Tag: United Christian Broadcasters

Christian Media, Christian Radio, Christianity, Faith

Why is Christian Media important?

Posted on by David L'Herroux

At the beginning of a new year, we are finalising our plans for the next 12 months and looking ahead to all we believe and trust God will do. It is always good to keep ourselves accountable and even ask difficult questions. I have been asking myself: why is Christian media so important? Can it really impact people’s lives?

What do you believe?

Whether we are aware of it or not, we are surrounded and saturated by messages from the media. Whether that be TV, radio, adverts, newspapers, Facebook, or other online messages, on a daily basis, we are always absorbing many different kinds of information. Some of those messages may be good, but we need to be wise to the fact that the enemy also uses media to pollute our minds. It is not just the ‘obvious’ things like pornography or images which do not glorify God, but it can be subtle messages which make us believe things which are contrary to God’s will.

The alarming part is that often we do not even realise we are being influenced! We are even influenced by different brands. I see many people walking around with big logos on their clothes and possessions. Although there is nothing wrong with that, it can be a way people find their identity. How much better if we knew our identity was only found in Jesus.

Jesus Christ (JC) is the biggest brand in the world, and that is what I want to be ‘branded’ with.

This is why I believe good, accountable Christian media is very important. And in a world where we are surrounded by constant information, it is so important that God’s Word and positive, encouraging, and faith-building messages are also ‘out there’ for people to find and listen to. If the enemy is using media for his own good, how much more should Christians rise up and say ‘No, we want to reclaim media, reclaim the airwaves for something positive, something transforming that can change people’s lives.’ Let’s use Christian media to show people that their lives CAN be changed for good, forever, by the power of God’s Word.

Get in the boat

A much loved charity in the UK is the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institute). They do not receive Government funding and are staffed by volunteers to help save the lives of people stranded at sea. They offer a 24/7 life-saving service, working selflessly to help save physical lives each day.

This to me is a great picture of what Christian media can do. Christian media is also a 24/7 service. No, I do not believe we are ‘the church’, but we are here to support the church and to help provide an important service, going into places and homes which the church cannot initially reach. I see what we do very much as a ‘rescue service’.

As I look to the year ahead and I see a lot of darkness online and in our media, I know that we need to continue to offer a ‘rescue service’. I believe there is truly a crisis at sea, but thank God that He never slumbers or sleeps.

God has given us media platforms available 24/7 to reach every person, everywhere, every moment of the day and night, who need help more than ever before.

Let’s work together to throw a lifeline to people who need it more than ever.

dlh-blog-jan-17

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Christian Media, Christian Radio, Christianity, Devotional, Evangelism, Faith, Healing, Hope, Miracles

Look to the future – what do you see?

Posted on by David L'Herroux

Over the last few weeks, I have been spending some time with God, seeking the way forward for UCB as a ministry. I have been rejoicing about the past and those who have gone before us, but also rejoicing about the many lives which have been changed and transformed by the power of God’s Word.

I recently met with a group of UCB supporters and shared what I see for the future. I want to share the same message with you and give you a glimpse of what I am seeing today. It is a glimpse that came from the challenge Jesus gave to his disciples when He said to them: ‘Lift up your eyes, and look at the fields and see how white and ready they are for the harvest’ (John 4:35).

Instead of looking at the gloom and despondency and brokenness that is in our world today, God wants us to see what He sees.

Here is what I see.

I see God turning the hearts of a godless society back to Himself.

I see a church living and operating in the power of the Gospel.

I see our government, our laws, our society being reshaped by the truth of God’s Word.

I see family units coming together into the knowledge and the transformation of God’s power, from the toughest parts of the cities to the most rural parts of our country.

I see every generation, should it be young or old, knowing their worth and experiencing value and a purpose for their lives.

I see people standing for what it is true and becoming intolerant for all the right reasons – intolerant of wrongdoing, intolerant of injustice.

I see people getting ready to answer God’s call like they have never done before. I see people standing together totally united for their cities and not afraid to say ‘We are the Church’.

I see the Church mobilised to take the Gospel to the towns, villages and the cities, making disciples and being totally committed to what God has called them to do.

I see changing statistics: relationships being restored, addictions broken. I see miracles to be the order of the day in the life of our society because the Church is acting like true light and salt like never before.

I see an army of young people having visions, and I see older people, instead of being put ‘on the shelf,’ having dreams like they have never had before, supporting and standing with the younger generation.

I truly believe and see a day coming when God will pour His Spirit upon all flesh. I see the young and the old, the children and the grandparents lifting the banner of victory, looking at their society and truly believing that God has a message of hope, and using every means possible to lift up that message of truth.

You might say ‘Dave, you’re living in cuckoo land, you’re dreaming!’

But I am seeing only what Jesus spoke of to his disciples, and I am saying that it is time that we lift up your eyes from the negative, from the oppressive, from the depressive, and recognise that the fields are white for harvest.

And therefore it is time. I believe that we as a ministry, and you as partners and supporters, must actually start to switch on and see what God wants us to see.

And let’s believe that the enemy will not have the upper hand.  He may think that he has the best strategy – to steal, to kill, to destroy – but the verse does not stop there because Jesus says even to us today through His Word that He came that we might have life – and not just life, but life to the full (John 10:10).

I strongly believe we are moving into an unprecedented hour and that we as a ministry need to be ready like never before. We need to be ready for people to be resourced and helped in their faith. And we need to be ready to resource the church, for I believe they will not be able to cope with the amount of people who will be coming in.   They need to have reliable content.

There is a saying in media that ‘content is king’. This means that all our strategies are of no use if our content – if what we write or share on air – is not good. I believe today, though, that God is turning that around and saying: ‘The KING is the content.’

David-Blog21

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Christian Media, Christian Radio, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Hope

Living in the Green Zone

Posted on by David L'Herroux

This might sound like an unusual title for a blog post, but I will explain what the ‘Green Zone’ is in my life and why I believe it is important for every Christian to have one.

In my previous retail career, I used to travel frequently, often covering more than 70,000 miles in the car each year. Those were busy days, and I learned how to spend quality time with God ‘on the move’ while I was driving. We talk at UCB about having a daily ‘Coffee with God‘, but I learned how to do ‘Driving with God’! I would often listen to the Bible on those long journeys, or I would play worship music, but my focus was on spending time in God’s presence, which was very important in helping me get ready for the day.

These days I do not drive as many miles each year, but my diary is often full. However, in my calendar is what I call the Green Zone. These are blocks each day (usually mornings) which are blanked out in the colour green, and it is time that I purposefully make sure is not booked for anything else. The time is used differently every day: it is sometimes spent reading God’s Word or praying with the team, but the aim is always to welcome the real Boss into the working day! We are nothing without Him.

Many of us have busy lives with demands from work, family, and church, and it can be easy to let the small discipline of spending daily time with God slip. In my younger years, I would sometimes look at time spent with God as part of my Christian ‘duty’.  But although I now have the ‘green zone’, it is not a duty or a ritual in any way, it is just spending time with my Father and getting His wisdom for the day ahead. After all, if I didn’t see or speak to my wife for a few days, I would miss hearing her voice or having her presence in my life. I feel it is the same with our Heavenly Father; we need to hear His voice and experience His presence in our lives every single day. It has to become a lifestyle choice.

In Genesis, we see the first separation between man and God. Man was created to walk in unity with God, but when sin entered the world, their relationship was damaged. I believe the enemy knows that when we are in God’s presence, we flourish. It is where we get wisdom and strength and where we truly grow. If the enemy can stop or distract us from that time, he knows we will never truly grow. That is why this time each day is an essential, non-negotiable part of my day.

Can I encourage you to find your own ‘Green Zone’ each day? I believe that time spent with God will change your life. It will give you strength and faith for the day ahead and help you to understand God’s purpose for your life.

DL'H - Green Zone

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Christian Media, Christian Radio, Christianity, Evangelism, Faith, Forgiveness, Healing, Hope, Miracles, Spiritual healing

Faith is like a muscle – it has to be exercised

Posted on by David L'Herroux

Last week, I shared some stories of the incredible miracles which have been happening at my brother’s church in France. We felt that God started to move in the church about two years ago during our first missions week. A lady came asking for prayer for pain in her hips, which was caused by deformed bones. She was completely healed, and this opened up a door for God to do more.

Over the last two years, we have heard many more incredible testimonies: a man healed of complete deafness, a woman healed of paralysis in her leg, another lady who had severe pain and even discharged herself from hospital for an hour to come to the service. She was completely set free and later declared free of disease. Others have been restored from tumours, depression, restless leg syndrome, chronic insomnia, and addictions. There are so many stories I could share, and in the future, I hope that some of these people will write guest blogs and tell you their stories themselves. There is so much to thank God for!

I have been asked a question which is close to many people’s hearts – why are some people healed and others not? I do not have all the answers, but I can share from my own experience what I believe is true. I wrote last week about the need for expectancy and how we should approach God believing that He will do something.

Here is an illustration: if one of us was sick, we would go to the doctor for a check-up. Often, we will not know the doctor, but we will take their advice, and when they give us a prescription for medication, we will then take that to a chemist. At every stage, we usually trust the doctor we do not know, we trust the chemist we do not know, and we trust the pills, even when we do not understand how they work. But when it comes to trusting God, we often struggle, and we question if He is capable of giving us what we ask. We have no trouble believing that He could die for us, save us, and give us eternal life, but we do struggle to believe that He could do the miraculous.

I believe that faith is a muscle, and just like any other muscle in our bodies, if we do not use it, it will eventually become weak and useless. As believers, we are children of God’s kingdom, and just like being a citizen of the United Kingdom, we have certain citizenship rights. If something was wrong in our country, we would have the right to take a petition to 10 Downing Street, and in the same way, we can take our petitions to God.

As citizens of God’s kingdom, we have a constitution (God’s Word), and we can stand on that and petition God to do what no one else can do. Just as with politics, we don’t always see answers right away, but we should keep standing on God’s Word, believing His promises, and asking Him to bring about a miracle. God’s Word is the instruction manual for life. If you or I bought a new mobile phone, we would go home and start reading the instructions to make sure that we got the best use from the phone. If we pay that much care and attention to our phones, how much more attention should we give to our lives? God’s Word is the instruction manual – without understanding it, our lives do not work properly.

Now it is true to say that not every one gets healed, but I believe that God is sovereign, and we are not here to dictate to Him how He should do things, but to be obedient to His Word. However, I have also seen great things happen when a person didn’t get healed.

Last year, a lady came to a meeting during the mission in France. That very day, she gave her life to Christ and asked us to pray that she would be healed from terminal cancer. We prayed for her, but sadly just five days later, she died.   When the church went to visit her family (they were not Christians), her husband said that in the days before she passed away, he had never seen his wife so happy and peaceful since he had known her.

He said: she spent her final days praising her Jesus, and she left this world in total peace, knowing that she would soon see Him face to face. So although she did not see physical healing in this life, she was healed when she stood before Jesus and was given a new body, free of disease. There is no sickness or ill-health or cancer in Heaven. Praise God!

If you are trusting God to heal or set you free, can I encourage you to persevere? Stand on His word, trust Him, and practice exercising your faith muscle. Whatever happens, you can be sure of one thing: your life will be changed for the better. I have never met a person who wasn’t changed by spending time with God. Follow God’s instructions and wait to see what He can do in your life.

David-Blog7

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Christian Media, Christian Radio, Christianity

Trusting God in the middle of the storm

Posted on by David L'Herroux

In March 2014, our son and daughter-in law were expecting their third child, when our daughter-in-law Debbie was taken very ill. To this day, the doctors cannot confirm for sure what happened, but an infection caused her body and organs to shut down. Very sadly, at eight months pregnant, Debbie lost their baby and was soon in a fight for her life as she slipped into a coma. It was a desperate time for our family, and I felt personally that we were in a very intense spiritual battle and that we had to fight. The team at UCB and so many dear friends gathered around us and prayed for Debbie’s full restoration. We did not know in human terms what would happen, but we held on to God’s promises. I felt God was saying to us repeatedly, ‘I am with you… I will not leave you… this storm will pass’. His Word was a rock we were depending on; our anchor in an uncertain time.

Debbie

The breakthrough came about seven days later. We visited Debbie one evening when she was still in a coma, attached to machines. The following day we went to see her and she was sitting up in a chair and eating a meal. Praise God for His faithfulness and His goodness! We know that our miracle-working God was with us during this terrible trial and that even in the middle of a fierce storm, He would not leave us. Today, Debbie is fit and healthy.


About 6 weeks after Debbie was very ill, I went to France to join my brother, Daniel, for a crusade at his church. As a family, we had been through loss and heartache but had still seen God’s faithfulness in the middle of the storm. Those next few weeks in France were very powerful – we saw God work in a mighty way through many people being healed, restored and saved. God was bringing testimonies out of the many tests we had faced.

Experiences like these remind me of this verse: ‘The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree’ (Psalm 92:12 (NIV). Palm trees are designed to withstand severe tropical storms. When the storm comes, they bend with the wind and rain. It looks as though they are breaking, but they are actually just bending. When the storm passes, the area where the Palm tree has almost been torn in two is actually stronger than it was before the storm. During this difficult time, I felt God saying, ‘You are like a palm tree in the storms of life, but when it passes, you are going to come right back up stronger and will flourish more than ever before.’

As believers, the Prince of Peace lives within us. We can look at the storm and feel as though we will break. We can easily forget that He who is in us is greater than the circumstances that we face. If you are facing your own storm or tragedy at the moment, I want to encourage you to trust in His Word. He promises to never leave or forsake us and is our Rock even in the middle of the fiercest storms.

Have a blessed week.

David

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Christian Media, Christian Radio, Christianity, Uncategorized

God’s plans are so much bigger than ours

Posted on by David L'Herroux

Hello

I often meet with the UCB staff team and in our meetings, will share what is on my heart that week. The team has been encouraging me for a while to write down some of these thoughts, so here is my first blog post. I want to use the blog to update you on things at UCB and also share some of the things that have impacted me during the week. We may even persuade some of our visitors to write ‘guest blogs’ from time to time as well.

This week, I have been thinking about a wonderful lady who we hosted at UCB some weeks ago: Margaret McGuckin. Margaret was put into an institution as a child due to severe family problems, and while there, she endured terrible abuse and trauma. When she left the institution (as an older teenager), she didn’t understand what it meant to be loved and believed she was damaged forever. But God had a different plan for Margaret’s life, and after several years of being in trouble with the authorities, God met Margaret in a remarkable way and touched her life incredibly. She discovered that having a personal relationship with Jesus was the key to being truly loved – her life began to change from that point.

Margaret (and her friend Kathleen) came to visit us a few weeks ago so that we could share her story on UCB TV and radio. I had lunch with Margaret and Kathleen, and although I was saddened to hear of the trauma she had suffered in the past, I was excited to see how she was using what had happened in order to powerfully help others. Part of Margaret’s healing was reading the Bible every day, along with the Word for Today.  She said that the Word for Today is very much like an appetiser for God’s Word, and she now tells everyone to read it as a way of encouraging them to get into the Scriptures. It was exciting to hear of her passion for God’s Word and the big impact that she is having on so many other people through her testimony and campaigning.

Margaret’s story is a Holy-Spirit reminder to pick up and read our Bibles. We are so blessed as a nation to have access to God’s Word in a way that many others don’t. But even so, many of us have lost the discipline. I call the Bible ‘The Divine Manual’ – if you want direction or instructions, you always go to the manual. And yet when we need instruction in our lives, we often first go to friends or to the Internet. Our good friend R.T Kendall recently wrote a wonderful blog post about the importance of going first to God’s Word: How much do you read your Bible?

Can I encourage you this week – if you are facing difficult times or need God’s direction (or re-direction) in your life, go first to God’s Word. He has given us the Scriptures as a divine source of wisdom and instruction for every situation we face.  Margaret McGuckin found healing and new purpose in God’s Word, and I know personally through my own life that wisdom for many of life’s problems can be found in His Word.

As you seek Him this week, I pray that you will be blessed!

David

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