Blog - Page 151 of 318 - John H Armstrong

The Story of Amazing Grace That You May Never Have Heard

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:51-05:00June 16th, 2010|Categories: Church History, Music, Personal|

Well-known singer Wintley Phipps, born in Trinidad and Tabago in 1955, moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, at a very early age where he later attended Kingsway College, a Seventh-day Adventist Christian Academy. Before he became a world-renowned singer he also attended Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama, where he received a Bachelors of Arts degree in Theology. I have a particular interest in Oakwood University since the campus borders the property where my mother lay in a rehab center before she passed into the presence of Christ less than three years ago in Huntsville. I wrote about Oakwood at that time commenting on my visit to the slave cemetery next door on the grounds at Oakwood. The school was begun by faithful Adventists who cared for slaves before the Civil War and for the poor former-slaves who struggled to recover after the war. Phipps later earned a Masters of Divinity degree from the best-known Adventist school, Andrews University in Berrien Springs, […]

Why Do People Stay Away from the Church?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:51-05:00June 15th, 2010|Categories: Evangelism, Missional Church, The Church|

I travel more than the average person. Flights often allow me the opportunity to talk, in a non-threatening way, with both Christians and non-Christians. I have discovered that the data we continually hear reported about the church is telling us a number of truths that we generally do not like to hear inside the leadership structures of the church.

While the church once was a thriving part of most America communities it has now been relegated to something seen as outside normal society, or something that offers no living, vital community to people. In the past, when people were in need, whether physical or spiritual, they would look to local churches for assistance. Most importantly they looked to the church for ways to cope and live every day life. The simple, measurable fact is that this is no longer true. The church has lost its value to people who still seek for ultimate truth. One study found that 60% […]

Who Is a Real Christian?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:52-05:00June 14th, 2010|Categories: Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Renewal, The Church, Unity of the Church|

Tertullian said, “Men are not born Christians but become such.” Being born and reared in a Christian church and family does not make you, ipso facto, a real Christian. Most know this but few will talk about it. Every great revival was birthed when people inside the church began to wonder if they really knew God in Jesus Christ. This is why the new birth has been so central to revival preaching and mission down through the ages.

But there is a corresponding problem with this emphasis. People who are born from above (that is the literal rendering of the Greek text in John 3) often judge those who have not undergone the same experience, or formula, as they have and conclude that they know who is and is not a real Christian. This problem is so great that it destroys most attempts at unity among evangelical and charismatic Christians in particular. We become quite sure who is “born again” and who is not and thus we make walls to keep out the people we know are not real […]

More Wisdom From Mount Athos

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:52-05:00June 13th, 2010|Categories: Church Tradition, Love, Spirituality|

Last Lord’s Day I introduced you to the Orthodox tradition of monasticism associated with Mount Athos in Greece (photo at left). I referenced the writings of Staretz Silouan (1866-1938), a monk whose writing has been particularly helpful to me. Today I return to Silouan and his amazing chapter on love (his words in italics):

At all times I beseech the Lord who is merciful to grant that I may love my enemies; and by the grace of God I have experienced that the love of God is, and what it is to love my neighbour; and day and night I pray the Lord for love, and the Lord gives me tears to weep for the whole world. But if I find faith with any man or look on him with an unkind eye my tears dry up and my soul sinks into despondency. Yet do I begin again to entreat forgiveness of the Lord, and the Lord in his mercy […]

The Dancing Grandma

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:52-05:00June 12th, 2010|Categories: Humor, Personal|

Tonight could be really fun or really embarrassing for me. You see, it’s the night of my granddaughter Abbie’s Streamwood Park District dance recital. Throughout this school year I have taken her to a few rehearsals. One time her mom was out of town and I was watching Abbie’s class through the one-way window. It is a mirror on the class side. I was getting bored watching the same routine over and over and since it was just big sister, Gracie, and me in the hall watching, I decided to start shuffle-stepping myself! I did the whole Calypso routine four times waving my hands in the air and shuffle stepping, shuffle ball-changing—you know, looking like a real “piece of work” as we say in my family. Gracie was telling her mom all about it on the cell phone, to which her mom replied, “There’s a security camera on the ceiling at the end of the hall!” Everyone at the front desk of the […]

The Weight of Fear

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:53-05:00June 11th, 2010|Categories: Divine Providence, Spirituality|

Pope Gregory the Great said: "The weight of fear is the anchor of the heart.” I see a lot of fear in a lot of Christian hearts these days. President Franklin D. Roosevelt noted in 1933 that fear paralyzes those who succumb to it. Francis de Sales said, “We must not fear fear.” And John Calvin said, “The inward joy, which faith brings to us, can overcome all fears.” But fear we do and fear seems to be in the air since 9/11. If Christians are not filled with anger and rage, at Congress or at the current President, then they are often filled with fear of the multitude of things that they believe can actually harm them.

The fact is a great deal of what most people fear is based much more on nonstop media hype than on reality. And whether it is the problem of immigration or the threat of crime we all tend to […]

Does Lady Liberty Need a Mate?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:53-05:00June 10th, 2010|Categories: America and Americanism|

The Statue of Liberty stands on a small island off the shore of Lower Manhattan. She has been there since her arrival in the United States in 1885, a gift from the people of France. She is an East Coast thing and there are some—not many but some—who think she needs a mate.

The Statue of Responsibility Foundation is raising money to bookend the continental United States with a second statue on an island in the harbor of an as yet undetermined West Coast city. The Statue of Liberty's missing mate is called the "Statue of Responsibility." And no, I'm not making this up.
According to the Statue of Responsibility website:

The Statue of Liberty has served as a symbol of liberty, both in America and throughout the world. Its counterpart, the Statue of Responsibility, will likewise serve as […]

The Problem of Senate Candidate Rand Paul

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:53-05:00June 9th, 2010|Categories: Politics, Race and Racism|

Rand Paul, the recently chosen Republican nominee for the U. S. Senate seat open in Kentucky, faces some interesting days ahead. He already is the center of profound attention on the national scene. He should not be surprised since he is the son of libertarian congressman Ron Paul (TX-R), who ran for president in 2008. Paul won a recent primary in Kentucky by such a large margin that even the pundits were surprised. Republicans have been scurrying about to try and manage the situation. Most are endorsing Paul rather than fight a battle over the nominations process and reject him. He was not the party favorite, that is for sure.

The big story out of this race was Paul’s one sentence summary, given in an interview with liberal commentator Rachel Maddow, on MSNBC. Paul said, “When you blur the distinction between public and private, there are problems. When you blur the distinction between public and private ownership, there really […]

Stuck On the Road to Adulthood

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:53-05:00June 8th, 2010|Categories: America and Americanism, Culture, Evangelism|

A recent Sunday issue of the Chicago Tribune (May 23) ran a front-page feature on the Millennials that got my attention. For those who do not follow this generational descriptor the Millennials are the generation born between 1977 and 1998. The older Millennials came of age around 2000 (they were 23) and now include adults 33 years of age and under. There are 75 million Millennials in America! (There are only 51 million adults in Generation X, those born between 1965-1976, thus the generation that followed my own, the Baby Boom.) This Chicago Tribune article focused on the older (?) Millennials (21-33).

The Chicago Tribune feature focused principally on Millennials in the job market. It showed how hard it is for Millennials to find good jobs in the present market. One 29 year-old man is moving (a common thing for Millennials) again and again and hopes to soon land something in New York. Nearing age 30 […]

Why Satan Hates Christian Unity

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:53-05:00June 7th, 2010|Categories: ACT 3, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, The Church, Unity of the Church|

When I read passages like Ephesians 6:10-20, in their larger epistolary context, I cannot help but believe that the evil one hates it when Christians visibly unite in the gospel and mission of Christ. He loves our disunity and when we defend this present state, and seek to explain it away with our human answers, we may be taking his side in the battle for truth. I discuss that in this week's video on my new book, Your Church Is Too Small.