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Faith column: Change the world like it really matters

Posted at 5:30 am September 23, 2013
By Myra Mansfield Leave a Comment

What an amazing sight! A middle-aged woman and a man sitting at a picnic table surrounded by fascinated young people all listening attentively to what she was saying. I wanted to go over there but didn’t. I waited to see what would be said afterward.

Revonna has had visions. You might ask, “Visions? Were they about the past? The present? The future?” The answer is yes. They are as ancient as the earth and as modern as tomorrow. These kids wanted to hear about it.

We don’t do church like everyone else. We didn’t even mean to start a church, and I’m not sure we should even call it a church. One night with seven people present, after three hours of nothing but prayer and scripture, suddenly the Holy Spirit broke in and spoke to us that we were to meet in our basement on Sunday morning, and have Rich Bean bring the message. We were shocked honestly because none of us had talked about it. Rich didn’t even answer whether he would do it or not. One woman said, “Yes, please.” I responded as any gracious hostess would, though tentatively, “Ok.” Everyone then left. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Faith Tagged With: change, church, faith, freedom, God, Holy Spirit, indoors, Jack Mansfield, Jesus, Living Water Fellowship, Myra Mansfield, Oak Ridge, outside, Revonna Bean, Rich Bean, worship

Faith column: Building on the firm foundation of spiritual gifts

Posted at 12:19 pm August 18, 2013
By Joseph Westfall Leave a Comment

The new mindset compared to the old way of thinking

Have you checked your thinking closet lately? What old ways and what new ways are going on all around you? The struggle with many people is: What are the old ways that I want to keep, and what are the new ways I want to accept.

Jesus noticed the problem and used a parable of wine skins to illustrate his point. (Luke 5:33-39) He understood. He knew the reality of change. He fought against some of the need for change that he was bringing himself.

Here are a few thoughts on the subject of churches and changes. Many, many more could be added to the list. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Faith Tagged With: change, churches, congregation, foundation, God, Jesus, Joseph M. Westfall, minister, ministry, new ways, old ways, pastor, people, prayer, spiritual gifts

Faith column: Letting pain be pain (Part Two)

Posted at 11:45 am July 7, 2013
By David Allred 1 Comment

Last month, I wrote about the problem Western civilization seems to have with pain as evidenced by the plethora of outlets we’ve created to avoid it. Central to part one is understanding the paradox of pain: that while pain certainly is no one’s friend, the laws at work on our planet are such that pain is everyone’s friend: Life depends on pain and without it, we wouldn’t be here.

It would be hard to maintain our humanity if we didn’t ask spiritual questions about pain. The Bible is loaded with “heroes” who did this very thing, including Christ himself, who from the cross issued the famous phrase found in Psalms 22: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Questioning in this way is not only natural, but also appears in both the Jewish and Christian texts as an affirmation of our human need to wrestle with the “why” of pain.

I have only one real issue with the questioning of God and pain in our modern world. It comes when a person has rejected the faith life because of the problem of pain and yet, simultaneously, accepts the story of evolution as a beautiful thing, despite the clearly painful history it details. I don’t believe these two world views are mutually exclusive and personally hold to both as examples of beauty rising out of pain. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Faith Tagged With: beauty, Bible, change, Christ, compassion, confession, David Allred, disasters, evolution, faith, God, High Places Community Church, human, humanity, justice, life, pain, redemption, science, storm, wisdom, world

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Public Notice: NNSA announces no significant impact of Y-12 Development Organization operations at Horizon Center

AVAILABILITY OF THE FINAL ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT FOR THE OFFSITE HOUSING OF THE Y-12 DEVELOPMENT … [Read More...]

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