News and Notes

February 24, 2009

Herewith a collection of (mostly) unconnected items . . .*This morning I’m going to be on American Family Radio from 11 AM-12 Noon Central Time. To listen live, click on the link and then click on “AFR-Talk.” You can also watch the live video stream.*We have just posted a new sermon called Miracles Come in Many Varieties. We sent …

Prayer When All Hell Breaks Loose

February 23, 2009

Over the weekend I received an email from a friend who said:We need your prayers, all hell has broken loose in our lives the devil has attacked me on my job, in our finances and upon my ministry. Please keep us in your prayers we need a breakthrough.It occurred to me that in these uncertain economic times, when so many are losing their jobs and whe…

Taking Chance

February 22, 2009

Tonight Marlene and I watched Taking Chance, a brand-new HBO movie starring Kevin Bacon. Based on real-life events, “Taking Chance” tells how Lt. Col. Michael Strobl (Bacon), a volunteer military escort officer, accompanies the body of 19-year-old Marine Chance Phelps back to his hometown of Dubois, Wyoming….

Is America Becoming Hostile to Children?

February 21, 2009

The always provocative Keith Drury has written a new article called How Dare You Have Eight Children! Despite the title, it’s not really about the “octuplet mom” in California. Drury is writing about a larger social trend in which having children is viewed as a purely personal choice and not as the natural outcome of the marriage …

A Leftover Thought

A leftover thought from our Thursday night Men’s Bible study:You find out how much you love money when you have less of it today than you had six months ago. …

Prodigal Yet

February 20, 2009

Yesterday I shared a short poem by the Canadian poet Ethelwyn Wetherald called “My Orders.” I happened to find that poem in a blog entry by Tullian Tchividjian. In doing further research I found another poem by Ethelwyn Wetherald called “Prodigal Yet.” It is shattering in its power. If you do not deeply understand this, then…

I Can Relate to This

February 19, 2009

Marilyn Miller gave me a copy of this cartoon when we were at Mount Hermon. I think it’s the wave of the future. Or better yet, the future has already arrived.

My Orders Are to Fight

Until this week I had never heard of Canadian poet Anges Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857-1940). Here is a short poem she wrote called “My Orders.” It’s a good word for Christians who find themselves in a difficult situation with no quick end in sight. Her words apply equally to someone trapped in a bad relationship or someone who feels l…

Four Cracked Pots

February 18, 2009

We have just added a new sermon called Four Cracked Pots, based on the stories of Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, four very flawed, very human, very fallible heroes from the book of Judges who made many mistakes (some of them disastrous) and yet they are mentioned in Hebrews 11:32 as men who lived by faith.It’s the sort of sermon that bri…

Will Allen Iverson Go to Heaven?

February 17, 2009

I confess to not having given any thought as to the eternal destination of Allen Iverson, a premier professional basketball player with the Detroit Pistons, and I would not have thought about it at all if Mr. Iverson had not raised the topic himself. During a press conference in connection with the NBA All-Star Weekend, Allen Iverson brought up the…