Denzel Washington Turns 57, Says ‘Ministering’ Through Career

Denzel Washington, who turned 57 Wednesday, is continuing to prove that a successful acting career is feasible with the proper spiritual foundation.

The multiple Oscar award winner, who has appeared in films since his 1977 debut, has remained vocal throughout the years about his Christian faith. In an interview with Beliefnet, Washington spoke about the importance of his spirituality in not only his life, but also his career.

“Spirituality is important in every aspect of my life,” Washington said. “I mean, that’s why I’m here. That’s what I’ve been blessed to do,”

In the interview, the actor also spoke about his career being his ministry.

“My work has been my ministry. In fact, I asked my pastor, years ago, ‘Do you think I should become a minister or a preacher,’” Washington recalled. “And he says, ‘Well, that’s what you’re doing already.’”

The actor also described an experience when a woman revealed his future to him – in his mother’s hair salon.

“She said that I would speak to millions of people, and I would travel the world and preach to millions of people,” Washington told the publication. “And I didn’t know what she was talking about. But this was March 27th, 1975.”

The son of a pastor who practiced for 60 years, Washington has been open about being a part of the West Angeles Church of God in Christ for close to 30 years. The award-winning actor has made no qualms about acknowledging his religion, and has even contributed his voice to “The Bible Experience,” an audio interpretation of the word of God.

Through all of his successes and accolades, Washington once told Beliefnet that he wanted to continue to preach about what God has done for him.

“I’ve always understood why I’ve been blessed to be put in this situation,” Washington said. “And I’m more than happy to take advantage of it and to preach, if you will, about what God has done in my life.”

Article source: http://www.christianpost.com/news/denzel-washington-turns-57-says-ministering-through-career-65927/

Daily Bible Verse – James 3:16

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

Thoughts on Today’s Bible Verse…

So, what are your goals and plans for the New Year? Do you have great dreams and laudable goals? I hope so. But, please join me as I seriously look at why I set the goals I do and make the plans I make. In the afterglow of Christmas, that great season of giving, let’s make sure our plans for the future are not selfish or based on envy, lust, or greed. Instead, let’s set our hearts to reach great heights for God’s glory and to do great things to be a blessing to others. Otherwise, all our attempts to reach great things ultimately will end in chaos, heartbreak, and destruction.

Prayer…

Eternal God, please be with me as I seek to set goals for the coming year. I want to do great things for your glory. Please use me to accomplish your will in the world in which I live and in the group of people to whom you have sent me. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Today’s Bible Verse Illustrated

Comments on ‘James 3:16′:

See larger image The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (with Cross-References) (Kindle Edition) By (author) Crossway Bibles List Price: $9.99 USD Release date February 9, 2011.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/hl-devos-votd/~3/S39TehwMd3Y/todaysverse.cgi

TobyMac Talks Faith, Christmas and Inspiration Behind His Music (VIDEO)

TobyMac, a popular Christian hip-hop recording artist who has been performing solo since 2000, chatted with The Christian Post recently about his original music, faith, the unavoidable moments of stumbling, and his recent Christmas album.

Originally part of Christian singing trio dcTalk, which won four Grammys and sold more than 8 million albums, TobyMac has been performing on his own for nearly 12 years. He has four albums: Momentum (2001), Welcome to Diverse City (2004), Portable Sounds (2007), and Tonight (2010), as well as two remixed albums of the first two albums titled Re:Mix Momentum and Renovating Diverse City, respectively. His new holiday album, Christmas in Diverse City was released in October.

TobyMac told CP he was asked many times to record a Christmas CD but he always refused. “If it doesn’t feel like Christmas, and it doesn’t give you that feeling of Christmas, I’m not going to force it,” he said. “I’m not going to put out a Christmas CD until it’s coming out of me naturally,” he told himself many times before.

This year, it finally happened. TobyMac started with one song and eventually put the album together with his band, the Diverse City Band.

TobyMac is a musically eclectic artist and describes his work as a “melting pot” of styles. He grew up listening to rock, hip-hop, rhythm and blues and reggae, he revealed.

The recording artist also explained the story behind one of his greatest hit songs, “Slam,” saying he realized the “ultimate slam” in his life was what God has done for him: “His son on a cross – that was the slam of sin, that’s why we can have forgiveness,” he said. “I didn’t want to be overly preachy about it, but that is the slam. Period. End of story. For me.”

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Although TobyMac’s songs often end up in movies, TV commercials or played during NBA games, what really matters to him the most is that his work reflects his faith and belief in Christ, he told CP.

“I want my music to be everywhere, I want it to be heard. I want to give people an opportunity to enjoy my music, and maybe even hear about this beautiful truth that’s in it,” he said.

Explaining the story behind another popular song of his, “What if I Stumble?” TobyMac said that God’s grace is amazing and embraces even our mistakes. “I’ll never be a non-stumbler,” he said. “I’ll be a forgiven stumbler, but never a non-stumbler.”

Article source: http://www.christianpost.com/news/tobymac-talks-faith-christmas-and-inspiration-behind-his-music-video-65011/

L’Angelus band – the next big thing?

Many who attended one of Michael W. Smith’s Christmas Concerts in December 2011 had a pleasant surprise. In addition to the fine presentation of Mr. Smith and full symphony orchestra, his special guests were the little known Louisiana quartet, L’Angelus. Combining Cajun music with classical may seem like an add choice, but instead, it was brilliant. Good thing too as the group had to do some heavy lifting during some of the concerts as Michael battled with laryngitis.

Pronounced “Lawn-Jay-Loose,” the four siblings began performing in the mid ‘90s with the help of their mother, Linda Rees. Back then, Linda Lou and the Lucky Four, performed at hundreds of county fairs, rodeos, coffeehouses playing mostly country and popular tunes from the ‘50s and ‘60s. Today, the group has ventured on their own and play more Cajun fare. The band consists of Katie (27) playing the guitar, Paige (26) the bass, Johnny (24) the drums and Stephen (22), the fiddle, swamp pop saxophone and harmonica.

The four are incredibly fun to watch play. Katie has a smile that won’t quit. She tends to step back a bit from Paige, who tends to whip her hair in all directions. Stephen makes it clear that he doesn’t play a violin – he plays the fiddle. And Johnny, the quiet one, hides behind his drums set, but plays like a mad man. In addition to the instrumentation, they harmonize their voices beautifully. They play “Ca C’est Bon,” one of their most popular hits, with delight as if they are playing it for the very first time and they alternate between English and French seamlessly.

In 2006 L’Angelus was selected by Billboard Magazine as one of the six finalists in the Independent Music World Series and the group has been gaining international attention ever since. Before they embarked on the Christmas tour, the group was a featured guest at the World Youth Day with the Pope in August 2011. (To see a sample of their performance, click on the video below.)

L’Angelus’ next performance will be at the New Year’s Cajun Party at St. Peter’s Church Hall in Carencro, LA this weekend. In July, they will team up again with Michael W. Smith and Laura Story for the 2012 Cruise of Canada trip.

To learn more about L’Anglus and sample their music, visit their website.

Article source: http://www.examiner.com/christian-pop-culture-in-national/l-angelus-band-the-next-big-thing

Adoption: A Beautiful Thing

The article below is a wonderful story that struck close to home for me. 

After 23 years of marriage, 5 miscarriages and the death of our infant daughter, mywife and I have adopted two sons.  To put into words the joy we find in being parents just isn’t all that attainable. 

Undoubtedly we are on a honeymoon right now. Yes, we know there are challenges ahead and yes we are pretty sure these children are not robots programmed for our pleasure but instead that they are little humans we will raise and send into the world to be Godly men. 

We still miss our children waiting for us in heaven but are nothing less than grateful to have the opportunity to be mom and dad to these two incredible boys.

Pray for us!

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Talk about it

Back in 2005, Jim and Peggy Korson had a realization that would change their lives. They saw their two daughters, Mindy and Kristin, ages 16 and 14 at the time, growing up and knew that they’d be soon leaving the home. But Jim and Peggy weren’t ready to lead a life without children just yet.

“We just basically felt called to adopt kids,” Jim said.

They were at a Steven Curtis Chapman concert when they found their opportunity. Chapman talked about a non-profit he and his wife founded to help care for orphans and find them families. Jim signed up to receive adoption materials that day.

Peggy said she figured they would be simply helping out with adoption fundraising – sponsoring a child or something along those lines. But as they reviewed the materials and prayed about how they should respond, they started to feel that bringing a child into their home would be a good fit. They had been blessed financially, they said, and felt they would be able to give a child the love he or she needed.

“Of course, when we started we thought we would adopt just one,” Jim said.

They also figured they would adopt a normal, healthy baby, Peggy added, until their younger daughter Kristin challenged them.

“Why aren’t we going for the kids that most people aren’t going for?” Peggy recalled Kristin asking them.

Peggy is a special education teacher, and Jim a pharmacist, and through more prayers they felt their call to adopt narrow to a call to adopt a child with special needs.

“There’s such a need,” Jim said.

They started looking over children on the waiting child list – a list of orphaned children that are less likely to be adopted either because they had special needs or were over the age of 3. The Korsons’ oldest daughter Mindy saw a picture of one Chinese boy, Caleb, who had a cleft lip and cleft palate.

“We just saw this little guy and we both said, ‘that’s him,’” Peggy said.

Cleft lip and cleft palate is a birth defect in which there is an opening in the roof of a child’s mouth and lip into the nasal cavity. The Korsons had some research to do on the subject, so they talked to Dr. McKenzie at Allina, who invited them to a session staff was scheduled to attend on the very same topic the following week. The session was given by one of the top doctors in the field, who practices at Gillette Children’s Hospital in St. Paul. One by one, the pieces were falling into place.

On Oct. 31, 2005, the Korsons brought 3-year-old Caleb home to Hastings. He had already had surgery in China to correct his cleft lip, but still needed more work to fully correct the problem. They took him to Gillette, and within six weeks had his first surgery done. The next two years saw four more surgeries, and two summers from now he’s scheduled to have the major surgery done, grafting bone into his mouth to permanently fill the hole.

Caleb’s story was only the beginning. When the Korsons adopted him, they realized they wanted to bring home more than one child, but China only allows one adoption per year. Micah, another Chinese boy with a cleft lip and palate, came to Hastings on Dec. 20, 2006. Micah had gotten his surgeries before he adoption, so he came to the Korsons with a decent mouth, Peggy said, but he had other challenges. He was incredibly weak, due to a lack of nutrition, spending a lot of time in his crib and being carried around almost everywhere. Because of his cleft lip and palate, he couldn’t suck on a bottle as an infant, so was spoon fed sugar water, the Korsons were told. When they brought him home, he couldn’t walk 10 feet without falling.

“The beginning was scary,” Peggy recalled.

It took about 18 months, but with proper nutrition, a loving family and more surgeries he came into his own. Now, Micah is the strongest of the Korson’s younger children.

The boys’ stories were so unique that Gillette recommended them to be featured on KS95 for Kids, a fundraiser program the radio station holds every year to benefit the Children’s Cancer Research Fund and Gillette. They were happy to help. Gillette was a blessing to them, they said. Their story was aired on the radio along with several other children benefited by the two organizations and helped the station raise more than $413,000 this year.

“It’s a happy story,” Jim said. “These two kids were down and out in an orphanage, and who knows if they ever would’ve been adopted.”

Now they’re as normal as any other child, he said.

Still, the Korsons weren’t done helping orphaned children.

“When we got the two boys, I knew that we weren’t done,” Peggy said.

“We really felt that we needed to adopt some more,” Jim added.

This time they looked in Ethiopia. Again they turned to the waiting child list, in search of two children under the age of 5 with normal health. Caleb came to the Korsons with a strong sense of birth order, and had already been insisting that he was his new family’s oldest, even though the Korsons had two older daughters. They thought they had to adopt children who would be younger than him, so as to not make him feel stripped of his place in the family, but when they went to Ethiopia to meet two orphans in July of 2009, they instead met a group of three siblings. Like it was with Caleb, the Korsons knew as soon as they saw the group that they had just found their new children.

Talya, the oldest, was about 14 years old and on the verge of being kicked out of the orphanage because of her age, Kristin said, and that posed a different sort of adjustment for the Korsons. While they were accustomed to raising young children and teaching them how to be adults, at age 14 in Ethiopia, Talya had already had the life experience of a 25- or 26-year-old American. Instead of teaching her how to be an adult, they had to teach her how to be a kid, Peggy said.

The Korsons got to see all of their children grow in great strides once they came to Hastings.

“Once they get into a loving environment, they just blossom,” Jim said.

Of course there are difficulties, Peggy said, but there are so many places they can go for help.

“We live in a country where we have a lot of access to a lot of great things,” Jim said.

They encourage other families to consider adoption as well.

“These kids need homes,” Jim said. “These kids need families.”

And besides helping the children, it’s affected their own outlook.

“I can honestly say adoption has totally and radically changed our life,” Jim said.

The Korsons welcome emails from anyone who’s considering adoption or wants to know more about the process, or anyone who wants to know more about their experience with Gillette. They can be contacted at korsonadoption@ gmail.com.

Katrina Styx is a reporter for the Hastings Star Gazette.

Article source: http://www.piercecountyherald.com/event/article/id/41691/

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