Over the next 6 months Logos Bible Software is giving away 72 premium print Bibles on Bible.Logos.com—worth over $11,500.00 in rare and ultra-premium Bibles! That’s 12 winners every month! We’ve made it even easier to win—you can enter up to five different ways every month.

Every month from July thru December, we will give away 12 premium Bibles featuring the most popular translations from Bible.Logos.com, including ESV, KJV, NIV, NASB, NLT, and NKJV. From the finest you can imagine top-end offerings in leather and calfskin—to the limited production run—“only a handful in existence” type heirloom quality of ultra-premium goatskin in a custom-carved Rosewood box imported from England, these Bibles are the top-of-the-line versions and feature the highest quality leather and binding—some are valued at over $400.

With so many Bibles to give away and the opportunity to enter up to 5 different ways each month for six months, your chances to win one of these 72 distinctive Bibles have never been better.* So what are you waiting for? Visit the new Bible.Logos.com for the Great Bible Giveaway’s details as well as for the full contest rules and prize list!

Also, don’t miss a single chance to enter. Sign up to get a reminder when the next giveaway period begins and enter again!

* Chances of winning depend on number of entries received.

To celebrate, Logos Bible Software has assembled the largest collection of Calvin material in the English speaking world!

Place your order now at Calvin500.com/PR0709!

The Calvin 500 Collection (97 Vols.) contains advanced search tools for research and study, extensive cross-referencing and tagging, and it seamlessly integrates into the world’s most powerful digital library system, Logos Bible Software.

Collection Includes:

• Calvin’s Institutes (9 Vols., 3 Translations)
• Calvin’s Commentaries (46 Vols.)
• Letters & Correspondence (4 Vols.)
• Tracks & Treatises (8 Vols.)
• Biographies on Calvin’s Life & Work (10 Vols.)
• History & Influence of Calvinism (20 Vols.)

Plus, in honor of Calvin’s birthday…

We are giving away a free copy of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion.

Get your copy now at Calvin500.com/PR0709!

In just one year since its release, RefTagger has delivered over 100 million interactive Bible verses across more than 7,500 websites.

Developed by Logos Bible Software, RefTagger (www.reftagger.com) is a free web tool that webmasters can install to dynamically deliver the text of Bible references within their website.  The overwhelming success of RefTagger is due to its ease of use for both webmasters and site visitors.

“We had long been looking for a tool that would display the Bible verses that we reference on our site,” said Shea Houdmann, Director of GotQuestions.org.  “Before RefTagger, every option we looked into was either too expensive or too difficult to program into our site.”

Using Reftagger, Houdmann was able to transform over 5,000 Bible references on GotQuestions.org into dynamic links which reveal the referenced text.

Before RefTagger, sites like GotQuestions.org had to choose between leaving references bare, manually building links to Bible websites, or copying and pasting Bible text into their site.

None of these were good options. However, RefTagger alleviates the problem entirely.  Sharing the text of Scripture is now as easy as typing out the Bible reference—RefTagger does all the work automatically.

Since installing RefTagger, GotQuestions.org has received numerous emails thanking them for adding the functionality.

RefTagger works on any size website or blog, and can be installed quickly and easily by anyone with minimal web knowledge.

RefTagger pulls Bible texts from Bible.Logos.com, and webmasters can choose from over 25 different translations to display.  Webmasters wanting to give their site visitors more control can install the RefTagger control panel to their site which allows users to select the Bible translation RefTagger will display.

With 100 million verses under their belt, Logos Bible Software is aiming to serve 1 billion verses in 2009.

Additional information and examples of active RefTagger sites are available at: http://www.RefTagger.com.

BibleTech:2009

Are you looking for ways to pump life into your church website? Do you want to get the most out of your blogging community or social web interface? Maybe you’re more interested in Bible translation software or what’s in store for the next generation of Bible technologies. Wherever your interests lay, be sure to secure your seat at BibleTech:2009, where you’ll learn from the experts!

BibleTech:2009 will consist of fourteen sessions split between March 27 and 28. Each session will give you the option of a high-tech presentation or a low-tech presentation. The high-tech presentations will discuss the latest developments in Bible software platforms and the use of computer-based technologies for Bible translation and Bible study. The low-tech presentations will handle issues of design sensitivity, current trends in Bible technologies, and the integration of the Bible with internet-based communities.

A list of conference speakers is available on the conference website. Get acquainted with the speakers and catch up on their preparations for BibleTech:2009 by checking out their personal blogs. You can also view the official BibleTech:2009 schedule and plan ahead for your BibleTech experience!

For conference details, or registration information, visit the BibleTech:2009 homepage.

Join us on March 27 and 28 in Seattle, WA for BibleTech:2009!

Bauder gives five main recommendations:

1. Know your missionaries.

First, and most obviously, every pastor should know the missionaries whom his church supports. He should know their names, their families, and their situation in life. He should know where they minister and what special challenges they face.

2. Stay in contact with your missionaries.

For a new pastor, getting to know the missionaries takes a while. He may not see all of the church’s missionaries for several years. But he should begin his pastorate with a personal letter to each missionary family, introducing himself and recommitting himself and his congregation to renewed interest in that missionary’s work. Then he should maintain a correspondence with each missionary. In the old days we had to use international mailers to send letters to foreign countries. Now we can use email. There is no excuse for a pastor not to be in touch with every missionary every couple of months.

. . .

At least once each year, the pastor ought to place a telephone call to every missionary. Needless to say, the call should be made at a time that is convenient for the missionary. A voice from home may prove to be very welcome, and a missionary often will discuss issues with a pastor that he does not feel comfortable addressing in a prayer letter.

3. Encourage your people to contact your missionaries.

Furthermore, the pastor should encourage the church to be contacting the missionaries regularly. At minimum, every prayer letter (whether paper or electronic) ought to receive an answering letter from some member of the congregation. The church should also send bulletins, sermon recordings, and other information about church events to its missionaries. Most missionaries of my acquaintance would love to be praying for their sending churches—only they never hear enough to know how to pray.

4. Visit your missionaries.

As easy as travel has become, in most cases a church should send its pastor to visit each of its missionary families in their place of ministry. Most pastors will return from such a trip with renewed missionary vigor, and I know very few missionaries who would not relish a visit from their supporting pastors. Nothing sparks a church’s interest in its missionaries like a pastor who has actually seen what they face.

5. Take care of your missionaries while they are on furlough.

Churches that have commissioned their own missionaries have special obligations toward those missionaries, but they also have special opportunities. The church will have to help the missionary arrange housing and travel every furlough, but it has a tremendous opportunity to have the missionary minister within the congregation. If possible, the church ought to provide an office for the missionary, who should be treated as a member of the pastoral staff. The missionary’s travel schedule ought to be planned in cooperation with the pastor, and under the pastor’s direction the missionary should actively promote the work of missions within the congregation. The missionary’s activity will include preaching and teaching, but it may also involve other ministries within the church and community. Who better to train a youth group in evangelism than a missionary who is home from the field?

Bauder concludes,

In short, missions cannot be an afterthought. The pastor ought to have a vision for where he wants the church’s missions program to go, for how he wants to approach the unique problems of foreign and home missions, and for the church’s involvement in various missionary enterprises. Communicating this vision is part of the pastor’s ongoing ministry in the church. If we do not wish to see missions die, then it is a work that each pastor must take very seriously.

Read the whole article (PDF).

What do you do to promote missions in your church?

Our church has had a very special ministry with our missionaries for a number of years. It’s called “Christmas in October.” All of our missionaries share things they could use that they can’t get in the their various countries. Individuals in the church buy the requested items, and the church gathers on a Wednesday evening in October to package all of the gifts. This has been a huge blessing to our missionaries.

We also have individuals in the congregation who give us updates on Wednesday evenings from our missionaries, enabling us to stay aware of their needs and better pray for them.

Update: See this great post from Chris Anderson and the discussion in the comments.

See also our previous posts on Bauder:

• Thinking About the Gospel
• Bauder on the Use of Scripture in Theology
• Kevin Bauder on Church Organization

There’s a lot of great stuff here that you’ll want to make use of. I downloaded quite a bit last night and started listening to Bruce Ware’s lecture “Feminist Revisions of the Doctrine of God.” It is facinating to me how both complementarians and egalitarians are charging each other with revising the doctrine of the Trinity—and heretically so—to fit their preconceived view of gender roles.

You can download the following free books as PDFs:

• Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood
• Biblical Womanhood in the Home
• Building Strong Families
• Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye?
• Equality in Christ
• Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth
• The Feminist Gospel
• The Feminist Mistake
• Pastoral Leadership for Manhood and Womanhood
• Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
• Women, Creation and the Fall

For those interested in studying the issues from the perspective of the other side, there is also a website for Christians for Biblical Equality (CGE), which has free resources including articles and audio messages. They, too, have a blog, to which you can subscribe.

• China Continues to Banish Missionaries:

Aug. 8, 2008, marks the commencement of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. . . . In preparation, the Chinese are scrambling to upgrade Beijing’s appearance, both in billions of investment dollars to revamp the city’s facilities and by cracking down on elements it fears will run counter to the central government’s rigid agenda while the world watches. Among those elements are foreign missionaries.

• Woman Ordained Catholic Priest:

Last week 25-year-old Jessica Rowley became one of about a dozen women nationwide to make a highly unusual career move: she was ordained a Catholic priest.

• Landmark Study: Homosexuals Can Change: HT: Sermon Audio

In what some are calling groundbreaking research, a new four-year study concludes it is possible for homosexuals to change their physical attractions and become heterosexual through the help of Christian ministries.

• Human Ovaries, Eggs Grown in Lab Mice:

Researchers at Cornell University have grown human ovaries complete with human eggs in laboratory mice. It’s part of research aimed at discovering why humans have such a high rate of birth defects and miscarriage compared to other mammals.

Also, in case you missed them, here are the other posts from today:

• Sources of Burnout
• In Love with Jesus?
• Emerging Church Leads to Rome

David Yearick

Physical Burnout

• Lack of proper sleep and rest
• Little or no exercise
• Obesity
• Vitamin and mineral deficiencies
• Illness

Emotional Burnout

• Excessive worry
• Disappointment
• Self-pity
• Hurt feelings

Spiritual Burnout

• Pride
• Fulfilling the letter and not the spirit
• Moral failure

What would you add to this list? Which of these are particularly challenging for you? What do you do to fight burnout?

Read the whole article at Crosswalk.com.

See also our previous post:

• The Burden of Pastoral Ministry

You are God in heaven.
And here am I on earth.
So I’ll let my words be few.
Jesus, I am so in love with You.

But should Christians be in love with Jesus? In a blog post entitled “Jesus, I’m NOT in Love with You,” Professor John Stackhouse answers absolutely not and considers expressions like these inappropriate and unbiblical.

Today our congregation was asked to sing, “Jesus, I’m in love with you”—a line that shows up, in one permutation or another, in several songs that occur frequently in our worship leaders’ rotation.

Well, I didn’t sing it. It’s wrong, and I try not to sing wrong lyrics.

First, I’m not in love with Jesus. The locution “in love with” is one I reserve for one person only: my wife. . . .

Second, it gives me the homoerotic creeps to declare that I am “in love with” another man. . . . A gender lens is interesting here, for a lot of men feel as I do (many have told me so), while many (not all) women seem to love telling Jesus that they are in love with him. I saw them, swaying with closed eyes and waving hands in the air this morning, singing exactly that. Maybe, indeed, they are in love with Jesus. But they shouldn’t be.

For the third point to make is a theological one. Jesus is not your boyfriend, not your fiancé, and not your eventual husband.

. . .

So I’m not singing to Jesus that I’m in love with him, because I’m not. I love him, and I aspire to loving him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. But I do not aspire to being in love with him, and I’m sure he understands.

I wish our worship leaders and songwriters did, too.

What do you think? Do you avoid language like “in love with” with reference to Jesus and regard it as appropriate only for the husband–wife relationship?

Read the whole post at Professor Stackhouse’s blog.

One of the major influences paving the road back to Roman Catholicism is the emerging church movement. Proponents say it’s time for Christianity to be reinvented for a new generation. It must become more relevant to a postmodern generation. They say the best way to reinvent Christianity for the present generation is to reintroduce ideas and experiences from the past. Emergent leaders say God’s Word no longer holds the answers to life’s questions. Experience must become the key factor to encounter spiritual reality.

The emerging church is promoting experiential attractions, including statues, prayer stations, incense, liturgy, candles, and icons, the sacraments, and calling communion the Eucharist. It is easy to see how this movement complements and encourages the Vatican’s “new evangelization program” to win the “separated brethren” back to the “true church.”

Have you found this to be the case? Do you know of anyone who has become a Roman Catholic through the Emerging Church?

Read the whole article.

HT: Sharper Iron