We're back with another mid-week link meeting! Here's what your brothers and sisters from random parts of the big 'C' church were up to this week:
- What's the difference between a canoe and a Christian in a restaurant? A canoe tips. [Rim shot!] Now a website is dedicated to giving food servers a chance to describe their experiences with church people at Sundays Are The Worst.
- Pastors: Be careful what you offer in a sermon, especially if it's not in the church budget.
- Marketing Christianity: A special offer from pastor and radio host Steve Brown allows you Three Free Sins.
- A funeral director whose blog deals with how we face death offers suggestions as to the proper etiquette of dealing with loss on the internet …
- … The same author once noticed that at funerals, almost all pastors are universalists.
- A secular news website looks at the various blogs that highlight survivor stories of spiritual abuse in fundamentalist sects.
- Strange Cloud Conference: It doesn't sound like John MacArthur will be buying a ticket for the Heaven is For Real movie adaptation.
- Gay Christians in same-sex marriage are now eligible for employment at World Vision …
- … but the World Vision shift brings a quick response from Baptist ethics writer Russell D. Moore.
- Pastors often suffer from depression. Here are seven ways God can use that.
- Essay of the Week (1): When it comes to personality tests, I think I'm an HIJK. Is that a thing? Anyway here's Why English Majors Make Lousy Fundamentalists.
- Essay of the Week (2): Two lesbians walk into a church. No, it's not a short story and there is no punchline. But there is quite an ending.
- Houston Crime-Stoppers will pay you $25,000 for information leading to an arrest in the theft of $600,000 at Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church.
- For a member of The Newsboys, his involvement in the movie God's Not Dead is the continuation in a chain of events begun when Billy Graham visited Australia in 1959 …
- … while the movie's opening weekend landed it in the top five.
- With everyone in the U.S. thinking basketball, I thought we'd take a different route and offer this delightful religious gift idea for the football fan.
- The British Law Society is one step closer to a legal system that accommodates Islamic law. (Wait, what?)
- Meanwhile, Jewish News Service is reporting that in countries where they are a minority, there has been a major exodus of Christians in the face of religious extremists.
- So who's up for a good debate? On Moody Radio a look at the decline of altar calls in Baptist churches. (Click the link for the 54 minute program.)
- YMin: One of the big challenges to youth ministry is the reality that the kids all attend different schools.
- Intermission: A pause while we pay a tribute to church basement coffee.
- Thanks for the Complementarian: Is Cedarville University planning to restrict a particular course to women only?
- Jamie the Very Worst Production Consultant breaks her Non-Disclosure Agreement and tells what was going on in the desert that day.
- Analogy of the Week: To this writer, fellowship is like oxygen.
- While reading Brad Lomenick's latest list of young influencers, I learned that on Hillsong's popular song "Oceans," the lead vocal belongs to Taya Smith.
- Since PARSE is part of Leadership Journal which in turn is part of Christianity Today, I'm sure they weren't happy with this shot taken by Frank Schaeffer …
- … but I did think that Karen Spears Zacharias had an insightful, deeper look at the late Fred Phelps and what he is now experiencing …
- … and in Fred's home town of Topeka, Kansas, the local newspaper provides a family tree of sorts.
- Source Unknown Department: Every pastor's prayer.
- A Spanish church occupied the first floor and basement of a building that was destroyed in the New York City gas explosion. Some church members perished in the blast.
- Book Review: A look at Renegade Pastor, a book encouraging those in ministry not to settle for average.
- Time Warp: Michael W. Smith is releasing a new album.
- Here's another infographic from Josh Byers, this one showing the harmony of the Gospels' telling of the Passion Week narrative.
- Internet Diversions Department: 27 indicators you grew up Evangelical. (Yes, I know, the whole internet is a diversion.)
- Finally, specialization has hit the automotive fish industry. Now your car icthus can have special meaning. (Including a Southern Baptist fish icon.)
Stay in touch with Paul Wilkinson during the week on Twitter or at Thinking Out Loud.
Posted March 26, 2014
