As you know, we always begin Saturday linkage mornings with bad jokes, the popularity of which never ceases to amaze me. So…

What plays music on your head? A head band.

What’s green and pecks on a tree? Woody Wood-pickle.

What’s orange and crawls across the floor? A wounded cheesie.

What happened to guy who farted in church? He sat in his own pew. (Blame Tony Jones for that one!)

How do you kill a blue elephant? With a blue elephant gun.

How do you kill a red elephant? You choke it until it turns blue and shoot is with a blue elephant gun.

How do you kill a yellow elephant? Kick it until it gets mad and turns red, choke it until it turns blue, shoot it with a blue elephant gun.

How do you kill a purple elephant? There is no such thing as a purple elephant!!

That last series from the comments in Frank Viola’s Friday jokes post, which has several more, including variations on:

What do you call a seagull flying over a bay at breakfast time? A bay-gull!

Alright, moving right along… we come to the usual linkage, random or otherwise.

1. The Art of Thank You Note Writing (via Steve McCoy)
2. 10 Things To Like About the ESV Study Bible
3. Len Hjalmarson on navigators versus map readers
4. A lot of people have displayed the graphic of the US Presidents’ faces to show the starkness of the first African-American President. Still, we’re not post-racial yet. But it is progress — as Maureen Dowd said, “The first 16 Presidents of this country could have owned Barack Obama.” This is a good reason to celebrate, and we understand Americans celebrating for this reason. Outside the USA though, there are other reasons to celebrate Obama’s victory… he was the presidential choice of most other nations. Americans may not fully grasp the significance from this perspective, so perhaps Jon Birch can help.
5. For The Want of Seventy Dollars
6. Outstanding RLP: To my daughter at fifteen — nobody who has a daughter should miss this one.
7. Can Dallas Willard teaching on the Sermon on the Mount cause a megachurch about-face?
8. Un-Missional Thinking?
9. Controversial new book: The Shaq
10. Characteristically-defined Church Names
11. Are you like Luther or Calvin in your blogging? Odd that a particular Calvinist blog and the Prince of Preachers that they try to emulate falls so much more in the Luther category than the Calvin one.
12. Interview with Stanley Hauerwas around his new book, Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence (via) He calls himself “a reluctant pacifist.”
13. Speaking of pacifists, a bunch of monks get into a brawl over relics and holy sites.
14. Interview with Bruxy Cavey on his book, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus
15. The Green Bible. No, no, it’s serious — and it has green letters instead of red.
16. Jesus as an Emergent Talker — a little on the chilling side.
17. Pastor Abandons His Church — I was inspired by this, for a while…
18. Unchurched or Unsaved? What Our Vocabulary Reveals About our Beliefs
19. Crossway Announcement of ESV Study Bible on Digital Platforms (via Steve McCoy)
20. Ed Stetzer: Simply missional vs. the Warehouse mentality — some great observations in here.
21. Donald Miller: From Reagan to Obama, a brief Political History
22. Cool. I love doodle-sketch art, whatever you call it. I wish I could draw well enough to document a trip to England as a series of sketches. Of course, I’d have to do the trip first…

Most popular post around here this week: The Liturgical Bob Dylan — and it wasn’t particularly close at all.

We’ll wrap up the linkage this week with one that should stand out — Rick Meigs brought Elizabeth Chapin’s blog to my attention via email this week. Her post, “Would Missional by Any Other Name Sound So Sweet?” is a good overview of some of the voices defining missional, along with some good thoughts of her own. I’ve added her to my feed reader as well since she looks like a very promising voice in this conversation.