Tag: Faith

Kitchens, cathedrals, and the faith of a coal miner’s wife

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TEXAS GOSPEL VOLUNTEER

Chosen Road’s Jonathan Buckner remembers where he was standing the first time he heard “Kitchens & Cathedrals.” He was in his own kitchen, phone in hand, wife nearby, when he hit play on a demo written by Lee Black and Gina Bowe. He didn’t make it past the first verse before he was crying.

“I never will forget the moment that I opened that demo up and I listened to it,” Buckner says. “I was with my wife in our kitchen and I hit play, got through the first verse and I was in tears.”

The song pulled him straight back to his grandmother’s house. She was a preacher’s wife raising ten kids largely on her own, since her husband spent long stretches on the road as a traveling evangelist. Buckner’s grandfather had started out as a coal miner before answering a call to ministry, leaving his wife to hold the household together through faith alone.

“She was an amazing woman who just loved the Lord,” Buckner says of his grandmother. “She really had to lean into her faith.”

That instinct, leaning into faith when circumstances demand it, has defined Chosen Road for more than seventeen years. Formed in the mountains of West Virginia, the band built its sound the way bluegrass has always been built: on front porches and in small country churches, with harmonies worked out standing close enough to hear one another breathe. Their catalog stretches from traditional bluegrass into country, gospel, and Americana, resisting easy genre labels in favor of something the band simply calls honest.

Albums like Appalachian hymns and the newer American morning have carried that approach to a growing national audience, landing on bluegrass and gospel radio charts along the way. “Kitchens & Cathedrals” continues that trajectory, less a departure than a return to the values the band was founded on: faith, family, and music that means something to the people singing it as much as the people hearing it.

For Buckner, the song’s power lies in the way it collapses decades in a single verse, turning a kitchen table memory into something closer to scripture. It is a small moment made large, the kind Chosen Road has spent nearly two decades trying to write.

Don’t mistake winning an argument for winning a soul

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DAVID INGRAM

If you’ve spent much time defending the Christian faith online or in person, you’ve probably noticed a familiar pattern. It has become so common that it’s almost predictable.

Someone confidently declares, “There is no God.”

When you ask them to support that claim, the response is often, “The burden of proof is on you because you’re the one who believes God exists.”

At first, that may sound reasonable. But think carefully about what has happened.

The statement, “God exists,” is a claim. The statement, “God does not exist,” is also a claim. Both are assertions about reality. The only position that avoids making a claim is, “I don’t know.”

A common mistake in reasoning is to assume that only one side has a burden of proof. This is known as shifting the burden of proof. It occurs when someone makes an assertion but insists that only the other person is responsible for providing evidence. If a person claims there is no God, they have made a claim just as surely as the person who says there is a God. Neither side should be exempt from defending what they affirm.

As Christians, we should never be embarrassed to acknowledge that we are saved by faith given as a gift from God so that no one may boast. To be clear: I believe the Bible tells us that our faith is not something we manufacture on our own or that stems from our own ability to understand.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
— Ephesians 2:8-9

We do not hide our faith because it is God’s gift, not our achievement.

What should concern us is when someone confidently declares there is no God while insisting they owe no explanation for that conclusion. That is not skepticism. It is simply another belief being asserted without defense.

Yet even this is not the heart of the matter.

Christians can become so absorbed in debating logical fallacies that we forget why the conversation matters in the first place. We begin treating apologetics as though our mission is to outthink the unbeliever.

It isn’t.

The deepest reason people reject Christ is rarely intellectual. Scripture says the problem is spiritual.

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.'” (Psalm 14:1)

Notice that Scripture does not say the fool has examined all the evidence and reached an unavoidable conclusion. The issue begins in the heart.

Paul explains that humanity already has sufficient knowledge of God through His creation, yet suppresses that truth.

“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them… So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.”
— Romans 1:19-21

The Bible teaches that unbelief is not caused by a lack of information. It is a suppression of truth. Sin affects not only what we desire but also how we think.

This does not mean every objection to Christianity is dishonest. People often have sincere questions that deserve thoughtful answers. We should always be prepared to give a reason for the hope within us, doing so “with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).

But we should never imagine that the right argument alone can produce saving faith.

Paul wrote,

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
— 1 Corinthians 1:18

And again,

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him… because they are spiritually discerned.”
— 1 Corinthians 2:14

No one is argued into the Kingdom apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.

That should change the way we engage unbelievers.

Yes, expose faulty reasoning when it appears. Correct logical fallacies when necessary. Defend the truth faithfully. But do not mistake exposing an error in logic for addressing the real issue. A person can lose every argument and still reject Christ. Another can ask difficult questions and, by God’s grace, come to faith.

Our confidence should never rest in our ability to corner someone intellectually. Scripture warns us, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).

Don’t work so hard to open the door of human reason that you neglect the door only the Holy Spirit can open.

Winning an argument is not the mission.

Leading people to the Savior is.

She carried them with her: Autumn Nelon’s journey to Malawi

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DON HEBERT

There is a particular kind of grief that doesn’t stay still. It moves, it searches, it looks for somewhere to go. For Autumn Nelon, it found its way into a suitcase packed with toothbrushes, yo-yos, crayons, nail polish, Bibles, and baby wipes, then boarded a plane bound for Malawi.

This month, Autumn flew to Africa on a mission trip that her family had long dreamed of taking together. The Nelons, that beloved pillar of Southern Gospel music, had talked about going. They had hoped to go as a family, the way the Nelons did most things, shoulder to shoulder, in harmony. But on Friday, July 26th, 2024, that future was taken from them in an instant. Jason and Kelly Nelon Clark, Amber and Nathan Kistler, their assistant Melodi Hodges, pilot Larry Haynie, and his wife Melissa were all killed in a tragic plane crash while en route to join the Gaither Homecoming Cruise to Alaska. The Gospel music world went quiet in a way it rarely does.

And yet, here is Autumn, making the trip anyway.

She spent the past month doing what people who come from Gospel families know how to do when the world falls apart: she got to work. She fundraised. She bought supplies. She asked, and people gave. Toothbrushes and balls for the children. Coloring books and markers. Yo-yos, because joy matters. Diapers and wipes, because need is practical before it is anything else. Bibles, because that is the bedrock of everything the Nelons ever stood for.

It is hard not to see the weight of what she is carrying over there, and not just in the luggage. The mission trip The Nelons hoped to take together is now the mission trip Autumn is completing for them, and perhaps with them, in whatever way love persists after loss.

The Southern Gospel community, which rallied around the Nelon family in the devastating aftermath of the crash, is now rallying again. Prayers are going up across congregations and fan communities alike, asking that God uses Autumn in a mighty way on the red soil of Malawi, among the new friends she is only just beginning to meet.

There is a moment, somewhere in Malawi, where a child might pick up a yo-yo that a grieving young woman bought with money strangers gave her, in memory of a family that sang about heaven their whole lives. That child will not know any of this. They will just know the yo-yo, and the person who brought it, and the smile that crosses her face when they play.

Freedom in worship and faith

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JEFF TURNER

Some believers have been pressured to control how they practice their faith. They’re told when to fast or how to follow religious routines. It can also involve people trying to judge others based on their religious habits. In response to this kind of pressure, Colossians 2 gives us some direction.

Paul instructs believers not to let others decide for them about matters such as religious festivals, new moon observances, food choices, drink rules, or Sabbath practices. These instructions were meant to protect Christians from being controlled by outside judgment.

Some of the practices being discussed were part of the Jewish law. These rules once helped set the Jewish people apart, but they are not required in the same way for the church today. The ceremonial system has been set aside, and believers are no longer bound to follow those external requirements.

There is also no command in the New Testament that requires fasting as a regular rule for Christians. Even in the Old Testament, only one fast is clearly required. This shows that fasting and similar practices are not meant to be strict rules imposed on everyone.

Because of this change, the early church began meeting on the first day of the week, which is linked to the resurrection. Believers are also free to eat what is available to them. This idea is supported in the book of Acts, where a message is given that removes food restrictions and allows people to eat without those former limits.

The main shift is from external rules to inner faith. In the end, the focus is not on being controlled by outside rules, but on sincere worship that is honest and grounded in truth.

for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Romans 14:17

Faith shared without limits

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JEFF TURNER

Some people who want to share their faith look for guidance in books and resources from the local Christian bookstore. And it is here they often find different ideas that do not always agree. Some teachings suggest a quiet approach. They say a person should prepare their heart, then wait for God to bring someone into their life who is ready to hear the message. Other teachings encourage action. They point to the words of Jesus Christ in Gospel of Matthew, where he calls his followers to go out into the world and share the good news with everyone. How are believers to speak to others about their faith? Instead of looking for a “one size fits all,” consider what the Bible says. The instruction to go into all the world does not set boundaries. It opens the door to many ways of reaching people.

Sharing the message can happen in many places and situations. It may take place from door to door, on the street, in a classroom, or between neighbours. It can happen during times of work, in moments of rest, or even in difficult settings like conflict or competition. It can grow through friendships or simple conversations. The point is that there is no limit to where or how the message can be shared. The call is to speak about it at all times and in all places.

Our faith is not limited by method, but it is guided by truth. And our focus should remain on presenting the message honestly and fully, so that those who hear it understand what it truly means.

How then are they to call on Him in whom they have not believed? How are they to believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? But how are they to preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!”

Romans 10:14–15