Our ears our burning.

And Sufjan Stevens? What kind of name is that? Is he American Taliban?

Saw this post on Francis Chan's video blog yesterday and it really challenged me.



I don't know if I'm totally sold on the logic as a mandate (Chan himself does not save for emergencies or retirement), but I am totally sold on the spirit behind it.

Here is a list of some things I've learned on this five year Adventure in Blogossey that I've been on with my Thinklings bros, plus some general things I've learned just by living.

This is kind of random and stream-of-conscienceishy. And it's not exhaustive, although you may be exhausted after slogging through it. Read the rest of this entry . . .

My lovely wife, Brandi, has been blogging for the past few weeks. Her blog is titled Surrender, and it focuses on all aspects of surrendering to God.

She's quite the little blogger now.

I just read a blogger apologize (sincerely, not sarcastically) for calling another blogger's remarks "dumb" when what he really meant is that they were "stupid."

The reason for the apology is that he meant to echo a Proverb that uses "stupid" and he misremembered it as "dumb." Or something like that.

Some quotable goodness from the Blogosphere:

"What we call 'morality' is God's way of creating a livable world and a life we're glad to have." - Weekend Fisher.

"I have to put myself in locations conducive to spiritual nourishment" - Jared. This one seems straightforward, but it had me doing the "I coulda had a V-8" noggin-smack. Living with intentionality. Yes, yes, 1,000 times, yes.

"Do you think David was afraid when he faced Goliath? I mean, the verses don't give us much insight into his emotions. I don't think he was, because he was a pretty rad dude. I think, like Ace of Bass, he 'saw the sign and it opened up his eyes.' I think like Christian Hosoi or Tony Hawk on a half pipe, he was ready to get gnarly. And when Goliath challenged him he thought, 'can I beat this guy?' No doy!" - Stuff Christians Like (doing an impression of a 1990's youth pastor "speaking the young people's language")

I might say, "This person is GOOD because he is who he is." God would judge, "this person is not good because he is not who I am." - Lauren, on right judgement.

"Halfway Christianity is the most miserable existence of all. Halfway Christians know enough to feel guilty about themselves but haven’t gone far enough to get happy in Christ. Wholehearted Christianity is very happy." - Roy Ortlund (from a post in memory of his father) - h/t The Spyglass.

And, finally, this one sums up my feelings exactly (and, no, I'm not anti-environmental. I'm just pro-seriousness and anti-chicken-little-ism): “I’ll believe climate change is a crisis when the people who say it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.” - Planet Gore.

. . . but still daily reminded of how tired I am of cynicism and provocation in the blogosphere.

I'm trying to remember when the word "provoke" took on a positive connotation, and where in the Bible the gift of "provocation" is listed.

"Provocative" posts have their place, I suppose. Doesn't mean I don't get tired of them, or weary of people patting each other and themselves on the back for same.

(No, I'm not going to link to what prompted this. But let me just say: God bless teenagers who go on mission, whether short or long. May their tribe increase. They rock).

The last dozen-plus posts here have been written by me.

I guess we'll have to start calling this place "The Thinkling".

[Bill shakes his fist at Jared, Phil, and the mythological creature they call Blo]

The following was written a little bit before blogs were invented. But I think these words apply quite well to how we should conduct ourselves when discussing things under "comments". Please read the following as applying directly to how we talk to each other online:

We no more give honors to fools than pray for snow in summer or rain during harvest.

You have as little to fear from an undeserved curse as from the dart of a wren or the swoop of a swallow.

A whip for the racehorse, a tiller for the sailboat— and a stick for the back of fools!

Don't respond to the stupidity of a fool; you'll only look foolish yourself.

Answer a fool in simple terms so he doesn't get a swelled head.

You're only asking for trouble when you send a message by a fool.

A proverb quoted by fools is limp as a wet noodle.

Putting a fool in a place of honor is like setting a mud brick on a marble column.

To ask a moron to quote a proverb is like putting a scalpel in the hands of a drunk.

As a dog eats its own vomit, so fools recycle silliness.

See that man who thinks he's so smart? You can expect far more from a fool than from him.

Like Glaze on Cracked Pottery, Dreamers fantasize their self-importance; they think they are smarter than a whole college faculty.

You grab a mad dog by the ears when you butt into a quarrel that's none of your business.

People who shrug off deliberate deceptions, saying, "I didn't mean it, I was only joking," are worse than careless campers who walk away from smoldering campfires.

When you run out of wood, the fire goes out; when the gossip ends, the quarrel dies down.

A quarrelsome person in a dispute is like kerosene thrown on a fire.

Listening to gossip is like eating cheap candy; do you want junk like that in your belly?

Smooth talk from an evil heart is like glaze on cracked pottery.

Your enemy shakes hands and greets you like an old friend, all the while conniving against you. When he speaks warmly to you, don't believe him for a minute; he's just waiting for the chance to rip you off. No matter how cunningly he conceals his malice, eventually his evil will be exposed in public.

Malice backfires; spite boomerangs.

Liars hate their victims; flatterers sabotage trust.

The above was written by Solomon and translated by Eugene Peterson. (Proverbs 26)

Wise advice for bloggers, eh?

For some weird reason we're getting (sort of) mentioned in the same breath as the Inklings.

Why would anyone make that connection?

Five years ago, on April 7th, 2003 (also a Monday), the Thinklings blog was launched. There were a few pre-blog posts imported into the February 2003 archive, but the blog-proper, with comments and interaction, started April 7th.

Originally, Thinklings was based on the venerable B2 software, then converted to WordPress a couple years later, and then converted to Bloo about a year and a half ago, when the WordPress version started getting kinda iffy about whether it would display posts or not in any kind of timely fashion (never figured out why. WP is usually really good).

4,313 posts and 63,077 comments later, we're still chugging along.

We've made some dear friends over this time (most of whom we've never met in real life), and we've probably aquired an enemy or two as well. We've talked about nearly everything under the sun; we've had posting deluges and posting droughts. There were times I wondered if any of this was worth it, and times I've thought being a Thinkling was one of life's highest privileges.

My hope is that we've added more light than dark to the blogosphere, and have honored, rather than dishonored, the Lord in what we've written here. Now and then someone writes to us and tells us that the blog has been an encouragement to them. That always makes it seem completely worth it.

And, finally, it's been a place to practice the fine art of friendship with my Thinkling brothers. I wouldn't trade that for anything. Some of them have dropped off the active posting roster for various reasons (hey, blogging is not life), but I can assure you that we all remain friends, and will always.

Happy birthday, Thinklings blog!

Oh my. This is good stuff.

Have you heard of the (controversial) blog Stuff White People Like?
It's spawned legions of imitators, but thanks to Brian Seay, I've now encountered the trenchant hilarity that is Stuff Christians Like.

Oh gracious, it is good.

I'm still perusing the archives, but my favorite so far is #43: Metrosexual Worship Leaders

Okay, so we're hearing that our blog blows ginormous chunks. It's too whatever and not enough such and such. It sucks.

Well, here's your chance, The Rest of You.

I'm not buying the previously cited rationales for Thinklings suckiness. They ring hollow to me. I'm sure you can do better.

Fill in the blank in the comments:
"The Thinklings blog sucks because _________________________."

The commenter with the best answer will win a link to their blog in our roll as punishment. If the winning commenter already has a link in our blogroll, firstly, Why? We suck. But secondly, you'll win an alternate prize, something to be determined at a later point but just as inconsequential as a link.

Good luck!

On a somewhat more positive note, the top ten reasons I will read your blog, with examples (some of which repeat):

1. You're a great writer. (GospelDrivenChurch, InternetMonk).

2. You've got a good heart, and a real life outside of blogging, and it shows through your writing (Bride of Beau).

3. You make me mad sometimes. But you also always make me think (InternetMonk).

4. You love Jesus and you love His Bride (GospelDrivenChurch)

5. You live in a parallel universe with 48 hours in the day. Otherwise there's no way to explain how you can review books, write books, go on book tours, live-blog conferences, blog prolifically, hold down a job, and raise a family all at the same time. Unless you're a cyborg (and I'm starting to entertain that theory) - (Challies).

6. You hook me with your wit, then whack me upside the head with truth (Letters from Kamp Krusty).

7. You don't take yourself too seriously. I'm ok with random posts about whatever pops in your head. I find that refreshing. (The Fire Ant Gazette).

8. You're a bookworm. I envy people who are prolific readers who also can write intelligently about literature (Brandywine Books, Semicolon)

9. You're insightful, hard-hitting, square on. But in all of that, you remember kindness; you never lose sight of the fact that those who disagree with you are human beings (The Anchoress)

10. You mix it up - serious with funny, personal with general. I like getting a well-rounded view of you. If you're a group blog, I like being able to tell that you're friends in real life. You've got longevity - through the ups and downs, you persevere.

And it doesn't hurt if I write for you :-) (The Thinklings).

My turn. :-)

1. It bores me. It might not bore others. But it bores me. It's too technical, it's too bland, whatever. I'm just not interested.

2. You whine too much.

3. Your posts are too long. They run several pages. That's an article, not a blog post.

4. You're not a very good writer. Sorry.

5. It's about baseball.

6. You're a poser. You like the big dogs in your area of interest and you are trying to sound like them but you lack the intellectual, experiential, or compositional chops to reasonably resemble the stuff they're writing.

7. It's about recipes and cooking.

8. You're a one-note hobbyhorse rider. Every issue, every topic, every burning question has one answer you beat like a dead horse. And you evangelize for that dead horse in other people's comment threads.

9. You ask a whole mess of questions and do a copious amount of lamenting/bemoaning but can't seem to approximate an answer to anything. Your blog is basically about "What's wrong with _______," but you haven't figured out the solution or set of solutions yet.

10. You take yourself too seriously. Lighten up. Go outside and hear voices other than the ones in your head.

The iMonk writes about the ten reasons he doesn't read your blog. A sample . . .

7. Your blog wastes my time. After I come there, I’ve learned nothing, seen nothing, felt nothing and been moved toward nothing. It was just there. I want my five minutes back. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but is there anything real, human, truthful, beautiful or worthwhile there?

8. You keep telling me how much I need to read your blog posts. No one else tells me I need to read your posts. No one links them. No one seems to have noticed them. But you keep saying I really need to read them.

Call me cynical, but I believe that blogs build audiences the old fashioned way: People who find them decide to link to them, add them to feeds, bookmark them, write about them and tell others that this blog is saying something interesting. If that system doesn’t work, you aren’t interesting.

9. You keep playing with your site and it’s annoying. The fonts/colors/template change. The sidebars grow like some kind of lab culture. You’ve added every tie-in, java box and whirling dervish you can find, and then you redo the template. Some ADD people like this. I don’t. Change your site occasionally, please. I’m fine with that, but take it easy. Anyone who spends too much time redesigning the sidebar needs to go home and hug their children.

And don’t get me started on people who are fascinated with stats, awards, links, meters and graphs. Go find an aluminum foil ball, put it on a string and bat it around.

Number one change you can make to improve your blog: Better, larger, plainer fonts.

If your site isn’t working, you ought to know. Have someone unbiased and honest tell you. Then fix whatever is wrong so it works for you and your readers. Then leave it alone and let it work.

And, my favorite . . .

10. You think blogging is too important. You talk about the “blogosphere” like it’s the real world. You have teams assigned in the blog universe and you are willing to have galactic war over what you think is important. You would pay money to go see your favorite bloggers. You engage college students who write inane comments on your blog like they are Richard Dawkins. You believe the “Christian blogosphere” is being read by millions of non-Christians. You think your blog is like a church and you’re the pastor. You have delusions of celebrity because you once got linked by Adrian Warnock. You keep talking about wanting to “blog full time.” You have a “fund raising drive” for your blog. You went blogging on a date. You blogged your honeymoon. You take your laptop into the bathroom. You asked your pastor if you could liveblog his sermons. You bought an iPhone so you could keep up with your Twitter friends 24/7. You go to sleep thinking of your next blog post. You are offering a “livecam” to those who want to watch you blog live. You get out of bed in the middle of the night to check your moderated comments. You give yourself a superhero name like “Internet Monk.”………..forget about that last one.

In other words, you scare me.

Heh.

Have a good day, everyone.

Darryl Dash said it.

I've wanted to. Haven't known how (exactly). I think lots of us realize there's something not quite right about it.

But who wants to confuse or even further hurt someone sorting through hurts?

Darryl on forgiving ourselves:

It's popular to say that we need to forgive ourselves, but is that a valid concept?

I'd suggest that the desire for ourselves to be forgiven is a valid one, but we don't have the power to forgive ourselves. Telling someone that they have to forgive themselves before they forgive others doesn't make sense, just like forgiving myself for a debt I owe to the bank is silly. Forgiveness has to come from outside of myself.

This quote says it all:

The next time an individual says, "I just can't forgive myself," the first thought that should come to mind is, "That's right, you can't!" Then patiently and lovingly instruct him from the word of God so that his focus is on the only One Who can. A proper view of God's forgiveness sensitively taught from the word of God is what a person needs to bridge the gap between knowing he is forgiven and feeling he is forgiven. The facts should precede and supersede the feelings. Self-forgiveness is not biblical terminology. It should not be used in biblical counseling. When someone cannot forgive himself, he is not accepting the forgiveness of God. When God has forgiven, one must accept it and move on, serving Him and others as he goes.

(Baptist Bible College and Seminary. (2001; 2003). Journal of Ministry and Theology Volume 5 (vnp.5.1.98). Baptist Bible College and Seminary)

(HT: Transforming Sermons)

Yup. It's true. "I just had to forgive myself" or "I'm learning to forgive myself" are not biblical categories. They're therapeutic ones.
You don't need to forgive yourself. You need to ask forgiveness or grant it. You need to repent or rebuke. You need to claim the saving grace of Jesus, and I actually think that feeling burdened by your own sin is a great way to walk in awe of that grace.

Now, obviously, the objection is that "accept it and move on" (as the quote instructs) makes overcoming guilt and shame sound neat and easy. And we all know it's not. But "forgive yourself" is not the way to overcoming guilt and shame.

I have found in my own life that when I am most burdened by the sins and failures of my past, it's not because I am not forgiving myself, it's because I am not yet grasping how immense God's grace is and I have not yet really trusted that He has forgiven me.
There's an ironic pride in there, a sense of thinking that, well of course Jesus died for the sins of the world, but it's as if my sin is too big for Jesus to cover.

I may not be able to simply "accept it and move on," but grappling with the conviction of my sins and the incomprehensibility of God's scandalous grace is one valuable way to work out my salvation with fear and trembling.

(Also cross-posted at The Gospel-Driven Church)

The circle of gospel-centered bloggers grows larger.

Sovereign Grace's C.J. Mahaney now has a blog.

In his introductory post, he writes:

I think you can anticipate a disproportionate number of posts on one topic, “Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2), for that, by the grace of God, is what I am most passionate about. So here would be my hope for this blog, and for the handful of you that will join my family in reading it. If I can somehow draw your attention each week to the hill called Calvary and remind you of the Savior’s substitutionary sacrifice on the cross for our sins, if I can draw your attention away from yourself and direct your affections to him, then this blog will have served your soul and made some small difference for the glory of God.

May his tribe increase.

I'm convinced Bob has been spying on my heart.

I've been tracking pretty well with some of the quasi-personal stuff he's been posting lately.
Maybe something's in the air, because I'm hearing this growing dissatisfaction with Jesuslessness in the churches more and more. I kind of ranted about it at Element last night in my message on The Church (part two in a three-part series on the kingdom called "Invasion"), and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Putting a finger on the problem really strikes a nerve with people who aren't sure exactly what's ailing them.

Anyways, Bob highlighted a great post this week by Dave Cruver: "Proverbs 13:12". I hope you (and Dave) won't mind if I reprint it in its entirety.

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life" (Proverbs 13:12).

The gospel is "I am accepted through Christ, therefore I obey" while every other religion operates on the principle of "I obey, therefore I am accepted." Martin Luther's fundamental insight was that this latter principle, the principle of 'religion' is the deep default mode of the human heart. The heart continues to work in that way even after conversion to Christ. Though we recognize and embrace the principle of the gospel, our hearts will always be trying to return to the mode of self-salvation, which leads to spiritual deadness, pride and strife and ministry ineffectiveness.
-- Tim Keller, "Preaching in a Post-Modern City"

Recently, I attended a service with another local body of believers in PA. They were friendly. The Pastor demonstrated a loving and "pastoral" heart for his people. I believe at this particular service I attended, he was shorthanded and had to fulfill not only the preaching responsibilities but also the music portion, as well. I was looking forward to being challenged by God's Word and pointed to my Savior.

The Pastor directed our attention to the verse,

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life (Proverbs 13:12).

My mind raced to possible connections to the Gospel from the first time he read the verse. "Ohh!! This is going to be good! Something I need to hear!" This hope, he said, is not like "I hope it doesn't rain." It is a desire for something that will most surely come to pass. It is more like, "I hope to go on vacation next week!"

Suppose I am at the grocery store, and I say, "I hope to get to the cashier soon." And then there is a person in front of me who has 16 items rather than "15 items or less" AND there is someone who has a product with no bar code on it so a price check is requested. AND there is someone else who drops a glass jar with the words echoing throughout the store, "clean up at register 4!" (ok - I added that last part. You had to hear his descriptions of events). But this is what the word deferred means. It is a delay in receiving what we hope for.

This delay in receiving what we hope for makes the heart sick. I hope to get to the cashier, but all of these things are delaying me! At this point, the pastor described what happened when he was very sick a few weeks ago. He wanted to watch TV, so he got up from his bed (already weak from being sick) and crawled toward the living room. He tired out and rested in the hallway. After a short while, he began to crawl again toward the living room. After a few delays of a sick and weakened body, he finally made it to the couch where he could watch TV.

"Sickness will come!" he exclaimed. "Expect it!" He admonished. "Get up and keep going!" he exhorted.

He then briefly touched on the last portion of the verse, "a desire fulfilled is a tree of life". When we hope for things and circumstances delay our obtaining them, keep going! Keep working to obtain it! Just like he wanted to watch TV but was delayed because he was sick and weak.

At the end of his sermon, he pleaded for people to come to Christ. He said something to the effect, "If you have not trusted Jesus as your personal Savior, please do so before it is too late!"

One weekend I watched a children's television program while Owen was playing in the living room. Every so often, when something peculiar happened on the program, he would stop what he was doing and watch. On this particular episode, one of the puppet characters was dejected and lost all confidence of doing anything. The whole program's point was, "have confidence in yourself because you can do it! You can do anything you put your mind to! Believe in yourself!"

The point of this child's program was, in essence, "pick yourself up by your own bootstraps and keep going!"

Now, this pastor was exegetically accurate and precise. He conveyed the meaning of the verse fairly well. He was not boring. He was engaging. His love for the people of which he is Undershepherd was compassionately displayed.

But there was no GOSPEL! The pastor's main point conveyed was, "pick yourself up by your own bootstraps and keep going!"

We may be exegetically accurate and precise. And we may convey the meaning of the text as the original hearers (possibly) understood it, but when it comes down to where the rubber meets the road, it's still moralism. It's a promotion of self-salvation. At the very core, both teachings are saying, "Jesus' finished work is not enough! Go and do! Save yourself!!"

For a preacher of the Gospel, it is sad there was no preaching of the Gospel.

For all of us, it is sad there is so little preaching of the gospel.

But I am hopeful. There is something in the air. Perhaps the tide is turning.

Related:
The Weird Modern Desire for Legalism (and How Some People Don't Even Know They Have It)

(Cross-posted at The Gospel-Driven Church)

My friend Aaron's most recent demotivational poster might be the cure for what ails you.