Here is a follow-up to yesterday’s post on You Might Be a Pastor.

You might be a pastor’s wife if …

• Every summer you counsel at teen camp for your vacation.
• You have shaken as many hands as a politician.
• People think your husband works only three hours a week.
• You can teach Sunday School and nurse your baby at the same time.
• You can sincerely pray for someone’s dog!
• You spend more time visiting in hospitals than doctors do.
• People consider you a walking phone book for church members.
• You sing in the choir, teach Sunday School, and host a missionary family all in the same day.
• You’re expected to be a piano player … actually, a “spiritual gift!”

Source: You Might Be a Pastor’s Wife If, by Kathy Slamp

Related posts:
    • You Might Be a Pastor If …
    • The Pastor’s Dog

Well, after a full day of cooking, cleaning, driving, shopping, homeschooling, grading and keeping house, one of my sons said to me, “Dad, you look beat!” Then he thought for a minute and added, “You look like Mom usually does around this time of day.” I told Rose, and she loved it.

Click here for more Mr. Mom posts.

H. B. London shared some of these at a recent pastors’ seminar:

You might be a pastor if …

• You hesitate to tell people what you do for a living.
• You’ve ever wondered why people couldn’t die at more appropriate times.
• You find yourself counting people at a sporting event.
• You’re leading the church into the 21st century, but you don’t know what you’re preaching on Sunday.
• Instead of getting “ticked off,” you get “grieved in your spirit.”
• You often feel like you’re herding cats rather than shepherding sheep.
• You’ve been tempted to take up an offering at a family reunion.

And my personal favorite:

• You’ve ever dreamed you were preaching only to awaken and discover you were!

Related posts:
    • You Might Be a Pastor’s Wife If …
    • The Pastor’s Dog

Jerry Bridges shares some wise words about grace. “Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace, nor are your best days ever so good that you are beyond the need of it.” (Jerry Bridges, Discipline of Grace)

Mark Roberts talks about American Idol and the need for honest critique in our lives. “I wonder sometimes if I need a Simon Cowell in my life. I wonder if you do. As hard as it may be to hear the truth about ourselves when it isn’t nice, sometimes we do need to hear this truth.” (Of course, we can all use a Paula Abdul for encouragement as well!)

John Stott comments on Jesus’ words about being salt and light in the world (Matthew 5:13-14). “So Jesus calls his disciples to exert a double influence on the secular community, a negative influence by arresting its decay and a positive influence by bringing light into its darkness. For it is one thing to stop the spread of evil; it is another to promote the spread of truth, beauty and goodness.” (John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on The Mount)

Most Americans say they would visit a church if invited by a family member, neighbor or a friend.

A recent study by the North American Mission Board (NAMB) and LifeWay Research found that 67 percent of Americans say a personal invitation from a family member would be effective in getting them to visit a church. A personal invitation from a friend or neighbor would effectively reach 63 percent.

Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) are willing to receive information about a local congregation or faith community from a family member, and 56 percent are willing to receive such information from a friend or neighbor.

“The primary lesson North American believers should learn from this research is that many of your unchurched friends are ready for an invitation to conversation,” said Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research. “Unbelievers next door still need a simple, personal invitation to talk, to be in community and to church.”

So, what are you waiting for? Who will you invite to church this week?

There has been a lot about the evangelical church in the news lately. Scot McKnight highlights the four features of evangelicalism as found in David Bebbington’s book, The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon and Moody. To one degree or another, all evangelicals are characterized by these four features:

1. All evangelicals are committed to the primacy of Scripture for shaping faith and practice. All Tradition, however respected, will have to answer to scriptural warrant. All Praxis will have to answer to scriptural warrant. This approach to faith and practice characterizes evangelicals.
2. All evangelicals are committed to the saving power of the cross. The cross, tied as it is both to the incarnation and to the resurrection, is the act of God that not only unmasks injustice but restores — via substitution — humans to God by dying our death.
3. All evangelicals are committed to new birth as a personal experience. Indeed, the necessity of new birth, of the need for life in the face of death. Evangelicals believe the Christian life begins with new birth, and it is here that most evangelicals tie the power of the Holy Spirit to the saving power of the cross (and resurrection). Evangelicals have always worried about the liturgical and liberal approaches to conversion through sacramental or nurturance processes.
4. All evangelicals are committed to an active Christian life that involves personal pieties like prayer and Bible reading, corporate fellowship like church attendance and participation, and social activism like justice efforts of all sorts, both locally and globally.

What do you think? Do these four features accurately represent evangelicals? I would want to add something about the importance of witness and sharing the gospel, perhaps under point number four of leading an active Christian life.

Aaah, my all-time favorite children’s book is now a movie. Where the Wild Things Are, based on the classic storybook by Maurice Sendak, is scheduled for release on October 16, 2009. Here’s the trailer.

(Video length: 2:05)

“Does Satan really exist?” That is the topic for the third Nightline Face-Off. Dan Harris moderated the debate which airs March 26, 2009 on ABC.

On one side of the debate is Deepak Chopra, famous philosopher and author of “Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment” and Bishop Carlton Pearson, author of “The Gospel of Inclusion.” They will argue that Satan does not exist … On the other side will be Pastor Mark Driscoll of the Mars Hill Church and Annie Lobert, founder of the international Christian ministry “Hookers for Jesus,” who will argue that the devil does exist, and has made a personal impact on their lives.

You can also watch the debate online here. The Mars Hill Blog has more information at: 8 Things to Know About Nightline’s Satan Debate.

“Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)

Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling announced his retirement earlier this week after 23 years of playing professional baseball. On his blog Monday he offered “two special thank you’s”:

To my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for granting me the ability to step between the lines for 23 years and compete against the best players in the world.

To my wife Shonda and my 4 children, Gehrig, Gabriella, Grant and Garrison for sacrificing their lives and allowing baseball to be mine while I played. Without their unquestioned support I would not have been able to do what I did, or enjoy the life, and I am hopefully going to live long enough to repay them as much as a Father and Husband can.

Thank you and God Bless
Curt Schilling

Congratulations, Curt, on a great career, and may God bless you in your next steps. (Note: You can read more about Curt’s Christian faith here. )

• GPS Bible Study. Tim Challies tries out his new GPS and offers some related thoughts on Bible study.
• On Hyphenated Names. Frederica Mathewes-Green shares the amusing misadventures of taking on a hyphenated married name.
• Bible Memory. Demian Farnworth offers 18 practical tips to help you memorize more Scripture.
• Longevity. Did you know that two of President John Tyler’s grandsons are still alive? “Not great-great-grandsons, not great-grandsons, but grandsons.” President Tyler was born in 1790.

Slate had an interesting article last month about the Internet back in 1996. Here are five facts that jumped out at me.

In 1996:

• Only 20 million American adults had access to the Internet, about as many as subscribe to satellite radio today. (Internet World Stats reports nearly 250 million Internet users in North America today.)
• Americans with Internet access spent fewer than 30 minutes a month surfing the Web. (Today, we spend about 27 hours a month online.)
• You accessed the Internet by dial-up modem, tied up your phone line, and paid by the hour. Plus, it took about 30 seconds to load each page.
• There was not a whole lot to do online. There was no YouTube, Digg, Google, Twitter, Facebook, or Wikipedia. There was no instant messaging or online MP3′s. Amazon was just getting started and only sold books. You mostly checked news, weather and email.
• Yahoo produced its search directory using actual human beings who reviewed new sites and cataloged them. Obviously, this model was unable to keep pace with the growth of the Web.

What do you remember about those early internet days? How do you think the Internet may change in the next decade?

HT: Christ and Pop Culture

Related posts:

• Taming the Internet in the Home
• Media Access for the Next Generation

Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) recently received its first new plane specifically designed for missions.

Manufacturer Quest Aircraft Co. of Sandpoint, Idaho delivered its first KODIAK 100, the first of the next-generation bush planes it produces, to MAF on Thursday. The plane is the long awaited result of the shared vision between MAF and Quest to design an aircraft that can run on jet fuel, which is cheaper than aviation gas (avgas) and in greater supply.

Most of MAF’s fleet is Cessna 206’s (C206), which need avgas that is often in short supply and costly in areas where the mission group operates.

Also, the KODIAK 100 can carry nearly twice the cargo – such as medicine, food or disaster relief supplies – of the C206 and will help MAF dramatically increase delivery while reducing operating costs.

“Aviation, in the minds of many, is the heart and soul of reaching the unreached peoples of the world,” says John Boyd, president and chief executive officer of MAF-USA. “Missionary aircraft can take people into areas where there are no roads. They can deliver food, medicines and other supplies when roads are impassible.”

Profits from the commercial sales of the aircraft will subsidize a portion of the cost for each 11th plane produced. The 11th plane will be delivered to participating non-profit Christian and humanitarian aviation organizations.