When I walked into Maranatha Worship Center in Wichita, Kansas seventeen years ago, there were many challenges, but I was fortunate to find a group of people ready to face those challenges. Soon I realized that while I was the 13th pastor in that church’s nearly nine decades of ministry life to that point, I was given a gift that perhaps none of my predecessors had received. People were ready, and even desperate, for change.
Kids are perceptive. When we think they’re glued to the TV or lost in a video game, they notice things. They’re always observing…always learning. And since they are always learning, it’s important to be intentional about what we teach them. But how do we do that? The goal in this article is to help answer that question.
In the beginning, humans were created in the image of God but soon sin disfigured that image. Since the Fall (Gen. 3), humankind has struggled to return to the image of God. Today, believers hold to the hope of John’s words that when Christ returns, “we shall be like Him” (1 John 3:2).[1] Christians live in the long struggle between the two images. This brief article reviews the Biblical teaching that addresses how believers may strive toward returning to a proper spiritual formation through the practice of less-emphasized, spiritual disciplines.
The last decade of the 20th century brought new vistas of adventure to the world of Bible study. The word of God was unleashed from the printed page to the digitized screen. For those pioneers who first encountered digital Bible study, it has been a fast-paced turn of events to a day where the Bible is now available for instant word-studies on the phone, quick word searches online, and sermons that can be shared to multiple platforms. Whether you get your devotions from a web page, your lessons from a digital platform or the tried and true method of paper and pen, consider these advantages to the new options in digital Bible study.
I’ve preached a lot of sermons. Some of them good, and some of them not so good. I now find myself in a different role. Instead of preaching several times a week, I’m at a place where I just get to listen. I listen to a lot of sermons. But I also spend a lot of time thinking about those sermons. What makes a good sermon? What makes a sermon memorable? How can I know those listening are going to live out this message? One of the ways to answer those questions is to have a good system to evaluate your preaching.
Vocal abuse is common today mainly due to ignorance as to how the voice works, but also due to the influence of unhealthy examples of singing that are prevalent today. As with other body parts, we only have one set of vocal cords that we must take care of throughout our lives. This is not just true for singers, but also other professions that require a lot of vocal use such as teachers, pastors, lawyers, news anchors, etc.
In Spring 2017, the SAGU History department hosted the seminar “Beginnings: Life, Culture and Politics in Early America.” Topics included the birth of the American Navy, Breaking the Glass Ceiling, The Electoral College, America’s Military Bands and many more. David Onyon discusses the Zenger trial, which was a remarkable story of a divided Colony, the beginnings of a free press and the stubborn independence of American Jurors.