Skimming the Blogroll

• Found at Doug Groothius' The Constructive Curmudgeon: 10 characteristics of a genuine Christian counterculture. Real good stuff.

• Found at Dying Church:

  In a world where success is the measure and justification of all things, the figure of him who was sentenced and crucified remains a stranger. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

• Meanwhile, Michael Spencer had the good fortune to spend a few days sitting at the feet of Eugene Peterson. He reports back here. Peterson is quite simply a hero of mine. But his words are often challenging. For example, he recommends that

  we consider the wisdom of saying little, not knowing what to say and using communication with minimal 'wordiness.' He quoted Dickinson that the truth must dazzle gradually.

• Hmmm, speaking of challenging words, the following is a quotation from the visitor's packet distributed at Bart Barber's church:

  So, you’re looking for a church home. What does First Baptist Church have to offer you? We offer you a cross to take up as Christ’s disciple. We offer you the chance to forfeit your vacation to serve a meal in a slum in Thailand, or carry gypsum wallboard up a flight of stairs to install into a Hurricane Katrina victim’s new home in Waveland, Mississippi. We offer you the chance to rush to church after a long Wednesday’s work, don an AWANA shirt, and lead a fifth-grader to a life-changing faith in Christ. We offer you a chance to lose your life, so that you might really find it.
  
  We offer you a weekly confrontation with the Word of God. We promise that it will make us all uncomfortable sometimes. It will challenge our preconceived notions. It will make us think, and it might make us mad. It will ask us whether we’re doing the things that really matter in the long run. When the world says we’re worthless, God’s Word will pick us up and remind us what God thinks about us—God sees the value inside and loves us too much to leave us the way that we are.

  There's more, so go read it all [HT: Already Not Yet]

• But if the church at some level is to challenge people in this way, then I guess it's a good thing that, as John Owen says:

  "The duties that are required of us are not proportioned to the strength residing in us but to the supply laid up for us in Christ."

  Ah, now that's a good word. Thanks, Ray Ortland [at Christ is Deeper Still]