News

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Anitra Parmele
25 Nov 2010
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The majestic face of Aslan looms large in the movie trailer. His regal voice booms, “You have returned for a reason. Your adventure begins now,” as posters that accompany the film invite us to “Return to Hope, Return to Magic, Return to Narnia.” Narnia fans have eagerly awaited the release of the third film based on C.S. (Jack to his friends) Lewis’ internationally popular novel series that includes The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian. Due out in theaters on December 10, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the first of the series to be produced […]

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The story behind the songs at Christmas time

Anitra Parmele
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It’s the moment when the phrase captures you…”O come, O come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel” as you’re standing in the coffee aisle at the grocery store. It’s the CD where you listen to the whole thing and not just cherry pick your favorites off iTunes because this is Bing Crosby. It’s the neighbor’s little boy dressed up in his dad’s bathrobe as he tilts back his head and belts out We Three Kings. It’s the recognition that regardless of our church attendance record, most of us know the words to Silent Night’s second verse. It’s the realization that the […]

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Building hope in South Florida one family at a time

Anitra Parmele
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The following is the first in a series spotlighting Hope South Florida – a unique collaboration of city officials, social agencies and the faith community with a single purpose – to end family homelessness in Broward County. “Eighteen months ago, Stephan Tchividjian of the Christian Community Foundation of South Florida encouraged a group of his pastor friends to start meeting. Soon they agreed to unify around the gospel and to address the critical need of homelessness. They each appointed a staff member to sit on a team with representatives of The Shepherd’s Way and brainstorm how to create solutions that […]

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Churches do missions “in-house”

Bryon Mondok
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How churches do missions is changing. Traditionally, prospective missionaries leave their church families to join mission organizations to execute the vision and tasks of the organizations. But here in South Florida, churches themselves fulfill the role of the mission agency. Calvary Chapel Boynton Beach, First Baptist of Fort Lauderdale, Calvary Church in Jupiter, Grace Fellowship in West Palm Beach Florida, Calvary Chapel Port St. Lucie, and Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale, are planning projects, training missionaries, and staffing their own cross-cultural mission ventures with people from their own church communities. “The possibilities for churches and their missions involvement are endless,” says […]

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In Profile: Pastor Larry Thompson

Blackstone Grif
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Durring the busy holidays The Good News was able to catch up with Larry Thompson, Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church of Fort Lauderdale. With all the busyness of Thanksgiving, Christmas and the famous First Baptist Fort Lauderdale Christmas Pageant he still had time to answer a few questions.   How and when did you come to know the Lord? Although I grew up in church all my life, it wasn’t until I was 19 years old that I realized the difference between being religious and having a true relationship with Jesus. My girlfriend (now my wife) and I were at […]

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Defense of Marriage Act finally defends marriage

The Good News
21 Oct 2010
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The U.S. Department of Justice on Oct. 12 finally appealed two rulings by a lower court that deemed unconstitutional a portion of the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act, as it applied to Massachusetts same-sex married couples. On July 8, federal District Court Judge Joseph Tauro of Massachusetts struck down in two separate opinions, Section 3 of Defense of Marriage Act – which requires that all federal benefits programs define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The Department of Justice appeal – filed with the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – comes one week after […]

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Make a difference at the ends of the earth

The Good News
1 Oct 2010
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Mom and Dad: I’m exhausted and I can barely string these words together in a coherent sentence but I knew that I had to try. This was a disaster of extremes – people affected, lives lost, the height of the flood waters but I gotta tell you about the real extremes- neighbors risking their lives for each other, the sheer gratitude when a mother gets food for her kids, the look on the village officials’ faces when we tell them that it’s from Jesus.I’ve been up for almost 48 hours. Before you freak out, we were putting together food packs […]

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God’s ‘Tactical Blunders’

Allen Baumgarten
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Have you ever really goofed up?  I sure have.  One summer I took a week off to attend a seminary class up in Charlotte, NC.  I had planned to drive up a day or so early so that I might take a “day trip” over to the mountains in the western end of North Carolina.  On my day off, I enthusiastically set off on I-85 out of Charlotte, savoring the anticipation of seeing the mountains and smelling the fresh mountain air if even just for a few fleeting hours.  Not really knowing the interstate I was driving on, the names […]

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New book argues for spontaneous creation

Bruce Gordon
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Stephen Hawking’s new book, The Grand Design, co-authored with Leonard Mlodinow, contends that God is not necessary to create the universe because the laws of physics can do it alone. The “new atheist” crowd will cheer this message, but their credulity is a matter more of fiery sentiment than of cool-headed logic. Hawking asserts that “as recent advances in cosmology suggest, the laws of gravity and quantum theory allow universes to appear spontaneously from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason why there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke […]

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