Here’s an inspiring article on a church in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, who took up their pastor’s challenge to turn $50 into $100 for their missions funding.
“Sheer madness,” sniffed retired accountant Wayne Albers, 85, to his wife, Marnie, who hushed him as he whispered loudly. “Why can’t the church just collect money the old-fashioned way?”
Because this isn’t about collecting money.
Some of us were sick this morning, and others of us were up all night, so we didn’t make it to the worship service or Sunday School. I hope your last service before Christmas was wonderful and nurturing.
Anyone planning to read the Bible through next year? I often plan and fail because it’s hard for me to trot over the words at the needed pace without stopping to stare at some of the diamonds and gold along the path. Still, I may try it again this year.
Andree Seu has a beautiful article on faith in the Lord in the latest World Magazine. She writes,
In October I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Vern Poythress of Westminster Seminary. He gave me two delicious hours and we ended up talking about the Holy Spirit. I was sharing with him a wonderful insight of women’s Bible teacher Beth Moore, in which she compared the work of the Spirit in us—His “resonating” with our spirit (Romans 8:16; 1 Corinthians 2)—to the resonating of all the “C” strings of a piano when middle “C” is struck.
“Many times the resonance of the Spirit is thought of as being passive,” said Dr. Poythress, “but He calls on us to be creative because He is sovereign. . . . A trust in God says, ‘I’m going to venture on this. I know my motives are not perfect but I’m going to try it because I know God loves me.'” The Spirit in us gives us “freedom of exploration.”
Non-subscribers may find the link through this post will reveal the whole article.
So let me ask a political question, the same question twice over. Is it right to vote against Mitt Romney because he’s a Mormon?
Is it right to vote for Mike Huckabee because he’s a Christian?
Ed Levine lists some favored hot chocolate brands. As it usually goes with lists like this, I haven’t seen these products at my local Piggly Wiggly. I haven’t seen any of them beyond Swiss Miss, which is a wonderful product made from pure Swiss-grown ingredients and hand-mixed by beautiful Swiss girls for a few hours each day after school. What does Ghiradelli have on that, I ask you? Those Italians think any food they make is the creme of the crop. Well, there are little Swiss children who know better.
Andrew Klavan has a short story on his blog, which can be obtained in print by ordering from the Mysterious Bookshop in New York. It begins:
A certain portion of my misspent youth was misspent in the profession of journalism. I’m not proud of it, but a man has to make a living and there it is. And, in fact, I learned a great many things working as a reporter. Most importantly, I learned how to be painstakingly honest and lie at the same time. That’s how the news business works. It’s not that anyone goes around making up facts or anything – not on a regular basis anyway. No, most of the time, newspeople simply learn how to pick and choose which facts to tell, which will heighten your sense that their gormless opinions are reality or at least delay your discovery that everything they believe is provably false. If ever you see a man put his fingers in his ears and whistle Dixie to keep from hearing the truth, you may assume he’s a fool, but if he puts his fingers in your ears and starts whistling, then you know you are dealing with a journalist.
Max Magee has a long list of books from readers throughout the Internets (or is that Internex?) for 2007. He says, “A lucky reader is one surrounded by many other readers.” So if you’re looking for a collection of book recommendations, look no further than The Millions Blog.
So, let’s play a little game in this post for the holidays, if you’re willing. I’ll type a sentence, and you follow it with a sentence of your own. The sentences can be about anything, but each one must contain one word from the previous sentence. Just one word. Anyone can join in as often as he likes. The only other rule (aside from those of public decency) is that a participant may not follow himself.
Sound fun? Diverting? Something the Thinklings would do? All right then, I’ll begin.
“Have a holly, jolly Christmas” may be my second least preferred seasonal rerun, close on the heels of “Santa Baby.”
New Line Cinema and MGM Studios have made an agreement with Peter Jackson to produce The Hobbit and a sequel film over the next few years.
Jackson and Walsh envisioned the first film covering the events of “The Hobbit” and the second bridging the 80-year gap between that novel and the first “Lord of the Rings” book.
It was that vision that led MGM, which holds the film rights to the book and is looking for new movie franchises, to insist that Jackson and Walsh make the films.
“Once (they) played out their vision for ‘The Hobbit’ as two movies … MGM just took the position that we wanted to deal with Peter and it was not an option to do it with anybody else,” Sloan said.
Here’s an appropriate quote for our modern political climate, courtesy of Bartleby.com.
“If you elect a matinee idol mayor, you’re going to have a musical comedy administration.” — Robert Moses, U.S. public official from New Haven, Connecticut
That could apply to a variety of people, couldn’t it?
On this date, December 17, 1997, Jorn Barger gave us the word “weblog,” spawning countless articles explaining what the word means for readers who could still live without computers. Imagine that. Wired.com has a short list of thoughts Jorn has on blogging now.
He writes, “A true weblog is a log of all the URLs you want to save or share. (So del.icio.us is actually better for blogging than blogger.com.)”
Sure it is. I’d much rather link out to someone’s work instead of creating something of my own. It’s easier and less fulfilling. Sigh. [via Books, Inq]