Today we did a mini recap of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games and shared some tidbits about the sport of curling, since it’s apparently “Curling is Cool Day.”
Norway continues to dominate the Winter Games – this year, the Norwegians took 37 total medals, including 16 golds. Coming into 2022, they had the most medals, with 368 (now 405). The USA was 5th in medals this year, with 25 (8 gold, 10 silver, and 7 bronze).
Now to curling…
A Scottish game developed in the 1500’s that the Canadians seem to be exceedingly good at- if Winter Olympic Games are anything to go by- curling involves launching a stone on ice and sweeping the ice in its path as it attempts to land on a target and dislodge your competitors’ rocks. But wait, there’s more…
The sweepers wear special shoes, one that slides and one that doesn’t, and the stone is more like a 40 pound granite bomb that looks like a macaroon. The brooms are slightly more evolved now than the ordinary sweepers they used back in the 1900s. In fact, they’re hardly reminiscent of a kitchen broom at all. The floors are sheets of ice with vinyl markings underneath, for the target, rather than the frozen lake surfaces that were used back in the day. The concept, though, is very much the same. You launch, you sweep, and you score.
– I was born February 23, 1923 in Hudson, Ohio – My father was a blacksmith who made horseshoes – I played football, basketball and baseball in high school – I originally committed to play at Notre Dame, but then ended up at Ohio State – I was drafted into the US Army in 1942 and was part of the D-Day invasion on Omaha Beach – I ended up with the Cleveland Browns after the War and led the league in receiving as a rookie – I was part of 7 championship teams in my 10 years – I was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1975
I am Dante Lavelli. Congratulations to Bonnie from Mount Vernon, a long-time Browns fan! She wins the WNZR drawstring backpack and the devotional book, ‘A Word from the Weaver.’
Both Unspoken and FOR KING + COUNTRY are in the news this week for Artist Newsday for their new songs centered around God’s love. Check them out on any digital platform!
FOR KING + COUNTRY are in the news again with another new single leading up to the release of their new album that is due March 11th. Out today with an accompanying music video, “Love Me Like I Am” is available on all digital platforms.
Written by Joel and Luke Smallbone, the song features confessional lyrics that address personal insecurities and shortcomings, paired with raw vulnerability in the presence of a grace that gives without condition.
Here is what Joel Smallbone had to say about the release. “I was sleeping and the phrase ‘Love me Like I Am’ captured me. The following day, we went into a writing session and our producer Josh Kerr added…It’s amazing that you can, Love me like I am. It’s a beautiful story to us – the fact that God can love humanity the way He does, and we can love each other the way we do with unconditional love.”
In conjunction with their upcoming album release, the duo’s What Are We Waiting For TOUR will also launch this spring. For information on where FOR KING + COUNTRY will be headed this spring, visit www.forkingandcountry.com.
Unspoken recently released their first single of the year titled “Love Is Everything We Need” to radio as well as digital retail and streaming outlets everywhere. This is the band’s lead song for their upcoming album that is slated to release in July. This is the band’s first full length album in three years!
Here is what lead vocalist Chad Mattson had to say about the release. “These last couple years, we, as believers, have had to have some really strong conversations because in our culture, we find it hard to disagree on certain things, and still love and be kind to each other,” He said. “There is this polarization of beliefs, yet Jesus reveals to us in John chapter 13 that it’s love that identifies us with being his kids.
“We can disagree, but we can all agree on the fact that we need to love and respect each other, even when we are at different places in our lives politically, socially, even religiously,” continues Mattson. “‘Love Is Everything We Need’ is a song of encouragement for believers, to find ways to love each other even when we don’t see eye to eye on everything. Our love is one of the biggest testimonies we have.”
Thanks to Jesus Freak Hideout for their excellent coverage of WNZR’s favorite Christian artists!
Spring Break is underway for us here at MVNU, but we still want to give you some motivation for those preparing for another typical week.
I shared two special devotionals tied to togetherness.
First, Xochitl Dixon’s devotional “We Are One” shared an inspirational story from a small farming community.
Despite the negativity that can come with natural disasters, Winn Collier’s “The Joy of Good News” shared how Alaskans came together to spread joy through the chaos.
Praise the Lord it’s Friday! Here’s this week’s countdown:
10. MercyMe f/Sam Wesley – On Our Way 9. Jordan St. Cyr – Weary Traveler 8. Danny Gokey – Stand in Faith 7. Maverick City Music – Promises 6. Phil Wickham – House of the Lord 5. Sanctus Real -My God is Still the Same 4. Crowder – In The House – Promised Land 3. TobyMac – Promised Land 2. for King & Country – Relate (4 weeks at #1) 1. We Are Messengers – Come What May (1st week at #1)
STUMPER! – I was born February 1, 1966 in Santa Clara, California – I grew up near Seattle and was a three-time high school All-American in soccer – I attended the University of Central Florida and won the Hermann Trophy in 1988 – I scored the first goal in the history of the US women’s national soccer team in 1985 – I scored 10 goals in the 1991 women’s World Cup and was awarded the Golden Shoe – I also played for the US in the 1996 Olympics and the 1999 World Cup – I retired in 2000, and currently serve as an assistant coach with the Orlando Pride
Congratulations to Dave from Butler, who guessed correctly and wins a WNZR drawstring backpack and a Phil Wickham CD.
This week, we highlighted some new albums from two artists that are either already here or on the way!
Jordan St. Cyr has been a busy man to start the year. He is set to release his first full length album on March 4th. He is also celebrating his single “Weary Traveler” which is currently No. 1 on radio’s AC Indicator Chart for the second week in a row! Jordan St. Cyr began the year being named the No. 2 Top New Christian Artist of 2021, according to Billboard. His hit “Weary Traveler” continues to be added on radio stations across the country. It is also in the top ten on the Christian Airplay and AC Monitored charts.
Here is what he had to say on the release of his upcoming album. “My prayer for this album is that these songs would bring comfort and joy to those who hear them. It is also my prayer that listeners would be more hopeful and open to the depths of God’s love for them knowing that their circumstances are not a reflection of how God feels about them, rather that their circumstances would reveal the closeness and nearness of the Holy Spirit.”
He recently wrapped up his tour with Anne Wilson and is now gearing up for Jeremy Camp’s “I Still Believe Tour,” which kicks off next month.
Maverick City Music continue to release brand new music with their first album of 2022! The EP entitled “Breathe” was released to celebrate Black History Month and features Joe L Barnes, Maryanne George, Naomi Raine, Chandler Moore and Dante Bowe backed by the Mav City Gospel Choir. The EP features live and studio versions of standout songs lifted from 2021’s Jubilee: Juneteenth album, including “Breathe,” “Joy of the Lord,” and “Make it Right,” plus three all-new original recordings. The Breathe EP serves as a reminder to all who listen to take a moment to breathe and celebrate life and the legacy of black gospel music.
Also, don’t forget that Steven Curtis Chapman will be in Mansfield this March! The Christian musician will bring his tour to Crossroads Church Thursday, March 24th starting at 7:00pm thanks to Rise FM.
I’ve been thinking ’bout time And where does it go How can I stop my life from passing me by, I don’t know
Congratulations to Kaleb of Fredericktown for correctly guessing that today’s song was Keep Me In the Moment by Jeremy Camp! Kaleb wins a Voice of the Cougars drawstring backpack!
Dylan shared today’s Our Daily Bread devotional, ‘The Power of Love.’ Click here to read it.
Our second devotional comes from what Joe shared at the 2020 Valentine’s Banquet:
Late last year (2019), I had the chance to read a fantastic book called Hidden Christmas by Pastor Timothy Keller.
Chapter 2 of this book dives in to the importance of the genealogy of Jesus. Keller spends some time focused on the fact that Matthew doesn’t start his Gospel with “once upon a time.” As he writes, “that is the way of fairy tales or legendary fantasy stories.” He starts with what? The genealogy of Jesus. Keller writes that this is critical because Matthew is grounding who Jesus Christ is…and what he does…in history, with a genealogy. In Matthew 1 we learn that Jesus is not a metaphor. He is real. This all happened.
Just before Peter Jackson released the first of his Lord of the Rings trilogy of movies in 2001, there were a number of articles by literary critics and other cultural elites lamenting the popular appeal of fantasies, myths, and legends. They were saying that so many of them promoted regressive views. In other words, modern people are supposed to be more realistic. We should realize that things are not black and white but grey, and happy endings are cruel because life is not like that.
One critic in the New Yorker magazine even wrote that to give into stories like Lord of the Rings “betrays a reluctance to face the finer shades of life that verges on the cowardly.”
So why does Hollywood keep recycling fairy tales, fantasy and super heroes? You might answer, well, it’s because people hunger for them. Okay then, again, why? I mean, the great fairy tales and legendary stories like “Beauty and the Beast,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Excalibur”…none of those things really happened and they’re not factually true.
But…they seem to fulfill a set of longings in the human heart.
I would also add that some of the more realistic fiction and love stories that we watch in these days also reflect those longings in the human heart. Keller writes that deep in the human heart there are these realistic desires to experience the supernatural, go on great adventures, to escape death, to know love that we can never lose, to not age but live long enough to realize our creative dreams and maybe even to fly, and communicate with non-human beings and obviously, triumph over evil.
If the stories are well told, we find them incredibly moving and satisfying. Why is that? Keller argues it’s because even though we know that factually those stories didn’t happen, our hearts long for those things; and quite honestly, they scratch that itch.
Beauty and the Beast tells us that there’s a love that can break out of the beastliness that we have created for ourselves. Sleeping Beauty tells us we are in a kind of sleeping enchantment in there is a noble prince who can come and destroy it. We hear the stories, we see the stories, and they stir us because deep inside our hearts we believe or want to believe, that these things are true. Death should not be the end. We should not lose our loved ones. Evil should not triumph. Our heart senses that even though the stories themselves aren’t true, the underlying reality behind the stories somehow ought to be. But our minds say no and the critics say no…when you give yourself to fairy tales and you really believe in moral absolutes and the supernatural and the idea that we could live forever that’s not reality, and it’s cowardly to give yourself to it.
But then we come to the Christmas story. And at first glance The book of Matthew looks like the other legends. A story about someone from a different world who breaks into our world and has miraculous powers and can calm the storm and heal people and raise people from the dead. Then his enemies turn on him and he is put to death and it seems like all hope is over but finally he rises from the dead and saves everyone! We read that and we think: another great fairy tale. It looks like the Christmas story is just one more of those stories…
But Matthew does not start his Gospel with “Once upon a Time.” He says this is no fairytale. Jesus Christ is NOT just one more lovely story pointing to these underlying realities. Jesus IS the underlying reality to which all the stories point. Jesus has come from that eternal supernatural world that we sense is there; that our hearts know is there; even though our heads may say no. Keller writes, “at Christmas, Jesus punched a hole between the ideal and the real; the eternal and the temporal; and came into our world. That means if Matthew was right, there IS an evil sorcerer in this world and we ARE under enchantment; there IS a noble prince who has broken the enchantment, and there IS love from which we can never be parted and we WILL indeed fly someday and will defeat death; and in this world even as Psalms says, “the trees will dance and sing.”
1st John 4: 9-11puts it this way: “this is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
So Keller writes, even though we know that these fairy tales aren’t factually true, the truth of Jesus means all the stories we love are not escapism at all. In a sense, they will come true in Him.
The gospel means all the best stories will be proved in the ultimate sense, true!
During an indoor game of hide and seek, name a specific place where kids hide: 1- closet (63 votes) 2- under a bed (17) 3- behind a couch (9) 4- under a table (4)
Congratulations to Ron from Mount Vernon, who guessed correctly and wins a WNZR drawstring backpack!
Praise the Lord it’s Friday! Here’s this week’s countdown:
10. Jordan St. Cyr – Weary Traveler 9. MercyMe f/Sam Wesley – On Our Way 8. Danny Gokey – Stand in Faith 7. Maverick City Music – Promises 6. Sanctus Real -My God is Still the Same 5. Crowder – In The House – Promised Land 4. Phil Wickham – House of the Lord 3. TobyMac – Promised Land 2. We Are Messengers – Come What May 1. for King & Country – Relate (4th week at #1)
Driving Notes 