Posts by Billy Arnold (Page 2)

Last weekend several of us as church leaders took a group of wonderful teens to camp in a remote part of Washington, a ranching/logging/mining part of the state called Wauconda. As part of our “Camp Wauconda” long weekend experience we joined in worship at the Wauconda Community Church. It was delightful. We met some wonderful Christ followers, and even a couple of the families joined us in the afternoon for a picnic at the nearby lake. You might wonder what…

Officially welcome to summer and the longest days of the year!  I love it! But it means for us at LifeWay a shift in what we will be teaching on Sunday’s during the summer. Of course we just went through 30+ Sunday’s in Romans from September to last Sunday. Beginning this Sunday, June 23, we will begin our summer series called… “The Promises of God.” Every Sunday from June 23 to Labor Day, (11 Sunday’s), we will focus on a…

This time of year is graduation speech time. There are some fun graduation speeches, some ‘boring and lame’ speeches for sure, but occasionally there are some amazing graduation speeches to challenge and charge graduates. But I think the best speeches are the farewell speeches because they are the ones that lay out the most critical things to live for. Dwight Eisenhower gave a great one when leaving the presidency. George Washington gave a great speech when he left office. Paul,…

2000 years ago the Roman Empire dominated everything that was Europe, North Africa and the fringes of western Asia. This Empire was unlike anything that the world had ever seen, and in some ways it has not seen anything like it sense. It amazes me that we have been studying this incredible New Testament letter that we casually call the “Book of Romans,” and it was to a Church family there in that was living out the Body of Christ…

One of the most popular and repeated phrases of a young child when they become around 5 years old is….. “WHY?”  When you tell a child to stop playing on the high bars of the playground, their response is… “Why?”  When you tell them to stop being so loud when you are a restaurant, their response is… “Why?”  When you tell them to eat all their vegetables instead of the ice cream, their response is… “Why?” Even as a teenager…

There is a bit of common bit of advice that is passed around every year at Thanksgiving time. Now I realize that it is May and we are all ready for summer, but let’s think about what happens at Thanksgiving time for many of us. It is a season when we gather with family that often we have not seen each other for some time, so we do a lot of catching up with one another. There are many topics…

Romans 12:9-21 Recently Patty and I took off some time to celebrate her birthday by going to the beautiful state of Hawaii. Of course we had a grand and beautiful time on that gorgeous Big Island. We swam a lot, snorkeled the corral coves, hiked many of the hills, and we shopped!  One of the days we took a long hike that began about 1000 feet above sea level and proceeded down the lava flow areas all the way down…

Romans 12:1-8 We are now on what I have categorized as the last section of the book of Romans. This whole year we have studied Romans and Our Calling this series the gospel truth. The theology of what the gospel is in full detail is so well explained in the 1st 11 chapters of the book of Romans. But around the 12th chapter of this amazing letter in our New Testament we begin this section which is often considered to…

In January 1925, Nome Alaska was very, very cold! Now this should be of no surprise to anyone as Nome is that little Arctic town that sits out near the Bering Sea and essentially looks across to the far East tip of Russia. It is a native Alaskan settlement that expanded a great deal in the early 20th century due to the gold rush and other economic reasons. But a crisis had emerged in this Arctic village. And it is…

When Apollo 8 was launched in December 1968 it was the very first ever manned flight to reach the moon and they orbited the moon on that mission.  They did not land on the moon (that was Apollo 11 in July 1969). But it was the first ever to have flown out of earth’s low orbit and circle the moon, which they did 10 times and were within 60 miles of its surface! This mission set the stage for the…

When the Seattle Seahawks have their season opener this coming September at Lumen Field, everyone in the downtown region will know there is a game about to happen because the Seahawk blue jerseys, shirts, hats, and even face paint will be everywhere! The shouts from the crowds of thousands of people who were all strangers to one another just an hour before, are now all yelling in unison — “SEA —- HAWKS!”  They are all high fiving one another and…

About ten years ago Patty was asked to paint about 25 portraits of famous people who would be considered ‘peace makers’ in the world. Individuals who stand out as people who brought something better for a nation and the world. She was asked to do this by a missionary who served in a difficult place in Asia to be put into a coffee shop there. It was actually called the “Peace Café.” The intent was to foster conversations among the…

One of my favorite movie series is “Band of Brothers.” It came out about 20 years ago and has been branded as one of the most realistic views of the challenges in war time. It follows the story of real American WWII veterans from the D-Day Normandy invasion into France all the way to the end of the war.  I know that Army bases when training soldiers actually require their troops to watch this series to teach them lessons of…

We have a ‘lost and found’ box in the church lobby. You might think at first glance that there are many different kinds of items in this ‘lost and found’ box.  Bibles are the most common. But there are hats, gloves, glasses, notebooks, coats, umbrellas, and plenty of other common items that get left behind with no name on them and are unclaimed. But if you really think about it, there are only two kinds of items… there are LOST…

I have always considered Romans chapter 8 as one of the favorite chapters in the Bible for me. That’s honestly difficult to truly evaluate because I don’t want to lose any of the chapters. They are all God’s Word and inspired. They are all profitable. But undeniably there are a few that really stand out to me and just have always spoken to me in a very special way. This Sunday we are going to begin the first of four…

Not unlike the GIC week in the fall (GLOBAL Impact Celebration) we are using this coming Sunday morning March 3 as a commitment Service to our CIC (COMMUNITY Impact Celebration) week at LifeWay. There are some differences though – as well as some strong similarities. The differences: So what is unique about our CIC commitment? As you prepare for this coming Sunday morning, I ask you to read and contemplate from a couple of important places in the book of…

At our Tuesday evening prayer meeting this week, Rik Budd was our leader, and he asked that we focus our attention and prayers to the CIC week (Community Impact Celebration) at LifeWay. And as he began our prayer time, he read from Acts 20:24 which is a strong testimony from the Apostle Paul as he was accounting for the purpose of his life. Acts 20:24  “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the…

If we are forced about the battle of good and evil, some of us would first consider the original movie Star Wars. The cosmic battle of good and evil is the centerpiece of this blockbuster movie series. The “good guys” (Luke Skywalker and Princes Leia) versus the really – really – really bad (evil) guys Emperor Palpatine. But in between them is the conflicted character that was good, then turned to the dark side, before FINALLY at the last minute…

In the world of literature and writing, one of the ‘hooks’ that is often used in the opening line of a story or in the title of the book is a question.  In the famous children’s story book “Charlottes Web,” the opening line is… “Where is papa going with that ax?” (as the spider is saving the life of the pig friend). I  drove by a church property this week and on the reader board out front was a sermon…

I don’t know if this is a badge of honor or a mark of shame or somewhere in between, but many years ago I began doing garage sales shopping with my wife. At the beginning I tolerated it, and as time went on I really got into it. The reason is because I really found some amazing bargains for some things that I really needed and wanted. I’m not much of a general shopper but I really got into the…

Shame:  Was there a time in your life as a child that a parent said to you… “You should be ashamed of yourself! That is just NOT the way we behave!” Think back on that time and see if you can remember what it was that you should have been so ashamed of. We not only have had that said of ourselves, but we likely have said that statement to someone else. Shame is a part of our life’s history.…

I am likely much like many of you in that I enjoy a few of the traditional American Christmas movies. I am NOT a Hallmark Christmas movie fan (they are all the same to me) but I love some of the comedy that comes with a few of the movies. Most of them end up with something about Christmas cheer – good tidings – positive thinking – and making good family memories. There is nothing wrong per se with any…

Behold the Lamb of God! For 20 years our church presented the outdoor walk through event called “The Living Nativity Tour.” It was a reenactment of the birth of Jesus story complete with angels, wise men, shepherds, sheep, Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. We saw thousands of people come through those tours over those years (20 years of doing it, and about 450 performances! That’s lots of walk around our property in the cold of December!). At the end…