A Better Response to Abortion Begins with a Better Question

January brought us the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and with it, an opportunity to reflect and ask God what he thinks about the current Christian response to abortion. Through the past several decades, we have seen countless articles on the morality of abortion and whether or not it should be legal, but as the president of a non-profit dedicated to helping women face unplanned pregnancies, there is one question I rarely hear asked or addressed: Why? Why do women have abortions?

And this is the question at the root of it all. If we can understand the reason behind abortion, we can pursue many more paths to help women and children—and then legislation will no longer seem like our only way to address this issue.

Say No To Ministry Porn

One of the things I appreciated about last week’s Global Church Advancement conference is that there were no big names, except of course for Ed Stetzer, who warned us against chasing after big names.

Steve Childers, founder and president of GCA, explained why they don’t bring in the big names. He wants to avoid what he calls ministry porn. His definition of porn goes something like this (I wish I could remember the exact wording):

porn – an unrealistic depiction of something that doesn’t exist that robs you of what you already have that’s good and beautiful
I love it. It’s a good definition of porn in general, and it certainly applies to the ministry as well.

10 Ways to Ensure I’ll Never Revisit your Church

1. Offer no easy way to plug in to community.
2. Don’t be welcoming in the parking lot.
3. Don’t acknowledge I’m in the service.
4. Acknowledge me too much.
5. Don’t give much thought or care to your kids ministry.
6. Pass the offering bucket twice.
7. Don’t share the Gospel, or challenge me spiritually.
8. Ask me to give me your email address, then spam me.
9. Visit me at home.
10. Pastor: disappear as soon as you finish preaching.

The Fairy Tale of Gun Control

A lot of fairy tales end with a moral. I guess the moral of my tale is: even writers of ancient fairy tales knew you couldn’t destroy or hide all the weapons of evil in the world. We can try our best, but eventually we all come face to face with choices. Perhaps the best we can do is to educate ourselves and our children about the potential evils and pray that, when we come face to face with these evils, we will choose to leave them untouched.

Applebee’s fires waitress who posted receipt from pastor complaining about auto-tip

An Applebee’s waitress who posted a receipt with a note from a pastor complaining about the automatic gratuity added to the bill on the Internet was fired on Wednesday after the pastor complained to her manager.

Is Foreign Aid Bad for Africa? Shirt Charity Spurs Debate

There are some critics who argue that all foreign aid — whether from individuals or nonprofits or governments — is keeping Africa back. A vast body of research shows that foreign aid has done little to spur economic growth in Africa — and may have actually slowed it down. “The long-term solution is not aid. It may seem cruel that aid should stop, but really it should,” says Rasna Warah, a Kenyan newspaper columnist and editor of the anthology Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits, a call to arms against aid. “Africa is the greatest dumping ground on the planet. Everything is dumped here. The sad part is that African governments don’t say no — in fact, they say, ‘Please send us more.’ They’re abdicating responsibility for their own citizens.”

Police not amused by motorcyclist’s freeway marriage proposal

The video shows several hundred motorcyclists slow to a stop and then surround a biker who promptly released a plume of pink smoke, removed his helmet and dropped to one knee to propose to his girlfriend, who had been riding on the back of the bike. She appeared to be shocked by the proposal, but she accepted it.