For those of you who couldn't live without it, there was a link list on Saturday, December 28th at both Out of Ur and Thinking Out Loud you can scroll back to. If you caught that one, then you're ready to kick off another year of link love.
- Ever been through a church split? Turns out atheist churches have them, too.
- Calories, cavities and Christian music all in a single drink? Pepsi Mid-America produced 12 millions cans of sanctified soda.
- Remember when you missed a few weeks of Sunday School and the teacher would phone you to see if you're okay? Maybe they should do that for public figures who skip church. (Someone won't be getting a gold bar on their Cross and Crown pin.) (Is this article related?)
- "It is startling to see people who are supposedly in their peak earning years instead walking the unemployment line. Worse, the likelihood of such folks returning to the income level they enjoyed prior to being let go runs just about to zero." What's your church's response?
- Chris Tomlin sells gazillions of albums and song downloads each year, but as he tells CT, each of the songs begin in a local church setting.
- Which makes this as good a place as any to introduce some 2014 resolutions for worship leaders.
- This may or may not be a good time to be a female academic at Cedarville University.
- If I could squeeze in one last "new year" article, it would be Shane Claiborne's 14 Hopes for '14.
- Here's a response to everybody out there who's into bashing megachurches.
- On the other hand, here's a rather clever article titled 7 Thoughts on Becoming a Better Hater.
- Meanwhile, a group of Satanists in Oklahoma City want to make Satan a little more user-friendly.
- Even though it's not getting the same attention as a published book, at least one blogger is looking closely at Rob Bell's What is the Bible online series.
- A Catholic priest and a Lutheran walk into a bar … Okay, it was actually a Krispy Kreme store.
- Andy Stanley explains why he's not a prosperity preacher, even though he has a new book titled, How To Be Rich.
- Also at Religion News Service, a list of five major films destined to make 2014 the year of the Bible movie.
- Our Essay of the Week is actually a book review, and not a favorable one at that. Sample: "If Disneyland were a church, Joel Osteen would be its pastor."
- Which is as good a place as any to suggest you check out this .pdf of Skye Jethani's Ten Commandments for Interpreting Scripture.
- A member of a Presbyterian church search committee describes how the process looks from that side—"collectively trying to locate a particular tree in a forest while blindfolded"—and some things her church did right.
- This just in: The Bible is not God.
- Some people on Twitter have way too much time on their hands. (There's a new thing like this every 3-4 days, too.)
- Matt Chandler guests at World Magazine, with an appeal to churches to get engaged in the abortion battle.
- In today's flight of fancy, Oprah is to Jesus what the usual show guest is to the woman at the well. (Easier to click than for me to explain it again.)
- And now for something completely different. It's a letter from a church. Maybe your church. But this requires some multiple choice work on your part.
- An atheist woman and her daughter will attend your church if you're the highest bidder. It's Jim and Casper Go To Church and I Sold My Soul on Ebay all over again.
- Blog Discovery of the Week: Calling himself a "future bestselling author," Wade Webster is re-writing his way through some classic Old Testament stories. (No specific link; your tour will be self-guided.)
- This meets my definition of the completely shallow news story. (And by the way, my church is bigger than your church.)
- The runner up: Liberal limericks.
- On the other hand, a picture you don't want to see in a story you don't want to read.
- This article on rescuing sex slaves looks interesting, but I chose not to sell out my Twitter account in order to finish it. (The publisher is a rather prolific manufacturer of email, so that won't work either.)
- In Christian music news, the talk is DCTalk, and a 20th anniversary reunion tour.
- Finally, if you're looking to do more online discovery, BibleGateway.com reveals the charter membership roll in its new Bible Gateway Blogger Grid.
Paul Wilkinson would like you think he oversees the Christian internet in a command center like Christof in The Truman Show, but in reality, it's a refurbished PC on a cluttered desk next to the fireplace in the rec room.
