Skip to content

Jesus

Making Room: Delight (Matt. 2:1-12) Chris Altrock – December 25, 2016

Making Room Series for Blog

Is life with a baby or young child something that is wonderful and full of joy? Or is it something that is challenging and full of frustration? It probably depends on who you talk to or what day you talk to them. Different people have different perspectives on what life is like with little people.

Rachel D’Apice is a comic who uses humor to talk about life with youngsters. She says you might think that taking a walk with a toddler would be a marvelous to do. In truth, it can be a maddening thing to do. D’Apice uses an imaginative play on Google Maps to illustrate. Google Maps will give you directions from one place to another. Imagine a Google Maps that described the way young children get to a park.[1]:Read More »Making Room: Delight (Matt. 2:1-12) Chris Altrock – December 25, 2016

Making Room: Majoring in the Margins (Matt. 2:13-23) Chris Altrock – December 18, 2016

Making Room Series for Blog

An online journal called “The Richest” posted an article on the most expensive places to give birth.[1]

  1. There is a clinic in Switzerland that costs $2,140 per night.[2] It is the most popular private clinic in Switzerland. Among the many services they offer, they take pride in a chef with a Michelin star offering 24-hour room service to your private room.
  2. The Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles costs $4,000 per day.[3] Offering deluxe maternity suites, you get a three-room suite with two bathrooms, fresh fruit, muffins, and chilled juices. In addition, they offer bedside salon services, like hairstyling, manicures, and pedicures.
  3. And the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York charges $4,000 per day.[4] The luxury suites offer views of Central Park and Manhattan. They include blankets made from Muslin cotton and massage therapy. They have bathrooms with Italian glass tiles and include tea and cookies served in the afternoons.

These are some of the most expensive places to give birth.

But Matthew goes to great lengths to reveal how Jesus chose to be born in radically different circumstances:Read More »Making Room: Majoring in the Margins (Matt. 2:13-23) Chris Altrock – December 18, 2016

Making Room: Present (Matt. 1:18-25) Chris Altrock – December 4, 2016

Making Room Series for Blog

In the 1850’s thousands of homeless children lived on the streets of New York City.[1] Many sold matches, rags, or newspapers to survive. For protection against street violence, they banded together and formed gangs. There were almost no social services for these homeless children.

A young minister, Charles Brace, took up their cause. He founded the Children’s Aid Society. Brace worked to get the homeless children out of the city and into the country. He used trains to do this. His desire was to get farmers and others in the midwest to adopt the children–to give them homes and a more healthy way of life.

More than 100,000 children were sent, via “orphan trains,” from New York City to homes in rural midwest America.[2] The children often boarded the train having no idea where they were headed or if they would even be adopted. They were leaving the only place they knew for places and people they’d never seen before.

Read More »Making Room: Present (Matt. 1:18-25) Chris Altrock – December 4, 2016

Crux: Lifting Jesus (Jn. 12:32-33) Chris Altrock – March 20, 2016

20160320 01- Crux Center Screen Still

Multiple Choice

Several weeks ago, my son Jacob and a fellow student Jessica, both of whom are eighth graders, participated in a history competition at the University of Memphis. Students from the Mid South were competing in three categories:

  1. Some were presenting papers on historical topics.
  2. Others constructed websites that featured historical figures.
  3. Jacob and Jessica competed in a category where students performed moments from history.

Specifically, Jacob and Jessica used puppets to tell the history of tobacco in America. As part of their timeline they performed a moment when Christopher Columbus arrived in America. They included this in their skit  because Columbus learned of tobacco from native Americans.

In their puppet show they spent a few seconds showing Christopher Columbus and party trying to convert the native Americans to Christianity. Jacob and Jessica were followed by a team of five girls who performed a play. Ironically, in their performance these five girls also showed Christopher Columbus and party trying to convert native Americans to Christianity. What made their skit particularly  interesting was that each of the five students wore a hijab, a scarf used by Muslim women to cover the head and the neck.  All of these students were from Muslim families. And here they were acting out Christopher Columbus and party trying to convert people to Christianity. Perhaps eighty years ago, Memphis, TN would have never seen such a thing. You might have assumed that all the junior high and high school  students  at a history competition would have been Christian. But here were five Muslim girls playing Christians trying to convert non-Christians to Christianity.Read More »Crux: Lifting Jesus (Jn. 12:32-33) Chris Altrock – March 20, 2016