Yes, it is that time again.  The “Best of” posts are all coming out.  Tomorrow we will have our top 5 posts of the year.  Today, as an act of humility, we present our Bottom 5.  They are our least read posts of 2011.  Go ahead and read one.  They can’t be all bad!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

5.  Jim’s Twice Baked Potatoes Recipe in Honor of Mother’s Day  (The 5th least read post of the year and the most delicious!)

4.  Get This Must Have Book On Early Church History (The 4th least read post of the year. Even so, you SHOULD still own it!)
The Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs by David W. Bercot, is a must have book for anyone interested in learning what the early church fathers taught.  Extremely informative and  very easy to read and use!  I am thrilled that I found it about 3 years ago.  So much so,  that I wanted to let you all know about it.

3.  Why Should Our Songs Be Cross-Centered? (In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this is the 3rd least read post of the year)

In the video below, CJ Mahaney lays out four compelling reasons for having cross saturated songs. I have summarized the points here, but you should listen to CJ’s explanation.

2.  A Strong Argument Against Calvinism? Part 2 You Decide….(this 4 post series caused a big stir this year, but this post wasn’t the reason.  Or was it?)

Over here at Not For Itching Ears we like to discuss issues that challenge our view of Christianity and the Church.   It is healthy to consider what one believes about the Christian faith and how we express that faith in our corporate church life.  If all we ever do is listen to ourselves, we can inadvertently become the kind of people Paul warned Timothy about:  People who surround themselves with “teachers who say what their itching ears want to hear.”  Today’s post is an attempt to counter that tendency among us as we discuss Free-Will and Determinism.  To do this, we turn to an extremely interesting email exchange between Father John Whiteford (an Eastern Orthodox priest) and  some proponents of Calvinism.  Click link to read more  and the #1 least read post of the year (drum roll please………..)

1.  Will The Non-Conformists Please Rise Up?  (The #1 least read post of the year.  I thought it was a pretty good post, but alas, I was wrong)

In his book The Mindchangers, Em Griffin describes an experiment with groups of 12 people. They were brought into a room where four lines of unequal length were displayed. They had to decide which two were the same length and publicly vote for their choice. Person after person after person (11 in all) voted for the wrong line–because they had all been told to ahead of time. The one individual who was in the dark couldn’t imagine how in the world all these seemingly normal people could all choose the wrong line. When it was his turn to vote, he had to decide, “Do I go with what I know my senses are telling me, or do I go with the crowd?” One third of those tested caved in to group pressure and changed their vote to agree with their …Click link to read more