Read anything interesting, surprising, captivating this week? I’ve been laying low, doing some offline reading and fighting for some equilibrium. Nonetheless, I’ve got a short list for the week… the “unfinished reading” list is much longer. Here’s a good quote, though:

It is a universal tendency in the Christian religion, as in many other religions, to give a theological interpretation to institutions which have developed gradually through a period of time for the sake of practical usefulness, and then read that interpretation back into the earliest periods and infancy of these institutions, attaching them to an age when in fact nobody imagined that they had such a meaning.

— Patristic Scholar Richard Hanson, quoted in Pagan Christianity: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices, p.105. I hope to have my review up this coming week… perhaps I’ll even dub it “Pagan Week” around here. Meantime, on to the linkage…

1. Whew.
2. Those with an interest in Emergence theory… TED Talk: how ants know what to do.
3. Dubious or not, I like the conclusion.
4. TSK links up Brian McLaren at Davos
5. Hamo the inverted missional architecht
6. Darryl Dash on The Bruised Reed
7. Grow your own priest
8. Trouble for Mark Driscoll?
9. Happy 10^th to The Next Wave this month; Andrew Jones gives tribute.
10. Jonny Baker on a new mission shaped intro from Fresh Expressions.
11. On that note, BIblical Seminary’s Online Learning now includes a Certificate in Missional Theology (via)
12. Overcontextualization: “When the Greeks got the gospel, they turned it into a philosophy; when the Romans got it, they turned it into a government; when the Europeans got it, they turned it into a culture; when the American’s got it, they turned it into a business.”
13. Lent is coming… Christine Sine says Make Lent Matter
14. Free audio: The Three Musketeers
15. The Old Bill is gearing up for Jesus FlicFest 3 — an interesting project that seems to be gaining steam in its third year.
16. A Reformed Baptist Pastor Talks About the Writings of the Emergent Church — favorably! (via)
17. An Underground, Insurgent Movement — “Perhaps the church is neither emerging nor re-structuring so much as re-claiming its true nature as an underground, insurgent movement.” Preludes from a yet-to-be-published book, The New Conspirators by Tom Sine that looks quite interesting… “joining the conspiracy of the insignificant”: I love that phrase.
18. Len on “a middle way“
19. Some unfinished reading on Faith Communities in The “Work From Home” Generation, with links to follow up on third places, social networking… and the Internet as a third place? Not sure it qualifies… hhmmm.
20. Late addition: Scot McKnight calls Dan Kimball’s What If? the post of the week.