Thomas and Olly’s Salvation Army in Bellshill, Scotland has opened their new store.
Congrats on opening the new store. I love this quote from Olly on the purpose of the store:
“Yeah..it will be great to raise more funds for the army, but this is not the main aim. Friendships hopefully will be built between the staff and the customers, and hopefully through time we may see some more new faces in our church, or in coming to Alpha, or house groups..ect….and see more people coming to know God as their personal Saviour. This would just be wonderful.”
Great place for a great purpose and a great cause.
Check out some pics from Olly.
Category: faith
Quotes of the day
Mark Batterson talked about the Moscow Rules at the 2007 Buzz Conference hosted by his church in Washington, D.C.
Here’s some great quotes from the message:
What Batterson says is the core value of his church:
“Irrelevance is Irreverence. God is not just omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. He’s omni-relevant. He knows 6 billion dialects. He speaks our language. Where we’re failing is in incarnation. We need to incarnate the truth in ways that make sense to our culture.â€
“When we quote the Bible we gain credibility with Christians. When we quote non-biblical sources we gain credibility with non-Christians.”
“All truth is God’s truth.”
“Every ‘ology’ is a branch of theology. Because God made it all.”
“You can preach for two reasons because you have to or because you have to. You can preach because you have to because you’re on the schedule this week and you’re up to bat. You’re in the batters box. Or you can preach because you have to because there is a message that’s burning into you and you are like Paul compelled to preach. His fire showed up in your bones and you need to say something.”
“I want to study less and live more so my sermons are less theoretical and more experientially. I don’t think what NCC needs is a sermon well preached. They need a life well lived. I need to make sure I’m not just talking about things I’m living things. It’s our example that we set. I think the best thing I can do is try to be a great dad. Try to be a good husband. Try to live my life in a way that honors God and then more people will get it because we all know that Christianity is more caught than taught.”
Listen online: http://buzzconference.com/media
Winning videos
The 2007 Buzz Conference in Washington DC is over and the winners have been announced.
Check them out online to see what other churches around the country are doing?
Audio and video from the conference is also available.
How about your church? What are you doing with film and media? Are you using videos from other services and media outlets or are you coming up with your own?
Lately we haven’t had much original content at encounter but we’ve found the Christian vs. Christ Follower videos to be a great help in illustrating our latest series.
Praise God for his grace, mercy and protection
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Received an update on Kathryn from Matt and her mom late last night…
PRAISE THE LORD AND HALLELUJAH!!!
I hope all of you’ve heard the miraculous way in which the Lord answered our prayers for Kathryn and the Buckner team. Ron and I have been away from our email most of the day and are just now able to send our tremendous thanks to you for your prayers. Please pass it on to others who were also praying.
Please continue to pray for the team, for one-on-one conversations with the kids, and for Kathryn’s arm and wrist that has been hurting since she arrived in Russia. Your prayers are part of the way in which GOD IS WORKING! Please keep it up.
For those who may not have heard, here’s a brief account of the results:
The government officials came out and had a great conversation with one of the Buckner staff members. The official apologized for everything and the caregiver was fired. The Buckner team had a really great day with the kids. Keep praying for this time for the team to present God’s love and salvation to these precious children. Please also keep praying for SVETLANA’s salvation, the caregiver who was fired.
“Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of thy redeeming love.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for thy courts above!”
Wow. I can’t even read the lyrics of that hymn now without tearing up.
What great words of encouragement and grace and mercy.
Superbowl coach to speak in Dallas
Tony Dungy, coach of the Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts, is to be one of the speakers at the “No More Excuses!†men’s conference at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship Church.
The event will take place this Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Dungy is scheduled to speak from 11:40 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Tickets are $25, and include a lunch. Advance registration is available through www.ocbfchurch.org.
Tony Evans, pastor at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, and James Robison, founder of LIFE Outreach International, are also scheduled to speak.
Re: Prayer for Kathryn’s team
Received a message from Kathryn’s mom tonight. Not much in the way of additional news but just encouragement to know that people are praying for the team.
I found the email list from Kathryn’s recent Uganda team trip and forwarded the request to them. I received a call from Jane Estrada (from the list) who said the whole team had been contacted, were praying, and were forwarding it on for their church to be praying.
We’ve been on the phone or on the computer most of the day contacting anyone and everyone to be praying. We know of at least 3 churches who have this on their prayer chains. We still don’t know what all is going on and/or what might happen when their day begins in about 3 hours from now (approximately 10 p.m. CST). One thing for sure, Kathryn and her team are being COVERED in prayer and the protection of the Lord Jesus Christ!
Ron (Kathryn’s dad) found this verse and I wanted to share it with you:But let all who take refuge in YOU be glad; let them ever sing for joy.
Spread YOUR protection over them, that those who love YOUR name may rejoice in YOU.
For surely, O LORD, YOU bless the righteous;
YOU surround them with YOUR favor as with a shield.
Psalm 5:11-12Hallelujah and Praise His Holy, Mighty, Awesome Name!
I’m sure I’ve missed some from the distribution list above. Therefore, if you think of anyone else to send this prayer request to… please do! Thank so much. We will let you know when a new update is received.