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Beloved Anglican pastor killed in crash with daughter mourned across denominations

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The Rev. Thomas McKenzie, a beloved Anglican pastor who founded the Church of the Redeemer in Nashville, Tennessee, is being mourned by Christians across denominational lines after he was killed with his daughter Charlie in a tragic rear-end crash with a tractor-trailer Monday morning.

Tennessee Highway Patrol confirmed that the crash happened around 9:50 a.m. Monday, according to WKRN. The wreck occurred just 30 minutes after the 50-year-old pastor announced on social media that he was on his way to New Mexico with his 22-year-old daughter, who was about to begin her senior year at St. John’s College.

“First day of sabbatical. Driving with my kid to New Mexico. Charlie’s senior year at St John’s College, Santa Fe campus. Today’s goal? Shamrock, Texas,” he noted on Facebook.

Authorities say the crash happened on I-40 westbound at mile marker 178. The tractor-trailer driver was reportedly slowing down due to traffic when the pastor’s Nissan Versa rear-ended the tractor-trailer while changing lanes. The driver of the tractor-trailer was not injured.

Rev. McKenzie, who leaves behind his wife and another daughter Sophie McKenzie, revealed on Twitter Sunday Morning how excited he was for his road trip but opined about how much he would miss his church family.

“Today is my last day of work before my sabbatical begins,” he tweeted. “I’m excited about my upcoming travels, but I know I’ll miss my community. I feel sadness and some anxiety as I prepare for this morning’s Eucharists.”

In an email statement to congregants following the founding pastor’s death, Church of the Redeemer Associate Pastor Kenny Benge said the congregation’s sadness was “deep.”

“Thomas was just beginning his well-deserved sabbatical. Thomas’ wife Laura and their daughter Sophie are now home in Nashville,” Benge wrote. “Please keep Laura and Sophie in your prayers as they navigate this agonizing time. I and the staff, as well as the broader leadership of the church, are shocked and deeply saddened, as I’m sure you are as well in hearing this news.”

Russell Moore, the former leader of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission who is now a public theologian with Christianity Today, was a good friend of the late pastor. Moore publicly mourned McKenzie on Twitter as a “great and faithful and kind man.”

“All of us who loved this great and faithful and kind man are grieving. @thomasmckenzie ministered to countless of us of various denominations, and we all respected him,” Moore wrote in one tweet. “Pray for his family and church at this moment of great sadness.”

On Tuesday morning, Moore elaborated on his experience with McKenzie in a series of tweets.

“Several years ago, my friend Randall Goodgame asked @russramsey1 @thomasmckenzie and me to do an episode of @slugsandbugsofficial on ‘An Anglican, a Baptist, and a Presbyterian Walk into a Monkey Bar.’ We sat in kids’ chairs, at a kids’ table, literally coloring with crayons and playing with Play-Doh, while talking about Jesus’ call to childlikeness. We were goofing off, making jokes. But it also happened to be the worst day of my life until that point. I drove there from a horrific meeting and was in great pain,” Moore revealed.

“What I remember about that day is the way father Thomas, @russramsey and @randallgoodgame stood around, laying hands on me and praying for me. And then Thomas told a dry joke that made me laugh. When this Baptist was facing some awful stuff from (some of) my own people, the Anglican and the Presbyterian were brothers to me.”

Moore said the “childlikeness” he experienced that day “had nothing to do with the crayons or the swing set.”

“I’ve thought about that day a lot over [the] last 24 hrs,” Moore stressed. “I keep remembering his gravity and his care. He’s the only man I ever looked up to for his maturity and grace while shooting water pistols at each other. He took time in that moment [to] help me w the strength to go on. I can only imagine the ministry for those in his parish. No wonder there is such grief all around the country by Anglicans, Baptists, Presbyterians, and beyond.”

Congregant Susan Williams confirmed Moore’s assessment of McKenzie’s ministry in a post on Facebook in which she revealed the death of her pastor broke her heart “into a million, zillion pieces.”

“Father Thomas gave me hope, that godly men would rise up, and call corruption what it was, and point us all back to the salvation available through our magnificent, compassionate, gracious God. He called sin, sin, but caused me to wonder at the immeasurable grace of God that reaches out to us in our weakness, enveloping us in forgiveness and mercy,” Williams wrote.

“I pray I will never forget the lesson he taught last Sunday, on the humility that holds the person who aspires to be useful in the Kingdom together. May humility always characterize me, and compassion, and gratefulness for the grace, and mercy, and love of my blessed Redeemer, who paid the highest price to buy my soul back out of slavery to sin.”

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ENANCHORED ഒരുക്കുന്ന യുവജന മീറ്റിംഗ് UKയിൽ

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ENANCHORED ൻ്റെ ആഭിമുഖ്യത്തിൽ യുകെ Seaham Sunderland യൂത്ത് സെൻ്ററിൽ വെച്ച് യുവജന മീറ്റിംഗ് ഒക്ടോബർ 26 ന് രാവിലെ 9:30 മുതൽ വൈകിട്ട് 4 മണി വരെ നടത്തപ്പെടും. ജെയ്സൺ ജെയിംസ്, ജിബിൻ എബ്രഹാം, ശാലോം ജേക്കബ് എന്നിവർ ശുശ്രൂഷിക്കും. 13 വയസ്സ് മുതൽ 30 വയസു_വരെയുള്ള യൗവനക്കാർക്ക് വേണ്ടിയുള്ള പ്രോഗ്രാം ആണ് നടക്കുന്നത്. മ്യൂസിക്, ഗെയിംസ്, ഡിസ്കഷൻസ്, ബൈബിൾ സ്റ്റഡി, ചോദ്യോത്തര പരിപാടി, ലൗ ഫീസ്റ്റ് എന്നിവയാണ് യൗവനക്കാർക്ക് വേണ്ടി ഒരുക്കിയിരിക്കുന്നത്. ബ്രദർ , എൽവിൻ ഡാനിയേൽ ഈ പ്രോഗ്രാമിന് നേതൃത്വം കൊടുക്കുന്നു.
Sources:gospelmirror

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22 മത് മലയാളി പെന്തക്കോസ്റ്റൽ അസോസിയേഷൻ നാഷണൽ കോൺഫറൻസ് 2025 ഇംഗ്ലണ്ടിലെ ബ്രിസ്റ്റോൾ പട്ടണത്തിൽ.

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യൂറോപ്പിലെ മലയാളി പെന്തകോസ്ത് സമൂഹത്തിന്റെ ഏറ്റവും വലിയ ആത്‌മീയ സംഗമമായ 22 മത്‌ എം പി എ യു കെ യുടെ നാഷണൽ കോൺഫ്രൻസ് ഇംഗ്ലണ്ടിലെ ബ്രിസ്റ്റോൾ പട്ടണത്തിൽ വെlച്ച് 2025 ഏപ്രിൽ 18, 19, 20 തീയതികളിൽ നടത്തപ്പെടുന്നു. മലയാളി പെന്തകോസ്റ്റൽ അസോസിയേഷൻ പ്രസിഡന്റ് റവ ബിനോയ് എബ്രഹാം ഉദ്ഘാടനം ചെയ്യുന്ന കോൺഫ്രൻസിൽ ദൈവവചന ശുശ്രുഷക്കായി പാസ്റ്റർ ബി മോനച്ചൻ മുഖ്യ പ്രസംഗികനായിരിക്കും. എം പി എ ക്വയർ ആരാധനകൾക്ക് നേതൃത്വം നൽകുന്നു. യുവജനങ്ങൾക്കും സഹോദരിമാർക്കും പ്രത്യേക സെക്ഷനും നടത്തപ്പെടും. ഞായറാഴ്ച പൊതു ആരാധനയോടെ അവസാനിക്കും
ഇത്തവണത്തെ കോൺഫ്രൻസിൽ യുവ തലമുറയുടെ കൂടുതൽ പങ്കാളിത്തത്തോടെ കൂടുതൽ മികവാർന്ന നിലയിൽ നടത്തുന്നതിനുള്ള ക്രമീകരണങ്ങൾ നടന്നു വരുന്നു. കോൺഫറൻസിന്റെ വിജയത്തിനായി ജനറൽ കമ്മറ്റിയിൽ പാസ്റ്റർ സാംകുട്ടി പാപ്പച്ചൻ (വൈസ് പ്രസിഡന്റ്), പാസ്റ്റർ ഡിഗോൾ ലൂയിസ് (സെക്രട്ടറി), പാസ്റ്റർ പി സി സേവ്യർ (ജോ: സെക്രട്ടറി), പാസ്റ്റർ ജിനു മാത്യു (ട്രഷറർ) എന്നിവർ പ്രവർത്തനങ്ങൾ വിലയിരുത്തി. കൂടുതൽ ക്രമീകരണങ്ങൾ പിന്നീട് അറിയിക്കുന്നതായിരിക്കും.
Sources:Middleeast Christian Youth Ministries

http://theendtimeradio.com

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How former atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali found peace in Christ

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When you hear the term New Atheism, you may think of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. But you are probably less familiar with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who stood right by their side in strongly denouncing Christianity. This influential scholar and intellectual was essentially the fifth most prominent new atheist behind Hitchens, Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett.

Hirsi Ali was raised as a Muslim in Somalia. But she eventually began to oppose forced marriage, honor killing, child marriage, and female genital mutilation. Ayaan renounced her Islamic faith and became an atheist. She moved to the Netherlands at the age of 23 and rose to become a top-ranking politician.

Hirsi Ali’s books, Infidel: My Life (2007) and Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now (2015) became bestsellers. But rejecting Islam and embracing atheism still left her soul feeling empty, in spite of the fact that “Hirsi Ali was a central figure in New Atheism since its beginnings.”

Last year, Hirsi Ali announced that she had become a Christian, which of course shocked her atheist friends. But it wasn’t intellectual arguments that ultimately convinced Hirsi Ali to embrace Christianity. It was what happened when she humbled herself before the God of the universe. Hirsi Ali prayed fervently and cried out to the Lord for help.

In a friendly discussion & debate with Richard Dawkins a few months ago, Ayaan explained her journey: “I had a personal crisis … I lived for about a decade with intense depression and anxiety, self-loathing. I hit rock bottom. I went to a place where I actually didn’t want to live anymore, but I wasn’t brave enough to take my own life. I was self-medicating. Over a long period of time, I saw psychiatrists and other doctors. I was trying to understand my condition and I was trying to treat it with the help of pure evidence-based science.”

Hirsi Ali continued, “I saw one therapist who said, ‘Perhaps you have something else.’ She described it as ‘spiritual bankruptcy,’ and that resonated with me. And having reached a place where I had absolutely nothing to lose, I prayed, and I prayed desperately. And for me, that was a turning point. And what happened after that is a miracle in its own right.”

Hirsi Ali learned the painful lesson that Islam provides no inner peace, but only brutality and fear, especially for women and young girls. Likewise, she discovered firsthand that atheism also leaves your soul feeling empty. Ayaan was terribly unfulfilled, in spite of her close friendships with Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris and Dennett. Atheism simply did not satisfy the deep longings within her, and even brought her to the brink of suicide.

Dawkins finds it next to impossible to see where Hirsi Ali is coming from today. She has tried to help him understand that there are “different planes of perception.” She compares it to her inability to perceive the significance of Jackson Pollock’s abstract impressionist art. Where one person perceives brilliance, another is left perplexed as to its beauty.

Hirsi Ali said, “When I was an atheist, I was going all over the United States and Europe, mocking Christians, making fun of them, making fun of faith, as you’re doing now dear Richard. I was walking with six to seven men at any given time, protecting me, armed, from things that I said that were offensive to Muslims. Christians were writing me letters saying, ‘We’re going to pray for you. You are misguided.’ And I think that alone defines for me the distinction between mainstream Christianity and mainstream Islam.”

Hirsi Ali is learning that not only does Christ bring peace to your soul when you accept Him as Savior, but Jesus actually turns His followers into peace-loving people who pray for their enemies, rather than taking up arms against them.

Dawkins asked Hirsi Ali, “You don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead, surely?” She said, “I choose to believe that Jesus rose from the dead.” Every follower of Christ believes in the Lord’s death on the cross for our sins, as well as His resurrection from the dead. Hirsi Ali then said, “It has to go back to, ‘Is there something or is there nothing?'” Dawkins obviously believes there is nothing, which is precisely what his ideology provides for those who choose atheism. Hirsi Ali admitted, “For years I agreed with you that there is nothing.”

Dawkins chose to blurt out this sarcastic and blasphemous comment about Christianity: “The idea that God couldn’t think of a better way to forgive the sins of humanity than to have His Son crucified. That is a disgusting idea.”

How can Dawkins remain so blind to the truth? He is hardening his heart and deliberating sinning against the Holy Spirit by continually rejecting God’s plan of salvation. Sadly, Dawkins may have already reached his personal point of no return. Many wondered the same thing about Hitchens, which I addressed in a CP op-ed earlier this year: “Christopher Hitchens Now Realizes God is Great.”

How are we to understand these different planes of perception? The Apostle Paul explained it this way: “The man without the (Holy) Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them” (1 Corinthians 2:14). “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).

Richard Dawkins remains on a much lower plane of perception than Hirsi Ali. The only way to gain what I refer to as “sanctified reason” is to do what Hirsi Ali did when she humbled herself before Almighty God in prayer. It requires humility to “repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15). When Dawkins referred to Christ’s crucifixion as a “disgusting idea,” Hirsi Ali gently responded, “God gave us free will.”

By the grace of God, Hirsi Ali was “rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of the Son, He (the Father) loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14). And there is no greater peace than having a relationship with your Creator and knowing that your sins are forgiven and washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ who “died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3:18).
Sources:Christian Post

http://theendtimeradio.com

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