Month: October 2024

Categories
Blogging Christian God Ministry Music Radio

My Top 10 Hits – Week 400

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 over 45 years. Here’s this week’s chart – for the week ending Sunday October 13TH 2024 – the 400TH week of this current era that began on Presidents’ Day Weekend of 2017:

TW LW WKS SONG TITLE ARTIST / SITE
1 1 8 Up + Up
[5TH week @ # 1]		 Colton Dixon
2 2 10 Count ‘Em Brandon Lake
3 6 4 Worship Through It Tasha Layton Ft. Chris Brown
4 3 23 Beautiful Life Pat Barrett
5 4 25 Somebody Like Me Caleb & John Ft. Cain
6 5 19 Take You At Your Word Cody Carnes
7 7 6 Won’t He Do It We The Kingdom
8 – 9 Do It Again Steven Curtis Chapman
9 10 2 Love’s Got A Way Andrew Ripp
10 8 5 That’s Who I Praise Brandon Lake

# 1 This Week In:
2023 – “Praise The Lord” – Micah Tyler
2022 – “Good Morning Mercy” – Jason Crabb
2021 – “What If” – Matthew West
2020 – “God So Loved” – We The Kingdom
2019 – “Fear No More” – Building 429
2018 – “Only Jesus” – Casting Crowns
2017 – “The Gospel” – Ryan Stevenson

STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN – He does it again. In a rare re-entry onto my chart – his “Do It Again” is back at # 8 after falling off my chart last week. (It spent its final 2 weeks at # 10.) Previously – back in 2023 – his “Don’t Lose Heart” also re-entered my chart – a stunning 23 weeks after falling off. “Do It Again” is currently gaining airplay on The Joy FM here in South Central Florida after previously receiving airplay nationally on K-LOVE.

TOP 40 OF 400 – Tomorrow I present my Top 40 hits cumulatively of the first 400 weeks of my chart. 2 songs on my current chart above will appear on it – both in my Top 15. #Top40Of400.

SPOTIFY – You can hear “My Top 10 Hits” anytime by accessing my CountUp playlist on Spotify. All 10 hits are there from top to bottom. You can hear them in order from # 1 to # 10, or you can shuffle them. My playlist will be updated every weekend (usually before the actual chart is presented here on Mondays). You can link to it here.

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. God used loud music on the radio to reach me in August of 2006. I’ve been testifying about Him ever since.

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) 2024 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
Bible Blogging Christian Church God Ministry Scripture

Sunday Scripture

Greetings my friends. It is Sunday October 13TH 2024, 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.

On a local Facebook site that I follow – a commenter of a blog post on the importance of attending church took exception. The commenter accused the church (overall) of being “legalistic”. (The entire post was removed by an Administrator that same day.)

I’ve written about legalism here on #SundayScripture, and I even alluded to it last week. I’ve also preached on it to my previous church family.

In a sermon from July 2018 – I preached this:

[BEGIN SERMON EXCERPT]

Beware of legalism. Paul fights legalism all throughout his letter to the Galatians as well as many of his other letters (in the New Testament). Legalism is probably the sin that we commit the most on our day-to-day journey. We commit this sin more than we ever did before we were saved. YES – legalism is a sin. “But Chris I’m confused. What do you mean by legalism ? Aren’t we supposed to be legal – and obey God’s laws – God’s Commandments ? Isn’t that legalism ? How can that be sinful ? Tell me more !”

Remember my last sermon on “Pride & Prejudice” ? Remember Proverbs 11:2 ?

Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.

See when we’re being legalistic we’re being prideful. We’re full of pride:

“Hey look at me. After just 2 years of being saved by God I’ve quit drinking, I’ve quit smoking, I’ve quit eating junk food, I exercise, I see a Doctor every 3 months, I get regular labwork done, I don’t get angry anymore, and I love everyone – even the people that hate me ! Oh yeah and I also listen to Christian music all day, I read the Bible every day, I write sermons on Saturdays, and I go to church every Sunday ! You should do the same. God loves me for doing all of these things ! He’ll love you too !”

Sounds terrible – doesn’t it ? I mean those are all good things, but nobody wants to hear all that stuff. I would never say any of that stuff – aside from using it as an example in this sermon to make my point. The world out there doesn’t care what we’re doing – or what we’ve stopped doing – or what we’re against – or what we’re opposed to – or what we believe in – when they don’t even know us. None of that stuff saves the world out there. None of that stuff saved me. Christ saved me. All of that other stuff came to be as a result of Christ saving me.

The world out there needs to know that God loves them more than they can only imagine. The world out there needs proof of that love. It is not enough to tell someone that God loves them, and then walk away and tell them to have a nice day. They need to see and feel and experience that love from us. That’s what Disciples do. We are all Disciples.

So the Apostle Paul was strongly against legalism. The legalist picks and chooses the rules – the laws – the Commandments that he or she feels comfortable with obeying. You know – the easy ones. Remember The Golden Corral all-you-can-eat buffet reference from my last sermon ? (“I’ll take some of that, and a bunch of that, and a whole lotta that Good News – but none of that hard to digest stuff over there. I don’t agree with that law over there.”) The legalist – in all of us – conveniently neglects – or even ignores certain laws at times – such as loving the Lord with all your heart, or loving your neighbor as yourself.

[END SERMON EXCERPT]

That was an excerpt from my sermon titled “Faith & Works”. If I were to refresh that sermon – I would write it a bit different now. And maybe I’ll do that in the coming months.

My testimony is featured each week here on #SundayScripture – whether it’s part of a sermon, or just me writing about the events of the past week. Hopefully it encourages you and inspires you to seek the Lord, and get closer to Him with each new day.

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) 2024 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
Blogging Driving Food Geography History Military Travel Weather

Fort Meade Florida

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. For the past 2 weeks I’ve written about Fort Meade Florida, and I’m doing it again for the 3RD week in a row. Last Thursday I actually visited and spent 2½ hours in Fort Meade – seeing and doing everything that I said I would see and do.

I arrived at and entered the historic house that is the Historical Society Of Fort Meade Florida Museum shortly after opening time at 10 AM, and I was immediately greeted by one of the docents on duty – Paulette. I signed-in at the guest book (which is a must-thing to do for every visitor at every museum – preferably at the beginning of the visit). I then introduced myself from the Sebring Historical Society as a fellow docent of a historic house that is also a museum.

Right after that – two guys entered the museum, and they proceeded to sign-in at the guest book. (They know and love museums too.) Paulette assumed that they were with me, but I corrected her and told her that I didn’t know them. It was a coincidence that we arrived at the same time. (I actually saw them taking photos of the exterior grounds of the museum, and I did a little bit of that too before I entered the museum.)

The two guys had bicycled from Maryland since the start of September, and in fact they live near Fort Meade Maryland in Severna Park. (You can’t make this stuff up.) They were intrigued to find out about and subsequently visit Fort Meade Florida, so they made sure that their bike route down the spine of Florida included a stop at the historical museum in Fort Meade. They had visited the Mulberry Phosphate Museum on the previous day, and now they were in Fort Meade – known for its phosphate mining. #FortMeadeMiners

They were actually bicycling all the way down to Key West – with a stop that night in Sebring. (Again – this is a totally true story.) In my mind – I’m starting to think that they are readers of my blog, and that they read about the two Fort Meades here on #TravelThursday over the past 2 weeks, but I didn’t ask them about it. I wasn’t there to reveal or promote my blog. (You generally don’t do that in a museum.)

So – the 3 of us together enjoyed an extensive tour of every room downstairs and upstairs. Paulette engaged in great conversation with us as she shared interesting stories behind the historical artifacts and photos. She was born, raised, and has lived her entire life of 78 years – right there in Fort Meade.

I will definitely return to the museum later this year or early next year. A very good docent always leads his or her museum tour so that you see a little bit of almost everything. But you always want the visitor(s) to want to see more on a future visit. Paulette did just that. I’m looking forward to seeing more next time !

After my museum visit – I enjoyed a nice big lunch at Kiki’s Egg House along Charleston Avenue (U.S. 17 through the city). It’s where the locals eat. Food is good. Service is good. ’70s music is good.

And then I went even further up the road to tour the exterior grounds of the Homeland Heritage Park – a Polk County Park. I even walked inside the historic church there.

And then I completed the triple-trifecta of museums by visiting my fellow docents, curators, and coordinators at The Depot Museum in Avon Park (our sister museum in Highlands County). We talked museum business.

What a fun day it was last Thursday. And finally – this completes my unexpected 3-part series on Fort Meade Florida. I’ll begin a 2-part series on our big annual event for the Sebring Historical Society – Pioneer Daze – next #TravelThursday. Let’s keep traveling together.

#CountUp & #TravelThursday is on Facebook. I also run the Sebring Historical Society Facebook page.

All rights reserved (c) 2024 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
Blogging Christian God Ministry Music Radio

My Top 10 Hits – Week 399

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 over 45 years. Here’s this week’s chart – for the week ending Sunday October 06TH 2024 – the 399TH week of this current era that began on Presidents’ Day Weekend of 2017:

TW LW WKS SONG TITLE ARTIST / SITE
1 1 7 Up + Up
[4TH week @ # 1]		 Colton Dixon
2 2 9 Count ‘Em Brandon Lake
3 3 22 Beautiful Life Pat Barrett
4 4 24 Somebody Like Me Caleb & John Ft. Cain
5 5 18 Take You At Your Word Cody Carnes
6 8 3 Worship Through It Tasha Layton Ft. Chris Brown
7 9 5 Won’t He Do It We The Kingdom
8 6 4 That’s Who I Praise Brandon Lake
9 7 4 People Like Us Micah Tyler Ft. Emerson Day
10 – 1 Love’s Got A Way Andrew Ripp

# 1 This Week In:
2023 – “Praise You Anywhere” – Brandon Lake
2022 – “Good Morning Mercy” – Jason Crabb
2021 – “What If” – Matthew West
2020 – “God So Loved” – We The Kingdom
2019 – “Nobody (But Jesus)” – Casting Crowns Ft. Matthew West
2018 – “Only Jesus” – Casting Crowns
2017 – “The Gospel” – Ryan Stevenson

TASHA LAYTON – Congratulations to Tasha as she scores a # 1 smash nationwide with the most-listened-to (audience) Christian song of the week. She’s also Top 5 in the number of radio spins this past week, and she’s up 2 notches to # 6 on my chart. Every time I hear it on the radio – I like it even more. She and Chris Brown (of Elevation Worship) sound great together, as they “Worship Through It”.

TOP 40 OF 400 – Next Monday I present my 400TH weekly chart of this current era (since February 2017). My Top 40 hits cumulatively of the first 400 weeks will be presented here next Tuesday October 15TH 2024 at 3 AM U.S. East Coast time. #Top40Of400.

SPOTIFY – You can hear “My Top 10 Hits” anytime by accessing my CountUp playlist on Spotify. All 10 hits are there from top to bottom. You can hear them in order from # 1 to # 10, or you can shuffle them. My playlist will be updated every weekend (usually before the actual chart is presented here on Mondays). You can link to it here.

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. God used loud music on the radio to reach me in August of 2006. I’ve been testifying about Him ever since.

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) 2024 Christopher M. Day, CountUp