Among the bloggers at Christian Post are a significant number of authors. For that reason we wanted to share this infographic about self-publishing from lulu.com.

With the rise of eReaders, digital publishing has grown and new marketplaces have emerged.

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The Memorial Day weekend has arrived and the summer vacation season has begun in the United States. Last year TopStockAnalysts.com reported, "The average American household spent more than $670 on vacation homes and hotels."

This infographic from Teletext Holidays, a British Travel Agency, reports that the average vacation for the British costs 621.91 pounds.

In recent years Christian mission agencies have been putting together family mission trips allowing families to spend their vacation time sharing the gospel.

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By Jake Belder

It is common to hear Christians talk about “living in the light of eternity.” Not too long ago, there was a popular video going around in which Francis Chan talked about this very thing, using a long rope as an illustration. The Bible, of course, speaks of this too—Paul says that “we fix our eyes not on what is seen but what is unseen. For…what is unseen is eternal (2 Cor. 4:18). And the glorious vision of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 gives us great hope for an eternal life in the new creation.

While such a perspective is clearly biblical, it needs to be understood properly. When people begin to think in these categories, a common temptation is to view life as split into two areas: spiritual things that matter and that have eternal significance, and everything else, which does not. This perspective is not true to Scripture, and doesn’t honour the confession that most Christians—despite the glaring inconsistency—are eager to make: that Christ is Lord over all.

What then does it mean to live in the light of eternity? It begins with recognising that the “all” in the statement above refers to the whole of created reality. This is where the root of the problem often lies, for many Christians have a narrow view of creation that does not go beyond the physical stuff that we can see and touch. But creation includes the whole of our creaturely existence, the norms and laws and structures that God has woven into the fabric of reality that guide and give shape to our life on this earth. FULL POST

By Eric McKiddie

One of the joys of preaching is that it presents the challenge of getting better every week. Here are the top 40 ways I’m trying to raise my game based on the preaching experience the Lord has graciously provided me.

1. Progress. You don’t have everything about preaching figured out after 400 sermons. You’re just getting started. This short video does a great job of summing up what is going on in your first few hundred trips to the pulpit.

2. Feedback. Your best sermons are ones you get feedback on before you preach them. Let someone you trust go to town on your outline in the middle of the week.

3. Sin. You don’t have a sermon until you know what sin you’re preaching against. Until then, it’s either a lecture, or a devotional.

4. Pray, pray, pray.

5. Illustrations. The four keys to getting good at sermon illustrations are: 1) knowing where to find them, 2) knowing where to keep them, 3) knowing how to write them, and 4) lots of practice. FULL POST

By Robin Schumacher

The Destruction of Jericho

Critics of God’s actions in the Old Testament specifically cite the following verse as a perfect example of ‘overkill’ in how God dealt with Israel’s enemies: "They [Israel] utterly destroyed everything in the city [Jericho], both man and woman, young and old, and ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword" (Joshua 6:21). How, they ask, could God look with approval on the death of women and young people? Richard Dawkins, chronicling what he believes to be crimes committed by God, says that the taking of Jericho is “morally indistinguishable from Hitler’s invasion of Poland, or Saddam Hussein’s massacres of the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs.”1 Is this really the case?

The answer to that question, and the overall justification for the destruction of Jericho, becomes more clear when one does a little research on the Canaanites who populated the city.

Canaan, who was a descendant of Ham (cf. Gen. 10:6), was cursed by Noah for an act that Scripture is not too clear about (cf. Gen. 9:20-25). His descendants became an incredibly sinful people who practiced extreme cruelty, incest, idolatry, bestiality, homosexuality, cultic prostitution, and child sacrifice (by throwing their own children into altars of fire). God warned Israel to not mimic Canaan’s ways: “When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer” (Deut. 18:9-10). FULL POST

By Robin Schumacher

A Response to Critics’ Objections

From the above examples, it would seem that those questioning God’s justice, love, and mercy have a fairly solid position in their complaints. However, let’s now dig a little deeper into each example and see if there isn’t more to each story than what appears on the surface when single sets of verses are clipped from the text and used to attack the character of God.

The Genesis Flood

In Genesis 6, God’s judgment upon the world at large is found in these words: “The Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them”" (Gen. 6:7). While the universal flood certainly seems extreme on the surface, there are a number of factors that should be kept in mind.

First, the Bible makes it clear that violence and evil had grown to be extremely pervasive so that it literally touched everything and everyone that existed at that time. Genesis 6:5 states: “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” The author of the Pentateuch indicates that some of the sin was sexual in nature (cf. Gen. 6:1-2), and that the evil permeated and filled the earth. This erases the argument that God drowned ‘innocent’ people in the flood that He brought. FULL POST

By Robin Schumacher

In his book The God Delusion, atheist Richard Dawkins writes a scathing rendition of God as he sees Him in the Old Testament. Dawkins says: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”1 Such words are echoed by atheist Charles Templeton who states: “The God of the Old Testament is utterly unlike the God believed in by most practicing Christians … His justice is, by modern standards, outrageous…. He is biased, querulous, vindictive, and jealous of his prerogatives.”2

What is it in the Old Testament that elicits such strong language from Dawkins and Templeton who want nothing to do with God? What causes others like Thomas Paine to write: “Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the work of a demon, than the word of God.”3 FULL POST

By Danny Franks

Let’s face it: most of us live in a Christian bubble. We only listen to K-Love, we only watch 47 Kids and Counting (being careful to fast forward through the icky TLC commercials), we only eat at Chick Fil A on Tuesdays from 10:00-11:30 AM, because that’s when we’ve determined that most pagans don’t visit there and thereby risk infecting our kids with pagan cooties.

That’s why it’s important to step back from time to time and think about what we’re saying at our churches. If you are a part of a church that presents the full gospel, then you are not presenting an “I’m okay, you’re okay” message. You’re presenting an “I’m a wicked sinner who was rescued by Jesus, and unless he rescues you you’ll split hell wide open” message.

That’s not very touchy-feely. As a matter of fact, it’s downright offensive. Paul noted that offense in 1 Corinthians 1:18: “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

Many churches have chosen to reply to that offense by dumbing down the message. Rather than talk about sin, they talk about shortcomings and character flaws. Rather than present Jesus as the truer and better anything, they present 12 keys to a better you. The seeker-friendly movement has produced quite a few good conversation points that I would agree with, but one of the key problems is that it’s robbed the gospel of its power. FULL POST

By Brad Hambrick

Every church ought to have the best possible sexual abuse prevention policies in their children’s ministry. These should be followed closely and reviewed regularly. But what happens when evil slips through the cracks of even the best policies and procedures? How does the church respond then? How should the church care for the victim, the victim’s parents, the alleged perpetrator, and cooperate with the legal authorities?

What is most frightening is that by the time a child molester gets caught he/she has on average 50-100 victims. How does the church find and care for the other children who have likely been abused? How does the church communicate with its people, community, and media who all want answers when these tragedies occur?

How is the situation different when the sexual abuse is by a minor against a minor instead of by an adult against a minor?

These are sickening questions. Unfortunately, they are so uncomfortable that most churches have not attempted to answer them. These questions go on the list of policies every church needs and no church has.

After 8 years of serving as a counselor at a parachurch counseling center, I came to The Summit Church in January of 2011. While in the parachurch setting I was contacted by several churches facing this type of scenario (both adult-to-minor abuse and minor-to-minor abuse). It was scary and painful to try to provide guidance. Answers were hard and time was short. The victim and family often got lost in just trying to figure out what could-should be done. FULL POST

By Rev. Austin Miles

They quietly occupy more places than suspected. They may be on a road crew, in an office, factory, bakery, science lab or even in hospitals. They might be school teachers, receptionists, or dental assistants. Be observant.

A stand-out worker seems calm when others are frantic, never complains, ready to help a fellow worker, and keeps a positive attitude backed by an accepting smile. Perhaps this worker should be checked out.

One Christian in the workplace is, Dr. John Dearborn, the head of orthopedic surgery at Washington Hospital in Fremont, California. He helped pioneer a center for hip and knee replacement surgeries, a field that scarcely existed 40 years ago. And Dr. Dearborn (46) is considered one of the best in that field.

He graduated from Stanford University, discovered orthopedics at the U.C. San Francisco School of Medicine and interned in Boston.

"I get to help the lame walk, and give the Lord credit," the doctor said. He begins his day at 4:45 AM at the edge of his bed praying silently for strength, for healing, and for success in his upcoming day's work. FULL POST