[NOTE: My dad, Jim Faughn, preaches and serves as an elder for the Central church of Christ in Paducah, Kentucky. Along with many other skills, he is an excellent writer, and that shows through most often in his bulletin articles. The following article first appeared in the September3, 2006, edition of The Central Message. It is a very important article that every Christian needs to read. Thanks, dad! (The article has been reprinted as it appeared, including all emphases.)]The phone call was disturbing. A young man whom I have known for many years wanted to talk to an older preacher. He didn’t say that, but that was the reason for…

What a delightful little book! Sometimes the best things do, in fact, come in small packages. Millions over the years have been moved and touched by the words of the 23rd Psalm, and for good reason. So many, though, do not truly understand the deeper meaning of what they are reading. In our modern society, most of us know very little about raising sheep. David, however, knew all about it, and his knowledge and experience shines through in this beloved Psalm. Phillip Keller, a former shepherd, brings new light on the poem by David and does so in such a way that anyone can understand it better. It has truly…

It’s a day you’ll never forget. People were patting you on the back and giving you hugs. You were congratulated many, many times. Songs were sung and prayers were made in your behalf. It truly was a special day. It was the day you decided to put Christ on in baptism. But how often do you think about that day? Does it still motivate you as it did in the days after you were baptized? It should! We should look back on that day often and remember just how excited and thankful we were that God wanted us as a part of His family. I believe that is one of…

Last Sunday night, we concluded singing the 9th Avenue Top 99 by singing the top 10 songs. It has been a lot of fun doing this each week, and I want to thank Neal Cook for putting all the songs on our website for us to listen to. Here are the Top 10: #10–Sing and Be Happy #9–How Great Thou Art #8–Because He Lives #7–I’ll Fly Away #6–Amazing Grace #5–Sweet, Sweet Spirit #4–As the Deer #3–Faithful Love #2–God’s Family #1–The Greatest Commands We failed to record one week of our countdown, so we will sing those again next Sunday. After that, all will be available for you to hear. To…

There are three events at the 9th Avenue church of Christ that we want you to be aware of. Please know that you are invited to any or all of these, no matter where you live! First, this Sunday night (September 10), we will host the first Area-Wide Youth Series of 2006-07. The theme this year is “People at the Cross.” The speaker will be Reed Swindle, who works at the Memorial Parkway church of Christ in Huntsville. Last year, we had right at 300 in attendance for this good event. We hope to have somewhere around 350 this year. We will begin at 6 PM with our evening worship…

Tonight, Katie Couric makes her long-anticipated debut for the CBS Evening News. After many years with Today on NBC, Katie makes the jump to primetime anchor, a dream of most television news journalists. While I am happy for anyone who gets a job offer such as this, one of the commercials airing about her debut concerns me. Katie tells us that CBS will be giving us the facts we need and will make us think, “I’ve never thought about it that way before.” I agree with the first part of that. The job of the news should be to give us the facts. We need to know what happened in…

[NOTE: Each quarter I publish a list of those who have had perfect attendance for the previous quarter. While this may not seem “blog-worthy” to some, these deserve a lot of credit and, hopefully, you will find some of my other comments helpful.] Summer is always busy. Many families take much-needed vacations and are away from us for a Sunday or two. We trust, though, that those families take the time to worship the Lord on His day in whatever location they find themselves. (By the way, if you are ever traveling somewhere and do not know of a congregation of God’s people, please call the office. We’ll be glad…

In May, we posted an article dealing with polygamy in the Mormon religion. To read that post, you may click here. Just a few moments ago, it came to my attention tha Mr. Jeffs had been arrested. While this story is still, obviously, developing, it is good to report that one of FBI’s “10 Most Wanted” has been arrested. To view the Reuters post on this story, click here. It has also come to our attention that Mr. Jeffs is to go to jail on Thursday.

It seems a bit silly to “review” a book that so many of you already own and use, but, sometimes we need reminders of great books. Maybe those volumes have been collecting dust on our shelves for a bit too long. The Fourfold Gospel is a great book to own, although it is not easy reading. It is much more of a study book than a book to be read from cover-to-cover. Reading it in this way is somewhat like trying to read two or three books at the same time. The comments that are made are so helpful for the Bible student, though. This book goes on the shelf…

While this post is not necessarily of a religious nature, I thought this story was very well-written and important. Amazingly, it has been one year since Hurricane Katrina made landfall at the Louisiana-Mississippi border. We remember well the storm and aftermath, which continues even now. Cleanup is nowhere near complete, but there are many hopeful signs. The Saints will play in New Orleans this year, and many schools are open again. In the days leading up to the storm and the days following, we were shocked by what we saw and heard. This was a tragedy of the first degree. However, many used this awful event to send out “hype”…