Dammit Isn’t God’s Last Name

On the last Friday night of the month, Youth Pastor Wayne Wyatt would suspend the normal Youth Group format in order to have either a sports night or a music night. For the music nights, he would book a band that was known either locally or regionally, but this week was an exception.

“We don’t really have a name;” the guitar player told him.

Wayne preferred to use bands that had played other area churches so he could contact the youth pastors there and get recommendations, but these guys were friends of Brooke, and her dad was the church board Treasurer, so he figured he was on safe ground.

The kids mixed around the room. There were snacks at the back. Colored lights. It looked like a dance, except nobody was dancing. No one ever did. There were about 60 teens when the night started, but a few songs in there were closer to 80 in attendance.

The guys in the band were well-dressed and polite. They started with a Switchfoot song that Wayne knew, and then a cover of song by Skillet.

For the third song, the guitarist started out with, “We’d like to do one of our original songs for you now. My grandpa had a song he liked that went, ‘He’s more than just a swear word, more than just an I-don’t-care word,’ and I know that for many of us we hear people say God dammit all the time and–“

At this Wayne stopped what he was doing and wondered where they were going with this.

“–or we hear people say ‘Oh my God,’ and we forget to give respect to God’s name. So we’re gonna do a song called ‘Dammit isn’t God’s last name.'”

They cranked up the introduction,

You see in on your screens
and you hear it in the street.
They’re using God’s name
In a way I won’t repeat.

Wayne turned away from the stage. So far, so good. He spoke with a couple of the teens while the verse continued, but then the chorus got his attention.

‘Cause dammit
Dammit isn’t God’s last name.
‘You know dammit
Dammit isn’t God’s last name.

It wasn’t the type of lyric their guest bands would usually perform, but he figured the song was a one-off and he’d try to relax. A group of guys wanted to know the deadline to sign up for Snow Camp and two girls wanted to know if they were doing a car wash in the spring because they had some ideas. But then, moments later, there it was again.

‘Cause dammit
Dammit isn’t God’s last name.
‘You know dammit
Dammit isn’t God’s last name.

Some of the kids were singing along. When the chorus came around for a third time — he wondered if this song might ever end — he looked closely and they seemed to be enjoying saying ‘dammit’ all too much.

But then the band went into a bridge that consisted entirely of

Dammit, Dammit
Dammit, Dammit
Dammit, Dammit
Dammit, Dammit

On the third repeat, with all the kids in the group shouting the word back to the band, he decided enough was enough, and started walking swiftly and intentionally in a direct line to the stage.

But his path was blocked by a girl who seemed to appear out of nowhere.

“Pastor Wayne,” she said, “You have to come quick; Carly’s fallen in the restroom and she’s hurt really bad.”

Injuries are every youth pastor’s worst nightmare, so he changed his path and started walking toward the hallway. As he picked up his pace, several things occurred to him at once. First of all, he knew the kids really well, and he didn’t know anyone named Carly. For that matter, he didn’t know the girl who had summoned him. And how could he just walk into the women’s restroom?

The sound of the band was wafting from the youth multi-purpose room.

‘Cause dammit
Dammit isn’t God’s last name.
‘You know dammit
Dammit isn’t God’s last name.

At least they were back to the verse. Or other chorus. Or whatever it was. His head was spinning. At that moment, Ted and Belinda, the official youth group sponsors appeared in the hallway. He quickly called out to them, “There’s a girl hurt in the restroom.”

They were on it. He could return to his other issue. The band was back to the bridge and the kids were shouting a frenzy.

Dammit, Dammit
Dammit, Dammit
Dammit, Dammit
Dammit, Dammit

In the hallway on his right was the electrical panel. He opened it and identified two breakers. One would cut the power to the stage and the other would cut the power to the wall receptacles, where the band’s mixing board was plugged in and all the colored lights. Some of the group’s electronics would need several seconds to reset. That would give him time to have some words with the band members.

At the same time as that happened, he looked down the hallway and saw Belinda emerging from the women’s restroom. She shrugged her shoulders. There was no one hurt inside.

Wayne switched the breakers and according to plan, the sound went quiet. Unexpectedly, the light in the hallway went out as well. He decided to give this ten seconds, and in that short span of time, while everything around him was physically void of light, the lights went on inside him.

He felt he’d been set up booking the band. He realized the girl who told him to book the group didn’t really like the job he was doing as Youth Pastor. He realized the other girl, who had told him that the fictional Carly needed rescue had been training her eyes on him, waiting for the moment he would try to shut down the performance of ‘Dammit’ so she could distract him.

Eight, nine, ten. Ten seconds. He threw the switches back on.

When he did and the lights in the hallway came back, there was Brooke and standing next to her was her dad, the church Treasurer and head of the hiring committee which had brought him to the church in the first place. Both were scowling.

He looked deep into Brooke’s eyes for something that would answer the question as to why he’d been set up. But instead, the mystery girl emerged and inadvertently brought with her a brief moment of comic relief.

“It’s too late, Pastor Wayne;” she said with a straight face; “Carly’s dead.”

 

Another Youth Pastor Story of Shame

The link isn’t important. There is one of these stories all too frequently. A youth pastor. An underage teen. You know the ones.

Is it time to re-think the role of Youth Pastor? It wouldn’t stop everything that’s happening in some churches from happening, but it also wouldn’t stop the church from having a decent youth program anyway with an associate pastor and some lay-leaders and not some fresh-faced Bible college graduate whose ability to measure the consequences of actions still hasn’t caught up to his academic youth ministry credentials.

Look at it this way, if current Youth Ministry training includes some lectures on appropriate boundaries, then it’s not always working. A more seasoned ministry staff member would be better equipped to avoid temptation and understand what’s entailed in crossing the line.

The kids in the group would also benefit from inter-generational ministry.

The guy in charge of youth at my church was a semi-retired insurance salesman. On staff half-time. Really connected with teens. Today it would be called a megachurch. It was a great, diverse youth program. There were music nights. Sports nights. Pizza nights. Serious Bible study nights.

It works. And it avoids putting young men (usually) and women (sometimes) into situations they all apparently can’t handle.

Both Disgraced and Silenced

This morning I noticed in one of my “to-be-read-or-watched” piles a curriculum DVD by a pastor whose career was caught up among the #MeToo cases of the past two years.

The thing that struck me was that I had no desire to watch it now. I’m sure the teaching it contains is every bit as valid as the day it was recorded. It was vetted at the time by one of the top Christian publishing houses. No one has ever suggested he taught anything heretical.

However, I couldn’t help but think how in addition to the disgrace he suffered — and no doubt continues to suffer this very day — he has lost his voice; he has effectively been marginalized. Among the many voices competing for your attention his has become far less impactful; far less consequential. Though citations of his methodology and quotations of his messages might approach the one million mark online, for me to quote him now in an essay or blog article would simply lead readers to wonder, ‘Perhaps he hasn’t heard what happened.’…

…The whole #MeToo thing is a valid opportunity to examine your own life. In my 20s, I was known for an itinerant youth ministry that connected me to dozens of churches, a handful of missions, and a couple of camps. I found myself replaying events and scenarios in order to remind myself that fortunately, lines were never crossed. Blurred? The opportunities and motivation didn’t really present themselves. I can think of a couple of situations where a person could, if they so desired, misconstrue a couple of situations, but then that is true for all of us because anyone can pretty much make up anything.

Everyone reading this knows what follows (I hope) but here are some principles for anyone new to the game:

1. Stay accountable. This was hard in itinerant ministry and without a board, but fortunately I had some people I could defer to for direction.
2. Avoid being alone 1:1 with the people you’re serving. Always leave the door open to the office, or, as I did once, if you’re meeting in your car, park it right at the front entrance to the building.
3. Avoid anything which could even contain the hint of something scandalous. This includes things done seemingly in jest.
4. When working with youth, remember that a leadership role can be inferred (by the child/teen) even if it is not official. The same responsibilities rest with casual volunteers as rest with paid staff.
5. Be ever conscious of your personal vulnerabilities to temptation. If you’re even thinking the thought, you’ve already started down a dangerous path.

 

Wednesday Link List

LINK LIST 001 — This isn’t the whole thing, but it was decidedly shorter than what would follow. The name “Wednesday Link List” wasn’t applied consistently, but the first one appeared in January, 2010. Also, to save you asking, the superhero site still works.

There are rumors that after today, the lynx is being retired to another zoo.

This is it! We made it to #400! As you can see from our retrospective screenshots, the road to the first one was paved with many different titles, not all of which are represented here.

• Only Lasted One Day: “The Country Music Association Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the CMA, appointed former Arkansas governor and former Southern Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee on the board of its foundation; an entity dedicated to growing and supporting music education programs across the country. Huckabee was a great choice for the position because of his love for country music and his vital contributions to music education.” 24 Hours later, powerful influencers in the CMA who happen to be pro-LGBT forced him to step down.
• ⛪ As George Michael put it, “Ya gotta have faith.” That’s certainly true if you want to fit inside the nominally Christian United States of America. However, “[T]here can be real problems when a nation circumscribes who belongs and who doesn’t by whether they are people of faith. That type of social duress can be culturally and personally unhealthy. In fact, according to a recent study in the journal, Society and Mental Health, individuals who consider leaving a faith, but do not, tend to experience more depression than those who decide to leave.” (Also, I think Jesus said something about hypocrites.)
• The biggest Post-Parkland Jerk Award goes to a former Utah congressman who said the survivors of the school shooting there need a belief in Jesus Christ. Okay. Except that Parkland, Florida is a dominantly Jewish community. Plus Jason Chaffetz should know better: “Chaffetz, you’re thinking … boy, that name sounds … Yup. Chaffetz’s father was Jewish. The elder Chaffetz’s first wife was Kitty Dukakis, who later married Gov. Michael Dukakis. Chaffetz’s mother had been a Christian Scientist, but became a Mormon. In college, Chaffetz himself became a Mormon.” Which is followed by this: “Chaffetz’s screed reminds us that throughout Jewish history, some of the Jews’ worst enemies have come from the ranks of apostates.“
• Best Headline: Why You Can’t Have Your Porn and #MeToo. (Sample: “The printed pornography of twenty years ago… seems very mild in comparison to mainstream porn today. The pornography industry itself has been quite forthright in explaining the way that “extreme” porn has become mainstream. And there are, for example, a variety of directors and performers on record raising concerns about the physically and psychologically punishing nature of U.S.-produced pornography.”)
• Coincidence? Anne Graham Lotz on the date of Billy Graham’s (i.e. her father’s) death. “Feb. 21, 2018, is the day Jews focus on the Scripture reading that deals with the death of Moses.” She says, “Moses was the great liberator. He brought millions of people out of bondage, slavery, got them to the edge of the promised land, and God took him to heaven… My father was also a great liberator. He brought millions of people out of bondage to sin, and gets us to the edge of heaven, the edge of the promised land, and God has called him home.” …
• …And thousands are petitioning for a national holiday to honor Billy Graham as is done with Martin Luther King, Jr.
• ⚔️ Podcast of the Week: Jesus tells his disciples, “[T]he one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one.” A look at different interpretations of this passage with David Burnett on The Naked Bible podcast. 76 minutes.
• 🎬 At the Movies: Mary Magdalene is releasing March 16th worldwide, but not in North America. The movie stars Joaquin Phoenix who I knew was brother to the late River Phoenix, but IMDb.com filled this in: “His parents, from the continental United States, were [when he was born] serving as Children of God missionaries.” Why no release here? According to Wikipedia: “It was originally scheduled to be released in the United States and Canada on November 24, 2017.In August 2017, the release was pushed back to March 30, 2018. In January 2018, it was pulled from the schedule.” Deadline.com reveals that decision was made by Harvey Weinstein’s company partly for corporate reasons and possibly to accommodate the release of another film. Here’s the most recent trailer. (For Christian moviegoers, it clears the slate for I Can Only Imagine on Mar. 16.)…
• …In other film news, Christian Daily reports “Evangelist Billy Graham’s grandson, Will Graham, is going to play his grandfather on the big screen in the sequel to Unbroken. The follow-up movie, which is titled Unbroken: Path to Redemption, will pick up from where war hero Louis Zamperini discovered God.” The report adds that “Apparently, viewers became disappointed that the first movie did not highlight the impact of Graham’s evangelism in Zamperini’s life.”
• 📺 Scandal on the Small Screen: Viewers of Coronation Street have voiced their disgust at a scene showing the resident vicar [i.e. Anglican priest] taking heroin in church.The character, Billy Mayhew, has been battling an addiction to painkillers. However, he fell to new lows after his drug dealer brother Lee sold him heroin.The pair ‘shot up’ in church, and as they were slumped against the pews Lee said: ‘This must be what heaven feels like.‘” (And to think some North Americans were upset about Living Biblically.)
• ✝️ Dialing for Doctrine: When Jesus come back will he walk the streets as he did the first time? Five well-known Christian leaders share their views.
• Leadership Lessons: Presbyterian (PCUSA) churches in Rochester, New York combine together on various initiatives and share leadership in order to stay strong in the face of overall declining numbers and church closings. The resulting church network is called Riverside Neighbors. 
• Translation Troubles: You say teaching, I say tradition. The same word, paradosis, gets treated differently in different passages. 
• 🇨🇦 Canada Corner: The waiting game continues in the Trinity Western University Law School case before the Supreme Court.
  
• Women’s Workshop: “Many of the women in question have been interpreted based on the terminology used to describe them in our English translations. Oftentimes, terms like ‘prostitute’ or ‘adulteress’ conjure contemporary images that fail to capture the circumstances of biblical times.”
  
• 🚸 KidMin: One of Canada’s largest churches is developing an original children’s curriculum, and making it available to other churches for free.
• 📡 Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) continues its worldwide expansion and recently added “TBN Mzansi, a new African Christian channel that is available on Africa’s latest and second largest satellite service called Kwesé TV on channel 810.” TBN Africa also offers The Hillsong Channel. (For African viewers interested in religious/faith-based channels, the service already offers all these.)
• 🎹 New Music: This is one of many I’ve discovered on Fresh Life Radio, a church-operated radio station from Fresh Life, where Levi Lusko is pastor. The artist is Rachel Jane and the song is The Mountain.
• 🎹 New-to-Me Music: This is from the church where Perry Noble was the pastor. NewSpring; the song Love Me Like That.
• 📖 New Books: This isn’t my normal reading, but I’m tempted. “How could this have happened? How could this sixteen-year-old, who less than a week earlier had left home on a typical Friday morning for school, now be flirting with death by overdose?” On Pins and Needles by Rick Van Warner released a few days ago from Baker Books. 
• 🦋 New Books: A great gift for anyone who ever watched Touched by an Angel; Roma Downey, who along with her husband gave us the The Bible Series A.D. on television, has released a book about a creature she sees as a reminder of God’s presence. The book is titled Box of Butterflies.
  
• Parenting Place: Eric Metaxas interviews Kirk Cameron on the occasion of Cameron’s new film, Connect, “helping parents better communicate with their children about social media and its relation to anxiety, depression and suicide.“
• 🚘 The Price is Right: Five lucky (blessed?) people at Destiny Church in Columbia, Maryland left worship services with the keys to a new car. “It was part marketing ploy — but also theology, [Pastor Stephen] Chandler said. Randomly giving away cars to people who show up to worship demonstrates God’s unbelievable, no-strings-attached goodness…”
  
• Because we’re not running any graphics this week, we’ll give you this.
  
• Finally, finally, finally…We end with a Matthew Pierce, but not a current one like you think we’re going to do but this one about Christian School Mascots from 2015. Or from the same year, this Brief History of Legalism. (Actually just read his whole blog.)
  

In the words of Ford Prefect, so long and thanks for all the fish.

Wednesday Link List

The nuns of All Hallows Convent in Ditchingham (Norfolk County, UK) are giving away their property and buildings, Dragon’s Den style, to the group making the best pitch for its use. See below

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Evangelicals tend to get a bit skittish when something comes along that is unrecognizable, and The Prayer Wheel, from the 2018 book of the same name will be no exception. See below.

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This is list #399. I think you know what that means. Next week, Lord willing, it’s the 400th. Will there be a 401? Will it be all financial links and be called 401k? Details to come!

• Before you do anything else, watch this: I Can Only Imagine – A wonderfully produced six minute video tribute to Billy Graham.
• SiriusXM Satellite Radio is offering a limited time Billy Graham Tribute on channel 145 through March 4th.
• Being a Megachurch in the 1800s: Spurgeon didn’t mess around. Despite the large numbers membership wasn’t easy to come by starting with an interview process wherein a church visitor would “‘enquire as to the moral character and repute of the candidate’ by meeting with the candidate and talking to their neighbors, co-workers, family members, former church, etc. The goal is to find out whether there’s evidence of a life consistent with their profession of faith.” (Talking to my neighbors would be interesting.) On membership lists: “Let us not keep names on our books when they are only names. Certain of the good old people like to keep them there, and cannot bear to have them removed; but when you do not know where individuals are, nor what they are, how can you count them? They are gone to America, or Australia, or to heaven, but as far as your roll is concerned they are with you still. Is this a right thing?” Read the article to learn how they kept track of who was there.
• Who Says They Never Come Home? Perry Noble is returning to his old stomping grounds, Anderson, IN, for three live services on Easter Weekend at Bleckley Station, a newer venue seating 500 people. It’s a ticketed event and is probably sold out as you read this.
• If you read this blog daily, you know I sometimes promote the works of people considered to be part of the Progressive Evangelical tribe. I do like what many of them are saying on certain issues. But this is a world filled with dangers! Roger Olson identifies nine signals that the Progressive Christianity being promoted is often Liberal Protestantism. It’s a checklist worth bookmarking for reference.
• Benny Hinn tweaks his Prosperity Gospel teaching with a confession on Facebook: “We get attacked for preaching prosperity, well it’s in the Bible, but I think some have gone to the extreme with it sadly, and it’s not God’s word what is taught, and I think I’m as guilty as others. Sometimes you go a little farther than you really need to go and then God brings you back to normality and reality. When I was younger I was influenced by the preachers who taught whatever they taught. But as I’ve lived longer, I’m thinking, ‘Wait a minute, you know this doesn’t fit totally with the Bible and it doesn’t fit with the reality.’ So what is prosperity? No lack. I’ve said this before.”  (‘No lack’ = ‘I shall not want.’)
• That dream you’ve always had of starting a Christian community on the west coast of England is about to come true. A group of nuns are giving away their convent, Dragon’s Den style. You get “the buildings and the nine-acre grounds including gardens, a chapel, and a cluster of houses which they have occupied for more than 150 years.”
• Does Beth Moore really carry that much weight with Donald Trump? Second only to Leith Anderson, head of the National Association of Evangelicals (NEA) Moore is the number two signatory to a NEA document concerning U.S. immigration policy. (She does have an undergraduate degree in Political Science, though. Theological degrees? Not so much.) 
• Parenting Place: Children need to hear Godly eulogies. “[I]t’s not terribly uncommon for you to walk into the funeral service for a 90-year old church member and find the funeral home nearly empty. Where is the disconnect? Where are all of the young people from this person’s local church? Sure, school is in session and work is not stopping for the majority of the church—but what message are we sending to our children when we check them out of school for the funeral service of a 16-year old who died in a car accident but we miss the funeral service of a 90-year old man who finished his course well for the glory of God?”
  
• Archaeology Avenue: Do we now have solid evidence supporting the existence of the prophet Isaiah?
• Essay of the Week: A must-read for anyone you know who followed the 2018 Olympics. Philip Yancey relays the story of a 6th Grade teach who invested his time in a young figure skater.
• Updating the Take and Give / Covenant Life / Sovereign Grace etc. story, the church is re-branding as Christ Church Metro. (This article provides an excellent overview and history; I was aware of Take and Give back in the day.)
• Global Ambassador for the World Evangelical Alliance, Brian Stiller has racked up more frequent flyer points than anyone I know. He describes his forthcoming book, From Jerusalem to Timbuktu; A Global Tour of the Spread of Christianity, releasing in a few weeks from InterVarsity Press.
• Dialing for Doctrine: Your phrase of the week is “Divine concurrence.”
• The burial of Billy Graham is used by a springboard to discuss our relationship with icons — though he uses the word in a very broad sense — and the danger of making things become idols. “We are animals with souls, never to be angels, but not merely beasts. As a result true religion will always be a mix of the  physical and the spiritual. The tabernacle worship God designed had bright colors, smells, bells, food, and drink. The rituals of the tabernacle pointed physically to the other realm. Ideas were given expression in art…The temptation is to destroy all icons. We will dispense with the visible signpost and merely memorize the route to God. Yet this fails. We can turn words into idols, forgetting their meaning, and lavishing love meant for the Beloved on His Words. God help us, but even in a plain room, stripped of all art, I have seen people come to sit in just this seat and become upset when that seat is taken. God met them there and now that place has become an idol.”
• Leadership Lessons: Is wisdom the best teacher? “[S]simply seeking after years of experience overlooks one big thing that makes all the difference. That difference is what should come after the experience: reflection and adaptation or making the adjustments… [I]f one never pauses to reflect and if one never stops to debrief what happened then one will never fully benefit from the experience. It will often be a wasted lesson.”
• Pastor Place: When the women’s group wants to study a book that’s doctrinally iffy…”Be willing to veto a book, a curriculum, or even a topic that the women’s Bible study wants to use, and be willing to have the leader lay the blame for the veto on you. I would much rather have someone say to me, ‘We wanted to use ________ book. Why did you say to use ________ instead?’ than have a bad book used, or quash the joy of the women’s Bible study leader if she became an object of scorn. And quite frankly (and this actually happened to me) I would rather have the women’s Bible study leader mad at me, than to have the women be taught something that is wrong.” A pastor offers seven tips to guard against error in your church’s women’s ministry.
  
• Sometimes it’s hard to “dwell together in unity” (Psalm 133) when I’m the only one who’s right. This author gets that. “I always think I’m right. I think I’m the one with the answers and the insight no one else has. I believe that conflicts and problems result because of what someone else says or does. This is human sinful nature… Humility means admitting that my view of the world is flawed and that I very likely contributed to a problem as much as the other person.”
• Quotation of the Week: [On the subject of Billy Graham lying in state at the Capitol Rotunda] “If what Graham proclaimed was true, he has already received the highest reward — one he actually sought and one that is available to everyone.”
  
• I’m taking the rare step of posting a book review here that was published back in October. The reason is that the book itself is finally releasing on March 20th, and some here might be interested given the title. Why Should the Devil Have All The Good Music: Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock is by Gregory Thornbury, published by Convergent Books.
• Bible Project Video of the Week: It’s not new (2 months) If you think you know everything about agape — the Bible’s unique contribution to the world of love — there’s more to discover in this 5-minute teaching. (Or choose from a full menu of Bible Project videos.)
• The book of the same name is based on the discover of The Prayer Wheel, “a stunning medieval artifact that resurfaced in 2015 in a small gallery near New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The seven paths of the twelfth-century Liesborn Wheel, arranged in a circle around the word Deus (God), lead believers–now as in times past–to encounter and apply the transforming truths of the Christian faith.” Not mentioned in the blurg is that a look at the table of contents reveals the wheel follows the outline of The Lord’s Prayer. 
• Harvard University administrators have placed religious group Harvard College Faith and Action [HCFA] on ‘administrative probation’ for a year after it allegedly pressured a female student leader to resign in December because she was dating a woman. The story also reveals that, “BGLTQ students have held leadership positions within HCFA in the past. Veronica S. Wickline [Class of 2016] and Tyler S. Parker [Class of 2017], both of whom said they identify as BGLTQ,  said they served in HCFA leadership positions during their time at the College. But both did not pursue same-sex relationships while in office. Parker said in an interview Wednesday that he remained ‘chaste’ during his tenure as an HCFA leader.”
  
• ♫ On this week’s NoPro Worship Training video: Should your team do a song if there are questions about the personal life of the songwriter?
• ♫ Closing in on half a million YouTube views, Bri (Briana Babineaux) performs an unplugged, mellow version of My Hands Are Lifted Up / Make Me Over.
• ♫ New Worship Song: He’s touring with Rend Collective; check out Mack Brock’s Greater Things.
  
• ♫ Addiction is the theme that gets your attention in the first verse of this music video, I Need You by Jaxon.
  
• The Christian life as sitcom: A look at Living Biblically, which debuted on Monday night. (We also covered this yesterday here at Thinking Out Loud.)
• Video of the Week: Your phone is, by design, meant to be addictive.
• Where did this get started? And by ‘this’ I am referring to the idea that Jesus could not read or write.
  
• Curiosity Headline of the Week: My Protestant Oscar Picks. 
• 4+14=18 though I’m sure that’s not the reason, but Jamie Grace (the “gonna get my worship on” girl) chose 4.14.18 for her wedding to actor/model Aaron Collins.
• Provocative UK News Story of the Week: “Praying for mothers and their unborn children is a form of ‘abuse and harassment’, a Labour MP has said, as he called for a crackdown on anyone who opposes abortion.” 
• Finally, if you’re not into the greeting time at church, have we got a suggestion for you!
• Bonus Finally: The Jewish Times has their satire as well. In this one, Jews For Jesus announces, “We’re Actually Christian Now.”

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Pardon my Planet by Vic Lee 2.18.18

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How’d she do that?

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Hadn’t seen this edition before. Together we awaken to the life we really want. Also, this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

Wednesday Link List

This is a thing. See below for the Billboard story or click the image here for a video story.

Welcome to our 10th Anniversary Week Wednesday Link List! First off, if the pictures which usually accompany this list is your thing, be sure to check out all ten posted in our Sunday Microblogging feature. Let the games begin!

• UPDATE: This morning subscribers received a health update on Billy Graham in this space, but the story shifted and early this morning we learned of his passing at age 99. CT has a feature remembering his life…
• …Tributes pour in on Twitter, Billy Graham was the #1 trending subject this morning. Follow the live feed.  Now on to the link list as it appeared earlier today…
  
• Heaven’s Real Estate: So what’s the deal, do we each get a house or do we just get a room?
  
• Liturgical Lament: “44% of Evangelicals have never heard of The Book of Common Prayer.” These and other stats on liturgical worship in the latest from Barna Research.
• Religious Freedom Issue? You’d have to wait longer than eight days to circumcise a male in Iceland as their Parliament is debating banning the practice altogether.
• After going it for several months as both a local church teaching pastor and the President of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, David Platt decided to go full out with the latter role. “I don’t believe I can choose between preaching and leading in the local church, and mobilizing and shepherding people in global missions. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that if I am going to serve in this way in the local church, then I need to serve in different ways for the cause of global missions.” …
• …Also from the Biblical Recorder, three Evangelical council advisors to President Trump,  Ronnie Floyd, Jack Graham and Richard Land have just released a new book on The Faith of Donald Trump and here’s a shocker, “Floyd, Graham and Land say they don’t know whether Trump has trusted Christ as his Lord and Savior. But they’re certain he has heard the gospel. All three recounted a conference call on which Trump said, perhaps jokingly, that he hoped a specific policy initiative would help him get into heaven.”
• Quotation of the Week: In which the author notes that popular blogger Tim Challies affirms Is Genesis History Director Thomas Purifoy’s attempt to make Young Earth Creationism a Reformed distinctive and then takes Martin Lloyd-Jones out of context, there’s this. “I would like to see us put our focus on what classical Christianity regarded as the central matters within the doctrine of creation: for example, creation ex nihilo, the goodness of creation, and the imago Dei. These issues distinguished Christianity from its rival alternatives, properly ordered the Creator/creation relation, and substantively contributed to Christian theology and worship.”
• Late for Lent: Admittedly, that was so last week, but if you haven’t decided what you’re giving up, this article pulls no punches and offers you a serious agenda for the remaining 33 days.
• Every week we watch a live stream church service where are constantly amazed at the “culture of applause” which permeates their church culture. They clap for music, for the announcements, for sermons. They applaud things that wouldn’t warrant it in other churches. So while the theme is somewhat different, I had to include this piece: Ministers and the Lust for Applause. 
• Money Matters: Four ways in which some churches are guilty of poor stewardship.
  
• …Also at Christian Post, the head of the Seventh Day Adventist Church tells local church pastors to steer clear of politics in the pulpit.
  
• I believe in a God who heals and is able to do exceedingly above anything we could ask or expect; however, with mental health issues we also need to recognize the value of medical science. Problems with BCM, the Biblical Counseling Movement.
• KidMin: The 2018 Children’s Ministry Conference runs April 30th to May 3rd in Brighton, Michigan. 
• Movie Review: This guy saw the movie Samson rather like a bad haircut.
  
• I have deliberately avoided anything related to guns and school shootings here, though to see the disillusionment and disappointment on the face of the students yesterday afternoon when Florida decided to table any debate on an assault rifle ban was one of the saddest things I’ve seen. Later in the evening, it got me thinking. Don’t believe it’s within the realm of possibilities for a U.S. government to break up the NRA? Check this out. They broke up Bell Telephone in 1982, an act described as, “the breakup of the biggest corporation in American history.” So yes, it’s definitely possible.
  
• Leadership Lessons: Here are 7 ways local church pastors and associate pastors can do better at connecting with their church kids and teens.
• The notion of “spiritual but not religious” under the microscope: “Those words are organized religion in themselves, a thought-structure of the vilest duplicity. Their pithiness shapes our thoughts, organizing our hearts to believe we can do Christianity alone. They say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you.’“
• Essay of the Week: Jasmine L. Holmes, the daughter of Voddie Baucham talks about growing up as a stay at home daughter. She also talks about her husband: “He equips me to make my own choices, even when I’m afraid. He deals with every growing pain that I should have had ten years ago and am just now having. He removes the shameful burdens that I’ve operated under for a good half of my life. He pushes me harder than anyone I’ve ever known, even when I fight back. He’s helping me grow up. Not for him, like I always thought I should, but for myself. For the pursuit of holiness and wholeness. He won’t let me stand quietly in his shadow, and he won’t let me take the easy way out.”
• Youth Ministry/Church Life: Your game plan when a kid has been a victim of sexual abuse.  
• Not the Canada Corner: Rather, for readers elsewhere, a full and complete explanation of the angst the ‘attestation’ on the Canada Summer Jobs application has unleashed for churches and Christian charities.
  
• Lakewood Church (Joel Osteen) Associate Pastor John Gray defends the riches of wealthy pastors. ” [I]f they have saved their money and want to do something nice for their spouse or they want to live in a home, you’ve got one life.” So basically he’s saying: YOLO. (7 minute video.)
• Going back to the well: The Charlotte Observer, as the hometown newspaper, hauls out the Jim Bakker/PTL Club story one more time, just in case anyone’s new to the neighborhood.
• Read carefully because I’m only going to say this once: A Lutheran transgender pastor who has re-identified as ‘Peter’ is walked to the baptismal font by the area bishop for a renaming blessing. Got that? Church council member Daniel Stoll told the Huffington Post, “[Gay and trans individuals] have every right to be their authentic selves as anyone. God didn’t make a mistake.” 
• ♫ New Music: This one should be to the liking of many of you – Seth & Nirva perform an unplugged version of We Won’t Back Down.
  
• Tweet of the Week: A good news story.
• Steps to Stardom: Justin Bieber’s early years are the subject of a museum exhibit in his hometown. (Or click the image above for a video coverage.)
• Certain Evangelicals just shouldn’t do interviews with major news media. Like Joel Osteen, Jerry Falwell, Jr. falters in front of the camera, in this case trying to defend the indefensible (aka ’45’) with CNN’s Erin Burnett.
  
• Finally, death is just around the corner: “A new app, We Croak, notifies you five times a day that you could die at any moment.” A writer at The Guardian tries it for seven days.

One of the favorites from my picture file from 2011: Adam and Eve at the Creation Museum win an award for the Best Placement of Lily Pads.

Wednesday Link List

I knew Redeemer University College in Canada was a smaller school than some, but didn’t expect to see it reflected in the way job functions like this one are integrated. Dutch frugality?

 

It’s a Valentine’s Day edition of the Wednesday Link List and even though we have absolutely nothing Valentine-related, we hope you will love this week’s list.

• 🇬🇧 The future Princess: The “Catholic” nuns who taught Meghan Markle were actually part of a radical splinter group. “Needless to say, there was a great deal of emphasis on helping the poor, if little about Catholic doctrine.” And for those for whom “there is the more realistic fear that Miss Markle, being a Catholic – as many suppose her to be… – will apostasise to wed Prince Harry. Nothing could be further from the truth. So far from leaving the Catholic Church, she will actually be receiving Christian baptism for the first time. Moreover, for those upset at Prince Harry marrying a divorcee, since the future princess’s first husband was Jewish, the Pauline Privilege dissolves said marriage upon her baptism.“
• While my preferred option would have been for everyone to have ignored John Piper’s suggestion that women can’t teach in seminary, Lee Grady takes the time to offer a weighty response.
• The names Jerry Falwell, Jr. and Donald Trump aren’t mentioned, but the location — Lynchburg, Virginia — somewhat gives away the plot. “Red Letter Revival: A Revival of Jesus and Justice” is on for April 6th and 7th in The City of Seven Hills. The event, “will stand in stark contrast to the distorted Christian nationalism that many white evangelical leaders have become known for. It is a gathering for people of faith or no faith who are curious about Jesus and troubled by the state of evangelicalism in America.” …
• …Red Letter Revival as reported in local media.
• 📺 We’ve mentioned the forthcoming TV series, Living Biblically, based on the book by A. J. Jacobs. What we didn’t know is that the pitch to make this into a series was presented by Johnny Galecki, better known as Leonard on The Big Bang Theory. They pitched the series simultaneously to four networks and all four said they were willing to take the show. (CBS won, and the first episode airs 2/26.)
  
• 🇨🇦 Canada Corner 1: If you’re following the story of the “We’re not against abortion” qualification on the student summer job grant program, there’s an update, and the update is not good: “Service Canada has begun contacting those whose application included an alternate attestation or a letter requesting accommodation – any group whose application did not give an unqualified agreement with the attestation. Service Canada is saying these applications are incomplete and that they have 10 business days to complete them or they will be rejected.”(Is this the beginning of the end for Evangelicals in Canada? What’s next?)
  
• Agree of Disagree? Many would argue that the internet has been a wonderful tool for evangelism and teaching, but this writer says it’s killing American Christianity.
  
• Verses out of Context: Scott McCown puts 3 popular scriptures back into their original context. “Let me challenge you not use the Bible as a book of maxims to be randomly applied to make us feel better about life.” …
• …On the other hand, watch out for the Proof Text Mafia. 
• Parenting Place: “As the father of five sons, I find myself cringing if the news comes on in front of them. With high-profile men seen to be using and abusing women in the highest realms of politics, government, sports, and entertainment, I sometimes wonder how to keep the concept of the predatory, misogynist man from being normalized for my sons.”
  
• Stuck for Words? Here’s a “Gospel Cheat Sheet” from Bruxy Cavey; a little more substantial than The Four Spiritual Laws or Steps to Peace with God. The link opens quickly to a 4-page .pdf file which you can print or copy some notes into your Bible. The thing you do not want to do is print this out and just hand it to someone. It’s meant to be part of a one-to-one sharing between you and them and is based on Bruxy’s ‘The Gospel in 30 Words’ from the bestselling book (re)Union. 
• 💲 Congratulations to the blog, Bible Money Matters which celebrates 10 years and 13,637,339 page views. (Our own 10 year anniversary is 10 days away!) … and speaking of money…
• … 💲 Not all the rich people in the Bible are bad people. There are good rich people, too. So the potential problems with wealth must be rooted in something deeper.
  
• Church Tech: Some of the churches with the best sound and lighting got there at the expense of peoples’ feelings and relationships with those who serve alongside us. 
• After 40 years in ministry, this pastor led his first Ash Wednesday service. “So we are all under the curse of death. Happy thought for Ash Wednesday!”  …
• …Speaking of death, here are ten things to do before you kick the bucket, bite the dust, cross the Jordan, take the last train to Glory, or buy the farm. (Sorry, we got carried away with that one. But it led us to the map below.)
  
• Here’s one I found particularly frustrating. We have writers like Lee Grady who make a rather solid case for the Bible’s egalitarian perspective, and then we have this writer’s attempt to undermine one of the examples. But really, in the 2nd last paragraph, he’s actually supporting egalitarianism’s case. Then in the last paragraph he accuses people who have firm convictions about what the Bible teaches as having agenda. Sigh! Double sigh! 
• Five reasons not to study apologetics. Did we mention they were bad reasons? And that the author refutes them all? 
• Talking to Calvinists: Roger Olson politely says it’s a waste of time. Politely.
  
• Australia’s Mark Sayers and Portland’s John Mark Comer have launched a new podcast, This Cultural Moment. First episode just released: What is Post-Christian Culture? 23 minutes.
• 🇨🇦 Canada Corner 2: Joe Amaral launches a new ministry, Christian Research Group.
• Publishing: Watch for an increase in books about Billy Graham as the evangelist approaches his 100th Birthday in November.
• 🕮 A book trailer is out for the student and kids versions of The Case for Miracles by Lee Strobel, releasing a week before the adult edition. (Don’t those usually come after the adult version?) 
• ♫ A million YouTube views later, this song was featured on Jon Rivers’ show on the weekend. New artist Riley Clemmons sings Broken Prayers. 
• ♫ Kari Jobe has a new live in concert lyric video for Lover of My Soul. 
• ♫ Okay, we do have one Valentine item for you. Matthew West wrote this song for his wife, Emily and this is a just-released acoustic version of Jesus and You.
  
• After 7 years, the band All Sons and Daughters is going separate ways.
• Parenting Place: First it was the Tide Pod challenge…
  
• 🎬 Here’s an updated trailer for Paul, Apostle of Christ which opens in theaters on Easter Weekend.
• Another day, another pastor, another $230,000 car. Ain’t nobody going hungry in his world.
• One of the original (and best) blog aggregators, Alltop, founded by venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, has shut down their Christianity and Church pages, and offers a watered down Religion page instead. 😢
  
• Disclaimer: Occasionally we steal links from Eric at Linkathon! at Phoenix Preacher. (It helps that he publishes on Tuesdays.) 
• Here’s a first-time website featured here; selections from the dry wit of the Creative Minority Report.
  • The F-word doesn’t seem to matter anymore. “It’s a bit ironic that so many nowadays are wary and fearful of saying anything that could be deemed as offensive, including simple gender pronouns — but when it comes to offending someone with profanity, nobody seems worried about it anymore.”
  • “If only Anglican priests could marry.” Then there wouldn’t be 3,300 sex abuse cases facing the Church of England, right. Oh… wait a minute…
• Finally, Elon Musk gave some Catholics an idea. “The Fire On The Earth jumbo rocket, developed by flamboyant bishop Robert Barron, held a mannequin carrying a Catholicism DVD box set as it floated into space some time later.”
  

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Is there a shot you can get to prevent this?

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The Canadian in me loved this one.

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Euphemisms for death based on obituaries by state, sourced by Mental Floss in 2016 based on 2015 obits. (Click image to link.) Of interest to us here was Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Arkansas. (Boy, talk about being led down the internet rabbit trail…)

Wednesday Link List

Stryper guitarist Michael Sweet said, “I can tell you this: if you kind of take the best of a handful of STRYPER albums and you kind of roll it up into a big, old fat burrito, that’s what you’re gonna get with this album.” God Damn Evil releases April 20th. More details at this link.

Here we are once again with Link List #396. Thanks to those of you who sent suggestions, and those of you who produce your own roundups from which we steal only the best… Many of these are double links, so if the topic is of interest, be sure to click both parts.

Mismatched billboard ads? Nope. It’s intentional, promoting a new sermon series at Stevens Creek Church in Augusta, Georgia. Click here for details.

• There’s a new documentary about Rob Bell — produced with his cooperation — and appropriately for some, it’s titled The Heretic. More at TheHereticMovie.com.
• A faulty Christian education? Millennials who grew up in church feel they were “set up failure” and handed “an intellectual narrative of the Christian faith, that can be dismantled inside a semester at a decent school…” Furthermore, Millennials regard the Seeker Sensitive agenda as “a 30-year failed experiment. Essentially, this was a business model implemented by Churches turning them into programmatically driven organizations. In these Churches, the pastor was more administrative and executively driven rather than pastorally caring. Crosses were removed, messages were watered down, stage crews were hired, and rock bands were brought in.” 5½ Reasons Millennials don’t want your church.
• Title IX states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” A professor used that to help end 88 years of gender discrimination on Moody Bible Institutute’s campus with respect to their Pastor Ministry Major. It meant she was fired. She’s now suing the school for wrongful dismissal…
• …Also, parsing the controversies and challenges over inerrancy at Moody with a long term view.
• Rachel Denhollander, the first woman to go public regarding the Olympic gymnasts’ doctor, Larry Nassar, has now set her sights on Sovereign Grace Ministries pastor C. J. Mahaney. 
• After 30 years, the NRSV is the next translation in line for an update.
  
• “In most states, including my own, the birth mother has ten days to revoke the adoption.” With only 96 minutes left, their worst case scenario happened. Read an article written within hours, reaching out to anyone dealing with brokenness caused by placing hope in the wrong things. 
• The Young Influencers Lists: Brad Lomenick catches up with the January seven and a missed November/December double list. (If you’re under a certain age, check to see if they spelled your name correctly.)
  
• Not a Question of Volume: Being solemn and being holy are not synonymous.
• Facebook Follies: “Facebook wanted me to post birthday greetings to my friend’s timeline. I didn’t bother. Facebook knows his birth date; I also know his date of death. Facebook sent out reminder messages to 94 friends and family members that they really didn’t need to see yesterday. For some I am sure it was a bitter reminder of how much they miss a loved one.”
• New Organizations: “New Room has emerged as a place where Christians sharing a common Wesleyan-Arminian theological perspective can find common fellowship and a valuable resourcing platform. The goal of New Room is to be a community where individuals can remain true to their own traditions—Nazarene, Free Methodist, Wesleyan, United Methodist, Salvation Army, Pentecostal, nondenominational, etc. while at the same time joining with passionate believers who share their hope for revival…” Read more about the New Room Movement and their September, 2018 conference…
• …On the other side of the doctrinal floor, with the Southern Baptist Convention moving toward a more New Calvinist position, this would be a rather interesting development.
• Provocative Teaser of the Week: (This wasn’t the article headline, but how it appeared at Real Clear Religion) Creationism Isn’t Science; It’s Bad Theology.
• Provocative Title of the Week: [I can’t even print it here] 
• When unbelievers show up at your church, there are things they need to hear and things they don’t need to hear.
  
• 24% of the world’s population are Muslim. Still, “…[H]istory has never seen so many Muslims bowing the knee to the Lord Jesus! The last 27 years of increased harvest among Muslims has been remarkable!“
• Listicle of the Week: 10 Reasons to keep the Sunday evening service.
• Parenting Place: On School Choice – “Even though we’re two years into the experiment, my husband and I continue to struggle with these questions and concerns. Our kids aren’t trapped in a district with low graduation rates, but on the other hand, sometimes we feel trapped by ideals we aren’t keeping as parents.”
• Standoff: The Kentucky church voted 173-0 to get rid of their pastor, but the pastor said the vote was illegal under the church bylaws. But church members say those bylaws were never adopted by the congregation and are themselves invalid…
• …It gets better. The church’s motto on their website is, May it be in Lexington as it is in Heaven. (I hope not.)
• 🇨🇦 Canada Corner: In the wake of the federal government’s restrictions on summer job funding for students, “Two critical unintended consequences – or unexpected benefits, depending on your perspective – came out of the backlash, [Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform’s Jonathan] Van Maren says. Groups that had little or no contact with each other suddenly recognized the vital need for collective self-defence. And abortion itself, which had been relegated to the deep, dark hidey-hole of political conversation, was given new life by a government committed to suppressing it as an issue.”
  
• Catholic Corner: This priest will not be giving up Alexa for Lent.
• 🎬 Actor Jon Voight will play a Supreme Court judge in a forthcoming film, Roe V. Wade: The Untold Story. 
• Leadership Lessons: Comparison and people-pleasing are “The Hamster Wheels of Ministry.”
  
• ♫ Worship Workshop: For musicians, singers and worship leaders, David Wesley launches No Pro Worship, for those of us who aren’t professionals. (Subscriptions encouraged.)
• ♫ Vintage CCM? No it’s actually The Hollies (Bus Stop, On a Carousel, The Air That I Breathe, etc.) with an apocalyptic warning.
  “Everybody’s gonna pray
  On the very last day
  When they hear that bell
  Ring the world away.”
  Check out Very Last Day from 1966.
• ♫ New Music: I Don’t Want it by LoveCollide the duo of Lauren Deleary and Brooke Deleary. 
• ♫ New Music: The blog Think Christian was gushing about this band last week. Check out Calexico’s End of the World With You from the album The Thread That Keeps Us.
• CBS News presents America’s top megachurches in pictures.
  
• Theological Conundrum of the Week: From the deep thinkers on Reddit, “Do masochists go to heaven when they go to hell?“
• Divinely Inspired Denial? Better described as: Despicable. “In a deplorable display of ignorance in service of religious superstition, televangelist Gloria Copeland, wife of Texas televangelist Kenneth Copeland, explained to her Facebook followers that there is no such thing as flu season, and that they don’t need to get a flu shot because ‘Jesus himself gave us the flu shot.'” She then said, “I will never have the flu.“

“Bring your children to Church. If you don’t hear crying, the church is dying.” Read more at this extended Facebook caption.

While other articles at Thinking Out Loud may be used on your blog, please respect the unique character of the Wednesday Link List; it is the exclusive property of paulwilkinson.wordpress.com

Wednesday Link List

“What’s great about the official Dave Ramsey card is that it always gets declined,” Ramsey said on his radio program. “Try to buy a new fishing reel? Declined. Try to book a family vacation you can’t afford? Declined. Replace a shredded tire you failed to budget for? Yup, you guessed it—declined.” Details at Babylon Bee.

The Wednesday List Lynx is now doing endorsements.

Welcome to our State of the Christian Union address #395. Still fighting whatever it is that hit me last week, so a shorter list this week. 2018 is one month down, eleven more to go!

• Missions groups are adversely affected by the President’s recent comments. “Making insulting comments about other nations is counterproductive to sharing the gospel, said Craig Martin, a television producer and former managing director of communications for the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board. ‘Probably the biggest embarrassment is having the president of the country you’re from be so disparaging about the country where you’re working,’ said Martin.”
• “35 percent of Generation Z teens say they are atheist, agnostic or unaffiliated in any religion.” Relevant headlined this, “Gen Z the Most Non-Christian Generation In U.S. History…”
• …There’s greater detail at Barna’s own website, with an equally frightening headline, “Atheism Doubles Among Generation Z.” The report continues, “More than half of Gen Z says church involvement is either “not too” (27%) or “not at all” important (27%). Only one in five says attending church is “very important” to them (20%), the least popular of the four options.”
• From the creators of Woodlawn and Mom’s Night Out, the behind the scenes story of the forthcoming movie I Can Only Imagine. Or better yet, watch the trailer. In theaters March 16th…
• …and City on a Hill Productions has developed a Church Kit you can use whether or not people have seen the film. 
• Theology with an agricultural twist: “Throughout his time in seminary, [Nate] Stucky had dreamed of teaching theology on a farm—or a “farminary,” his colleagues joked. Intrigued by this vision, [Princton Theological Seminary president Craig] Barnes began to explore rumors that the seminary owned a nearby piece of empty property.” The connections between theology and the land are many. (HT: Christian Food Movement.) 
• Messy Ministry Headline: “When a Cussing Heroin Addict Shows Up at Church.” A woman dares to ask, “What if, roughly two thousand years after the fact, the resurrection story could be re-enacted with life-giving, shame-reversing, community-forming words…?”
  
• Julie Roys continues to be vocal about her former employer, Moody Bible Institute. The issue last week was the stand of professors on Biblical inerrancy. The Christian Post summarizes; or read last week’s article at Julie Roys’ blog. 
• Please check your brain at the door: “In my first semester of Seminary studying theology at Oral Roberts University, I sat in the chapel service led by President Richard Roberts. After the music stopped, he stood up and boldly proclaimed, ‘Your mind is the enemy of the Holy Spirit. If you want to experience God, you need to stop thinking. don’t be like one of those dead-in-faith seminary professors in the back whose theology destroys genuine faith.’ … I remember thinking, “Did he just call some of the most wonderful godly men I knew ‘dead in faith’ because they used their mind? What I came to understand was that the Pentecostal/Charismatic brand of ‘Word of Faith’ demands the rejection of the mind, abandonment of reason, and an embrace of the purely emotional as the source of truth.” 
• Women’s Workshop: A 3-minute devotional on why you shouldn’t ignore “dings and things.”
  
• Canada Corner: February 11, 2018 marks the 70th anniversary of a dramatic revival that began in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. Was the Latter Rain Movement of 1948 a precursor to the Charismatic Movement which followed?
• Complaining Out Loud: “Some years ago, an elderly relative visited our church. She was a churchgoer herself—of a rather traditional kind. Afterwards, I asked her whether she had enjoyed church that morning—at which point, she looked straight at me and said with characteristic bluntness, ‘This is not a real church’.”
• Churches which make it clear that children cannot participate in Communion — the practice known as ‘fencing the table’ — need to be addressed directly with a sympathetic and clear explanation of what is taking place and why it’s important. Josh Buice says we need to “Include children (even while we’re excluding them)” adding, “The statistics continually point to growing trends of teens who walk away from the church when they go off to college. Could it be that their church never took them seriously? …Could it be that their church was intentional about inviting them to the games and activities, but far less enthusiastic about talking to them about the purpose of the Lord’s Supper and other doctrinal matters? Even when excluding them from the Lord’s Supper, we should talk to them rather than talking past them or over them.“
• Mark Galli, the lead editor at Christianity Today calls out Jerry Falwell, Jr.’s being joined at the hip to President Trump and using bad Bible exegesis to support his position…
• …While at the same time, Christian activist Shane Claiborne is organizing a showdown he calls The Lynchburg Revival.
  
• Quotation of the Week: “My first piece of advice for women preparing for seminary is that you should approach an all-male faculty with the same level of caution you would use sharing a cab ride with Harvey Weinstein.” (A response to John Piper.)”Slain in the Spirit” — Is that a legitimate Christian experience? Roger Olson, who has seen this from many sides, concludes, “Don’t blaspheme the sacrament you don’t understand.“
• Another Bible Update Needed: The NASB reference to “Palestine” in Joshua chapters 10 and 11 is 1,500 years too soon and is being misquoted for political agenda. WND reports that changes are expected in future editions. It affects paragraph headers, not actual text. 
• Leadership Lessons: The final word on how much your church should pay guest speakers and musicians.
  
• Adaptive Technology: Google Assistant is learning you don’t discuss religion…
• …On the other hand, CBS-TV is willing to give it another try with the February-debuting sitcom series Living Biblically, based loosely on the book My Year of Living Biblically.
• Watch what you put in your church bulletin. A world away, you never know who is reading it. 
• After dropping out two years ago, author J. D. Greear is allowing his name to stand for this summer’s nominations for President of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination.
  
• No real need to read past the headline: “Preacher’s path to murder trial started on dark web and Ashley Madison.” United Church of Christ deacon and elder’s story didn’t match the crime scene.
  
• Given that Omaha, Nebraska probably doesn’t have any decent churches, Life.Church is launching satellite location #29.
• ♫ This year’s Grammy Awards winners in Contemporary Christian and Gospel categories include Zach Williams and Hillsong.

Preoccupied with Optics: This ad from a church in Phoenix appeared on Craigslist. Full story at The Old Black Church blog.

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You remember Hahhah in the Old Testament? That woman always makes me laugh! CBD is taking advance orders on a book about her from Jill Eileen Smith.

Youth Pastors: Avoid Any Hint of Compromising Situations

All of the stories currently circulating of Youth Pastors facing charges for inappropriate sexual contact or assault reminded me of something that happened when I was doing itinerant youth ministry. If I didn’t have a booking on a particular Friday night, there was one youth drop-in where I would hang out. One night Mike wanted to talk.

So yes, this story involves another guy, but the principle is the same.

Mike said he needed to speak to me privately and confidentially about an issue he was struggling with. He was a 15 year old boy; do the math. It was then that I got a brilliant idea and created a situation that I would then repeat several times in successive weeks when someone felt the need to unburden themselves.

I took my car — my hatchback car that was all windows — and repositioned it to the parking spot that was right by the door. (There were no handicapped spots back then.) That way, even though people were passing by — coming and going every few minutes — Mike could talk and I could listen.

I later did this when some of the girls wanted to talk. Nobody could say, “We saw Paul and ______ sitting in his car;” because the whole point was that they were able to see Paul and ______ sitting in my car. Nothing looked untoward because everything was in full view.

Is this in the Student Ministry training textbook? I don’t know. It worked then and to me it was just youth ministry common sense.

That doesn’t mean there weren’t girls in the group I wouldn’t have liked to date; but for the most point there would have been an 8-10 year difference. Creepy then. Creepy now.

I later married a girl where there was a similar age difference, but we were both older. Definitely no creepy factor.

As to the current headlines, I think that many of those situations could have been avoided if the student pastors had a day-to-day accountability partner. Another pastor on staff. Another youth pastor in the town or city.