There are only a few more things I’d like to do before I shut down the blog for Christmas. Posting will resume on the 1st of January, but I’ve got something a bit different planned for that month. I'll tell you more about that when the post I’ve written for that day is published by my editor and research assistant, Annette Harrison.

One thing I do want to do besides saying "Happy Christmas" to all of you is to say a big "thank you!" I obviously want to thank you, my readers, as our interactions make this a much more rewarding experience (yes—even those of you with whom I disagree!). Most of all, I want to thank my family for allowing me to give multiple hours to this hobby of mine. And I want to thank Annette for her help with editing. If anyone out there is looking for a paid remote editor, please drop her an e-mail at annette.harrison@gmail.com and tell her I sent you!

There is, however, one group of people I would like to thank in more detail—those websites and blogs which have sent traffic my way. This surely is a competition where some major kudos go to the winners. It’s almost worth linking to my posts just to share, hopefully, a spot on this list with so many illustrious companions! I will simply reveal here those of you who have done the most to help send readers to my blog this year. I have decided to increase the number of bloggers getting a “thank you link” to 70 this year—have a look and see where your blog stands in these rankings! I did this last year, and it’s interesting to compare the rankings from last year with those of this year. (I will indicate in brackets the previous year’s ranking.)

These sites are ranked in order by the ones who sent me the most visitors as referrals in the second half of 2007. Perhaps not surprisingly, the vast majority of these websites are sites I love and often link to myself. There is a lot of linky love going on, and I count many of these people as my friends. If any of them are unknown to you, why not pop over and visit their site during the next couple of weeks while there will be nothing new here. You just might find yourself wanting to keep going back!

This year you will also get to hear what I think of the top fifteen winners. While I have expanded the list this year because so many interesting blogs rank beyond the top 15—since I couldn’t think what to say about Facebook—15 seemed like as good a place as any to stop my comments. So whoever you are, I want to thank you for your kindness in reading and sending other readers to this blog. I hope that the people you sent found something useful, even if it was only a handy link from which to continue surfing. Remember, keep linking, and who knows? You might make this list next year!

Here, then, are my top referring websites, with the exception of search engines and aggregators:

THE TOP FIFTEEN TRAFFIC DONORS TO THIS BLOG

1. BETWEEN TWO WORLDS (3) http://theologica.blogspot.com/
   The blog with three names—"Theologica" or "Between Two Worlds" or more likely known to most of us simply as "Justin Taylor's blog"—has leap-frogged over two others into top place this year. No other website, apart from search engines, has sent me so much traffic, and for that I am very grateful. But I am much more grateful for the wonderful resources that Justin's blog provides. Reading his blog is dangerous as it sends you off to read all kinds of interesting material from the farthest reaches of the Christian Internet. Justin is a real asset to the Church today. May God continue to bless him!
   
   
   
2. PYROMANIACS (1) http://teampyro.blogspot.com/
   
   The fall in position of the blog of Phil Johnson and friends is, I suspect, not because of a fall in popularity of their blog. Rather it is because I have been less successful trolling for links there. If Phil and the crew want to knock Justin off the top spot next year, they will just have to link to me more often in 2008. Despite my disagreements at times with their style, I do have great respect for the fire-lovers and value what I learn from them. In addition, Phil is an old friend, and whenever we meet for coffee at Waterloo, interesting events arise!
   
   
   
3. CHALLIES.COM (2) http://www.challies.com/
   
   Tim Challies is another great blogging friend of mine. He was just as I expected him to be when we ate steak together just minutes after I got off a plane in Toronto. He hates me to remind him that I played some part in “discovering” him, but I am proud to acknowledge that his blog has left mine standing as it roars off into the distance! I believe that Tim is a man to watch, and that he will be around online, at Christian conferences, and in books for a long time to come. If you have not already done so, be sure to get a copy of his book, The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment, when it comes out in just a few days. It’s exciting to watch what God will do by his grace with a man who is willing to let God lead him.
   
   
   
4. WIKIPEDIA (—) http://wikipedia.org/
   
   This year a surprise entry on this list has been Wikipedia. This site is another place I enjoy visiting for all kinds of reasons beyond the fact that it sends me web traffic. An experiment in collaboration, it gives purchased encylopedias a run for their money. People often criticize it, but ultimately, if something’s wrong, you can actually go in there and correct it! If nothing else, it gives us an accurate perception of what techno-savvie web users think about a given subject.
   
   
   
5. BLUEFISH PROJECT (5) http://thebluefish.blogspot.com/
   
   Holding stable is part of Dave Bish's character, so it’s perhaps appropriate that he is the only site in the top 5 which did not change rank! Dave Bish is another good friend of mine. He traveled out to the edge of London just to meet me for lunch. We have chatted many times online, and his blog is one of the most popular Christian blogs in the UK. He has devoted his life to helping students find Christ—a noble profession.
   
   
   
6. CHRISTIANITY TODAY (—) http://www.christianitytoday.com/
   
   I believe the willingness of main-stream Christian media sites to partner with and link to blogs will be a major feature of the next few years. Over the last year, I have become increasingly impressed by the massive resource that is Christianty Today. I just wish we could get this magazine in the UK!
   
   
   
7. T4G BLOG (—) http://blog.togetherforthegospel.org/
   
   Despite the fact the Together For the Gospel guys seem to have largely abandoned their own blog, it still keeps sending me traffic. No other website with so little freshly updated material has sent me so much traffic. Perhaps as the brothers begin to turn their thoughts more and more to the 2008 T4G conference we’ll see more posts coming from them. I’m determined to return to “blogging through the T4G Statement” of eighteen months ago. (I really must finish before their next conference!!) Oddly, this time last year they had more content, but sent me fewer hits!
   
   
   
8. BEN WITHERINGTON (8) http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/
   
   Ben Witherington is the first website on this list where I don't have any personal contact with any of the authors or representatives. But that’s only because he doesn’t list an e-mail on his website. If any of you have a working e-mail for Ben, drop him a line and tell him he holds 8th place for the second year running in this list of my top referrers. Tell him I love his blog, and would love to make e-mail contact with him!
   
   
   
9. HUGH HEWITT (11) http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/
   
   Hugh was one of the first prominent Christian bloggers to link to me, and for that I will always be grateful. He blogs mostly about American politics, and when I am interested in finding out about what’s going on in that arena, Hugh’s site is one of the first places I go. Glad to see him rising up the charts a little, but surely you can do better than that next year, Hugh!
   
   
   
10. TERRY VIRGO (—) http://www.janga.biz/terryvirgoblog/
    
    It is truly impressive that such a new blog should make it into this list’s top ten. With a full year in 2008, I fully expect to see Terry in a higher slot this time next year. Terry Virgo is a name with which every reader of this blog should familiarize themselves. Please do go read my interview with him, his blog, and listen to some of his sermons. He is the man who has taken a small band of reformed charismatics in the UK and led them to what is now more than 200 churches, with another 300 churches worldwide. I am privileged to follow him as he follows Christ. He is the single most influential church leader over my theology and values. He has shaped so many of the people who have, in turn, shaped me. I thank God for Terry, and being linked from his blog was one of the highlights of my year. If you want to make a new year's resolution this year, determine to find out more about this man and what God has accomplished through him.
    
    
    
11. THE JOLLYBLOGGER (4) http://jollyblogger.typepad.com/
    
    David Wayne was my first real blogging buddy. I still miss our "tag blogging" and remember the times when people accused us of being the same person. He is another blogger who I have been able to have the joy of meeting in the flesh. Let’s do some tag blogging again this year, David. And c’mon! Surely you can do better than #11! Let’s see a jump back up in the rankings next year!
    
    
    
12. SHEPHERD’S SCRAPBOOK (—) http://spurgeon.wordpress.com/
    
    Regular readers of my blog will recognize the name, Tony Reinke, as the source of some of my photos. But he doesn’t just do good photos—he does great posts as well! He seems to be on the upward climb, and I keep finding him referred to all over the place. Expect to hear more from him next year. Remember, just like Tim Challies, you first heard of him here!
    
    
    
13. EVANGELICAL OUTPOST (—) http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/
    
    Joe Carter's site is a massively influential Christian blog. To have any traffic coming my way from him is a great honor indeed. It has been one of the greatest mysteries of blogging that for some reason his and my blogs seem to live in worlds that overlap surprisingly little. I do enjoy his material, so I’m hoping that next year we will be able to interact a bit more than we have in recent years!
    
    
    
14. ALBERT MOHLER (7) http://www.albertmohler.com/
    
    Al is America's favorite seminary professor. If Wayne Grudem had time to do a radio show and a blog on top of his seminary tasks, preaching, and writing books, he could undoubtedly give Dr. Mohler a run for his money. One of the mysteries about Al is that he doesn’t seem keen to leave us with many books that have been penned by his hand! Nevertheless, I’m happy that he sends me a fair bit of traffic!
    
    
    
15. UNASHAMED WORKMAN (—)
    http://unashamedworkman.wordpress.com/
    
    The sidebar of this blog alone is a worthy resource. I will know when I have arrived as a blogger when I have been added to this amazing list of blogs and other sites to visit. Even without having a place on that list, Unashamed Workman has still managed to make the top fifteen blogs which send traffic my way. That’s because he has linked to some of my material. The quality of his own posts makes this blog a very worthwhile read.
    
    
16. http://facebook.com/
    
    
17. http://monergism.com/
    
    
18. http://qaya.org/
    
    
19. http://reformation21.org/
    
    
20. http://danhames.blogspot.com/
    
    
21. http://fide-o.blogspot.com/
    
    
22. http://solofemininity.blogs.com/ (12)
    
    
23. http://theopedia.com/
    
    
24. http://stevenjcamp.blogspot.com/
    
    
25. http://sfpulpit.com/
    
    
26. http://psalm305.blogspot.com/
    
    
27. http://desiringgod.org/
    
    
28. http://lashawnbarber.com/
    
    
29. http://creative2567.blogspot.com/
    
    
30. http://julnbde.blogspot.com/
    
    
31. http://ceruleansanctum.com/
    
    
32. http://42.blogs.warnock.me.uk/
    
    
33. http://piercedforourtransgressions.com/
    
    
34. http://mrlauterbach.typepad.com/
    
    
35. http://boarsheadtavern.com/ (9)
    
    
36. http://scotwise.blogspot.com/
    
    
37. http://thesimplepastor.blogspot.com/
    
    
38. http://against-heresies.blogspot.com/
    
    
39. http://chri.st/
    
    
40. http://earnestlydesire.blogspot.com/
    
    
41. http://ken-fields.blogspot.com/
    
    
42. http://energionpubs.com/
    
    
43. http://charismaticbloggers.blogspot.com/
    
    
44. http://worldmagblog.com/
    
    
45. http://thedigitalsanctuary.textdriven.com/
    
    
46. http://kiwiandanemu.org/
    
    
47. http://theresurgence.com/
    
    
48. http://englishbibles.blogspot.com/ (6)
    
    
49. http://expositorythoughts.wordpress.com/
    
    
50. http://cartoonchurch.com/
    
    
51. http://ukcommentators.blogspot.com/
    
    
52. http://parablemania.ektopos.com/
    
    
53. http://theologyonline.org/
    
    
54. http://bigbadmo.blogspot.com/
    
    
55. http://rianniello.blogspot.com/
    
    
56. http://adrianreynolds.blogspot.com/
    
    
57. http://enjoyinggodministries.com/
    
    
58. http://wordandspirit.co.uk/
    
    
59. http://firstimportance.org/
    
    
60. http://9marks.org/
    
    
61. http://andycottingham.com/
    
    
62. http://exiledpreacher.blogspot.com/
    
    
63. http://tatumweb.com/
    
    
64. http://gospelgrowth.blogspot.com/
    
    
65. http://matthewhosier.blogspot.com/
    
    
66. http://robrufus.blogspot.com/
    
    
67. http://peter-ould.net/
    
    
68. http://fundyreformed.wordpress.com/
    
    
69. http://faithbyhearing.wordpress.com/
    
    
70. http://phillipjohnson.blogspot.com/
    

During the months of September and October, I spent a lot of time quoting from a book Justin Taylor produced—a lightly edited John Owen. These can all be read on the category page for posts labeled "John Owen." In November, I gave John Piper on N. T. Wright the same treatment.

I also wrote a post titled Blogging, Discernment, and a Book by Tim Challies which managed to provoke the Pyromaniacs, review Tim's book, and muse about the best approach to blogging for Christians—all in the same post! It was not long after that when I made the important decision to remove comments from this site because I just wasn't managing to find the time to moderate them properly. This was announced in Thanksgiving and Some Changes Around Here.

Terry Virgo hasn't found out and stopped me yet, but I managed to let everyone into the Secret of Newfrontiers—if you want to know what that is, you will have to read the post. I was also able to share an interview with a man who has a unique perspective on our movement, having been in it for decades before officially leaving, while remaining our very good friend. I am, of course, talking about Greg Haslam, who is currently occupying D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' pulpit in Westminster Chapel, London.

It was very moving to be able to visit the Billy Graham Center in Wheaton, Illinois. I was also able to return to London in time to renew my acquaintance with Mark Dever, and to listen to him preach. Here are the posts:

• Theology for All — Lessons for the Future by Mark Dever
• Theology for All — Lessons for the Present by Mark Dever
• Theology for All — Lessons From the Past by Mark Dever
• Theology for All — Mark Dever in the UK
• Theology for All — An Interview with Mark Dever

In November I met Mark Driscoll in the flesh for the first time and shared the following posts about the meeting and his sermons there, as well as mentioning a couple of key ones from his home church:

• Driscoll on the Defeat of Shame and the Scotland MP3s
• Mark Driscoll at MenMakers in Scotland
• Mark Driscoll Preaches on the Atonement in Edinburgh, Scotland
• Mark Driscoll Apologizes For Not Being Humble
• Mark Driscoll Firm, But Kind, About Joel Osteen on Prosperity Teaching

In December I posted probably my most political post so far—"Time to Put a Stop to Brown?" It is fair to say that I assumed people would understand that I believed that, for better or worse, it is God who has given us this leader at this time. I should not have assumed that, nor should I have neglected to remind all of us of the need to pray for him. With Brown seemingly helpless against Cameron's weekly accusations that the PM is dithering and indecisive, it sure looks like the leader of "The B Team" needs our prayers! For the sake of our nation, I hope something changes and soon.

My final interview of the year was actually a transcipt of an interview I had previously shared in audio form. The interviewee was Rob Rufus, and that was surely a good way to end what has been my most eventful year of blogging so far.

May was not as controversial a month as I reported yesterday that April had been. I continued with the following posts on the atonement and the resurrection throughout May and also into June. In fact, there were a few posts on the atonement which spilled into July, and I have listed them here also. If that's not enough for you on this vital subject, remember to look at my April review which lists a lot more!

• John Stott on the Atonement—The Conclusion
• Terry Virgo On the Results of the Cross
• C. J. Mahaney on the Cross
• Tom Schreiner on the Atonement
• Spurgeon on the Atonement
• Wayne Grudem on the Atonement
• A Limited Atonement? Did Jesus Die For All?
• J. I. Packer on the Atonement
• The Atonement—A Quiz
• Penal Substitutionary Atonement—Precious Gospel or Divine Child Abuse?
• Brian McLaren Supports Steve Chalke About the Cross
• The Atonement and the Resurrection—It's All About Jesus
• The Atonement—Jesus' Death Is Not Repeated at Communion
• The Atonement—Don't Forget the Blood of Christ
• Are You Still A Sinner?
• Is the Cross a Legal Fiction? No, Because the Resurrection Changes Us
• The Atonement—Is Penal Substitution the Only Thing That Happened at the Cross?
• Christianity Magazine Reviews Pierced For Our Transgressions
• The Atonement—Is Jesus the Good Cop?
• The Atonement—What Does Imputation Mean?
• Jonathan Edwards on the Resurrection
• The Atonement—What Did Jesus Die From?
• The Atonement—2 Corinthians 5
• Atonement—Jesus Thought He Was Fulfilling Isaiah 53
• The Atonement—Isaiah 53
• Resurrection Sunday—The Commission of the Risen Christ
• Sam Storms Reviews Pierced For Our Transgressions
• Atonement—Who is Preaching Another Gospel?
• The Atonement—What Happened to Jesus on the Cross?
• Resurrection Empowered Life—The Deposit Guaranteeing Our Inheritance
• Penal Substitutionary Atonement Summarized in Romans 15
• The Atonement in Romans 12-14
• Resurrection Empowered Life—Dying to Live
• John Piper Friday—Christ's Obedient Life and Death Entwined
• The Atonement in Romans 9-11
• The Atonement in Romans 8
• Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Separating Over the Atonement
• Resurrection Empowered Life—Raised With Christ
• John Piper Friday—Romans and the Reason for the Atonement
• The Atonement—Romans 6-7 and Penal Substitutionary Atonement
• The Atonement—Romans 4-5 on Penal Substitutionary Atonement
• The Atonement—Romans 1-3 and Penal Substitutionary Atonement
• Atonement—The Angry God of the Bible
• N. T. Wright on Paul and the Resurrection Empowered Life

May and June were also the months I began to introduce my readers to the leader of the family of churches of which I am a part. I did a multi-part inteview with Terry Virgo, shared two of his sermons, and introduced his blog in these posts:

• Terry Virgo Preaches on Ephesians 4
• Terry Virgo Preaches on Jesus' First Miracle
• Terry Virgo Starts a Blog
• Terry Virgo On Healings, Driscoll, and Theology
• Amazing Grace on a Wedding Day

I highlighted a post on a subject that would later in the year lead to the first full-scale blog debate between some of my heroes of the faith. It was slightly cheeky, and I suppose the possibility of a challenge by others was implicit in Mark Dever and Ancient Baptistries. I was also very provoked by a post I quoted from Gandalf's blog, Why Do We All Like Jesus?

I very much enjoyed talking with Liam Goligher, in a wide-ranging multi-part interview, as well as The Authors of Pierced for Our Transgressions.

I also put out a plea which remains out there for anyone with old messages from Downs Bible Week, C. J. Mahaney, and Others to contact me. In particular, I am interested in messages by my old mentor, Henry Tyler.

Also in May I was fascinated to come across a sound bite that has lived with me since—"We need to show the people we understand what it's like to be unbelievers."

Today I will continue my review of the last year's blogging which we began yesterday. April was a very interesting month for me on this blog. So much so that it deserves an entire post. It was a month which single-handedly seemed to dramatically raise my UK readership, and that rise persisted after the month ended. Since I have historically had so many US readers compared to British, sometimes this feels like an American blog to me. (OK, I'm sure it doesn't to my American readers!) But it seems to me that us Brits have yet to embrace blogs as passionately as our cousins across the pond.

After Easter I considered some readily available information about a significant controversy that had risen to the fore again and now threatened to split the Evangelical movement in two. There seemed to me to be an unfathomable reluctance in certain UK Christian media outlets to cover it. I wondered if some news desk decisions were being influenced by certain commercial relationships. In the end, after much deliberation and with the support of my spiritual mentors, I did the first real piece of journalism I had ever done and broke the story that the split between Word Alive and Spring Harvest was not as amicable as many had understood. Suddenly, UK Christians were turning to my blog to read the latest developments and varying opinions of key figures on both sides to whom I tried to give a platform.

Looking back, as messy as that time was, I really don't regret the decision to break that story. My sources were several and impeccable, and without looking for gossip, I had heard rumors for several months. Interestingly, I subsequently discovered that at least one person had hinted at the same story on their own blog before me. (Sadly I cannot now remember the link to that.) I didn't expect the level of public debate between the two sides that would occur, nor the phone calls I would receive from key players on both sides to explain their version of events to me. I felt like something of an agony uncle at times, and knew far more details about the situation than I would have wanted to publish or it would have been beneficial to publish. Splits are always painful. This was the first one that played out in front of the amassed Christian blogs.

I was glad of one thing—the secular media did not pick up the story, although in a sense it shows how irrelevant we have become to their perception of our culture. I really didn't expect to have such a role, and I very much doubt that there will be too many times in the future when I will find myself doing a similar thing.

You can trace the story as it emerged here on my blog in the following posts:

• Word Alive and Spring Harvest to Separate After Fifteen Years Because of the Atonement


• Response from UCCF to the Spring Harvest Decision to End the Word Alive Bible Teaching Week After Fourteen Years.


• The Atonement—N. T. Wright Attacks Both Sides of the Debate


• Pete Broadbent of Spring Harvest Makes a Statement About Word Alive


• Peter Broadbent States Atonement Was a Factor in Spring Harvest Split

The interesting thing was that I was, in any case, in full flow in a series on the atonement. So, with the whole blogosphere lit up on this issue, the blog posts I had already written seemed so much more relevant. Here are the posts in question:

• Wright Quotes That Affirm Penal Substitutionary Atonement


• Dave Warnock Shares an Alternative View of the Atonement


• John Stott—Champion of Penal Subsitutionary Atonement Retires


• The Atonement—Penal Substitutionary Atonement Defined


• The Atonement—If Jesus Was Not a Sinner, Why Did He Die?


• The Atonement—The Place of Union With Christ


• The Atonement—The Terrible Problem of Sin


• The Atonement—Wrong Ideas About the Cross
  
• The Atonement—Should We Disagree With John Stott?


• The Atonement—Packer on Penal Substitution


• The Atonement—The Mission of Jesus


• The Atonement—The Historical Background to the Cross


• The Atonement—An Attack on Penal Substitution


• The Atonement—Quotes From Leon Morris


• The Atonement—Does the Cross of Jesus Matter?


• T4G Article 7—The Atonement: An Introduction
  

Somehow in the midst of all that, I also blogged about other subjects. Notably, the following posts reflected on other debates, and also how we can cooperate together despite certain differences:

• Relating Together for the Gospel


• A Cessationist Healing?


• Newfrontiers Magazine Focuses on Healing


• The PCA Considering Excluding Followers of N. T. Wright


• Mark Driscoll Banned Church Planting Video

I also blogged a fair bit about the resurrection, including the following:

• The Resurrection Empowered Life—Gazing on Jesus


• The Resurrection Empowered LIfe
  
• Book—How Much Does God Foreknow? by Steve Roy

I also remember one of my rare forays into the world of politics in US Election—Dipping My Toe Into a Can of Worms, and an article I published elsewhere entitled Loving God—A Guide for Beginners.

It's time once again to review another year's worth of blogging here at my place. I have made it something of a tradition to look back and reflect on the year that has passed. I have done this previously in December 2006, 2005, and 2004. The format is simple: I highlight some of the posts that I remember most, or enjoyed writing the most over the year. This time I will break it down into a series of posts.

This year I began January's blogging—after extending my customary Christmas break slightly longer than previously—by taking up my autobiographical story with a post entitled My Story Part Five—Learning to Value Being, Not Doing. I did not return to my story again this year, so this remains surely the longest running, as yet unfinished, series on my blog. I am sure that I will eventually return to this and catch up to the current day. In that post I talked about the value of silence and reflection.

In one of the shortest, but most personally challenging posts of the year, in the second post of 2007 I shared some Reflections of a Returning Blogger, citing Scripture that said few words were wiser than many. I suspect this contributed to a trend this year on my blog to shorter posts and, hopefully, to more careful consideration of what I say.

I also spent a few days in January on an interview with Wendy Alsup, a deacon in the Mars Hill Church—Seattle, where Mark Driscoll is pastor.

In February I began what would be an extended series on preaching with two posts that quoted the Together for the Gospel Statement Article 4, John Piper, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Expository Preaching.

I also mentioned that I had just heard a new book on the atonement would soon be released—Pierced for Our Transgressions. Little did I know then just how much I would be focused on that subject this year. I shared the audio of a talk I had given late in 2006 for Jubilee entitled What is the Bible?

I remember being stirred to ask Should We be Optimistic or Pessimistic About the Future? and challenging my readers to find a quote I was sure I had once read from Spurgeon. That readers' challenge remains open and can be answered via e-mail on reading Spurgeon's Prediction of a Future Revival. I did manage to find one quote where Spurgeon asks the question Will More Be Saved Than Lost?

It was also great to publish the news that I was able to play a small part in restoring the works of Charles Simeon to a larger audience.

I seem to have been somewhat distracted from my posts about preaching, and only quoted C. S. Lewis on the Need for Plain English Preaching all month. I did quote one of my greatest living hero's impressions of one of my greatest preaching heroes of the past—I am speaking, of course, about John Piper on Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

In March I returned to the subject of preaching, and there were a significant number of posts which culminated in Ten Conclusions About Expository Preaching. In the middle of this I wrote about The Risks and Rewards of Using Technology in Sermon Preparation.

I posted about the T4G Articles 5-6—The Attributes of God and the Trinity, which included the audio of another talk I had given at Jubilee late in 2006.

One of the traditions of this blog is that every now and then I engage in a gloves-off debate with the Pyromaniacs. In March, one of these was summarized in a post I entitled Am I a Thrill Seeker?

If I remember correctly, that debate with the Pyros was, at least in part, sparked by possibly the most controversial post of the year anywhere in the Christian blogosphere. It was published over on Desiring God, and my reflections on it were entitled John Piper Hears The Voice Of God. I also remember the call that went out that month for Prayer for an Exhausted Mark Driscoll.

March was a hectic blogging month, but nothing would prepare me for what was to come in April, especially as I had written many of my forthcoming posts on atonement in a single sitting and thought I would have a quiet time as my editor faithfully published them all for me. That, however, must wait for the next installment of this year in review series.

It is now almost a week since I made the decision to stop comments here on the blog. In the next few days I will also be deleting all the old ones. I have to say that, so far, I have not missed them. It's not so much that I don't want interaction with my readers—that, in any case, continues in other ways. Rather, I'm glad that the immediacy of that interaction is less, and its constant demands on my time have abated. Having one less demand on my time is so welcome!

Previously I felt constantly under pressure to monitor the stream of comments coming into my inbox to determine which ones should be approved. Part of the nature of these comments was that the majority of them seemed to disagree with the original post. I think this is partly because those who read a post and like it are unlikely to say so in a comment. I know that I myself am more inclined to respond to something that I dislike online. It is this argumentative aspect of comments that has bothered me somewhat. I genuinely believe that, for me at least, removing comments is a way of taking a step away from being quarrelsome.

I came across the following verse this week which made me think that I have done the right thing—at least for me in my situation.

"So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will." (1 Timothy 2:22-26)

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If you miss making comments, you can always pop over to one of my reader's blogs who has begun an interesting discussion on Martyn Lloyd-Jones' views of guidance. He said to tell you that he would welcome your opinions! Or, you could go and read Alistair's transcription of what Driscoll really said about God hating sinners and join in the conversation over there.

UPDATE
In response to this post Rick asks, "Are Blog Comments Unscriptural?" whilst Dave Warnock collects the posts from those who think I should not have stopped publishing comments.

I am thankful today. It may not be my holiday, we may not have anything even remotely like it here in the UK, but as I said last year, I am very glad of the reminder this American holiday represents.

I know that at times I still have a sinful tendency to focus on things that are not going the way I want them to rather than to be thankful for everything that has gone well. I know that even after all these years of growing as a Christian, there are times when self-pity, criticism of others, and ungratefulness rear their heads. I know that in the corner of my heart their lies an area as yet not cleaned by the grace that is washing me day-by-day and making me more like Jesus. That area stubbornly refuses to learn that I am not the center of the universe. Neither will it accept that minor inconveniences to me are not worth getting upset about. It must continually be reminded that if I just learned to actually be more sincerely thankful rather than merely mouthing the words "thank you" in a ritualistic manner, my world would actually be a better place. So apart from all the other reasons I have to give thanks, my own selfish interests would be better served!

The truth is, we all find it hard to say a simple "thank you."

My dear readers, I do want to thank you today so much for your patience and ongoing interest in these voluminous and persistent writings of mine which threaten to encroach upon your coffee breaks on a daily basis! I do value the time you invest. I appreciate your interest in the matters that interest me. I am grateful to God for his grace, which has meant that some of you find that investment of time to be at times helpful to you.

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One of the interesting things about blogging is the way it seems to go around in cycles. I suppose it's partly because of the way blogging obviously reflects the rest of our lives. I know that, for me, my blog is just an extension of me. Many times my friends have to stop me when I'm talking to them and say, "Adrian, I've already read that on your blog!"

So it felt rather strange when I realized the odd coincidence that this Thanksgiving I'm again returning to a theme that was bubbling up in my thinking at the same time last year. This culminated in a post just days after Thanksgiving titled "Making a Minor Tweak to My Comments Policy."

Interestingly, I had the same internal conflict then I find I have right now. On the one hand I was upset about some of the comments I received on the blog, and on the other hand I was thankful for many of the comments—"especially from those who disagree with me." The real problem I face is that sometimes it's really hard to decide which comments I am happy to publish and which ones I am not. It's difficult to set any clear set of rules that can be understood by both me and you, my readers. Tone is in the eye of the beholder, as my recent debate with the Pyromaniacs clearly demonstrated.

Last December I realized that my earlier tweak had not been enough, so I made a major change in how I would deal with comments here. I now feel that the change I made last year is no longer adequate. It served me well this past year, but now it's time for another radical change. My big problem moving forward is that, with all my other responsibilities, I am so busy that something has to give. I have decided that the time I spend making the often agonizing decision about whether or not to publish a comment (and which I probably sometimes get wrong) is going to have to be freed up.

So, at least for now, beginning today, I will no longer publish comments made on my blog posts.

What does this mean? Firstly, for the vast majority of you, it will make little or no difference. I know that only a tiny proportion of my readers even read the comments, let alone add to them. For some of you, though, this will be disappointing. Does this mean I am no longer interested in your feedback? Absolutely not! Does this mean I will stop reading e-mails sent to me? No! In fact, by freeing some time, it may even make it more likely that I can respond to an e-mail privately, or if appropriate and with the permission of my correspondent, on my blog itself.

I will still, as time permits, try to interact with those who disagree with me. I am not retreating into some kind of bunker! From time to time, I will also probably post a link here to such a post and answer it. I may even frequent the comment sections on other people's blogs.

Why am I doing this? It's mainly for my own sanity. It's because I need to reclaim the time I currently devote to scratching my head in deciding whether or not to publish comments. I feel responsible for the words which appear here in the comments section. I obviously do not have any similar responsibility for what people might post elsewhere. I may well find myself quite happy to read even quite critical comments made elsewhere, whereas reading the very same words as a potential comment for publication here would make me anxious about whether or not I should accept it.

I am grateful for my interactions with you, my readers, which have helped me to understand so many things more clearly. It is therefore with some sadness that I now pull the plug on comments. Because of my current time pressures, it is better to stem the flow of comments now than to wait until I am engulfed in a major comment storm at some point in the future.

If you have made any comments you want to save for the future, please go in and copy/paste them, since at some point fairly soon I will be removing all the old comments also.

The following verse has influenced this decision, and I hope will continue to influence my blogging in these post-comment box days:

"The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out." (Proverbs 17:14)

UPDATE
Not everyone is happy with my decision, as this post over at Peter's blog demonstrates.

UPDATE—November 3, 2007
Phil has now written part two of his reply, and I have responded with a post entitled, "Of Tone, Discernment, and the Charismatic Question."

UPDATE—October 29, 2007
Phil Johnson over at Pyromaniacs and I have been debating the issues raised by my criticism of him in the comments section of his original post. Just search for "Adrian" using the "find in page" function if you want to follow our specific debate. Phil has also written a new post, "If you can't say something nice," and we are debating in the comments on that post.

I will leave this post at the top of my blog for a couple more days as I want to give you all a chance to read it. If you are interested in some of my related thoughts on this subject, you could read the following posts:

• My Visit to the Billy Graham Center
  
• I Don't Want Balance, I Want It All!
  
• My Comments Policy
  
• Blogging Principles for Christians

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Those of you with an eagle-eye will have already noticed that I am publicizing Tim Challies' forthcoming book, The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment. I doubt that many are surprised that I should want to encourage you to read his book, and I will show in this post why that is the case.

To begin with, however, I want to be very open and honest with you. When I first heard that Tim was writing a book I was actually a little concerned. This may surprise those regular readers who know how much I respect Tim and enjoy his blog. But I still had in my mind an old paradigm where those who are in some way "approved" as trained experts are the ones who should write books. Tim, like me, has no theological degrees. I also know that, just like me concerning this blog, he has been rather surprised by the way in which his readership has grown to an extent he never predicted (and, I should say, to a substantially larger figure than my own). So I was surprised that Tim put his neck on the line still further by taking on the challenge of writing a book.

Tim and I have both been riding a wave—the wave of blogging. In both the secular field and the Christian field, it seems that the most successful bloggers almost all seem to have something in common; they are not "officially trained" recognized global experts in their chosen fields. Perhaps this is because the real experts are too busy to write on a daily basis, or perhaps this is because of a new phenomena in our culture—one with which I'm not particularly thrilled, to be honest. In our 21st century culture there is a growing mistrust of any form of authority and of academics. It is actually rather sad to me that this now seems to be spilling over into the Church, and that it might seem, at first glance, to also include the Christian blogosphere.

One of the most influential early articles discussing the Christian blogging phenomenon was titled, "We Know More Than Our Pastors," and it embodied this trend. It concerned me immensely. David Wayne summarized this piece and sounded some very valid concerns about it. For me, I wanted almost nothing to do with the concepts outlined therein.

Even as I have enjoyed the way that I have been able to be buffeted in this hurricane called blogging, I have also been somewhat concerned about some of the implications of this new marketplace of ideas. I suppose that, despite these reservations, I remain in the blogosphere because I am drawn to it as surely as a bee is to a flower in bloom, and as the Apostle Paul was to the debating spots of ancient Athens.

I am also here because somebody has to be. I am certainly not here because I imagine myself to be at the vanguard of some modern reformation that will sweep away the "old guard" in the way some bloggers (usually not Christian ones) speak about. I am here because, ironically enough, I see this new media as a way that we can proclaim the old, old message. I am here because, in some small way, I can act as a signpost to direct passing traffic to wiser heads than mine. The more readers I find visiting here, the more I feel the need to both quote and link to others. Whatever the size of your blog readership, that filtering process is the single best gift you can give both to your readers and to the writers of even the biggest blogs. I am pleased that the headlines from several bloggers who deserve to be read more than I do appear in the "Warnie Winners" box in my sidebar.

The blogging community can be thought of as a road system, a library, an ecosystem, or perhaps most aptly of all, a jungle. With no single classification system or map, what is needed are good wise guides. There are precious few of them online.

One such wise guide is surely Tim Challies. I know that he shares many of my concerns about the world of blogs, and has a similar attitude in wanting to support those in positions of authority in the Church rather than tearing them down. I know that he is submissive to others. I like that he respects those, like me, who might differ with him on secondary issues, but firmly join hands on the Gospel. I have also met a godly man called Paul Martin who pastors him wisely. The more I came to know Tim, the more my concerns about the concept of a non-expert writing a book began to evaporate. If the modern world needs non-experts to grapple with the words of the experts and make them more accessible to the rest of us, then those who have been given that gift should be encouraged to find an appropriate outlet, even if that looks a bit different from previous models.

Writing a book is very different from writing a blog, even though the number of words involved in a blog over the years may be just as numerous. With a blog, there is instant feedback, and a chance to easily go back and reword or retract an argument. With a book, not only is it more permanent, it is somehow expected to be more accurate, so the responsibility feels greater. James 3 is ever present in the mind of a preacher, and should be in the mind of a blogger as well. Speaking personally, I have applied it even more strongly to the concept of writing a book, which quite frankly has always terrified me rather than attracted me.

But for some people there comes a time when a book finds them and demands to be written. That is what has happened to the man I am glad to call my friend, Tim Challies. He is painfully aware of the cacophony of voices available online, and the need to discriminate between them. The average member of your congregation might well be either theologically illiterate or have imbibed a watered-down, overly simplistic doctrinal system which he has heard away from your church pulpit. Blogs, mp3s, books, magazines, TV programs, conferences, and radio all compete for the minds of modern Christians. The battle has never been stronger. How should we respond to this?

There are a number of different approaches that could be taken. We could just ignore what is going on around us, which would not be wise. We could, instead, become great experts in the different types of false teaching that are being purveyed. There are some bloggers who seem to have the goal of ferreting out everything that is less than perfect. These are often termed "watch blogs." The temptation is to take some kind of perverse gratification out of proving others wrong. As the years have gone on, by God's grace, that temptation has increasingly looked less appealing to me, although there was a time when I frequently delighted in giving in to it.

Sometimes even bloggers with good intentions can fall into the trap of being over zealous in their discernment. I am sure I have fallen into that trap myself at times. But this past week, in reading a post by Phil Johnson, I thought I saw a classic example of someone who had over-reached himself in reacting to some things he had discerned. Now, don't get me wrong. I share many of Phil's concerns. I am indeed concerned about some aspects of Willow Creek's ministry philosophy. Personally, I am not sure how to interpret their recent "repentance," and certainly was VERY worried to see that they have invited Brian McLaren to speak at one of their conferences. BUT it bothers me that Phil seemed (at least to me) to be implying that Willow Creek has absolutely nothing to teach us. I am sure that if we fail to recognize something as being good and helpful and true, we fail in our discernment as much as if we blindly accepted everything in a naive way. I know it sounds cliched, but we really must be looking for the good in people, especially in those who have not denied important aspects of the Gospel. It is quite correct to say, "I like what this person says about the following subject, and have learned from them, although I disagree strongly with them on another subject." If, instead, we lump people and whole movements together into an amorphous lump of theological rejects, surely we risk alienating them and, ironically, driving some further away from the truth of the Gospel that I know Phil and I both love.

But if Phil was harsh on Willow Creek, he went on in the same post to be even harder on the charismatics. I mention this because this kind of over-zealous discernment is sadly quite common. Again, quite rightly, he was pointing out the sin in a specific charismatic minister. Also, quite rightly, he was pointing out that due to an absence of discernment this kind of error is all too common in the charismatic movement, and sadly is often covered up. So far so good. And, despite his claim that his charismatic friends would be angry at these comments, I agree! What I struggle with, however, is that he then makes plain that he believes that charismatic doctrine itself is to blame for these sins and the lack of discernment that allows them to continue unchallenged. Phil applies the red card of his disapproval to the entire movement that, despite all its acknowledged weaknesses, I am thrilled to have been part of for decades. Should we use discernment with such a broad brush stroke?

My dear friend, Jesse Phillips, took Phil to task admirably in the comments section and repeated this on his own blog. No one seemed able to answer his arguments that while it is true that some second-order implications which people draw from core charismatic doctrine do encourage gullibility and an absence of discernment, the core doctrines themselves do not need to do so. Phil, in reply, claimed that reformed charismatics were a new breed, and only caused by alien influences on the movement. This is not true. Men like Terry Virgo and C. J. Mahaney and the groups of churches they lead have been around for many decades now. Perhaps these groups are not as visible as they could be, but I know they are also not alone in being committed to a firm grasp on reality and the wisdom of the Bible.

To simply dismiss the entire charismatic movement in just one sentence does not seem a wise response to the fastest growing segment of Christianity. It is not, of course, wrong to disagree with charismatic theology (some of my best friends online are cessationists, like Tim himself, of course), but Phil does not seem to recognize any good that has come out of the movement. It would be like me refusing to acknowledge the fantastic work being produced by cessationists. Much as I disagree with some of the positions cessationists take, I am willing to go so far as to state I learn as much and perhaps even more helpful theology from their teachers as I do from fellow charismatic teachers. Doesn't discernment require that we identify helpful material even when it comes from those we disagree with on relatively minor points?

There is surely another way to respond to the marketplace of ideas to which we are exposed in today's church. The single best approach to discerning truth from error is to focus on understanding and proclaiming the truth more (while remaining aware of what is being taught around us). We need to learn to recognize the truth for ourselves by studying the Bible. But we must recognize that we ourselves are not immune to error. We need to ask God for humility wherein we submit ourselves to the views of others and are willing to be taught by them. Indeed, we should be willing to use our discernment as a sieve to strain out the good bits from a mixture of error in order to do so. None of us has a monopoly on truth, or for that matter, error. Some may grasp certain aspects of the truth with remarkable ease, while others of us may struggle to understand it for years. There is, in my view, often much truth in the very ministries of those who we eagerly criticize. We can learn from more people than we like to think we can—provided we have discernment. I am frequently provoked when I read the writings or listen to the teachings of others who come from different parts of the Church than I. This must be done with caution, of course, and requires that I have studied the Bible for myself first. The more we understand the biblical truth for ourselves the better skilled we will become at testing everything and holding onto the good. I love the way Tim says it in his book:

"We can best know what is wrong by first knowing what is right. Experts on counterfeit currency know this as well. They train others first to know the traits of genuine currency because such knowledge will make apparent what is fraudulent. Christians need to dedicate themselves to learning and knowing truth so that what is evil and abnormal will appear obvious. For this reason the Apostle writes, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8). He encourages us to think first and foremost about what is right and true and pure and lovely. In Romans 16:19b he says this as well, exhorting the Roman church “to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.” Never does the Bible tell us to dwell primarily or repeatedly upon what is false.

The relationship of truth to error is such that we can best know error by knowing truth. The opposite is not true. People who invest undue effort in concentrating upon what is false will not necessarily be able to identify what is true. By dwelling upon the beautiful truths of Scripture we will subsequently learn discernment. A discerning person will know that he must focus his heart upon what is true and pure and lovely, having confidence that in doing this God will bless Him with the ability to expose darkness."

Tim Challies takes us from the turbulent marketplace of ideas that is the modern western church back into the world of the Scriptures. Sadly, today many people fall into the trap of being naively blown from one wind of teaching to another. Others become so expert at straining out the gnats of what they believe to be error that they are unable to learn from anybody. Instead they believe themselves to be the guardians of "true" doctrine. Tim shows us from the Bible itself how to avoid both errors. Tim's reliance on the Bible is refreshing in an age when doctrinal pillars of our faith are being challenged by prominent preachers, and there is a constant search for novelty in parts of the Church. This book, like no other I have seen, aims to give ordinary Christians like you and me the tools we need to learn how to discern truth from error. I wholeheartedly urge you to get yourself a copy and read it, and then buy one for a friend.

I will close by quoting another passage from Tim's book that expresses well his aim in writing the book:

This book is written for the general reader who wishes to understand discernment, to understand what the Bible teaches us about discernment, and who wishes to equip himself in this discipline. It is not written primarily for people with theological training, though I trust they, too, can benefit from it. Rather, it is written for you and for me—average Christians living in a culture and in a church where it so often seems that anything goes. It is written for those who look at much of what is said and done in the name of Jesus and ask themselves, “How can this be right?” It is written for all those who believe that it is the duty of every Christian to think biblically about all areas of life so that they might act biblically in all areas of life . . .

I do not intend to do the work of discernment for you. There are many books, web sites, and ministries that claim to teach discernment but do so by simply listing all the things you must do and the things you must not do. This book approaches the subject differently and is the result of my studies in Scripture to find the tools of discernment that God provides to us in his Word. And so I will not present a list of ministries you should avoid or endorse, authors whose books you should burn or buy, and music you should not listen to or that you should immediately download to your MP3 player. Rather, I hope to teach biblical wisdom on how you and I can become more discerning. I will present to you the wisdom of the Bible as it teaches us how we can become men and women of discernment. I will present principles you can use as you walk this life distinguishing between what is truth and what is error, what is right and what is wrong.

Today I am going to do something I don't believe I have ever done before. I am going to publish an edited and expanded version of an old post of mine. Unlike certain Christian bloggers who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty (you know who you are!) I am going to be up front about it, and even place a link to the original 2005 post entitled "DON'T LISTEN TO ME—WHAT DO I KNOW?"

I want to ask you today, "Are you too loyal?" I think being too loyal is a bigger problem than we sometimes realize. Generally loyalty is a good thing. For example, I am not surprised that many of my readers are the same people who keep coming back rather than total strangers just popping through. Indeed, I hope you are feeling quite loyal towards me as you read this, that in some odd Internet way you even consider me your friend. But that friendship with me or any other blogger—or for that matter preacher to whom you listen online—should NEVER become a replacement for your friendships with godly Christians. If it did, that would be one example of what I mean by being too loyal.

You can also be too loyal by being too trusting of someone, and by following them too closely. I strongly hope that I don't have any readers who read this blog uncritically; that would be foolish in the extreme. In real life I could be anyone. No matter how well you feel you know me from my blog writings, it's not possible to deduce the answers to all kinds of really important questions. Am I a Christian in good standing in a local church? Do I have the appropriate level of biblical understanding to support what I say? What is my character like? Do I treat my wife and children as well as I ought to? What theological degrees or qualifications do I have? I will give you the answer to that last question only—NONE!

It worries me a little that some readers of blogs look to those blogs for their teaching more than their own local church. Some might even feel that they do not need to go to a church, partly because of the biblical food they feel they are getting online. The challenge for some, no doubt, is that they attend a church whose teaching they believe is not biblically sound. There are definitely many Christians who continue, out of a misguided sense of loyalty, attending churches they believe teach blatant error. To listen to online teachers and get one's teaching there may seem wise when you feel that your local preacher is in some way deficient.

If you are in a situation where you don't feel you are able to agree with the vast majority of the preaching of your church, and instead you believe you are learning more online, I would strongly urge you to carefully consider your position. As I have said before, one of best things about of being in my church is the joy of being pastored by our elders, Tope Koleoso, Stuart Emsley, and as of last Sunday, Dave Pask. Those three men care for my soul. It is a delight to follow them. Bloggers, book authors, and TV or Internet preachers cannot pastor you.

It is often helpful to read a blog with discernment, even if you disagree with some of the author's ideas, if doing so helps you to examine the blogger and your own beliefs in the light of Scripture. I sincerely hope that you do not need to take that kind of critical approach to your pastor's sermons, or at least not to the same degree! We should be able to listen to our preachers without having to constantly mentally edit out the parts with which we disagree.

Incidentally, this is one reason why those of us who are preachers need to be careful that we do not go beyond simply explaining the Scriptures in our sermons. We should stick to preaching and explaining the Word of God, and we need to be very careful with our theological deductions. What we really must avoid when preaching is to take a deduction we have made from Scripture and build another deduction on top of that. It will not foster the correct attitude towards preaching in the hearts of our hearers if they are constantly having to decide whether what we are saying is mere speculation or the very Word of the living God!

If you cannot honorably submit to the leadership of your local church, either it is time to leave, or it is time for you to change your attitude towards them. While it is great to learn from blogging and other means, if it is pulling you in a different direction to your church leaders, you need to ask: "Am I reading too much content from the wrong kind of blogs, or am I in the wrong kind of church?"

There are, of course, two opposite errors that are both equally foolish. One is to leave a church for a minor and foolish reason and not have anywhere to go that is more suitable for your theological nitpicking. The second is to be too loyal to a church that has long since jettisoned the primary issues of the Gospel, or with whom you have strong disagreements on some of the key secondary issues; without such agreement we cannot honestly work together in a church.

What keeps you at your church or reading a blog or listening to an online preacher? Is it the kind of foolish loyalty that is little better than a bad habit or addiction? Or is it because serving in that church is good for your soul in a tangible way? Are you too loyal?

Few readers of Christian blogs will have failed to come across Tim Challies, the uberblogger who will shortly become a Crossway-published book author. In fact, I'm almost willing to bet that no one will first hear of Tim's blog through this post. If I'm wrong, do leave a comment to that effect and/or drop me an email! Anyway, Tim has a bit of a tradition over at his place. Unlike lesser mortals such as yours truly, Tim blogs EVERY day. I really do mean EVERY day. Christmas, Easter, summer holidays—in fact, Tim has now blogged for 1396 days without a single day off!

So, like around twenty others, when I saw a group on Facebook dedicated to a campaign to give Tim a short rest, I simply had to join. Then I saw that Tim's pastor and wife had joined, and for a while, to be honest, I was getting a bit concerned. If one's pastor and wife are telling you it's time for a rest, you ought to listen. So, I even offered to send Andrew Fountain round to steal Tim's PC for a day or two! I know from personal experience how addictive the Internet can be, even when we are doing good things.

Anyway, Aileen Challies, wife of Tim, is also a Facebook friend of mine, and I was therefore really pleased to be able to discover that she had joined the group out of a sense of fun, rather than any real concern about her husband's addiction to blogging. This is what she said (she's given me permission to share it):

"You need to understand Tim's personality. For a long time he was not a disciplined person . . . and his attention span has always been well, flighty? That is one reason blogging has been so good for him. It allows him to stay in web design because blogging, and everything else associated with it, gives him a variety of things happening, which stops him from being bored. It has also been a vital part of his spiritual growth over the last four years. Blogging truly has turned my husband into a much stronger man and husband. He thirsts now after God's will and Word in a way that he never has in the twelve years I have known him. I'm not sure most people could carry what Tim does with the reading, writing and research, and work, and, of course, family, but it is necessary with his personality! He does read fast, writes in the mornings, from about 8:30 to 10:00 (one benefit of being self-employed) and still has plenty of family time. While I can understand where the concern is coming from (outside looking in) you all really need to spend a day in the life of our family to see that it is not anywhere near what you are imagining!"

UPDATE
My blog editor has started another group on Facebook to campaign for Tim to keep going and not miss a single day! It's called "I need my daily dose of Challies!" How could she????