By CHIP HUTCHESON, Kentucky Today

PRINCETON, Ky. (KT) — Six speakers implored church staffs and laypeople to emerge from their comfort zones and be serious about telling people about Jesus.

Speaking at Southside Baptist Church to one of the larger crowds in the 33-year history of the Western Kentucky Evangelism Conference, all six focused on getting the Gospel to Every Home, an initiative embraced by churches in the Kentucky Baptist Convention.

—Kenny Rager, evangelism strategist for the KBC, encouraged people to check their spiritual temperature toward evangelism.

He preached from Matthew 9:9-13, and gave three diagnostic questions for people to ask that would determine if one was cold or on fire about reaching people with the gospel.

He asked, “Do you see the sinner while missing the Savior?” The text referred to the religious leaders who were so focused on the table of sinners, they missed Jesus. He said it is easy for pastors to get weary and depressed about the culture, but they should “not forget that, as long as Christ is on the throne, there is hope for lost people — no matter how desperate things are.”

He then asked, “Do you know the scriptures, but not their significance?” Focusing on verse 12, he asked, “Is your heart in it?” In Jesus’ reply to the Pharisees, Rager said Christians can quote the Great Commission and Acts 1:8, they can have much head knowledge, but it may not be in their hearts. “Your head knowledge and methods and research don’t do it if
Source…

‘Must-Watch’: Popular Super Bowl Ad Featured A Pro-Life Message And A Christian Athlete

A Super Bowl ad featuring a pro-life message by Toyota spotlighted Christian American swimmer Jessica Long, who has won 13 Paralympic gold medals. She was born in Russia in 1992 but was adopted by an American family when she was 1. Shortly thereafter, her legs were amputated below the knee due to a medical condition.

The ad shows Long swimming in the water as her life’s story is told. The viewer hears a recreated conversation between actresses playing her mother and an adoption agency worker. Throughout the commercial, the viewer also sees a recreation of Long as a child learning to walk and then swim.

Long grew up in a Christian household, but she didn’t accept Christ until she was living on her own in 2013.

“I wanted to give God my whole heart and not just part of me,” she said. “I wanted to be a part of God’s family and not fight Him all the time.”

Long will swim in the Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, which will begin Tuesday, August 24. For more information, visit www.paralympic.org.

New Show Based To Premier On Aretha Franklin’s Life, Faith, Gospel Roots

National Geographic
Source…

Christian Bale is to star in ‘The Pale Blue Eye’.

The 47-year-old actor will team up once again with director Scott Cooper for the third time on the thriller

The plot revolves around the attempt to solve a series of murders that took place in 1830 at the US Military Academy at West Point. Christian will play a veteran detective who investigates the murders, who is aided by a detail-oriented young cadet who would later become a world famous author, Edgar Allan Poe.

Bale and Cooper previously collaborated on the films ‘Out of the Furnace’ and ‘Hostiles’.

Scott told Deadline: “Even though Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston and died, delirious, in Baltimore, the majority of his life spent in Virginia, my home state.

“So I grew up in his presence. He bequeathed us the detective genre, and he’s still such a presence in our culture, with every horror, mystery and science fiction writer
Source…

Today’s readings: Genesis 22, 1-2.9-13.15-18; Romans 8, 31-34; Mark 9, 2-10

The centrepiece of today’s Scripture readings is what provoked St Peter to exclaim: “It is wonderful for us to be here”. If there is no spark in the faith we profess and in the Church we belong to, then there is no real motivation to keep believing and to appreciate how faith can be transforming in life.

Many of those who still claim to belong to the faith unfortunately fail to grab what is wonderful and delightful in believing. If faith is merely doctrine and rules for living, and is not adding colour to life and making belonging meaningful, then something vital is missing. Meditating on this Sunday the mystery of the transfiguration of Christ, we are called to recover the power of the Christian faith to allure us, to delight us and to transfigure us in spite of whatever is tormenting in life.

In his book Atheist Delusions, theologian David Bentley Hart remarks that the most important function of Christian history is to remind us not only of how Western civilisation was shaped, but also of something of incalculable wonder and inexpressible beauty, the knowledge of which can still haunt, delight, torment and transfigure us.

It is to no avail for us to keep hammering today on our Christian past and on how our culture has been shaped by our religion. There has been, without doubt, an interruption to this which we need to acknowledge and understand in order to
Source…

“What’s exciting is that we have a really excellent student body, and to be able to send the kids off – there will be a lot of excitement,” ECS Athletic Director Paul Dunham said. “The kids have very strong relationships with each other, and the teachers are excited. It’s a great school experience.”