They left the worship band's spotlights on during the sermon this week, and my pastor saw his shadow, which meant six more points before the benediction. Here are some links as I try to forget …
- If you didn't get enough football over the weekend, Chaplain Mike at Internet Monk has a detailed proposal for a football-themed megachurch.
- And then, sometimes, life hands you a story like this one: Justin Bieber, baptismal candidate.
- Ethicist Russell Moore's long running Q&A series is now a ten-minute podcast. On this sample, he's asked if a Christian should accept treatment with medical marijuana. (Check out the other four podcasts available, too.)
- Is there eternal security for Christmas presents? A distraught mom comes up with an instant twist on parenting the temper tantrum child.
- What do you get when you cross a progressive Jewish congregation with a black gospel church? Interesting choir music.
- Remember that thing last week where the Pope released a couple of doves and they got attacked? Well … here's the same story only from one year ago, and with Pope Benedict instead of Francis; deja vu all over again. (Time to rethink this one, yes?)
- I tend to think of the work of Compassion International as being in response to naturally occurring catastrophes, drought, famine, etc.; but sometimes the origin of the crisis is political or military.
- A recently recurring topic in light of all the leadership literature: Is it about leading or about pastoring? (Note to Spell-Check: Not pasteurizing.) …
- … Related: If you're intentionally shepherding is anyone being missed? (But what if it's a really big church?)
- Moody Press author Nancy Leigh DeMoss has just released a new—wait for it—album of piano music.
- Canada's first Christian law school is potentially facing some tough opposition.
- Here's a peek at a faith-based film releasing this fall: The Song, produced by City on a Hill Productions.
- A challenge faced by the producers of modern Bible translations is that some readers want their Bible to sound Biblish.
- Church for Beginners: A liturgical church includes in their bulletin an explanation of why different worship elements are part of the weekly service.
- Should Natalie Grant have exited the Grammy Awards? One writer sees it as a publicity stunt …
- … Here's my own article about the show, complete with most of Natalie's second post on Facebook …
- … Another gospel performer wasn't in the audience at that point; he was having dinner with family after winning two of the trophies in the pre-telecast.
- It's been done elsewhere for decades, a sitcom for kids involving a girl with lesbian parents is a first for Disney …
- … while across the pond, sex education videos in the UK will be subject to a rating system.
- With a venue confirmed, Dallas, Texas is announced as the host city for the 2014 Harvest America crusade with Greg Laurie …
- … Meanwhile a Christian college in Wisconsin has dropped "Crusaders" as the name for its sports teams. (Maybe they should just change it to Cru.)
- If you hang around certain conservative, fundamentalist environments long enough, you might pick up a selection of falsehoods.
- This is an older link that I come back to every Valentines month for men who feel left behind on the 14th and want to find a wife the Biblical way.
- When academics go off-road: Ben Witherington III explores a connection between rock 'n roll record marketing and evangelism in the early church. (Link to part four; be sure to check out the other three parts of Rock 'n Roll and Me.)
- Not sure if Mark Batterson is saying this is an actual title, but "So Far, So God" is a great title for your church annual report.
- Some informed words in defense of the 2011 NIV.
- A Christian blogger with Mormon relatives dissects Ravi Zacharias' recent foray into LDS country.
- If you're in ministry, and you've moved lately, as you lifted that heavy box you noticed that we tend to hoard books, but often for the wrong reasons.
- The Son of God movie trailer is out, but you already knew that, right? The trailer features the song Hope is What We Crave by For King and Country. There's a live version of it on the band's official YouTube page.
- Discovery of the Week: A church in Peterborough, England does an after-school, pre-evangelistic outreach program based on The Chronicles of Narnia. (The .pdf file you can click describes what they do and don't do in terms of ministry.)
- A short piece gets us thinking about the intersection of desire and expectations.
- For aspiring worship-team guitarists everywhere, the Ten Commandments of Electric Guitar.
- A West Virginia church is praised for taking all the right steps when a volunteer is arrested for child sexual abuse.
- On video, a 3-minute profile of England's premiere comic/cartoon artist Dave Walker.
- Evangelistically speaking, there are hundreds of definitions at the Dictionary of Christianese.
- I can never resist blog posts where readers are invited to promote their favorite Christian book. (Mine would be a Philip Yancey title!)
- Finally, if you're new to this whole link list thing, I did a rare Weekend Link List about ten days ago with some reruns from 2011.
Link collector Paul Wilkinson lives in Canada where football only has three downs instead of four and is fairly predictable. His rants and hyperbole appear daily at Thinking Out Loud, while his devotional plagiarism resides at C201.
