I ran into my friend Matthew Taylor at church this morning and he filled me in on a new blog project he began recently.  Matt has been spreading the good news on twitter for quite some time now.  While twitter is great for many topics, there are times when Matt has more to say than can be expressed in a mere 140 characters.  His solution to this problem is taylormatthews.blogspot.com.  This blog will track all of his twitter posts as well as those things he feels require further explanation.  Matt is striving to create something more verbose than twitter, but slightly shorter than posts on a traditional blog.  I’m excited to see what he does as he develops this new mini blog.  Please take a minute to check out taylormatthews.blogspot.com and if you’re a twitter user, you can follow Matt who tweets as @matthewtaylors.

The folks at ChristianAudio.com are offering two free audiobooks for March 2010.  Use coupon code MAR2010 at checkout for The Cost of Discipleship (Unabridged) by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and coupon code MAR2010B for Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die (Unabridged) by John Piper.  Click one of the pictures below for details.

I was excited to receive an advance reading copy of Your Church Is Too Small: Why Unity in Christ’s Mission Is Vital to the Future of the Church by John H. Armstrong from the good folks at Zondervan Academic.  I will be participating in the Your Church is too Small Blog Tour running March 14-20, 2010.  You can learn more about the blog tour here:  LINK.  I’ve included the synopsis found on Zondervan’s product page as well as information from the table of contents below, so you can get a better feel for what to expect in this forthcoming book.

Synopsis

In Your Church Is Too Small, John Armstrong presents a vision of the unity possible for Christians across social, cultural, racial, and denominational lines. When Jesus’ followers seek unity through participation in the kingdom of God and the mission of Christ, they demonstrate God’s character to a watching world.

Table of Contents

past:  the Biblical and Historical Basis for Christian Unity

1.  the road to the future
2.  my journey to catholicity begins
3.  searching for the elusive truth
4.  the Jesus prayer for our unity
5.  our greatest apologetic
6.  Christ the center
7.  the four classical marks of the church

present:  Restoring Unity in the Church Today

8.  how can we restore unity?
9.  the cause of our disunity
10.  sectarianism:  our enemy
11.  thinking rightly about the church
12.  the servant church and the kingdom
13.  what place should we give to tradition

future:  The Missional-Ecumenical Movement

14.  searching for the true church
15.  who is a real christian?
16.  the missional-ecumenical church
17.  a new paradigm
18.  what does the missional-ecumenical paradigm look like?
19.  disturb us, Lord!

Awhile back my wife brought home several boxes of Commodore 64 “stuff” that her brother was getting rid of.  All of it sat in our basement for the longest time until I came home last week and there sat the whole family playing games on the Commodore 64.  As it turns out there were 3 actual Commodore 64 computers amongst the stuff, each of them in various stages of disrepair.  The nostalgic side of me remembers back to my own Commodore 64 & 128 computers, so I really wanted to keep at least one of them.  I sat down this morning between the three of them and was able to put together a working unit with all of the keys on the keyboard.  While I’m an A+ certified computer technician, this is the first time I’ve ever cracked open a Commodore.  I may have to put this experience on my resume just for fun.  I’m planning to teach my oldest boy how to do some basic programming on the Commodore 64, so he can learn just like dear old Dad did.  You can see a picture of my newly refurbished Commodore 64 in all of its nostalgic geeky goodness below.

I was excited to find a review copy of volume 5 in the Ancient Christian Doctrine Series in my mailbox this past Saturday.  The five-volume Ancient Christian Doctrine Series is a follow up to the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture providing patristic commentary on the Nicene Creed.  The back cover copy offers a good description of what this volume has to offer:

When was the church founded? Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God and not of a religious organization subsequently called church. We don’t find in the Gospels expressions which make reference to the foundation of a new religious community, a new and distinct community of followers of Jesus. But after the resurrection of Jesus, his followers, as a result of his express command, gather together not only those from the people of Israel but men and women of all nations.

The final clauses of the Nicene Creed spell out, briefly and to the point, the church’s self-understanding in these early centuries. Angelo Di Berardino assembles a wide range of texts and teachers of the church during these years to enrich our understanding and deepen our faith in the great mysteries expressed here.

The Creed quickly hits the four marks of the church–that it is “one holy catholic and apostolic.” What do we mean by professing each of these? Di Berardino helps us to give an answer with the help of the fathers of the church.

The volume closes, as does the Creed, with a consideration of baptism (the traditional entrance for people into the church) and two central features of the church in the future–the expectation that all of God’s people will enjoy the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

This new volume and all four previous volumes are available from Amazon and elsewhere.

Head on over to The Writing Life and find out why book reviews still matter.

LINK:  terrywhalin.blogspot.com/2010/02/do-book-reviews-matter.html

I was very excited last week to receive a copy of SimChurch:  Being the Church in the Virtual World by Douglas Estes from the kind folks at Zondervan Academic.  This book  helps to define what makes up the virtual church today and examines some of the possibilities and concerns that come with it.  Review to follow in the coming weeks.  This book is available from Amazon & elsewhere.

Ryan Griffith gave a thought provoking and challenging sermon on 1 John 4:1-6 at Bethlehem Baptist Church, North campus, this past Sunday.  The sermon is now available here:  LINK

Luke’s Gospel: Investigating the Man Who Is God
Part 16: Jesus The Prophet
Luke 4:22-30

Pastor Mark Driscoll | February 07, 2010 | 01hr:04mn

Jesus preaches in his hometown of Nazareth, but the people reject him. They would rather kill Jesus than kill their religion. He teaches from 1 Kings 17 (Elijah and a pagan widow) and 2 Kings 5 (Elisha and Naaman the leper) to show that even religious people are as needy as the starving widow and that their sin is as horrific as leprosy. We see in this passage at least eight ways we could be compelled to reject Jesus: theology, control, greed, selfishness, familiarity, comfort, embarrassment, and religion.

If you can’t see the video, click here:  LINK

I came across an article titled Your Brain on Porn:  A Neuroscientist’s View over on New Man EMagazine the other day.  The first thing I thought of was those anti-drug commercials from when I was a kid.  You know them, “This is your brain.  This is your brain on drugs.  Any Questions?”  In this brief article William Sturthers answers the following questions:

• What goes on in a man’s brain when he’s looking at pornography?
• Does this process only happen when looking at extreme pornographic images—such as naked pictures or video—or does it apply to anything we are sexually drawn to?
• Why does it seem sometimes like Christian men can have a greater struggle with pornography than non-Christians?
• Is there hope for men who are stuck in this habit to rewire their brains?
• Single guys have a unique situation. Any advice for them?

If answers to these types of questions sound interesting or would be of help to any of you struggling with or ministering to people with these types of concerns, I suggest you consider William Struthers’ new book from InterVarsity Press titled:  Wired for Intimacy:  How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain. This book is available from Amazon and many other book retailers.  It is definitely a book I’m adding to my reading list for 2010.