"The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment is a truly important work-one that should be required reading not only for church leaders, but for all sober-minded laypeople as well."

John MacArthur (From the Foreword)

"If you were more discerning you’d probably buy this book. If you do read this book, you will be! This book on discernment is simple, clear, well-written and well-illustrated...

Mark Dever

Welcome to the online home of Tim Challies, blogger, author and web designer. My first book, "The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment," is now available everywhere.

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Technology Archive

What Should We Disclose? (10/27/07 - 24 Comments)
Rather than attempt to answer a question today, I thought I'd ask one instead. This is a question primarily for people who read blogs, though certainly people who write them may be interested as well. The question is this: How much should bloggers disclose? Let me explain. Bloggers tend to put a lot of work into their sites but receive relatively little in return. There are usually just a few options open to bloggers who...

A New New Reformation (10/07/07 - 6 Comments)
Just a couple of days ago I completed a project for New Reformation Ministries, the teaching ministry of Dr. Steven Lawson. The timing was largely coincidental to the fact that only last week I was down in Mobile, Alabama at a conference hosted by Dr. Lawson and by his church. This is what the ministry is all about: "The unique focus of New Reformation is to recover and reclaim in the church a high view...

Facebook for Oregonians (08/19/07 - 27 Comments)
Just helping a brother figure out Facebook. Josh Harris needs help with Facebook. In fact, he has resorted to begging for friends. It's kind of sad, really. So I thought I would try to help a friend out with this Facebook Survey. Now Facebook is kind of a neat phenomenon. I'm not convinced it has much lasting value but for now it's kind of a fun way of connecting with friends, and especially long-forgotten friends....

Advertising and Cable Television (01/13/06 - 51 Comments)
Not too long ago I mentioned that my wife and I were ready to give up cable television. Perhaps strangely, our concern stemmed not only or even primarily from the content of television shows. After all, if we do not like the content of a show we can easily simply avoid watching it. Will and Grace is a show that glamorizes the homosexual lifestyle. We do not like the show and what it represents so...

Movabletype 3.2 (09/10/05 - 0 Comments)
MovabletypeA couple of weeks ago Six Apart released the latest version of Movabletype, the software that lies at the heart of this site and hundreds of thousands of other blogs. The new version, 3.2, offers so many new features that it could almost have been called version 4.0. Here are a few of my favorite features and wishlist of things I would like to see in the future:

Question for RSS Readers (08/29/05 - 0 Comments)
I am beginning to wonder if the recent upgrade to Movabletype 3.2 has caused trouble with my RSS output. For those of you who read this site via RSS, can you let me know if the feed is working properly for you?

Upgraded (Trackback Me!) (08/26/05 - 0 Comments)
Powered by Movable Type 3.2I just finished upgrading to Movabletype 3.2. I've been looking forward to this version of the software as it allows some important new functionality. At the top of the list is trackback moderation, a feature that was sorely needed. It allows me to restore the list of trackbacks to the sidebar (a feature that I quite like but had to disable because of all the trackback spam I receive). The new Movabletype also allows some new plugins that I quite like.

Web Hosting Offer (+ A $20 Amazon Gift Certificate) (08/16/05 - 0 Comments)
As a way of supporting the growing costs of this site, I am now offering web hosting through an affiliate program with the company that hosts my sites. Prices for a feature-laden hosting package begin as low as $6.95 per month! But to make the deal all that much sweeter, I am offering a $20 Amazon gift certificate to anyone who signs up through my site. And as an added bonus, I'll even install your choice of WordPress or Movabletype to this site (if you intend to use the site for blogging).

Site Updates (08/04/05 - 0 Comments)
As you may have noticed, unless you're on of those people who only reads the site via RSS, I have done a fairly major revision to the layout of the site. While leaving the design much the same (if it ain't broke...) I added a new sidebar which contains all sorts of good information.

Server Issues (07/21/05 - 0 Comments)
Update (5:43 AM) - I am experiencing occasional issues with phpbb errors. If you get one of these please let me know. I think if you refresh your screen it will go away.

As you may have noticed, the web server that hosts this site crashed last night somewhere around 6 PM EST. It was still down when I turned in at around 10 (early to bed, early to rise, don't you know). As of 5 AM this morning it was alive, but showing all sorts of errors. A quick call to technical support resolved it, so I think as of 5:25 AM things are back to normal. Looks like they had to restore a backup from the night before which means that the server probably lost a hard drive. So, if you posted comments of any sort yesterday, they are lost forever. I do apologize, but it truly isn't my fault! Hopefully things remain stable today.