Finally, a Speedlink Friday. Here’s to hoping the next few go down easier than the last ones!

• Awesome Purpose recently celebrated its 1 year anniversary. Go Justin!
• Cool quote by Watchman Nee
• Funny comments on “Churchianity” and a hilarious spoof of Blockbuster Video.
• For those of you who know about pop-sci religion-basher Sam Harris, author of several books blasting those who believe in God or a supernatural reality, this essay will shed some light on the fallacy of his views. In fact, check out the rest of that blog for some excellent critiquing of Harris’ extreme form of atheism.
• Will Preaching the Gospel Empty Your Church? No, of course not. If your church is emptying out, maybe it’s not the Gospel. Maybe it’s you. (Harsh, I know.)
• Make us Dangerous. Looking forward to Mark’s upcoming book Wild Goose Chase!
• Great and funny (as always) review by O’Leary of Expelled. She’s Canadian, so her perspective is always interesting to an “Amuricun” like me.
• Ever wanted to get into the mind of a pastor? Perry Noble unloads his brain on a Sunday night here. Interesting stuff.
• Isn’t it amazing how “nature” “designs” such advanced machinery that rivals or vastly supersedes the most complex and innovative human creations?
• Sad but true.
• Good ideas for freelancers to avoid dangerous pitfalls. I’m particularly bad at #4 — my philosophy is why do today what you can put off ’til tomorrow? (Hat tip: openswitch)

I’m thinking about doing things differently for next week. Every time I read something or see something on the Web that interests me, instead of bookmarking it for later evaluation, I’ll add it directly to a work-in-progress Speedlink post. That way, when Friday rolls around, all I have to do is edit and publish, rather than write, edit, and then publish. We’ll see how that goes!

Hey, if you have any feedback regarding different tricks to help blogging go more smoothly, I’m all ears!

• What if David Would Have Twittered? Hilarious! Also by Perry Noble: Seven Things We’ve GOT To Do To Be Effective (Part 1 and Part 2)
• Steven Furtick on the “It” factor in preaching. Dude, that’s not just for preaching, it’s for everything…and definitely music. When you get “It” going in composing or performing music, well, it’s incredible.
• Those crazy Apostles. Like, why don’t we do this stuff anymore?
• Or maybe we do. Are we seeing a new wave of revival coming out of Lakeland, Florida? Could be!
• Speaking of apostles, here’s an excellent article on the three foundational roles that many churches are missing: apostle, prophet, and evangelist. Don’t miss this one.
• Trevin Wax shares a great definition of the Gospel by Rick McKinley.
• Infinite number of universes to explain life? Not impressive. More in a grab bag of pro-intelligent design posts: the just-so stories of evolutionary psychology, why math is so darn useful, and isn’t it interesting that cars are intelligently designed, not “evolved”?
• Finally, there are still tribes completely untouched by modern man. What might Christians do, if anything, to reach them and teach them about Jesus?

This is going to be fun. I’ve never done the speedlinking thing on a regular basis, but it seems to be a popular feature on a lot of blogs these days, so I’m perfectly willing to join the fray and give you the lowdown on what’s caught my eye lately around the blogosphere and beyond. This first installment will be a little more verbose than future ones as I have a lot of stuff to say this time around!

• First up: the recently unveiled Evangelical Manifesto that everyone’s buzzing about. My take is simple — it’s not perfect, but it’s a good start. I agree with the overall premise of the manifesto that evangelicalism isn’t about any one issue, nor is it about political power, nor is it about American patriotism. It’s about sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ, loving your neighbor, caring for the poor and the oppressed, praying for the lost, and ushering in the Kingdom of Heaven. So I signed it.
• Speaking of buzz, Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled which critiques Darwinian Evolution’s stranglehold on academic freedom has gotten everyone up in a tizzy. I watched the movie personally in the theater, and I thought it was brilliantly done and visually compelling. Why is it so controversial? Here’s a good explanation why.
• Also on the science front, Denyse O’Leary does a bang-up job as usual of exposing the foolishness of materialism when it comes to explaining the mind and the soul. Interestingly, the placebo effect is so effective in some medical cases that it begs the question of just how powerful the mind and human perception can be.
• My friend Justin over at Awesome Purpose blogs about how God is moving miraculously in his life along with his family and friends. I never tire of hearing testimonies of God’s faithfulness.
• I’ve added a few new blogs on my “Blogs I Read Regularly” page. Coffee Talk with John Paul Jackson‘s a good one. I saw John Paul up at a recent Bethel Church conference and absolutely loved his teaching and his anointing in the Holy Spirit. Also, James Laws and Kevin Stover recently switched from having a single blog to having two individual blogs. They’re awesome dudes…check out their new digs here and here respectively.
• And in the wild and wooly west of Web 2.0 land, the strange tale of Yahoo’s demise lingers on. Microsoft may yet end up dragging them onboard kicking and screaming. I sure hope not.
• In closing, I want to highlight Trevin Wax’s excellent essay on Christian ecumenicalism and the importance of unity over doctrinal squabbling. His Kingdom People blog is one of the best on the Christian Web, and I always enjoy hearing what he has to say on important theological issues.

And that’s it for this Friday. Have a great weekend…see you on Monday!