Month: May 2023

Categories
Blogging Christian God Ministry Music Radio

My Top 10 Hits – Week 327

Every Monday I post my all-new Top 10 Christian hit music chart based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from the previous week. It’s the continuation of a weekly hobby that goes back nearly 45 years. Here’s this week’s chart – for the week ending Sunday May 21ST 2023 – the 327TH week of this current era that began on Presidents’ Day Weekend of 2017:

TW LW WKS SONG TITLE ARTIST / SITE
1 2 12 This Is Our God
[1ST week @ # 1]		 Phil Wickham
2 1 18 The Lord’s Prayer (It’s Yours) Matt Maher
3 3 8 Fingerprints Dan Bremnes
4 4 25 I See Grace Micah Tyler
5 6 8 Cornerstone TobyMac Ft. Zach Williams
6 8 2 Anxious Heart Jeremy Camp
7 9 5 Thank God I Do Lauren Daigle
8 10 3 You Will Be Found Natalie Grant Ft. Cory Asbury
9 – 1 That’s The Thing About Praise Benjamin William Hastings Ft. Blessing Offor
10 – 1 Fear Is Not My Future Maverick City Music Ft. Brandon Lake & Chandler Moore

# 1 This Week In:
2022 – “Egypt” – Cory Asbury
2021 – “Help Is On The Way (Maybe Midnight)” – TobyMac
2020 – “I Will Fear No More” – The Afters
2019 – “Alive” – Big Daddy Weave
2018 – “The Way (New Horizon)” – Pat Barrett
2017 – “Oh My Soul” – Casting Crowns

VIEW FROM ABOVE – I’ve got a new # 1 smash. After 12 weeks at the top Matt Maher slips a notch to # 2 with what will likely be one of the top songs of the entire year – “The Lord’s Prayer (It’s Yours)”. We actually sing that song as part of Praise & Worship at my home church. No need for me to follow the words on the big screen, as I’ve got it memorized after hearing it on the radio a few hundred times since January. Replacing Matt Maher at # 1 is Phil Wickham, as he reaches the top of my chart for the first time ever – with his 8TH hit and 70TH week overall on my chart.

This concludes another weekend of blog posts. I’ll do it again with the new weekend – and 4 new entries – known as #TravelThursday, #SundayScripture, a special #MemorialDayMonday, and #Top10Tuesday.

Your likes, follows, and comments are always appreciated. Thank You for being part of my online ministry to share God’s Good News and win souls for Christ through His music. I’m also on Twitter and Flickr.

Be blessed my friends !  May our God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
Bible Blogging Christian Church Computers God Internet Ministry Scripture

Sunday Scripture

Greetings my friends. It is Sunday May 21ST 2023, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us celebrate this great new day of believing, following, trusting, loving, and being more like our Lord + Savior Jesus Christ. Let us love our neighbor as ourself.

This morning is the 30TH anniversary of the debut of my first product online – MANx CAT BBS. It was a dial-up bulletin board system located in my home in Melbourne Florida where readers (friends and fans) used their respective computer to dial-in to my computer via my home telephone number and modem. Once connected – they participated in various message boards on different topics, and they chatted with me in real-time (if I was on my computer at the time).

That bulletin board was a fun experience that lasted a little over 4 years, and a hit music web site was spun-off from it in 1995. This blog was a spin-off of that web site in 2007 when it debuted on MySpace.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been on social media for exactly 30 years – from age 26 to 56. I still enjoy hosting a media that readers (friends and fans worldwide) look forward to reading on a regular basis. I appreciate you !

As I used to say and write back in the day as a #SysOp – let’s get back on-topic here. A few weeks ago here on #SundayScripture I began transcribing my sermon on “Paul & Titus” that I preached to my church family on March 05TH 2023. Here’s Part 4:

[CONTINUATION OF SERMON]

Paul – and Titus – were carrying out the instructions of Christ – in Galilee – on the mountain – when He told His disciples – (Matthew 28:18-20)

“I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore – go and make disciples of all the nations – baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this:  I am with you always – even to the end of the age.”

That’s the Great Commission. You know every one of us are disciples of Christ. I’ve told this story many times, and it’s worth repeating over and over again. Back during my first full year of salvation – in 2007 – a special guest Pastor – who would eventually become our Executive Pastor for a short period of time – he called me out – by name – during the middle of his sermon. It came out of nowhere. He said – “Christopher Day – you are a disciple.” I nodded “no I’m not” from my movie theatre seat. (We did church in a movie theatre back then – the former Flagship Cinemas on Campbell Drive.) He saw me, and then he proceeded to proclaim why I’m a disciple. It gave me the chills. It gave me goosebumps. I was stunned. But – I believed. I believed that this wretch that was saved – I once was lost – but now I’m found – was blind – but now I see – that I am a disciple of my Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. It was the most powerful sermon of my 8 years with my previous church family – just down the road from here. I will remember that sermon forever.

So discipleship is all about learning to become more like Christ. A disciple of Christ is one who repents of sin, and trusts in Jesus, and obeys His teachings. So if that’s you – and I think it is for everyone in here – then you are a disciple of Christ.

The Great Commission applies to all of us who believe and follow Christ. We are commanded to go and tell the world about the God we know. That’s proclaiming the Gospel. That’s teaching the Gospel. Proclaiming and teaching. That’s preaching. We’re all preachers in our own unique ways. You see some disciples lead churches, and all disciples are the church. You and I – we are the church. We are disciples of Christ. We are preachers. We are priests. We are a royal priesthood.

[TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK]

If you wish to learn more about the God I know then stay tuned to #SundayScripture. The best is yet to come !

Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:

The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
Career Holidays Military

Happy Armed Forces Week

It’s Friday May 19TH 2023, and National Military Appreciation Month continues here in the U.S.A. with Armed Forces Week (all this week), and that culminates tomorrow (Saturday) with Armed Forces Day. Unlike Memorial Day (this year on May 29TH) and Veterans Day (November 11TH) – this is an opportunity for us to honor everyone who currently serves within our military.

I’m a few weeks away from celebrating my 38TH anniversary within the United States Air Force. I actually committed to 4 years of active duty service about a month into my Senior year in high school in 1984. 6 days after graduating from high school in June 1985 – I was on my way to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio Texas for 6½ weeks of Basic Military Training.

I’ve been living in or near Homestead Florida since the end of 1987, so that’s 35½ out of my 38 years in the Air Force. I work at Homestead ARB (formerly AFB prior to Hurricane Andrew). During the 19 months immediately after Hurricane Andrew – as the city and the base was being cleaned-up and rebuilt – I served at Andrews AFB Maryland and MacDill AFB in Tampa Florida.

My 38 years in the Air Force includes 30 years as a civilian. Prior to that I served 8 years on active duty and 6 years as a reservist (overlapping with the early years of my civil service).

Up until about the age of 16 I was supposed to go to college after high school and emerge with a degree in either Meteorology or Communications (radio and television). That didn’t happen, but here I am 38 years into an Air Force career at 56-years-old. The Air Force determined that I was great at math, so they made me an analyst / statistician.

In the Air Force I’ve had some great years, some good years, some bad years, and some horrible years. There’s an entire 13-year era that was the worst of my career (and life). Thankfully I’ve followed that up with the best 16-year era of my career (and life) – where I am now. I’m ending this career near a high, and I’ve got about a half-year to go before I can retire and call it a career. I’m ready to do so.

To all of my fellow military service members – whether you are currently on active duty, a reservist, a civil servant, or a contractor working alongside all of the above – I thank you for all that you do with each new duty day.

All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
Blogging Driving Geography Home Travel

Carnival Jubilee

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. A couple of days ago I observed exactly 2 months in my beautiful new dream home in my dream neighborhood in my dream part of Florida. I closed on it (officially became the owner) on March 16TH, and I actually purchased it on February 16TH, so that marks 3 months since I first walked-in to my new home and almost immediately decided that it would be mine.

But this week’s edition is not about that. It’s about a cruise that I took with my parents exactly 19 years ago this week. It was a 5-nighter out of #JAXPORT (Jacksonville Florida). (My parents lived in the area at the time.)

Over the course of 32 years (1991-2023) it was my only cruise out of Jacksonville. It was on an old Carnival cruise ship – the Jubilee – that was in-service from 1986 to 2004. In fact she was sold to an Australian cruise company just 3 months after our sailing.

I don’t remember much of anything from that cruise, and I have no photos of it – mostly because I didn’t take photos back then before the smart phone era. I don’t even remember the ports-of-call. Maybe Nassau ?

It was 1 of just 3 cruises that I went on with my parents. It was the middle cruise. (The first one was 13 years earlier when we all went on our very first cruise ever. I instantly fell in love with the idea of cruising, and I continued on with 23 more cruises after that first one in 1991.)

I’ve been telling friends recently that I probably won’t be booking any further cruises at this time. This past January I was on the newest, biggest, and best that Carnival has to offer – their brand-new Carnival Celebration – and I documented it for 6 weeks in a row here on #TravelThursday. It was perhaps a perfect ending to my cruising experience. Now that I have 2 homes and a 30-year mortgage on my new home – I’m on a budget now. I’ve declared a spending freeze of sorts. I need to figure out how to live my life with less than half the money I make today once I retire at the end of the year.

As for travel opportunities I really want to explore more of Central and North Florida – and into Georgia and Alabama – and the Carolinas – on a series of road-trips. I’ve conquered the sea, and now I wish to explore the land. I want to visit with some good friends along the way.

Next #TravelThursday I’m not driving – I’m walking. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp