Ever wonder what M.C. Escher would have done with Lego if he’d had it as a kid? (via)

Around here this past week, we’ve been having some good post-charismatic discussion on The Shepherding Movement, following up on Mixed Roots and From Discipleship to Control: A Quick Vocabulary Review. In a related vein, Former Leader is talking about The Theology of TheEnd Time Harvest and What It Produced in My CLB

So what do you get when your parakeet flies into your blender? Shredded Tweet.

Fact of the day:

Potato chips were invented in 1853 at Saratoga Springs, New York, where chef George Crum of Moon’s Lake House shaved potatoes paper thin and sent them out to a patron who had completed that his French fries were too thick. The customers were delighted, ordered more, and encouraged Crum to open up his own restaurant. Crum’s new restaurant had people standing in line to get potato chips. Wise potato chips were introduced in 1921 by grocer Earl V. Wise as a way of dealing with overstocked and old potatoes. He sold them in brown paper bags the then in cellophane starting in the 1930s.

1. I first met my friend Rickard Bjerkander at Seabeck this past October, and I loved his take on the work he does at The Landing, and the stories that he and Lori shared with a few of us around meals, coffee, couches, and walking from place to place. As Rickard and I talked, it seemed to be all about “presence,” a theme that resonated with both of us. (When I got home I told my kids I was now friends with a Viking.) Chris Folmsbee writes about his meeting with Rickard last week and his take on the work there. Rickard talks about the meeting as well, with what appears to be a good book recommendation for anyone in youth ministry… from the title, it certainly hits the theme that Rickard and I resonated with.
2. Jamie Arpin Ricci: a conversation between God and St. Francis.
3. New Tim Keller Website: The Reason for God — to go with the book, obviously: The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
4. Ed Stetzer gives a quick overview of a new book that looks quite interesting, Bob Roberts’ The Multiplying Church: The New Math for Starting New Churches.
5. I quite enjoyed Erin Word’s reflection on the sorting-through of her grandparents’ accumulation of memories over a lifetime.
6. Matt Stone’s we need to reconsider the meaning of heaven.
7. 10 Amazing Tree Houses from Around the World
8. if you could have Only 15 Pages of your Bible, which would they be?
9. One Last Shake: no more instant film from Polariod.
10. The evolution of a worshipper: looks about right to me.
11. iTunes hacked to allow copying of legally-purchased music.
12. And now for something completely different: an Albino Moose
13. Dave DeVries has been churning out some good stuff in the past week or two: Take a Missional Tour of Your City and “Being Missional”: 50+ Ways to Initiate are two examples.
14. This will get you thinking: David Fitch, The Bridge Illustration: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone? — “the ways we have often practiced the salvation we receive in Christ, and by derivation discipleship, have trained us as a people for moral duplicity.”
15. Michael Patton has been running an interesting series on the emerging church, with a diagram that after revision still has a few people talking, or scratching their heads… see Would the Real Emerger Please Stand Up – Part 4 – Comparing Fundamentalists, Evangelicals, and Emergers — I’m not sure how Don Carson got to the center of evangelicalism or how Emergent got slotted squarely outside orthodox Christianity. And is it appropriate to suggest that orthodox Christianity takes the same form as evangelicalism? Lots of food for thought when we’re done being riled up about it. The next part, Would the Real Emerger Please Stand Up? – Part 5 – Are You Emerging? suggests five ways that you could be “emerging” — Ecclesiologically, Sociologically, Theologically, Epistemologically, and Politically. I’m interested to hear people’s thoughts.
16. Len Hjalmarson: missional order – two lenses
17. In reflecting on a discussion of the religious police on the emerging churches lack of priority…, Ron Cole gets onto the subject of what is the nature of sin.
18. Interview with Brian McLaren: A battle cry for Christian reform
19. Scot McKnight on a missionary dictionary
20. David J. Bosch on re-appropriating the ‘Incarnational model’ in Western Missions… and the gospels are not “passion histories with extensive introductions.”
21. It’s almost a month old now, but in case you missed it: Brad Sargent’s Taxonomies of Emergence, Part 1 – Where Do We Fit? “Ummm … what’s my one category again, please? Oh, yike-a-bee!”
22. Kingdom Grace is beginning a “Monday” series on missional orders. Stay tuned.
23. Chocolate and Lent: Bissinger’s takes hit Who knew? Before Lent is done, allow me to highly recommend watching Chocolat at least once. Discuss.

Lighter fare — I guess I’m not one of “The Oceanic Six,” but at least I get to come back from the dead and visit people. Oddly, I now have the inexplicable lyric, “You all, everybody!” stuck in my head. I’ve never been addicted to drugs, though — just for the record.

Which Lost Character Are You?