On January 8, 1815 a rag tag force of approximately 4,700 Americans under the command of General Andrew Jackson defeated 11,000 British Regulars in the Battle of New Orleans. However, as you may remember from history class, the great irony of that battle was that it came just fifteen days after the signing of the treaty of Ghent which officially ended the war. In those days news traveled at the rate of wind-powered boats and horses, and news didn’t reach forces in the field until after th…
In this message we will be studying the exciting account in Acts 16 of how a first century prison guard in the city of Philippi became a follower of Jesus. I have never worked as a prison guard exactly, but when I was a police officer my job was at times not so dissimilar. I’m not sure if this is also true in Maine, but in Vermont, where I worked in law enforcement, when I would arrest someone during court hours I had to take them over to the courthouse to see the judge that same day. Und…
The sixteenth chapter of Acts documents for us the moment when the Gospel first arrived onto the mainland of the European continent. In the centuries that followed Christianity would go on to become the prevailing worldview of nearly all European peoples. Christianity would serve as the muse that inspired painters, musicians, architects, and craftsmen of all sorts. From those countries Christianity would gain many of its most influential thought leaders. Today the European landscape is dott…
The only training I ever received in delivering a death announcement was during my time at the Vermont Police Academy. One afternoon, the belt broke on a vacuum cleaner as it was being used in one of the academy’s hallways. We had just received a block of instruction on CPR so our instructors thought they would use this as an opportunity to test our knowledge of the subject. They singled out a friend of mine and demanded that he attempt CPR on the broken vacuum cleaner. Giggles ran up and d…
I remember once in Junior High I overheard a classmate of mine explain to a teacher why she celebrates St. Patrick’s Day. “St. Patrick was Irish,” she said “And my family is super Irish!” She was dressed all in green with temporary shamrock tattoos on both cheeks.
The teacher was smiling and nodding her head, when I interrupted, “Actually, St. Patrick was from England,” I said. “He wasn’t Irish. He was brought to Ireland as a slave, but he escaped, and then later he came back to Ir…
As I have disclosed previously, I am a fan of westerns, and it seems to me that one of the unsung heroes of all the many westerns that I have watched are the horses. I mean really, what would a western be without horses? Would the bad guys just walk into town? Would the good guy ride off into the sunset on a bicycle?
There comes a moment though in nearly every western where somebody makes a horse do something that it would never do if left to its own devices. In the movies I have see…
A few years ago, while living in North Florida, I took the kids fishing at Watertown Lake. Like all of the lakes there in North Florida the water was very dark. They say it’s from all of the tannins in the oaks. I always thought it was beautiful- like a tea that had been steeping for thousands of years. The lake had a long, L-shaped fishing pier that went out beyond its weedy fringes into deeper water, and after the kids spilled out of the van, my oldest, Bowden, led the charge, clomping …
I remember a time several years ago when I attended a conference in Philadelphia. The hotel I was staying at was located several blocks from the site of the convention center where the conference was being held, and every day as I walked back and forth I encountered dozens of panhandlers on the street. Some were fairly aggressive in their approach, but others just sat silently and passively behind rough cardboard signs. Being from the country I was unaccustomed to interacting with beggars. …
In this message, we’ll be introducing our next sermon series that will take us through eight of the conversion stories that we find in the book of Acts. It is my hope and my prayer that studying these passages together will be both an encouragement and a practical help to us in our own efforts to be witnesses for the Gospel right here in Aroostook County.
We need to be encouraged by these stories to believe that the power that is at work within us is stronger than the downward pull of these d…
The Bible contains both inspiring stories of faithfulness that we are to imitate and also cautionary tales that serve as a warning. In 1 Corinthians 10:6&11 Paul explains the value of studying Bible stories that show the consequences of living in ways that are selfish and disobedient.
(Verse 6) Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.
(Verse 11) These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnin…
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