“My 2016 Aim: The Advancement of the Gospel” Philippians 1: 12-18 By Carmen Fowler LaBerge on January 10, 2016, at Woodland Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tenn. Click here to listen to Carmen’s sermon
Click here for the audio (MP3) of our January 19, 2016 “Conversation with Carmen” conference call During the call, Carmen addressed: The President’s proclamation of a national “Religious Liberty” day and the rise of persecution of Christians around the world. Currently, on average, one Christian is killed every hour of every day for the sake of Jesus…
For his final State of the Union address, President Barack Obama plans to feature an empty chair to bring attention to the lives lost in the United States due to gun violence. When you see the empty chair the President knows you’ll have a visceral reaction and that’s because every one of us has an…
I spent the last two days in prayer with leaders representing more than a third of the churches in America. In the spirit of Joel 1:14, we gathered to “Cry Out to the Lord” in solemn assembly. It was a time of united prayer — across all that ordinarily divides us generationally, racially, and denominationally….
Think of this as an exercise in taking a year-end inventory of your life and cultivating the spiritual soil for an abundant harvest in the year ahead. Taking stock of your spiritual life Get out your 2015 calendar, your journal, your Bible and your check register. Slowly, soberly look through them and take stock. Bible…
As we approach the celebration of Christmas, let us unwrap the mystery and the meaning of the manger. From the perspective of reasoned thought or a rational mind, the Bible’s claim that the God of the universe, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, took on human flesh by being born of a virgin some 2,000 years…
While the airwaves are filled with the refrain “Mary did you know” the person of Mary, the circumstances of conception, and the nature of her child, Jesus, are sources of deep theological division. Evangelical Christians and Muslims agree that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary. But Progressive Christiansand Jews reject that. Some Eastern Christians and Roman Catholics…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCgIWieVaFc The final #CarmenTalk, aka Conversation with Carmen, of 2015 aired December 15. You are encouraged to listen here at Layman.org Discussed on #CarmenTalk this month was “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Civil Discourse.” As a disciple of Jesus who seeks to advance His Kingdom purposes everyday in every way, I am a voracious consumer of the…
Donald Trump says he’s a Presbyterian. The Presbyterian Church (USA) says he’s not. Who’s right? Curiously, Donald Trump is not the one asking what it means to be Presbyterian, the PCUSA is having that internal conversation about its own identity. The denomination’s online survey that is being used to discern the identity of the PCUSA,…
What we in the West see as ancient history is contemporary day-to-day reality in the Middle East. “Today in history” matters today. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly voted in favor of Resolution 181, the plan for the partition of Palestine. That UN resolution ended the British Mandate adopted by the…