A North Carolina Sunset

This (the one above) is one of the better pictures (in my own humble opinion :)

This was taken last week as Ben Sheats and I were driving to get Little Caesar's Pizza for dinner :)

New Pictures!!!!

Me (in case you weren't sure ;)




















Me again :)
















Serious me...






















And this is....well....ME sitting in front of the NCFIC office.














Hope you all enjoy these! Yours truly,
Joel Stanton

A Call To Anguish!

Hey Everyone!

So I want to share with you all a clip that Pastor Brown put on his blog on April 29th, on the NCFIC website. This short clip is so powerful! I watch it almost every day and I highly recommend it to any Christian man, woman, or young person who wants to be used by God as salt and light in this dark world. The words in this clip are extremely convicting and motivating. I believe that the message presented here is something that every pastor needs to work towards in his own life and ministry as well. Hope you all are blessed by this!

Joel Stanton, NCFIC Intern

P.S. The awesome music (it causes chills to go up and down my spine every time) is from "The Second Chance" with Michael W. Smith. Now In want to see that movie again! :)

A Fantastic Quote from Theodore Beza!

Hey everyone!

I just had to share this quote with you all! The context is Theodore Beza, one of John Calvin's most prominent students, who was in the city of Poissy in France defending the Protestant faith before the King of France and many of the French Catholic church leaders.

At the word, Theodore Beza and the delegates who had chosen him to be their spokesman were brought into the hall by the captain of the king’s guard, and came forward until their farther advance was stopped by a rail barring their nearer approach to the king and to the gathered dignitaries of his court and Church. Petty malice had planned the arrangement in order to give to the Protestant ministers the aspect of accused persons who were permitted to clear themselves of crimes laid to their charge, or of culprits about to be sentenced to condign punishment. Of petty malice, sooth to say, this was by no means the only manifestation...

"Here come the Genevese curs!" spitefully exclaimed one of the cardinals, in tones loud enough to be heard distinctly by Beza as he entered in company with another minister from the city of Calvin [Geneva]. To whom the courtly Reformer replied with unruffled composure,

Faithful dogs are much needed in the Lord’s sheepfold to bark at the wolves."

http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/baird_beza.html

Joel

"A Little Bird I Am"

Here is a poem that is recorded in A.W. Pink’s “Sovereignty of God” which I thought was so encouraging and also convicting! Keep in mind as you read these joyful words, that the author of this poem was confined to a dark, dank dungeon deep underground for over ten years! And yet still she can sing these words of victory and unshaken confidence! What an example to all of us today. Enjoy Madame Guyon’s poem!

A little bird I am,

Shut from the fields of the air;

Yet in my cage I sit and sing

To Him who placed me there;

Well pleased a prisoner to be,

Because, my God, it pleases Thee.

Naught have I else to do;

I sing the whole day long;

And He whom most I love to please,

Doth listen to my song;

He caught and bound my wandering wing

But still He bends to hear me sing.

My cage confines me round;

Abroad I cannot fly;

But though my wing is closely bound,

My heart’s at liberty.

My prison walls cannot control

The flight, the freedom of the soul.

Ah; it is good to soar

These bolts and bars above.

To Him whose purpose I adore,

Whose Providence I love;

And in Thy mighty will to find

The joy, the freedom of the mind.

-“The Sovereignty of God”, by A.W. Pink, published by Banner of Truth Trust in 2009, pages 129-130.