You are here: Home

Testimony Tuesday – Pastor Jim Norris

Written by on

Chicago Christian Radio from Valparaiso the WITW Morning Show for May 8.

It’s Testimony Tuesday!

I (RG) was joined in studio by one of my (and His) inspiring brother’s in Christ, Pastor Jim Norris. Jim is the Pastor for Boone Grove Christian Church, just south of Valpo. Jim shared the amazing journey God had for him to bring him to be a called Pastor, Practicing the Presence of God from Brother Lawerence, being led by the Holy Spirit and faith in the face of adversity. He shared a more recent addition to his story: There are two questions we need to be prepared to answer for God:

  1. Do you know Me?
  2. Who did you bring with you?

Watch our conversation

Jim and Nancy Norris are active members in the Indiana Dunes Great Banquet community. Banquet is where God crossed our (Jim and my) paths (IDGB #49 – Woot!) While I spoke a lot sharing my thoughts at the wrap-up of our initial visit to Banquet, Jim’s statement of God meeting him in that weekend has always stuck with me. I tend to use a lot of words to empty my heart and mind. Jim was far more selective and even more powerful with his explanation of how God met him that late September weekend in 2006. The weekend for us both redirected our paths to draw nearer to God and be more open to His plan for each of us.

Shortly after our initial weekend together, we served on team together. During that weekend, Jim shared an amazing testament of his ongoing communication with God through lessons learned from “Practice of the Presence of God” taught by 17th century lay monk, Brother Lawrence. The awareness of God’s constant presence and the ability to focus on an incessant conversation/prayer provides an amazingly freeing way to go through our day. It’s not something someone picks up in a day or a week, but through practice – it is the Practice of the Presence of God, you know.

During Jim’s visit for Testimony Tuesday, he shared how he is leaning into faith and believing God for a plan to reach someone who needs to be drawn nearer to God through his (Jim’s) battle with lymphoma. Before Jim and I talked directly, I knew what his attitude would be about what many would see as a devastating diagnosis. I knew he knew where his journey was ultimately leading. I knew he would tell the story of his faith keeping his focus on the long-term and the short-term was just that…temporary.

What I didn’t realize was how it would impact me to hear him say it. What I didn’t realize was how deeply it would grab me to hear him say “just one God.” What I didn’t realize was how far I felt I had to travel to get that confident in my faith.

So I pin that example of commitment to faith on the wall in front of me as a goal, as a reachable possibility, as an inspiration to give over more to Him to see what He has in store.

God’s blessed me with a number of inspiring people along my journey – paths crossing; running together for some time and in some cases diverging. There are some who inspire by their example. There are others who inspire me with their involvement on a regular basis. My hope is that I am sharing these blessings bestowed upon me with someone else who needs to be lifted up in the way I have been.

Just one God, just one.

Testimony Tuesday – Todd Laczynski

Written by on

WITW Chicago Christian Radio from Valparaiso May 1 Morning Show with Jen Randall and RG Skadberg for Testimony Tuesday with Todd Laczynski

You may have read about the story of Brett Laczynski in The Times – either his graduation held in February or Ernie Banks recent visit. His father, Todd, visited the studio today to talk about how his faith has been prevalent in the long battle with cancer that Brett has endured. Watch the visit on our Testimony Tuesday page and let us know what you think!

Building 429 Concert

Written by on

Chicago Christian Radio from Valparaiso – WITW 935 presents Christian Concert featuring

Building 429 with SAMESTATE at the LaPorte County Fair, July 12

One of the hottest band in Christian Radio during the past year, Building 429, is coming to Northwest Indiana. The LaPorte County Fair is bringing Building 429 with guest SAMESTATE to their stage Thursday, July 12.

Building 429 has enjoyed an amazing run in the last year since the release of both their single and album entitled Listen to the Sound. When Listen to the Sound was released to radio, it shot up the charts and enjoyed great success. How did they follow that up? Where I Belong blasted onto the charts next finding its way to the number one spot across the board of Contemporary Christian and Adult Christian Charts, occupying the 20 The Countdown’s number 1 spot for 9 weeks running!

Building 429 has enjoyed previous success with songs like End of Me, The Space Between Us, Always and others, but is in unchartered waters as a band with this chart run.

Now, The Region has a chance to enjoy them – LIVE! – as the LaPorte County Fair hosts their first national Contemporary Christian Music act as part of their entertainment line up. I asked Gene, the director of the LaPorte County Fair, how they came to book Building 429 for their fair this year. He said they were looking to try a Christian Contemporary Music act since they hadn’t really tried it before. Working with a booking agency, Gene wasn’t aware of just how popular Building 429 is right now.

Tickets go on sale April 28. We’ll post information about purchasing tickets as it’s finalized before that date.

The opening band for the show is SAMESTATE. They made a tour stop(I believe) in the Valpo-area recently and are a building a solid following in Contemporary Christian music.

Gene contacted WITW about promoting the concert to our area. We are thrilled with the opportunity help get the word out about this show. Coming off the chance to promote the Selah concert at Liberty Bible Church, this gives us a unique opportunity to see what we can do to promote and support a national concert in our backyard.

It also continues to provide sponsorship support that we are trying to grow in order accomplish several important upgrades and improvements strengthen our outreach ministry at WITW.

We encourage you to help spread the word. Let us know if you would like to be part of our effort to reach out on behalf of this show. If we can show that we can make a difference, it will help us reach out to other potential sponsors going forward. There are some exciting things on the horizon if we can build that sponsorship momentum.

God bless y’all.

Chicago Christian Radio from Valparaiso Brad Scott and some SALT Chat

Written by on

WITW Chicago Christian Radio from Valparaiso Morning Show for April 18

Serving Chicago Christian Radio each weekday morning Jen Randall and RG Skadberg this morning welcomed  speaker, author, teacher – Brad (Bradford) Scott of Wildbranch Ministries (www.wildbranch.org) talking about the Hebrew in the Old Testament and in the New Testament and more! Brad travels the States and overseas speaking about the God’s Word to us in the multiple levels of the Hebrew language, the verb Apostle and much more.

Also had a visit from Krista, Alissa, Caleb and Nate from SALT (Social Action Leadership Team) at VU (Valparaiso University) to talk about their World Relief Campaign Kenya Dig It project to build a well for the Lugulu Hospital in Kenya. The hospital currently doesn’t have a functional source for water. Patients literally bring their own water when needing hospital services. The students shared their fund raising goal of $14,000 to help establish a functional well. They shared their upcoming fund raising events to help reach their goal – Kenya Run It April 21 5k Run/Walk and Kenya Eat It (my term) at Qdoba Tuesday night April 24. Info at www.bit.ly/wrc2012.

Click the image below to watch the show.

Christian Artists Selah Concert in Northwest Indiana

Written by on
Christian artists Selah in concert at Liberty Bible Church April 14

photo from selahonline.com

 

One of Christian music’s most sustaining and impacting worship artists, Selah, is coming to Northwest Indiana. Liberty Bible Church, conveniently located between Chesterton and Valparaiso, just south of the Toll Road, is hosting Selah in concert April 14, 7pm at Liberty Bible. Tickets are available at Liberty Bible Bookstore – entrance on the northside of the building. For additional information about tickets, contact jamielbuchanan@gmail.com.

The concert is also a being conducted to support Liberty Bible’s Mission Ministry. Learn more about their mission goals at their website.

A clip from Selah’s bio from their website:

From their inception, Selah has always been synonymous with hymns. In fact, the understated beauty of the trio’s 1999 debut, Be Still My Soul (Curb), helped initiate a hymn revival in Christian music that is still thriving today. Their discography has significantly re-popularized the church’s greatest songs while decorating the popular group with numerous Dove Awards, number one singles, sold out concert tours and over two and half million albums sold.

Taking a cue from the honesty of these historic songs of faith, Selah swaps their well-worn hymnbook for a collection of originals and choice cuts from current songwriters’ catalogs in their seventh studio recording, Hope of the Broken World (Curb). Birthed from seasons of personal hardship, Selah’s latest is a celebration of the hope Todd Smith, Allan Hall and Amy Perry have discovered through surrender to God, and a testimony to the group’s collective desire to share these stories of hope with broken people through music.

WITW Valparaiso Christian Radio Morning Show March 30

Written by on

WITW Chicago Valparaiso Christian Radio Morning Show March 30 with Jen Randall and RG Skadberg. Local and New Christian Music Friday. Featured songs from Jennie Wellsand, Red Umbrella, Frank J Guzzo and new songs from Jason Gray and For King and Country. We caught up with with Shane Evans and Nate Jones from Be Still and Know Music about Christian Concert Saturday in Chesterton with John Davey, SONS, Anchor and Devn Clayton. Show is at Simple Days on Calumet in downtown Chesterton. During the call we chatted with Shane about his first road experience being on with a Christian band on the road for an extend time and distance as he played drums for SONS. They traveled through southern Illinois, St. Louis, Austin, TX, Oklahoma and several other places before returning to northern Indiana, specifically Huntington before heading west for the concert in Chesterton.

Reminded folks about our friend and budding Christian Music star, coming off her first concert tour, Jennie Wellsand’s CD release party at The Branch tonight at 7:30pm as well as the Lifebridge’s Lifetree Cafe’ discussion on the topic of Hurt by the Church tonight at 6:30pm.

You can watch the morning show in it’s entirety here.

Have a great weekend everyone!

 

WITW Morning Show Video Archive

Written by on

Today was that day that has been on the “To Do” List for a while. Ah, finally! Put a check in the circle.

We now have archive pages for the WITW, Valparaiso Christian Radio’s, Morning Show. There is a page for our Monday morning show’s “Hebrew Anew with Jackie Jones”, “Testimony Tuesday” and a page to save our Christian Artist Features for the many guests that have blessed us with their time and talents in studio.

Since our video archiving is a fairly recent addition (and still a bit “wobbily” as Winnie the Pooh might say), we aren’t deep in  shows at this point. That is changing. We are getting a better feel for the flow, a little tighter with technology and less missy with our memory.

We’d appreciate your feedback and sharing with your friends.

 

Thats the Night that the Lights Went out in Valpo

Written by on

Late Friday afternoon, a pretty big section along the northside of Lincolnway lost power, which included our tower. Hopefully that will encompass the damage for the upcoming snow storm. NIPSCO had us back on line early this evening. Thanks to those guys who had to out in that weather to repair the damage.

Be safe everyone.

Peace!

OT Lamb Meet NT Lamb

Written by on

So Abraham “laid it (the wood for the offering) on [the shoulders of] Isaac his son…”

How does that compare to “And they took Jesus and led [Him] away; so He went out, bearing His own cross, to the spot called The Place of the Skull — in Hebrew it is called Golgotha”.

As God proved/tested Abraham, He asked him to offer his only son as a sacrifice to God. Similarly, but with a twist, God gave His only Son as a sacrifice for man.

The difference, the test of Abraham was cut short of actually sacrificing his son; instead He proved a ram to fill the position. God on the other hand, could have stopped the sacrifice of Jesus, but both knew it was necessary to play out to provide the “narrow gate” for our salvation.

(read more @ RG in The Word)

Whoa, Abraham! Ehay’s Atchingway

Written by on

“Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a son?” Genesis 17:17

There’s no doubt in my mind that God appreciates a good sense of humor – and even has a tolerance for some folks out there with a less than good sense of humor.

But I’m not sure if He doesn’t cringe a bit when people laugh at or mock Him.

So, God blessed Abraham in his present and told him a couple times that his descendants will be equal in number to stars, sand, burgers McDonalds sold (well maybe not the latter.) The God Most High changed his name to represent this multitude and Sarai’s name to Sarah (Princess…has Disney have had a princess names Sarah? That would be redundant as it turns out). Abraham, when he was Abram, dedicated and sacrificed to “God Most High, Possessor and Maker of heaven and earth” (Genesis 14:18). Not to forget, that by this point, his God Most High established a covenant with both he as Abram and Abraham.

(read more)