New Covenant Fellowship - Glendora, Calif.

bible
Verse of the Month
Matthew 10:39

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

The other night my wife, Susan, and I were watching a KDOC-Los Angeles PBS special narrated by Yitzhak Pearlman on the land of Israel.

The photography was superb and the Mediterranean never looked so blue and the deserts so bare. As we whisked by camera through Tel Aviv and Jaffa and the Negev my wife and I were seized by strong feelings of nostalgia for what we both felt was the most eventful summer of our lives.

We were watching this fine travelogue in our adopted home town of Duarte, California almost 40 years to the day after we had both returned to England from the Temple Mount Archaeological Project in Jerusalem sponsored by the Israel Exploration Society, Hebrew University and our alma mater at the time, Ambassador College.

Two years later we were married – but not just us. That is part of the story that I hope you will want to hear.

Beyond Prosperity Gospel

KCET-LA's popular talk show host Tavis Smiley keeps revealing himself more and more as an unembarassed Christian. His signature line is "Keep the Faith."

Recently the affable African-American hosted best-selling author Max Lucado whose new book "Outliving Your Life" calls for Christians to accept the burden for the poor and dispossessed Jesus outlined in Luke 4:16-19 – a call to leave behind a legacy that will outlive us.

"Compassion gives us common ground," stated Lucado to which Tavis pressed the point as to whether there really was a compassionate, living Church entity left in our materialistic society.

Lucado, himself a pastor, was sure there was but "The Church should equip us rather than entertain us as we sit passively and write out a check as our only part."

Tavis Smiley's intelligent and non-confrontational style is a refreshing change in a world of Toxic Talk.

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Tom Jones Sings Gospel

According to Billboard.com, Tom Jones of driving-ladies-wild fame will release "Praise and Blame" on July 27 and the Gospel influence is undeniable.

From singing "The Lord's Prayer" to his Welsh Presbyterian school companions, Jones was attracted by the great Mahalia Jackson's soulful Gospel early on.

Jones laments that his personal favorite, "The Old Rugged Cross" didn't make the final cut because he remembers singing it often with Elvis Presley after they would appear separately headlining different shows in Las Vegas.

"Elvis loved it," says Jones who has made a career of doing the unexpected. "This is my meat," he says of this new album.

Sermon
His Marriage Was the Message

“MARRY A LOOSE WOMAN STOP SHE WILL BE UNFAITHFUL STOP HER CHILDREN AS WELL STOP TAKE HER BACK STOP HAVE A NICE DAY YAHWEH.

God’s engagement-day telegram to his servant Hosea (were he to send one) would have been a jolt. Hosea, a man of God who lived during the exceedingly corrupting and prosperous reign of Jeroboam II of Israel (roughly 793-753 BCE), must have been stunned at God’s command:

“Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord (Hosea 1:2).”

Thus begins this fascinating book we know as Hosea. It was God’s plan that the prophet’s painful marriage problems would be an acted parable, a living audio-visual demonstration for the wanton, faithless nation of Israel.