News
ViewPoint - Spring 2013
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The water gently lapping against the wooden keel of the boat matches the soft blue of the sky above as your eyes scan the shoreline. The steep hills that surround you at every turn stand in stark relief against that same blue sky, sweeping your eyes heavenward. The afternoon is fading, although the sunlight dances as it hits the water. There will still be enough day left once the boat returns to its dock, but for a moment you are overcome with the wonder, the beauty, and the sense of the place. It’s so quiet you think you can hear him whisper. You imagine what it must have been like in those days: the nets, the crowds, the fish, the fields ablaze with wildflowers draping the sloping landscape just ahead. Drinking it all in, you know that it is today as it was then. The lake. The hills. The cool breeze that rolls down across the face of the mountains to the west. You are on the Sea of Galilee. It is the stage upon which Jesus walked—and yes, he walked literally across this inland fresh-water sea, eight miles long and seven miles wide.
As the shoreline comes now closer, your mind runs ahead. Next stop: the river Jordan, where the team will have a baptismal service, a few hundred yards from where the river flows out of the Galilee, at one of the two places that tradition suggests that John the Baptist drew crowds and where Jesus himself was baptized.
Come with us. Sail across the Sea of Galilee, stand on the banks of the Jordan, wander the ancient streets of Capernaum, and marvel at the ancient walled city of Jerusalem. Gethsemane. Golgotha. The Mount of Olives. Bethany. Mount Zion. The valley of the brook Kidron. Caesarea Philippi. And, yes, the City of David, Bethlehem. These are more than just place names in Bible stories. They are real places, still living and breathing today.
CBH-ViewPoint will take you there in January 2014, one year from now. Travel with us. Discover with us. In the footsteps of Jesus and where God walked into this world. The Scriptures were born here. The Word became flesh here. It's like no other place on earth.
This will be CBH’s third expedition to Israel and Jordan. This will be a trip like no other in that we will provide more teaching—and more free time for the team to explore, once we have the lay of the land in view. You will celebrate Christmas Eve in Bethlehem on January 6 (observed by Eastern Orthodox Christians who follow the ancient Julian calendar). You will find a fresh new frame with which to understand the Bible as you see how history and experience find their center in Christ. I’m signed up; wouldn’t miss it.
Reservations are now open. Bring a friend. Bring your family. Talk it up at church. Everywhere. Just visit our website, www.cbhviewpoint.org, for all the specs. And in the meantime, stay tuned. CBH-ViewPoint is, fifty-two weeks a year, working to help you see your world from Heaven’s view.
A Dawn of Hope
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CBH continues to be excited about our growing partnership possibilities with the Church of God in Haiti and Mission Haiti Medical to express the healing hope that can only come through Jesus Christ, the one true living God. As we have responded to the invitation of the Haitian church for partnered ministry, we have received ministry space from Mission Haiti Medical for facilities that can equip the Church of God in Haiti to expand it message of hope across the island. Wonderful progress is being made to develop that space, identify key leadership, and explore avenues for sending out a message of hope across Haiti. We are very excited and encouraged.
The possibilities of this integrated approach to ministry became very clear to me on my recent trip to St. Ard, Haiti, and the ministry center there of which CBH is becoming a part.
I sat by as a father held his five-year-old son. His little boy was going into surgery, and the concern was written like a love letter on his face. He sat outside the surgery room, saying nothing, head down, rubbing his palms together, tapping his foot.
The cries of two baby boys echoed through the clinic’s hallways. You could hear them everywhere you went. “Twins? Where? I’ve got to go hold them!”
“They were born right down the hall!”
“How old are they?”
“Thirty-two weeks.”
“That’s eight weeks premature. Do we have oxygen?”
“We need to move them. We don’t have what we need to keep them alive.”
One after another, stories of people seeking hope, people in pain, people hungry, people with few good options. I don't want to sugarcoat things. Haiti is a very difficult place to live and to minister. And while physical healing is very important, Dr. Mark Fulton, founder of Mission Haiti Medical, feels clearly that “the overlying need is a spiritual need, their need for hope, their need for hope in Jesus Christ.” It’s the same need for all people everywhere.
And hope lives in Haiti! It lives in the smiles of the Haitian pastors, willing to help in any way so that people would see that there is hope of a better tomorrow. It lives in the Haitian doctors at the clinic, using their God-given talents to heal hurts. It lives in emerging CBH-Creole pastors who will not only broadcast hope through the airwaves but also pray with patients and their families and provide spiritual support at the clinic, helping ensure that while the body heals, eternity is not lost.
These are days of great opportunity. Pastor Nerva Alladin, of Les Cayes, Haiti, says it this way: “For all of us here, we can say that this is truly a beneficial moment. This is a great opportunity for the Church of God in Haiti to send a message of God to all of the far corners of Haiti.” We at CBH are so excited to be a part of this wonderful effort of hope. Please join us in payer and financial support as we come alongside to partner with the Haitian Christians to do the ministry God has called them to do!
CBH Launches Optimized Website and New CBH App
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I'm at church following along in the Bible app on my iPhone as Jim Lyon reads from God’s Word. I’m at the store shopping for groceries using the Notes app on my phone to find the plethora of items I need for the week. I’m with friends and the conversation turns to movies: “Who was it that played Abraham Lincoln in the movie Lincoln that just released?” I get out my phone and open my IMDB (Internet Movie Database) app and say, “It was Daniel Day-Lewis.” I can even calculate the payments (including interest) on a loan for a home or a car, use my phone as a flashlight, pay bills, find the nearest Starbucks, or keep up with my favorite sports team all because I have the app. Truly there’s an app for that, whatever THAT is.
As the new year dawns here at CBH, we’re looking at the ways we communicate with our listeners, supporters, and partners. One of the questions we have asked is, how accessible are we to the people who want to find us? On the web? On the radio? As we’ve looked at this question, we’ve come up with some solutions that will ultimately help make the message of hope more accessible to more people. There are two primary areas that we have looked at to improve our presence among our friends and listeners, and both involve mobile devices.
We are convinced that radio is by far the best bang for the buck when it comes to spreading the hope of Christ around the world. However, we can’t ignore the reality that mobile devices are quickly changing the way people access radio and other kinds of information, especially in more developed countries. People with mobile devices can already access our website, but because of screen sizes and other related issues, browsing an Internet site on a mobile device can be somewhat clunky if the site is not prepared specifically for mobile devices. In fact, some functionality may not even be available. So with that in mind, we recently optimized our website for mobile devices. This makes it easier to move through our website on a smart phone, tablet, or iPod. We believe that this change will help make it easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for when they visit our site.
We also realized that as the world of communications continues its rapid expansion, we need to be poised to move with this growth. As we begin the new year, we are launching our first Christians Broadcasting Hope app for mobile devices. This new app will place much of the information from our website, and more, at your fingertips. Just download the app and you’re off and running. Do you want to listen to the newest radio program from ViewPoint or our Spanish broadcast La Hermandad Cristiana? Just open the app and start listening. What’s new with CBH? Again, just open the app and read our news articles. Want to make a donation to CBH? You can do it right from the app. This new app will be in place while we develop a fully customized version over the course of the next year. We’re striving to make it easy for you to access CBH in the way that’s most convenient for you, and we’re positioning ourselves to maximize our reach around the globe.
Weare very excited about these new additions to our CBH offerings. Our broadcasts are more accessible than ever before, and we hope you’ll get on board by downloading our new app. Simply go to our homepage and click on the App button, or use your QR Code Reader on your mobile device to scan the code on this page. Once the app opens, you’ll need to select the button at the bottom that says open in Safari (or another web browser if using a non-Apple device). When the web page is open, follow the prompts to save the app to your phone. You’ll be more connected to CBH than ever. Hey, anyone know where CBH is traveling this year? There’s an app for that. Get it today!
Viewpoint
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First Corinthians 13:13 reminds us, that in the end "these three remain: faith, hope and love" (niv).
First Thessalonians 1:3 explains how each of these three virtues is brought to life in this world: "We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ" (niv).
Faith produces good work, evidenced in our conduct. Faith that does not prove itself true with works is, as James tells us, "no faith at all." "What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don't show it by your actions? ...faith by itself isn't enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless" ( James 2:14, 17 nlt).
Love inspires labor—not just work (as we understand the modern sense of the word labor), but an intense, sometimes tough, tenacious commitment to act on behalf of others, denying ourselves. The original Greek word used here is tied to the idea of beating the breast in anguish rising from deep affection and sacrifice. That's what love does: it gives birth to action and commitment that can cost us deeply. That's true love—not the transient, cavalier, here-today-maybe-gone-tomorrow kind of emotion so commonplace today.
And hope. It brings endurance, steadfastness. In a world of hurt, in a world of tall mountains to climb and dark valleys to navigate, it is hope that sees us through. Hope is the confident expectation of something that isn't yet. It is framed by certainty and trust. Hope is the currency of life, the light ahead, the reason to keep going.
We are Christians and we broadcast hope. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, in nine languages, worldwide. Christians Broadcasting Hope. That’s who we are.
Does it matter? Does it make a difference? Absolutely. From the guy who wrote recently from a prison in Oregon to say that he finds hope every week listening to CBH ViewPoint ("It's different than other things I hear. There is a different spirit on your radio show that is changing me."), to the mom who reached out to us to ask if there was hope for her son in prison (no relationship between them), to the idol-worshiping villagers in India responding to the hope of our broadcast in the Odia language, to the orphaned children in Ukraine cared for by new believers whose church has been formed by gathering around a radio to listen to our Russian program, to the forty-something Texan who found hope by listening to our Spanish broadcast, the hope we beam into this broken world is the stuff of Heaven. The stories are legion.
If ever there was a day in which the world needed to have hope, this is it. If ever we had a chance to experience and share faith, hope, and love, this is it. A new year will shortly dawn. If ever there was a chance to say thank you to our friends and supporters, now is the time.
Thank you for praying for the ministry of CBH, for supporting this global enterprise, for tuning in each week. Thank you for your faithful work, labor of love, and enduring hope. We couldn't do it without you. And there's so much more good to be done. You are making a difference in more places, changing more lives, bringing more hope than you can imagine.
The world needs Christians who will broadcast hope. We do. You do too, with every prayer, with every dollar, with every encouraging word you in- vest in this ministry. Thanks for being our partners.
May the Lord’s blessing and peace be yours this Christmastime and throughout the new year to come. Stay tuned.
Give Hope This Christmas
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It has been an exciting year here at CBH. Many wonderful things are happening, but none is more encouraging that our focused efforts to continue to move our broadcasts from shortwave to AM and FM radio stations. We made this change with one of our broadcasts in India and with our CBH Swahili broadcast in East Africa, located at the Kima International School of Theology (KIST). The results have been wonderful! CBH Swahili Producer, Obed Okech, says it this way:
"The first Sunday was a remarkable and unforgettable day that touched our lives. The very first program from CBH studio went on air at West FM station and aroused many call-ins and texts requesting healing, salvation, prayer of reconciliation between family members, ways of getting the teaching and preaching booklets, ways to know more about KIST and CBH Studio, and prayer requests for families and marriages...
"God has remained immutable, even in small undertakings that a person can simply not ignore. Moving to a local FM local station is rejuvenating what people in western Kenya had forgotten. The programs have given KIST and the ministries here a new image. It attracts many calls to know what the station actually stands for. This has brought new life at KIST and the entire Kenyan Church of God. We stand with Christ and his saving work of which we are part. Thank you for all endeavors that you put in place to see that the programs are running."
God has blessed CBH with terrific teams around the world that carry messages of Hope every week to a seeking world. You can, through a special gift this Christmas, be a part of that Hope-giving work that happens every week through our CBH broadcasts. Please consider a financial gift this year to help us continue to be a voice of Hope. The opportunities are endless! Will you help us and give a gift of Hope to the world?
May you have a blessed and Hope-filled holiday season!
