Month: April 2018

Categories
Christian God Music Radio

The Major’s Top 10 Hits – Week 61

  1. “Freedom Hymn” – Austin French [# 1 last week / 4TH week on chart]
  2. “I Just Need U.” – TobyMac [2 / 4TH]
  3. “What A Friend” – Matt Maher [5 / 4TH]
  4. “Grace Got You” – MercyMe [4 / 2ND]
  5. “No Matter What” – Ryan Stevenson Ft. Bart Millard [7 / 2ND]
  6. “No One Like Our God” – Lincoln Brewster [3 / 14TH]
  7. “Gracefully Broken” – Matt Redman Ft. Tasha Cobbs Leonard [6 / 18TH]
  8. “Come To The Table” – Sidewalk Prophets [8 / 11TH]
  9. “Resurrection Power” – Chris Tomlin [9 / 10TH]
  10. “Walking On Water” – NeedToBreathe [- / 1ST]

NeedToBreathe hold this week’s lone new entry at # 10. It’s their 3RD hit on this chart in a little over a year. “Testify” spent 4 weeks at # 2 last March and April. They followed that up with “Hard Love” which spent 5 weeks at # 2 – and a single week at # 1 in August.

This Saturday night I’ll be praising and worshiping God with thousands of my brothers and sisters in Christ at “Worship Night In America” at the BB&T Center in Sunrise Florida. Chris Tomlin is the headliner, and supporting him will be Kim Walker-Smith of Jesus Culture, Matt Maher, Christine D’Clario, Tauren Wells, and Pat Barrett of Housefires. I’ve got an excellent floor seat waiting for me just 11 rows from the middle of the stage. (I bought my ticket over 3 months ago.) I’ll be singing and dancing all night long !

This Top 10 chart will continue on, and the next time you see it online will be 2 weeks from tonight on Monday April 30TH 2018. I’ll tell you all about the concert then !

Categories
Bible Christian God History Ministry People Radio Scripture

Sunday Scripture

Earlier this week I stated that I attended the Greater Miami Youth For Christ annual fundraising dinner after church service last Sunday.

Today following our Lead Pastor’s sermon I talked about a young man by the name of Billy. He was a young Pastor in his early-to-mid-20s serving at a small Baptist church in the far-western suburbs of Chicago. His friend was the Founder of a local Youth For Christ movement in Chicago, and he himself was a fellow Baptist Pastor. One Sunday he came to the suburbs to see his friend Billy preach. He was impressed with what he saw and heard. He asked Billy if he’d be interested in hosting a radio show in Chicago. Billy accepted, and thousands heard his messages on the radio.

Billy was asked to kick-off the first night of the Youth For Christ meetings in Chicagoland. He accepted. Billy served as the first full-time evangelist of the Youth For Christ ministry. He eventually became the first Vice President – with his friend the Founder as President – of Youth For Christ International – which was established in 1946.

The Founder – in his mid-30s at the time – could’ve had any famous preacher from the big city to move Youth For Christ forward to the next level, but he wanted to work with a small circle of younger ministers who shared his vision and truly understood the youth of the day. These young ministers were all born and raised Chicago men – except Billy – from the western mountains of North Carolina. The Founder was totally convinced that there was no one better than Billy to deliver the message of God’s Good News to the youth of the day.

Billy is the Reverend Billy Graham. He held his first Crusade soon after in 1947.

When you are called on this fantastic journey – accept the calling – receive His gifts – and trust that God will lead you every step of the way as you fulfill the purpose that He has given you. God didn’t give us The Holy Spirit to do nothing with it. God gave us The Holy Spirit to change the world.

And then He told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.” (Mark 16:15 NLT)

Categories
Christian God Music Radio

The Major’s Top 5 Hits RETRO – 2008

  1. Face Down – Family Force 5
  2. Friend Like That – Hawk Nelson
  3. The Flame In All Of Us – Thousand Foot Krutch
  4. Apathy For Apologies – Everyday Sunday
  5. Southern Weather – The Almost

These were my Top 5 hits exactly 10 years ago this weekend – Sunday April 13TH 2008.

Family Force 5 were an integral part of the soundtrack of the early years of my fantastic journey. Their hard rockin’ / heavy guitarin’ “Love Addict” hit this chart just one week after salvation began for me in late-August of 2006. I didn’t know what to make of it the first few times I heard it on the radio, but I knew that I loved the new sound of rock music with positive lyrics encouraging love – “Hold up. Wait a minute. Put a little love in it !”

Over the next few years they followed that up with “I Love You To Death”, “Never Let Me Go”, “Face Down”, “Radiator”, and “D-I-E 4 Y-O-U” (all hits on this chart). Nowadays founding members and twin brothers Jacob and Joshua Olds represent FF5 as a duo.

I’ll be back on Sunday with Scripture, and then on Monday it’s my brand new Top 10 music chart. We’ll see if Austin French can hold on at # 1 for a 2ND week in a row with his “Freedom Hymn”.

Enjoy this weekend my brothers and sisters. Be safe. Have fun. Go with God.

Categories
Christian God

Baptism Melee

Tomorrow – April 13TH – marks the 10TH Anniversary of the “Baptism Melee” that I experienced on a Sunday afternoon after service with my original church family. It was one of the first such defining events on my fantastic journey in which I realized that walking this walk with God and my brothers and sisters would not be easy at times. There would be trials and tribulations along the way. This fantastic journey is not a straight line. It is a winding and curving road, and frequently you can’t see what’s up ahead. You have to believe, follow, and trust in God to continue to lead you towards His light.

In my own words from my original blog entry of Sunday April 13TH 2008 – here’s what went down:

This afternoon about three dozen of us gathered over at Homestead Bayfront Park for a fun time of food, fellowship, and a few baptisms. What happened at the beach with us, a trio of lifeguards, several Miami-Dade County Park Officers, and a bunch of innocent bystanders that aren’t even part of our church family but defended us and our God-given rights – was totally amazing. Words can’t do justice to what occurred at the beach this afternoon, but an hour-long video of the entire scenario certainly can. Alex had the video camera in motion, and a lot of it was captured on tape. What you will soon see on that tape could indeed shock you, but it was some of the stuff that wasn’t captured on tape that was even more shocking. Self-admitted Christians who were lifeguards were taking their orders from County Park Management to call the whole thing off. And they did. What was supposed to be the quickest water baptism in Life Pointe Church history turned out to become the longest such event in our history. In the meantime we were verbally assaulted at the beach with a war of words – many of them cuss words – by these apparent Christians that ruled over the beach. You can call yourself a Christian in public all you want, but if you act like the darkness of the world and chastise our First Amendment right to announce our faith in God in a public setting then you are the enemy. You have a lot to learn about being a Christian, and truly acting like a Christian – in public …

So that was me – exactly 10 years ago – blogging on the unexpected events of that day at the beach. That was less than 20 months after salvation began. I was still an adolescent Christian at the time – even though I was approaching the age of 41. Looking back – I’m glad I’ve continued growing and maturing in Christ over the past 10 years. Gotta keep moving forward on that winding and curving road.