Your Best Links Now – 1/2/14

Zach Nielsen on How to Guard Against Mission Drift in 2014

“Leading any organization is hard work,” Zach writes. “Staying aligned to our core calling to make disciples takes continued focus.” Read his good instruction on preventing the drift.

Biblical Archaeology’s Top Ten Discoveries of 2013

Really cool stuff here, including the mysterious stone pyramid discovered underwater. ” Tentatively dated to around 2000 BC, or earlier, it may be connected to a nearby excavated site called Khirbet Kerak. Underwater archaelogists hope to begin studying the rocks to see if they can discover why they are there.”

My latest piece in Tabletalk on The Ninth Commandment

How telling the truth about ourselves and our neighbors is being honest about God.

What happened to all the passenger pigeons?

The New Yorker‘s review of naturalist Joel Greenberg’s new book surveys his exploration of how the most prevalent bird species in North America went extinct.

When Worship is Wrong by Skye Jethani

Earlier this week, I tweeted this:



Jethani’s piece is a great elaboration of what I had in mind. The bigger/better/flashier of the weekly worship experience production becomes envisioned as a dispenser of spiritual feelings, of a “release” or high of some kind that gives diminishing returns. Like porn. Or, in Jethani’s post, like a drug:

This pursuit of transformation by consuming external experiences creates worship junkies who leap from one mountaintop to another, one spiritual high to another, in search of a glory that will not fade. As one church member interviewed for the University of Washington study said, “God’s love becomes … such a drug that you can’t wait to come get your next hit. … You can’t wait to get involved to get the high from God.” In response, churches are driven to create ever-grander experiences and more elaborate productions to satisfy expectations. But if lasting transformation is our goal, mountaintops-even God-ordained ones-will never suffice.

And you should read Jethani’s book The Divine Commodity for a more in-depth and increasingly relevant indictment of the attractional worship paradigm.

The Immanuel Mantra

I love this from my friend Ray Ortlund, pastor of Nashville’s Immanuel Church. We have “stolen” it for use at Middletown Church too, and our folks love it.

Immanuel Mantra from Immanuel Nashville on Vimeo.