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I got a letter yesterday that asked how my chaplaincy training was going, which was a nice thing to ask, except I’m not in chaplaincy training or any other kind of training. I added this to my collection of communications telling me that I am resigning my job, joining the Roman Catholic Church and so […]

Is it just me, or are some Christians putting too much emphasis on the Gospels?
There’s a lot of talk about the Kingdom of God in the Gospels. That gets many people off on the wrong track entirely.
Some people are always quoting the parables or Jesus’ sermons. All of these things need some further elaboration, footnotes […]

I will be suing Jared Wilson. Get lawyered up.
All resemblance to any actual, existing blogs is purely coincidental. I couldn’t possibly be referring to you.
Seriously though, I do want to be helpful. I can work on many of these things myself, otherwise they wouldn’t be in my head to tell you.
1. It’s too personal. Personal […]

***Humor Alert***
So I get this occasional podcast of sermons and talks by Bishop Will Willimon, a fine preacher in the estimation of your internet monk and most knowledgeable homelitical types. The sermon I am listening to was preached at Beeson Divinity School at the Conger Lectures on Preaching. Willimon’s sermon was called “Short Salvation,” and […]

For the past hour, I’ve been trying to find a Protestant church nearby where I can go for Ash Wednesday service on February 6.
If you don’t know where I live, let me put it this way: There are probably more churches marking Ash Wednesday in some Muslim countries than there are churches doing so within […]

***Big Time Humor Alert*** Today, the Internet Monk Web Site ™ brings a special gift of proverbial, anecdotal and Zen-like wisdom as a gift for those angry young (and not so young) men who are burning down churches to make room for coffee shops.
Put on some punk rock, light the incense sticks and turn down […]

UPDATE: One of the reasons we go down this road every year is to laugh a bit and tell one another it’s OK. (Those of us in the evangelical wilderness need this. The rest of you talk amongst yourselves.) But we also do something else, which for a few is always difficult: we give ourselves […]

Irony alert!! Overheard at a popular theoblog recently.
Oh those slippery emerging types. Right when you think you have them defined, they go squirming across the room, claiming you’ve misunderstood them.
You know who is just as bad? The “missionals.” One minute it’s Tim Keller. The next it’s Brian Mclaren. You can’t tell one person or another […]

UPDATE II: Some of you probably haven’t read some of my older essays on worship, found in the “Worship” section on the older essays page.

UPDATE: After having written many posts on evangelical worship and reading hundreds of other posts and comments, it’s no wonder anyone who attends a liturgical church five times in a row […]

UPDATE: Check out the 50 Top Selling Authors in Evangelical Publishing and you’ll see what’s wrong with us. (And sorry Reformed boys, but that is DON, not John.)
Time for an official apology. (WARNING: If you are ironically challenged, beware of this post.)
Roman Catholic friends, if you’ve ever been confronted by various Protestants over the tendency […]

The Internet Monk Research Division, headquartered in the Internet Monk compound deep beneath the Boar’s Head Tavern here in the mecca of post-evangelicalism, St. Sadies, Maryland, has been conducting a research project. With the completion of extensive research conducted at the highest levels of professional standards, it’s now time to reveal the results to a […]

Every day this summer school term, around 9:30 in the morning, I drive two blocks to the post office during a ten minute break from class. I get my mail, which often involves retrieving a package from the postal employee at the window. I know the postmaster well, but on days he’s off, he has […]

UPDATE: Blast you Kyle Potter!
You’ve read this blog for 7 years. You’ve read my confessional essays. You’ve got the bio memorized. Your iPod has the podcast all the way back to episode 1. You’re confident you could pass any quiz on the life and times of the iMonk.
You’re wrong.
Welcome to fifty things you (probably) didn’t […]

UPDATE: Check out the “Emeghing Remix” of the same video.
OK…What a humorless crowd we’ve got around here. I’m not serious. This guy is, but this “analysis” is awful, though unfortunately is typical for many emerging critics.
Several of you have asked for information on the Emerging Church. This comprehensive look at the Emerging Church should answer […]

This post is an odd soup. Call it one part “Second Half of Life,” for just getting old and pathetic; one part “In The Study,” for the sermon idea I’ll get out of it; and one part “Parable, Metaphor and Illustration” for what you can do with it. Laugh at me, with me, and then […]