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A La Carte (12/20)

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Yesterday evening our church was able to enjoy a baptism service and see 3 people make that public profession of faith. What an awesome thing God has done in giving us baptism, a visible rite that speaks so clearly about the inner change he has wrought.

The Half-Life of Celebrity – “Is it possible to study something as ill-defined as culture in a quantitative manner? Researchers from Harvard have collaborated with Google and some traditional publishers to answer that question with a qualified ‘yes.’ By leveraging a portion of Google’s massive library of digitized books, the team has created what they call a ‘culturome,’ with which they can track the use of language and terms across hundreds of years.”

I Looked For Love in Your Eyes – In case you missed it on Saturday, you should check out this poem a reader of the site shared with me. Almost 20,000 people read it this weekend.

TV and Teen Girls – This is pretty obvious but still worth thinking about that next time you sit down to watch some television. “According to a new study conducted by the Parents Television Council (PTC), Hollywood is shockingly obsessed with sexualizing teen girls, to the point where underage female characters are shown participating in an even higher percentage of sexual situations than their adult counterparts: 47 percent to 29 percent respectively.”

Sistine Chapel – An amazing virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel.

The Woman Without Fear – I found this a rather interesting article. “SM is a woman without fear. She doesn’t feel it. She has been held at knifepoint without a tinge of panic. She’ll happily handle live snakes and spiders, even though she claims not to like them. She can sit through reels of upsetting footage without a single start. And all because a pair of almond-shaped structures in her brain – amygdalae – have been destroyed.”

3 Lessons in Parenting Teens – David Murray offers up some sound wisdom (and searching questions) related to parenting teenagers.

Rudolph – A Christmasy laugh:

Rudolph

Silent Monks – This is pretty clever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCFCeJTEzNU?fs=1&hl=en_US

There are no deadlines against which God must work. Only to know this is to quiet our spirits and relax our nerves.

—A.W. Tozer

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    A La Carte (May 20)

    A La Carte: The foibles and fallibility of Christian leaders / Mental illness / Why didn’t Christ come sooner? / When it’s okay to die / Spiritual formation / and more.

  • Unlock Your Ministry Potential with Microcredentials

    Are you looking for accessible faith-based resources that can help you serve your church community with confidence? Check out Redeemer University’s online church leadership microcredentials—available anytime, anywhere. #Sponsored

  • Discernment

    What Does a Discerning Person Do?

    Some Christians seem to be specially gifted when it comes to spiritual discernment. Others take a special interest in discernment and expend the hard effort of growing in the discipline of it. But they may sometimes wonder: What should I do with this discernment?

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    A La Carte (May 19)

    A La Carte: Dangers of theological controversy / No confidence? No problem! / The goodness of gardening friends / Jeff the low stakes prophet / Hurting people / Kindle deals / and more.

  • Prayer

    The Reward They Longed for They Received

    Jesus, who knew what was in the heart of men, warned of the hypocrisy of those whose prayer life is only ever public. “When you pray,” he said, “you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen…

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    Weekend A La Carte (May 17)

    A La Carte: Generalizations are not stereotypes / Hospitality and reaching the dechurched / Essential lessons for pastors / The rise of Islam and the resilience of the church / Gossip and godly church / Fear takes you where grace has not yet gone / and more.