CCMRewind - Classic Christian Music Artist

Tony Dungy Super Bowl Half Time Video

2012-02-05T15:22:30Z

Tony Dungy Offers Super Bowl Halftime Video on Adoption

2012-02-05T15:07:36Z

Pro football TV analyst and NFL Super Bowl XLI winning coach Tony Dungy is hoping that a large number of Christians hosting parties for this year’s Super Bowl will include showing their guests his 3-minute video asking Americans to take a look at the world’s orphan crisis and adoption.

“The big win on Super Sunday would be to raise awareness about the millions of children who need a family. I would love to see thousands of local community groups and circles of friends gathering together to stop and consider how they can help,” said Dungy, who was the head coach of the 2007 Super Bowl Champion Indianapolis Colts.

Dungy is involved with The Adoption Journey Project, a collective of organizations who want to break down the barriers to adoption. The groups include Bethany Christian Services, Lifesong for Orphans, and Lifeline Children’s Services.

The video message available for free download at http://www.adoptionjourney.org/dungyhalftime and in a DVD includes a personal message from Dungy and his wife, Lauren, aimed at helping more couples consider adoption.

Marc Andreas, vice president of Marketing at Bethany Christian Services, the largest adoption agency in the country, told The Christian Post Monday that he is hoping that the video will make more people aware of the “global orphan crisis of kids that need mom and dads.”

“With more than 100,000 children in need of a stable and loving family in the U.S., if just a fraction of groups gathering to watch the ‘big game’ influence just one family to adopt, we would make a huge dent in this social crisis,” Andreas said.

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This year’s Super Bowl halftime show includes Madonna. However, Andreas said that his group, consisting of hundreds of volunteers, and its efforts are not in competition with the celebrity singer.

“We’re doing a grassroots effort. We want to reach out to people that already have a heart for adoption. Those people, like our 1,200 volunteers, are going to want to spend three to five minutes of their halftime doing something good for kids and they will be okay in turning off Madonna,” he said.

“I don’t expect it to literally compete with Madonna across the entire public, but for those that have a heart for this and know that they care for orphans and adoption I think it will be a great fit,” he explained.

Dungy and his wife have four adopted children as well as three biological children.

“I see adoption as the second phase of being pro-life,” said Dungy, in an interview story posted on the Adoption Journey website. “It’s a vivid reminder of what God has done by adopting us into His family.”

The free halftime video kit available online includes the 3-minute video featuring Dungy and his wife, a printable guide for event organizers for introducing the video and starting conversations about the Dungys’ message, and instructions for downloading the video with multiple ways to play it on the television.

Andreas said that the video project provides an opportunity for lots of Christian families around the country that are gathering for Super Bowl parties with their friends and family to do something good.

The goal for The Adoption Journey Project is to foster honest conversations about the adoption process, offer comprehensive yet easily accessible information about domestic and international adoption, and connect those who have already adopted with those who are thinking about it.

Article source: http://www.christianpost.com/news/tony-dungy-offers-super-bowl-halftime-video-on-adoption-67794/

Steven Curtis Chapman comes back to his roots for new album, tour

2012-02-05T14:49:15Z

It has been 20 years since Steven Curtis Chapman’s breakthrough hit, The Great Adventure, was released.

If that makes you feel a little old, if your perspective on the rousing rocker has changed over two decades, Chapman is with you.

“When it came out, oh, what, 20 years ago-ish, which is pretty crazy, it was as rockin’ as anything they played at Christian radio,” Chapman, 49, recalls. “And that song represents a moment in time. There’s an element of it that was every summer camp song — hey, let’s saddle up our horses, and everybody made up dances to it in Christian youth groups and things, and it becomes almost a novelty of sorts.

“But for me, I know where that song came from originally. It was far from a ‘rah-rah, let’s go have fun’ song. It was really rooted in some hard things I was wrestling with coming into this understanding of God loves me, God has this plan for my life that is like an adventure, not a prison. Grace is something that makes our lives everything they were meant to be.

“I really wanted to recapture that.”

So, he rerecorded the song and a number of other hits, including Heaven in the Real World and More to This Life, for his latest album, re:creation.

As it starts to play, it sounds like it might be a mellow, unplugged Great Adventure on the new album. But then it builds, strings come in, and the adventure becomes Spielbergian, life as a great adventure with a cinematic swath.

And Chapman can claim that kind of life, becoming a chart-topping recording artist, traveling the world to perform and gather his family as an adoptive parent, suffering the communal tragedy of the school shootings at his alma mater, Paducah’s Heath High School, and the personal tragedy of the death of one of his children.

“There’s a lot of life crammed into 3 1/2 minutes of a song,” Chapman says. “Sometimes there’s years and years of life and story that went into that song, and I love knowing it and I love sharing it.”

To tour the latest album, Chapman decided to take a different approach than just putting together a band and hitting the road.

For the Songs Stories Tour, which stops at Southland Christian Church in Jessamine County on Tuesday night, Chapman has brought along fellow Christian artists Andrew Peterson and Josh Wilson for a sort of Nashville-style singer-songwriter night.

“Usually it’s several writers that will sit on a stage on stools in a row or in a circle and just go down the line and tell a story and sing a song, and then it’s the next guy’s turn,” Chapman says. “As it goes down the line, everyone kind of backs each other up and plays along, and it’s a cool kind of community, a unique thing that happens in a songwriting town like Nashville.”

The album re:creation presented a prime opportunity to take that show on the road. So he called Peterson and Wilson to see if they were up for it. The tour went out last fall, and it went so well they booked another leg for the new year.

“We’ve got 46 instruments onstage at last count between the band behind us — we have a three-piece band — and the three of us, and we’re passing instruments around,” says Chapman, whose father owns a music store in Paducah.

“One of the things I love, and this goes back to being from Kentucky, is this is the first tour I’ve had a banjo and a mandolin and some of those instruments onstage with me. Those are the instruments I grew up with, and I love bluegrass music and folk music. It’s the first music I listened to and learned to play. This tour is the first where I’ve felt I’ve been able to go there a little bit more and do more folk arrangements.

“It’s the first time for sure that I’ve picked up a banjo onstage in all my years of touring. So it seems only appropriate that I bring this tour back to Kentucky.”

Chapman recently received a big honor from the commonwealth when he was given the national award in the Governor’s Awards in the Arts, Kentucky’s top arts awards. The national award goes to a Kentucky native or person with a strong association with the state who has had a national impact in the arts. Previous winners include George Clooney and the Judds.

“Anybody can win a Grammy or a Dove Award,” says Chapman, who has five Grammys and a whopping 56 Doves. “But it’s a little more narrowed down when you get opportunities like that to get recognized as a Kentucky boy, a Paducah boy.

“So I am really honored by that and grateful for the support I have had from my home state and my home folks.”

Article source: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/02/03/2055079/re-creating-powerful-moments-in.html

Steven Spielberg Directing New ‘Ten Commandments’?

2012-02-05T14:39:22Z

Steven Spielberg is signing on to direct an interpretation of the classic “Ten Commandments,” according to reports.

Warner Brothers is behind the new movie, tentatively titled “Gods and Kings” that will focus more on the life of Moses than the actual reception of the commandments. One insider told Deadline.com, “It’s a movie like a Braveheart-ish version of the Moses story: him coming down the river, being adopted, leaving his home, forming an army, and getting the Ten Commandments.”

This will be the first movie to challenge the 1956 classic starring Charlton Heston. That production was made by Paramount Pictures and is the highest-grossing movie of all time, with $977 million in 2010. The American Film Industry named “Commandments” one of its “Ten Top Ten” in the epic category.

Mike Fleming carefully points out that “Gods and Kings” is more focused on “the book of Exodus and other stories from the Old Testament.”

Warner Brothers is also in talks to produce a movie telling the story of Judah Maccabee, who led the Jewish revolt against Greek and Syrian armies. Mel Gibson is working with screenwriter Joe Eszterhas on that project. Gibson previously produced “The Passion of the Christ,” which depicted the last hours of Jesus Christ.

Spielberg has long been associated with successful, dramatic films including “Saving Private Ryan” and “Schindler’s List,” which AFI has listed as one of the Ten Greatest Films Ever Made. “Schindler’s List” told the true story of Oskar Schindler, who saved over 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust.

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“Braveheart” is a classic movie by Spielberg portraying the struggle during the First War of Scottish Independence. Ironically, Gibson starred in that movie, playing Scottish hero William Wallace who led the charge against King Edward I of England. The picture earned five Academy Awards in 1995.

There is no word yet as to who may be in Spielberg’s new production, but odds are that this time Gibson will be busy with his own project.

Article source: http://www.christianpost.com/news/steven-spielberg-directing-new-ten-commandments-68101/

Tim Tebow Cancels Appearance at Televangelist Rod Parsley’s Revival Event

2012-02-05T14:30:20Z

Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics …

Denver Broncos star quarterback Tim Tebow has cancelled plans to speak at the three-day revival event organized by Ohio televangelist Rod Parsley, a Tebow spokesperson said Wednesday.

The event, set to be held in Columbus, Ohio, from March 16-18, is called “Contending for the Faith” weekend. Fellow pastors Kenneth Copeland, Isaac Pitre, and Clint Brown will join Parsley in speaking to massive audiences on how they can strengthen their Christian faith.

The event, scheduled to take place at Parsley’s Valor Christian College, promises attendees that they will “grow in faith, experience the power of the Holy Spirit, and learn how the anointing of God…can resonate” in their lives. The event website also promises “a very special ‘Partners ONLY’ anointing service.”

In a phone interview with The Associated Press Wednesday, the quarterback’s brother, Robbie Tebow, said Tim’s scheduling team had previously said yes to the event without doing proper research.

“I know for a fact that Tim is not going to be a part of it,” Tebow told AP. ”That’s being resolved.”

Rod Parsley has been considered controversial by some because he is a part of the “prosperity Gospel” movement, which preaches that Christians should strive to be wealthy as a part of God’s will.

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Joe Carter, editor of The Gospel Coalition, supported the young athlete’s decision, writing on The Gospel Coalition’s blog that Parsley’s “prosperity Gospel” teachings are false.

“The young quarterback understands that by speaking at the event he would be lending his credibility to men who preach a false gospel,” Carter wrote.

“By refusing to speak at the event, he may be able to signal to people unfamiliar with the prosperity gospel that those who believe in the true gospel should avoid publicly associating with these false teachers,” he added.

Article source: http://www.christianpost.com/news/tim-tebow-cancels-on-rod-parsley-revival-event-68516/