All the news that’s fit to link.
- Why should the devil have all the good parties? An expert in block parties suggests that Christians should host the best street events.
- It’s hard to find a place where fracking isn’t a hot environmental issue. What if your church could register claim to the mineral rights underneath the church building?
- Duck Dynasty star Jase Robertson is kicked out of the Trump hotel when it’s assumed he is a homeless man, in another case of “facial profiling.”
- Dara Maclean’s video for “Wanted” is powerful both musically and lyrically, but the critics think the glamor/fashion element is overplayed.
- We’re not sure if it’s a King James Bible or just a generic Bible, but by 2015 you’ll be seeing .bible as an internet domain name.
- Last year over 13,100 churches participated in a growing national movement and on average saw a 38% increase in their attendance on Back to Church Sunday.
- Much of the week’s news focus was on Egypt, where the Defense Minister vows to rebuild damaged churches.
- What if we saw the Bible less as a prison sentence and more like a permission slip? Check out a 2-minute sermon highlights video where Steven Furtick takes a fresh approach to financial giving.
- When it comes to role of women in the early church, one author believes that part of the story has been “airbrushed from history.”
- What’s a former Saddleback worship leader doing in a Canadian jail? It could have something to do with things allegedly found in his luggage.
- Alise Wright drives nearly an hour to attend a church where, by her own admission, she doesn’t fit in.
- With great regret, in the wake of the loss of his wife and publishing ministry partner on May 8th, Keith Brenton announces the shuttering of Wineskins Magazine.
- Rick Warren is raising awareness, but one Canadian blogger thinks the church is generally skittish when it comes to mental health issues.
- A popular devotional blog provides some background to the forthcoming book Dying Out Loud by Shawn Smucker, the story of missionaries Stan and Ann Steward.
- When viewers phone in to respond to a Billy Graham television program, they don’t know where the calls are being answered. A call center might actually be a transformed Savannah, Georgia chiropractic clinic.
- The former Crystal Cathedral, now Christ Cathedral – home of the world’s 4th largest church organ – begins $53 million in renovations to bring it up to Catholic standards, I’m guessing.
- You may call them board members, or even, as one church in my area does “The Directorate.” But there’s still good application in this article about the ordination of elders.
- On the other side of the pond, it’s not just Presbyterians, but Anglicans who have trouble with that verse in In Christ Alone. [Note: BCP = Book of Common Prayer]
- The more the merrier: By the time you read this it’s already eight days old, but Phil Vischer Podcast #64 with Sara Groves and Todd Groves ranks as one my favorites.
- Worship Department: First, we followed the CCLI Top 25 song charts by country; but now there’s also the Praise Charts chart. (Not a typo!)
- A Chattanooga, Tennessee pastor offers five reasons why discipleship should take place in small groups.
- Not sure how long this will be there, but the full 70-minutes of Nick Vujicic’s Life Without Limbs video is currently available to watch online.
- Church History Department: Yes it was his real name. Pentecostal pioneer Smith Wigglesworth passed away in 1947, but like many classic authors his books still sell and he is still tweeting. (C. S. Lewis tweets several times a day!)
- Ask the Doctor: A flashback to last year, where Dr. Russell Moore answered, Should a Christian wedding photographer shoot a same-sex marriage ceremony?
- Who needs videos of cute cats when you can join 600,000 people online and watch an Oklahoma pastor’s sermon where he takes a strip off some of his congregants by name.
Well, we could just keep on going, but we might lose some of you around link #50. You can follow Paul Wilkinson’s Thinking Out Loud blog the rest of the week, or join his rather anemic group of followers on Twitter.
