Salient questions of our guests are the following: What happened to you? What changed? How did it change? In what ways have your life changed for the better? What did you learn? What suggestions do you have considering what you went through?

We are interested in stories about discrimination, trauma, addiction, oppression, exclusion, and violence.

Stories about personal and communal transformation are both informative and inspirational. They remind us that trauma does not have the last word – redemption is possible!

Narrativity with Dr. Antipas is part of the Mental Health News Radio (MHNR) Network. The show is available wherever you listen to your podcasts.

I hope you subscribe to listen to the weekly podcast.

Thank you so much!

Antipas

Listen to the perspective of a retired surgeon who spent his career operating on victims of gunshot wounds. The tragic scene of people unreasonably shot led the surgeon to committing his life to the struggle against violence. Dr. Bob Gayle explains that one of his main interests upon retirement is to help young people make better choices. Dr. Gayle volunteers at the Urban Renewal Center’s Homework Club to help elementary school children focus on a future of success and avoid paths to gun violence.

This week on Narrativity Keeya Vawar tells her story. Keeya was a victim of human trafficking. The glitz and glamor of the music industry lured her at a time of vulnerability. She was 16 years old with an abusive father. She was on a search for “another life.” Too young and too scared to make responsible decisions, a music executive and musicians offered Keeya the world with music videos, money, a place to live and more. Soon Keeya was a slave to the industry. From one situation to the next, Keeya finally cried out for help. She got the help she needed and now she lives to tell her story.

Images: left: Ayn Rand’s influential Atlas Shrugged; center: conservative writer William F. Buckley, Jr. and President Ronald Reagan at President Reagan’s 1986 birthday party; right: The Blue Book from the John Birch Society.

It has been the most difficult (and personally sad) blog posting I have ever written, as I have been a devoted Republican most of my adult life. I make the point that the present Republican Party has been poisoned by an excess of Libertarian philosophy, especially of the Ayn Rand variety, and it no longer has a spiritual advantage for the Christian voter in comparison to the equally (but differently) flawed Democratic Party.  Many of you will disagree with parts or all of it. I am anxious to see your comments.

http://www.pentecostaltheology.com/decline-and-fall-of-the-republican-party/

[Editor’s note: William De Arteaga’s article was originally published in 2016, republished in 2019 at PentecostalTheology.com.]

Dan and Babs Izzett extend their invitation to attend the American Leprosy Missions’ 2016 Presidential Retreat. Read the interview about Dan’s journey with leprosy here: “That the life of Jesus may be manifested: An interview with Dan Izzett“

We are returning to the USA in April to be at the ALM Presidential Retreat & was thinking if there would be anyone from your group that would like to attend this life changing weekend?

If so please let me know.

Peace

Dan n Babs Izzett

As one of American Leprosy Missions’ most valued partners, you are invited to the 2016 President’s Retreat, April 22-24, 2016 at the Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove in Asheville, NC.

This exciting event presents:

• a unique opportunity for spiritual growth,
• a chance for you to build meaningful relationships with people who share your faith, and
• a rare inside look at the exciting future of this world-changing ministry.

Together, we’ll enjoy worship, fellowship, and Bible teaching with special guests Lee Strobel and Stuart & Jill Briscoe. We’ll take a close look at how God is moving through American Leprosy Missions around the world. And discover how we can END leprosy once and for all in this generation.

Donald R. Sunukjian, Invitation To Biblical Preaching: Proclaiming Truth with Clarity and Relevance (Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic & Professional, 2007), 375 pages, ISBN 9780825436666.

This book is about the application of the Biblical text—moving from the Biblical text to where people live today, “the take home truth.” This book is very good on pulpit speech and will benefit every minister. While the writer is more qualified as a communication specialist than a homiletican, I do plan to use his suggestions and thoughts on pulpit speech.

Sunukjian assumes the Biblical text is accurate and tries to make it relevant. He is well read on various methodologies of preaching but has problems including other theories of preaching into his writing. For example, he looks at blocks of thoughts in a narrative but outlines it inductively and deductively, instead of letting the blocks of thoughts form the outline of the sermon without a proposition.

The second section of the book, “Look on what God is saying …to us,” deals with pulpit speech and making the sermon flow. Sunukjian says application is taking the central truth and applying it to the audience, applying the take home truth to all age groups. He suggests that after each major point the sermon should have a transitional rhetorical question. The minister should introduce the sermon by summarizing the text before he preaches the sermon.

I like what Sunukjian says about the conclusion of the sermon: “End positively on a note of encouragement and hope” (251). Such a conclusion gives hope in a hopeless world; real hope rooted in the resurrection of Jesus.

His chapter on oral clarity suggests writing the way you talk, using the active voice rather than the passive and verbs rather than nouns, and using simple and similar words.

Donald R. Sunukjian is Professor of Homiletics, Christian Ministry and Leadership at Talbot School of Theology.

The chapter on “Deliver with freedom” suggests we should emphasize the take home truth of the sermon that speaks to the needs of people. Preach without notes and use a small pulpit or a music stand. He suggests that if you write out your sermon in a manuscript, memorize your main points you will speak more clearly. “And you find that 80-90 percent of the words you wrote easily come to mind as you speak” (302).

Preachers that will benefit the most from this book are those who outline sermons propositionally. I have problems with propositional preaching because it uses a foreign methodology (to the biblical text) as a pre-supposition to interpret the Biblical text. Although Sunukjian seeks to make propositional preaching simpler, the methodology itself is the problem. Any sermon that uses the propositional method as a pre-supposition to interpret the Biblical text forces the text to say and do what things the author of the text never intended. Propositional preaching works against the ethos of the Pentecostalism.