Courage in a Secular World | Virgil Hurley

3 Ways to Support a Missionary Well | Jay Greer

Click here to read the full article at RENEW.org: https://renew.org/3-ways-to-support-a-missionary-well/ [https://renew.org/3-ways-to-support-a-missionary-well/]  This is an audio version of a written Article from RENEW.org * Check out other great articles on RENEW.org here: https://renew.org/articles/ [https://renew.org/articles/] “Hey, we’re supporting a missionary. How can we help? What are ways that we could support you?” I love that over the 18 years I’ve been living cross-culturally, so many people have wanted to support us and have asked how they could help. Anyone who has been on the mission field for any amount of time knows there are things people do that are really helpful—and some things that are not so helpful. Let me just give you three ways to support a missionary that I promise will be helpful no matter what. Listen for more... Join RENEW.org's Newsletter: https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/ [https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/] Join RENEW.org at one of our upcoming events: https://renew.org/resources/events/ [https://renew.org/resources/events/] Get the RENEW.org App -- https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/ [https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/]  Be sure to like, subscribe and follow on social media!  You can find us on: Instagram: @the.renew.network  Facebook: Renew.org  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork [https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork] Twitter: @therenewnetwork TikTok: the.renew.network  Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/RENEW [https://rumble.com/c/RENEW]

Courage in a Secular World | Virgil Hurley

Click here to read the full article at RENEW.org: https://renew.org/courage-in-a-secular-world/ [https://renew.org/courage-in-a-secular-world/]  This is an audio version of a written Article from RENEW.org * Check out other great articles on RENEW.org here: https://renew.org/articles/ [https://renew.org/articles/] In a span of thirty-five years that Congress spent six trillion taxpayer dollars in a failed attempt to upgrade American economic life, an astonishing decline occurred in our social life. In the time U.S. population increased by 41 percent, violent crime leaped by 560 percent and welfare spending by 630 percent. While spending on education increased 225 percent, SAT scores dropped 76 points. And a generation of sex education, designed to prevent unwanted pregnancies, staggers in disgrace under a 419 percent increase in out-of-wedlock births![1] [https://renew.org/courage-in-a-secular-world/#_ftn1] An unsettling anxiety besieges our future. For the record, Americans have often felt gloomy about the future. By 1736, settlers in Dedham, Massachusetts had hit the wall. What would become of them, the settlers worried? Kenneth Lockridge, in The First Hundred Years of a New England Town, noted that a limited amount of land in the town’s grant, communities breaking away from the original grant, and improvident farming methods were three of several more reasons for the negative feelings. John Quincy Adams also expressed doubt about America’s future in 1839, a mere fifty years after Washington’s inauguration. In 1901, his grandson Henry Adams gave America 50 years to live. Then, in 1914, he noted that “no one anywhere expects a future.” In 1963, with Camelot awhirl with the superficialities of the Kennedy years, 59 percent of Americans said they were “dissatisfied with the honesty and standards of behavior of our people.” That was before JFK’s amorous sexual appetite became widely known. Listen for more... Join RENEW.org's Newsletter: https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/ [https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/] Join RENEW.org at one of our upcoming events: https://renew.org/resources/events/ [https://renew.org/resources/events/] Get the RENEW.org App -- https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/ [https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/]  Be sure to like, subscribe and follow on social media!  You can find us on: Instagram: @the.renew.network  Facebook: Renew.org  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork [https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork] Twitter: @therenewnetwork TikTok: the.renew.network  Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/RENEW [https://rumble.com/c/RENEW]

Get ‘Em in the River—But How Do They Stay There? | Richard Jett

Click here to read the full article at RENEW.org: https://renew.org/get-em-in-the-river-but-how-do-they-stay-there/ [https://renew.org/get-em-in-the-river-but-how-do-they-stay-there/]  This is an audio version of a written Article from RENEW.org * Check out other great articles on RENEW.org here: https://renew.org/articles/ [https://renew.org/articles/] We say we want people to follow Jesus. But are our lives actually making them want Him? “You can guide a horse to a well, but you can’t force it to drink. However, you can add salt to its oats.” That line sits in my grandpa’s journal, and I keep coming back to one question: How salty is my life? Sometimes you don’t realize the weight of something until after the fact. I wrote the article “Get ‘Em in the River”  [https://renew.org/get-em-in-the-river/]before leading our current seniors on a mission trip back to Puerto Rico. But it was on that trip that I actually saw what happens when people step into the river. Before going into a tourist area to pray with people, we gathered in the van. We took time to be still and ask God for a name, an image—anything that might help us know whom He wanted us to approach. What came to my mind was Hebrews 11:6 (NLT): “And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.” Not exactly inspiring…more like convicting. I knew it was a gentle rebuke. God was about to expose my lack of faith in His power at work in these students. We say we want people to follow Jesus. But are our lives actually making them want Him? “You can guide a horse to a well, but you can’t force it to drink. However, you can add salt to its oats.” That line sits in my grandpa’s journal, and I keep coming back to one question: How salty is my life? Sometimes you don’t realize the weight of something until after the fact. I wrote the article “Get ‘Em in the River”  [https://renew.org/get-em-in-the-river/]before leading our current seniors on a mission trip back to Puerto Rico. But it was on that trip that I actually saw what happens when people step into the river. Before going into a tourist area to pray with people, we gathered in the van. We took time to be still and ask God for a name, an image—anything that might help us know whom He wanted us to approach. What came to my mind was Hebrews 11:6 (NLT): “And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.” Not exactly inspiring…more like convicting. I knew it was a gentle rebuke. God was about to expose my lack of faith in His power at work in these students. Listen for more... Join RENEW.org's Newsletter: https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/ [https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/] Join RENEW.org at one of our upcoming events: https://renew.org/resources/events/ [https://renew.org/resources/events/] Get the RENEW.org App -- https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/ [https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/]  Be sure to like, subscribe and follow on social media!  You can find us on: Instagram: @the.renew.network  Facebook: Renew.org  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork [https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork] Twitter: @therenewnetwork TikTok: the.renew.network  Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/RENEW [https://rumble.com/c/RENEW]

There’s No Such Thing as Luck | David Young

Click here to read the full article at RENEW.org: https://renew.org/theres-no-such-thing-as-luck/ [https://renew.org/theres-no-such-thing-as-luck/]  This is an audio version of a written Article from RENEW.org * Check out other great articles on RENEW.org here: https://renew.org/articles/ [https://renew.org/articles/] On Good Friday in 2009, I went for a run on the local greenway in Murfreesboro, Tennessee—my hometown. There were tornado watches that day, but in Murfreesboro tornado watches are common. It’s easy to ignore them. As I did that day. The first two miles along the wooded greenway were uneventful. But when I turned around to head back to the car, it began to rain. No worries, I thought. I was wearing a new rain jacket. I’d be fine. Then, halfway back to the car, lightning began to strike around me. I knew it was serious, but I assumed I could wait it out. I crouched down the slope beside the trail, near the river. After a moment or two, I heard a rumble in the distance. At first, I didn’t recognize it. It sounded like a train—but something about it was different. The hairs on my arms began to stand up. My gut churned with a sudden sense of dread, even as my mind tried to make sense of the deep, rolling sound. Whatever it was, it was getting louder—and it was moving fast. There’s no way that’s a tornado, my head said. But it was. Listen for more... Join RENEW.org's Newsletter: https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/ [https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/] Join RENEW.org at one of our upcoming events: https://renew.org/resources/events/ [https://renew.org/resources/events/] Get the RENEW.org App -- https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/ [https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/]  Be sure to like, subscribe and follow on social media!  You can find us on: Instagram: @the.renew.network  Facebook: Renew.org  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork [https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork] Twitter: @therenewnetwork TikTok: the.renew.network  Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/RENEW [https://rumble.com/c/RENEW]

Why the Church Needs Revitalization AND Planting in This Next Season | Paul Huyghebaert

Click here to read the full article at RENEW.org: https://renew.org/the-church-needs-revitalization-and-planting/ [https://renew.org/the-church-needs-revitalization-and-planting/]  This is an audio version of a written Article from RENEW.org * Check out other great articles on RENEW.org here: https://renew.org/articles/ [https://renew.org/articles/] For the past several decades, church planting has arguably been one of the great success stories of the North American church. Entire networks have been built, leaders trained, funding pipelines established, and faithful mission fueled through the planting of new congregations. We should thank God for that. Many of us have a place we call our home congregation today because someone had the courage to plant a church where there wasn’t one before. And yet, as grateful as I am for the planting movement, I’m increasingly convinced that the next season of faithfulness for the Church will require a renewed imagination for revitalization alongside planting—not in competition with it, and not as a replacement for it, but as a complementary expression of the same gospel mission. This conviction hasn’t come to me primarily through research or theory, but through lived experience. Listen for more... Join RENEW.org's Newsletter: https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/ [https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/] Join RENEW.org at one of our upcoming events: https://renew.org/resources/events/ [https://renew.org/resources/events/] Get the RENEW.org App -- https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/ [https://renew-app-page.bolt.host/]  Be sure to like, subscribe and follow on social media!  You can find us on: Instagram: @the.renew.network  Facebook: Renew.org  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork [https://www.youtube.com/@RENEWnetwork] Twitter: @therenewnetwork TikTok: the.renew.network  Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/RENEW [https://rumble.com/c/RENEW]