Mental Musings

The crew of the starship Enterprise had a five year mission: "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilization, to boldly go where no one has gone before." Businesses all around our country have a mission. But the mission of the church is by far the most important mission we can have. Many churches claim that they are a mission minded church. They give money to missions, they pray for missions, they have mission Sundays, they teach about missions in their church, they even send a mission team out every year to some exotic location. But for all of that, the church, the body, the people that fill the pews, are not all that mission minded. Running full steam into this mission is one way that the early church was able to see the message of God, the Good News of God, go viral. As we continue our series, let’s look at the mission mindedness of the early church. In the church that was at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Sim...

Imprisoned during World War II in a German POW camp, a group of Allied soldiers are intent on breaking out, not only to escape, but also to draw Nazi forces away from battle to search for fugitives. Outwitting their captors by digging a tunnel out of the prison grounds, the soldiers find the stakes much higher when escape becomes a reality. This real-life event was made into a movie called: The Great Escape. In May 1940, Germany advanced into France, trapping Allied troops on the beaches of Dunkirk. Under air and ground cover from British and French forces, troops were slowly and methodically evacuated from the beach using every serviceable naval and civilian vessel that could be found. At the end of this heroic mission, 330,000 French, British, Belgian and Dutch soldiers were safely evacuated. It was a great escape and has been chronicles in the new hit movie: Dunkirk. Frank Morris, a hardened con with a history of prison breaks, is sent to serve the rest of his life sent...

In 1985 Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie wrote a song that would unite singers from every race and genre to raise funds to help feed the starving people of Africa. The song, We Are the World, went quadruple platinum and is the 9th best-selling song of all-time. It mentions God twice in the lyrics and says, “Let's realize that a change can only come, When we stand together as one.”  In 1982 Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder wrote a song that asked a simple question, “Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony, Side by side on my piano keyboard, oh Lord, why don't we?” In 1971 the Coca-Cola company used a song for a commercial featuring people from many different races and nations singing together, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing in perfect harmony.” In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation Where they will not be judged by the color of thei...

In 1973, a young musician from New Jersey struggling to make it in the music business wrote what he thought would be his biggest hit ever. It flopped until Manfred Man’s Earth Band covered the song in 1977 and made it a hit. That song, Blinded By the Light, written originally by the Boss, Bruce Springsteen. As we continue our series, Going Viral, we see another person who was certain that he was about to have a big hit on his hands. After standing idly by while Stephen was stoned to death, he actively started arresting other followers of the Way throughout Jerusalem and all of Israel. Now, prepared for his biggest hit yet, he is found on his way to Damascus to round up some of those that had scattered following the stoning of Stephen. But wait, he will soon be blinded by the light. Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. He went to the high priest and requested letters from him to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if h...