Title: Sent to Bear Witness
Scripture: Acts 23-26
Speaker: Bill Gorman; BillG@ChristCommunityKC.org

“A Christian’s faith, however, isn’t in the ethical teaching of the Bible… Rather, the Christian places his faith, her hope of renewal, his confidence in forgiveness, in the actions of someone else—in Jesus Christ. If he didn’t live as he lived, die as he died, and rise as he promised, then we Christians are spending our lives chasing a fairy tale. Childish! Stupid! Pitiable!”
—Kathy Keller, “Our Faith Is Historically Verifiable—Or It's Nothing”

“The more heartbroken she sounded, the more triumphant she became. And when she leaned back churchward, as she did on the nuclear coda to 1968’s “People Get Ready,” she was the only pop singer who could make you not only believe in god, but see god.” —Rob Harvilla, “Aretha Franklin, a Pop Star Who Could Make You See God”

“Technically, Amazing Grace is art at its highest form, the work of a bona fide musical genius at her peak. And for me, somehow, that’s not even its most impressive (or important) attribute. For as long as I can remember hearing these songs—the album, a lifelong soundtrack to growing up around the black Baptist church—there’s been a moment, on each song, that Aretha does something that makes me believe in God.
More than any sermon, any text, or any life moment, it’s Aretha that keeps me a believer, in something. On Amazing Grace, the belief that Aretha exudes about her God is all the convincing I need that she’s right. And it’s not any specific word or phrase she says; it’s that she feels so much—it makes you want to go through it with her, and feel that, too.” —Rembert Browne, “A Friend in Aretha: The Spiritual Power of the Queen of Soul’s ‘Amazing Grace’”