One week to the big day, here is a mix of both seasonal and regular links. It's exciting to think how many people get saved each week just reading these story teasers.
- The Driscoll Affair is bringing to light that book deals have nothing to do with what you know, and everything to do with who knows you.
- Even as blogs keep popping up critical of the movement, a controversial author scheduled to headline a homeschool conference won't be appearing.
- Looking for that last minute music element for the Christmas Eve service? (.pdf download)
- A leading apologist says teaching Christians how to defend their faith should be on the Sunday morning menu. (Though I think he'd settle for a Wednesday night course.)
- You've heard of the un-churched, and the under-churched; now meet the semi-churched.
- If you have friends with a superficial knowledge of Christianity, you can rock their world by introducing the idea of the pre-incarnate Christ.
- After a Christian conference was criticized for having fewer than 4% women speakers, in a major labor of love, Rachel Held Evans provides bios and links to 101 conference-worthy women, listed alphabetically.
- Church leadership leaving you discouraged at year's end? Here are four simple questions to ask yourself.
- 26 years old. A new baby. A modeling career. And then, a massive stroke. (22 min. video)
- Donald Trump says the U.S. missed an opportunity to free Pastor Saeed.
- Pat Robertson gets both an apology and a donation from a newspaper that ran with a story about a film alleging that a CBN-related aid project was a scam.
- Don't know much about this film, but here's the trailer for a Spring 2014 movie, When God Left The Building.
- Essay of the Week: The Bible's book on wisdom ends with a chapter that isn't prescribing how to be a woman of wisdom as much as it's describing what the proverbial (pun intended) Proverbs 31 woman looks like.
- Breaking News: A Canadian Christian university gets approval to go ahead with a law school.
- Going even deeper: Here's this week's academic link: 5 things contemporary worshipers could learn from the early church.
- For the first time—and breaking a British Empire stereotype—census data in New Zealand shows Catholics outnumber Anglicans.
- If anything, it will get you thinking. Or scratching your head. One author's list of 40 things he likes about Christianity …
- … And another author's response. 40 things she doesn't like about Christianity.
- Sadly, the latest Gallup data shows pastors have dropped to seventh place in terms of who people trust by profession.
- In Canada, Bible distribution and translation includes English, French and aboriginal languages including those spoken in the Arctic. (News today because the Inuktitut translation just released in large print.)
- Is the idea that many PKs (preacher's kids) become prodigals true or a stereotype?
- The wife of a megachurch tech director would like you to meet the man behind the curtain. (And stop complaining that the sound is too loud.)
- Not a week goes by without a church/state story in the U.S., but the story of this California mountaintop cross caught the attention of Time Magazine.
- One day a week, she's a single mom. Here are six ways you can serve your pastor's wife on Sunday.
- On my own blog this week: Sympathy cards that avoid mentioning death, and my latest Christian radio rant.
- A Christmas Devotional: The moment when grace arrived.
- You can't talk about the broader Christian culture in the U.S. without mentioning after-Church lunches at Cracker Barrel. (Equal opportunity Chick-fil-A news stories welcome.)(And Hobby Lobby.)
- A dog's reflections on the obtaining and installation of the family Christmas Tree. (And why the family should eat the tree.)
- Possibly related: Why author Ann Voskamp hung her Christmas tree upside down.
- There's nothing particularly newsworthy about this link, I'm just always impressed when people risk the spelling and write about Nebuchadnezzar.
- Punk band Bad Religion has released … wait for it … a Christmas album.
- If your musical tastes are a little more conservative, from the tiny Canadian province Prince Edward Island, The Sky Family Christmas song. (If you're ever in PEI, check out their B&B ASAP.)
- If you think you might have missed anything, here is Reuters news service's list of the top ten religious stories of 2013.
The rest of the week, Paul Wilkinson poaches devotionals at Christianity 201, and pontificates at Thinking Out Loud.
Posted December 18, 2013