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chrisaltrock

Chris Altrock is an author, spiritual director and preacher, serving as the Senior Minister at the Stamford Church of Christ. He and his wife Kendra are parents to Jordan and Jacob.

The Gospel Truth About the Holy Spirit

There is an award-winning sculpture at Abilene Christian University called “Jacob’s Ladder.”  The sculpture is inspired by a story in Gen. 28.  It features a bronze ladder reaching up to heaven.  The ladder holds four angels.  As the angels get closer to earth, they appear to increase in age, signifying the corruption of earth.  Each angel is eight feet tall.  The ladder is accompanied by large blocks of stone on which are carved Scriptures.  The stones are arranged at different angles.  Depending upon where you stand, you see different Scriptures.  Thus, if you want to see all the Scriptures, you have to stand in different places. Read More »The Gospel Truth About the Holy Spirit

The Gospel Truth About Giving

In Mark 12:41 Jesus and his apprentices are at the temple in Jerusalem.  They’ve gone from the large Court of the Gentiles to the smaller Court of Women. 

The Court of Gentiles is where Jesus ran off the money changers in Mark 11.  It’s also where the early church met initially in Acts. [i]   The Court of Women is the place beyond which women were not permitted.  It was a place of public worship. [ii] 

And there, in the Court of Women were several receptacles where people could give money to the temple and its ministry.[iii] 

Mark tells us, Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. (Mark 12:41a TNIV)Read More »The Gospel Truth About Giving

Is Rich Christian an Oxymoron?

Newsweek magazine once ran a cover story on poverty in America. Their cover featured the face of a one-year-old girl named Faith who had been rescued from a flooded home in New Orleans.  And as Jonathan Alter wrote in his article “The Other America,” Faith, a child in poverty, was a stark reminder of the economic disparities in this country.  As we watched pictures of the poorest of the poor in New Orleans, Alter says those pictures represented a growing population in this country.  In a nation of nearly 300 million people, 37 million live below the poverty line. The average CEO in this country earns 185 times as much as the average worker in this country. Alter argues, as others have before him, that there are two Americas: the rich America and the poor America: 37 million people make up poor America; 263 million make up rich America. Many of us are part of rich America.Read More »Is Rich Christian an Oxymoron?

How to Know God’s Will: 6 Guiding Clouds

A Sunday School teacher was in my office a few years ago.  He shared the plight of a couple in his class who were wrestling with a decision.  They were wondering if they should pursue children and career here in Memphis, TN or if they should move closer to their families of origin.  They were agonizing over the decision, trying to discern God’s will.  They wanted to know “What direction is God pointing?” Read More »How to Know God’s Will: 6 Guiding Clouds