Skip to content ↓

Saturday Ramblings

I am off at a conference today, so my wife is posting this for me. If you are reading this, it means she remembered what I taught her about Movabletype. It also indicates that she remembered to post at all! I told her I would be quite upset if she disturbed my streak of consecutive posts when I am so very close to posting every day for an entire year. Within two weeks I will have reached the goal I set for myself. Aileen also said she intends to write something on my site today, so I look forward to seeing what she has to say to all of you!

Another blogger wrote me this week to ask whatever happened to BlogSwap. Truth be told, I kind of lost interest in it. I had never intended that it go on forever, but instead was to be a way of introducing bloggers to each other. Even after a few weeks I found that interest was waning, so when I became busy with work I let it go. Perhaps in the future I will start it up again, but for now I think it served its purpose quite well and I am content to let it go. Of course if anyone else wants to try it, they are more than welcome. It was quite successful for the weeks it ran.

Tim Irvin (of TheIrvins.com fame) presents an interesting dilemma. Would God call someone to be a pastor who was unable to speak? This goes to the nature of God’s work of equipping His people, doesn’t it? God not only desires that we do something, but also equips us for the work He has marked out for us. His article makes for some good food for thought.

Halloween is coming up fast, so I expect we’ll start to see discussion about the pros and cons of allowing our little ones to go door-to-door begging candy. I acknowledge this as a difficult issue. Our conviction is that it is a very poor witness to have the house of believers blacked out on Halloween. It is a great opportunity to interact with neighbors, to meet their children and to prove that you are part of the community – not merely a person who sticks only with his church friends. At the same time I despise how evil Halloween is. Already our neighborhood has ghosts hanging from trees and evil plastic figurines stuck into lawns. One section of houses nearby always feels the need to go the extra step, putting on scary music, dressing in occult costumes and generally glorying in evil. To this time we have allowed our children to go out trick-or-treating, provided they do not wear evil or occult costumes. It is a compromise, and admittedly not one I am entirely comfortable with. Our church offers an alternative to Halloween with a “harvest party” which allows kids to dress up and get their fill of candy, but again, this would leave the house conspicuously dark when our neighbors come by. And so we justify allowing the children to go out, but every year I re-evaluate.

Well, that’s all you’re getting out of me today. I hope Aileen has something more interesting to say!


  • A Batch of New Books for Kids

    A Batch of New Books for Kids (and Teens)

    Every month I put together a roundup of new and notable books for grownup readers. But I also receive a lot of books for kids and like to put together the occasional roundup of these books as well. So today I bring you a whole big batch of new books for kids of all ages…

  • A La Carte Thursday 1

    A La Carte (March 28)

    A La Carte: The case against the abortion pill / What I’ve learned about grieving with hope / Heartbreaking deception: teen girls, social media, and body image / Could podcasts save the church from stupidity? / Count it all joy / and more.

  • What God Wants You To Forget

    What God Wants You To Forget

    We are never far from reminding God of our credentials, of providing him with a curriculum vitae that lays out all we are, all we have been through, and all we have accomplished for his sake. We are never far from making the subtle turn from grace to merit, from what is freely given to…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (March 27)

    A La Carte: New music / Millennials and GenZ / Scotland’s new hate crime law / Cate Blanchett, Easter is for you / Why the Reformed pray for revival / What truly happened to Jesus on the cross? / and more.

  • New and Notable Books

    New and Notable Christian Books for March 2024

    As you know, I like to do my best to sort through the new Christian books that are released each month to see what stands out as being not only new, but also particularly notable. I received quite a number of new titles in March and narrowed the list down to the ones below. I…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (March 26)

    A La Carte: God delivers from the suffering he ordains / The beautiful partnership of family and church / The end of religious liberty / On whales, menopause, and thanks to God / Ordinary women, extravagant gifts / and more.