Christian

Sportswriter Jason Gay wrote an article about a rare baseball card of the famous Babe Ruth.

At first glance, it looked like an ordinary, unexceptional, very old baseball card. It was not. It was a missing link. This was him, alright. The Babe. The most famous player baseball has ever produced … Even I knew this Ruth card was valuable, extraordinary, worth a visit. If I wanted confirmation, I needed only to look at the armed guard sitting on a stool next to its display case. This card was precious cargo, protected like a Picasso, making a brief pit stop at its former home, the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, before being auctioned off and sold to the highest bidder.

[Here’s why it] is such a big deal: One, it’s the first known card depicting the towering lefty slugger. The card … is extremely scarce: There are only 10 of them known, and one hasn’t hit the market in more than a decade. But also: It’s the Babe! This is a charismatic cultural figure with a reach far beyond sports; who once justified making a salary higher than President Hoover by saying, “Why not? I had a better year.”

The auction began November 16, 2023. Within hours, bidding had hit $5.25 million. It eventually sold for $7.2 million.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Jesus Christ - The card was so valuable because of the name on the card—Babe Ruth. The name means everything. But the name of Jesus is worth infinitely more than any name in heaven or on earth. 2) Christian - Christians are also valuable because we bear the name of Christ on us.

Two Harvard health professors (one an epidemiologist) note that declining church attendance is a public health crisis.

Of course, the point of the gospel is not to lower your blood pressure, but to know and love God. ... But there are many public health benefits of church attendance. Consider how it appears to affect health care professionals. Some of my (Tyler’s) research examined their behaviors over the course of more than a decade and a half using data from the Nurses’ Health Study, which followed more than 70,000 participants.

Medical workers who said they attended religious services frequently (given America’s religious composition, these were largely in Christian churches) were 29 percent less likely to become depressed, about 50 percent less likely to divorce, and five times less likely to commit suicide than those who never attended.

And, in perhaps the most striking finding of all, health care professionals who attended services weekly were 33 percent less likely to die during a 16-year follow-up period than people who never attended. These effects are of a big enough magnitude to make a practical difference and not just a statistical difference.

Our findings aren’t unique. A number of large, well-designed research studies have found that religious service attendance is associated with greater longevity, less depression, less suicide, less smoking, less substance abuse, better cancer and cardiovascular- disease survival, less divorce, greater social support, greater meaning in life, greater life satisfaction, more volunteering, and greater civic engagement.

The findings are extensive and growing.

Pastor Bryan Chapell writes in his recent book Grace at Work:

I have a friend who's a marathon runner. He was in a race a few years ago that he knew would be tough, particularly at the end. And knowing what happens at the ends of races, how people call out encouragement, he didn't put his own name on his racing bib but actually wrote the word “Christian.” He knew that when he got to that final mile, and all the people were cheering, they wouldn't call out his name but would say, "Go get `em, Christian!" "You can do it, Christian!" "Hang in there, Christian!" He ran to represent the name of Christ that he bore.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Colossians 3:17 tells us: "Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus." Everything you do should be in the name of Christ. When we are in the workplace, we bear the name of our Savior. Because we represent Christ, we don't cheat the boss on our timecards or on expense reports, even if others do. We don't lie to the IRS. Why? Because our Lord has written his name on us so that others can see him.

A small glimpse into what our heroic war veterans went through can be found in the seven-part Ken Burns documentary The War. It covers World War II from the perspective of the soldiers.

In the episode "When Things Get Tough," the narrator quotes Pulitzer Prize winning Bill Maulden, a cartoonist and writer for Stars & Stripes. It is an analogy written for those who have never fought in a war on the miseries and hardships of the American soldier, in this case with scenes from the Italian Campaign:

Dig a hole in your backyard while it is raining. Sit in the hole while the water climbs up around your ankles. Pour cold mud down your shirt collar. Sit there for 48 hours. So there is no danger of your dozing off, imagine that a guy is sneaking around waiting for a chance to club you on the head. Or set your house on fire.

Get out of the hole, fill a suitcase full of rocks, pick it up, put a shotgun in your other hand, and walk on the muddiest road you can find. Fall flat on your face every few minutes, as you imagine big meteors streaking down beside you. If you repeat this performance every three days, for several months, you may begin to understand why an infantryman gets out of breath. But you still won't understand how he feels when things get tough.

On June 2, 1953, in the splendor of Westminster Abbey, a twenty-five-year-old woman knelt before the archbishop of Canterbury to seal the oaths she had just sworn. “Will you to your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgements?” he had asked. “I will,” Queen Elizabeth had replied.

When she died on September 8, 2022, flags in Europe, Canada, and America were at half-mast. Brazil declared three days of mourning. Australia’s prime minister wept on television. Jamaica announced twelve days of public tribute. Other nations too numerous to name followed suit.

Why did she have such a profound impact around the globe? Here’s the most basic answer: because her faith in Jesus was real and deep. In her first Christmas broadcast in 1952, the newly enthroned queen asked, “Pray for me . . . that God may give me wisdom and strength to carry out the solemn promises I shall be making, and that I may faithfully serve Him and you, all the days of my life.” In 2016 she said, “Billions of people now follow Christ’s teaching and find in him the guiding light for their lives. I am one of them...”

In her 2020 Christmas broadcast she noted, “for me the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework in which I try to lead my life.” She also expressed her love for the Bible: She asked, “To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn, than to the imperishable truth to be found in this treasure house, the Bible?” She maintained a lifelong friendship with Billy Graham, who once wrote, “No one in Britain has been more cordial toward us than Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.”

An article in Christianity Today summarized her role in these words: “The Queen demonstrated how to keep one’s Christian faith personal, private, inclusive, and compassionate while serving in a global, public role under intense scrutiny from virtually every sector.”

Wesley So, the current US Chess Champion (in 2017, 2020, and 2021), shares how he came to Christ:

On the small planet where elite chess players dwell, very few people worship Jesus Christ. If anyone discovers that you’re one of those “superstitious,” “narrow-minded idiots,” you’re likely to see nasty comments accumulate on your Facebook fan page. They wonder how I, the world’s second-ranked chess player, can be so “weak-minded.”

Wesley grew up in the Philippines and as a child was told that if he was good, God would bless him. But this confused him, because it seemed like the bad people received more than the good people. He knew of many famous crooks who went to church and they were pretty rich. So, Wesley decided to play it safe. He would recite the right words in church, but he never connected to God in a meaningful way.

He played chess since age six or seven and as he grew up, he kept on winning. But he could never afford to hire a coach or get serious chess training. When he was 18, he got an offer to play on the chess team of a small American university. So, he left home and moved to America.

Then I met the people who would become my foster family. They were Christians, and Lotis, my foster mother, could sense my unhappiness. She asked me what I wanted to do in life, and I replied that I loved playing chess but didn’t think I was talented enough to translate that into a full-time career. Lotis told me to focus on chess alone for the next two years—the family would support me any way it could.

His foster parents were mature Christians and insisted that living as a member of the family meant that he would need to faithfully accompany them to church. They taught him that the Bible was the final authority, deeper and wiser than the internet and more truthful than any of his friends.

Before long, I was practicing my faith in a more intense way. My new family calls Christianity the “thinking man’s religion.” They encouraged me to ask questions, search for answers, and really wrestle with what I discovered. I knew I wanted the kind of simple, contented, God-fearing life they enjoyed.

People in the chess world sometimes want to know whether I think God makes me win matches. Yes. And sometimes he makes me lose them too. He is the God of chess and, more importantly, the God of everything. Win or lose, I give him the glory. Will I rise to become the world champion one day? Only God knows for sure. In the meantime, I know that he is a generous and loving Father, always showering me with more blessings than I could possibly deserve.

A study by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity reveals the shift in the number of Protestants in major areas of the world:

61 million Protestants in North America

67 million Protestants in Latin America now has more than North America (Led by Brazil at 35 million)

99 million Protestants in Asia (now more than Europe, led by China at 26 million)

228 million Protestants in Africa and will contain half of all Protestants world-wide by 2040 (with Nigeria at 53 million, which is second only to the United States at 56 million)

Dr. Tyler J. Vanderweele, an epidemiology professor at Harvard, spent a decade researching how regular church attendance impacted health care workers. He summarized his conclusions:

Medical workers who said they attended religious services frequently (mostly in Christian churches) were 29 percent less likely to become depressed, about 50 percent less likely to divorce, and five times less likely to commit suicide than those who never attended. And, in perhaps the most striking finding of all, health care professionals who attended services weekly were 33 percent less likely to die during a 16-year follow-up period than people who never attended.

He also found that regular service attendance helps shield children from the “big three” dangers of adolescence: depression, substance abuse, and premature sexual activity. “People who attended church as children,” he added, “are also more likely to grow up happy, to be forgiving, to have a sense of mission and purpose, and to volunteer. Regular church service attenders also had far fewer “deaths of despair”— deaths by suicide, drug overdose, or alcohol—than people who never attended services, reducing those deaths by 68 percent for women and 33 percent for men in the study.

These findings aren’t unique. Many other studies have found that religious service attendance is associated with “greater longevity, less depression, less suicide, less smoking, less substance abuse, better cancer and cardiovascular disease survival, less divorce, greater social support, greater meaning in life, greater life satisfaction, more volunteering, and greater civic engagement. The findings are extensive and growing.”

One of the most iconic attractions when visiting New York City is Times Square. Times Square stretches out over five blocks along Broadway and then spreads out several blocks covering the entire theater district. What draws tourists to the area is not only the world-class theaters but the city lights.

Times Square is lit up by arguably the largest concentration of electronic billboards on the planet. According to Con Edison, the Theater District estimated that peak consumption is around 161 megawatts at one time. To put that into perspective, that is enough energy to power 161,000 homes. That is twice the amount of electricity used in all the Casinos in Las Vegas! That's a lot of power!

Possible Preaching Angle:

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls his disciples to be salt and light; and collectively become that visible City on a Hill. When we connect to “his power" and gather as "his people" light will break through the darkness.

The Billy Graham Center commissioned a survey of 2,000 Americans who don’t actively participate in religion—the “unchurched.” The survey asked these people about how they perceive Christians and Christianity. This included their view of Christianity, their willingness to talk about faith matters with Christians, how they would respond to being invited to a church event, and which types of invitations would they be most willing to accept.

The data found that many unchurched Americans think well of Christians and are open to engaging matters of faith. For example, 42 percent of the unchurched think that Christianity is good for society, 33 percent admire their Christians friends’ faith, and up to 67 percent would be willing to attend a church event (depending on the type of event). Richardson concludes that the unchurched include “a massive number of people who are open to being invited, persuaded, and connected to a local congregation.”

This analysis counters misconceptions about the unchurched. Christians commonly overestimate the hostility of the unchurched in matters of faith. We can slip into viewing them as mini-versions of Richard Dawkins—hostile to all things Christian. Not all of them will constructively engage us, of course, but many will.

Has your working day become one long battle to wade through a to-do list? An article on BBC.com noted the multiple distractions of the modern world—digital overload, open offices and constant interruptions, to name a few—that can make it near impossible to achieve your goals, or even get anything done at all.

The article argued that we should start thinking more about what we shouldn't be doing. That's one of the strategies employed by Canadian businessman Andrew Wilkinson, who has come up with a list of "anti-goals." Wilkinson noticed his day was filled with things he didn't want to do. He was feeling stretched, doing business with people he didn't like, with a schedule dictated by others, he wrote in his blog.

So he adopted a strategy from an investment expert called "inversion," which means looking at problems in reverse, focusing on minimizing the negatives instead of maximizing the positives. To put it in practice, Wilkinson came up with his worst possible workday: one filled with long meetings at the office, a packed schedule dealing with people he didn't like or trust. Then he came up with his list of "anti-goals," which includes no morning meetings, no more than two hours of scheduled time per day, and no dealings with people he doesn't like.

These "anti-goals" have made his life "immeasurably better" he said. Focusing on the negative helps us reflect on and cut out activities that don't align with our broader goals. It's about prioritizing that which is important.

Possible Preaching Angles: 1) Leaders; Pastors - We should avoid spending the prime time of the day checking email, handling administrative details, and updating social media. Put these items on your 'not-to-do' right now list. 2) Believers; Christians - The Internet, television, and video gaming do provide needed relaxation but they should be on our 'not-to-do' list until we give priority to God's Word and prayer each day.

Southern Baptist pastor and leader Russell Moore recently highlighted one of his favorite books of all time—a series of essays by the southern novelist Walker Percy titled Signposts in a Strange Land. Moore wrote, "It is hard to overstate how much this book has shaped my ministry. First of all, Percy articulated what I sensed was wrong with nominal [Christianity]. It was, he argued, not Christian at all but rather Stoic … But, most of all, in this book Percy taught me that the collapse of [the political power and outward display of] Christendom is not a catastrophe. As Percy wrote:

The good news is that in becoming the minority in all countries, a remnant, the Church also becomes a world church in the true sense, bound to no culture, not even to the West of the old Christendom, by no means triumphant but rather a pilgrim church witnessing to a world in travail and yet a world to which it will appear ever stranger and more outlandish.

James "Deacon" White played at the very dawn of professional baseball. In fact, on May 4, 1871, James White had the very first hit, in the first game, of the first professional baseball league. It was a double. He was the first catcher to use a mask and the first pitcher to go into a wind-up before throwing the ball.

Over his 20 year career, White played for teams in Cincinnati, Buffalo, Detroit, Boston, Pittsburgh, before joining the team that became the Chicago Cubs. White would eventually become the oldest player in the Baseball Hall of Fame. It's not an exaggeration to say that White helped create the game of baseball we know today.

The inscription on White's plaque in the Hall of Fame, however, doesn't begin with the words "19th century star of baseball," or "premier catcher of his era," or "led teams to six championships," although all three phrases are there. The first words on the plaque are "Consummate gentleman." At a time when professional athletes were seen as unsavory, hard-drinking, womanizers, James White earned the nickname "Deacon" for his commitment to Christian faith and virtue which were evident to everyone who saw him play.

For example, in 1878, the Indianapolis Journal reported that an umpire actually consulted with White, a player on the field, about whether the base runner was out. When the opponent complained, the ump declared, "When White says a thing is so it is so, and that is the end of it."

In 1886, the Detroit Free Press wrote:

No one ever yet heard Deacon White say dammit; no one ever saw him spike or trample upon an opponent; no one ever saw him hurl his bat towards the bench when he struck out; no one ever heard him wish the umpire were where the wicked never cease from troubling and the weary never give us a rest. And think of it! Nineteen years of provocation! Will anybody deny that Deacon White is a great and good man, as well as a first-class ballplayer?

Tim Keller writes:

Years ago, I read an ad in the New York Times that said, "The meaning of Christmas is that love will triumph and that we will be able to put together a world of unity and peace." In other words, we have the light within us, and so we are the ones who can dispel the darkness of the world. We can overcome poverty, injustice, violence, and evil. If we work together, we can create a "world of unity and peace."

Can we? One of the most thoughtful world leaders of the late 20th century was Vaclav Havel, the first president of the Czech Republic. He had a unique vantage point from which to peer deeply into both socialism and capitalism, and he was not optimistic that either would, by itself, solve the greatest human problems. He knew that science unguided by moral principles had given us the Holocaust. He concluded that neither technology not the state nor the market alone could save us from nuclear degradation. "Pursuit of the good life will not help humanity save itself, nor is democracy alone enough," Havel said. "A turning to and seeing of … God is needed." The human race constantly forgets, he added, that "he is not God."

Boston Light, America's first lighthouse, just celebrated its 300th birthday—but Sally Snowman will be the first to let you know some more specifics about what that "birthday" really means. "The original tower built in 1716 was blown up by the British in 1776," she explains. "We have the new one."

Sally Snowman mans—or "womans," in her words—the lighthouse, serving as its 70th keeper (and the first female to have the title). Over the three centuries since its inception, a keeper has kept the light burning; however, the position in 2016 looks markedly different from those who held the role in the 18th century. As the lighthouse is now "fully automated," Snowman "maintain[s] the grounds, giv[es] tours and manag[es] 90 volunteers."

Yet even with these modernized tasks, Snowman realizes the significance of her job: "Here I am in 2016, the keeper for our 300th anniversary," she says. "That's way beyond my wildest dreams."

Possible Preaching Angles: The various roles within the body of Christ—missionary, teacher, preacher, etc.—look drastically different within various contexts: whether historical eras or cultural circumstances. The importance and the purpose of those roles, however, has remained constant since Jesus' command to "go and make disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19).

In February 1954, a navy pilot set out on a night-training mission from a carrier off the coast of Japan. While he was taking off in stormy weather, his directional finder malfunctioned, and he mistakenly headed in the wrong direction. To make matters worse, his instrument panel suddenly short-circuited, burning out all the lights in the cockpit.

The pilot "looked around … and could see absolutely nothing; the blackness outside the plane had suddenly come inside." Nearing despair, he looked down and thought he saw a faint blue-green glow trailing along in the ocean's ebony depths. His training had prepared him for this moment, and he knew in an instant what he was seeing: a cloud of phosphorescent algae glowing in the sea that had been stirred up by the engines of his ship. It was the "least reliable and most desperate method" of piloting a plane back onto a ship safely, but the pilot—future Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell—knew that was precisely what he needed to do. And so he did.

While he did not articulate it this way, Jim's life was saved because of light. Not just any light, but "bioluminescent dinoflagellates," which are tiny creatures that contain luciferin, a generic term for the light-emitting compound. Bioluminescent organisms live throughout the ocean, from the surface to the seafloor, from near the coast to the open ocean.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Evangelism—How many people surround us daily who are in a spiritual condition that mirrors Lovell's dilemma? What will light their journey when they look into the blackness all around them? When their eyes adjust to the darkness, what life-saving light will they see? (2) God's Word—Is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. (3) Jesus is the light of the world.

About every ten seconds, on average about 26 people die. By extrapolating from various statistics, including death rates and world populations and religious affiliations, seminary professor Dr. Ron Blue estimates that of these 26 recently deceased persons …

• Two were Buddhists
• Four were Hindus
• Six were Muslims
• Seven were Christians (of any type or commitment level)
• Seven were "Other," including atheist, agnostic, and animist

An El Dorado Hills, California family overcame their own emotional turmoil to turn a canceled wedding into a special event for approximately 100 less fortunate people. David Duane said his 27-year-old daughter, Quinn, announced that the groom had called off the wedding, five days before the event.

The reception venue, the Citizen Hotel in downtown Sacramento, had been booked months in advance. Duane said he and his wife knew they could not expect a refund at such a late date. "We said, 'Hey, do we just not do anything, or do we go down and do something?'"

His wife, Kari, came up with the idea of hosting people who were homeless or in need at what was intended to have been the wedding dinner. She contacted Next Move and program director LaTisha Daniels. The organization's mission is to provide shelter and other services to help people transition out of homelessness. Daniels took charge, inviting individuals and families, and providing bus passes so they could get to the dinner, David Duane said.

Duane and his wife were on hand at 5 P.M. to welcome people to the buffet dinner that would otherwise have been served to wedding guests. "It was a fabulous night, a great evening," Duane said. He talked to a number of the guests and listened to stories of the difficulties they have faced. Wedding costs, including the honeymoon, he said, totaled more than $30,000. "As a family," Duane said, "we took away something good from this."

Possible Preaching Angles: Many that God invited to the wedding banquet of his Son have declined. It is now our mission to joyfully extend the invitation to the poor and needy so that heaven will be full and its riches will be fully enjoyed.

Christian leader Mark Labberton relates a personal story about when he had a seemingly unsolvable problem with the IRS. Labberton writes:

After several months of correspondence and legal advice, the day finally came to begin the talks in person. Those who knew the IRS suggested this would take many months, probably longer, to get settled. I went to the IRS office in Oakland. I waited. And I waited. Eventually I was escorted through a warren of cubicles to meet the agent who would assist me. The agent there listened to my case, took all the relevant paperwork, and excused herself to consult with someone else. I waited ten minutes, 15 minutes … 45 minutes but no one checked in. As far as I could tell, the agent had disappeared …

Suddenly, the agent was back. She handed me a sheet and said simply, "There, it's all done. It's settled." I assumed she was saying that she had taken the first step. What she meant was that the whole process was settled. She turned the paper over and revealed the nine signatures she had acquired all the way up the IRS ladder so the case was now closed, and closed in my favor.

There, in the midst of a warren of bureaucratic anonymity and powerlessness, I encountered a person who became my advocate, who heard my appeal and who took the initiative to do on my behalf what I could never have done for myself. She met me at a moment of isolation and fear and sent me out with resolution when I had anticipated nothing but delay.

Possible Preaching Angles: Mark Labberton comments: "For me, this has been a parable of what the body of Christ can be in the world. We are to be those who, in the vastness of the universe and in a context of human powerlessness, show up as advocates who represent and incarnate the presence of God, who is the hope of the world. We can, of course, choose instead to be bureaucrats. Show up and shuffle paper, engage very little, put in our time, and watch out for our own interests. At the Oakland IRS office, there was a system, but there was a person in the system who was ready to be an advocate. I don't know why, but she did it. And it changed everything for me."

Bombs have what's called a "blast-radius," defined as the distance from the source that will be affected when an explosion occurs. Churches should have love-radiuses—anyone within twenty miles of a church should know it and be positively affected by the church's love.