I wonder though if there is a limit for copying material. Have you ever sat in a sermon and thought, “I’ve heard that illustration before.” Anytime a pastor starts out with a story about some young kid in class, I can guess what’s coming. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard variants of John Piper’s “look Lord my shell collection.” I won’t lie and say I’ve never borrowed material. I even changed details, like many pastors, in order to make it personal. Pastors do that because a personal anecdote has more impact.

Where is the line (if there is one)? What about when every small town church in America was doing 40 days of Purpose? What if a pastor purchased the transcript of a sermon online, then repeated it with the same voice inflection and dramatic pauses at those crucial moments? There are quite a few sites where you can do this and there are quite a few pastors who have been using this method. Some pastors have even lost their jobs when their congregation found out.

Are these pastors just utilizing those who have been given the gift of expository preaching and creative imagery? (1 Corinthians 12:12-30) Or does the pastor have a responsibility to his congregation, who pays him, to meditate and interpret the Scriptures specifically for them? (Acts 6:2-4, 1 Peter 5:1-2) There seems to be a celebrity status given recently to head pastors of large churches. Maybe if we didn’t seek out celebrity preachers in a church, then others wouldn’t feel so much pressure to entertain. (1 Timothy 5:17-18)

Another quick worst case scenario thought…what if only a few “gifted” pastors are writing the content, then pastors around the world are preaching it word for word. How much power does that put in the hands of the writers? They are no longer writing for 10 thousand but 10 million or more.

Why are artist covering other people’s songs so frequently? And I don’t just mean a cover of a hymn or bringing some classic song into relevance. I am talking about currently popular songs that are just getting sung by another artist. I have never seen this in any other genre of music. Can you imagine if Fergie covered a song off of Mariah Carey’s brand new album? It sounds weird but this is happening in “Christian” music. The only close thing I can think of in other genres is maybe when a Weird Al parody is on the charts at the same time as the original.

The song “Beautiful One” was written by Tim Hughes and released on an album of his. Then it was covered and released by Jeremy Camp and By The Tree with in a year of each other. I’ve heard similar things with the songs “Everlasting God” and “How Great is our God”.

I can understand using these songs in leading worship, but releasing them on an album confuses me. I have thought about complaining because it makes Christian artists seem lazy or unoriginal. And I could talk about how there should be plenty of inspiration to write songs when the topic is an infinite God. But really I just think this thing is bizarre.

Bibles have to be printed on special thin paper in order for them to be portable. This paper is similar to the paper used to make cigarettes. China has taken quite a liking to smoking and a billion people can go through a lot of cigarettes (about 2 trillion that is). This has resulted in the cost of Bible paper to go up. So if your chosen soapbox happens to be anti-smoking, then China is where you need to start preaching.

Most of you will probably just laugh this off since in the Bible, God the Father is never referred to as female and you’ve never seen a female picture of Jesus (though never a non-white Jesus either). However a little research will reveal that the Hebrew word for Spirit (ruwach), is actually a feminine noun. And the Greek for Spirit (pneuma) is gender neutral. I’m sure you understand that actual gender is in no ways an effect of what type of grammar is used. And the Apostle John seems to be very convinced that the Spirit is masculine (see John 1:32, 14:17, 14:26, 15:26). You may also ponder how you assign gender to a deity who wouldn’t seem to have a need for gender specific body parts.

Regardless of whether you care or not, Dr. Mohler talks about this growing trend as well as the trend away from “loaded” terms such as Lord.

Reporter Stephanie Innes, describing the “Come & See” worship service at St. Philip’s, noted: “There’s not much Lord in this church service.” It may well be that more accurate words have never been used in such a report — or more damning.

Read Dr. Mohler’s article here and let me know which gender God you prefer.

60% of church-goers are women and there are manlier ways to be a Christian that what we were taught growing up

The whole premise of the conference is to prevent men from getting the idea that in order to be a Christian you have to take on passivity and weakness. They even go as far as to say “a meek and mild Jesus is eventually a bore.”

This is a growing trend in Christianity with men trying to focus on being a Christian, but also being a manly man. The lack of leadership in the Church from men seems to be a fairly common issue raised by various Christian leaders, so it appears that this movement could be addressing a need. Although the Power Team has been at it for years, the movement seems to have caught fire from John Eldredge’s book Wild at Heart, specifically the first chapter using William Wallace from Braveheart as an analogy to Christ. I only say this because the movie Braveheart is always mentioned at least once every time you hear talk about this movement.

If conferences like these lead to men who take leadership in the Church then it is hard to bash, though we probably would be wise not to leave virtues like kindness and meekness behind. Like most movements, it probably errs on the side that is lacking (in this case the masculine side). If this movement takes off, then I’m sure a hyper-feminine one will follow and Sleepless in Seattle will be made into an allegory to the Gospel.

On a related note, I would like to humbly confess proudly boast that I did see the Power Team in person about a decade ago and yes they ripped a telephone book in half. Please leave judgmental and sarcastic comments as you feel appropriate.