Lovin' Tellin' The Story

Photo courtesy of cdw0107 It should be no surprise to anyone in the United States that there has been an extraordinary amount of severe weather over the past month or so. Here in North Carolina we had a tornado outbreak last month that set a new record. The last that I heard there were 26 confirmed tornadoes on ONE day. A number of these storms rated an F3 on the Fujita scale, which qualifies as a "severe tornado" with wind speed between 158-206 mph. Hundreds of homes were destroyed and thousands of people are still dealing with the damage these storms have caused. There was a similar, and perhaps more severe, outbreak in Alabama and now people are dealing with massive flooding along the Mississippi River. In addition to these natural disasters we can add to the list the earthquake in Japan and even look back to hurricane Katrina in 2005. No matter when or where these disasters take place there are always haunting and painful questions about God's role in them. Usuall...

Photo courtesy of garychrist A few summers ago I had the opportunity to work with an outdoor ministry. The overall goal was to take teenagers out into the woods, push them beyond their comfort zones and give them tangible experiences that had deeper spiritual truths. The entire time spent in the woods the group was sub-divided into two teams that were competing for some non-existent prize at the end. It began with the challenge of starting a fire with no matches then moved on to kayaking, rappelling, adventure racing and, of course, cliff jumping. "Cliff jumping?" you say. "Yes" says I. We would take the teens to a thirty to forty foot high cliff on a lake and make them jump off into the water. To some of you this sounds about as intimidating as the chocolate bunny you wolfed down a few weeks ago at Easter. To others, who are more like myself, this may sound like an impossible feat. Either way, for the majority of the teens this was one of the highlights of the t...

I want to depart from the normal content briefly and give some tips on achieving tax exempt status for your organization. When I first realized that I was going to have to go through this process I was terrified. There was no way I wanted to deal with the IRS or the NC Secretary of State. To be sure, there is a certain intimidation factor to government applications, especially when they are asking for a tax break! What I want to give you here are some good resources that will make the process easier and cheaper. Cheaper is the key word. By far the easiest way to get your organization up and running is by hiring a lawyer skilled in tax code and law. However, if you are like me, and perhaps many non-profit organizations, you don't have mountains of money to sink into the process. My goal was to spend as little as possible and do whatever I could on my own. Yes, this led to many stressful moments and perhaps some mistakes but, at the end of the day Number 156 Ministries was granted 50...

As I'm sure most everyone is aware, yesterday was the day we celebrate as "Palm Sunday" in the Christian Church. This is the day we take time to remember the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem for the final time before His crucifixion. Each of the four Gospel accounts includes a narrative of this event. This alone should alert us to the fact that this was an important occasion for us to remember. For our discussion this morning I would like us to focus primarily on Luke's account of the events of Palm Sunday. In looking at it there are three major contrasts that I would like to point out that lead to very important lessons for us as believers. 1. The first and most obvious contrast is that between the Triumphal Entry and the events of Good Friday. In Luke 19:38 we find that the crowd that had gathered to welcome the Messiah into the Holy City was shouting, Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest! While th...

It is no secret that I am a "revivalist." If that sounds a little old fashioned then that is just fine because I'm a little old fashioned. However, I believe with all my heart that we are not beyond revival in our land and, in fact, are in desperate need of it. In light of that, I want to take this opportunity to share what I believe to be one of the keys to revival. You may have rightly ascertained from the title of the post that it is the Word of God so I will not waste valuable time be sneaky about it. In the most uncanny way the evidence that I want to share to support this theory of mine come from the Bible, though the location may seem odd. If we look in 2 Chronicles 34 and 35 we find an account from the time of King Josiah of Judah. The passage in question actually begins in 34:14 and carries on through 35:19. Here we find that Hilkiah the priest has stumbled upon the "book of the law of the Lord given to Moses." As a side note, I can only imagine the s...

It should be no surprise that we, as Christians, have our own special language. I've often heard it referred to as "Christianese." Just think about it for a moment, we talk about things like "being washed in the blood," or being "saved." What about this one, "How is your walk with the Lord? Have you been in the Word?" From the outside looking in this could be strange, at the very least, and downright revolting at the most extreme. There is one phrase in Christianese that I want to take a closer look at today because we use it very often and it can not only be cryptic from the outside but I think it can be difficult to understand from the inside as well. The phrase is "seeking God's face." Raise your hand if you have ever used that phrase or heard it used by your Christian brethren. Very good. I believe that we Christians tend to have a sort of innate sense of what that means but the real question is not whether or not we know wh...

In all honesty I cannot remember the last time I heard a sermon or a lesson come from the book of 1 Chronicles. In general I think it is one of the books that gets "lost in the shuffle" sometimes in favor of, what we see as the, more meaningful portions of the Scripture. However, there are some important truths that can be drawn from books like 1 Chronicles. The incident that I would like to expand on today comes from 1 Chronicles 13:9-10. At this point in the narrative David is having the Ark of the Covenant moved to Jerusalem because it was largely ignored during the reign of King Saul. What happens is tragic and shocking to say the least and it brings up some very interesting questions about the character of God. Here is Uzza, a man who is accompanying the Ark, and he sees that the oxen are about to upset the cart upon which it is riding. He reaches out to steady the Ark and God strikes him down. The Scriptures tell us that "he died there before God." This not on...