Everybody’s doing this personality thing, so…

I came back INTP again, which is no surprise because I’m not exactly a “borderline” INTP, as you can see from the graph. Add linguistic/logical to the mix… note that the “linguistic” level isn’t exactly marginal either, and take away some understanding of why I’ve gotten so deep into the definition of “missional” as of late! Some of the profiles are pretty good. The career matches aren’t bad — most of them look good to me, and I’ve actually done several of them. Other INTPs include 5 US presidents, Einstein, Pascal, Socrates, Descartes, and Jung himself. Oh, and Bob Newhart. Fictionally, they include all the weird but near-perfect Star Trek characters: Spock, Data, and Seven of Nine. Hhmmm.

My kids are of the age that they read in the back seat while we’re going places… kids’ magazines and such with jokes. So the other day I was asked, “What do you get when you cross a four-leaf clover with poison ivy?” Give up? You get a rash of good luck. Okay, groan. On with the weekly linkage:

1. Happy re-birthday to Ed Stetzer, who turned 30 (sorta) this past week, and reflects on what he’s learned along the way. And happy 20th anniversary as well… busy week!
2. Speaking of 30 years ago this week, Elvis is still dead… or is he? He’d be 72 now.
3. Happy Fourth Blogiversary, Robbymac. He’s the same age as Ed Stetzer (kinda) and gets to reflecting in his anniversary post as well.
4. Julie Clawson had some good discussion going in two posts on men and women in the emerging church. I waded in there on gender issues and such… I would say lots of discussion to follow, but maybe there’s more action to follow instead? I guess my sexist days are over… I got thanked along with a list of other guys for being a positive voice for gender justice. I don’t think I’ve done much, but nonetheless, you’re welcome, Mak. Speaking of nice things said about me (a rarity!), Dwight Friesen probably said more than I deserve… and he paid for breakfast. Nice guy.
5. What’s up with those Aussies? We just got Hamo back blogging, and now Phil and Dan are calling it quits. We’ll miss Signposts; I’m glad they’ll at least be leaving it up as a read-only archive.
6. Matters of substance: Jollyblogger on The Princess Bride. Relive the movie through the quotes in the comments.
7. I saw on the television news the other evening that a church in Vancouver was told to stop feeding the poor because while they had a permit to be a church, they didn’t have one for social work. The additional permit was going to require the posting of security guards. You can get the story links via Mike Todd, but seriously… What??
8. Molly Marshall, quoted on Jordon Cooper’s blog, as quoted on Bill Kinnon’s blog:
   

   We envision the church as an idealized family, we are not very capable of welcoming the stranger. When family is the only metaphor we use, people with whom we cannot achieve intimacy, or with whom we do not want to be intimate, are squeezed out.

   Excellent stuff; unfortunately the link that Bill gave to the extended version went dead, I think as Jordon was doing his WordPress yes-no dance again. He’s back to Blogger now. Jordon, can you post that one again?!

9. Word of the Week: “Crappyjack” — added to my lexicon, good stuff from David Neff’s inaugural blog post.
10. Rick Meigs lists things for which life is too short — good perspective as a list of things not to spend time on.
11. Mike Clawson takes a second look at some of Jesus’ parables. What other preconceptions might we mistakenly approach the parables with?
12. Time has a moving piece on the death of Ruth Bell Graham, having caught up with Billy Graham to see how he’s coping now. (HT: Stephen Shields)
13. In case you wondered what Wikipedia edits the CIA is making anonymously (or the Vatican is making), there is now The Wikipedia Scanner, which searches anonymous edits by IP block, by Wikipedia page, or by organization name. (more info)
14. Sasquatch found in Manitoba
15. They have USB-everything now, including a handy USB Mini Fridge.
16. Scientists break speed of light: not “warp one” yet, not time travel yet… but maybe faster Internet downloads would be a milestone to those things. time travel, you say? Apparently we already know how it will work.
17. I have mentioned a few times before that I quite liked Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom’s The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, which sets me to thinking and seeing a lot of connections to the church application-wise. Jollyblogger David Wayne opine a little on the book, as does Brad Brisco, who has a fairly thorough summary for those who haven’t read or aren’t likely to read it. I was thinking about the book again last night when I saw that Geronimo was on the late-night movie. (I didn’t stay awake; I watched Bobby earlier in the evening though.)
18. You know all about “the posters”? Sivin Kit lines them up side-by-side. Very different…
19. Sometimes the simplest things are the most enduring, and the most satisfying… like The Galapagos Post Office, which still works without much change after more than a hundred years. And it’s still free.
20. Geez. Congrats to Geez magazine.
21. A list of the top 1,000 Web 2.0 sites, in case you were wondering.
22. Attention Bruce Cockburn fans: how about Bruce Cockburn and Christian Faith in a Postmodern World — a longer read with a seemingly exhaustive command of Bruce’s lyrics, exegeting his lyrics and his life as a wrestling of life moving away from modernism into a postmodern worldview. I’m amazed! “Misplaced your faith and the Candy Man’s gone; I hate to tell you but the Candy Man’s gone.” What do you think it means? My first thought wasn’t a prophetic criticism insightfully declaring the end of the dream of modernity, but who knows?
23. Okay, just because it’s in the newspaper doesn’t make it “news”… did you know? Young adults aren’t sticking with church. Actually, this one has some good statistics (why leave, why stay by percentage) coming from work by Ed Stetzer at LifeWay Research.

I can’t believe I read this much in the past week and still managed to compose more than 13,000 words surveying and describing “missional” church. Thanks to those of you who have commented or emailed privately to tell me you feel this is important work… it’s been surprisingly draining some days. We’ll get back into it next week sometime.