Yeah, that’s right…I know it’s a nerdy title, but I’ve officially been writing here for 6 months.  Below is a summary of my favorites and yours:

1. Forgiveness in Marriage
2. Web Tools I Use
3. Attractional and Missional
4. Scriptural Election: The Third Way

Feel free to comment with your personal favorite.

Pyromaniacs is a blog I frequent often.  Although their tone can often be a little on the combative side, I thoroughly enjoy the truth that they dish out.

The excerpt below is from a blog post paralleling the celebrity pastor culture with pornography, and ultimately how easy it is to fall into a trap of creating a false reality of church.  We need genuine, gospel-centered community and leadership, and I pray that we would turn our idolatry of the unreal, relationship-free, hearing-driven faith.  I pray for contentedness with the community God has given us, and that we would run from identifying ourselves like the Corinthians did.  Isolation is a great weapon of the enemy, and the longing for something that isn’t real is the first step in removing us from the gospel community we so desperately need.

All this is not to say that pursuing training and education by these men that God has gifted the church with is a bad thing, but ultimately they ought to be a side dish, when the main course is gospel centered community.  Sanctification happens best not through listening to every podcast of every great preacher, but of living with and around people who see you for who you are, know what you are studying, and where your life isn’t yet lived in line with the gospel.

Below is a quote, but I encourage you to read the whole thing:

Well, paper pastors are never in a bad mood. They’re never cranky, or sleepy or sick. (Especially the dead ones.)

They’ve never just had someone else pull their guts out with a rusty fork, and then had to turn and listen graciously to your complaint about the translation they preach from, or argue about a Greek word you can’t even pronounce. They don’t have a family who loses the time you use. They never half-listen, never have an appointment that cuts short their time. Their office hours are your office hours. They’re available 24/7, and everywhere, at your whim, and you always have their undivided attention.

What’s more is they always have all the answers! They can tell you with complete confidence and masterful eloquence. They never stammer, guess, nor search their memory. And they can prove it — whatever they’re saying! With footnotes!

And these paper pastors maintain the perfect distance. If you don’t want to hear something, they don’t press it — or you can instantly shut them up, snap! They never ask you to do something uncomfortable and follow up on you. They never persistently probe an area of sin, in you, in person, eyeball to eyeball… nor will they. Church discipline will not be a threat with them. Ever.

Because they don’t know you from Adam.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.  Podcasting is one clear example of how something seemingly good can have unintended consequences.  How are you ensuring that the sermons you are hearing are being worked out in gospel community, and not driving you away from it?

Although I’m definitely not a tech guru, I’ve found a number of tools that help me keep moving throughout my day that many people didn’t know existed.  Below is a short list of some things that I use frequently:

• Firefox – This is the anchor to a cuztomized web experience.  Wouldn’t use any other browser..
  • IE Tab – Useful when things are native to IE, but you don’t want to leave Firefox (we have a few tools that are native to Microsoft, and don’t have full functionality in Firefox)
  • Ctrl-Tab – Makes switching tabs in Firefox a lot more fun and visual (for those of you that didn’t know, pressing Ctrl + Tab will switch tabs…).
  • XMarks – If you use multiple computers, you need this add-on.  It will sync your bookmarks across browsers and across machines.
  • Make sure you utilize Add-ons.  They will make your life easier, and your browsing experience better.
• Google Tools
  • Gmail – I manage all personal email from here.
    • By simply adding a period anywhere into your email address, you can create an entirely new address which is delivered to the same inbox, enabling you to filter incoming email (for example: t.engstrom@gmail.com versus tengstrom@gmail.com)
  • Google Reader – There are tons of feed readers out there, but this works just fine for me.
    • Subscribe to a few of my RSS feeds below
      • Ethereal Thought Train RSS – This blog
      • The Austin Stone College Blog RSS
      • An Elephant and a Mouse RSS – My family blog
    • Shared Items – If you use Google Reader, make sure to use the Shared Items feature.  You can follow my shares here.
  • Google Notebook – Great for webclips and keeping an online journal.
  • Google Books – Ever want an online library of the books you own? I’d recommend using this to catalog, write short reviews, and keep a few notes for easy access.  My library is here.
  • Google Alerts – Best way to keep up with specific searches you want to track (I use it for Blogs and Twitter), and put the RSS feed into my Google Reader.
• Greasemonkey and Userscripts – Customization to individual pages
  • Google Multi-login Script – If you’re like me, you’ve got a few different google accounts that need to be accessed.  This does the job nicely.
  • Google Reader Widescreen – Makes text run the full width of a widescreen…much better experience.
  • Better Gmail – A whole host of features for Gmail…basically packaged Greasemonkey scripts.
• Twitter
  • Power Twitter – Soups up the web-based Twitter experience quite a bit
  • Tweetdeck (Desktop app) – A great way to manage the people you follow by breaking them into groups
  • Tweetie (for iPhone) – Great user interface, but I’m considering a switch to TweetStack once it’s a tad more proven because it integrates with Tweetdeck.
  • Twitterfeed – An easy way to update your Twitter status when you post a new blog.
• Helpful Tools
  • Bit.ly – An excellent way to shorten web links, and also track their traffic.
  • Doodle – Ever get tired of scheduling with larger groups of people.  Try this, it will save you a lot of email.
  • Del.icio.us – A great way to save bookmarks and share them online.  My username is tengstrom.
• Helpful Websites
  • Lifehacker – Always has great information on using technology effectively.
  • Mashable – Great way to stay informed on Social Media.

If you’d like to see more of how I journal/study Scripture online, go here.

For those of you in Austin, I would highly recommend carving out some time next Saturday to view Malatya.  Malatya is a documentary about the first martyrs of the Turkish Church. On April 18th, 2007, Necati Aydin, Uğur Yüksel, and Tillmann Geske were brutally killed in Malatya, Turkey for proclaiming that Jesus Christ is the King of kings and Lord of lords. Necati and Uğur are the first known modern Turkish converts from Islam to Christianity to be killed for their faith.

Austin Screening Information

Where: Galaxy Highland Theater
When: Showings at 1,2, and 3pm on Saturday, April 18, 2009
Tickets: Tickets must be purchased in advance, and are available here.