The Bible Story Family

  A familiar exhortation during my Bible college days was the challenge to consider the call of God upon your life. That usually included a challenge to become a preacher, a missionary, or perhaps a Christian school teacher. Although it was never stated, the implication remained that anyone outside of those occupations had missed God’s call. A recent DMin study by one of my former students seeks to address that unstated implication. Tim Graf has written a thesis titled “Theological Insights Regarding the Theology of Vocation.” His research was completed under the direction of Dr. Dave Burggraff at Shepherds Theological Seminary. Tim writes out of his own experience as a bi-vocational pastor. The discussion of theology of vocation as it relates to calling is only a small part of the entire project. He shares Biblical insight into the theology of work. Historical attitudes regarding vocation are investigated.   The study also includes common erroneous views of the churches...

  One of the highlights during college days was the Singspirations sponsored by Fourth Baptist Church of Minneapolis. Under the leadership of youth pastor Don Nelson, and then later under Paul Fosmark, young people from across the Twin Cities would gather for a rousing time of music after Sunday evening services. For the past twenty-five years, Pastor Loren Bjokne of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Cottage Grove has made the same experience available to senior citizens, many of whom remember those old sings. We gathered again this week for a luncheon and time of rejoicing together with the familiar lyrics of old hymns. When the Roll is Called Up Yonder. How Great Thou Art Amazing Grace When We All Get to Heaven Hymnbooks were available and words were projected on a screen, but neither option was necessary for most of those in attendance. These were the songs we loved, the ones we grew up with. These are the songs we will all sing together once again as part of a heavenly...

  In 1918 Billy Sunday holds a revival in New York City where 100,000 people are converted, hitting the Sawdust Trail. During that revival a young couple, Grace and Tom, meet and get married. The Billy Sunday story is told through their eyes in Sunday in New York . A daughter of that couple, Liz Jefferson, becomes involved in the 1949 Los Angeles crusade which brings Billy Graham to national prominence. She meets a young ministerial student, Jim Freeborn, and they get engaged. The story of Graham’s Canvas Cathedral is seen through their eyes in Crusade . In the 1970s, during the Cold War Era, that couple, the Freeborns, start a church in Montana. A young evangelist holds a meeting for them where only one person gets saved. Politics, Rodeo, and Southern Gospel bring Ron and Penny together in Revival in the Rockies . The one boy who gets saved in Montana, Ernst Edwards, grows up to lead a worldwide revival in the twenty-first century, a future, media-driven revival. Megachurch com...