This blogs of the week has been getting some attention of late, and I can’t possibly read everyone’s blog every day or week, so if you find something particularly worthy of note, let me know — and even if you think you’ve written a particularly good post this week and want some attention for it, let me know. I can’t promise anyone anything on this, but I’ll do what I can to pass along good posts for the week. When blogging came onto my radar I thought I’d be able to give up footnoting — a burden of writing — but I’ll do my best to use HT.

Pride of place this week goes to Stacey Littlefield’s description of his experience in praying the hours. I hope more join us.
And also pride of place goes to Brother Maynard’s post about Christmas.
This is why blogging is fun: check this out, one of a kind, funny.
1. Andrew Jones provides a global map of emerging church studies.
2. Steve Taylor reminds, yet again, that emerging is global. Maybe, someday, we will let this sink in and see that emerging is big, big, big.
3. Rob Merola, priest, friend, and former student, who in his day was an awesome weightlifter, has weighed in on King Kong. He always has good reflections on movies. His shift to manicures, though, surprised both Kris and me.
4. Michael Bird is not the first to say this, and neither is it a new idea, but it worth pointing out that many don’t think Jesus was a “carpenter” but an artisan who worked with stone. See his comment and the comments on his comment.
5. Hide your kids: Santa has been hacked. And this one, too.(HT: Dave Anderson)
6. Karen and her daughter are in a tiff.
7. I like Frank Viola’s piece in The Ooze on why the Bible is a story and not a jigsaw puzzle. (I’d like to see more on the distinction between a systematic theology and his understanding of “story” for it is easy to call our a systematic theology a story.)
8. Joel Osteen and his wife, Victoria, live in a fish bowl, and when they get into scrapes with the airlines the whole world gets to watch. They gave them seven steps off the plane, and it is sad. (HT: Lukas McKnight who HTs TSK) OK, off the list, Steve McCoy’s humor at work again.
9. Steps, and more steps, and then some more.
10. I evidently lost in my fight with Brian McKnight, but wasn’t aware we were even in a scrape.
And now, to end with a bit of a flurry, Bob Robinson’s posts on the “Happy Holidays” hooie both here and here, should make us think one more time about why it is that some Christians are intent on “taking back America” — as if we need another Constantinian design.