Want To See The Sistine Chapel Without Having To Go To Italy

It takes a few minutes to load, but the wait is worth it. Use your mouse button to 'grab' the image and move it around. Use the wheel on your mouse to zoom in (there is a zoom in the lower left as well).
Thanks To Keith at BagOfNothing

Les Misérables: Law and Grace

Les Misérables has become my all time favorite Musical (although Oklahoma! is a VERY strong contender). I have always wanted to read the book, but felt like the musical was 'just as good'.

Today Chuck Colson challenged that notion. He talks about the story behind the story, something I often miss because of the theatrics.

I encourage you to click the link above to read Chuck Colson's commentary and then to find a copy of the book.

Multi-Faith Q & A

What happens when you put a Muslim Imam, a Jewish Rabbi, and an Evangelical Pastor on a stage? There is no punchline as this event really happened. Live questions were taken from the audience which was composed of followers of all three faiths. Rabbi Jeremy Schneider, Imam Sheik, and Pastor Bob Roberts answered these questions revealing distinctions in core beliefs about God but a common respect for one another despite those differences.

Click the link above to watch the video.

(The actual sermon that came prior to the Q&A can be seen by clicking this link.)

My Pastor's Blog Entry About The Service At Temple Shalom

I thought I would share this for anyone that is interested. Click on the image above to read our Pastor's perspective of the service at Temple Shalom on Friday.

How We Spent Our Weekend: 3 Faiths join For Weekend Of Understanding

It's an unprecedented event in local religious circles. Muslim, Jewish, and Christian congregations going to each others houses of worship on consecutive days to share both the similarities and differences of their faith.

Click the image above to watch CBS Channel 11's video report.

Keller pastor's multifaith initiative includes 'trialogue' with Muslims, Jews

This is going to be an interesting time.

But the Rev. Bob Roberts Jr., pastor of 3,000-member NorthWood Church in Keller, has befriended Vietnamese communists, Afghan Muslims and even liberal Christians in a fast-paced, far-flung ministry that emphasizes peace-making and service as well as evangelism.

One of his sayings: "We serve not to convert but because we are converted. We serve because Christ has changed us and made us servants to people who are lost and hurting."

This weekend, Roberts is stepping out a bit more, but close to home. He has enlisted Rabbi Jeremy Schneider of Dallas' Temple Shalom and Imam Zia Sheikh of the Islamic Center of Irving for a "trialogue" with his congregation and theirs.

Members of NorthWood and the mosque will attend the regular worship service tonight at Temple Shalom. On Saturday afternoon, the Christians and Jews will visit the mosque. Finally, on Sunday morning, the Jews and Muslims will attend NorthWood for worship.

After each gathering, the three clergymen will answer questions about the differences and similarities of their faiths.

Click the image above to read the Dallas Morning News article.

If you are interested in participating you can get more information here: Multi-Faith Weekend

Multi-Faith Weekend from Northwood Church on Vimeo.

How can I Tell a Cult?

Our church is in the middle of the sermon series called 'Your Questions'. People have submitted questions and each week the congregation gets 4 to choose from. You text in your vote and the 'winning' question is the sermon for the next week. The staff will then answer some of the 'losing' questions on the church blog.

One of the losing questions this week was 'How can I Tell a Cult?'.

A non-Christian religion is an organized group that teaches something clearly different than Christianity does about God or the spiritual/supernatural realm.

A cult is a group that can, at first, appear to be aligned with the orthodox teaching of Christianity but upon further examination actually does not hold to the same beliefs as Christians on core doctrinal issues. Often these groups will deem themselves to be “Christian.” Trying to discern? Start with these questions:

Click on the image above to read the blog post.

Update: The Manhattan Declaration

On November 25th I created a blog post regarding the Manhattan Declaration. Earlier today I received a note indicating that there are now over 385,000 people that have signed this document.

If you have not already done so, please click on the image above to learn more about the Manhattan Declaration and then add your signature.

Thanks.

Participate in a Miracle

On Christmas Eve, the Abreus heard a knock on the door. “There was a UPS guy with a big box,” Mayra explains. It said, “from Jose Abreu.” But how could that be? Jose was in jail.

But then Mayra remembered Angel Tree.

The kids were ecstatic. There were gifts from Dad!

As Mayra recalls: “I cannot describe to you the joy that my children and I felt when we opened [the presents]. I thanked God right there. I cried, and went on my knees. This is when I knew that God loved me.

Click the image above to read the rest of this article.

Advent Conspiracy: Can Christmas Still Change the World?

Five pastors. Five congregations. And one radically different approach to Christmas. What can we learn from it?

Click the picture to read the article.

The Manhattan Declaration

Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:

1. the sanctity of human life
2. the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3. the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Click on the image above to read and then add your signature to the Manhattan Declaration.

God With Us...Us With Them?

This is from Chuck Colson's Breakpoint post today.

I can’t sing the words of that familiar Advent song “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” without remembering a young boy—a child of a prisoner.

Every year, Patty and I deliver Angel Tree Christmas gifts to the children of prisoners. And I’ll never forget one year in particular, when Patty and I drove into a housing project to deliver our gifts.

We saw broken windows and grim-faced gang members lounging in doorways. After parking our car, we found our way to an apartment and knocked on the door. A boy, about 9 years old, cautiously opened the door.

“Merry Christmas,” I said, holding out the presents. “These are from your Daddy.”

Immediately, the door swung wide open to let us in. The boy’s mother was on her way home from work, and as we waited for her, we saw that the apartment inside was a wreck. The furniture was torn, the stuffing falling out. A scraggly Christmas tree leaned up against the wall, bare of any presents.

When I asked the boy his name, he replied, “Emmanuel.”

“Emmanuel,” I said, “Do you know what your name means?” I opened my Bible and read from Matthew: “And they shall call him Emmanuel—which means ‘God with us.’”

Just then, his mother came to the door. Emmanuel threw his arms around her thighs, crying, “Mama, Mama, God is with us!”

click the image to read the full article.

The Church That Helped Bring Down The Berlin Wall

"For me, it still gives me the shivers thinking of that night. It was great."

"In church," Fuhrer said, "people had learned to turn fear into courage, to overcome the fear and to hope, to have strength. They came to church and then started walking, and since they did not do anything violent, the police were not allowed to take action.

"(East German officials) said, 'We were ready for anything, except for candles and prayer.'"

Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount were Fuhrer's primary motivations, but he also drew inspiration from German pastor and Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer as well as Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Fuhrer said King "prepared and executed this idea of nonviolence, peaceful resistance, in a wonderful way. Then it became our turn to apply the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount here in Leipzig."

Click the picture to read the article.

Compassion Moment

This has already been called one of THE most powerful moments in Catalyst history; there wasn't a dry eye in the arena after Jimmy Wambua met Mark, his Compassion Sponsor of 19 years, for the 1st time. It was an unbelievable moment...Jimmy begins to share at minute 3:45.

Catalyst 2009 Compassion Moment from Catalyst on Vimeo.

2009 Home Makeover Highlight Video

The Highlight Video from the 2009 Home Makeover has been posted. Watch it below.

Home Makeover 09 Highlights from Northwood Church on Vimeo.

Home Makeover 2009

For the third year in a row Mary and I participated in our church's Home Makeover project. Working with a town nearby we identify 4 homes that need significant work but where the families are unable to do for one reason or another. Historically this has included painting, replacing flooring, landscaping, appliance replacement or repair and other things you would expect. But, it has occasionally included major reconstruction of parts of the house that were starting to decay.

This year we changed things up a little bit. Once we had the 4 primary homes identified we selected two nearby houses for mini-makeovers. A mini-makeover could involve exterior painting, minor repairs and other helpful projects that the homeowner has been unable to keep up with.

Once those projects were handled we went up and down the street mowing lawns, trimming trees and, in the case of our street, unloading a moving truck for a family that happened to be moving in on that day (I can only imaging how refreshing it when the three people in that truck were swarmed by a group of strangers that wanted to help unload). It is amazing how much you can get done when about 1600 people spread out over the four neighborhoods.

This year a local TV station was at our house to do a story on the project and the family. Click on the image above to see that story (after a short commercial).

Needy Haltom City Families Get Home Makeovers

This is a story about the house our team is working on.

A group of volunteers are busy working to give four Haltom City homes a makeover. In just 24 hours, some 1,600 volunteers will complete home renovations for the much-deserving families.

Click the picture to read the article.

Help Our Friend Give Her Birthday Gift Away...

Our friend Ronne (Veronica) will be celebrating her 50th birthday in September. To celebrate she wants to give her gift away. Her words say it best...

I've been looking forward to my 50th birthday for so long now - there's something regal, beautiful about the number. I've been blessed with moments bright and dark, all woven into an amazing tapestry of life and love.

So, to celebrate the arrival of my big day on September 27th, I'm asking you to do something special for me.

Give my gift away.

Nothing would make my celebration brighter than for you to give $50 (or whatever you can afford) to give others life. A billion men, women, and children in the world are living without clean water. 45,000 people will die this week alone. The lucky ones won't, but still walk hours each day to get dirty water to give to their families.

How wonderful will it be to know you helped give clean and safe drinking water to some of the billion living without it.

Thanks for celebrating life with me.

Peace and grace,

Ronne

please note: Because of charity: water's unique model, 100% of all donations go directly to direct water projects costs, and each donation is "proved" and tracked to the village it helped when projects are complete.

Click on Ronne's picture above to go to the site and learn more.

Thanks For Sharing This With Us Ronne!

Bragging On My Friends

I would like to brag about some friends of mine for a moment.

Craig & Susanne are members of our church, they are co-leaders with us in a small group, and the are both heavily involved with Crown Financial Ministries, a program Mary and I help lead at our church. In addition, we have had the pleasure of traveling with them to Vietnam on one of the GVI trips to work with the Birla Children’s Village, a trip they have participated in the last 5 years (this is a picture of Craig & Susanne with one of the former orphanage residents).

In 2008 GVI added a new orphanage to the program, so after spending three days with the kids from Birla the team went and spent time with kids from SS3, another orphanage near Hanoi.

Now, some people wonder if these trips really mean anything. After all, the kids do not speak English, our team does not speak Vietnamese, and we are only together a relatively few hours each year. Does our message of Hope ever really get through to these kids?

This year they received a letter from one of the children that they loved on while working with SS3. I think it makes it clear that Craig & Susanne have indeed made an impact on the life of at least this one girl.

"Thank for your love. Thank you very much. We had great time together. I am not sure to describe for you how much I felt happy.

I was smiling all of time while I was on car to come back. We miss all of you! We had last good memory together of you and GVI. Thank you very much!

I think it is true time I should open my secret that how much I love you, Craig and Susanne and GVI.

You are like my good father and GVI is my big family. When I read your letter I wanna cry because I am so happy.

Sometime I wanna know what a good father is and thank you so much because you showed me amazing love.

You make me remember my parent."

Thanks for letting this child see our Good Father.

To learn more about the work of GVI click on the picture above.

The Gifts Of Vietnam

Kevin Colón is a church planter whose church works alongside ours in Vietnam. He wrote a blog post today about the things he has gotten from his trips there. I thought he said it better than I ever could so I am providing a link to his blogpost here. Just click the picture to read it.

Thanks Kevin!