God

“I’m Not Ashamed” is a Heartfelt Story of Hope

Finley Walker
20 Oct 2016
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I'm not ashamed

  It was just another normal day at school for 17-year-old Rachel. On April 20, 1999, at approximately 11:19 a.m., it would be anything but just another day. Everything changed. Rachel was having lunch with her friend Richard outside when two students in trenchcoats began opening gun fire on those present at Columbine High School in Colorado. Rage-filled, unforgiving metal made blood to flow as the life poured out of Rachel — the first of twelve students and one teacher to lose their lives that day not including the two shooters who would commit suicide. “I’m Not Ashamed” is the […]

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Showing Appreciation for Pastors

Tyrone Hall
11 Oct 2016
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  During the month of October, there is much to celebrate such as Columbus Day, Breast Cancer Awareness, Jewish holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. One event particularly worthy of recognizing is Pastor Appreciation Month. God has given us pastors to teach us how to live a godly lives and to help us grow spiritually strong. Now, the call to minister is not one to be taken lightly. It’s very different from receiving a phone call from a family member, neighbor or even your spouse. When God calls, it is for a divine purpose that often those who are […]

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Misconceptions about the Protestant Reformation

Bob Woods
8 Oct 2016
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When we think of the Protestant Reformation, we normally think about Martin Luther, a German monk, and his act of nailing his Ninety-five Theses to the Wittenberg Door on October 31, 1517, as the catalyst that sparked the movement that eventually resulted in the Protestants breaking away from the established Roman Catholic Church and its doctrines and practices. But there are two misconceptions that many have about the historical Reformation, which is commemorated on Reformation Day on the last Sunday in October.   Martin Luther One misconception is that Martin Luther was the only or the primary reformer of that […]

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Burnout: Recognize the Signs Before the Flame is Gone

John Hawkins, Sr
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Recently I read an article about a senior pastor, Pete Wilson, of Cross Point Church, who resigned from the multi­site mega church he founded 14 years ago in Nashville, Tennessee. The reason he gave was that he was, “tired, broken and had been leading on empty.” What he was describing was what we refer to as burnout. Now you may be wondering how can a pastor be burned out? All he has to do is preach a sermon on Sunday morning. The reality is there are a lot of stressful jobs and pastoring is right at the top. Depression and […]

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Q Commons to Discuss Ways to Engage a Divided Nation

Edwin Copeland
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divided

We live in a nation that’s divided. We live in a region that’s divided. Our cities, our workplaces, even some of our own families are divided. In this moment, we are divided by culture, race, politics and just about every other difference you can image – or so it seems. We see protests and riots, hashtags and video clips, pundits and debates on television. We scroll through our newsfeed and become overwhelmed with dissenting opinions. In those moments it’s easy to get a sense that nothing could ever change for the better. The toxic combination of declining virtue alongside unfiltered […]

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Cosmic Carpe Diem

Dr. Tommy Boland
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Carpe diem is a Latin aphorism taken from the Roman poet Horace’s work Odes (23 BC), Book 1. It is usually translated as “Seize the day!” In other words, the past is irretrievably gone, the future is promised to no one, so all we have is the gift of today — of right now — which is why it is called “the present.” What is carpe diem? You may recall that the phrase carpe diem was popularized by a character portrayed by the late Robin Williams in the 1989 movie “Dead Poets Society.” The film was espousing an utterly humanistic worldview, […]

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Live a Steering Wheel Life Forever

Steve Davis
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Driving down the road never happens in a straight line; it requires using the steering wheel. It’s amazing how many hundreds and thousands of times we adjust the steering wheel to continue in the direction we want to go. A small adjustment is needed almost every second. That’s very much like living our daily life. So, count how many seconds there are in a 20-minute drive to work. Wow! That’s a lot of adjustments. Why is this like living our daily life? Well, there’s no such thing as a mistake-less, adjustment-free life. Think about it. Our to-do list is really […]

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God’s Wisdom in Christ: The Way of the Cross

Daniel Ebert
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Without wisdom human flourishing is impossible. Today culture is bewitched by scientific knowledge and technical skill. This is seen, for example, in education’s emphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). While these are amazingly productive disciplines, our world is left hungry for wisdom. There are problems that the hard sciences cannot solve. We have ATM cards and online banking, but our society struggles with an unprecedented debt problem. Quantum leaps forward in our knowledge of disease and new medical technologies have increased life expectancy, but where is the wisdom for heart-rending end of life decisions? The Internet and globalization […]

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Is the Bible the Infallible Word of God?

Bob Woods
15 Sep 2016
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  Is the Bible infallible? What is biblical infallibility? The word infallible means “incapable of error.” If something is infallible, it is never wrong and thus absolutely trustworthy. Similarly, the word inerrant, also applied to Scripture, means “free from error.” Simply put, the Bible never fails. The Bible claims to be infallible in 2 Peter 1:19: “We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable” (NIV). Peter continues with a description of how Scripture came to be: “No prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human […]

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Regret the Unchangeable Past

John Hawkins, Sr
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Regret haunts some people for a lifetime. Regret is about the unchangeable consequences of actions done or undone. It is about the “what if’s” of decisions that could have been made differently. The emotions of sorrow, self anger and a deep torturing sense of guilt often surrounds the regret. How do you move on from something you can’t change or repair?   List your regrets Start by making a list of your regrets. Get them out of your head and onto paper. Things are always less overwhelming when pulled from inner ruminations and looked at objectively on paper. This allows […]

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