Easter Drawing

This moving, reflective piece is great for Easter. Or use it any time to reflect on Jesus with this unique line drawing video.

I think this is brilliant and we may well use this next Easter Sunday.

Video 4min 16sec

Cosmic Creator

If you’re a space buff, you probably know that 20th July 2003 is the 34th anniversary of Apollo 11, the first mission to land on the moon.  At 8:17pm GMT, millions of people on Earth heard Mission Commander Neil Armstrong’s historic words: “Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.” No one on Earth outside Mission Control, however, knew that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did right after landing - not only after they had returned to Earth.

Aldrin had brought along a tiny communion set, the bred and wine used by Christians to proclaim the death of Jesus until he makes His return. “This is the LM pilot.” he radioed to Earth. “I’d like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way.”

 “In the radio blackout,” he wrote later, “I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine, I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Then I read the Scripture, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit. Without me you can do nothing’. I had intended to relay my communion passage back to earth, but at the last minute it was requested that I not do this. I agreed reluctantly…. Eagle’s metal body creaked. I ate the tiny Host and swallowed the wine. I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquillity. It was interesting for me to think; the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the very first food eaten there, were the communion elements.”

Full article:

Cosmic Creator

If you’re a space buff, you probably know that 20^th July 2003 is the 34^th anniversary of Apollo 11, the first mission to land on the moon.  At 8:17pm GMT, millions of people on Earth heard Mission Commander Neil Armstrong’s historic words: “Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.” No one on Earth outside Mission Control, however, knew that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did right after landing - not only after they had returned to Earth.

The landing itself took quite some time. Landing the Lunar Module, or LM, was a bit more complicated than turning off the ignition and setting the parking brake. The astronauts had to do about two hours’ worth of adjusting valves, programming computers, calculating telemetry and other chores that prepared the LM to take off again. That completed, they could pay attention to the fact that they were on the moon.

Aldrin had brought along a tiny communion set, the bred and wine used by Christians to proclaim the death of Jesus until he makes His return. “This is the LM pilot.” he radioed to Earth. “I’d like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way.”

 “In the radio blackout,” he wrote later, “I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine, I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Then I read the Scripture, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit. Without me you can do nothing’. I had intended to relay my communion passage back to earth, but at the last minute it was requested that I not do this. I agreed reluctantly…. Eagle’s metal body creaked. I ate the tiny Host and swallowed the wine. I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquillity. It was interesting for me to think; the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the very first food eaten there, were the communion elements.”

 Why the radio silence?  It started on Christmas Eve of 1968, when Apollo 8 was orbiting the moon. The astronauts - Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Ander - did a live television broadcast that evening. Borman, a Presbyterian lay reader, had jokingly apologised to his church for not being present on Christmas Eve. To conclude the broadcast, he took turns with the other astronauts in reading the account of Creation from Genesis chapter 1. “And from the crew of Apollo 8,” Borman added, “we close and a good night, a merry Christmas and God bless all of you - all of you on the good Earth.”

Not everyone was pleased to see astronauts reading the Bible on national television. Madalyn Murray O’Hair., a famous atheist who took credit for the 1963 Supreme Court case that removed prayer from public schools, was particularly outraged. She sued NASA, saying “Congress did not appropriate money for a Christian missionary adventure.”

 The Supreme Court eventually rejected her case, but NASA was still fighting O’Hare in court during the Apollo 11 mission. Afraid of provoking another lawsuit, NASA silenced the lunar communion service.

 “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1). Many astronauts besides Aldrin and the Apollo 8 crew have recognised this. James Irwin said that it was his experience exploring the moon on the Apollo 15 mission in July 1971 that moved him to devote the rest of his life to spreading the good news of Jesus Christ. He often spoke of the lunar mission as an epiphany, declaring “I felt the power of God as I’ve never felt it before.” While on the moon, at the end of the first day exploring the rugged lunar highlands, he said he was reminded of “my favourite passage from the Psalms.” Speaking by radio to Mission Control in Houston, he began quoting the passage, “I’ll look into the hills from whence cometh my help,” and added quickly, “but, of course, we get quite a bit of help from Houston, too.” He was mindful perhaps of the O’Hair lawsuit. Senator John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth in 1962, said during his space shuttle flight in November 1998, “To look out at this kind of creation out here and not believe in God is to me impossible. It just strengthens my faith.”

 NASA did not have to worry about another lawsuit from Madalyn Murray O’Hair over Glenn’s remarks: In September 1995 Murray O’Hair disappeared. Her son, granddaughter and hundreds of thousands of dollars belonging to American Atheists Inc. disappeared at the same time. Some think the three atheists embezzled the money and fled the country. Others think the 77-year-old Murray O’Hair, whose health had been failing, left the country to die privately so that no Christians could pray for her. She had previously written that she did not want any “Christers” praying for her - especially her disowned son, William J. Murray, who became a Christian in 1980.

 Whatever happened to Madalyn Murray O’Hair, it’s no secret that she hated the very name of God. When the government seized her house and belongings to pay her back taxes, they discovered she had marked out the words “In God We Trust” on all the money in her home.

 Madalyn Murray O’Hare could intimidate NASA and deface Federal Reserve banknotes but she could not stop her son from turning to Christ, despite the years she spent telling him there was no God. And no one - not Madalyn Murray O’Hair, not all the atheists on Earth - can remove God’s testimony from the heavens. As long as the sun, moon and stars exist, they will speak to us on His behalf.

 Acknowledgements to Greg Hartman and Breakaway magazine. Copyright © 1999 Focus on the Family

Quoted from Aviation Miracles paper by the Airline Aviation and Aerospace Christian Fellowship 2003

We are the body of Christ

This Youtube video can be used either within a communion setting or when speaking about the CHurch as the Body of Christ.