Wednesday Link List

The return of Pastor Hyeon Soo Lim to Canada from imprisonment in North Korea is a story worth hearing. We devoted our first four links to it today.

Each week’s list begins with a template looking something like this

This week we have several audio (and video) options for you. We won’t be so podcast happy next week, but we thought we’d give you something different. The listening/viewing time is shown in parenthesis after each.

• The big news in my home country is the return of an Evangelical pastor after 2½ years imprisonment in North Korea. Welcome home, Pastor Lim…
• …More detailed analysis…
• …Full video coverage on 100 Huntley Street. (First 14 minutes of program.)…
• …Also from Lorna Dueck, an article on Lim in Canada’s National Newspaper.
  
• Leadership Lessons: On the subject of copying other churches, this article has it all. 5 Things to consider before making changes. 3 Criteria to have while initiating changes. And 5 Things to keep in mind as you’re making changes…
• …also on the subject of leadership, as we did last year at this time, we’re going to again refer you to Joshua Reich’s blog for some great summaries of various speakers at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit 2017. If you’re reading this later on, go to posts for August 10th and 11th…
• …Leadership Confessions: They were once the hottest church in town. “These days I’m owning what it means to live on the other side of those glory days. We have not regained our peak numbers, and we’re no longer the ‘it’ church of our area. In fact, our congregation is less than a half-mile away from a church that is.”
  
• The Bible Doesn’t Need Your Help: A look at certain types of apologetics — including John MacArthur’s bizarre explanation of Jesus turning water into wine — actually can do Christianity more harm than good. (If you can explain the miracles, they aren’t miracles.)
• Parenting Place: How progressive Christians may be accidentally pushing their kids toward Fundamentalism. (Coarse language.) 
• Breaking on Tuesday: 13 people were killed and 49 injured when an enormous 200-year old oak tree fell over during the Roman Catholic Nossa Senhora do Monte festival in Madeira, an island belonging to Portugal. Festival goers “had gathered to honor Our Lady of the Mountain…Tuesday marked the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, when Catholics celebrate the assumption of the body of Jesus Christ’s mother into heaven.” 
• BioMedical Ethics: Iceland has eliminated Down Syndrome because “over the last decade, 100% of women whose pre-natal tests have come back positive for Down Syndrome have decided to end their pregnancies.” (Compare with 67% in the US.) (11 minute video, or read text.)
  
• Women in Ministry: A look at three Bible women and a reminder that, “the glass steeple of the Church sometimes hangs far lower than the glass ceiling of the world at large.” This article also is a blog contest winner at The Junia Project. 
• Dating Goodbye Revisited: Joshua Harris and filmmaker Jessica Van Der Wyngaard share their hopes for the forthcoming documentary, I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye. As of yesterday, 412 backers pledged CA$ 55,437.
  
• Worship Workshop: Janet Mefford interviews Dr. T. David Gordon. professor of religion and Greek at Grove City College on the decline of contemporary worship. (Which he says is best seen in the present concession to great hymnwriters by borrowing their lyrics.) “The lyrics of the recent generation simply can’t compete with the best lyrics of forty of fifty generations.” (first 25 minutes of show)
• Three of the 18 arrested death penalty abolitionists arrested and taken to jail for protesting against the death penalty on the steps of the supreme court talk about why they fight against capital punishment. (11 minutes)(Contains some graphic content.)
• Church Building Usage: After joining a network of churches connected to the local church which gave the world The Alpha Course, the place known as “the musicians church” is closing its doors to non-religious classical choirs and orchestras using the space for rehearsals and concerts. 2,000 people have signed a petition against the new policy.
• Evolution of a Lawsuit: “[California State University] scientist Mark Armitage found soft tissue in a dinosaur bone, a discovery that throws significant doubt on evolution. Then, two weeks after publishing his findings, he was fired.” Later he was paid “a six-figure sum to settle his wrongful termination suit based on religious discrimination. While the university admits no wrongdoing, Armitage’s attorney said they feared losing a protracted lawsuit because of a ‘smoking gun’ email that backed the plaintiff’s case.”  (Always save your emails.)
  
• The Bible says the Christian does not sin. But we do. How does that work? And what is racism? And what about non-canonical texts? Greg Koukl has 4 minutes per question. (19 minutes)
• Canada Corner: FaithToday magazine talks to Mark Buchanan about his forthcoming book on the life of David.
• Brant Hansen and producer Sherri Lynn devoted a special edition podcast to Charlotteville. (31 minutes)…
• …Tim Keller also responded to the weekend’s tragic event…
• …And Ed Stetzer says that if you’ve lost the ability to critique the President, you’ve lost the element of Christian witness which speaks for truth.
• Interview of the Week: RNS talks to James Emery White about reaching the generation which is coming after the Millennials, Generation Z.
• Testimony of the Week: On feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit, “While a big ‘aha!’ moment is certainly possible, waiting for it in restless dissatisfaction can lead to missing the most powerful moments of all—the ones that come in small doses but carry much weight in the kingdom of God.” Don’t wait for cloven tongues of fire. 
• ♫ New Book About Music: Keith and Kristyn Getty (In Christ Alone) have written Sing! How Worship Transforms Your Life, Family and Church.  The book releases officially on September 1st.
  
• ♫ New Music: Michael W. Smith is back with A Million Lights, his first new song in three years.  (Full story at NRT.)
• ♫ New Music: For readers who like their music a bit more urban, check out Astronaut by Derek Minor featuring Deraj and Byron Juane and no shortage of special effects.
• The Pipester is still a go-to source for provocative soundbites. “Can Christians have sex if the wedding date is set?”
• Sermon of the Week: Where Fire Has Been by Levi Lusko at Fresh Life Church in Montana and Utah. (41 minutes, video)
• Apologetics Avenue (1): It’s been a year since we mentioned them, and they aren’t adding new content, but wanted to remind you about Answering Skeptics on WordPress.
• “What’s the difference between a canoe and a Christian in a restaurant? A canoe tips.” I’ve told that joke myself, but a creditcards.com and Princeton University study shows Evangelical leaders tip 20%. 
• And now, another graduate of the Mark Driscoll School of Writing.
  
• Finally, something for readers familiar with older hymns, or the Church of England or both: A look at candidates for the future publication, Hymns Ancient and Freudian.

From the image archives:

Wednesday Link List

Australian Wednesday List Lynx

This is list #370 and is truly one of the best. Tell Gertrude in the outer office to hold all your calls. The reference related to the above graphic, in case you’re wondering, is Ecclesiastes 9:4. And if you missed it, we had a Sunday Link List this week. (Don’t miss the lead item on potential changes to how religious content is handled at YouTube.)

Inclusion in the list below does not imply endorsement

• Keith Green died 35 years ago. Johann Sebastian Bach died on the same day in 1750, July 28th. “When we think of the heroes of our faith, we list missionaries, theologians, and pastors, but often overlook musicians. Christian history is deeply indebted to both men and will forever be enriched by their transcendent legacies.”
• New Religions Department: “His followers proclaimed him to be the prophet to succeed Muhammad, sparking a new religious movement based on his teachings, which was eventually called Millah Abraham. The new faith was adopted mainly by disenchanted Muslims. It spread quickly across Indonesia and Malaysia to more than 50,000 followers…And like many other new religious movements, Millah Abraham is dreaming big, with hopes to supersede Christianity and Islam as the dominant Abrahamic faith.” The Atlantic looks at why we haven’t seen new major religions.
• A Ministry of Litigation: A look at “the Christian legal movement, a collection of advocacy groups working in the legal, public policy and public relations arenas to advance and protect conservative Christian moral values.” We’ll see them in court. The National Catholic Reporter called this overview, “Serving God by Suing Others.”   
• Here’s a shock: Perry Noble has registered the name of a new church in South Carolina. Read about Second Chance Church. 
• Trending in the Pacific Northwest: Yoga Mats Over Church Pews. A Yoga instructor who is also a Christian discusses the growth of the former while attendance declines at the latter.
  
• Syncretism – Grace vs. Destiny: North America and Western Europe aren’t the only places where culture or tradition is imposed on doctrine. It happens in Ghana as well. (Note: There is also a Part Two.) 
• For those who find 1,492 pages a bit daunting, the executive summary of Greg Boyd’s 2-volume Crucifixion of the Warrior God is now available in the 292-page Cross Vision (Subtitle: How the Crucifixion of Jesus Makes Sense of Old Testament Violence.)
  
• Herm-and-Eutics Department: At least conservative Christians and atheists are misreading scripture the same way. 
• Becoming Extinct: The Missions Pastor. Three reasons why.
  
• Tragedy: Started compiling this week’s list and was met by this headline, “Kansas Couple Who Met During Missionary Work in South Africa Killed in Crash One Day After Marriage.”
• Biomedical Ethics: At the public’s expense, 800 kids in the Britain are on “puberty blockers.” A report notes that “more than 600 young people are receiving the drugs from the Gender Identity Development Service at University College Hospital in London, with a further 200 receiving them from a clinic in Leeds…The controversial drugs pause the development of sexual organs, making it easier for doctors to carry out a ‘sex change’ operation later in life…” An expert in Psychiatry said the drugs “have been rapidly accepted by the medical community ‘without scientific scrutiny’“.
  
• I think what this author is saying is that if we make a high priority of simply being in church each week, there are ways in which regular church attendance can thwart mission.
• ♫ I Know What You Did Last Sunday: Worship leaders post their set lists weekly using the Sunday Setlist hashtag. 
• Catholic Corner: A letter sent to a same-sex couple from Pope Francis on the occasion of the baptism of their children, should not be seen as an endorsement of their family situation. Rather, it was a translation of a standard form letter, with no direct references.
  
• Has the UK’s Greenbelt Festival, always considered a Christian music and arts event, gone multi-faith? “The Greenbelt website reveals it has ‘received funding from Amal’ – a project aimed at promoting a diversity of Islamic cultures and arts – ‘to produce a brand new venue and programme at Greenbelt this summer, showcasing Muslim art, culture, thought and spirituality’.” Greenbelt Creative Director Paul Northup says, “‘Amal at Greenbelt is just another step in our long journey to model inclusivity and engagement.” One seminar offers instruction in Islamic worship chants…
• …Meanwhile, UK readers looking for other festival options have a few on the August Bank Holiday weekend.
  
• What About Bob? Randy Alcorn writes, “You will be you in Heaven. Who else would you be? If Bob, a man on Earth, is no longer Bob when he gets to Heaven, then, in fact, Bob did not go to Heaven.” A look at maintaining our personal history and identity in eternity.
• Parenting Place: The note left in the pair of jeans made no sense; “How could my daughter be writing those things to another girl?“
• Charismatic author and Pastor Rick Joyner on Donald Trump: “God will defeat anyone who tries to take Trump down…It’s because he has a divine purpose…God put him there and only God is going to be able to take him out. You watch what happens to everyone else who tries.”
• Sports Department: Why is a private school in Las Vegas, operated by Calvary Chapel keeping silent about a coach they hired, even to the point of escorting a writer off the church property where his family has worshiped?
• Interview of the Week: RNS talks to Jen Hatmaker, even as her new book, Of Mess and Moxie is banned from LifeWay.
• Church History Department: A look at the time when “a Bohemian reformer called Petr Chelčický (1390-1460) stepped up and preached the message of the Sermon on the Mount: nonviolence, enemy love and good deeds. Instead of just reforming the church to a slightly better state, he wanted to restore the Biblical, apostolic church completely. He believed in the free will of the individual believer, criticized the marriage between church and state, and promoted economic redistribution and communalism…” An excerpt from the forthcoming book, Charismactivism.
• Canada Corner: A Lutheran pastor from British Columbia shares highlights from the latest Canadian census results.
• Student Ministry: Responding when youth express doubt. First and foremost, tell them it’s okay to express their feelings. “Young people need to know that we—and God—are going to hear and hold their questions without pushing away.”
• Provocative Headline of the Week: Hillary Wants to Preach. “Scattered bits of reporting suggest that ministry has always been a secret dream of the two-time presidential candidate.”
• Worship Workshop: J. D. Greear with 14 things pastors want worship leaders to know. 
• ♫ New Music: The group is called Bonray; the song is Turn My Eyes.
  
• ♫ Older Music: Tim Challies has occasionally been posting an order of service from his church with commentary as to what was included. A few weeks ago, they opened with this song, Hail to the Lord’s Anointed by Indelible Grace, video posted in 2013.
• I caught last week’s Phil Vischer Podcast too late to add it to the list here, but parents might want to check out the interview with Rob Rienow on establishing a family worship time. (Fast forward to 34:42 for the interview.) …
• …Which was followed this week by James Gilmore, author of The Experience Economy, a business book which has no application to the church. Except that in many ways it does.
  
• 🎬 Christian Movie Trailer of the Week: Based on the book, Same Kind of Different As Me releases in October from PureFlix…
• …Somewhat Related: ChristianCinema.com is transferring to digital-only; discontinuing Christian DVD sales.
• Another leader in youth ministry violates the trust given. (Let’s face it, there’s probably at least one of these per week, but awareness promotes vigilance.)
• Dumbest Logic Ever: A 1-minute video explaining why Lady Gaga is being sold at major drug stores.
• Finally, when church planting in Sicily, it’s important to adapt to the local culture.

Don’t forget to check out the link list from Sunday.

For our lower graphic, Zondervan author Nish Weiseth went to see The Book of Mormon in Salt Lake City and found this advert in the program. Were they seizing the home turf advantage? Either way, she says, “Well played, LDS Church.”

Wednesday Link List

On an upscale Men’s clothing store in Prague, opposite our hotel

Something seriously messed up in our lynx picture file this week

If you missed it, there was also a Weekend Link List on Saturday. Remember, we try to avoid sending you to links with pop-ups or paywalls. If you see otherwise, let us know.

• Warning — Infidelity is crouching at the door: “The evidence that many married men and married women are using Facebook as a means to communicate emotionally and/or sexually outside of their marriage is overwhelming.” A writer sounds the alarm after studying “Extramarital Facebook communication research.“
• Church Life: “Maybe it’s time to stop trying to be popular. It’s really not working for anyone. And it’s a huge distraction from what really matters.”  Amy Simpson on chasing cultural relevance.
• Florida’s Candice Patterson has been served notice that she is in default of $1,000 owing to her Baptist Church, consisting of $50 per month and a total of $400 special assessments. “The single mother, who at first felt blessed for finding a place of worship near her new home, was now stunned to realize that the church considered her a delinquent due to lack of financial support.”
• A Good Career Move? The ACLJ’s Jay Sekulow is currently acting as legal counsel for Donald Trump and things are murky as this article well illustrates.
• Surprises: This list of the Top 50 Christian Books for August ranks at #2, this book by a popular evangelist about an iconic actor.
• Theology to a T Department: So what was the shape of Jesus’ cross? J. Warner Wallace weighs four frequently cited options.
• Among 50 Christian entrepreneurs featured in an upcoming UK book is Gary Grant, owner of the retail toy chain, The Entertainer.
• Top book lists are never perfect, but I liked this one. See how many of these you can check: 50 Great Christian Books.
• Not making this up: An inside look at the Trump Cabinet Bible Study.
• Leadership Link: Is your church meeting in multiple locations? Here’s a new Twitter feed tracking all things multi-site.
• Leadership Lessons: For older pastors, a look at seven dangers that can creep in at the later years of ministry.
• Translation Times: The NASB is the latest to undergo an update, but the project is running late. 
• Table of Contents: There are some basic differences between a Hebrew Bible and what we call The Old Testament.
  
• As you might expect, Vicki Beeching wasn’t impressed with this LifeSiteNews piece, “Why No Christian Should Attend a Gay Wedding.” …
• …On Twitter, Canada’s Michael Coren offered her some alternative reading about LifeSite. 
• A long review for a long book: A very, very thorough review of the first volume of Greg Boyd’s Crucifixion of the Warrior God.
  
• Good Advice: “Being a mean, cranky, angry Christian is one of the great indicators that we have lost sight of the grace God has shown to us.”
• ♫ New Worship Video: Lamb of God by Lindsey Dail.
• Parenting Place: A straight-A 12-year old takes her own life following a year of relentless cyber-bullying.
• Canada Corner: Polygamy is illegal in Canada. For now.
• Book Title Shortage Continues: I enjoyed this guy’s appearance at North Point Community Church on the weekend, but I’m just not sure why one of his books appears to be a copycat of another Christian book with the same title. (I’ll try not be offended.)
• Listicle of the Week: This is actually from June, which is a forever-ago in blogtime, but check out Ten Toxic Traditions that are Killing the Church.
• Your weekly minister/rector/pastor/priest caught with young girl/boy story. 
• Don’t you just hate it when giant spiders are placed on top of your church? “The Archbishop of Ottawa, Terrence Prendergast, said that he was surprised by the negative reaction.”
  
• Finally, reading Matthew Pierce is starting to melt my brain. Long ago, I would visit this blog infrequently. Now, like the proverbial addict, I am always craving more. Take a few minutes to check out Pastor Justin Bieber Fan Fiction.¹

“God is Good … All the Time” – A screenshot from The Robloxian Christians, an online church we first covered here last year.

¹Pierce is no stranger to writing this type of fiction. Type the following search criteria into Google for links to all 8 parts of The Exegeticals — ” matthewepierce.com: Exegeticals “

Wednesday Link List

Ostein

Wednesday List Lynx – The lynx is considered a national animal in Macedonia where it is featured on the five denar coin

Thanks to a serious distraction involving Penn & Teller on Netflix, completion of this week’s link list almost didn’t happen. (R. & E., you know who you are!)

• A CCM First: “Keith Getty was honored June 16 as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The award, which commemorates Getty’s contribution to ‘Music and Modern Hymn Writing,’ marks the first occasion that the award has been given to an individual involved in the world of contemporary church music.”
• HarperCollins is preparing a January release for The Faith of Donald J. Trump: A Spiritual Biography. No, really. The author promises it won’t be the world’s shortest book.
• A Country Without a Heart: A California pastor with no criminal history and father of two children, aged five and six is among those awaiting deportation under the United States immigration crackdown.
• Monday night we heard that Justin Bieber was canceling the remainder of his world tour. By Tuesday afternoon the story was that he is starting his own church. (Follow this story in real time on Twitter.)
  
• Adulting: It’s hard. 
• Trending Big: Michael Frost tweeted this article yesterday, and although it’s from January, the dinner-plus-church-service equation is catching on worldwide.
  
• Bible vs. Science: Where the scriptures and modern science seem to clash there are four different approaches to having difficult conversations.
  
• The leadership at NewSpring Church is not holding the door open to former pastor Perry Noble, even as other churches are inviting him to speak. (Noble says there was never a time when he met all their qualifications.)
• Having it Both Ways at The Ark Encounter: The park itself is a for-profit business so it can get a tourism rebate. But Ken Ham just sold the land it’s on to his non-profit to avoid taxes.
• Sometimes when I’m on a tight deadline I’ll pop over to challies.com to see which links he’s recommending in his daily a la carte section. That yielded this TGC article on the history of the altar call. (I was half expecting a Reformed perspective on ‘the invitation’ like, ‘If you have to ask, you’re not elect.’)
• Essay of the Week: Different paths churches can follow when the surrounding neighborhood changes.
• Provocative Title of the Week: Is the Bible Fake News? (A look at the Genesis stories that are taken literally in varying degrees.) 
• Rethinking Church: We Are Church, the movement spearheaded by Francis Chan has a unique structure, as we uncovered at this document.
  
• Midweek Devotional: Our prayer agenda often seems quite different from God’s prayer agenda, though he did say to “Cast all our cares on him.”
  
• Taking his cue from the Peanuts comic strip, this pastor offers spiritual, not psychiatric help for five cents. (see photo below)
  
• Leadership Lessons: 5 Things leaders struggle with, but don’t want to admit. Example: “You see setbacks in ministry as a personal statement from God about you.”  
• Worship Workshop: “It’s the paradox of the worship selfie. When we’re supposed to be drawing attention to the glory of the Savior, we manage to find a prominent spot in the picture.” 
• Ethics Enigma: The state of Oregon seizes two children from parents because they don’t have enough IQ points…
• …This writer says Oregon went too far. 
• The Mark of the Beast? A Wisconsin company is ready to offer microchips to its employees. 
• Listicle of the Week: 12 Reasons why we don’t invite our friends to church.
  
• Christianity Timeline: So first a friend directed me to this Reddit thread showing the development of various denominations. Next I decided the timeline itself needed a look. (Click on it to enlarge.) 
• Teens and P0rn: As someone who has written on this issue, I feel this issue only begins to scratch the surface of this subject, but it’s a good beginning.
  
• After napalm burned off her clothing in Vietnam, Kim Phuc became known simply as “the girl in the picture.” For only the second time, a book has been written telling her story. Fire Road releases this fall from Tyndale.
• Words for Women: “Tolkien and Lewis. David and Jonathan. Piglet and Pooh.” Cathe Laurie, wife of Greg Laurie reflects on the friendships which have blessed her at different stages of life.
• Remembering Haddon Robinson.  
• Story in Pictures: A photo journalist looks at the hardcore metal Christian festival, Audiofeed in Illinois. (Oddly, nothing resembling a crowd-scene concert pic.)
  
• Audio Avenue: Counting down the Top 200 Christian Podcasts.
  
• ♫ New Music: Brandon Heath’s new song Whole Heart is not available on an album. 
• Finally — and if you follow me on Twitter this should come as no surprise — we end with a link to a literary masterpiece: Matthew Pierce presents some epic James Dobson Fan Fiction.

 

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Don’t wait for Wednesdays; follow me on Twitter for brilliant insights like this one:

Scripture tells us that Noah boarded two of every animal. Were some same sex couples as new lighting at Ark Encounter suggests? pic.twitter.com/1Ohsxi8NXE

— Paul Wilkinson (@PaulW1lk1nson) July 23, 2017

The Office of a College Campus Minister

Regular readers here will remember Jeff Snow from the three-part series about how divorce affects teens, which we actually ran twice. If you missed it, click this link and scroll down to Part One. Jeff is currently serving bi-vocationally doing campus ministry as part of Mission Canada, an initiative of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (what the Assemblies of God churches are known as here.) The University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) shares a campus with Durham College, so Jeff interacts with people studying at both levels, not to mention that this campus is more culturally diverse than anything our American readers might imagine.

He shared the following in a recent newsletter and as we do have readers here involved in student ministry, I thought it was worth presenting.

I get the feeling I like to work when there is food around.

I’m sitting in my favorite corner of the local Subway restaurant on a sunny but cool day working on this letter and it makes me think back to last semester, my first full semester of ministry through Mission Canada at UOIT/Durham College, and consider my favorite place to work on campus.

The cafeteria.

Last year, as I shared my ministry plans with a colleague, one of the first questions he asked me was would I have an office on campus? I just smiled. I knew I would have an office, but not in the way he was thinking.

My office is the cafeteria.

In my years of high school ministry, we would at times hear stories about youth pastors who had developed such a well-respected ministry at a high school that they were given office space. This does speak highly of the respect given to a youth pastor, but an office is something I’ve never aspired to for a couple of reasons.

One is that on a secular campus it puts a bulls-eye on your back for those to aim at who don’t want a Christian presence on campus. One principal told me years ago, “You fly under the radar. We like that.”

Secondly, being in an office means you are but one more person that a student has to go TO in order to get help and support. It takes more time and patience, but the payoff is greater if we are able to travel in the young person’s world, become accepted in their universe, and, by being on their turf, be more accessible when they need help and support. The goal is to try and be where the young people are.

Like in the cafeteria.

Over the past semester, the two places I spent most of my time on campus was at Campus Church, the Friday night student-led campus ministry, and in the cafeteria. Usually I will make an appointment to meet one student for lunch, with a plan to stay in the cafeteria the whole afternoon. I bring a laptop to do some work and look studious during downtime, but more often than not there isn’t any downtime, as students that I’ve gotten to know through the Campus Church ministry will stop by, pull out their lunch, and start chatting.

The conversations usually start off light, and sometimes stay that way. But most of the time the conversations move to deeper issues. Relationships, school pressure, dorm life, church life, world issues, the future, ministry opportunities, prayer for family and friends. All have been topics for discussion. I have found myself being a pastoral presence on campus for a number of these students. Many of them have home churches and pastors, but my presence on campus gives them accessibility to a listening ear and support right there on their turf. And they don’t have to go to an office and make an appointment. They can find the support they need.

Right there in the cafeteria.

My desire as I look forward to the coming semester is to find ways to connect with students who aren’t necessarily Christians, connect with students who are not yet part of Campus Church. That is where an office could come in handy for the few who might seek out spiritual support. It would be a formal way of identifying where to find support rather than talking to some dude in the cafeteria. But until the school reinstates the chaplaincy, my best bet for meeting students is through my office in the cafeteria. Whether it is meeting pre-Christians through their Christian friends or through other means, I’m looking forward to opportunities to meet pre-Christian students on their turf and help them see how the Gospel connects with where they are in life.

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If you’re interested in learning more about Jeff’s work or providing financial support, click this link.

Wednesday Link List

I love robots but this vacation bible school weirds me out so much. pic.twitter.com/1AEMiEtDRK

— Ginger Christ (@GChristCLE) July 17, 2017

Meow

We’re back after a week away from link-listing. One of the big winners here each week is me! I get to prepare this thing and see such a wide swath of what Christians are thinking and doing. There are some topics here for your consideration. Take some time, and tell your friends to visit.

• Essay of the Week: Shane Claiborne chronicles the history of Christian civil disobedience. “You can go to jail for doing something wrong. And you can also go to jail for doing something right. We went to jail for doing something right.” 
• Listicle of the Week: 5 Sure Signs You’ve Been Hoodwinked by the “Prosperity Gospel.
  
• Electronic Dance Music (EDM) in church? “It’s not supposed to draw out the voice of a congregation. It’s supposed to make people want to move and leave their rational selves behind. And buy music. And stay in the club longer and spend more on drinks. It doesn’t facilitate the liturgy, it hijacks the liturgy, making it something else entirely. ” (Some of the points here apply to more than just EDM at church.)
• Making your church introvert-friendly: “Our church cultures are unintentionally designed to identify, groom, and celebrate a specific personality type which leaves most introverts unseen, undeveloped, and left with a stigma of guilt and shame. Our ministry and discipleship opportunities implicitly communicate what a ‘disciple’ looks like, what ‘ministry’ looks like, or what ‘leadership’ looks like. And most of those narratives are very, very narrow.”
• Quotation of the Week: “Sadly, it seems like John Piper has trouble dealing with the fact that women have bosoms even though he is free from sexual feelings towards other women.” Documenting John Piper’s ongoing obsession with this particular topic, including mothers allowing their 2-year-old daughters to show their knees. (Trigger alert: This discusses the private parts of men and women.)
• Colorado’s gay wedding cake case: “There is an impulse to frame every issue as a clash between the tolerant and the closed-minded. But the Masterpiece case doesn’t challenge, undermine or re-litigate the issue of same-sex marriage in America. Gay marriage wasn’t even legal in Colorado when this incident occurred.” 
• Moving: After 25 years at Wheaton College in Chicago, New Testament prof. Gary Burge is joining the faculty of Calvin College in Grand Rapids.
  
• Farewell, SBC: “Today I am officially renouncing my ordination in the Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s largest Protestant body, with about 15 million members, and the world’s largest Baptist denomination. My reasoning is simple: As a black scholar of race and a minister who is committed to social justice, I can no longer be part of an organization that is complicit in the disturbing rise of the so-called alt-right, whose members support the abhorrent policies of Donald Trump and whose troubling racial history and current actions reveal a deep commitment to white supremacy.” Lawrence Ware writes at the New York Times.
• Apologetics Alley: Did Jesus speak Greek? When the subject of whether or not our Bibles contain the exact words of Jesus, we default to:
  1. Jesus primarily spoke in Aramaic.
  2. The Gospels were written in Greek.
  If Jesus ever used Greek to speak, then the Gospels may contain his exact words. Three reasons why Jesus probably spoke Greek at least some of the time…
• …Meanwhile, a different view at Zondervan Academic: “Jesus probably knew enough Greek to understand it. But he wouldn’t have spoken it as his first language. He also wouldn’t have used it in his daily conversation or taught the crowds in Greek.” …
• …Also at the same blog, a look at both sides of the authorship of Hebrews issue.
• Sermon Stats: “In these days of Ted Talks and 20 minutes messages, we were surprised that the most watched and beloved preachers in America preach almost twice that long!” Check out the average sermon length for ten popular pastors.
• Dialing for Doctrine: Who exactly did Jesus die for?  The debate on “particular redemption,” which most of us refer to us “limited atonement.” (If nothing else, be sure to check out the 6-minute video.)
• This is a developing story which may have changed by the time you read it, but the TGC website deals with the basics of the Charlie Gard case.
• Sermon of the Week: Full disclosure, the one I chose was from June 23rd. The pastor is Levi Lusko a name that was new to me. He pastors Fresh Life Church in 8 locations around Kalispell, Montana. He was one of the ten pastors on the sermon stats piece above, and is the author of Swipe Right: The Life-and-Death Power of Sex and Romance from Zondervan. Enjoy all 39 minutes of The Things That Make for Peace.
• The Christian Patriarchy Movement: “My father told me so often that God works through men to reveal his will for women. ‘You can’t know God’s will without a father or husband.” Of 30 of her friends who were subject to this mindset, she knows of only three who are currently following Christ.
• Jesus and Yoga: For me this sentence sums up the entire article,  “I was once a super devout Christian, and I have a lot more ideas about my creator now from practicing yoga. It’s turned into another type of worship of me.” Or how about the woman who, “was actually a Pentecostal minister before she found yoga. When she became interested in the practice, she decided to eschew U.S. studios and traveled to India to study the yoga there. The choice forced her to reconcile her Pentecostalism with her new passion. “My yoga made it difficult to maintain my religious relationships, so much of that ended when I announced I was going to India.” An insight into the practice of what is called trap yoga.
• In the four years 2012-2015, Trinity Broadcasting Network spent over $20M (US) in legal fees, and that number doesn’t include amounts paid out in settlements. “Besides examining a preacher’s theology, donors should determine if giving to them is good stewardship.” 
• Marriage Matters: “What do I do when my spouse doesn’t have the same sense of calling to the poor, or mission, or ministry, that I do?” 4 Guidelines when facing a mismatched sense of calling.
  
• Translation Troubles: We’ve all experienced it. Something like, “I don’t really like what the ESV does with verse 21, I think it should be more like…” Three reasons pastors should avoid a public put-down of particular translations.
• Today’s Trivia Question: A classic preacher and author is quoted as, ““I can say quite honestly that I would not cross the road to listen to myself preaching.” Know who he is?
• Breaking another glass ceiling, “Rev. Teresa “Terri” Hord Owens was elected …to serve as the General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada. She is the first African-American to hold this post and the second woman to lead the denomination.” (Or lead any mainline Protestant denomination…)
• …Also, increasingly more black families in the US are choosing to homeschool.
• Church on Wheels: His sanctuary is a 2009 Mercury Grand Marquis. His Uber passengers are his congregation.
• ♫ New Music: Some recommendations from New Release Today:
  • Becca Bradley’s Holy Holy Holy (nice take on a classic)
    
  • The band is called After Grace with the song Shine.
    
• Canada Corner: Booksellers on the prairie are always surprised when people keep returning to buy Paul Young’s The Shack.
• Pot Calling the Kettle? Young Earth Creationists accuse Flat Earth devotees of taking the Bible too literally.
• Catching up with the Phil Vischer podcast while I was away; a great interview two weeks ago with Kevin Palau who is the son of…well, you guys are smart…
• …A week later, somewhere after the 30:00 mark, Phil suggests to Skye that a future badge of honor on consumer products might be “Made By Humans” in a world where robots and automation have replaced workers. 
• Finally: “Probably a good idea would be to pick an age (maybe 73 or something) and agree to never get upset by something a Christian says once they’ve crossed that line. We could call it the King David Line, or the King David Rule.”
• Finally, finally: One good Matthew Pierce link deserves another, and after debating it, I decided to actually conclude with this one about how to be an introvert in the modern church. ” PRO TIP: You can’t really get in trouble for anything if you’re not an official member. Then the pastors will come to you and be like “if you’re not a member, you can’t be a leader or vote on things” and even though that sounds really good, they mean it as a bad thing.”
  

Below, the Goliath Wall fresco in Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany. Not sure why I took this picture as there are exactly 2.43967 zillion of them online and they all look the same. Modern renderings in children’s Bible story books tend to put more distance between the two combatants. Could this be more accurate?

 

Post-Camp, Post-Festival Spiritual Highs: When they Crash

From the moment she got in the car for the one hour drive home, she didn’t stop talking. It had been an awesome two weeks. God was doing incredible things. She started talking about the people she wanted to take from her home church the following year. She described the insights the weekly speaker had shared on one particular Bible passage. When she got home she went into her room and for another hour worked out the chords for various worship songs she’d learned that week. 

So what happened? Over several days she got very sullen. On Sunday she seemed a little unsure if she even wanted to go to church. “Don’t you want to tell your friends about your great week?” you asked her. She had come down off the spiritual high and simply crashed…

…Over the next few weeks, teens in your church will return having spent some time this summer

• going to a Christian music festival
• attending a Christian camp
• working at a Christian camp
• serving on a missions trip.

They return spiritually energized only to discover that their church experience now seems rather flat by comparison. Suddenly, business-as-usual or status-quo church holds no interest. I say that from personal experience. One summer, after the spiritual high of 13 weeks on staff at large Christian resort, by whatever logic it seemed to make sense, I simply dropped out of weekend services for an entire month, until a friend said something that gently nudged me back.

On the other hand, there are other teens in your church whose summer experience has not been so positive. They’ve been negatively influenced through contact with people

• hanging out at home
• vacationing at the campground, cabin or RV park
• met on a road trip
• interacting in the virtual world online

For them, returning to church has lost its appeal because they’ve either backslidden a little, or taken a nose dive into the deep waters of sin. Perhaps they’ve made new friends outside their Sunday or youth group circle.

Either way, summer is always a transitional time for preteens and adolescents, and while that’s true of mental, physical, emotional and social development, it’s also true in terms of spiritual development; and while some have soared spiritually, others have taken one step forward and ten steps backward.

The first challenge is knowing the difference between the two types of summer experiences. Identifying the source of the first type of disillusionment is easy because you probably already know the youth went to camp, the music festival or the mission field. It’s then a simple matter of probing what is they are now feeling after having had such an inspiring and uplifting summer experience. That might consist of finding ways to get them soaring again, although here one is tempted to caution against having teens live a manic life of going from spiritual high to spiritual high.

The group in the other category might not be so willing to open up. There may have been factors that drove them away from the centeredness of their past spiritual life. Perhaps their summer has been characterized by

• a divorce in the family
• an experiment with drugs or alcohol
• delving into alternative spiritualities and faith systems
• a loss of someone they loved or a pet
• depression following a regretful first sexual experience.

They are dealing with pain, or doubt, or guilt, or uncertainty. Restoring them gently, as taught in Galatians 6:1, is likely your strategy at this point.

The second challenge is that many of these youth were, just a few weeks ago, on a parallel spiritual track. In post summer ministry, you’re reaching out to two very different types of kids: Those who prospered in their faith and those who faltered. Either way, they now find themselves back into the fall routine and the spiritual spark is gone.

A temptation here might be to let the first group help and nurture the second, but I would caution against that. The first group needs to sort out their own spiritual status first. They need to process how to return from what they did and saw and felt and learned and apply it to life in the real world. (One only goes on a retreat if one expects to go back to the battle and advance.) They shouldn’t live off the experience, but rather try to keep the closeness they felt to Christ during their time away.

The group which experienced everything from a lessening of their faith to a spiritual train wreck need a lot of love. They need to be reminded that their church or youth group is a spiritual home to which they can return, no matter how they feel, what they’ve done, or where their summer experience has left them.

Youth ministry is not easy. I only worked in it as an itinerant presenter, not as someone facing the same group of kids over a period of several years. If you were to graph their spiritual life, some would present an even line rising to the right, while others would show erratic ups and downs.

Either way, I think the greatest challenge would be those critical roundup weeks in the early fall when you’re trying to assess where everyone is at, and then try to collectively move on. For teens, and for all of us, the spiritual landscape is always changing.

Wednesday Link List

Our lead graphic this week comes from This is Indexed, a blog I’ve been following for many, many years.

I think the fundamental thing about compiling this each week is to look at an array of stories, many of which turn up on other roundup lists like this, and say, ‘Is this the type of story that fits our Wednesday list?’ Hopefully we’ve evolved a style where you might know what to expect. 

The link list won’t be here next week. We’ll see you in two weeks.

• Essay of the Week: The people in bestselling Christian biographies take risks. But do normal people do that?
  
• As Christianity Today notes, it’s taken a long time for Christians to hear the story of the faith of baseball’s Jackie Robinson, but following in the wake of the Eric Metaxas mention several years back, two more recent books are giving the story the play it deserves.
• Moments in Church History: “I can’t say I have ever seen one firsthand, but I am told that at Welsh soccer games, the crowds will often break out into song. And sometimes they’ll sing hymns. It is quite a phenomenon for an entire stadium filled with Welsh football fans to sing in perfect harmony. How is this possible?” 
• All in the Family: Just look who’s on the board of Jay Sekulow’s Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism. 
• Disturbing Headline of the Week: “Make America Great Again” is Now a CCLI Licensed Christian Worship Song.
  
• In a church tribal culture where homeschooling is the norm, popular blogger Tim Challies is offered a chance to amend his 11-year blog post supporting he and his wife’s decision to put his kids in the public school system, but he’s currently affirming what he wrote all those years ago.
• People really do get their news from Facebook: Francis Chan shares with Facebook employees why he left Cornerstone, the church he founded.
• You have to pity the poor gay wedding cake. It gets used as talking point in so many discussions it must get really tired at the end of the day. Now we have John MacArthur, no less, telling us that baking a cake for a gay wedding isn’t a sin. So at least that much is clear. 
• An academic journal reported that while Christians are more dogmatic than atheists, the latter can be more closed minded in a couple of areas, one of which is contradiction. (Interesting, as Christians we often find ourselves dealing with Biblical paradoxes.)
  
• KidMin (1): Early 20th Century Vacation Bible School programs ran six to seven weeks (!) and other scary things you learn when you undertake to produce a history of VBS.
• KidMin (2): Oh my goodness! A mega-list of what’s on offer from 64 providers of Children’s Ministry Curriculum.
• YMin: Lots of student pastors have a sex talk, but how would it be evaluated by a secular psychologist, or school counselor, or a hardcore feminist, or someone who is gay, or a teen who is brand new to the Christian message on sexuality? Wondering if “those who speak on controversial topics from a Christian perspective run their talks through the filter of the outsider.” 
• Their aversion to “gender-neutral language” didn’t stop the ESV translators from using it when it came to this verse.
• Missions Moment: Before you rush out the door to fulfill The Great Commission, consider including a window for proper preparation.
  
• Pentecostal Problems: Those crazy Charismatics and the things they do when it comes to offering time. 
• Homeschooling without tests: If it sounds implausible, it’s because you’re applying the regular school paradigm where it doesn’t fit.
  
• This just in: Mormon women who work for the church don’t have to wear dresses. Pantsuits and dress slacks are permissible. And men can removed their jackets in hot weather. I’m so glad the church is administrating these weighty matters. We can’t have LDS guys overheating.
  
• Parenting Place: “As summer gets underway, teenagers may be home more often, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll see more of them. If they retreat to their rooms for hours or seem cagey about their plans, don’t take it personally.” 
• Parenting Place (2): Chonda Pierce finds herself de-friended when her teenage son blocks her on Facebook. (2 minute video) 
• ♫ New Music: We Are Messengers latest, Point to You. (Really like this one!) 
• ♫ New Music: A live version of Manifesto by The City Harmonic. (Like this one, too!)
  
• ♫ New Music: An acoustic version of All for You Jesus from the forthcoming Vineyard Worship album Kyrie Eleison. (Three for three!)
  
• Finally — and you readers who just scroll straight down to the finally; we know who you are — just as professional sports has its stats, here are seven advanced metrics for ranking pastors.

The media and graphic arts division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) is the gift that keeps on giving! At their Twenty One Hundred Productions Facebook page you find things both of interest to IVCF staff members and also broader topics for the rest of us.  Like this one from 2014:

(Here’s another one of my favorites from them that we’ve used before.)

Wednesday Link List

So who’s this happy youth group? These are the interns working at Craig Groeschel’s Life.Church this summer. As we pointed out at this time last year, their roster of interns is larger than many American churches.

Welcome to WLL #365. We continue to try to direct you to sites not containing pop-up ads or paywalls, but the internet is not the same place as it was 365 link lists ago.

As we prepared this, the trial of Shane Claiborne and 17 others arrested in Washington for protesting the death penalty was scheduled to begin at 9:00 AM today (Wednesday). Pray, as this is a watershed moment for this particular social justice issue.

• The conference of all conferences. Representatives from all major religions. 17 days long. Interested? It happened in 1893.
• Worship Workshop: I love this title, Singing “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus” While Sitting Down – Disembodied Worship.
• The gay wedding cake controversy boiled down to one sentence, “What gets lost in the shuffle is this: People are refusing to take part in creating a type of message, linked to a specific kind of rite, not refusing all commerce with a type of person.” (italics added)
  
• Essay of the Week: “Automated teller machines started to make their first appearance in the lobbies of evangelical churches just over a dozen years ago. It was important for churches to have something to put into the collection plate, and it was important that it be cash that people actually possessed – not a promise to pay someday on their credit card accounts. Thus, the ATM allowed evangelicals who didn’t carry a checkbook or a wallet full of cash not to be embarrassed when the offering plates or baskets came around…The debit card that people carried in their wallet could be just as good as cash anywhere else, but in the sanctuary, cash was the appropriate offering.”
• Another bird leaves the nest: Eight years ago Libby Phelps of the infamous Westboro Baptist Phelps family decided it was time. “After packing everything she owned into a car and moving into a friend’s house in secret, Phelps realized how much of her life had been planned out and controlled by the church, including the clothes she wore and when she exercised. “There were so many simple daily tasks that I didn’t know how to do, like how to pay my bills,” she said. Phelps hasn’t seen her family since she left.” Her new book is titled Girl on a Wire: Walking the Line Between Faith and Freedom in the Westboro Baptist Church.
• Choosing a new Pastor: As with art and politics, the pendulum swings and each new minister is often a response to the previous one.
• Dialing for Doctrine: This week, a look at ‘Subordinationism’ a view of the Trinity which is sometimes applied to marriage to support complementarianism.
• To boldly go where only six theologians have gone before: Scot McKnight looks at some key writers who Greg Boyd would say paved the way for his epic, 2-volume book. Speaking of Boyd, on a much lighter note…
  
• Mini Podcast of the Week: Greg Boyd considers “the salvific status of alien life. Should your church support interplanetary ministries?” (3 min.)
  
• Provocative Headline of the Week: Church-Approved Transgenderism.
• Leadership Lessons: It’s summer, a season of rest, right? But summer projects can leave you exhausted and burned out when Labor Day rolls around.
• This past Sunday, First Baptist of Dallas had a worship service. This writer asks, what was being worshiped?
• Education: “Visual arts haven’t always been well received on Christian campuses. Conservative Protestant schools, steeped in a Reformation heritage that prioritizes God’s Word, feared the visual arts could have a corrupting effect… But that’s been changing.”
• Translation Tracking: Our Bible App is “a progressive bible app for Christians who are LGBT affirming, pro women, and center people of color. ” The app will include 20 translations that are gender neutral. Though scheduled to launch June 30th, current crowd funding is only at 33%.
• History Department: A look at baptism as practiced in various forms by various religions.
• The male perspective: This writer thinks we need to remember that “egalitarianism is for men too; a way of liberating ourselves from our sexist ways.”
• Concluded: The Practice, a more liturgical community led by Aaron Niequist within Willow Creek is ending after 3½ years.
• ♫ New Music: LZ7 is an EDM band originally from Manchester in the UK. Give My All features an infused sound of vocal harmonies, drum and bass, and rap sequences for an 80s disco sound.
• ♫ New Music: This is the official music video for Awakening, aka The Coffee Song. Filmed in New York City, the John Waller song combines the two loves of many, “a whole lot of Jesus and a little caffeine.”
• Company coming? Are they coming to see you or are they coming to see your home. An article on why you need not feel compelled to clean up for your guests; what the author calls ‘scruffy hospitality.’ 
• Customizing church bulletins when you meet in multiple sites: “You’ve got new challenges and tensions to manage when you find yourself creating bulletins for a multi-site church. At Life.Church, we print 45,000 bulletins every week across 26 locations, so we understand challenge.”
  
• A Canadian equivalent to The Ark Encounter was proposed for Southern Ontario. A crowd funding campaign only raised a small portion of its initial goal.
• An author signing autographed copies of his latest novel is frequently confronted by people who say “I only read non-fiction.” Is fiction somehow inferior?
• This week on the Phil Vischer Podcast: Joey Svendsen, of the Bad Christian Podcast joins the gang to talk Christian cussing, Dungeons & Dragons toys and a life spent recovering from an overly legalistic past.
  
• M&Ms: Unpacking the link between Mormons and Multi-level marketing.
• Blimey Cow! The romance story continues. This is just what the Link List has always needed. A romantic storyline. Today–How Jordan and Sarah met.
  
• Finally, the Supreme Court will rule on the correct lyrics for a popular worship song.

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Today’s ephemera:

Not sure how we missed this 2014 title, from no less than Zondervan.

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An 11-year old Chris Tomlin. This baseball-card-sized object may have been a cassette insert.

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Why I always say my wife is actually the better writer in the family.

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That’s, “Doctor Karen Kingsbury” to you. The leading Christian fiction author picked up an honorary Doctor of Letters this Spring at Liberty U.

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This isn’t a parody. The author Robert W. Schambach (1926 – 2012) was an American televangelist, pastor, faith healer and author.

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Published in 2001, N. D. Wilson’s book features “tweaked versions of all the original characters … in an absurd tangle of Evangelical goofiness struggling to make sense of the pathetically gnostic vision of the original story. You won’t want to miss all body parts, cats, and youth pastors left behind…”

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Don’t say you don’t see the similarity. Should Benny run in 2020?

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I don’t claim to have all the answers, but surely they could have come up with a better name for the place.

Wednesday Link List

I keep thinking the title of this game implies that it focuses more on the edgy, racier stuff in the Bible.

As of 12:24 this morning, it’s officially summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Welcome to WLL #364. I guess you know what that means? Right. Next week is WLL #365.

• Something major taking place at Harvest Bible Chapel and Harvest Bible Fellowship. James MacDonald and his church are no longer part of the latter.
• House Churches in China: First things first — they don’t meet in houses. Here’s an update from a few days ago posted by a Christian statesman I am privileged to know. His overview of the state of Christianity in China will surprise you.
• Essay of the Week: The church is remaining relatively silent on the biomedical ethics of current reproductive technology.
• Quotation of the Week: “The unspoken assumption in the books, sermons, and conferences targeting missional-minded evangelicals is that the city—prior to white, hip church planters—is a foreign mission field, pristine and untouched by the work of the Lord.” Quoted within the article: “Any kind of language that implies that God’s work or God’s plan starts when we arrive … is indicative not only of terrible theology, but of white Christian exceptionalism, the oppressive belief that the correct kind salvation and healing can only be facilitated through us, on our terms with our methods—and us always happens to be white missionaries, white pastors, and white churches.”  (I could keep going — a must read!)…
• …Related: 9 Reasons to connect with cities…
• …Also from Chuck Lawless: An interesting article about 12 types of people who seem to be a rather enigmatic internal contradiction and also happen to be a great blessing to their pastor and church.
• They aren’t sure about white supremacists, but LGBT people have no place at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual shindig.
• I decided to use this at Christianity 201 as well, but here’s an alternative reading to the idea of Adam giving names to all the animals.
• Quiz Department: Yes, we told you if you kept reading the link list, eventually there would be a test. Ten questions on “the story of Jesus in the Old Testament.” The average score is only 50%. 
• Provocative Headline of the Week: Enough ‘Virgin the Volcano’ Theology.
  
• Approaching its first anniversary on July 7th, Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis ministry is reporting low attendance figures at The Ark Encounter.
• Parenting Place: Although he didn’t write it for parents, Stephen Altrogge’s account of a post-Christian-camp spiritual high followed by a dramatic crash is a cycle all too familiar to many of us. With post-camp syndrome, returning to the real world is tough. There’s often a need to experience assurance of salvation.
• Go Deeper: “Civil religion, then, is the strange brew that results when Christianity gets mixed up and confused with the state. On this account, ‘civil religion’ is the end of true religion; it’s the name we give our compromise and assimilation…But we want to suggest there are still other expressions of civil religion that deserve serious consideration because, as implausible as it might seem, civil religion is an irreplaceable moral source of civil society…In fact, reconsidering civil religion is necessary precisely because civil religion is inevitable. It’s not a question of whether we have a civil religion, but which.” The author is James K. A. Smith.
• Worship Workshop: We’ve often quoted or linked to David Santistevan at Beyond Sunday Worship. Now, he and his family are hitting the road and are available for workshops and speaking engagements at churches; maybe including yours. Speaking of David…
• …Here’s a runner-up for Quotation of the Week: A recent concert “reminded me that it’s possible for us to be moved by sound and melody in corporate worship but not moved by the cross… feelings alone don’t equal worship. The warm fuzzies are not the Holy Spirit. Our affectionate, emotional response needs to be rooted in the revealed Word of God. Sometimes I fear we love worship more than we love Jesus.”
• YMin: “A youth pastor told me he was missing some of his core teenagers on Easter Sunday morning. They were playing in a school volleyball tournament…Our crumbling culture increasingly will call teenagers to give their Sunday mornings to academic, artistic and athletic competitions and activities. For the moment, traveling sports teams are a special concern, often pulling teenagers out of church for six or more Sundays. Managers pressuring teenagers to work Sunday mornings also are an issue. All this should concern believing parents…”
• Tough Decision: After enduring 18 months of her husband’s substance abuse and infidelity, popular Christian author Lysa TerKeurst has finally filed for divorce after nearly 25 years of marriage.
• Is “Listener supported” K-LOVE accepting “paid underwriting” or what you and I might call paid advertising? Aren’t the stations licensed as “non commercial” outlets?
  
• Putting the fun back in funeral: Ghana’s fantasy coffins.
  
• For Pastors Only: How to create great sermon titles.
• Calvinist Corner: Yes, we’re an equal opportunity link list, but we couldn’t decide among the most recent topics at Reformed Answers.
• Thinking in English: Our language blocks us from seeing how 94% of the world population perceives and processes everything.
• One of the most interesting Christian events — the Wild Goose Festival — happens July 13-16 in North Carolina. It’s like a Greenbelt Festival for North Americans…
• …As for Greenbelt itself, looking at the 2017 lineup is a window into a world of speakers and musicians Canadians and Americans have never heard of. Yet.
• ♫ New Music: Actually, this has been on Australia’s Hot 25 Countdown of Christian music (see full chart below *) for 13 weeks. #7 This week is Closer by Gawvi from the album We Belong. 
• ♫ New Music: Another one from Down Under that’s been on their chart for 15 weeks, but it’s new to us. #15 is If I Trust You by Joel Vaughn from the album Surrender.
• ♫ New Music: Okay, this one is really new. A pick hit from the Australia countdown chart this is Gloria by Stephen Christian from the album Wildfires. 
• ♫ New Music: I didn’t want the American Christian music establishment to feel left out, so here’s Word of Life, the new single from Jeremy Camp. (Posted just days ago.)
  
• Not too late to read: Author Mark Buchanan posted this in April, but it was new to us, so… It’s the story of how his dad stopped drinking and how we’re all thirsty for something.
• Canada Corner: Congratulations to 100 Huntley Street, Canada’s daily Christian talk show, which celebrated its 40th anniversary last week. (Here’s a reflection from someone who was there.)
• Book Review: Most of his writing is about travel or politics, so why is a guy reviewing a romance novel?
• Stephen Colbert reunites with an actress with whom he did a pilot, but around the 4:00 mark, the conversation with Judy Greer turns religious.
• What can I say about this week’s Phil Vischer Podcast? Jo Saxton was back talking about missional communities. Oh, and Phil and Skye had a lot of fun.
• Finally, if it was good enough for him, it’s good enough for you. Own the Apostle Paul’s KJV.

See y’all next week!

 

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*Referenced in the links this week: Australia’s Hot 25 Countdown. An Aussie equivalent to 20 The Countdown Magazine.