Hope and the Great Restoration ~Travis Stewart Fourteen years ago my wife held our newborn child in our arms as his heart stopped beating after on 30 minutes of life. That experience changed everything; how we viewed the preciousness of life, how we expressed grief and even career choices. It also challenged how we understood the meaning of redemption and the core of the Gospel message. What I present here, in this audio presentation preached at Open Door Fellowship in ...

Part Two in a series written by Denis Haack of Ransom Fellowship addressing the problem on how to live faithfully in a culture largely ignorant of God. The following is a portion of his article "A Model for Faithfulness" (originally posted at www.ransomfellowship.org - used by permission). ~Travis Stewart A Model for Faithfulness The Babylon Series, Part 2 ~Denis Haack Where Evangelicals Are Today At the time of the First Great Awakening (1735-1743), ...

In the winter of 2001 I had a choice to make; either I take a one week class in New Testament Greek, continuing my work on a Master's of Divinity degree or switch degree programs and sign up for a class called Movies and Theology taught by Denis Haack. Considering that I didn't feel called to ordained ministry and having parsed my quota of Greek verbs I choose to learn the language of film over the language of the ancients (after all, I figured, I know a lot of guys I ...

~ Travis Stewart ~ Recently I was reading this article in Christianity Today and resonated with the words of the author J. R. Daniel Kirk, associate professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary: In the spring of my senior year in college, I was deeply immersed in the rhythms of Christian life. I was a leader in InterVarsity, participated regularly in a Bible study with other seminary-bound friends, set my Sundays aside for worship and rest, and read more ...

~ by Travis Stewart ~ John Lynch is the teaching pastor at Open Door Fellowship in Phoenix, Arizona and a gifted speaker and communicator. As a part of the team at Leadership Catalyst he regularly brings the life-transforming message of grace through his speaking and writing. But beyond all of this John is a man who deeply understands and lives out grace. Recently during a Sunday morning service at ODF he brought to life the story of Jesus inviting Levi the tax collector into this life of grace and the resulting banquet in Levi's home... a banquet of grace that turned everything upside ...

Word Pictures; Knowing God Through Story and Imagination by Brian Godawa IVP Books ~ Book Review by Travis Stewart ~ Brian Godawa writes in the first chapter of Word Pictures that he was a "mind-oriented" Christian and that he "thought mere theologically correct belief about reality was the same things as inhabiting that reality. Emotions were irrational and thus irrelevant..." He then goes on to write a book extolling the values of story and imagination and exploring how God uses both word and image in nourishing our faith, and he does so in such a way that uses both word and image ...