A wander around blogdom

Quite a few interesting posts the last two days around the blogosphere:

Jim West points to a humorous post by Stephen Carlson about "On this day." I like this one:
"On Feb. 21, 303, Origen interpreted Matt 19:12 literally. Later that afternoon, he founds the Alexandrian school of allegorical interpretation." Ouch! I think I would have too!

The Heresy has a nice series of posts musing on churchs, church growth, etc. I like the top 20, my favorite is the 20th—
20 Lastly, set up a blog on church planting. Link to other bloggers on church planting. They link to you. Add smoke and mirrors.

A Place for the God-Hungry has a nice post on silence, not the good kind:

# You pour out your heart to your friend and your friend doesn't respond. In fact, she changes the subject. No positive response. No negative response. Nothing.
# You write a letter of serious concerns to your minister or other church leaders. You never hear a reply.
# You express some deep personal concerns to your Dad or Mom in an e-mail. These were difficult for you to write. You never hear back from your parents.
# You share a struggle with a small group of friends. Silence. Everyone sits there and looks at you. No response.
# You express an opinion in a class. The teacher doesn't even acknowledge what you said. He is silent for a few seconds and then moves on with his material. For a moment you feel quite silly.
# You volunteer to help and no one says anything in response. Nothing.

He follows it up with some good insights.

House Church Blog has an older (February 18th) post on The Participatory Gathering—
"Having come from a "presentation service" background (in which I was doing much of the presenting), I LOVE participatory gatherings in which every person engages in the process of digging into Scripture and drawing out of God’s word His teaching and His living message for the moment. I so enjoy seeing people recognize that he/she is fully capable of going to Scripture, encountering God and truth, and sharing that truth with others. I love seeing this process take place within community and am constantly in awe of the way in which God’s word is expressed through every person present."

The Jesus Community has a good post on humility, picking up on something Scot McKnight said yesterday:

"Humility is able to see how one fits into the big picture. Not thinking too highly of where one fits nor thinking too low. Humility is quick to see the good and contribution of others.

"Humility at its base has to do with identity. Self-identity. Knowing God. Respecting and appreciating others."

And Lawson Stone has moved his blog to here.

Enough for now...since I would run out of time to comment on Joe Cathey's post on Michael Card, Jim West's post about the Garbini book, the discussion I am having with Ginny Lindzey about actually reading Latin versus decoding it (hopefully more on that later)...