Question: “What does the Bible say about Christian fathers?”

Answer: The greatest commandment in Scripture is this: “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Going back to verse 2, we read, “So that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.” Following Deuteronomy 6:5, we read, “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (vv. 6-7).

Israelite history reveals that the father was to be diligent in instructing his children in the ways and words of the Lord for their own spiritual development and well-being. The father who was obedient to the commands of Scripture did just that. This brings us to Proverbs 22:6, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” To “train” indicates the first instruction that a father and mother give to a child, i.e., his early education. The training is designed to make clear to children the manner of life they are intended for. To commence a child’s early education in this way is of great importance.

Ephesians 6:4 is a summary of instructions to the father, stated in both a negative and positive way. “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” The negative part of this verse indicates that a father is not to foster negativity in his children by severity, injustice, partiality, or unreasonable exercise of authority. Harsh, unreasonable conduct towards a child will only serve to nurture evil in the heart. The word “provoke” means “to irritate, exasperate, rub the wrong way, or incite.” This is done by a wrong spirit and wrong methods—severity, unreasonableness, sternness, harshness, cruel demands, needless restrictions, and selfish insistence upon dictatorial authority. Such provocation will produce adverse reactions, deadening children’s affection, reducing their desire for holiness, and making them feel that they cannot possibly please their parents. A wise parent seeks to make obedience desirable and attainable by love and gentleness.

The positive part of Ephesians 6:4 is expressed in a comprehensive direction—educate them, bring them up, develop their conduct in all of life by the instruction and admonition of the Lord. This is the whole process of educating and discipline. The word “admonition” carries the idea of reminding the child of faults (constructively) and duties (responsibilities).

The Christian father is really an instrument in God’s hand. The whole process of instruction and discipline must be that which God commands and which He administers, so that His authority should be brought into constant and immediate contact with the mind, heart, and conscience of children. The human father should never present himself as the ultimate authority to determine truth and duty. It is only by making God the teacher and ruler on whose authority everything is done that the goals of education can best be attained.

Martin Luther said, “Keep an apple beside the rod to give the child when he does well.” Discipline must be exercised with watchful care and constant training with much prayer. Chastening, discipline, and counsel by the Word of God, giving both reproof and encouragement, is at the core of “admonition.” The instruction proceeds from the Lord, is learned in the school of Christian experience, and is administered by the parents—primarily the father, but also, under his direction, the mother. Christian discipline is needed to enable children to grow up with reverence for God, respect for parental authority, knowledge of Christian standards, and habits of self-control.

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). A father’s first responsibility is to acquaint his children with Scripture. The means and methods that fathers may use to teach God’s truth will vary. As the father is faithful in role modeling, what children learn about God will put them in good standing throughout their earthly lives, no matter what they do or where they go.

Recommended Resource: Fathering Like the Father: Becoming the Dad God Wants You to Be by Gangel & Gangel.

The 8^th International Christian Medical Conference was held from June 11-12 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Center, with some 220 doctors attending from 27 nations.

The theme of the convention was Spirituality and Medicine.

The World Christian Doctors Network, an interdenominational group of professionals in the medical industry, hosted the event.

The WCDN seeks to propagate Christian ethics in medical practice, and is involved in the documentation of cases of divine healing around the world.

“We have uncovered many testimonies of how the power of God has healed patients and when doctors hear this kind of news, they become curious,” Dr. Joonha Hwang, a prominent South Korean doctor, told The Christian Post, adding, “They want to know if it’s true or just a story that someone has made up.”

Hwang said, “[T]hat is why we put on these ‘Spirituality and Medicine’ conferences each year and then present medical data before and after the patient got prayed for. As far as I know, we at WCDN are the only Christian medical organization that invites doctors to come and hear from other doctors and are then able to openly discuss the evidence of divine healing,” The Christian Post reported.

Healing testimony

One speaker, Dr. Sean Thomas George, told of his extraordinary healing experience, saying, “I was dead for one hour and 25 minutes, but came back to life after my wife prayed a simple prayer,” Continental News reported.

George said the incident occurred on Oct. 24, 2008. He was on his way back home after a clinic session held at the south coast of Australia, when he began to feel “unusually hot,” and experienced minor chest pains.

George said, “I decided to stop the car and, as I got out and still feeling the discomfort, I called my wife, also a doctor, to let her know what was happening. She suggested that I drove straight home to Kalgoorlie.”

However, George said he felt led by God to go to a clinic in Kambalda, which is 31.6 miles from Kalgoorlie.

An ECG revealed that he was having a heart attack, and he was given some medications.

Despite this, the pain worsened and within 11 minutes, George’s heart stopped beating. “Not only did I have a heart attack but I went into cardiac arrest,” Continental News reported.

George said within the next hour he was given 4,000 chest compressions and 13 electrical shocks by a medical team. When his wife arrived, he had already been pronounced dead.

George said, “Being a doctor herself, Sherry knew that medical science had proved that if the blood supply to the brain was cut off for over three minutes the brain would begin to die, and in 20 minutes the brain would be completely dead. But as she and I had trusted Jesus Christa as Almighty God and Savior, she decided to humbly ask Him to intervene,” Continental News reported.

His wife held George’s hand and prayed, after which, “[I]t was as though someone had breathed life into me again and my heartbeat came back.” Four hours later, he was flown to Royal Perth Hospital for emergency treatment of a severely-blocked, right-side heart artery.

He was in a deep coma and had kidney and liver failure. The doctors doubted he would survive and if ever, would be brain dead and on a ventilator.

But three days later, George opened his eyes. The following day he could move his limbs, and the day after, he was fully conscious, off the ventilator, and his brain and memory were intact. He was discharged after three months.

Speaking as both a doctor and a survivor, George said, “I don’t think there are any documented cases of patients who were clinically dead for so long, have come back to life with their memory perfectly intact and neurologically no deficits at all. This is something that only God can do, because medically it is impossible,” Continental News reported.

Other testimonies

Other healing stories during the convention was that of a 13-year-old boy from Korea, Haedong Yeo, who experienced cerebral hemorrhage and multiple skull fractures in a car accident and was close to death in the ICU, but began to immediately improve after a healing prayer by Dr. Jaerock Lee.

Another doctor, Joonsung Kim, spoke of healing skin disease through prayer and without medication.

A man shared his experience of paralysis from the waist down due to a cervical fracture.

Another man was healed from a critically deep cervical laceration.

Finally, a woman spoke of how she was healed of prolactinoma after she stopped all medications.

Euthanasia, abortion

Also discussed during the conference was the issue of the ethics of euthanasia, by Austrian doctor Lachlan Dunjey, and the issue of abortion by Dr. Sven Frederick from Denmark.

A study headed by Paul Riley and a team from University College London showed that dormant repair cells in the hearts of adult mice can be reactivated by transforming dormant cells from the epicardium with the injection of thymosin beta 4, according to Reuters.

It has yet to be seen whether similar results can be elicited in human hearts, and the research is still in a very early stage. However, it does indicate that there is the possibility that a drug could be developed that can prompt hearts that have undergone cardiac arrest into self repair, Reuters said.

The research was funded by the British Heart Foundation. Dr. Peter Weissberg, medical director said, “We have always believed that the heart has no capacity to heal itself, but this research suggests that this is not the case. We think we have discovered a natural process that brings about repair of the heart,” according to theheart.org.

Weissberg said in a press conference, “Until now, this has been science fiction. We are trying to understand what the triggers are for this process. The cells that are capable of this healing are already there in the epicardium. They just need to be tweaked and primed and the effect scaled up. If this works, we might be able to heal cardiac injury caused by heart attacks without resorting to stem cells,” theheart.org reported.

Riley, who heads the research team, told Reuters, “I could envisage a patient known to be at risk of a heart attack taking an oral tablet…which would prime their heart so that if they had a heart attack the damage could be repaired.”

Regeneration of heart tissue

In recent years, the number of deaths caused by heart attacks has gone down with medical advances. What has yet to be addressed is debilitation caused by the incidence of heart failure leading to a specific accumulation of dead heart tissue, Reuters reported.

Presently, mechanical devices are used in such case, or a transplant. But Riley’s study, which came out in the June 8, 2011, online publication Nature, targeted progenitor cells from the epicardium, or outer layer in the heart, Reuters said.

Riley said he targeted these progenitor cells because in an embryo, they become cardiomyocytes. “During pregnancy, these cells contribute to heart muscle and coronary blood vessels,” theheart.org reported.

Riley added, “In the adult, these cells sit in a dormant state. We think there is a possibility that these cells might be able to be activated to switch on the embryonic gene that causes them to make new myocardial cells,” according to theheart.org.

Thymosin beta 4

Riley found out that by injecting the healthy hearts of adult mice with thymosin beta 4, they can be “primed” to repair themselves after damage, according to Reuters.

After injecting the healthy hearts of the adult mice with thymosin beta 4, the researchers initiated heart attacks in the mice. They then gave the same mice another booster dose of thymosin beta 4. This prompted the transformation of dormant progenitor cells into cardiomycytes, Reuters said.

Riley said, “These cardiomycytes can link into the existing muscle of the heart and they home to the area of injury. [T]hey are also both structurally and functionally coupled to the heart, and therefore represent a bona fide source of new heart muscle,” Reuters reported.

The mice who received the treatment experienced a 25 percent improvement in the heart’s ejection fraction. There was also a reduction of myocardial scarring and remodeling, theheart.org said.

Preemptive treatment

Attempts are being made to see if the treatment will be effective on human cells. However, Riley emphasized that the treatment is primarily preemptive. It must be applied before heart injury, according to theheart.org.

Riley said, “We would need to treat patients at high risk of having a heart attack before that heart attack occurred. That is the key. The idea would be to identify these high-risk individuals and then give them this medication that would keep them their cells in a primed state, so that if an MI occurs repair would occur,” according to theheart.org.

Weissberg said, “If we could achieve a 25 percent increase in ejection fraction in humans, that would be a substantial effect. However, we rarely see in [humans] the same benefit as is shown in animal studies. But even if we could achieve a 10% improvement, that would make a major difference to quality of life,” theheart.org reported.

A new book examines the history and significance of a 12-word prayer that is believed to have been prayed by the apostles.

Dr. Norris J. Chumley and the Very Rev. Dr. John McGuckin wrote the book, Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer: Experiencing the Presence of God and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of an Ancient Spirituality, as a companion piece to their first PBS documentary, Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer, according to PR Web.

The prayer is simply, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” It is believed to date back to the time of the apostles, and remains a popular prayer of hermits and ascetics today in desert monasteries in Eastern Europe and other areas, PR Web said.

Chumley and McGuckin visited the holy sites of the ancient Christians, visited monasteries and photographed their voyage, including rare pictures of holy places that photographers are rarely allowed to take, PR Web said.

According to its website, “Never before has there been this kind of access to ancient caves, monasteries and convents in Egypt, Greece, Eastern Europe and Russia.”

The website says that the authors met Christian monks and nuns who turned their backs on the world so that they could search for their eternal salvation. “For the first time, they speak of their private prayers of the heart on film.”

In the PBS documentary, The Jesus Prayer, Chumley and McGuckin looked into the history of the prayer, which is largely unknown in the U.S. In his blog with the Huffington Post, Chumley wrote that the ascetic or hermit life began as a social movement among ancient Christians who left behind their worldly relationships, personal crises and responsibilities to commune with God in the desert.

Chumley wrote in The Huffington Post that hermits lived completely alone in the desert but others formed tiny communities of  ascetics in desert areas. St. Paul first mentioned asceticism in the New Testament (2 Tim. 4:7).

According to Chumley, asceticism became popular in the mid third to fourth centuries when it became an organized movement in the Christian faith, he wrote in the Huffington Post.

Though still practiced today, it is not widely acknowledged in light of the Reformation. Chumley wrote in Huffington Post that “There are many contemporary hermits, monks and nuns, some of them highly educated and accomplished.”

The Jesus Prayer is a cornerstone of their prayer life, Chumley and McGuckin said in their new book, according to PR Web. It was transformative and imminent to their history and practices including reflection, humility and feeling constantly connected to God by moving through the stages of the prayer, the website said.

The monasteries the authors visited include St. Anthony’s Monastery in Egypt’s desert, St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai, and convents and monasteries in Russia, Transylvania, Greece and the Ukraine, the website said.

Shane Claiborne of the Common Prayer website commented, “This isn’t just a book about prayer. It is a full-on plunge into a prayer-filled adventure. Chumley takes you on a pilgrimage to some of the most enchanted places, and all you have to take with you is a one-line prayer that has been changing the world for centuries. Dive in.”

Diana Butler Bass of the website A People’s History of Christianity said of the book, “[Chumley] discovers a way of peace open to those who seek a deeper connection with God,” the website reported.

Chumley is an Emmy awardee whose work has appeared on various television networks including NBC, ABC and A&E, among others. He is executive producer and director of media for the Columbia University Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life, PR Web said.

South Korean Christians who live in Yeonpyeong Island are praying for peace, even as Seoul is set to launch live fire exercises next week.

The military drill was scheduled for this weekend, but Arirang News reported it was postponed by one to two days due to inclement weather, and may be conducted beginning of next week.

An anonymous source from the marine corps told Sky News the drill may occur any time between Dec. 18 and 21, adding, “We will not be issuing any announcement of our plan, except reporters on the island will be notified two or three hours in advance.”

Last month Pyongyang shelled the island, leaving four South Koreans dead and damaging dozens of homes. The North blamed the South for provoking them by conducting military drills last month, ABC News said.

Praying for peace

Song Joog-seop, a church minister, told ABC News that Christians are praying for safety in the island, which is near the Northern Line Limit, a maritime border that is being disputed by the North.

Song told ABC News, “We are praying for the safety of Yeonpyeong Island. We know God will bring peace here.” Many residents have felt anxiety since the attack, and a large number of its 1,600 residents have already left for the mainland.

Lee Chul-hun, a farmer, told ABC News, “I’m lonely. Most people have left. Now I hear there’ll be live firing exercises here again. Even though North Korea might not attack I’m still nervous. All the men and women are nervous.”

Kim Young-soo told ABC News, “Whenever I hear a bang my heart pounds. I am suffering from a loss of appetite. I can’t sleep well. The memory of the North Korean shelling comes to me every night. My heart is pounding now.”

Nuclear war

According to Sky News, the North said holding the military exercises will be “a suicidal move,” and issued a cabinet declaration that it would strike even more heavily than it did last month.

The North warned that the exercises, more than causing a fight between the two Koreas, will provoke a nuclear war, according to Arirang News.

Seoul stressed that the pending drill is only their usual routine training, and live fire will be directed southwest rather than at North Korea. Representatives of the Military Armistice Commission of the United Nations Command will observe the drill to ensure that it meets the terms of the armistice agreement, Arirang News said.

Calls for restraint

Beijing, an ally of Pyongyang, has expressed deep concern over the situation and is calling for restraint. Russia has asked Seoul not to conduct the drills in light of existing tensions, Arirang News reported.

The U.S. supports the South’s right to conduct the military exercises but also expressed fear of a violent clash. P.J. Crowley of the US State Department told Sky News, “We are absolutely concerned about the current trajectory.”

A number of South Koreans believe Seoul is deliberately trying to provoke Pyongyang, causing about a dozen people to rally in front of South Korea’s defence ministry.

You Young-jae, who led the rally, told ABC News, “We’re suspicious that the South Korean defense ministry is trying to lure the North into a regional war by conducting these live fire exercises. It’s quite possible that North Korea will respond by firing artillery shells again. So why do we want to renew these military drills on Yeonpyeong island?”

Having Found Christ, Andrew Goes To Find For Christ (Study 10)

In John Chapter 1 and at verse 35, we read of two men searching for Jesus Christ and they find Him. They go looking for Jesus Christ. Had they heard the Pharisees ‘praying’ and debating and they knew that that was not real. They wanted reality! Want what is real and if you are a preacher or Bible Class leader or Sunday School teacher give your people what is real.

One of these two men is Andrew, having found the Christ, he immediately goes to find for Christ.

He goes to his brother Simon Peter. “We have found the Messiah, the Christ.”

How long does it take you to become a missionary? Just an hour or two! And, you don’t need to know all the answers. If you are asked a hard question just say, “I’ll go and find out”.

Andrew brought Simon Peter to Jesus. The greatest service one man can render another is to bring that person to Jesus Christ and introduce him to Jesus Christ. This can last for ever. No other service you render another will last for ever.

Jesus looked Peter over. Oh, be prepared to have Jesus look you over, remembering that He always wants to improve the material that is presented to Him.

You are Simon – which means a reed – unreliable – easily blown around – full problems – limited in so many ways – tempestuous and temperamental. You shall be called Cephas – a stone or a rock. Jesus Christ is going to transform a reed of a man into a rock. This man, Simon Peter, once he is converted and born again – once he is baptised in the Holy Spirit – once he has served his three year apprenticeship following Jesus Christ – once he has fragile unreliable temperament dealt with by Jesus – he becomes the dynamic leader of that early church. He becomes a preacher and teacher, and very much a pastor as he goes around ministering to all the wounded ones who had to flee from Jerusalem. What a transformation, once he has Jesus deal with him in all kinds of ways.

The scene now shifts from the Jordan to Galilee, where there, Jesus calls Philip. “Follow me”. And Philip, having just begun to follow Jesus goes looking for someone else. He finds Nathanael and says, “We have found him of whom Moses wrote – of whom the prophets spoke – Jesus of Nazareth.”

They have been waiting for a thousand years for this day.

Nathanael was a thinker. He thought about God. He meditated upon God’s Word.

To begin with all he could say was, “Can anything good come from there? Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

Philip said, “Come and see for yourself. Come with us.” It is good to encourage people to come and see Jesus and meet Jesus for themselves. It is as if Philip has one hand with Jesus and one hand bringing someone else along. Nathanael went with Philip and Jesus saw Nathanael coming, and Jesus not only saw Nathanael but saw right into him and into his heart, and said, “You area true Israelite – a true Jew – a man of integrity – a man with an open honest heart.”

That is the picture of a true Jew. We have been given such a twisted distorted picture of Jews – like Shakespeare’s Shylock in the Merchant of Venice, and, most people believe that twisted interpretation rather the truth of Jesus Christ.

In Nathanael there were no deceit – no guile – no cunning. He came from Cana and his name means, ‘gift from God’.

Nathanael accepted the compliment. What you say is true, but how did you know all about me? I was watching you under the fig tree. I have been keeping my eye on you even before Philip called you to come.

Teacher, You are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel.

Come and you will see even greater things that those of which you been meditating. His favourite Old Testament passage was going to come true in Jesus. You will see heaven open and you will see angels ascending and descending, and I am the ladder.

Yes, there are many ways to Jesus, but only way to God the Father, and that is through Jesus.

Come and follow and find – come and see and believe – is the theme of these verses.

He sees you. He sees what you are thinking. He knows what is in your heart and mind. He is aware of your need, and He is sensitive to those issues that concern you or bother you or trouble you.

The Door to Heaven is open, and the ladder is Jesus Christ.

Christian leaders at the recently held closing of The Third Lausanne Congress in Cape Town, South Africa, were imparted with words of encouragement and faith as they return to the challenges in their missions.

Some 4,000 Christian leaders at Cape Town 2010 were also reminded of their vision for evangelization, even as they were challenged to recommit themselves to Jesus, according to The Christian Post.

Lindsay Brown, international director of The Lausanne Movement, urged the delegates to share Jesus Christ everywhere in the world, in every realm of society, even as he challenged them to recommit to “the lordship of Christ in every area of human activity.” Many of the delegates will be returning to countries that persecute Christians, The Christian Post said.

Brown urged the leaders not to lose heart if they see no results, noting the experience of Adoniram Judson who in 1812 went to Myanmar (then called Burma). Judson lived there for 38 years, during which his wife and seven of his children died. Judson was beaten, hung upside down, ridiculed and finally thrown into the sea, The Christian Post said.

When Judson died there were only some 12-25 Christian converts. However, he successfully translated the Bible into Burmese and today, hundreds of thousands of believers owe their spiritual heritage to Judson, The Christian Post reported.

Brown said, “Some of us may have the joy in seeing significant fruit, but for others our calling is not to give up, not to lose heart knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord,” according to The Christian Post

Joel Edwards of The Guardian said Lausanne “gathered one of the largest, most gifted and diverse collection of influential evangelicals to date.” He said the congress covered “a whole gamut of spiritual, ethical and environmental issues. It was a heroic attempt to compress all the ailments and anxieties of the world into the busy program.”

Edwards, in The Guardian cited the sustained standing ovation rendered to an 18-year-old North Korean young woman after her presentation, and noted stories of people who suffered persecution, yet came to love those who hurt them and their loved ones.

Edwards wrote that the strongest transference of spirit came through corridor conversations with lesser known people, noting “the recognition that something called the priesthood of all believers is what makes God come alive to many people outside the church.”

Many delegates told The Christian Post they were strengthened by the congress. Michael El Dabai from Egypt felt a desire to share his faith more boldly after meeting Christians who dealt with heavier persecution than his own.

El Dabai told The Christian Post, “What we have been going through [in Egypt] is just a tap on the back. There are other countries that are really, really having a difficult time. I will definitely put evangelism at the top of my priority list.”

El Dabai said he also learned, through the conference, to receive the love of Messianic Jews who, on Egyptian TV, are portrayed negatively, The Christian Post said.

Homer Simpson swills beer, strangles his son Bart, and loves doughnuts so much that he once sold his soul for one, but the Vatican’s official newspaper says the Simpsons are Catholics at heart.

The L’Osservatore Romano, on its Oct. 17 issue, said in the article “Homer and Bart are Catholics,” that parents can rest easy if their children watch “the adventures of the little guys in yellow,” Reuters reported.

L’Osservatore said, “The Simpsons are among the few TV programs for children in which Christian faith, religion, and questions about God are recurrent themes,” according to the Telegraph.

The papal publication said, “Few people know it, and he does everything he can to hide it… [but] it is true: Homer J. Simpson is a Catholic.” They also cited a study that was made by a Jesuit priest of an episode that was aired in 2005 called “The Father, the Son and the Holy Guest Star,” Reuters reported.

In that episode Bart enrolls in a Catholic school (because he was expelled from Springfield Elementary School), where he befriends a Catholic priest. When Homer decides to convert to Catholicism, his wife is horrified, the Telegraph says.

So too is Rev. Lovejoy (their pastor) and Ned Flanders (their evangelical neighbor). The episode touches on a range of issues including homosexuality, stem cell research, interfaith dialogue and religious conflict, according to the Telegraph.

L’Osservatore noted that while Homer snores in church and relentlessly humiliates Ned Flanders, the series also explores issues of family, community and education in a way that few other television programs do, the Telegraph said.

Last year, on the show’s 20^th anniversary, L’Osservatore said the show is a “tender and irreverent, scandalous and ironic, boisterous and profound, philosophical and sometimes even theological, nutty synthesis of pop culture and of the lukewarm and nihilistic American middle class,” according to Reuters.

Al Jean, executive producer of The Simpsons expressed awe and surprise at L’Osservatore’s article. He told Entertainment Weekly, “I guess it makes up for me not going to church for 20 years.” However, Jean said the Simpsons are Presbylutheran, and they go to the First Church of Springfield. “I really don’t think he (Homer) could go without eating meat on Fridays—for even an hour.”

The Simpsons, the longest running primetime TV series in the U.S., is currently on its 22^nd season, Reuters said. They also made The Simpsons Movie, where Homer called churchgoers “pious morons,” and said they were “too busy talking to their phony-baloney god,” Entertainment Weekly reported.

In the last three years, L’Osservatore Romano has departed from its former serious and stolid image. Under a new editor it began to comment on popular culture including The Beatles and Harry Potter among others, according to the Telegraph.

Some 12 members of a young, new Christian church celebrated their first year anniversary by getting tattoos of the church’s logo.

The City Church of Anaheim, with a population of 100 members, was challenged by Pastor Kyle Steven Bonenberger, 26, to double their congregants on their birthday Sunday Service, UPI said.

Bonenberger pledged that if they reached their goal of 200, he would have the church logo, a red heart, tattooed on him and encouraged others to do the same. He said that God “tattooed your name on his heart” and they could also make an everlasting commitment to Him, the AP said.

When the 200^th person arrived, Bonenberger and some 12 others got their tats in fulfillment of their pledge. The church’s very first venue was in a living room when they were just a small group, according to the AP.

Bonenberger’s church meets every Sunday at the Chain Reaction Club, a punk rock venue. “We call ourselves the church for the people who don’t like church,” he told the UPI. “It’s the furthest thing from what people perceive church to be.”

In his blog entry dated Aug. 15, 2009, Bonenberger wrote that he had an urging to move his church to a secular space, like a night club, even though they already had a comfortable space at the Crystal Cathedral campus and he was receiving income there.

He wrote in his blog, “Some people are called to maintain, update and renovate things. For me, I am called to be an innovator. The gospel of Christ calls me to 1) GO and make disciples where Jesus is not Lord, and 2) Not to build on another man’s foundation (Romans 15:20).

When Bonenberger found the Chain Reaction Club he talked to the owner of the place about his vision, and the owner offered him the venue for free. He also got a significant donation shortly after. Crystal Cathedral was very supportive and encouraged members to visit his church, according to his blog.
Of his tattoo Bonenberger said, “I love the tattoo. I love these people. I’m stoked. They’re in my heart,” UPI reported. A church member, Holly Morales said, “City Church has really done a lot for our family, so I thought it would be a nice way to pay them back,” The Orange County Register News reported.

The City Church of Anaheim is known for being unconventional, including holding regular rock n’ roll revivals and using KFC buckets to collect the church offerings, according to The Orange County Register News.

Now, we come to that other vital aspect which lies right at the very heart of our Christian Faith – the Resurrection of Jesus Christ – that amazing event for which words are inadequate – we can but Worship and give thanks.

No other faith in the whole world has a Leader Who is Alive. Are the others not simply philosophies where one tries one best but that can never be good enough?

In Luke Chapter 24 we read of some women making their way through the streets of Jerusalem. It is around half-past five in the morning. It must have been a long wait, since the body of Jesus Christ was taken off the Cross, dead, and laid in that tomb.

Jesus has been absent from them for three days and three nights. Two Sabbaths have passed. Jesus was not crucified on a Friday. Work it all out in accordance with what the Scripture says and teaches.

They go prepared to anoint the dead remains of the Jesus they had loved. The voice of God had been silent over these long days. It was the custom to anoint the remains, and they were dutifully going to minister to the dead Body of Jesus Christ.

Those who had wanted Jesus Christ out of the way, and silenced once and for all, would be thinking they had succeeded. They must have thought they had won.

“It involved a bit of wheeling and dealing, but we did it. We have got rid of that troublemaker and disturber of our ways at last. Dead men don’t rise.” Not so!

These religious leaders had little knowledge of the power of God. They were unaware of what the Holy Spirit could do, and most of those who plotted and planned to have Jesus crucified knew very little about the ministry of angels. And they had not a clue as to the will of the Father!

When the women arrived at the tomb, they found two things they were not prepared for – the stone rolled away – and no dead Jesus inside! How would you have reacted?

God is full of surprises. We never know what He is going to do next. We never know what he is going to say next. Sometimes He really surprises us.

Their plans are shaken. They are perplexed and puzzled. They don’t know what to make of it all. They are not sure if they can handle what confronts them. Angels appear and they bow in fear.

The angels ask – ‘Why are you looking for the living among the dead?’ ‘This is the cemetery. This is the graveyard. He is not here. HE IS RISEN. Do you not remember that He told you all this when he was with you?’

Problems and fears arise when we forget the Word of the Lord. They were hearing what common sense was saying, and they had forgotten what Jesus had said.

There are many, even within the visible physical church, who have a real problem believing that Jesus Christ is risen and alive. When you have met the risen living Jesus Christ and when you are born again that ought never again to be a problem. There will be other problems that one should certainly not bother you.

Never forget what Jesus Christ has said and taught. If we do, fear and doubt and confusion and worse can wriggle their way in.