Here is a great church sign for all my friends up north:

Do I hear any amens?

HT: Pure Church

“Though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say that I am not what I once was — a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle and acknowledge, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am.’” (Reference: John Newton, commenting on 1 Corinthians 15:10)

I am fascinated with the emergence of the Ebook market and try to read everything I can on the subject. I would have loved to attend the O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference this week (my brother was there), but now that they are putting some of the addresses online, I am doing my best to catch up. Here is a great presentation on Ebooks and how technology is impacting the publishing industry.

Are Ebooks Dead? -Skip Prichard (Video length: 19:52)

Michael Hyatt of Thomas Nelson Publishing has a good summary of the conference here: The O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference, along with some great quotes from the conference. The money quote as far as I am concerned? “Obscurity is a bigger problem for authors than piracy.” (Tim O’Reilly; see also linked article below) As the book industry enters the digital age, publishers need to look carefully at the early missteps taken by the music industry and avoid making the same mistakes.

What are your thoughts on Ebooks and how they will change book reading and publishing?

Related article: David Pogue Revisits DRM Question about Ebooks

From Friday’s New York Times:

By mid-2010, there will be 6.8 billion humans on this planet. According to United Nations estimates, there also will be five billion cellphone subscriptions. These are astonishing numbers. What is still more astonishing, and hopeful, is the breadth of change this number reflects.

The United Nations says that right now 80 percent of the world’s population has available cell coverage. The fastest adoption of cellphone use is occurring in some of the world’s poorest places.

Cellphones are cheap, their batteries can be easily recharged with solar power and they are creating nothing short of a revolution: knitting rural communities together, sowing information, and altering the most basic assumptions about health care and finance. Anyone who has traveled to Africa recently can vouch for these changes.

In nearly every sizable town or city, there are dozens of tiny kiosks where phones can be rented or repaired and subscriptions can be purchased. In regions where communications used to be nearly impossible, cellphones are essential to social innovation. This means everything from microfinance and electronic credit, via SMS, to better networking among health care workers and their patients.

Five billion cell phone subscriptions out of 6.8 billion people on the planet is truly a straggering statistic. How will the world going mobile change life as we know it? Your thoughts?

The Norfolk Examiner picked up my Lenten Series in an article today. Here is the link: How can Protestant grandparents help grandchildren understand the Lenten season? Thanks, Cindy, for a nice write-up!

This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday marking the beginning of Lent. Last year I wrote up a series of articles dealing with Lent that generated some good discussion. For your convenience I have posted the links to each article below.

Lenten Series:
    1. What is Lent?
    2. Should Christians Celebrate Lent?
    3. Should I Give Something Up for Lent?
    4. What is Ash Wednesday?
    5. What is Maundy Thursday?
    6. What is Good Friday?
    7. What is Easter?

Trackback: Norfolk Examiner: How can Protestant grandparents help grandchildren understand the Lenten season?

Lifeway Research recently conducted a survey asking Protestant pastors to “name the top three living Christian preachers that most influence you.” Billy Graham topped the list followed by Chuck Swindoll, Charles Stanley and Rick Warren. Here is the complete list:

1. Billy Graham, preacher, evangelist, founder of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
2. Charles Swindoll, senior pastor of Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas, and founder of Insight for Living Ministries.
3. Charles Stanley, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Atlanta, and founder of In Touch Ministries.
4. Rick Warren, senior pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and author of the best-selling book, “The Purpose-Driven Life.”
5. John MacArthur, pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, Calif., and president and featured teacher of the Grace to You ministry.
6. Barbara Brown Taylor, religion teacher at Piedmont College in northeast Georgia and author of 12 books including “An Altar in the World.”
7. David Jeremiah, founder of Turning Point Radio and Television Ministries and senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in San Diego County, Calif.
8. Max Lucado, minister of writing and preaching at the Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas, and the recipient of three Christian Book of the Year awards.
9. John Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis and author of more than 30 books, including “Desiring God.”
10. Andy Stanley, senior pastor of North Point Community Church, Buckhead Church, and Browns Bridge Community Church – all in the Atlanta area – and founder of North Point Ministries.

I am familiar with most of these names, and I would say most of them have had a positive influence in my life. Still, none of them have influenced me as much as the pastors who have faithfully preached God’s word to me over the years in the various churches where I have attended.

Focus on the Family’s 30-second Super Bowl ad featuring 2007 Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow is stirring up attention all over the place — and it hasn’t even aired yet! Focus on the Family Vice President for Pastoral Ministries H.B. London shares the inside scoop:

Would you believe all the commotion and publicity the 30-second Super Bowl® ad sponsored by Focus on the Family has received?

By our estimates — and they are pretty accurate — the pre-Super Bowl hype of the “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life” ad has registered to date 2,265,490,170 impressions. That is “billion” with a “B.” Amazing!

The interesting thing about all of this is that no one in the media has seen the ad. And, unless there is a big leak before Sunday, no one will see it until it is shown during the Super Bowl pre-game show and the first quarter of the game itself.

Another interesting phenomenon is that, even those in the liberal media who have opposed us before — and disagree even now with most of what we stand for at Focus on the Family — are defending our right to run the Super Bowl ad.

On February 2, 2010, The Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins wrote, “I’m pro-choice and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I’ve heard in the past week, I’ll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the ‘National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women all the time’ (referring to the group NOW). They aren’t actually ‘pro-choice’ so much as they are pro-abortion.”

She continues, “If the pro-choice stance is so precarious that a story about someone who chose to carry a risky pregnancy to term undermines it, then CBS is not the problem.”

Interestingly enough — a little inside stuff here — our Super Bowl ad never mentions abortion. Also, as we have reported in other columns, not one dollar was spent from our regular operating expenses at Focus on the Family to underwrite the cost of the “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life” ad.

You can read the Sally Jenkins article mentioned here: Tebow’s Super Bowl ad isn’t intolerant; its critics are. And don’t forget to watch for the commercial during the Super Bowl on Sunday. It will air twice: once during the pre-game show and then again during the first quarter.