Monday November 6, 2006

Humor?: Um, I don’t even know what to say about this.

Weird: An interesting story from Yahoo about a load of letters that ended up in the ocean: “Some of the letters are comical (a man asking God to let him win the lottery, twice), others are heartbreaking (a distraught teen asking forgiveness for an abortion, an unwed mother pleading with God to make the baby’s father marry her). The letters - about 300 in all, sent to a New Jersey minister - ended up dumped in the ocean, most of them unopened.”

Blogs: The Pyromaniac clears the record and offers some more of his bumper stickers for sale (if you’re into that kind of thing).

Friday November 3, 2006

Conference: Information for the 2007 Children Desiring God conference has been released. Speakers include Piper, Grudem and Mahaney. (HT: JT).

Liveblogging: There will be liveblogging at this weekend’s Alpha & Omega National Conference which will include a debate between James White and John Shelby Spong. You can keep up with the conference here.

Audio: Paul has posted links to “Haykin’s History of the Whole Church,” a series of lectures delivered by Dr. Michael Haykin. “We crammed well over 100 folks into our gym and for one Saturday climbed aboard a luxury airliner with Dr. Haykin at the helm, guiding us over 2004 years of Christ’s work in preparing His bride. It was glorious!”

Interview: Here is the transcript of Dr. Mohler’s interview with Andrew Sullivan.

Thursday November 2, 2006

Children: Amy points out a phenomenon my wife and I also noticed: “Whoever invented Daylight Saving Time did not have a baby in the house.”

Health: Jollyblogger points to a strange and interesting story about “Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert - how he lost his voice and got it back.”

Audio: Earlier this week John MacArthur was guest on Al Mohler’s radio program. You can hear the discussion here.

Church: Thabiti Anyabwile shares pictures from a baptism service he conducted for his new church on Grand Cayman.

Politics: An article by SunMedia shows how many immigrants find ways of bringing parents and siblings into Canada - quite simply, they marry them!

Wednesday November 1, 2006

Purpose: An article in the O.C. Register sheds some light on how Rick Warren’s PEACE plan will work, including the infrastructure lying behind it.

Conference: Here is a conference I hadn’t heard of until yesterday. The reFocus conference will be held in Vancouver, B.C. and the speakers include Piper, Ware, Driscoll and Packer.

Blog: At long last, Adrian Warnock will cease discussing the continuing gifts. Or so he says. Tomorrow he will begin an interview series that sounds interesting.

Tuesday October 31, 2006

Books: BookMooch is a “community for exchanging used books.” It looks like a good way of swapping books you don’t read for those you’d like to read.

Humor: The Sacred Sandwich has released the latest edition. They have also unveiled their new motto: “While the World Zigs, We Zag.” Be sure to look at the ads for Barbie’s Dream Church and the new Ergun Caner talking doll.

Du Jour: Ingrid from Slice of Laodicea shares a stirring story of “Pure Religion on a Cold, Wet Night.” “Sometimes in our busy lives it is easy to miss ministry opportunities that are really the most important kind of all. Jesus said that to care for the fatherless and the widow, all those who are hurting, is pure religion and undefiled.”

Conferences: I just updated the list of Reformed Conferences, adding a couple of new ones and updating several others. Click here to see what conferences will be in your area next year.

People: JD Wetterling reflects on Candy Man: “He ran the candy stand for summer campers here at Ridge Haven for a generation of covenant children. He heard, ‘Hey, Candy Man,’ in some surprising places in his travels when former young customers spied his unforgettable face. ”

Monday October 30, 2006

Reformation Day: If you are a blogger, don’t forget about the Reformation Day Symposium. Entries are due by tomorrow. Get details here.

Music: The wonderfully eclectic Sufjan Stevens has a series of Christmas albums coming out and they are available for pre-order beginning tomorrow from this site. “Having an inherent aversion to the standard Christmas carol, Sufjan indulged in the project initially as an exercise to make himself ‘appreciate’ Christmas more. It was a tough childhood, but you can’t be a Christmas Curmudgeon forever, can you? What he discovered, for better or for worse, was a fascinating canon of Yuletide hits, some emotionally rewarding, some painfully cliche.”

Book: Tyndale House is collecting stories for a new book. They are asking for people to submit stories of how their life verse changed their life. My life verse is that one that commands us to have a life verse. Where is that one again?

Blogs: A new service from Google allows you to create alerts for particular subjects being discussed in the blogosphere. Check it out here.

Friday October 27, 2006

Music: If you’re into rap music, you may like to know that Voice’s latest album “The Crucible” has been released. It may have been out for ages but I only just noticed. You can hear samples here and buy it (CD or download) here.

Halloween: A writer at the Boundless blog reacted to my article on Halloween and says he will have “An Unapologetically Dark House on Halloween.”

Blog titus2talk looks like it will be an interesting and informative blog for women. It strikes me as being similar to a UK-based GirlTalk blog.

Thursday October 26, 2006

Technology: Following on the heels of Internet Explorer 7.0, comes Firefox 2.0. I am waiting to download it until I can see if my browser extensions will work with it. For those interested, you can get it here.

Books: Matt Perry is requesting help in supplying books to Trinidadian pastors. “You can help in this endeavor. I have set up an Amazon.com wishlist where you can log on and buy a book that will be shipped here, and then we shall take it on to Trinidad to give as a gift.”

Technology: Bob Kauflin has some wise and interesting words about the iPod. “The iPod is like any five year old. It can bring great joy to your life, but it’s a good idea to keep a close watch on it.”

Entertainment: How is this for seedy entertainment? A new show is seeking America’s sexiest moms. “When you see a woman in her early 40s at the supermarket with a little kid and some super-low-rise jeans, she might be better looking than your 22-year-old girlfriend,” executive producer Jeff Greenfield said. “Your girlfriend looks good because she’s young. The 40-year-old looks good because she works at it. And that’s hot.” FoxNews has more.

Wednesday October 25, 2006

Humor: Phil Johnson shares a humorous story about getting in trouble after a Starbucks craving.

Law: In a rather disgusting abuse of the law, an American judge has chosen to punish a pervert by banishing him to Canada. The “Toronto Sun” reports.

Halloween: Lots of people are discussing Halloween, including Darrin Booker, whom I met for the first time a few weeks ago.

Technology: Al Mohler discusses the fifth anniversary of the iPod. “So, happy fifth birthday to the iPod. I celebrated the iPod’s birthday by loading several dozen new selections into my music library. Now, my iPod is armed with a whole new arsenal of music. It was the least I could do in recognition of such an auspicious occasion.”

Tuesday October 24, 2006

Islam: FoxNews has a spooky article dealing with a huge increase of crimes committed against police officers and firemen in France. There is “increasingly violent conflict between police and gangs in tough, largely immigrant French neighborhoods that were the scene of a three-week paroxysm of rioting last year.”

Music: “Christianity Today” reports that Derek Webb’s album “Mockingbird,” which is now available for free download, has been downloaded over 50,000 times since September 1. The promotion has, ironically, increased sales of the CD as well.

Film: Carolyn McCulley has an excellent (and hilarious) review of “One Night With the King.” “When [Xerxes] extends the golden scepter, predictably, she faints. And Fabio, er, I mean King Xerxes, rushes off his throne to cradle her head and strike a pose for the cover of their next romance novel. By this point, everyone was guffawing in the theater. All ten of us.”

Art: “Christianity Today” also has an interesting article about that portrait of Jesus that hangs in far too many homes and churches.