Blog - Page 211 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Obama Made Many Promises

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:17-05:00November 11th, 2008|Categories: Politics|

President-elect Barack Obama is getting advice from just about everyone and every interest group. He only won the election a week ago today but the interest and intensity is mounting. Some say he must be very pragmatic if he is to unite the country. Articulate mainstream liberal columnists like E. J. Dionne, Jr., suggest that he should "fear timidity, not overreach." My own guess is, like most presidents, it will be some of both. I am rooting for pragmatism more than for liberalism. Aspects of progressivism are right at certain points in time but the country is still instinctively conservative/moderate and still sees socialism as unfair and wrong. I never thought Obama was a socialist but now we will see how this plays out in the next two years or so as he deals with a very bad economy. Blaming Bush and the Republicans will work for about a year but if the economy does not show real change for the better, or at least […]

The Gathering in Salem, Massachusetts

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:17-05:00November 10th, 2008|Categories: Emergent Church|

My friend Phil Wyman has served as the pastor of The Gathering in Salem, Massachusetts, for ten years now. I met Phil three years ago as a result of a front page story on him that appeared in The Wall Street Journal. We have conversed by phone and prayed for one another. Emails keep us in contact. I still hope to teach there sometime in 2009. I support Phil and believe in his outreach. If you've ever been to Salem you will understand why this kind of missional church-plant is so needed there. Here is Phil's report to praying friends from last week:

I am just now getting to telling our Halloween story for
this year. The month-long experience of Halloween in

Salem is remarkable to behold for those who have never experienced it. Many
visit us for a week or a weekend, but for those of us who live here, and serve
throughout the month of October it has become commonplace to view Salem as Halloween Town. […]

For All of Us Who Survived Beings Kids Before the 1980s

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:17-05:00November 9th, 2008|Categories: Humor|

Now and then I get an anonymous bit of humor that is truly worth a laugh for many more people. Here is one sent to Anita and then forwarded to me. Enjoy!

TO ALL THE KIDS
WHO SURVIVED THE 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!!

First, we survived being born to mothers
who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took
aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn't get tested for
diabetes.

Then after that
trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright
colored lead-base paints.

We had no
childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we
rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats,
booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

Riding in […]

A Further Reflection on the Election of Barack Obama

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:17-05:00November 8th, 2008|Categories: Politics|

My local newspaper headlined the Thursday edition, with the same headline that appeared in Rome's daily newspaper: "The World Changes." I believe that it does, in one very symbolic powerful way. But as with every such powerful change there is a corresponding way in which everything remains much the same. Or maybe we should say it changes in positive ways for now and in ways that are yet to be seen in time. Time and history will be the real judge. I welcome the initial changes. Here are a few of the notable comments made by world leaders since Tuesday:

"Your extraordinary journey to the White House will inspire people not only in your country but also around the world." (Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister, India)

"We all want to be Americans this morning. This is a giant step for humanity. Obstacles are falling, not only in the United States but here in France." (Rama Yade, French Foreign Minister)

"This is […]

Nick Saban's "Big Bang" Theory

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:18-05:00November 6th, 2008|Categories: College Football|

Well, for you college football fans, this is that time of the year that we all love the most. My Crimson Tide sits atop the BCS poll as the number one ranked team in college football. Who would have believed it in August? They were totally unranked. This was "rebuilding" season number two. The faithful hoped for a great team next year and a potential champion in year four of the Nick Saban era. So, whatever happens now this has already been an amazing season.

As die hard fans know Alabama plays LSU at Tiger Stadium this Saturday (2:30 p.m. CST, CBS-TV). Guess where I will be? No, not in Louisiana, though I would wish. Bama is a 3+ point favorite but Tiger Stadium will be loud, hostile and challenging to say the least. Not only can the defending national champions knock Alabama out of the top spot but they can beat their former coach, Nick Saban.They would love nothing more. LSU will come […]

Your Church Is Too Small

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:18-05:00November 5th, 2008|Categories: Personal|

Last week I asked you to pray that I could complete the book, Your Church Is Too Small. Thanks to all of you who supported me in completing this project. Today, November 5, I will deliver 21 chapters, and various other parts of the book (acknowledgments, introduction, glossary, etc.), to my friend Sue Taylor who will then put the various Word files into one continuous large Word file with all the notes properly arranged at the end of the book. By this process the book will be properly formatted and ready to give to the publisher. If all goes well I will mail a hard copy and electronic file to Michigan by no later than next Monday.

The other really good news, in relationship to this project, is that Zondervan's publications committee voted on Monday to publish the book in 2009. (I did not seek a contract until the book was all but done, something I had not done in the past. I wanted […]

A Moving Moment in American History

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:19-05:00November 5th, 2008|Categories: America and Americanism|

Whether you voted for Barack Obama, or John McCain, you had to be deeply moved by the images and scenes of last evening. Having grown up in the old South, as an early advocate of civil rights in the 1950s, I was moved to a few tears last night. I always felt might live to see such a moment but I wondered in recent years. One of the greatest blessings of America is now evident to the whole world: true freedom and genuine opportunity. And the exist polling data did not reveal that race played a huge negative problem for Ob. It was a huge positive, however, as millions of African-Americans (and Hispanics) proudly voted to help him become our 44th president.
The data I saw suggested that John McCain's age (72) was a bigger negative than Obama's skin color. (Not good news for aging "boomers" who think they are really what the country is all about!)

I can still remember […]

A Blog Break to Finish My Book

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:19-05:00October 29th, 2008|Categories: Personal|

I am working diligently to complete the final stages of my book, Your Church Is Too Small. I plan to give the completed work to the publisher next week, God willing. My self-imposed deadline is Monday, November 3. To reach this goal, and to preserve my time and energy, I am taking a few days off from blogging. I will try to come back on Monday or Tuesday next week. I have one simple request. Please pray for me as I seek to finish this very demanding work. I am weary, not sleeping as well as I would like, and desperately need to get this done. Your intercession would be a great blessing to me.

Patriotic Grace

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:19-05:00October 28th, 2008|Categories: America and Americanism|

Peggy Noonan, the author of the best-selling book, When Character Was King, has authored seven major works on American politics and has for some years written a regular column for The Wall Street Journal. She is one of the most intellectually rigorous, and totally honest, writers in the field. She is also a serious, practicing Roman Catholic and wrote a fine book on John Paul II. Noonan actually took time off from writing, in 2004, to assist the re-election campaign of George W. Bush. But Peggy Noonan is not the usual pugnacious conservative. She has a first-rate mind and loves her country more than she loves political ideologies. In Bush's second term she began to question the president and suggested that he had gotten away from his real message and messed up badly on Iraq. Noonan has not switched parties but she has told the truth. This is what makes her so incredibly important at this precise moment.

Her new book, Patriotic Grace: […]

Appaloosa: A Great Western That Works

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:20-05:00October 27th, 2008|Categories: Film|

Readers know that I love the movies, almost all kinds of movies. I especially like history, drama, science fiction, certain action films and a lot of biography. I like some comedy, but a great deal of it I find rather unassuming and inane. Only in the last two years have I gone back to the one film genre I watched as a child: American Westerns. Series like Lonesome Dove and the greatest Western of 2007, 3:10 to Yuma, both gave me a renewed appreciation for such films.

The new film Appaloosa is, to my view, a truly great Western. It is set in a small town in New Mexico in 1882 and is an adaptation of a novel by Robert B. Parker. It is an unassuming, character-driven, drama as much as it is a Western, including the saloons, whores and Indians. It takes a time period in American history, when people lived a rugged existence, and shows how they […]