TCP Challenge

By Aaron S. Harris

We are fortunate to count you as one of our many friends from around the world that believe in this ministry.  First, we want to thank you in advance for your positive support and prayers.  We recognize that the Thanksgiving holiday is not celebrated by everyone but, I’m sure you would agree that we all have much to be thankful for.  As your family gathers together for food and fellowship, I want to encourage you to think about the little things that impact your life every day.  To make things more interesting, we came up with the TCP Challenge (below).

We often take our blessings for granted in a rush to keep up with the Jones’.  It seems like our fast-paced world hardly allows us a moment of quiet time anymore.  So, this Thanksgiving, we want to challenge you to take time to Pause and consider just how blessed you really are.  No matter what your situation may be, you are truly blessed!  It does not matter, how big your house is, what kind of car you drive, or how many accomplishments you achieve.
Read more

Lepers, Samaritans, and Cumbersome Wounds 2 of 2

By Jay Weldon

Remember the lepers mentioned in part 1 of this article?  I think that is where we find them on this afternoon.  They sit where they always sit, keeping their distance from any decent people.  They aren’t allowed to touch anyone, they cannot work, they are asked in effect not to love, and they can only beg.  And so they beg, as they watch their flesh eaten away, day by day, feeling more and more ostracized, feeling less and less like they matter.  On this day, they don’t matter.  Maybe once they did… until… that day when they started not to matter any more.  I don’t know if you and I can really identify with the pain that they felt, both physical and emotional, caused by an anomalous skin disease from antiquity, and maybe the sufferings of minorities and those in the third world today seem equally difficult for us to grasp.  Perhaps we cannot even see the wounds in the person sitting next to us, the years of abuse, the years of not mattering, the lifetime of self-hatred, of being asked not to love.  Maybe we cannot imagine that, but we can remember those days when our own lives seemed not to matter to anyone, and beginning in our own personal sense of pain we can begin to understand, and from there we can begin to practice understanding.
Read more

Lepers, Samaritans, and Cumbersome Wounds 1 of 2

By Jay Weldon

Jeremiah 29:1-7; Luke 7:11-19

As a child, I can remember the story of the ten lepers, only one of whom returned to thank Jesus.  It was usually mentioned around Thanksgiving, or anytime they wanted to teach us to be more grateful!  I have recently reconsidered what meaning we find in this story, especially considering it as a part of the healing ministry of Jesus, as well as comparing it to some of the material we find in the Old Testament prophets.

My wife and I were recently on vacation in Ireland.  It was a celebration of having been married for one year—twelve months of enjoyment for me, and about seven and a half happy months for her.  We had been given a very generous gift, a voucher for a stay at a castle in the West of Ireland, which served as inspiration for our journey.  We drove the four hours required to get there from Dublin, through towns and villages, passing sheep and cows at every turn, remembering to stay on the left side of the road as we got caught up in the emerald scenery. 

Read more

Becoming the Salt of the Earth

By John T. McNeal

What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word salt?  
Could it be that it adds flavor?  Or, how it relates to a heart attack waiting to happen? It seems that people go from one extreme to another when salt is mentioned in a conversation.  Many people believe that salt is a contributor to heart failure, while others tend to believe that it adds flavor to life. Salt is one of three major electrolytes needed in the body.  Let’s go a little deeper.
    
In the Greek language, salt is spelled sault.  It is a natural mineral that is needed to help regulate the body’s fluids to maintain balance.   Every living creature that God made needs salt in order to survive.   In the days of the Roman Empire, part of the wages paid to a Roman soldier was salt.  Of course, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.  The over-consumption of salt can lead to health problems.
Read more

He’s There

By Christina Puntigam

My prayers started out in the traditional Catholic sense, memorized.  By the time I had first communion, I had memorized quite a number of prayers, which at the time meant that I had a lot of stickers to show for myself.  Not too long after that, we switched to the Baptist church.  I changed from memorizing prayers to memorizing scripture and my sticker collection grew.  But my prayers were still the memorized ones that I said silently or out loud with my rosary on occasion, when I felt like I had done something worthy of repentance.
 
It probably wasn’t until sometime late in high school that I actually started using my own words to pray and at that point, I don’t think I would have wanted any of those conversations known.  I wasn’t very nice to God when I spoke to Him in those days.  
When I made it to college, I got involved with a Christian student group.  I started saying nice things to God again.  And, I even took the time to learn about prayer and all the different ways that we can express ourselves through prayer.
Read more

« Previous Page — Next Page »