From the inimitable, irreplaceable, absolutely necessary Naked Pastor, David Hayward:

UPDATE: Support the monks of St. Meinrad, who make a great wooden casket/urn at a reasonable price. Will look much better under the tree

Stand by America, Wal-Mart is selling caskets. And urns. I’m not joking.

Any of you with a small funeral home in your community might want to consider two things: Just how far in advance you want to buy that pre-planned service and what is the meaning of the phrase “Some unanticipated future charges may be necessary.”

What Wal-Mart has done for Main Street USA in small town America it is now going to do for the funeral industry in those same towns: deliver what the public wants. irresistably heap. (If you know anything about casket prices, these are quite inexpensive.)

If you buy stock, I’d take a look at whoever made this deal. It’s a brilliant piece of 21st century capitalism. America is SO ready for the Wal-Mart casket.

If it bothers you to spend eternity in a box made by children in China, you might want to see if you can special order. [Continue reading]

No snark intended here Catholic and Orthodox friends. Just a story worth telling.

I know this doesn’t happen….but this time it did.

I’ve been teaching Ethiopian Orthodox students for most of two decades here at our ministry. We have about 20 of them a year and I get all of them who stay through graduation in my Bible survey class.

I’ve met only a handful- far less than ten- who seemed to relate to their faith as anything other than an expression of Ethiopian culture. Ethiopian Orthodoxy is coptic, very ancient, tied in deeply to the stories Ethiopians believe about the beginnings of their nation. They are very loyal to their culture, but I’ve only met a handful that could have a handful about what their faith meant to them.

Until this year. I’ve got a very vocal young lady in my advanced Bible class. She’s kept things interesting. [Continue reading]

Tim Challies recently reprinted an extended quote from Kevin DeYoung’s writing on the emerging/emergent church. I won’t reprint it here, but if the rest of the post is going to make any sense to you, go read it all.

When I first read this, it tipped my already leaning inclination to be highly annoyed at needless stereotyping and dividing of the Christian family by things that are neither significant nor truly divisive, but simply are the perceptions and caricatures of one team over another. We’ve come to the point where portraying emergent Christians as “useless idiots” is an approved form of bigotry, and it does positive harm. I posted at the BHT while I was steamed up, then decided to give DeYoung the benefit of the doubt, at least on this quote, and say he was simply having a little fun.

I’ll admit that DeYoung comes off like the witty kid who can make fun of the other kids without seeming to be all that mean, but the mean kids will find it hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

So turnabout is fair play, and perhaps a look in the mirror makes the point whatever way you want to take it: caricature, satire or humor. So courtesy of Adam Omelianchuk, author of one of the better explanations of why you don’t have to be a Calvinist to be a Christian, here’s the same passage, but with the gun sights aimed the other way. [Continue reading]

It came to me today that many of you have probably felt that this web site was remiss in offering practical encouragement to those who are laboring in the work of ministry. Here I am, 33+ years into this business, and I haven’t really shared much of the wisdom of my own experiences. I intend to correct that with today’s post.

In the following paragraphs, I am going to rescue those of you in ministry from the feeling you have that no one could ever be as bone-headed as you. From the annals of my own life and ministry, I share with you now the following true stories meant to encourage you to start tomorrow with a smile, saying “I may be an idiot, but I’m still way ahead of Spencer.”

As a bit o’ background, I was a youth minister- mostly- from 1976-1988. Then I pastored four years, but also did a lot of youth ministry in that church after the youth minister quit. NONE of the incidents recounted below happened where I’ve served since 1992.

BTW- in order to protect the innocent, I will change a few facts here and there, but I assure you that what you are reading is not fiction. 100% true. [Continue reading]

I’m sure everyone knows I’m working on book proposals and hoping for good news soon. In the meantime, I wanted to share with you some of the book ideas I’ve got in my notebook. I have to make some decisions soon because I can’t write them all.

Let’s see what the reading public has to say.

The Snack: The Snack is the story of a man who receives a message from God in a Little Debbie oatmeal cake and is told by God to meet him at the Montgomery Biscuits’ stadium for a weekend series. There God appears to him as an umpire, a vendor and a little kid who keeps kicking his seat. [Continue reading]

No one….No one….excels at rhetoric like Calvinists. I’m sorry guys, love ya, but some of you are the biggest fan clubbers I’ve ever seen. Brian Mclaren doesn’t have this kind of devotion. And N.T. Wright can only dream.

Calvin’s birthday has given the rhetorical athletes a chance to really strut their stuff. I know we all can brag, but short of Catholics going on about the saints, do you ever hear anything quite like this? (Note: Please start “William Tell Overture.”)

Towering over the centuries of church history, there stands one figure of such monumental importance that he still commands attention and arouses intrigue, even five hundred years after his appearance on the world stage. Called “one of the truly great men of all time,” he was a driving force so significant that his influence shaped the church and Western culture beyond that of any other theologian or pastor. His masterful expositions of Scripture laid down the doctrinal distinctives of the Protestant Reformation, making him arguably the leading architect of the Protestant cause. His theological thunder defined and articulated the core truths of that history-altering movement in sixteenth-century Europe.

In turn, those lofty ideas helped fashion the founding principles of Western civilization, giving rise to the republican form of government, the ideals of public education, and the philosophy of free-market capitalism. A world-class theologian, a revered exegete, a renowned teacher, an ecclesiastical statesman, an influential Reformer — he was all of these and more. His name was John Calvin.

I think I need to buy a dictionary of adjectives. I’m feeling like I’ve been run over by a truck.

A conversation between Frank and Joe, weekend news producers in the CNN newsroom, Easter, 2009

Hey Frank.

Hey Joe. Watcha got?

Looks like we got……..we got a Sunday School teacher arrested in the murder of a little girl.

Yeah, I saw that. We can probably headline that for the whole Easter weekend, don’t ya think? [Continue reading]

UPDATE II: Creech has sold over $220 of beads, string and trinkets since I lost my salvation. You people are awesome. His kids may be able to have shoes for Easter.

UPDATE: Humor on board. Beware if not using proper gear.

In a shocking demonstration of intolerance toward those whom God has just made differently, the Episcopal diocese of Rhode Island has defrocked a minister who is both a Muslim and a Christian. You can read the shocking story for yourself .

The Episcopal church continues the persecution of those invisible minorities in its midst; those who find the doors of ministry closed to them simply because they affirm both Allah and the Holy Trinity as being one and the same.

Protests outside TEC headquarters seemed to bring no reaction. The church turned a dull, deaf ear to a pastor who wanted to do nothing more than affirm that both the Nicene Creed and the Koran were her true guides for life. [Continue reading]

Part II of my thoughts about Gillispie and your pastor. I just got a bit carried away.

(Read in best grumpy old man’s voice.)

Gather round the ol’ Internet Monk, you young whipper snappers.

What the heck have you kids done with the pastor?

No, not where did you tie him up, but what did you do with the name? The job title. What you call it for gosh sake.

When I was a boy, we walked to school backwards in the snow for 16 miles.

But we also called the pastor….”pastor.” Or “Brother” or “Preacher.” That was it. [Continue reading]

Ignatius from travis hawkins on Vimeo.

Just get a cold drink, sit back and watch all ten minutes. And if it seems totally straight to you, then you need to change churches.