Prodigal Magazine
Stephen Curry Interview
So many people dream of playing for the Tar Heels of North Carolina, the Duke Blue Devils, and the Kentucky Wildcats. Teams that are rich in tradition have the facilities, the following, and the exposure to stay on top for decades and many young men dream of putting on those jerseys while playing AAU ball and high school basketball. They want their names to go down in history as being a part of these storied programs. Stephen Curry also held that dream. His father had excelled in the NBA and he dreamed of going to an ACC school or an ...
Q&A – What is God’s relationship to time?
Answer: We live in a physical world with its four known space-time dimensions of length, width, height (or depth) and time. However, God dwells in a different dimension—the spirit realm—beyond the perception of our physical senses. It’s not that God isn’t real; it’s a matter of His not being limited by the physical laws and dimensions that govern our world (Isaiah 57:15). Knowing that “God is spirit” (John 4:24), what is His relationship to time?In Psalm 90:4, Moses used a simple yet profound analogy in describing the timelessness of God: “For a thousand years in Your sight are like a day ...
MIKESCHAIR Interview
As the world looks in on Christianity today, they are looking for honesty and for sincerity. Too often, what they have found is hypocrisy in those who profess to be followers of Christ. As a new generation of bands hits the forefront in Christianity today, we are seeing a transparency that has never been seen before. MIKESCHAIR is one band who is definitely not afraid to openly discuss who they are, hoping that in their journey with the Lord, others may relate and come to know Him as well. MIKESCHAIR formed while they were students at Belmont University. The Lord has ...
Interview – Phil Wickham
A few weeks ago, I took a silent retreat into the North Carolina wilderness to get alone with God and to allow him to speak to my heart. I took a copy of 1 cd on my ipod, Heaven and Earth which is Phil Wickham’s latest album that releases on November 17. God spoke to me in many ways through scripture but He allowed Phil’s music to bring me to a point of true worship. I sat down with Phil this morning to talk a little bit about who he is, his career and what inspires his songwriting abilities. History Q- Give ...
Men of God Spotlight: Travis Fryman
He played for himself at the beginning of his career. His goal was to win and sharing the infield with Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker meant that winning was something that would happen often. He had an opportunity of a lifetime coming up with the Tigers but a few years after his debut, he began to see the game of baseball and the people surrounding him in an entirely different way. God opened his heart and his eyes to see things that way that God sees them, not just for what they can do, but for who they are. Travis Fryman ...
Archive | August, 2009
One Man’s Journey Through Sex Addiction Pt.1
It's midnight and just like many other nights each week, I found myself in the home office in front of my computer again. All of my good intentions, the ones saturated with denial and rationalization, are to work on my dissertation. Soon my real intentions take over and a couple of clicks later the screen of boring black and white text changes to bright colors of pornography. I am lost now in the world that is so familiar to me. It's a world of fantasy and escape. I shut out all the pain and thoughts and feelings of my life. I push aside any sense of responsibility to do something more productive. I lose track of time as I travel deeper into my world of fantasy and escape. Suddenly I am jarred back to reality with that dreadful sound of my wife's voice. "What are you doing?" I have been caught again. My whole being is filled with shame and guilt. There are no words. I was stuck in silence. There was nothing I could say to make it better now. I clicked off the computer. She demanded to see what I was looking at. I just refused. She gives up and goes back to bed. This is a true life story about the journey of a sex addict. Please read it, it could be you.
Continue reading...The Supremacy of Christ Over Language
29. April 2009
Last week I had the privilege of spending a week in the city of Brasov "Romania" together with an incredible team from the U.K. I always find traveling anywhere for the first time an exciting experience, especially when you just don't know what to expect. While there, I learned an important message about language barriers, and the powerful God that overcomes them.
Continue reading...What’s this got to do with leadership?
28. April 2009
Hello again everyone! Thanks for reading my blog. I often wonder how many of you read these entries, and come away wondering if I’m ever going to actually talk about leadership. Well, today is your day (sort of)! You see, I have been talking about leadership since day one. Each entry contains fundamental leadership building blocks that will help you be successful. They may not teach you specific skills, but these characteristics that God is trying to build, strengthen, and maintain in your life will play much more significant roles in your success than any tips I can give you about interviewing, goal-setting, or P&L analysis.
Continue reading...A Brother’s Walk: A journey into modern monastic living
18. April 2009
Monks are interesting folks. They dedicate themselves to "contemplation", prayer, and life in community with others. Sometimes this includes the outside world, sometimes it doesn't. Their stories, as I came to learn them from my visits (which soon became annual events), involved spiritual battles and challenges that were far beyond my comprehension. What were these "principalities and powers", these battles going on for my soul, these spiritual beings that were more or less "departed" from this cosmos that we still talked about and included in our worship? After all, my entire spiritual development from childhood was, actually, not spiritual in any sense of the word. Now I was getting a new perspective. This was all new stuff. Taking hours, sometimes days, to just sit and "contemplate" the reality of Christ in these remote settings, of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and what that really meant, what fellowship and community meant to me and my fellow brothers and sisters (including those in the monastery with me), and then worshiping (six times daily) with these dear people brought things into a much different balance than anything that I was taught on Sunday School flannel boards in the past. There was truly a "spiritual" out there, and that spiritual was alive, and well, and thriving. And, it was a necessary part of Christian development. In me.
Continue reading...Twitter Contest
17. April 2009
Its that time of year when free stuff just needs to be dished out. Taxes have come and gone! You have paid Uncle Sam what they need and you need some free stuff to recover from that. This is going to be the first official Twitter contest. If you don’t know what Twitter is check [...]
Continue reading...What is your focus?
6. April 2009
The old adage is "your energy goes where your focus is." Like a laser beam, focused energy can be very powerful. Powerfully focused energy can be constructive or destructive. Energy that is disrupted or dissipated is just energy with potential. It can be stored for later use, sometimes moved or transferred from one place to another but, unused it accomplishes nothing and when any power source is disrupted it is, for a time at least , unused! Agreed? Okay, so what's the point? It is critically important to be aware of the direction and employment of our energy. It is our "personal power" as author and motivator extraordinaire Anthony Hopkins would term it. If we permit our energy to be disrupted we run the risk of at best, not achieving our goals and at worst - the proverbial burnout! So, what is your focus? Where is your energy? Is it being used or disrupted? Is it focused and powerful or is it weak or being transferred, stored, or in the worst case scenario, depleted? For many of us, regardless of our circumstances, the stresses of daily living (or surviving as may be the case for an ever increasing number of us today) drain our physical, mental and emotional batteries with each new event, depleting or exhausting our energy resources. Even with advances in technology and medicine many people today, at every age level, are losing their precious "personal power" one distraction at a time. None of us intends to have more day left at the end of our oomph but, it happens, and usually without us even knowing how!
Continue reading...Overly Familiar
3. April 2009
I find myself often speaking to Him in the imperative when I pray: "Lord, help me." "Lord, make this right." "Lord, forgive me." As I filter these requests through the leper's approach, they suddenly sound more like commands to me. I wonder how they feel to Jesus? These words come from years of familiarity with Jesus. Familiarity is supposed to be a good thing. It should feel like a great shirt that you would never get rid of, even though it has holes in it and the color faded about a thousand washes ago. I've known Him since childhood. But the problem begins when my reliance upon Him degenerates to a degree of expectation.
Continue reading...
30. April 2009
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