From around the Web this week

A man in South Africa, thought to be dead by friends and family, woke up after spending 21 hours in a morgue refrigerator. Workers went screaming from the building after hearing his screams thinking he was a ghost. Lots of applications from this one from thoughts on the resurrection to what it's like to mistake a person for being dead.

CNN's Faith Blog listed ten things they learned in their first year of existence.  Included in their findings, Atheist like to comment on religious stories; Americans, though very religious, don't actually know much about religion; and people are still interested in the Bible.

What does your church communicate about its beliefs through its Sunday morning worship service?  Skye Jethani, senior editor of Leadership Journal writes about his 9-year-old daughter's encounter with two different churches: one liturgical and one contemporary.  In one church she notices the cross, the Bible, and communion.  In the other, she notices they have a coffee shop.  Worth your read.

Finally, to brag on my wife, she has written an excellent piece about grief, the church, and learning to worship not only with, but for one another.

Around the web this week

Here are articles I've found interesting around the web this past week.

One of my professors, Roger Olson, asks the question, "Whatever happened to the cross?"  His thoughts apply to worship in general, but certainly are good reading for the preacher.  Olson writes, "The cross, properly, biblically understood and not reduced to a martyrdom, is scandalous. But it is a scandal central to the gospel and therefore to Christianity. I am not sure one can find Christianity where the cross is absent or diminished in importance." After reading his article, the preacher is left reflecting upon the question, "How often am I preaching the scandalous good news of the cross?

Christian singer/songwriter, Shaun Groves, writes about the difficulty of finding just the right word for a song about God.  He sounds like a preacher when he confesses, "I write about God because I love Him deeply. And yet because I love Him, I’m afraid to write about Him."

In England, a six year old girl wrote a letter to God and the Bishop of Canterbury answered on God's behalf. Read his well-crafted answer here.