John Piper on “What the New Testament Church Prayed For” (via Steve Camp)

Grace to You with John MacArthur is now podcasting their daily radio program - here’s the link for your favorite feed reader� Bloglines is a good choice. (via: Phil Johnson)

On Pastoral Perception

The danger of the Sr. Pastorate model of church government is that he will have the tendency to view ministry primarily through his own desires, personality, convictions, and preferences. Before long, his tastes govern the church. This is true even in churches where there is a plurality of elders who help lead.

From Al Mohler on Charles Spurgeon on “Advanced Thinkers”

Some claim that Charles Spurgeon was the most voluminous writer in the history of the English language. Given the fact that his writings — often based on his preaching — were a publishing phenomenon of Victorian times and remain a publishing phenomenon even now.

Some of Spurgeon’s sharpest words and clearest thoughts are found in the pages of his magazine, Sword and Trowel. In “Advanced Thinkers,” published in the November 1871 edition of the magazine, Spurgeon considered the rise of an intellectual elite devoted to doctrinal compromise. His words are as prophetic today as when they were first written.

Anyone with a blog wants to increase readership. Here’s a handy resource for helping you learn how to do that by improving your writing—Increase readership with better writing

Are you “tagging” yet? If you aren’t, you’re missing out on the huge benefits of using sites like del.icio.us and LibraryThing.com and those are just two for starters. Businessweek.com has a quick article on the benefits of tagging that will get your feet wet—Tagging: Keeping Tabs On The Net.

• Adding Your Voice to the Conversation. Why CEOs Should Blog–a Pastor is not a CEO but this is a good piece for Pastor’s thinking of blogging
• For bloggers who frequently link to other posts this is one hot extension for the Firefox browser. “The Copy URL+ extension enables you to copy to the clipboard the current document’s address along with additional information such as the document’s title, the current selection or both.”
• Want better digital photos? Learn how to resample your images.
• On writing–short is good

I started collecting pictures of signs a while back. This is one I didn’t take but I thought it deserved a spot in my collection. (via Seth Godin)

“You are stuck on stupid.” This has got to be the quote of the year and you’ve just got to love General Honore. Read the transcript and listen to the audio at Radio Blogger.

With so much pointless verbiage spread all over the blogosphere I was impressed by Al Mohler’s podcast of his interview with a young Christian blogger, Tim Sweetman (Agent Tim). It’s refreshing to find some Christian young people with something Christ honoring to say.

• Tame that book collection - LibraryThing (Via Lifehacker)
• Grace and Truth Books - Well chosen Christian books–site includes brief, helpful summaries
• Joshua Sowin suggests Adblock and Adblock Filterset.G Updater for the Firefox browser
• Paint.net - Paint.NET v2.5 Alpha 3 is now available–a great free photo editor for Windows
• The Opera web browser is now free–it’s another excellent choice
• Looks like Google is going wireless–just as many figured

Here’s a good article entitled, Blogs can help boost a career or sink it for all bloggers or would-be’s. There’s some good insight here for blogging Pastors and church leaders. (via Blogging Church)

Here are a few highlights of the piece…

• All bloggers, they said, would be wise to write as if their bosses, future bosses or grandmothers were reading over their shoulders.
• Anybody who is hiring would be absolutely, totally nuts if they didn’t ascertain whether somebody had a blog and, if they do, take a look at it,” Sun’s Bray said.
• Bray believes that blogs can boost careers. Those who get in trouble for blogging likely have other problems, too.

My older brother Ken preached in my place a couple of times this summer while we were on vacation. He’s always been there for me when I needed encouragement and advice as well. He writes a weakly piece that he posts on his blog and today’s post really strikes a chord with me about something that’s so needed in the church.

It’s probably my time in the Marines that helps make his thoughts today about brothers in Christ sticking together such an urgent message. If there’s something that’s always burdened me in it’s that men often try to go it alone. For those who’ve trained for combat know, that’s dangerous. Spiritual warfare is serious business and day to day Christian living is a challenge. I’m so grateful for guys in my life who I’ve been able to partner with for spiritual encouragement and challenge. Gentlemen, don’t go it alone.

• ABWE organizes Project: Help the Shepherds for Hurricane relief
• ESV Bible blog could use help sending Bibles for hurricane victims
• SQ3R may help you get the most out of your reading time
• Meebo.com - new web based chat client - it’s in alpha testing right now but looks good
• A new browser on the horizon - Flock (Via Wired)

When I told my son Kevin about the ESV Bible giveaway that was coming on Monday, September 12 he was anxious to have a chance to get a copy of an English Standard Version Bible. I’ve been telling him how much I enjoy the ESV and he’s heard me quote it often in my preaching.

It’s a great encouragement to a father that his children desire to read and know God’s Word. That’s why I was a little disappointed on Monday afternoon.

Monday came and Kevin had asked the night before if he could go with me to Traverse City for a hospital call to one of our church members. We left at 6:30 to get there early, made a couple of stops in town afterward and were home by 1 P.M. Soon after Kevin went to the link on the ESV Blog and discovered that the contest was over already. He was disappointed.

I see in the ESV Bible Blog entry today that they may run their next contest later in the day to give those in other time zones a better opportunity at participating. But I have what I think is a better idea. Why not leave the contest open and do a random drawing from all the entries? That way more people have an opportunity at a great Bible and the ESV Bible Blog gets more exposure.

Hopefully someone at the ESV Bible Blog is listening.

Update 9/15/05: I got a nice email from Stephen at the ESV Bible Blog explaining their thinking behind the first-come, first-served giveaway. Which brings me to ask a question of you readers.

Would you or your church take offense at a “random drawing” for a Bible giveaway? If so, why? Proverbs 16:33 tells us that even The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. So is a “random drawing” truly random?

Questions about Hurricane Katrina prompt Dr. Al Mohler to weigh in on Tony Campolo’s bad theology in questioning God’s Omnipotence.

I agree with Campolo that, “the loving God calls all believers in the face of Katrina’s devastation to seek ways to express love in concrete ways towards those who have lost friends and family members; and to those who have lost homes along with most of their earthly belongings.” But Campolo also says this…

Perhaps we would do well to listen to the likes of Rabbi Harold Kushner, who contends that God is not really as powerful as we have claimed.

It’s statements like this that give great reason for concern when it comes to his questioning of God’s omnipotence.

Tim Challies makes a good argument for understanding Open Theism for what it is and does so by challenging Tony Campolo’s piece as well.

Justin Taylor points us to John Piper’s recent sermon (text/mp3) entitled The Supremacy of Christ in an Age of Terror and says that…

After surveying some of the evil and tragedy in the world, he asked why the world is the way that it is. His first two answers were negative:

1. The reason this terrorized and troubled world exists is not because God is not in total control.
2. The reason this terrorized and troubled world exists is not because God is evil or unjust.

• Will bloggers need “Comments Disclaimers“?
• Why WordPress is so good for getting your content on the web with some ideas about how easily it can be customized.
• Blogging/Podcasting/RSS 101 Resources v. 2.0
• Google Blog Search
• “Yahoo Goes to War” - Check out the “Hotzone” here
• Will digital movie making gear put the pressure on Hollywood?
• From the article above - worthwhile videos - Faces from the Front

It’s been a while since I noted that I wanted to read Hugh Hewitt’s book Blog. I finally have it and it’s been added it to my reading list.

On this day it is good to be reminded. 9/11 Memorial slide show at Pajamas Media.

• A bit of good news - New Orleans Sweep Reveals Fewer Dead
• Under “not good news” - Environmental extremism
• Under “You’ve got to be kidding” - Scripture Shoe Inserts (Via: Between Two Worlds)
• A very recent Firefox and Mozilla security issue and fix
• Homemade paper pda - PocketMod