This week has found me rather busy and falling behind on my reading and writing. Again a shortcoming of the gargantuan beast becomes obvious, which is odd for a company like Google: the Reader can’t count past 1,000. I knocked it back below 1,000 earlier this week by marking-as-read a couple entire categories of posts, but that didn’t last long. || Okay, this is the point in my composition of this post where my host went down last night for “routine” maintenance that turned out to be, well, less than routine. I only had 4 links on my list at the time, so I was going to just skip it for this week, but then Grace started whining, so what can I do? I must press on. The good side — if there is one — is that I got to spend quality time with my Google reader… or was it quantity time?

1. Anyone like a good Blonde Joke?
2. Jon Birch Outside the Box.
3. Scot McKnight recommends commentaries on the gospels and Acts. I was pleased to see Brown on John still taking top honors from him… I’m not as fond of Morris on the Fourth Gospel; Bruce has a nice little commentary on it, but it’s too brief in my view. The three-volume work by Schnackenburg is well worth it, if only to intimidate people with it on your shelf, or if you can attribute some view to Rudolf Schnackenburg. It’s just fun to say.
4. So Evel Knievel, iconic daredevil and Christian convert at Daytona Bike Week, died yesterday.
5. More on scaring the hell out of people from Grace.
6. Tony-to-Tony (Campolo to Jones): “Don’t Emerge” —
   

   “Don’t emerge. The Church needs you to not emerge. Keep being emergent. Keep saying what you’re not. Keep saying what you’re against. Be a prophetic voice in the Church, ’cause as soon as you say, ‘OK we’re done being against, we’re done kind of calling out the failings of the modern church, the weaknesses of the modern church,’ then you will become something, and you’ll no longer be Emergent. Then you’ll start ‘workin’ for The Man.’ You’ll become part of the big institution.”

   Good perspective; most people keep saying we emergenty-types should all stop being so negative… but as Campolo says, that isn’t really the point. It’s hard to actually reform without pointing out what’s wrong.

7. Darryl Dash nails The problem with the church with two words (literally) from G. K. Chesterton.
8. Ben Sternke: Scot McKnight on how we read the Bible — Scot is doing some work on this at the moment (watch his blog, tips Ben). I notice there isn’t a dartboard, roulette wheel, or piggy-bank in the list.
9. Emergent-phobia at its’ worst. Somebody give these people A Major Award.
10. I really enjoyed the story of Lainie Petersen’s Port-Wine Suitor. You can’t make stuff like that up, and she tells it well… with an appropriately-continued lack of understanding.
11. Ben Witherington on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran Exhibit.
12. Classic photos of the way things were — great nostalgia stop.
13. Ladies’ Home Journal predictions from 100 years ago on what would happen in the upcoming century. The Economist only looks ahead one year.
14. I know I shouldn’t have, but for some reason I thought of the church growth movement when I saw a certain cartoon from Hugh McLeod. Some of us had bad experiences, okay? Maybe if we didn’t treat people like sh-— okay, never mind.
15. Cool Art from Everyday Objects: that poor frog. I like the reading light. ;^)
16. A poster from Jen Lemen: if anything, it starts out too happy for me, but it’s so full of good practices…

I’m going to skip anything Advent or Christmas -related… we’ll be onto that soon enough. Johannine Advent Blogging starts tomorrow… or today, for some! Don’t go too far away, now.

And hey — alright, look!