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Monday, May 12, 2008
Starting An Orthodox Church?
Sunday, May 04, 2008
"The Down Slope Home" Letters From A Soldier
Mr Lewis
I am on the down word slope home. I am about 3 weeks out from my fly date. We have been working nonstop to get this new unit ready to take over the duties and responsibility's of this mission. It has been a bumpy ride. I have had to put myself in harms was more then once to keep these guys from getting hurt. But they lack experience here. And that is enough to get you hurt. There is hope they are learning and it will come. I will keep praying for them and they will make it.
Sgt Nuoffer
Note: Sgt Daniel Nuoffer is on his second tour in Iraq. His duty is to command the lead gunnery vehicle that guides our troops in convoy down treacherous roads from Kuwait into Bagdad. He will be gone for 15 months. His new wife awaits his safe return as do we all. Send him your love and support. You may e-mail him at chemicalninja@yahoo.com.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Tribute For Charlton Heston
Dear Friends,
Perhaps many of you remember the late Charlton Heston as Moses from Cecil B DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" or even as Judah Ben Hur from the movie based on Lew Wallace's novel: "Ben Hur" or even as Rodrigo de Vivar in "El Cid" or even as John the Baptist in "The Greatest Story Ever Told". Personally, I have always remembered him as all of those roles and much more.
However, few people remember him as a man of upright morals and of upstanding Christian faith. Of the many celebrity actors in Hollywood, he was one of the few who has stood by his spouse for a good 64 years without ever going off the rails maritally or in any other way. Very few actors within the industry of Hollywood would have stayed as long in their marriages as he did. In fact, this has been his one and only marriage faithful to the end. In addition to this, Charlton Heston has stood very strongly against the sins of abortion and sodomite/homosexual behaviour and upset the apple cart of political correctness due to his strength of stance as a moral man.
In terms of his Christian faith, it is recounted that when he was scheduled to play "Moses" in Cecil B DeMille's "The Ten Commandments", the producer, Cecil B DeMille, had fallen from a four foot ladder and had injured his back. This would have halted the production of this movie, but instead, the next day Cecil B DeMille turned up at work well and gave every body on the cast and crew a copy of the New Testament. He then testified before everyone that Jesus Christ had healed him and could do wonderful things in their life. It is probable that he became a Christian from that period onwards. In addition to this, Charlton Heston many years later after retiring from the film industry, personally produced a 4 part documentary series defending the historicity of the Holy Scriptures called: "Charlton Heston Presents The Bible" on location in the Middle East. At the end of it all, he gave a challenge: "If you seek the Lord, you will surely find Him." Furthermore, he has been involved often when he was alive with the Christian Film and Television Commision.
Those who knew him personally always recalled him as this: "self controlled, gentle man" and also in the words of both Presidents George W Bush and the wife of late former President Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan respectively as: "man of character and integrity, with a big heart" and "I will never forget Chuck as a hero on the big screen in the roles he played, but more importantly I considered him a hero in life for the many times that he stepped up to support Ronnie [Ronald Reagan] in whatever he was doing".
In the words of our Orthodox Liturgy for the dead (Trisagion), we as Christians say this: "O God, most merciful and giver of life, may you forgive Charlton Heston of his sins, both voluntary and involuntary, and grant him peace." May God grant him a place in paradise and give comfort and rest to his family and loved ones.
Yours Sincerely,
Timothy Kwoh
Devotional Reading From Bill H. Lewis
Who Orders for You?
The first prayer I utter each morning is “Lord, order my steps.” Actually I am saying, “Lord, you are in charge.”
How important is this for our daily walk? Some still have small children, while those of us who are older have already reared ours. While our children were young, we would sometimes go to a restaurant to eat. Never did we hand the menu to our children and depend on them to just “order what you want.” They would naturally order the pie, the cake, the ice cream, etc., and never order the things that were really good for them.
The prayer, “Lord, order my steps today” or “Lord, I really do not know what is best for me today. I will depend on you to order for me” is a “catch all” prayer. This prayer will include praise for all the good things that occur in our day, and also eliminate all the gripes about what we may feel are the bad things.
Sometimes the bad things may actually be the good things. For instance, have you ever griped when you overshot your exit and said, “Why did I do that stupid thing?” when God replies, “I caused it, because if I had not done that and you had gone on your usual way, you would have met up head on with an 18 wheeler.”
Let’s just praise the Lord. “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.” (Psalm 37:23 NKJV) You don’t need to “watch your steps” if you have already turned them over to the Lord at the beginning of the day and continue to trust Him to guide you throughout the day. God promises to guide [watch] your steps when you give Him the opportunity and commit to follow Him.
-- Bill H. Lewis
Note: Bill H. Lewis is father to Journey To Orthodoxy's Nathan Lee Lewis. Reverend Lewis is a Southern Baptist Pastor living in Arkansas, USA.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Joy To The World!
Thursday, March 06, 2008
How God Keeps Us Humble
Volunteer Applicant
Nathan Lee Lewis
"As a former youth pastor in several churches I have found my camp experiences to be the most memorable and rewarding. Camp allows for a focused environment away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It allows the business of distracting activities to be put on pause. One’s heart and mind can be tuned in to the yearnings of one’s soul and to the prompting of the Spirit. I have watched young people who are on the fringe of a spiritual awareness step over into understanding and faith. I have seen the hardened heart of a troubled youth soften and receive truth and understanding. I have seen individual lifelong relationships forged and fragmented groups become community. The most rewarding memory is of those who say that their camp experience was the pivotal moment in their quest for God. To know that I had a part in that, to know that I was allowed the privilege of watching lives transformed, truly changed for a positive eternal destiny, is incomparable. It has been many years since I have worked with youth in a camp setting. The thought that I would have this opportunity again has not occurred to me in recent years. I find my heart coming alive with the resurgence of the gifts of ministry and the heart for youth that I once treasured. To be allowed the blessing once again to share in the camp experience is an unexpected joy. Perhaps, I will find myself a wiser more measured man than I was in the sincere, yet ignorant early years of ministry where I was very much a youth ministering to youth. Perhaps now that I have put away youthful things I can offer myself as a more refined instrument to speak wisdom and mold young lives. God grant that it be so. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner."
I was accepted. When I got there they put me in the kitchen for the whole week. I had no contact with the youth.
Friday, February 29, 2008
We Gave Him A Stone
This young priest and many like him on foreign soil and on our own soil risk their lives everyday to serve our Lord at the bidding of their Bishops. Some dodge Muslim terrorists in foreign lands. Some work among the meth addicts and prostitutes with their wives and young children by their side while we fill our coffers and simply “pray” for their welfare.
Selfishness! Greed! Apostate! Shame! All are to blame, every man woman, child, who does not give to missions either through the Church or directly. Missions is not a program, it is real people with real names. Father Gregory’s wife has a name, Maria, and so does his infant daughter, Paskhalita, who will never know her father on this earth.
”Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread,will he give him a stone?” Father Gregory and other dedicated Orthodox priests do not even ask for bread and yet we still give them a stone. If we allow our priests to continue to suffer need it would be better for a millstone to be hung around our own necks.
You may give directly to this specific need by going to the Friends of Indonesia website. Or may also send a check to:
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Life Takes A Holiday
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
A Motion Picture For Life
In the grand scheme of things, KFI seems to be filling the void that exists because of the lack of vision the Church has had in communicating the mind and will of God through the art form of film making. In fact, the Orthodox Church has barely discovered the technology called television. So, alas, we artistic types, realizing that we too are called to, "Go into all the world to preach the gospel to every creature..." , find ourselves in the wild world of the film industry surrounded by peculiar creatures indeed. Many of our Christian brethren do not like the fact that we are sitting at the table of the publicans and the sinners, but Christ does because He did. We eat their food, drink their beverages and smoke their leaves (at least the legal ones). We have become all things to all people so that we might win a few, while holding to the tenant, "being in the world but not of it...". We love people into the Kingdom by accepting them as the King does. No guilt, no condemnation, no judgment. The Love of God is shed abroad...to all people.
To display the Love of God to the world in which we live, KFI chooses projects that speak to the spiritual and physical needs of all mankind. One such project is the true story of several thousand aborted fetuses found in a rented trash container. This pro-life look at the abortion industry is seen through the eyes of an investigative reporter. Without divulging the title or the book on which the film is based, let me invite you to support KFI and its producers in this valuable effort. Such a film is missions 101. The film project is non-religious, void of demagoguery, and designed to be a cutting edge message to all fabrics of society. With the new open environment to "faith based films", this KFI feature film project is positioned to be controversial and poignant in a way that will rally ticket buyers on both sides of the abortion issue.
KFI welcomes qualified investors to participate financially in bringing this film to the screen. http://www.kingdomfilmsinc.com/ will provide you info on my company and a couple of our endeavors. You can contact KFI at that site. There has never been a better time than right now for such a project.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Letter From A BLOG Reader Down Under
I am so pleased to discover that I have not been alone in finding the Church of Christ as contained in Orthodoxy from a Baptist background.
Allow me to tell you a bit about myself. I do not come from a Christian family. In fact, I was originally a pagan who worshiped false gods before accepting Christ as the Way, Truth and Life. I was originally a follower of these Eastern religions: Buddhism (Theravada school); Hinduism and Taoism. God was patient with me despite my wanderings and opposition to him by allowing me to go to Christian schools as well as a Christian Sunday school. (Oddly enough, this was introduced to me through my non-Christian family who wanted me to get some religion. God was merciful in allowing a Christian friend of the family to introduce me and my sister to Christian Sunday School). In the beginning, due to some very bad examples shown to me in "Christian" schools (in this case, Seventh Day Adventist in the beginning), I was opposed to Christianity. As time passed, I was sent to a different school, where I encountered at least some semblance of orthodox Christianity, and was beginning to be challenged to consider the Bible and Jesus Christ as true or not. My faith in Christianity was not finalised until 2 events occured in my life. The first was a coma caused by my chronic asthma condition. This shook me up since I was actually at the door of death and made me consider that there is more to this physical world than we see it. This made me consider and practice the above mentioned religions. It made me read all the different scriptures of the different religions. It left me with one certainty: these religions have some elements of truth but have tainted error into it. What was now certain was that there had to be one God who is true, the question is who is He?
This led to the second point in my life: a visit to a Christian friend's house. When I entered that afternoon, I was treated to lunch and also some interesting Christian literature. In fact, it was a box filled with comic tracts by Jack Chick. Being someone who had searched through every religion (including the monotheistic religions that are not Christian.ie Islam and Judaism as well as Zoroastrianism), it intrigued me to devour the contents thereof. After going through every tract in the box, God brought this truth home: Jesus Christ is God and He is the Only One who can save you from hell and a sin filled life. I thus fully believed and accepted Jesus Christ as my salvation that day and expressed my willingness to follow Him further by going back to the church I was first introduced to with renewed vigour to study and follow the Scriptures. (The church was a Evangelical Anglican church).
However, it does not end here. After this, I experienced many waverings in the faith by getting involved with both Roman Catholicism and neo-evangalicalism as well as Charismaticism. After being confronted by the actual pitfalls they would lead a Christian into, I investigated further and thoroughly rejected both and decided to leave my environment to start a new Christian life based on unchanging truth without compromise. This led me to encounter a Fundamental Baptist Church. I thought I was home. They had come to the same conclusions that I had come to but with much more Biblical knowledge. I thus became a fully involved Fundamental Baptist and got baptised in a Fundamental Baptist Church. We opposed the same things: Roman Catholicism; Masonry; Islam; ecumenism; left-wingers and homosexual rights groups; Charismaticism; Calvinism; all the cults (Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Christadelphians, Seventh Day Adventists, etc.); modern-day 'bibles'; neo-evangelicalism;Communism and humanism;evolution and loved what was good and right. However, there was another pitfall. Whilst the Biblical knowledge and teaching was for the most part accurate, and our conclusions were there, yet hypocrisies and quasi- denials of sin occuring within our camp was evident.
In the midst of that time, I had unexpectedly come into contact with the Orthodox faith through a Jewish friend in university! Prior to that, as a strong-headed Fundamental Baptist, I was not intent on even considering the prospect of converting to Orthodoxy. However, before that meeting, I had just been listening to a set of lectures by a Croatian atheist on the Orthodox Faith, since I was doing a course on the history of Russia. Irony of ironies indeed if one was not enough! As a strong headed Baptist, I was skeptical of Orthodoxy as "another form of Roman Catholicism". However, after listening to this atheist professor present lectures on Orthodoxy as well as talk with my Orthodox friend of a Jewish friend, I came away thinking: "It seems Orthodoxy and Fundamental Baptist teaching are more agreeable than disagreeable on many issues."
After establishing a friendship with this Orthodox friend, I decided to go to an Orthodox Bookshop. As I entered the store, I was warmly greeted and sat down to explain my situation to the workers. They recommended me to go to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia rather than the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, even though they were Greeks themselves. The reason being the purity of the faith generally retained by ROCOR as opposed to the involvement with ecumenism and World Council of Churches on the part of GOA. I even arranged to speak with the Archbishop of Australia, His Grace, Hilarion.
After much discussion and investigation into Orthodoxy, I came to the conclusion (in conjunction with the Church Fathers) that the Church of Christ Visible is One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church retained in Orthodoxy. What also helped in my search at the time was the life and works of Father Seraphim Rose, whom I felt I had a lot more in common with. I have got involved with ROCOR, whilst not being a blind zealot. (I dislike strongly the anti-Jewishness and Israel-bashing stance taken by a number of both laymen and clergymen in ROCOR. I also believe that whilst there are many genuine converts, there are a number of converts who are still humanistic through and through with not one wit whole). Orthodoxy is the way of unchanging conviction in Christ being lived out in an ever-changing world.
It is a blessing that I have come across your blog. You share many of the heart felt issues I share and I do hope to hear from you.
As the Church of Christ, it is better we wash out our dirty laundry than to let the stench stink to the nostrils of heaven. We can deal with our dirty laundry much better than the Protestants and Roman Catholics can.
In the heart of every hardcore Fundamentalist is someone who is truly Orthodox. They just do not know it yet.
God bless and hope to hear from you soon.
Timotheos Kwoh