The life story of Elvis Presley emerges as narrated by Colonel Tom Parker, who exploited and enriched himself by manipulating the “King of Rock and Roll” and his family.
This past weekend, more than 1,000 volunteers from 10 churches united to serve over 40 schools throughout the Louisville, Ky., community. Although each church served their respective schools in diverse ways, there were shared goals.
A little more than half of the respondents (54 percent) reported their church uses the prepackaged Communion cups (with juice and bread sealed in a single container, purchased from a vendor). Among those folks, 42 percent either “strongly agreed” or “agreed” they were easy to use, while 45 percent either “disagreed” or “strongly disagreed” the prefilled cups were easy to use. . . .
Doug Crozier of The Solomon Foundation announced recently that the church extension fund has achieved $1 billion in assets on its way to helping more than 500 churches with facilities in just over 11 years. Also briefs from Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, and New Jersey.
Jennifer Perkins Taylor has more than 250 career wins as Point University’s softball coach, a program she has been with since it began. John Perkins led Point’s baseball team to the NAIA World Series in 2016 as a first-year head coach. The pair fiercely support each other, their programs, and the mission of Point University “to educate students for Christ-centered service and leadership throughout the world.” . . .
After 17 years as lead pastor with Crosspoint Church, Cape Coral, Fla., Jeff Swearingen has assumed the full-time lead role with Florida Church Planters. The church’s elders, meanwhile, selected Jeff’s son, Matt, to lead Crosspoint.
The Communion survey has closed; look for results Aug. 10. (Thank you to all who participated.) This file also contains briefs about e2 partnering with Crossroads Church Partners, and Kentucky Christian University planning a Minister Appreciation Luncheon.
How does your church show love to area schools, teachers, and students? For the last eight years, Northeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky.—known as the Love the ‘Ville church—has done so with thousands of bags of mulch and hundreds of volunteers. . . .
Since the call of this exilic prophet (in Ezekiel 1–3), the prophet had cried out against Israel’s idolatry and the sins of Israel’s leaders. The result was that leaders began persecuting Ezekiel. At this juncture “the word of the Lord” came to Ezekiel to cry out against those leaders.
The major prophetic book of Ezekiel is the Judges of the exile. It is the Dark Ages of captivity for Israel. This prophet-priest had to announce that sin came with consequences. With this lesson, we launch a two-month study of this book.
Paul made two prayer requests. He asked the Thessalonians to pray that the gospel would spread rapidly and be honored. Paul also asked God to deliver him and his team from wicked and evil people who have no faith.
Paul gave the Thessalonians inspired advice about how to be strong through trials. It had to do with growing in faith and love, recognizing God’s judgment, and constantly praying.
This section on the return of Christ (beginning in 1 Thessalonians 4:13) is one of the longest in the New Testament. Evidently some of the believers felt as if those who had died before the return of Jesus would miss out on his second coming. Paul was writing to correct that fallacious thinking.
