THE ONE YEAR ILLUSTRATIONS CLUB

It was not that King Henry VIII had a change of conscience regarding publishing the Bible in English. His motives were more sinister… but the Lord sometimes uses the evil intentions of men to bring about His glory. King Henry VIII had in fact, requested that the Pope permit him to divorce his wife and marry his mistress. The Pope refused. King Henry responded by marrying his mistress anyway, (later having two of his many wives executed), and thumbing his nose at the Pope by renouncing Roman Catholicism, taking England out from under Rome’s religious control, and declaring himself as the reigning head of State to also be the new head of the Church. This new branch of the Christian Church, neither Roman Catholic nor truly Protestant, became known as the Anglican Church or the Church of England. King Henry acted essentially as its “Pope”. His first act was to further defy the wishes of Rome by funding the printing of the scriptures in English… the first legal English Bible… just for spi...

Founded 1971, by Howard  Schultz , with its first store at Pikes' Place Market in Seattle , now operates or licenses more than 8,000 retail coffee shops, know as Starbucks Coffee. Howard  Schultz …Vision: Put a Starbucks in every city in the world. Working a minimum of 65 hrs per week! Howard  Schultz  has a vision; we see it coming to pass right before our eyes, in cities we live in all around the world. This is what Howard  Schultz  believes in and he has given his life to it.  Christians for all we claim to believe and preach, the question remains, have we given ourselves to what we believe? If you look around, unlike Starbucks, we are not seeing the vision we preach, effectively actualized in the lives of those who claim it. Statistics shows that Churches who had the traditional 3 day services a week have had to shut down their Wednesday and Sunday evening services, simply because people are not coming. Where is our vision?  A visio...

I have here just a short version of Francine River ’s testimony Meanwhile, our marriage was falling apart. We thought being closer to family would help, but the only way to move to Northern California would be for Rick to start his own business. So we sold our home and gave away everything that wouldn’t fit in a small rental. Rick headed north and moved in with his parents while looking for an office. I stayed in Southern California until the children finished the school year. Only one rental was available, and Rick grabbed it. It didn’t take long to find out we had landed in between two Christian families. A boy of about eight was waiting to help us move in. We saw him as a pest; he turned out to be an evangelist. “Have I got a church for you!” he said. Neither of us was eager to go, but with the stresses of starting a new business, moving, and our marriage crashing and burning, I was desperate enough to try anything, even a small church unattached to a denominational hiera...

I have here just a short version of Francine River ’s testimony ...Meanwhile, our marriage was falling apart. We thought being closer to family would help, but the only way to move to Northern California would be for Rick to start his own business. So we sold our home and gave away everything that wouldn’t fit in a small rental. Rick headed north and moved in with his parents while looking for an office. I stayed in Southern California until the children finished the school year. Only one rental was available, and Rick grabbed it. It didn’t take long to find out we had landed in between two Christian families. A boy of about eight was waiting to help us move in. We saw him as a pest; he turned out to be an evangelist. “Have I got a church for you!” he said. Neither of us was eager to go, but with the stresses of starting a new business, moving, and our marriage crashing and burning, I was desperate enough to try anything, even a small church unattached to a denominational hi...

Rodney Sumter and Tim Tebow were high school teammates at Nease High in Ponte Vedra ( Fla. ). Tebow would go on to win two national titles and the Heisman Trophy. Sumter would play at Jacksonville University and then move to Orlando , working as a dancer and bartender, according. Sumter was tending bar at Pulse nightclub on the night of the massive shooting and has been recovering at Orlando Regional Medical Center after being shot three times and breaking both his arms, according to the  Florida Times Union  and what he has posted on his Instagram account. Among those who came to see him  in the hospital was Tebow. On his Instagram account, Sumter wrote: “My high school quarterback left the Bahamas to come and see me. Tebow has always been an awesome person.” According to The Orlando Sentinel , Sumter also posted a photo with  Orlando City captain Kaká, former baseball star Johnny Damon and Florida Gov. Rick Scott. A number of sports stars and ot...

Today thousands of Muhammad’s followers are having dreams and visions of their own—experiences that rock their world. While political revolution avalanches throughout the Middle East , tremors of spiritual change are also being felt on a widespread scale, especially within countries hostile to Christianity. Ironically, thousands of stories are emerging from around the world of Muslims being awakened to the gospel, literally from their dreams. Karima, a Muslim, dreamed she was in a car when it crashed. She was knocked out, but when she opened her eyes (in her dream), she saw that Jesus was the driver. “Come to me,” He told her, “I am with you. I love you.” That experience led her to seek out a Christian church, where she responded to the gospel. Omar had been locked up and tortured for years in a jail cell in a nation ruled by a dictator. One night a messenger visited him in a dream, telling him he would be set free. Within days he was released from prison and traveled to America wher...

Having God's Word available to the public in the language of the common man, English, would have meant disaster to the church. No longer would they control access to the scriptures. If people were able to read the Bible in their own tongue, the church's income and power would crumble. They could not possibly continue to get away with selling indulgences (the forgiveness of sins) or selling the release of loved ones from a church-manufactured "Purgatory". People would begin to challenge the church's authority if the church were exposed as frauds and thieves. The contradictions between what God's Word said, and what the priests taught, would open the public's eyes and the truth would set them free from the grip of fear that the institutional church held. Salvation through faith, not works or donations, would be understood. The need for priests would vanish through the priesthood of all believers. The veneration of church-canonized Saints and Mary would be c...

"My Dad.....he preached to me his whole life....on occasion, he even used words".  Often, you will find that the kids that go on to embrace the Faith of the Father are the kids who were not preached to and yelled at, through out their child hood, but those who had a Father who lived out his faith before their eyes, loved their mom and love them, that's a faith that is contagious. For kids that grow up in the home of a Pastor, the same is true, one young man wrote, "The greatest sermon I ever heard my father preach, was the one he lived".

Joe Theismann enjoyed an illustrious 12-year career as quarterback of the Washington Redskins. He led the team to two Super Bowl appearances--winning in 1982 before losing  in 1983 the following year. When a leg injury forced him out of football in 1985, he was entrenched in the record books as Washington 's all-time leading passer. Still, the tail end of Theismann's career taught him a bitter lesson: I got stagnant. I thought the team revolved around me. I should have known it was time to go when I didn't care whether a pass hit Art Monk in the 8 or the 1 on his uniform.  When we went back to the Super Bowl, my approach had changed. I was griping about the weather, my shoes, practice times, everything. The Raiders defeated the Redskins by the score of 38–9. The Raiders' 38 points and their 29-point margin of victory broke Super Bowl records; it still remains the most points scored by an  AFC  team in a Super Bowl.   Today I wear my two rings--the winner's ring...

Gary Richmond, a former zoo keeper, had this to say: Raccoons go through a glandular change at about 24 months. After that they often attack their owners. Since a 30-pound raccoon can be equal to a 100-pound dog in a scrap, I felt compelled to mention the change coming to a pet raccoon owned by a young friend of mine, Julie. She listened politely as I explained the coming danger. I'll never forget her answer. "It will be different for me. . ." And she smiled as she added, "Bandit wouldn't hurt me. He just wouldn't." Three months later Julie underwent plastic surgery for facial lacerations sustained when her adult raccoon attacked her for no apparent reason. Bandit was released into the wild and Julie was scarred for life.

I’ll never forget the day I just found out my husband was having an affair; I was cut to the heart like never before. This came only two weeks after finding out my 15 year old daughter was pregnant and then found out my husband was leaving me. And in the middle of that mess, I got myself fired from my job, can you blame me? How could anyone concentrate at work with all hell breaking loose in their life; like, what I was experiencing! I didn’t know what to do or who to turn too. I finally thought I would call my best friend Samantha. I just needed to talk to somebody, someone who could listen, someone who I could cry with. We sat down at the café where we regularly met, on the corner of Van Buren & Metcalf, unfortunately before I could speak a word, she started, “oh you won’t believe the week I've had, a week from hell, let me tell you", she said, “1st my hair dresser, Jean Pierre, I don’t know why I go to him, he over streaked my hair, “I told him, you fix it, and now loo...

Aaron lee Raiston In 2003 aaron while canyoneering, Aaron found himself caught under a large boulder. The boulder rolled onto his arm and trapped him. After many days of no rescue, Aaron was on the verge of starving and dehydrating to death. His option was, lay there and die or sever his arm off and live. Aaron made the decision to sever his arm off and live. With a pocket knife Aaron had on him, he methodically cut his way through his arm. Unbelievably, after he freed himself, he had to make his way through the remainder of the canyon, then rappel down a 65 foot cliff. He was trapped in Blue John Canyon Utah , for 5 days and 7 hours. Unfortunately we don’t see sin the way Jesus does, we don’t see it as clearly as Aaron Ralston, cut it off or die!

 1n 1994 Don Calhoun, lived in Chicago, and worked at a five dollar an hour job. He decided one night to go to a Chicago Bulls game -- only the second or third game he'd ever gone to in his life.  On his way into the game, he was stopped by someone from the Bulls organization in the lobby. She said, "We're doing a promotion during the third quarter. Would you want to participate?" He agreed. During a time-out in the third quarter, they called Don Calhoun onto the court, gave him a basketball, and positioned him by the free throw line of one of the baskets and pointed him toward the other basket. This would be almost a full court shot. They said, "You have one shot. If you make it, we'll give you a million dollars." They called this promotion: "The Million Dollar Shot."  Calhoun took the ball and threw it towards the basket. Just after he let it go, Phil Jackson, the coach for the Chicago Bulls said out loud: "It's going in." And...

It's Sunday morning at 6AM, and Dutch Hoorenbeek rolls out of bed to check on his strip club and do some renovations to an outside party deck. He then fires several tenants in his mall for not paying rent, signs up four new ones, and transports to his office to spend some time with his wife, Tenaj Jackelope. The thing is, in real life, Dutch Hoorenbeek is actually Ric Hoogestraat, a call-center operator making $14 an hour. He's also married to Sue Hoogestraat, not Tenaj Jackelope. Confusing? It should be. Turns out that Ric and Sue's marriage is on the rocks. She contends that he spends more time online in HIS Second Life, a virtual universe currently home to 30 million players, with his online wife. Sue spends her days in front of the television, while Ric is in the other room running a virtual night club and consorting with his online wife, sometimes for as long as 14 hours at a time on weekends.   Although Sue Hoogestraat has attended "gaming widow" support gr...

The term 'escapism' is reserved for those who take excessive time away from real life to the point at which they seem to be trying to escape from it. Traditionally regarded as extreme, escapism is in fact increasingly the norm for many people. In Japan , for example, the average household watches over 8 hours of television per day.  Escapism is not defined by the behavior itself but the motivation behind it. Anything from sport to fashion to sex can become escapist activities.  Certain escapist options are socially accepted, such as consumerism celebrity worship, others are not, such as recreational drug use. Modern technology has brought digital culture - television, films, increasingly realistic computer games and virtual realities that provide escapist experiences with huge degrees of immersion. Means of escapism have become increasingly varied over the past few decades, but fascination in details remains a popular one.  We interpret the popularity of escapism as a...