National Day of Prayer 2023

The Rome Area Prayer Breakfast celebrated 30 years with author and speaker Lee Strobel. He was last in Rome when researching his book The Case for Faith.

Chad, Chris, Trudy and Lee

No, I’m not on a first name basis with any of these individuals. Maybe Chris McDaniel but he probably wouldn’t know my first name without a reminder.

On April first I attended the annual Wild Game Supper at a local Baptist church. This was my second dinner, we got to see Sid Bream last year and won a sweet door prize. I mentioned Chadd Wright in Saturday’s post. He is a former Navy Seal with a passion for sharing the Gospel. He spent very little time talking about Seal teams and telling old stories and gave much attention to describing what Jesus can do in a person’s life. Chris McDaniel, formerly of Confederate Railroad, led music and has a powerful testimony of what God has done in his own life. Chris performed last year with Bream and I first met him at a much smaller event with just a few people during the pandemic era of social distancing and what not. It was a weird time. There was one salvation Saturday evening and Chadd took him directly to the baptistry.

Christians and Food Laws

Sometimes I see images like this on Facebook or wander into discussions/arguments and can’t believe we are still at odds over food laws. The early Christians in the first century couldn’t come to a consensus so it should surprise no one that all of us do not agree today.

Liturgy?

Your experience with liturgical worship probably depends on the denomination you are part of. Liturgy is probably associated with high church in Presbyterian, Lutheran and Methodist denominations, less so with Baptists. When I say probably I mean chances are, in most cases, all other things being equal, the odds are in favor of what I’m saying… but it all depends. Style of worship and what constitutes worship are highly subjective to individuals and individual congregations. When we start generalizing about denominations there are so many flavors within each and there is bound to be some bleed through around the edges, to mix metaphors.

Asbury Revival

The Asbury Revival has been trending on social media and religious newspapers for a couple of weeks. I mentioned it Saturday only to say that I had no comment but maybe later. That story has been well covered, it has the nation’s collective attention, every armchair theologian has weighed in. The response to the Asbury Revival has become its own story. Everyone with internet seems to either be a critic or a supporter of what is being done and how. Jimmy Humphrey wrote a post and made that the subject of his weekly podcast and I finally did reply to his comment. Without looking back that went something like this:

Lent + Valentine’s

The guys on the Unashamed Podcast (Phil, Al and Jase Robertson) were discussing the Valentine’s Day traditions we keep and their relationship to the actual Saint Valentine. Just like Easter, Halloween and Christmas, the activities and traditions the culture is familiar with has little to do with the religious significance those holidays have for believers. Ash Wednesday and Lent are not as well known in the popular culture, even though most people have heard of Mardis Gras. There again, getting drunk and collecting plastic beads has nothing to do with thinking about the cross and preparing for Palm Sunday and Good Friday.

More Than Jabez

Billy Ray Cyrus had other singles besides Achy Breaky Heart in the early 90’s. Paul Reubens has appeared in movies playing characters other than Pee Wee Herman, just like Jim Varney was not always Earnest. James Best was a television, film, stage, and voice actor, as well as a writer, director, acting coach, artist, college professor, and musician. But you probably only know him as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane. Sometimes a person becomes so well known for one thing that people are unaware of anything else.

Deep Dive: God’s Judgement

First things first: The image above is a tweet. The current limit on characters is 280 and while that can be useful one cannot fully express the balance of a lifetime of study in a couple of sentences. Benjamin Cremer is a Wesleyan pastor with multiple degrees including a Master’s in Theological Studies. To learn more about Rev. Cremer and his views read more tweets; and he also writes books. I want to use the tweet as a launching point to make a deep dive into what we understand from scripture about God’s judgement. My post of 600 to 800 words will still fall short of everything the Bible has to say.

GBC #200

The Southern Baptist Convention began in Augusta, Georgia, 200 years ago. We are celebrating that bicentennial at this year’s Georgia Baptist Convention held in, appropriately and obviously, Augusta.

I always try to make it in time for the Preaching Conference on Monday afternoon. In a three hour meeting we heard four sermons with a little bit of praise & worship in between each speaker. The Preaching Conference featured three pastors from Georgia and one from Florida that I really enjoyed; Brad Whit, Jeff Crook, Dennis Watson and Zach Terry. Then in the evening session of the convention we heard a missional sermon from Josh Smith and a doctrinal sermon (on the doctrine of forgiveness) from Wayne Robertson. Jeff Crook and Zach Terry were my personal favorites from the preaching conference and Pastor Robertson “came to preach” to close out the day.

Time and Eternity

God created time. Whether you believe in a literal seven day creation week or take a more symbolic view of those “days” I would direct your attention to Genesis 1.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. ² The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. ³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴ And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. -Gen. 1:1-5