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), ...

~ Thanks to Ron Reed for bringing this to our attention: The Conversations (at Slant.com) is a monthly feature in which Jason Bellamy and Ed Howard discuss a wide range of cinematic subjects. This month, an extended, detailed and really substantial consideration of two Jesus movies... Jason Bellamy: I never followed the amateur filmmaking documentary series Project Greenlight, which was perhaps best known for having celebrity producers (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) and for failing to discover any major breakthrough talents, but I'll never forget one of the episodes I happened to see. ...

~ 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 ...

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 ...

Doug Serven, one of viaRenovo's contributor's is a campus pastor, one of the world's only "hair artists" and a prolific reader. Here he shares his reading list from 2009 with brief comments and rankings (10 being high). Time to start reloading that nightstand... Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, L See - A melancholy book about 1840s China featuring footbinding. (8) Buffalo for the Broken Heart, D O'Brien - A rancher switches to buffalo. (6) Outliers, M ...