the weblog of Alan Knox

The Lord’s Supper at the Golden Corral Buffet?

Posted by on Jan 2, 2012 in as we live it, ordinances/sacraments, scripture | 10 comments

Did you see this comment that Art (from “Church Task Force“) left here yesterday? He left his comment on an old “Scripture… As We Live It” re-mix of a passage related to Jesus’ last meal with his followers before he was crucified.

Well, it turns out that Art’s comment shows that he went the extra mile! He made an animated video based on that re-mix.

The video would be funny… if it were not so true.

Here is Art’s video:

I have to admit, though, that sharing the Lord’s Supper at the Golden Corral buffet sounds awesome.

Thanks, Art!

(UPDATE: Art posted an updated video with a new ending here.)

I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. But if I did…

Posted by on Jan 2, 2012 in discipleship, personal | 1 comment

Some of the most popular New Year’s Resolutions include things like losing weight, exercising, quitting smoking/drinking/etc., spending more time with family and friends, getting out of debt, getting organized, and enjoying life more. I wonder how people measure that last one…

I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. There are enough things that I don’t do; why add to the list? I really don’t need the guilt…

But, if I did make New Year’s Resolutions this year, I think these two would be at the top of the list:

1) Focus on and meditate on God more.

I don’t want to be unaware or desensitized to what God is doing in my life and in the lives of the people around me. Sometimes God can be so familiar, that I barely recognize or appreciate the many things that he does daily. I want to be more appreciative, more trusting, more malleable…

2) Focus on and serve others more.

In the same way that I’m often unaware of what God is doing, I’m also often so focused on myself that I miss the needs in the lives of people around me. This could be needs among people that I know well, or even complete strangers.

Now that I think about it, these two non-resolutions remind me a lot of Jesus’ two greatest commandments…

It would be easy to come up with different activities that might help me with these two desires: prayer, fasting, Scripture reading, giving, etc. But, I’ve found that when I set out to complete certain activities, I do just that. The activities become an end in themselves. I become very good at completing those activities, but I don’t love God or others more.

Now, for other people, this may not be the case. So, I’m not saying that you should not seek pray more or to fast or to give a certain amount to those in need. I just know that for me these kinds of goals tend to work against my ultimate desires and purpose.

So, I want to love more – love God more and love other people more. I know that I can’t create this love on my own. I could probably produce something that looks like love for a short time, but that’s not what I want. So, in reality, I’m asking God to help me love him and love others more.

Of course, I must be willing to submit to whatever work he does in my life. And, I’ve found in the past that God doesn’t always work the way that I expect him too. Will I submit anyway? I guess only time will tell…

Did you make New Year’s Resolutions this year? If so, what were they?

Scripture… As We Live It #189

Posted by on Jan 1, 2012 in as we live it, scripture | 1 comment

This is the 189th passage in “Scripture… As We Live It.”

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he [Jesus] departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. He did this every morning, without missing a single morning. Plus, he told his disciples to rise very early every morning to pray. He also requested that they journal their prayer time. If they were not already doing this, he exhorted them to make this one of their New Year’s Resolutions. (Mark 1:35 re-mix)

(Please read the first post for an explanation of this series.)

2011 Blogging Year in Review

Posted by on Dec 31, 2011 in personal | Comments Off on 2011 Blogging Year in Review

Every year since I started blogging, I’ve published a “Year in Review” post to show which of my posts from that year were the most read.

This year – sometime in April or May – I started something new. I began linking to old posts on Twitter and Facebook. While some people were confused by the links to the old posts, I mostly received very positive feedback from people who were encouraged or challenged by the old posts.

Also this year, I began highlighting guest posts – that is, posts written for by other people to be published on my blog.

So, in this “Year in Review” post, I’m going to spotlight three different kinds of posts: 1) Most Read New Posts of 2011, 2) Most Read Guest Posts of 2011, and 3) Most Read Old Posts in 2011.

 

Most Read New Posts in 2011

These are the Top 10 posts (out of 800+ posts) written by me and published this year:

  1. Definition: Church (or Ekklesia) (April 2011)
  2. Children as Part of the Church Gathering (March 2011)
  3. When Disagreements Lead to Disunity (April 2011)
  4. The Day of Pentecost in the Upper Room (May 2011)
  5. Contents of the Ancient Lead Codices of Scripture Revealed! (April 2011)
  6. Numbing our souls with church activities (May 2011)
  7. Ten Things Every Christian Should Know (July 2011) – Thanks, Keith!
  8. I know you’re a heretic, but what am I?! (May 2011) – Thanks, Rachel!
  9. Disagreement is not Disunity (April 2011)
  10. Why keep the worship service? (July 2011)

 

Most Read Guest Posts in 2011

These are the Top 10 posts written by “guest bloggers” and published this year:

  1. Guest Post: How does the church respond to poverty? (from someone who’s living it) (April 2011) – After I published this post, it quickly became the most read post on my blog of all time.
  2. Guest Blogger: A Focus on Catholic Ecclesiology (May 2011)
  3. Guest Blogger: House Churches: British experience to teach the USA (August 2011)
  4. Guest blogger: Building a culture of discipleship (August 2011)
  5. Guest Blogger: Why bother with the church? (October 2011)
  6. Guest Blogger: Not Alone in Feeling Alone (May 2011)
  7. Guest Blogger: Sunday Morning Sucker Punch (September 2011)
  8. Guest Blogger: A simple post about simple church (June 2011)
  9. Guest Blogger: Not salary but support (May 2011)
  10. Guest Blogger: Focus on delivery does not increase our effectiveness at discipling people (December 2011)

 

Most Read Old Posts in 2011

These are the Top 10 posts written by me, but first published before 2011:

  1. Theological Sources: Scripture, Tradition, Reason, Experience, And? (February 2010 “replay” of 2010 posts, but only counting hits on the 2010 “replay”)
  2. Those Old People (October 2010)
  3. Was Timothy the Bishop of Ephesus? (December 2008)
  4. How Does God Communicate? (March 2007)
  5. Why I’m Not A House Church Proponent (December 2010)
  6. Ephesians 4:11 and the Five-Fold Ministry… (April 2007)
  7. Disciple making 3: Paul and his disciples… (February 2007)
  8. Guest Blogger: Why I Said Church Hurts (July 2007) – an older “guest blogger” post
  9. Why should we study the first century synagogue? (March 2010)
  10. Summary – Should elders/pastors be paid a salary? (October 2007)

 
Do you have a favorite, either from among this list or even from among the posts that were not among the most read?

The best two books of 2011 (by default)

Posted by on Dec 30, 2011 in books | 2 comments

Every year since I started blogging in 2006, I’ve chosen a “best book” of the year. I’ve already had two criteria for choosing those books: 1) it had to be a book that I read for the first time that year and 2) it had to be a book about the church. (I mean, this blog is about the church, right?)

But, this year, by plan and by design, I decided to not read new books about the church. (I did read a few books that I had already read, and I read excerpts from other books.)

It wasn’t until recently that I recognized how this plan would affect my ability to choose a “best book” of 2011. However, it turns out that I DID read 2 books at the beginning of the year before my self-imposed “sabbatical” on new books about the church. I’ve decided to name both of those books as the “best two books of 2011.”

Here they are in no particular order, along with links to and excerpts from my original reviews:

To Transform a City: Whole Church, Whole Gospel, Whole City by Eric Swanson and Sam Williams
(Also, see my post “The Whole Church = All Church Leaders?” which discusses one aspect of this book.)

Overall, though, this book presents several concepts that are important for all believers to understand. When believers work together with brothers and sisters in their neighborhood (whether they are part of the same “local church” or not), then their neighborhood will be transformed. The same could be said for workplaces, schools, etc. They do not have to wait for church leaders to organize projects. They can start working together right now.

The Next Christians: The Good News About the End of Christian America (with a second subtitle: How a new generation is restoring the faith) by Gabe Lyon

I would recommend The Next Christians, especially to two groups of Christians. If you consider yourself one of “The Next Christians,” this book will be an encouragement and a challenge for you to live for Christ focusing on the gospel. If you do not consider yourself a “Next Christian,” and perhaps even wonder why so many people are changing a good thing, this book will help you see these new Christians from their perspective.

And, finally, if you’re interested, here are links to my “best books” of 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, and 2006.

Reading Scripture Together with the Church on New Year’s Eve

Posted by on Dec 29, 2011 in gathering, scripture | 5 comments

When we gather together with the church, we often read and discuss Scripture together. Typically, we will read at least a chapter of Scripture together; sometimes we will read even more.

If we’re studying through a shorter book, we’ll read that book in its entirety each time we discuss it. We’ve done this with Philippians, Colossians, and Ruth (and perhaps others). In each case, we studied each book once a week over four or five weeks, and we read through the entire book each time. So, after a month or so, we would have read through those books 4 or 5 times together.

But, occasionally, we get together to read even more Scripture together in one gathering. Previously, we’ve gotten together to read the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of John. When we read through these longer books, we typically read a few chapters at a time, with someone different reading each chapter. Then, we take a break to share some food and conversation. We repeat that cycle until we read through the entire book. Of course, these gatherings usually last 2-3 hours.

We’re planning to gather together again this Saturday night (yes, Saturday night) to read through Scripture again. But, this time, we’re going to read through two entire books of Scripture: Jonah and Mark. Yes, Jonah is a shorter book in the Old Testament, and Mark is one of the four Gospels in the New Testament, but I think the combination will work well together.

If you are in Raleigh, Wake Forest, Youngsville, or the surrounding area, you are welcome to join us. For that matter, if you’re willing to travel from wherever you are, you are welcome to join us. Just get in touch with me at aknox [at] sebts [dot] edu, and I will give you more information.

By the way, we will not discuss the books of Scripture much on Saturday night. However, we do plan to talk about these two books together when we gather together again Sunday morning. It will be interesting to see what insight people bring to our discussion after reading through both books at one time.

What do you think about reading entire books of Scripture together as the church?

Ask… Seek… Find… on Google?

Posted by on Dec 29, 2011 in personal | 1 comment

I couldn’t decide what to name this post. I decided to go with the cross between Scripture and Google.

So, what is this post about? Well, about 1/3 of the people who read my blog this year (2011) came here through various search engines: Google primarily, but also bing, yahoo, ask (another Scripture reference?), etc.

Most of the search terms that result in hits on this blog are related to my name or the name of the blog: “Alan Knox” or “The Assembling of the Church” or some combination of the two.

Occasionally, people will reach this blog by searching for other people, like “Dave Black” or “Art Mealer” (that’s right, Art, you’re famous!).

Also, I get several search hits on various passages of Scripture. Some of these are probably expected, like Hebrews 10:24-25, 1 Corinthians 14:26, and various parts of Ephesians 4. However, I’ve also gotten several hits on Philippians 2 (“the Christ hymn”) and the passages of the Gospels where Jesus teaches his followers about leading and serving.

But, I’m glad that more and more search terms are related to the topics that I cover on the blog. Hopefully, the people who search for these terms find something interesting, encouraging, or challenging. I think people often do not find exactly what they were looking for, such as the many people who search for “Sermon Central” and reach my blog.

Here are some of the most popular search strings that reach this blog: “definition of church,” “participatory church gatherings,” “how does God communicate with us” (always a top search because of a post I wrote with that same name), “kuriakon,” “is leadership biblical,” “kingdom mindset,” and “early church meetings.”

I think my favorite search string in the list was “Peter and John went to pray.” Yes, there is a popular children’s song of that title. But, if you search for it, my blog posts about the activities of the early church in the Jerusalem temple pops up as well.

Have fun searching!

I love your accent! Where are you from?

Posted by on Dec 28, 2011 in personal | 2 comments

Actually, I do love accents, and I often ask people where they’re from because of their accent. I’ve found that most people are excited to talk about their home, whether it is another state or another country. I can’t remember anyone being upset when I’ve asked them where they are from.

But, this post is not about that.

Instead, this post is about the people who have visited my blog during this past year (2011). As you would probably guess, most of the readers of this blog are from the United States of America. However, I’m always excited to see people from other countries read the blog as well.

After the USA, the most readers hail from the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. This is probably to be expected, especially since Aussie John is such as avid reader and commenter. (Still praying for you, John!) But, seriously, I write in English – in case you haven’t noticed – and these countries are the largest English speaking nations. So, it makes sense that most of my readers come from these countries.

But, my blog is also read by people from many other countries. In fact, people from 188 different countries read my blog last year. Which ones were represented the most? Well, after the USA, the UK, Canada, and Australia, the following countries were the most represented among my readers: the Philippines, South Africa, India, Aruba, Spain, Romania, Ecuador, New Zealand, Nigeria, Japan, Singapore, and Brazil. Each of these countries averaged over one reader per day.

Many other countries fell just under the level mentioned above. And, just to repeat something I’ve said recently, I appreciate all of my readers! Thank you especially to those readers whose primary language is not English! (I can’t imagine how my sarcasm and humor translates into different languages…)

So, thank you!

And… I love your accent! What do you think about my southern US English accent?

Some interesting trends in 2011

Posted by on Dec 27, 2011 in personal | 1 comment

There were several interesting (to me) trends among readers on my blog in 2011.

First, I had almost twice as many pageviews in 2011 as in the previous years. In 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010, the number of pageviews on my blog was fairly steady. But, for some reason, the number of pageviews is up about 80% in 2011. While some of this may be due to linking to posts on Twitter, the trend actually began before I started using Twitter.

Second, and more interesting to me, the hourly trends in readership remained fairly steady, even though the number of pageviews increased dramatically. When I combined all the stats for 2007 through 2010, this graph represents the relative number of readers per hour: (Click the graph for a larger view.)

If you look at the same graph for 2011 (i.e., relative number of readers per hour), you will see a very similar graph: (Click the graph for a larger view.)

As you can see, the shape of the graphs are very similar.

In both graphs, the low point in readers to my blog is sometime around 4:00 a.m. (Why is no one reading my blog at 4:00 in the morning?) The high point is sometime around noon.

What you can’t tell from the graphs is the difference between the low point and the high point (because there are no numbers on the graphs). In the 2007-2010 graph, the high point is about 5 times the low point. In the 2011 graph, the high point is about 4.75 times the low point. That’s not much difference. But, it does show that in 2011 readers were a little more even around the clock that in previous years. (This is even more apparent when you realize that the noon high point in the 2011 graph is quite a bit higher than the points around it.)

This is surprising to me because of one big reason. Back in the Spring of 2011, I was trying to decide how to plan Twitter and Facebook links for old posts on this blog. When I looked at the graph for readers by the hour in 2007-2010, I noticed that most people read my blog between 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. So, that’s when I decided to post those links (on the hour and at 12:30 p.m.).

Since I posted links on Facebook and Twitter between 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., I expected a huge jump in readers for those times. But, nope. That didn’t happen. Instead, the number of readers increased around the clock.

So, I’m surprised. I’m not disappointed, but I am surprised. I began linking to posts on Facebook and Twitter hourly to increase discussion on older posts. And, that definitely happened! So, I’m very excited about the way things are going here.

Since you’re here and read this far (for some reason), I have a special message for you: Thank you very much for reading my blog! You have no idea how much I appreciate it, and how surprised I am constantly that anyone would be interested in reading what I write.

You link me! You really link me!

Posted by on Dec 26, 2011 in personal | 3 comments

As 2011 draws to a close, I want to say, “Thank you,” to everyone who reads and comments on my blog. I always want to thank other bloggers who have linked to my site and/or my posts during 2011.

On the average, just over 1/3 of my readers reach this blog by using a search engine. However, the majority of people end up on my blog by clicking a link somewhere. Where do they find those links?

Well, in 2010, I started putting links to my blog posts on Facebook. And, when I did that, Facebook quickly because the number one referrer to my blog. Facebook was my number one referrer in 2011 also. Plus, in 2011, I added links on Twitter, StumbleUpon, and Google+, and they are near the top of my referrer list as well.

However, there are also several sites/blogs which regularly send readers my way. These are the top 10 blogs/sites which referred readers to my blog (not counting Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Google+, and search engines):

  1. Eric Carpenter at “A Pilgrim’s Progress
  2. Dave Black and his un-blog
  3. Arthur Sido at “The Voice of One Crying Out in Suburbia
  4. Jeremy Myers at “Till He Comes
  5. Brant Hansen now at “Brant’s Blog
  6. Peter Kirt at “Gentle Wisdom
  7. Steve Scott at “From the Pew
  8. Bobby Auner at “Deconstructing Neverland
  9. Dan Allen at “The Ekklesia in Southern Maine
  10. Chad Estes at “Captain’s Blog

Thank you all for the “link love” during the last year. And, if your blog was not in the top 10 list of referrers, I still appreciate it when you link to my blog.

I hope that in 2012 you will find even more posts to link to here at this blog!