Welcome to the online home of Tim Challies, blogger, author, and book reviewer.
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Last week I posted an article written by my mother, Barbara: Tears at Thanksgiving. It seems that people enjoyed it and I received plenty of requests to post more by mom. I’m glad to comply! Here is something she posted a few days ago for the family’s benefit. And we’re glad to share it with you. I suppose it’s a poem of sorts. Whatever genre it fits in, I think it gives plenty of food for thought. No one weeps …
My mother maintains a blog—a private blog that she uses to keep the family up-to-date with the latest family news. Because her five children (and four children-in-law and seven grandchildren) are scattered from Ontario to New York, from Georgia to Tennessee, she makes her blog a central repository for news and information we need to know. Yesterday, based on conversations she had around Thanksgiving, she posted some thoughts on divorce and its awful ramifications on families. This was not meant …
Suggestions on organizing and cataloging a personal library. I am developing what I suspect will soon be an extensive personal library. Though it is currently not all that large, as these things go, it is growing at an alarming rate. When we moved into our current house just over one year ago, I had, to the best of my recollection, four bookcases in my office which left me lots of wall space to hang prints of some of my heroes …
Yesterday Bob Kauflin posted some random thoughts on MP3 downloads and copies (link). I assume my readers are familiar with Bob who serves as director of worship development for Sovereign Grace Ministries, and as a pastor and worship leader at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Having just finished reading The Future of Music by David Kusek and Gerd Leonhard, Bob decided to reflect a bit on the book. The authors “think that increased access to music and freedom to …
In the last few days, a good number of bloggers have chosen to discuss the always-difficult topic of the Christian response to Halloween. Because I jumped the gun a little and posted about this topic earlier this week, I thought I would, in my best imitation of Phil Johnson, and using Google’s Blog Search feature, do a Halloween Blogspotting, linking back to those who linked my article on the subject. I’m sure others have discussed Halloween as well, but I …
Never have Christians tried to be so relevant, and yet never have they been so terribly irrelevant. How could this happen? It is this question that Os Guinness addresses in Prophetic Untimeliness, which claims to be “A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance.” Guinness says that the goal of the book is to explore how the stupidity of relevance has come about. “How on earth have we Christians become so irrelevant when we have tried so hard to be relevant?…Never …
We are at a stage of human history that in some ways is quite bizarre. Because of the Internet, electronic storage media, the rapid rate of technological progress and the fast-pace of our society, we have unparalleled access to unparalleled amounts of information. Never in history have people had access to so much information. Consider just a few examples: Google currently indexes over eight billion web pages (as of this moment, the exact number is 8,058,044,651). Almost every one of …
In the days leading up to the release of The Passion of the Christ we heard time and again how this movie was going to provide the best outreach opportunity in the past 2000 years. We heard church leaders telling Christians to support this movie to ensure that Gibson did not lose his $30 million investment. Thousands of churches bought blocks of tickets, hundreds or even thousands of them, and gave them away to their members and communities. It has …
The Passion of the Christ took in over $50 million this weekend to move past the $200 million mark in just 12 days. What was once thought to be a $30 million risk has turned into a bona fide blockbuster. But the box office is not the only place where money is rolling in. The State features an article about Passion-related merchandising. Bob Siemon Designs, which created the nail pendant and Passion crucifix, has employees working extra shifts to try …
Since it is the Christmas season, I will be easing off on writing for the next few days. I intend to spend my vacation primarily engaged in reading, writing, talking and eating. I will also be drinking copious amounts of Coke. Here are some of the things I am working on for 2004: Continuing my Basic Christianity series. I am receiving some nice feedback about it and am enjoying researching and writing it. That will be an ongoing project. I …