Ray Pritchard’s Blog – February 2007

You Can’t Help a Liar

Recently I spent time with someone involved in ministry to students. Occasionally he is faced with difficult disciplinary decisions when the young people break the rules of the group. “I’ve dealt with everything you can imagine. Every sort of sexual sin. Cheating. Breaking the law. You name it, I’ve seen it,” he ...

Good News From China

Anthony Bollback has posted the latest edition of China Clippings. Anthony and his wife Evelyn served as missionaries in China in the 1940s, leaving just before Communist forces took the city where they lived. When Marlene and I were at Word of Life Florida several weeks ago, we had the privilege of eating lunch with Anthon ...

NYC-Kennedy Airport—2:04 PM

I am writing this note shortly after 2 PM EDT, which means that we left Merced, California over 25 hours ago. Marlene has been back in Tupelo for about 11 hours. I’ve been stuck at Kennedy Airport in NYC all day because the snowstorm that passed through last night caused hundreds of flights to be canceled, including m ...

“I love that man”

It’s 5:54 PM and I’ve been sitting in the San Jose airport for almost four hours. Marlene left on a flight for Phoenix and then on to Memphis three hours ago. Mark and Vanessa at this moment are somewhere over the Pacific Ocean on their way back to China. In about an hour I fly to Los Angeles, then have almost f ...

Ballistic Christianity

We have just posted the sermon I preached last Sunday at Elmhurst (IL) Christian Reformed Church:Ballistic ChristianityHere’s an excerpt:Jesus saw the multitudes. That’s hard to do. In the last year, I’ve been traveling a lot, preaching in different places. I’ve been in and out of so many airports th ...

Merced, California, 7:25 AM

Two people have written me asking where we are at the moment. One friend said, “All I know at this point is that you are somewhere in the United States.” That’s very true. Yesterday morning I woke up at Cloudland Canyon State Park in north Georgia, near the Tennessee state line. This morning we’re at a motel in ...

Atlanta Airport, 8:36 AM

I am writing this brief note in the Atlanta airport. Last Friday we flew to Chicago for four days where we had two home meetings, an Internet meeting, I preached twice on Sunday morning with a luncheon following, we had an afternoon meeting plus an early morning breakfast meeting, another lunch meeting, then a four-hour KBM ...

O’Hare Airport, 4:52 AM

I am writing these words at 4:52 AM at Gate L9 in Terminal 3 of O’Hare Airport in Chicago. Last night, which really hasn’t ended yet, we had a Keep Believing Ministries board meeting that finally wrapped up sometime after 11 PM. We did our final packing and got to bed about 12:30 AM. That was OK except that we c ...

Early Morning Wake-Up Call

Our day started unexpectedly at 3:14 AM with a phone call that jarred me out of a very deep sleep. Looking back, I was so fast asleep that when I woke up, I couldn’t quite figure out what was happening. It turned out to be Delta Airlines telling us that our 11 AM flight to Atlanta had been cancelled for mechanical rea ...

Podcast on “He Descended Into Hell”

On Tuesday I did an interview with Kevin McCullough on WMCA in New York. Each month we take a chapter of my book Credo and discuss it on the air. Since the book is based on the Apostles’ Creed, this is an amazing opportunity to discuss the Christian faith on the number one Christian station in America’s largest ...

Things Found While Surfing the Internet

Here are some noteworthy articles and links that I’ve found while surfing the Internet recently:Mark Roberts helps us pray through the gospels.Paul Barreca, pastor of Faith Bible Church in Vineland, NJ, has a son serving in Iraq. Each week he writes an email message to our soldiers. Here are two that he wrote when he ...

A Warning to Wine-Drinkers

We have just posted the newest sermon in the “Transformed Life” series:A Warning to Wine-DrinkersHere’s an excerpt:Thirteen years ago I met an Israeli tour guide named Zvi. He was remarkable in many ways, but most of all because he is a born again Jewish Christian believer in Jesus Christ. One morning he told the amaz ...

A Valentine’s Day Love Story

The following story is written by David Langerfeld, associate pastor of Harrisburg Baptist Church in Tupelo, Mississippi. He wrote it in tribute to his wife Lynda. He graciously consented for me to put his story on the KBM weblog.Her family had come to America from Sweden. She had a typical Scandinavian look… Long bl ...

The Romans Challenge

Years ago—about 15, to be exact—I decided to preach through Romans. At that point I was 14 years out of seminary and thought it was time I tackled Paul’s greatest epistle. Before then, I had taught through it in a Sunday School class on a chapter-by-chapter basis. I thought my congregation would benefit from a detai ...

Men’s Luncheon at Harrisburg Baptist Church

Today I spoke at the monthly men’s luncheon at Harrisburg Baptist Church in Tupelo. I was pleasantly surprised to see 60-70 men gather for the meal and brief message. Most of the retired men came at 11:30 AM for the meal while quite a few of the younger men came in right at 12 noon. I had a good chat with Pastor Forr ...

Do Pastors Exaggerate Attendance Figures?

A recent survey on One News Now asks, “Do Evangelical Pastors exaggerate attendance and conversion numbers?” According to 63% of those who responded to the online survey, the answer is yes, pastors do sometimes exaggerate attendance figures. The non-scientific survey was occasioned by an article called Body-Count Evangelism ...

Da Colts! Da Colts!

So we arrive back home late last night, dead tired from a week of ministry at Word of Life Florida. Besides speaking 11 times, I had lunch and supper meetings, meetings between the services, people to talk to, books to sign, people who wanted me to pray with them, and so on. It was a good week, always is when I go to a conf ...

How to Kill a New Christian

Here are two new sermons that have just been posted on the website:How to Kill a New Christian—Part 1How to Kill a New Christian—Part 2Here’s an excerpt from Part 2:Christians love to fight over our deeply-held beliefs. Unfortunately, sometimes we fight for things that don’t matter very much.Once upon a time a ...

Word of Life Alaskan Cruise

Last summer I was invited by Word of Life to be the Bible teacher on an Alaskan cruise. This will be a unique vacation opportunity because it is actually a combination train excursion through the Denali National Park followed by a cruise starting in Anchorage and ending in Vancouver. You can sign up for the train excursion ...

That Doritos Commercial

Did you see that Doritos ad that aired in the first quarter of the Super Bowl? In fact, it aired during the first commercial break after the kickoff. The ad featured a young man eating a bag of Doritos while driving a car. He is distracted by an attractive young woman walking by, also eating Doritos. As one commentator put ...

What Harry Ironside Told Jack Wyrtzen

Tonight at Word of Life Florida Harry Bollback preached for the Monday night missionary service. For those who don’t know him, Harry is 83 years old and has been with Word of Life for 66 years, which if you do the math means that he started as Jack Wyrtzen’s piano player in 1941. He is full of energy, enthusiasm ...

Watch “100 Huntley Street” online

Yesterday I appeared on “100 Huntley Street” in Toronto, Canada to talk about my book The Healing Power of Forgiveness. If you would like to watch the broadcast, click here and then go to the broadcast for Friday, February 2.

Beyond the Ultimate

The following full-page ad is running in the weekend edition of USA Today: Check out Beyond the Ultimate to find out more details.

Church Chicks

I’m back home in Tupelo after a whirlwind trip to Toronto for an appearance on “100 Huntley Street” this morning. Special Thanks to Doug Campbell of Canadian Christian Tours for picking me up. Ironically I think Toronto was warmer than Tupelo, partly because we have “moist” cold here compared with “dry” cold in Canada ...

Father Mychal’s Prayer

This morning President Bush spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. You can read the text of his remarks here. During his brief comments, the president mentioned Father Mychal Judge, a chaplain with the New York Fire Department who lost his life when the World Trade Center collapsed on 9/11. Father Mychal had ...

China News

Anthony Bollback has posted the latest edition of China Clippings. Josh and Leah visited China while we were in the Holy Land. Here are some photos from their trip. Here is an updated report on religious freedom in China. The article notes the continuing need for trained leaders for the burgeoning Christian movement in Chin ...

100 Huntley Street

This morning I’m flying to Toronto where tomorrow morning I’m doing an interview on 100 Huntley Street, Canada’s premier daily Christian television program. We’ll be talking about my book The Healing Power of Forgiveness. The program is broadcast across Canada and can be viewed online and by satellit ...