The author of the famous hymn “Standing on the Promises” has several names: Dr. Russell Kelso Carter, Colonel Kelso Carter, Reverend R.K Carter. Raised Presbyterian, he became influenced by a Methodist revival meeting and moved to California from Baltimore where he subsequently divorced his wife and began preaching. He became embroiled with one of the first cases of mail fraud …
In one of the more fun facts I’ve been tracking is this one that supposedly took place on August 22, 556. Supposedly the iconic St. Columba, who was the primary Christian missionary to Scotland, on this day confronted the Loch Ness monster. And supposedly, according to his biographer, “At the voice of the saint, the monster was terrified and fled …
Hymn writers take all shapes and forms. They aren’t all Fanny Crosby, Isaac Watts or Charles Wesley. Some of them are like Civilla Durfee Martin, a school teacher from Nova Scotia who wrote three pretty famous hymns: “God Will Take Care of You”, “The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power”, and “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” She was born …
Today the county of Denmark is about 85% Lutheran but if it weren’t for King Frederik I’s decision at the Diet of Odense on August 20, 1527, it may have been a different story. When Frederik was first coronated he pledged his support for the Roman Catholic Church and vowed to keep the Protestant Lutherans out of Denmark but pulled …
The Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee, (which is the official name of the Church of God) first began as the Christian Union on August 19, 1886, by former Baptist minister Richard Sperling. By 1923, when the name change occurred, the Pentecostal denomination had hundreds of thousands of members. The Church of God is still headquartered in Cleveland, Tennessee.
One of the most impactful books written on living the Christian life is “Pilgrim’s Progress”. Penned by John Bunyan, who began writing while in prison because he was preaching without permission from the Church of England, preached his last sermon on August 18, 1688. Pilgrim’s Progress has been translated into 200 languages and has yet to go out of print.
William Carey is known as the father of modern missions for a reason. Carey would spend his career in India and start schools and seminaries as well as translating the Bible into many Indian languages. He was born on August 17, 1761 in Northamptonshire, England.
August 16, 1795 – Absalom Jones was America’s first African-American Episcopal priest when he was ordained on August 16, 1795. Jones was a former slave who worked diligently to help other freed slaves in Philadelphia, PA and formed the Free Africa Society before his ordination into the Episcopal Church.
The Crusades of Christians again Muslims in Palestine are not a great example of loving your neighbor or turning the other cheek or taking the Gospel to all the nations. Pope Urban II began the Crusades by preaching a “kick-off sermon the previous November but the first troops left on August 15, 1096. They would last about 200 years.
The most visited place in all of Germany is the great cathedral in Cologne which began construction on August 14, 1248. This glorious structure was originally built to house the remains of the Magi (I’m not sure where they thought they were getting these remains from) and was completed in the 1880s.
