Weekend Reading, 21 August

Phew, I opened this window a couple of hours ago and just now getting to this. Normally I suggest pouring a cup of coffee, sitting back, and reading what I read last week. By now, that pot of coffee is probably empty (at least mine is). But I still encourage you to sit, enjoy, and reflect on blogs that hit home for me this week.

If you read my blog much, you know one of my passions is the current condition of the Church in America. It’s easy to criticize and make blanket statements. A point I stress when it comes to the interplay between Christians and politics is that not every evangelical, fundamentalist, social-gospel, and so-forth, church is the same. The lesson holds true when it comes to the health, spiritual growth, and appropriate focus of the same diversity of churches. But as a comment in the above link noted, the discussion needs to take place. Right now, I’m approaching this from two angles reading both Mere Churchianity and Transformational Church, because I think both points of view are valid. You’ll see that reflected in these links. Having said that, on with the show…

• Making the same point is made by Maurilio Amorim in response to the Brett McCracken’s article in the Wall Street Journal on ‘hipster Christianity’.
• Meanwhile, Katdish wades into the debate by reminding us to remember ‘what’s so great about church.‘
• But an article in USAToday warns us that we’re not reaching today’s teenagers. Regrettably fingers are pointed and no solutions are given. Maybe that’s worth a future post?
• Dusty Rayburn asks us to reflect on how we praise and worship God (and not just on Sunday mornings!).
• Rick Howerton encourages small group leaders to listen to 100% of the story, not the 90% we are usually told.
• I think we would all agree that (generally) leadership is one of the issues. Perry Noble gives us signs of leaders we should never follow while Pastor Mike shows us what we should do when the Shepherd beats up the Sheep.
• And as we have this debate, we need to watch our words. Jonathan Pearson reminds us that we never know who may be reading.
• The discussion on Mere Churchianity carried on at Bend the Page, Faith Fiction and Friends, Poems and Prayers, and here. More to come next week!

But “as for me and my household…” The best thing we can do as disciples of Jesus is to surrender our lives fully to him, regardless of what’s happening in our churches, our leadership, or even our homes.

• Jezamama writes an awesome post on what it takes to surrender all and be stripped bare.
• Similarly, Michael Perkins writes out what he’s giving up for God.
• Jim Foreman takes a lesson from David that we need to choose the hard things to see what lesson God has in store for us.
• A real-world example of all the above is found in Glen Coffee who just walked away from a promising NFL career to follow wherever God is going to lead him.

It’s that time of year when our children head back to school. This is a time of transition and transformation and of rites of passage.

• Billy Coffey writes about the lessons learned while doing back-to-school shopping.
• Ron Edmondson shares what he wrote to his son as he saw him off to college.
• Jay Cookingham shares about the passage of his son into manhood and the lessons to be learned from the older brothers who have gone on ahead of him.

The end of summer is also a bit of a letdown. Sometimes we need to take a deep breath and find ourselves again while continuing to push on.

• Sarah Salter unwinds at the end of a busy summer while Duane Scott finds himself everywhere he looks (imagine that!)
• Jim Foreman shares an inspiring story to encourage us to never rest on our laurels and to keep pressin’ ahead.

• Lastly, not really fitting in any category but worth sharing, Chuck Salser tells us how Twitter has helped his faith.