Author: StrongStakes

“There is no sports event like ‘Opening Day’ of baseball, the sense of beating back the forces of darkness and the National Football League.” George Vecsey, A Year in the Sun (1989) The official countdown began last November 2nd after the Chicago Cubs outlasted the Cleveland Indians in a 10-inning contest to win the 2016…

Today’s blog post was the second half of a sermon preached last month in Yirgachefe, Ethiopia.  This photo was taken during the three-day “25th Jubilee Anniversary Evangelism Movement Thanksgiving Conference” hosted by 242 indigenous Kale Hawet Churches.  This young boy caught my attention because of his passionate singing during a time of worship.  When you’re…

The 19th Century singer/song-leader Ira Sankey was traveling with Dwight Moody on an evangelism tour in Scotland, when he spot­ted a poem in a Bri­tish news­pa­per.  He tore the po­em from the pa­per, put it in his pock­et, and promptly for­got about it.  The next day, at the end of their ser­vice in Edin­burgh, Moo­dy…

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament … otherwise known as “March Madness” … begins this week. Starting with 68 teams (did yours get in?) it will take three weeks of nearly non-stop dribbling to culminate with the crowning of a “National Champion” on Monday, April 3rd. It’s been estimated that more than 50 million Americans will participate…

The sun shined brightly, but the wind was brisk, and the temperatures crisp … as they often are in the month of January in rural Mississippi. My wife and I had left southern California two weeks earlier, stopped over in Denver to pick up our meager belongings, and then drove to our new home in…

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”  (Matthew 11:28–30) The following meditation…

Tomorrow, March 1, is “Ash Wednesday,” beginning the historically 40-day period of time called “Lent.” Since I was raised as a “Protestant – Evangelical – Fundamentalist” … all I ever heard about Lent was a little too Roman Catholic and therefore, off limits. That was unfortunate … click on this link to download a one-page handout to…

Today’s blog post was the second half of a sermon preached two weeks ago in Yirgachefe, Ethiopia … the land of premium coffee beans! The photo was my view of the crowd of 20,000+ folks who participated in the “25th Jubilee Anniversary Evangelism Movement Thanksgiving Conference” hosted by 242 indigenous Kale Hawet Churches. My good…

The great-great-great-grandson of King David had just received word that a vast army was on its way. Hordes of Moabites and Ammonites (descendants of Lot’s two daughters) were bearing down on Jerusalem, intent on “making war against” him. King Jehoshaphat was facing great peril, so his first reaction was predictable … fear. But his next…

In the preface to Francis Chan’s book, “The Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit,” he differentiates between two approaches to biblical interpretation … “exegesis” and “eisegesis.” The dictionary defines exegesis as “critical explanation or interpretation of a text, esp. of the Bible.”  Chan adds: “… starting with the text and working…