  The star told Rolling Stone, “I feel I have an obligation to plant little seeds with my fans. I’m not going to tell them, ‘You need Jesus,’ but I will say at the end of my show, ‘God loves you.’ ”  Read more at CNN.
• Time Travel Piece of the Week:  A short word bite from Steven Furtick on Church Hopping, It’s Time to Stop The Hop. “If you’ve fallen into the trap of church hopping, let me encourage you: embrace your place somewhere where God can use you. At the end of your life, God’s not going to be impressed or pleased that you saw what He was doing at ten different churches. He’s going be more pleased that you were a part of what He was doing at one church.”
  
• If you think all the great ministry ideas have been covered, you could always start an underwear ministry.  No, it’s not a reference to Mormon underwear, rather: “Every day with no fanfare, the Union Gospel Mission in Vancouver… receives all kinds of donations… But one recent drop-off was so unique it could not go unnoticed — a donation of 3,500 pairs of men’s underwear. Calgary residents Robb Price and Brent King delivered the gift…the first of 10 deliveries they plan to make at homeless shelters between Vancouver and Halifax. Read more at Christian Week.
• Wrapping it up this week with the graphic that’s been on so many blogs; How The Denominations See Each Other.  The bottom right corner credits this to ThomasTheDoubter.com where it was posted on September 15th, and also to the Subtle Designer blog, where it’s described as being a copy of a similar infographic done about higher education.  (You might need to switch to full screen.) Enjoy!

Wednesday Link List

The linkology lecture resumes; with this week’s being more diversionary than anything else…

• Pete Wilson has now posted the full 20-minute interview he did with Heaven is For Real authors Todd and Colton Burpo.  The full interview was played in all services on Sunday as part one of the church’s 3-week Glimpse series.
  
• The Christian Post reports that rapture prophet Harold Camping was heading home from hospital on Monday after suffering a mild stroke.  (HT: Bene)
  
• Christianity Today returns, a year later, to talk with Adam Young, aka Owl City, but the musician’s excessive shyness forces an email interview.
• Michael Krahn looks at the “me, myself and I” individualism in modern worship music, but also cautions about over-correcting.
• Southern Baptists are facing declining numbers, especially in an area near and dear to their faith: Baptisms are at lowest numbers since the 1950s.
  
• Ron Edmondson offers seven ways to get the most out of your overall experience of church life.
• There were a couple of pieces at Christianity 201 this week that I was quite pleased with, though they’re too long to run here.  One was a Christian counselor discussing what it means to put something “on the altar.”   The other was a piece by Rooms author James Rubart remixing the story of the Prodigal Son.
• J. Lee Grady looks at baby Storm, the Toronto child whose parents want to raise him/her as an individual without specific gender; and the resulting confusion that creates.
  
• James MacDonald says that the congregational form of church government is from Satan.  Yes, he really said that last week.  The firestorm resulted in this response on Monday.  Is it tongue in cheek?  (In tomorrow’s Our Journey devotional, readers will discover that MacDonald believes that we should pray to God and not to Jesus.  I read the paragraph three times to make sure, and that after getting a phone call on it.)
  
• An unusual request for a minister to receive:  We want you to marry us, but just don’t mention God.  Should he do the wedding?
  
• Her-meneutics writer Karen Swallow Prior thinks that when congressman Anthony Weiner says that texting isn’t adultery, he’s actually illustrating the mind-body dualism known as Gnosticism.
  
• Yes, heaven is for real, but didn’t we already know that?  Greg Thornbury is worried about the weight being placed on an extra-Biblical account.
  
• Time for a couple of video links.  This one is from 2007 and was filmed using all the latest technology.  (HT: J-Walk)
  
• Unless you have pre-schoolers at home, or have no sense of musical integrity, you’ll need a strong stomach for this one, but Darrell at Stuff Fundies Like has uncovered The Potato Chip Song, a bus ministry song on YouTube.  Maybe you should read the article first.
  
• And this fits right in:  If your church sends out postcards or notes when you miss Sunday worship, perhaps there’s more to those notes than what you see.
• Our cartoon this week is from Mick Mooney at the blog Searching For Grace; a new comic with only eleven strips so far.