WE GOT NO GAME!!!

The image below was our oroginal "logo", created way back in the day when we started this blog. I remember Jared dreamed this up at one of our moots.



Times have changed . . . Except for Phil's heroic, devotional and investigative posts, we got absolutely no hops around here.

I guess it's to be expected . . . A lot of the topics on that wheel have been talked out, or have changed subtly.

Politics, for instance. Our country's political discourse has gotten too whacked to talk safely about politics in this space, for the most part.

Sports? Have you looked at the sports teams in Waco, Houston, Nashville, and San Antonio lately? If it wasn't for Jared's inexplicable and bromantic devotion to Boston teams, we'd be sunk.

Theology. Yes. But many of our best conversations are in the past, and a whole lot of our best theological thinking happens on a particular Thinkling's solo blogs, twitters, and facebook statuses.

Of course, the real problem (if you could call it that) is us.

Phil's hanging tough, thankfully.

Jared is devoting himself to his life's work and passion: writing books and pastoring. Those things are more important than this thing, and thank goodness.

Bird's on hiatus (I miss Bird).

Blo's a Zephyr.

And me . . . well, I'm reduced to writing whiny posts about how no one ever writes posts anymore.

On a side note, the two greatest tools ever invented are duct tape and vice grips.

And Groundhog Day is one of the greatest movies ever made.

God loves you, Blogosphere.

Discuss in the comments . . .

"We must never forget that human motives are generally far more complicated than we are apt to suppose, and that we can very rarely accurately describe the motives of another." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot

"Everybody loves the Thinklings, but nobody wants to do the dishes..."

That's a very rough paraphrase of a certain P.J. O'Rourke quote that shows up in our queue from time to time...

Bill and Jared have normally handled housekeeping duties around here, so I decided it was about time I stepped up and did my part...

I don't know about you, but I actually use our blogroll. It's how I read blogs. I just go there from here. (Though this guy's blogroll is my favorite.)

I got frustrated with some of the blogs on our blogroll, checking them to find that the last time they posted anything Mike Huckabee had a shot at the presidency.

If you are a thinkling friend or regular reader, please don’t be insulted if I removed you. My main criterion was whether or not you update. Start updating again and maybe I’ll put you back up. ;-) And for the rest of you on the blogroll, consider this your kick in the pants. You don’t want to lose your coveted spot do you?

That said I’m thinking a shorter blogroll is better…a big long list just makes the quality stuff get lost in my opinion.

So mostly what I did was delete. There is only one addition and one change. Longtime Thinkling friend Lauren, moved from her old blog, called God Loves Lauren, to this new blog called "The Happy Wife". And I added "Biblical Preaching" by Peter Mead. If you preach or teach the Bible on a regular basis, you owe it to your hearers to read this blog.

So what do you think about blogrolls? Do you use them? Or do you think of them as friend lists?

If you've been in the blogosphere for any time at all, this post at The Spyglass should resonate. An excerpt:

It seems to me that the purpose of argument ought to be to help us together to find truth. This is not to say that it ought to be timid, or half-hearted, or accompanied by qualifiers that really, whatever you believe is fine, and it doesn't matter that you and I disagree; quite to the contrary, actually. If you and I disagree, then it could mean that both of us are wrong, or it could mean that one of us is wrong and one of us is right—or even, depending on the subject, that both of us have perceived an aspect of the truth but have drawn some false conclusions from it. Whichever is the case, this is profoundly important, not as a threat to either of our egos, but as an opportunity for our growth. If I believe something which is not true and you come to me with the truth, then I need to know this information—and how am I going to learn it, except by you demonstrating it to me? And how will you demonstrate it to me except through reasoned argument?

And here I thought we were the only ones who mooted . . .

Justin Taylor turned off comments at his blog. Then he turned them back on again. The first post after return is a fairly unassuming one, highlighting an interview with a member of the group Owl City, who is a believer. What ensued in the comments and at least one trackbacked post is a good example of the tyranny of hyper-spirituality in action.

For the record, I don't care for Owl City. I think I once made fun of their song on Twitter. I had no idea the guy was a Christian, and even knowing that doesn't make me want to revisit their music. It's a little, um, frou-frou for my taste, I think. In any event, I have no idea how Adam Young lives out his profession of faith in his life, but I certainly can't judge that based on what he does for a living, even if that living is "art." What's strange about evangelicals is how free they feel to tell others how to make "Christian art" while producing heaps and heaps of artistic garbage themselves every year. (In fact, many of those upset with Young for not singing about Jesus probably criticize the current quality of CCM, as well.)

I am a huge fan of Jesus-fixation, but if this guy wants to make his living singing about fireflies . . . well, okay. If I were to approach my need for him to need to always sing explicitly about Jesus, I should also say things like the following:

I demand Christian plumbers also make their, um, plumbing more explicitly Christian. Also Christian hairstylists, carpenters, loggers, software designers, helpline operators, and crossing guards. Why aren't you exhibiting the gospel, slackers?

I think this is what happens when the tyranny of hyper-spirituality kicks in.

What's worse is not the sentiment that Adam Young can't sing about stuff that doesn't mention Jesus, but that Justin Taylor can't even link to it. It's apparently not edifying to talk about a song about fireflies. Even in the context of an interview with the guy explicitly professing Christ!

Straining out gnats to swallow camels?

If you're heading to the Together 4 the Gospel 2010 Conference in Louisville, KY next month, I hope you will make room in your schedule to join the Band of Bloggers for their annual symposium and luncheon.

The panelists this year are Jon McIntosh, Justin Taylor, Trevin Wax, and myself, speaking on the subject of Internet Idolatry & Gospel Fidelity. A mere $25 gets you lunch, quality speaking, Q&A and discussion with the panel, and a stack of books. Quite a deal, I'd say. :-)

Details:

“Internet Idolatry and Gospel Fidelity”
2010 Band of Bloggers Fellowship
Tuesday, April 13, 2010 :: 11:00am
The Galt House, Downtown Louisville, KY
(in conjunction with Together for the Gospel)

Check out the Band of Bloggers website for more info and to register. Satisfaction guaranteed.*

(* This guarantee of satisfaction is not guaranteed.)

Once upon a time, in the days of yore -- oh, say, about 7 years ago -- The Thinklings were the 7th most linked to evangelical Christian blog. We were a top ten staple. This was, of course, before every megachurch pastor, Christian author, scholar, and other Christian culture personality started blogging. :-)
But we were big fish in a small pond. It was a tighter community then. Michael Spencer and The Boar's Head Tavern guys had been around a while before that, of course, but they were big, and so was Challies, Dan Edelen, Adrian Warnock (who tried (and failed) to make everybody big with his constant blogroll entrepreneurship), Eric Siegmund of The Fire Ant Gazette, and a guy who ended up on top quite a bit, Joe Carter of the Evangelical Outpost.

It pays to have been there in the "beginning." Most of the endorsements on my book came about from our having been compatriots in the early Christian blogosphere trenches with these fellows.
But times change. The Thinklings are not only not in the top 10, we're not in the top 100. There's the top 100 and then there's "everybody else," and we are these days everybody else. But never count out nostalgia, which is what I think was at work in Joe Carter's heart last week when he invited me to join some actual, current big guns in launching Evangel, a new group blog under the banner of the renowned First Things magazine that is designed to be sort of an evangelical doppelganger of NRO's Corner. I am honored and humbled to be in the company of the other names on the Evangel masthead and grateful to Joe for the invite.

My first post for the site is in response to an introductory question -- "What is 'evangelical'?" -- and is titled People of the Gospel.

In other news, I am pleased to share that I have recently signed on to produce a Bible study resource (with multimedia leader kit available) called God vs. Suburbia which will release from Threads sometime in the Spring of 2010. The study can be done by individuals but is designed mainly with small groups in mind, and it will highlight gospel-centered spiritual formation. Specifically, the book will be about how to subvert the idols of our age and culture (e.g. comfort, convenience, conspicuous consumption, individualism) with the rhythms of the kingdom of God (prayer, Scripture reading, fasting, generosity and service, community). I hope it will be a blessing to many.

In the meantime, I have completed the outlining stage of my next trade book, which is tentatively titled Postcards from the Revolution: Parables as Sabotage. I hope to have a submittable manuscript for it sometime in the next few months.

I want to thank everyone who has bought, received, read, reviewed, blogged about, glanced at, or even spit on my book Your Jesus is Too Safe. I hope it has blessed you.

Btw, Spring is currently wide open for me right now, so if your church or group might be interested in having me speak, preach, or yell at somebody, go here and let me know.

Thus ends the commercial. Fuh-givah-ness, please.

Shot and shared by Bill Kinnon, an excerpt from his wife's upcoming documentary on church leadership in the 21st Century.

NT Wright on Blogging/Social Media from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.

Intellectual Property/Copyright: This video may be embedded on blog posts where this particular topic is being discussed. Permission is NOT given to re-edit this or use it in any other context other than as a standalone video with the MKPL bug, opening and closing.

I think I've fixed the issue with Bloglines not always displaying all the posts in the Thinklings RSS feed. The problem was, as far as I can tell, undue finickyness on Bloglines' part regarding the structures allowed in one of the XML tags in the feed. This has been fixed.

If anyone out there uses Bloglines to read Thinklings, can you let me know if the feed looks good to you now?

The fix will be going out in the next general release of Bloo.

Update - well, it's still ignoring the posts entered today. Not sure why but I'll continue doping this out.

Update 2 - actually, it seems to be working very well now. Check that one off the list!

We're putting together a blog tour for the book (tentatively scheduled for first week in August), and while some copies have already been assigned, I've got some left over. (21 to be exact.)

If you're interested in participating in the blog tour, email (1) your name, (2) your blog name, and (3) your blog url to jaredcwilson AT yahoo DOT com.

Fine Print:

As I said, the number of slots open is limited to 21, so there's no guarantees in the (unlikely?) case of overwhelming response. But you never know. :-) (Btw, if we kinda sorta know each other in the blog world, chances are that your name is already on the list for an invite, but feel free to check.)

If your blog is selected, I'll contact you via email for your preferred mailing address, and then you'll receive a free copy of the book after its release in July. The only catch is you have to post a review of the book on your blog on your assigned day in the week of the tour. It doesn't even have to be a positive review. :-)

In lieu of a review, I'd be happy to answer a few interview questions for you, provided you send them to me well in advance and you of course mention the book and display a picture of the cover.

I can answer further questions and concerns via email.
So let me know if you're interested in participating!

(If you're not interested in the blog tour but would still like a shot at getting a free copy, join the fan page for the book on Facebook or follow me on Twitter. I will be doing random drawings from those lists as soon as I've got copies to give away.)

No, not this one (especially not these days) . . .

I'm asking the question: What's the best blog you read, and why?

I read a couple of blogs. Not many. Some encourage me. Most just shake me up. I'm wondering if there are any gems out there I'm missing.

So, what's the best blog you know, and why do you like it? I'm looking for something new.

Leave your suggestion in the comments. Thanks!

I've always known Michael was a great writer. Looks like some promising things are happening.

[T]wo weeks ago, the phone rang and a young man in Boston asked to edit three of my pieces into an opinion piece on the op/ed of the Christian Science Monitor.
A week ago yesterday, he published it in print and on line.
Within 4 hours, it was on Drudge.
In the week since, the column has been everywhere in the media, and I have 12 interviews done or in process, with everyone from CNN to the Moody Network to a local Christian station.
Over 800 people posted comments or sent emails.

Two of them were literary agents.

One called today.

If this day ever came, I had two things I wanted. 1) I wanted to write about Jesus Shaped Spirituality and 2) I wanted someone to see my writing as marketable somewhere outside of the usual Christian market.

The first things I heard today were these two things. Both of them. Exactly.

Perhaps the last two years were moving me somewhere; somewhere I couldn’t go otherwise. Maybe this was God’s long road to take me where he wanted me to go.

Now I have an opportunity. An opportunity I’ve dreamed of. An opportunity that has come to me completely from the grace of God.

What will happen next?

I just have to keep writing.

(Now if we could just get him to quit slumming over at that ramshackle pub down the street).

When I first became aware of the blogosphere I thought it was a great idea, though I had no idea how far it would spread. I love reading opinion, and I remember, way back in the day, devouring the op-ed pages of the newspaper. The blogosphere is an op-ed page times infinity, basically, and you can find as much opinion as you want. You can drink opinion until you burst.

My interest in the blogosphere became wedded to my interest in technology and programming, and thus, coming out of a conversation at an EntMoot in late 2002, the Thinklings was born. It wasn't long until I was writing blog software meself.

The blogosphere, in other words, keeps me pretty busy.

But I wonder . . . is the blogosphere a worthwhile pursuit? Three of my four kids blog as well, and are bombarded with the avalanche of opinion too. I hadn't planned on that (it didn't cross my mind, frankly) in 2003, but they are now teenagers and one almost out of his teens. I have wondered if, on balance, it was better when I was their age and we didn't have the internet complicating our lives. (Jill and I stalk their blogs and facebook pages, of course :-).

The first huge blogospheric brou-ha-ha I was exposed to occurred around Thanksgiving, 2004. Unfortunately and grievously, it was a huge, public, multi-blog slander-fest between people who will all stand as adopted sons and brothers before the same Lord and Redeemer one day. It was ugly. I didn't know that kind of ugly could happen in the blogosphere. It shook me.

Some blogs I read are very edifying. Others are not. Many of them have negative things to say about the church (this is the Christian blogosphere I'm referring to). Some are full of snark. Some are full of complaints. Of course, many of the complaints are valid. But I wonder how effective complaining on a blog is. Many blogs set themselves against each other. And much of what you can read is unrestrained. The internet is the one place one can be both a bully and a coward at the same time.

I recently had someone very dear to me tell me that the Thinklings has made her less enthusiastic about studying the Bible. I think her reasoning is along the lines of "what's the use? I won't be able to arrive at a firm conviction without soon reading that others disagree, or think people who hold that conviction are naive, or dislike (and ridicule) the Bible study author, etc." That shook me too.

Through the blogosphere I've found that a lot of things I thought were helpful or benign are seen as great dangers by others. People I've admired from my past (James Dobson, Max Lucado, Beth Moore) are reviled. People who I had no firm opinion of, but who I admired for their talent and skill (Thomas Kinkade, and a host of very talented CCM artists, for example) are ridiculed, demeaned, and slandered. These people are all "part of the problem".

I wonder, sometimes, what would have happened to my new-found faith when I was 19 if the blogosphere had been invented then. If I had jumped into the Christian blogosphere as a new believer, would I have emerged intact?

Though I think I've remained the same guy in "real-space", I've found my blogospheric personality is not nearly as kind or patient as it once was. I've become more cynical, at least when expressing myself in HTML.

On the flipside, the blogosphere has been huge in maintaining dear friendships, has gained me new friends, and has made me think, and think deeply. This hard work of thinking has helped me have a much better grasp of theology than I had before. As my faith in humans has waned, my faith, trust and hope in God has increased. I'm thankful and hopeful that there will not be a blogosphere in Heaven :-).

I think that in many cases the blogosphere has become a great avenue for reform in the church, and that gives me great hope. The blogosphere has given some of my real-life friends and blog friends a venue for sharing their excellent thoughts and superb writing skills with the world, almost for free. I've been able to get a peek into my kids' inner thoughts, and have been able to observe, over their shoulders as it were, their struggles and triumphs.

There are blogs I read that edify, encourage, and challenge me greatly.

In total, I'm hard-pressed to tell whether this phenomenon of the blogosphere has, on balance, been a good or bad thing.

It's something I've been wondering about. A lot.

This site is hosted on Hosting Matters. I've tried out a number of hosting servers over the years and Hosting Matters has consistently provided good service and well-performing servers.

Tonight I had an emergency problem, caused, unfortunately, by a difference in how the latest version of PHP interacts with Bloo . . . something to fix . . . Hosting matters resolved the problem by moving this site to another server still running with the prior version of PHP.

They did it very quick. And that was pretty cool of them.

I'm a happy customer. Just wanted you to know.

Just upgraded Thinklings to Bloo version 1.15. The upgrade went smooth, as far as I can tell.

You shouldn't notice much difference. It will just emanate that much more awesomeness. . .

A Nashville pastor posted a workplace security video on his blog (found on YouTube) of a worker freaking out in the office and vandalizing things and people. He mercilessly hits another man in the head and throws a computer across the aisle where it hits a woman in the head. Later, as the attacker is still wreaking havoc, another lady is tending to the woman's head wound.

The video is pretty disturbing and gave me the willies. And I'm a dude who loves action movies and boxing and the occasional MMA match.
But it was like watching a school shooting video or something. Not cool.

The reason the pastor gave for posting this was as an "illustration" against what the church's sermon series on work/career was trying to prevent.

I commented and respectfully suggested he rethink whether it was wise to post.
Another lady said she was disturbed by it.

Others were pretty blase.
One person said it was "fascinating."
One guy said it was in the running for his "best video of the week."

What planet am I on?

I'd like to point you to a new feature here on Thinklings. In the left navbar you can see a link entitled "View Posts From Our Blogroll". If you click on this link, you will see the most recent 50 posts from the excellent stable of bloggers that inhabit our blogroll.

This is accomplished via the "Bloogroll Posts" Extension SnapOn (comes with the core release of Bloo).

Feel free to peruse the posts from our blogroll whenever things get a bit stale here on Thinklings. Happy surfing!

Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.
-- 1 Timothy 2:15

I really like my wife's comments on this passage. I thought some of you might be edified by what she wrote as well.