I am truly blessed, I have once again discovered on this trip. I am now in Norway, and I’ve again been taken in by wonderful people who love God and love the church. Enough of this, and I might forget about all of the bloggers out there who think I’m the spawn of Satan.After my engagements in Arhus, Denmark, I said a sad farewell to my friends Thomas and Henrick. I was driven by some fun-loving Americans to my next... Read more

…is coming!!! Check it out! Read more

Having a great time here in Denmark. On Monday, I spoke on emerging church issues to a group of church planters and other interested parties in Copenhagen. They were open and engaged, although our contextual differences were soon apparent. My host, Thomas Willer, opened by reading a bit from Soren Ostergaard’s dissertation on Danish church plants in which Soren argues that the gospel is “radical contextualization.” I heartily concurred. The Danes (as has been my experience elsewhere in the world... Read more

…Scot McKnight interviewed me a couple weeks ago. Part one available here. Read more

My host, Thomas Willer, collected me at the airport and we dropped off my bags at the convent/hospital where I’m staying for my first two nights in Scandinavia. He and I then joined three of his church-planting colleagues for lunch at The Laundromat Cafe, owned, they tell me, by some Icelanders. Over lunch, we talked of church planting, differences between the U.S., the U.K., and Scandinavia, and the strange marriage in their church plant of Baptist, emergent, and charismatic sensibilities.... Read more

Seven and a half hours from Minneapolis to Amsterdam, a long walk through the Schipol Airport, then and hour and a half to Capenhagen. As usual, I couldn’t sleep at all. And, as usual, I cried at an in-flight movie: Rocky Balboa. As I had read in reviews, it really is a fitting end to that series of movies, a series which sometimes expemplified the worst of 1980s filmmaking. Stallone wrote and directed it, which gives me more respect for... Read more

Like many life-long Minnesotans, I’m at least one-eighth Norwegian. I don’t know exactly — I’m between one-eighth and one-fourth. I had one great-great grandfather named, Thor Thorson. Sounds pretty Norwegian to me. He changed it to Thor Michaelson when he came to the States. Growing up, many holidays were spent in Gaylord, a small farming town in south central Minnesota. My grandmother, Florence, was the Norwegian (she married a Welsh-American), and she served the Norwegian-Minnesotan staples: lefse (that’s flat potato... Read more

Bob Robinson, that is? Well, he’s consistently one of the most incisive, thoughtful bloggers I read. Currently, he’s blogging about his interactions with DA Carson. I know Bob gave Don the benefit of the doubt — and he shares Don’s Reformed sensitibilities — so I thing Bob is doing us all a service by blogging through his thoughts. Three posts so far: here here and here. P.S.: I also happen to agree with Bob’s criticism of Randy Balmer’s book. In... Read more

People think pickled herring is gross, but I love it. I eat it whenever possible. I think it’s fantastic. I mean, who wouldn’t love a raw little fish, soaked in vinegar and placed on a cracker. All I can hope is that next week in Norway and Denmark, there will be lots of herring. There was no herring last week in North Carolina, but there was some good BBQ. And much excellent conversation was consumed. The folks at Campbell University... Read more

…Courtney blogs. Read more