The Together for the Gospel conference was last week, and Challies has been keeping up with it. Here’s a list of audio downloads.
All posts by Phil
Knock, Knock. I’ve Come to Burgle Something.
Spliting Up Over Plagiarism
A romance author and her publisher are divorcing after “irreconcilable editorial differences” developed over the last few months. At first the publisher defended the writer, saying copied passages from resource material was acceptably or fairly used, but they have since changed their minds.
Author Nora Roberts commented, “By my definition, copying another’s work and passing it as your own equals plagiarism.”
Did You Know?
Frank Wilson points out an interesting mystery quiz.
Gathering to Pray
In 2001 at a CBMC conference (Christian Businessmen’s Connection), Dr. Howard Hendricks delivered these words in a three-part message on prayer.
Build teams committed to prayer. Now, I want to share with you because I find that very few Christians know this. Study this for yourself. Don’t go by my word. If you study prayer in both the Old and New Testament, what the Bible says about prayer mostly is addressed not to individuals, but to groups. That’s a revolutionary truth. Does that mean you don’t pray individually? Of course not. It means that you understand that God honors the collective ministry of a group of believers. The four guys who carried the man into the present of Jesus Christ, and the text says, “When He [Jesus] saw their faith, He said to the sick, ‘Rise, take up your bed, and walk.'” See, He takes very seriously the fact that you get a group of people who covenant before God to unite their hearts in prayer.
By the way, the greatest untapped reservoir in the United States and I’m sure many other countries as well is senior citizens. It’s the fastest growing segment of people in America and the fastest growing segment of that group is over 80. The tragedy is that many of these people are sliding from home, reaching for the bench, throwing in the towel, or can only look forward to retirement. May I remind you of the fact that the average American dies two years after retirement. The reason is they lose their purpose, and we are finding that the greatest group of prayer warriors we are seeing raised up all across our country is senior citizens, many of whom not only have time, but interest, money, and everything else so that they can invest in praying for others.
Another untapped reservoir is youth. There’s a church in our area that has a fantastic group of young people. I love them like crazy. They went to the elders of their church and asked, “Can we open the church on Wednesday mornings to pray?”
“Well, we’ll have to take that under consideration.”
So, after four or five meetings (typical elders), they finally decided, “No, we can’t do that. Continue reading Gathering to Pray
Selling Your Soul
Mart De Haan asks, “If God is good, but good isn’t God, how do we avoid making our worst mistakes with some of the best things in life?”
What’s Your Carbon Footprint?
Hey, kids! It’s National Environmental Education Week. What NEEW this year? (heh, heh) We’re focusing on our carbon footprint. You know the earth is warming up, baking polar bears, and flooding the innocent people of Manhattan Beach because of your wasteful lifestyle. Shame on you. The government isn’t doing its part, so you have to do yours. And here’s a simple thing you can do to help the planet.
Don’t fart.
Did you know that the average person farts 16 times a day? That’s excess CO2, Nitrogen, and other gazes in our atmosphere. Not good. Let’s team up to fight global warming by not farting.
Think it’s impossible? Try avoiding food. Eating is a major cause in human farting, so maybe you should just eat a little less, if at all. For pete’s sake, people! We’re all going to die if we don’t do something, so help out a little.
Tags: global warming, climate change, neew, prevention
Kudos to Renaissance Guy
Shout out to Significant Pursuit by Renaissance Guy, who writes a good blog. Recently he has a post on what’s wrong with that Fifth Grader game show and a good idea in public schooling.
Taxes in Verse
In answer to a mandate by the Surveyor of the Taxes
Sir, as your mandate did request,
I send you here a faithfu’ list,
O’ gudes an’ gear, an’ a’ my graith,
To which I’m clear to gi’e my aith. (R. Burns, “The Inventory”)
Do you remember when I fought
The bank and the courthouse ring,
For pocketing the interest on public funds?
And when I fought our leading citizens
For making the poor the pack-horses of the taxes?
And when I fought the water works
For stealing streets and raising rates? (E.L. Masters, “Harry Carey Goodhue”)
I du believe the people want
A tax on teas an’ coffees,
Thet nothin’ aint extravygunt,—
Purvidin’ I’m in office; . . .
I du believe in any plan
O’ levyin’ the taxes,
Ez long ez, like a lumberman,
I git jest wut I axes; (J.R. Lowell, “The Pious Editor’s Creed”)
That very morning
The Federal Judge, in the very next room
To the room where I took the oath,
Decided the constitution
Exempted Rhodes from paying taxes
For the water works of Spoon River! (E.L. Masters, “Ida Chicken”)
But each year, unawares,
He sent a sum for taxes due—
And fence repairs. (H.C. Stearns, “Reuben Roy”)
Someone, please tell me,
if you know, where does,
all the money go? (Mac McGovern, “Taxes”)
Tax not my sloth that I
Fold my arms beside the brook;
Each cloud that floated in the sky
Writes a letter in my book. (R.W. Emerson, “The Apology”)
Protection for Journalists
McCain supports legislation to protect journalists and their sources, but he cautions them saying, “The workings of America’s newsrooms are less transparent than those you cover. The press needs to work on correcting this.”
This could be good law in the making, but McCain could gain ground with many people by working against his own regulations against free political speech (McCain-Feingold).