Discipleship as Network - Yancey Arrington has a very helpful look at discipleship. “Let me very clear, I think one-on-one discipleship is a legitimate, beneficial avenue of discipleship. I've done it and will do it in some fashion in the future. However, I would argue that more than merely one-on-one ratios, most discipleship is found in a network of relationships.”

A Hated Minority - An article at CNN considers that Christians’ view of homosexuality may soon make them a hated minority. “Sprigg and other evangelicals say changing attitudes toward homosexuality have created a new victim: closeted Christians who believe the Bible condemns homosexuality but will not say so publicly for fear of being labeled a hateful bigot.”

Cameristas - Here is an article and a video from the New York Times. The video displays and describes some of the most iconic photographs from the Civil War.

The Snowstorm and the Suffering Servant - “In a raging storm in a rural town on the coast of Japan, a man and his daughter huddled against a warehouse. They held one another, they felt the fury of the wind and the snow, and they fought for life. In early March of this year, a major snowstorm hit northern Japan. In the rural town of Yubetsu (in Hokkaido), it stranded a father, Mikio Okada, and his daughter, Natsune, in a snow bank.”

Who Really Runs Wikipedia? - Wikipedia’s success, and even its existence, continues to baffle me. This article from The Economist asks who really runs and controls the site.

The Supremacy of Christ - This is a fantastic presentation of the gospel.

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who did most for the next. —C.S. Lewis

Paul Miller got paid to stay off the Internet. For a whole year he drew a salary to remain offline and to record the experience of living disconnected. For a whole year he abandoned email and Twitter, blogs and Google Maps, Skype and Facebook, and all the other digital destinations that have become so much a part of our lives. 365 days later he sat down to record his experiences in what has become one of those articles everyone is talking about.

As his journey began, he forecasted that at the end of the year he would be telling us his year away had refreshed and recharged him, it had proven our new technologies are destroying our lives and our communities, disconnecting had give him the peace he was looking for, the enlightenment he longed for.

But such lessons were not easy to come by. At first he enjoyed his break from modern life. He got more active and lost weight and found ways of connecting and reconnecting with family and friends. Without the Internet to distract him he found renewed vigor to visit people in their homes and to get out into the community. For a while the experience seemed to deliver what it had promised.

But not for a long. Soon he had to admit, "I'd learned how to make a new style of wrong choices off the internet. I abandoned my positive offline habits, and discovered new offline vices. Instead of taking boredom and lack of stimulation and turning them into learning and creativity, I turned toward passive consumption and social retreat." The good habits he formed after unplugging soon fell by the wayside and he realized they had been attractive for a time more for their contrast with the digital life than for their intrinsic value. Soon these things, too, lost their luster. He was right back where he began, albeit offline.

My plan was to leave the internet and therefore find the "real" Paul and get in touch with the "real" world, but the real Paul and the real world are already inextricably linked to the internet. Not to say that my life wasn't different without the internet, just that it wasn't real life.

He thought that real life was to be found offline but discovered that the lines are not quite so clear. There is value in connecting face-to-face and in being present offline. But much of the Internet is also relational. The Internet is people. He was as lonely offline as he had been online. Unplugging alone was not a remedy to relationship, to productivity, or to much of anything else.

The big lesson he draws from all of this feels awfully unsatisfying.

Have you ever seen one of those videos on YouTube that shows you how something you’ve been doing for your whole life has actually been all wrong? How you’re better off eating an apple from the bottom up instead of wrapping around the sides or how those little ketchup cups are meant to fan out for easier access? Who knew? Well I’m going to give you a little wedding tip.

There’s that moment at a wedding when the groom and his groomsmen have entered the church. The bridesmaids have walked the aisle and taken their places at the front. The ring bearers and flower girls are in their places. The doors at the back are closed. Then those doors burst open and there is the bride standing arm-in-arm with her father.

Now here’s the tip: When those doors open, steal a quick glance at the groom. I know the bride is the star of the show and you don’t want to miss her, but it’s okay to look to the front of the church for just a moment. The more I read and understand Ephesians 5:22-33 and the more I come to grasp the deepest meaning of marriage, the more I find myself not wanting to miss what happens at the front of the room. Because in that moment the groom is just a small picture, a dim reflection, of the love Jesus Christ has for his bride, the church.

There is nothing quite like the expression on a groom’s face when his bride appears before him. There is joy there. There is delight and desire and such love. There is the knowledge that his longing for a bride is being fulfilled and that she will soon be his, that in just moments they will be united together forever.

Yesterday we were able to witness the marriage of two dear friends. They served us well in drawing our hearts and minds to the ultimate marriage their union is meant to represent and they did this in part by choosing The City Harmonic’s song “Holy (Wedding Day)” as the processional music. As Caroline entered, and as Steve looked at her for the first time that day, it was to the words,

This is the story of the Son of God hanging on a cross for me,
But it ends with a bride and groom and a wedding by a glassy sea.
This is the story of a bride in white singing on her wedding day;
Altogether all that was and is, can stand before her God and sing.
‘Holy, holy, holy, holy is the Lord.’

From the very first moment, the ceremony pointed beyond itself and so too did the bride and groom. When the doors opened I looked to the front of the room and in the face of my friend I saw again a glimpse of the love Jesus Christ has for me, for us, for his church. I’m so glad I didn’t miss it.

I am too young to remember much about Margaret Thatcher and to know a lot about her role in world history. I will definitely read a biography of her at some point in the future and learn more about her life and times. (Writer’s note: I am trying to establish that I’m not interested in bickering about the legacy of her policies since I know too little about them.) When she died last month there were the inevitable outpourings of both spite and affection. In the midst of all of this, I saw several people draw attention to one mostly unremarkable interview. As the interview drew to a close, the host asked Thatcher if she would do just one small thing—stand in front of the camera and jump in the air.

Jumping in the air was a gimmick the host asked of all her guests and apparently all of them complied. But Thatcher wanted nothing to do with it. She refused to jump and refused to relent even when the host began to apply pressure (“Gorbachev did it!”). Displaying all of her little verbal and physical quirks, she responded, “I shouldn’t dream of doing that. Why should I? I see no significance whatsoever in making a jump up in the air. I made great leaps forward, not little jumps in studios. … It’s a silly thing to ask. And it’s a puerile thing to ask.” She identified that the only motive behind this little jump could be a desire to be thought normal or popular. She was having none of it.

Mark Steyn, among others, contrasted Thatcher with the President of the United States who has slow-jammed the news with Jimmy Fallon and danced with Ellen. Many consider these silly moments contributing factors in his election to a second term. Many others consider them pragmatic actions that won an election at the expense of the dignity of the office of President of the United States of America.

Thatcher did not jump, and doubtlessly would not have danced or slow-jammed either, at least in part because she considered it demeaning. She understood that to demean herself was to demean her office. In that interview she was speaking not only as a woman, but as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (or former Prime Minister; I’m not sure when this was filmed). Even if she was willing to behave in a silly way on her own, she did not want her office to be seen as silly. She gave her trademark, “No, no, no.”