Today’s Kindle deals include a few titles that may be of interest. Does anyone know what happened to Crossway’s weekly deals?
(Yesterday on the blog: Readers Comment on Renaming the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal)
The Pastor Is the Primary Worship Leader.
“As important as those faithful folks who serve in the area of music are, and those who give leadership in the music in the church gathering, we do well to remember that the primary worship leader in the assembly of God’s people is the pastor.”
The Types Of Members That Do Not Build The Body
I appreciated this article from Chopo Mwanza: “Diverse people who have no reason to live and work together, let alone care for each other, choose to live in love and unity in the church to the praise and glory of the Lord’s name. This is powerful and attractive when it is lived out. However, that is not always the case. It is true that churches are made of diverse people and unfortunately not everyone pursues unity. So what kind of members do not build up the body of Christ?”
The Conservative Soul of Soccer
This may be overplaying things a little, but I still enjoyed it. “Soccer is a beautiful visual liturgy of the conservative spirit. One watches with wonder how individual players can function so cohesively as units, such that the one seems to know where the other is going even before he does. Give it a passing glance and all you’ll see is a ball moving seemingly aimlessly. Pass, pass, backward pass, sideways pass, pass. But the ball is going forward. Just keep watching.”
Will This Trick Your Ears? (Video)
I always enjoy videos like these ones that “hack” our brains a little.
The Problems With Pastoral Search Committees
For many prospective pastors, this is basically their experience with search committees. “Mainly the search committees wanted to know how big Mark’s prior churches were. They were curious how fast and how far he grew them. They wanted to know if he was a dynamic preacher who would keep their people interested. They wanted to see proof that he could fill their pews and even get them to overflowing.”
How A Single Cat Hunted to Extinction The Entire Species of Stephens Island Wren
“Cats are fantastic predators. In the book Cat Wars, authors Peter Marra and Chris Santella estimate that outdoor cats kill around 2.4 billion birds in the United States alone. A large number of these victims are killed not for food, but for fun. Cats are stimulated by the chase and even if not hungry, they will still kill.” Here’s how they wiped out an entire species.
10 Things You Should Know about Infertility
“According to the CDC, approximately 7–10% of couples experience some form of infertility—a very considerable number. To make that figure slightly more concrete, if your church has about 200 families attend on a given Sunday morning, chances are around 20 of them have experienced infertility.”
Flashback: Envy Always Wins
Envy promises that if I only get that thing I want, I will finally be satisfied, I will finally be content. But that is a lie. If I get that thing, I will only grow proud. I lose.
When success is our goal, it is hard to resist the temptation to preach an easy gospel, which attracts everybody and offends nobody, but ends up being a “different gospel” and not Jesus’.
—Juan Stam
