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We are continuing our series on Getting to Know your church leaders a little bit better. Read along to learn more about Vince Tidwell, who serves on our Elder Council.

Where were you born, and do you still consider that home, or somewhere else?

I was born in Arlington, Texas; however, New Mexico is home now.

What did you want to be when you grew up–and is that still a dream?

The first thing I wanted to be was a Dallas Cowboy, wow, has that changed! But I always think deep down I wanted to be a scientist, something I continue to pursue.

What or who was your earliest spiritual influence?

Definitely my father. I was blessed to grow up in a Christian household.

How and when did Christ call you to Himself?

I committed to Christ when I was in mid-school; however, I really made my faith my own when Penny and I married and moved to Tucson for grad school.

What is a scripture you often read or share with others?

Romans 8:31-39: I still remember the first time I read this verse in a Father-Son study.

What is a special answered prayer you’ve received from the Lord?

Most recently it was His persistent encouragement for me to move into partial retirement.

What is a blessing and what is a challenge in serving as an elder?

The blessing is definitely the time that I am able to spend with the elders. The biggest challenge is just the feeling that there is always so much more that I could be doing.

What are your hobbies and how did you get into them?

Anything outdoors, mountain biking, snow skiing, hiking, fly fishing, paddle boarding. These just naturally evolved when I moved to the West.

What is your favorite family tradition?

Simply eating a meal at the table as a family. This is increasingly appreciated as our family continues to grow (e.g., daughters-in-law and grandchild).

How do you enjoy spending a day off?

It is just the opposite of most people, I have to be active. Doesn’t matter too much what it is, I just have to be doing something. This often drives Penny crazy.

What is the perfect meal?

It is not so much what we eat; rather, it is about cooking the meal with Penny.

Who or what never fails to make you laugh?

That is easy, it is spending time with our life-long friends Greg and Kate. Somehow laughter is just a big part of our time together.

We asked Penny: 

What is your favorite trait about Vince: 

My favorite trait of Vince is his character. I married him for his character, and he’s never let me down!

What does Vince do that can always make you smile? 

Vince will take a daily walk with me behind the house! That always makes me smile! 

This year a few thousand folks will decide they’d like to spend a few months trying to hike the entirety of the Appalachian Trail. It’s a challenging goal: 2,200 miles of trail going through 14 states from Georgia to Maine, associated with weather that can go from freezing to scorching, and the prospect of months of hard work to achieve their goal. About 15% of these folks will achieve their goals, and many more will be forever touched by the experience of relying on a few basics on their back, and lots of hard work to take care of themselves in the wilderness.

The trail is marked with a series of 2”x6” painted white rectangles on trees, rocks, roads and fence posts. There are around 160,000 of these “white blazes” along the course of the trail, often, but not always, arranged so that one can see the next one from the previous one. Sights of the side of the trail are marked with similar “blue blazes”, and can include camping locations, water sources or routes to a nearby town.  With a reasonable amount of care, a hiker will usually be able to keep from getting lost along the way, and if he strays, it is usually not a difficult task to go back to the last blaze and look for the way again.  Imagine going for four to six months relying on painted blazes to show your way, and having faith that the next one will be beyond the current one!

The AT was for me a life-changing experience, drawing me closer to God, and enriching my life. I now spend a few months a year helping others achieve their hike goals, and simultaneously pointing out how God is and can be working in their lives. Hikers will say after hiking for months on the trail, “Wouldn’t it be nice if there were white blazes in life as well?”  The question can be the start of a wonderful conversation because, you see, there are: they are written in the love letter God wrote for us. Just as on the AT, we don’t get the whole picture at one time; we need to rely on the Bible for guidance step by step, day by day. And, we might take some detours off the path, but we can get back on again. It’s not a rigid structured life either: there are blue blazes in our lives that might lead to marriage, career decisions, or other important life choices. Always, however, we have the backbone of scripture to guide us. 

So, what are you using for your blazes? Do you rely on what the world paints on your path to determine your path, or do you look to the Word each and every day to know the next steps? As sure as the white blazes can take you 2,200 miles from Georgia to Maine, the Bible can guide you on an even more amazing trip: to eternal life with One who loves you.

We are beginning a series on Getting to Know your church leaders a little bit better. Read along to learn more about Pastor Frank Malizzo.

Where were you born, and do you still consider that home, or somewhere else?

I was born outside of Chicago, but Abq is home.

What did you want to be when you grew up – and is that still a dream?

At one point, early on, I wanted to be some kind of philosopher or amazing mathematician. Those kind of went together and those guys seemed really cool.

What or who was your earliest spiritual influence?

My earliest spiritual influence was going to mass. I also tried to read the Bible when I was in about 5th grade, but I didn't have any idea what I was doing, and that didn't last very long.

How and when did Christ call you to Himself?

I first heard the gospel at a mid-school summer camp hosted by another church. I knew that I was a sinner and I came to understand that Christ is the only Savior.

What is a scripture you often read or share with others?

Psalm 37 is a passage that I discovered for myself many years ago, and became one of the places that I've returned to most frequently. This word has often been the Lord's comfort to me in my distress, His peace to me in my confusion, His guidance for me in my searching, and His wisdom to me in my uncertainty.

What is a special answered prayer you’ve received from the Lord?

Most answered prayers in my life may seem small, rather than earth-shaking. Recently, the Lord gave specific medical guidance to a friend that was His clear work. He also gave a divine opportunity to see someone's eyes turned to the Lord.

What is a blessing and what is a challenge as serving as pastor?

One challenge of shepherding is that we (sheep) are almost always in-process, and we often don't see the resolution. One huge blessing is being close enough to people in our hurt to see the glory of overcoming faith and the grace of incomprehensible joy!

What are your hobbies and how did you get into them?

I look forward to a good game of sand volleyball. In graduate school in NC, I fell into playing about 4-5 times a week one summer with a group of teaching assistants. I also enjoy strategy games - when I can find the time. Oh yeah, and I also enjoy getting beat at Uno or Old Maid or other simple card games by young girls in our home.

What is your favorite family tradition?

There are tons of family memories - by God's grace - but just being together to read, pray, and sing feels to me like something out of a dream.

How do you enjoy spending a day off?

I would say reading .. but then sometimes I can't sit still long enough to make it happen. But, let's say reading.

What is the perfect meal?

Carne Adovada. I'm pretty certain that this is the meal for which Esau traded his birthright.  (I think that it says this in the Hebrew.)

Who or what never fails to make you laugh? 

Molly. Typically it goes like this: I say something incorrectly or mix up my words. She finds this hilarious, and can't help but laugh at me. I fail at playing it cool and trying to play it off. Pretty soon we are both laughing at each other. It escalates. Eventually, sometimes we snort.

We asked Molly:

What is your favorite trait about Frank? 

I have a lot of favorite traits, so this is a hard question. However, the one that comes to mind immediately is that I love his humor and his wit. I also love his ability to think through issues from all sides.  

What does he do that can always make you smile? 

He makes me smile when he plays board games and sports with our kids both big and small, creating fellowship, relationship, and laughter. And, I love that he can still sing with flourish the early 1990's P.I.D. rap "Get You A Bible" listing the books in order! So fun! 

Faithful Christians and equally zealous nonbelievers can agree on the following statement: If Jesus of Nazareth didn’t rise from the dead, then the entire Christian faith is worthless. The Apostle Paul agreed when he wrote that “if Christ hasn’t been raised then our faith is in vain…. and we are of all people, most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15).  The veracity of our faith boils down to a single event that either happened or didn’t – a single event that is open to the tools of historical investigation.  If we can encourage skeptics to overcome their biases and to investigate this event for themselves, many of them will awaken to the plausibility of the historic Christian position. This alone won’t save anyone – but it illustrates one of the ways apologetics is an important part of evangelism in the modern (and postmodern) world.

As a graduate student studying Physics in an environment overtly hostile to Christianity, God took me down my own path of discovering the bankruptcy of the default skeptical positions assumed in that culture.  Once I realized that theists and non-theists alike believed in “miracles” (what’s a bigger miracle than the Universe coming into existence out of nothing?) it gradually became clearer to me that God existed, and could therefore intervene if, when, and how, He wanted. Yet, before experimenting with prayer and ultimately placing my faith in the God of the Bible, I had to become convinced of the historical plausibility of the resurrection myself.

Do you know what I found? A remarkably high number of even non-Christian professional historians agree on dozens of historical facts that can be arranged into three broad categories: 1) The discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb by a group of his women followers. 2) The postmortem appearances to several individuals and groups. 3) The origin of the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection. The task of the historian is then to compare all the competing hypotheses according to certain criteria for the best explanation (see graphic inset).

Even the most skeptical non-Christian scholars acknowledge that the earliest Christian hypothesis proclaimed by Jesus’ disciples, skeptics like James, and persecutors like Saul, was that “God raised Jesus from the dead”. This fact can be established using only Paul’s universally accepted letters, one of which contains the most primitive Christian creed proclaiming the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:3-5), which is dated to within a couple of years and possibly even months of the crucifixion (see graphic timeline).  This allows no time for legendary development or corrupted oral tradition assumed by alternative hypotheses.  The resurrection hypothesis benefits from several early and independently attested eyewitness accounts supported by many biblical and extra-biblical sources that overshadow every alternative hypothesis (various “conspiracy theories”, the “apparent death” or “mythological” explanation, the “Hallucination hypothesis”, and combinations of these).

The resurrection hypothesis not only holds its own under rigorous historical analysis – it appears to be the best explanation of the established facts*.  It’s a remarkable fact that alternative hypotheses have less traction today than they did 50 years ago among academic scholars in the relevant fields. When put into the context of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, the resurrection hypothesis not only fits the historical data the best, it also vindicates Jesus’ claims about Himself, and gives us our only hope. For God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” –  Paul at the Aereopagus in Athens (Acts 17:31).

*for rigorous analysis of available historical data see any number of books, publications, and debates by Dr. Gary Habermas, Dr. Mike Licona, Dr. William Lane Craig, Dr. N.T. Wright among others.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/resurrection-jesus-christ/

I know one of the concerns of the children's music ministry is that the children understand what they are singing and that they mean it. And I share that concern for our people. In a moment the choir will sing a song called, "Hosanna, Hosanna!" And after that we all will sing a song which begins: "Hosanna in the highest!" So I want to give a little lesson in Greek and Hebrew, to make sure we all know what the New Testament means when it says in three different places, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" (Matthew 21:9, 15); or, "Hosanna in the highest!" (Mark 11:9, 10); or simply, "Hosanna!" (John 12:13).

A Lesson in Greek and Hebrew

You all know that the New Testament was first written in Greek, and the Old Testament was first written in Hebrew. Wherever the word "hosanna" occurs in the New Testament, do you know what the Greek word is? Right! It's "hosanna." All the English translators did was use English letters (h-o-s-a-n-n-a) to make the sound of a Greek word.

But if you look in a Greek dictionary to find what it means, you know what you find? You find that it is really not originally a Greek word after all. The men who wrote the New Testament in Greek did the same thing to a Hebrew word that our English translators did to the Greek word: they just used Greek letters to make the sound of a Hebrew phrase. I know this sounds sort of complicated. But it's really not. Our English word "hosanna" comes from a Greek word "hosanna" which comes from a Hebrew phrase hoshiya na.

And that Hebrew phrase is found one solitary place in the whole Old Testament, Psalm 118:25, where it means, "Save, please!" It is a cry to God for help. Like when somebody pushes you off the diving board before you can swim and you come up hollering: "Help, save me . . . Hoshiya na!"

A Shift in Meaning

But something happened to that phrase, hoshiya na. The meaning changed over the years. In the psalm it was immediately followed by the exclamation: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" The cry for help, hoshiya na, was answered almost before it came out of the psalmist's mouth. And over the centuries the phrase hoshiya na stopped being a cry for help in the ordinary language of the Jews. Instead it became a shout of hope and exultation. It used to mean, "Save, please!" But gradually, it came to mean, "Salvation! Salvation! Salvation has come!" It used to be what you would say when you fell off the diving board. But it came to be what you would say when you see the lifeguard coming to save you! It is the bubbling over of a heart that sees hope and joy and salvation on the way and can't keep it in.

So "Hosanna!" means, "Hooray for salvation! It's coming! It's here! Salvation! Salvation!"

And "Hosanna to the Son of David!" means, "The Son of David is our salvation! Hooray for the king! Salvation belongs to the king!"

And "Hosanna in the highest!" means, "Let all the angels in heaven join the song of praise. Salvation! Salvation! Let the highest heaven sing the song!"

Two Kinds of Hosannas

Picture a Super Bowl game, and (believe it or not) the Vikings are three points ahead of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers are on their own 35 and have no more time outs. There are two seconds remaining on the clock. The Vikings' fans are going wild. The Steelers line up, fake a pass to the receivers on the left sideline, and run a wide sweep around the right end, and the quarterback breaks into the open and heads down the right sideline—40 - 45 - 50 - 45. The only hope for the Vikings is Willie Teal, the safety, cutting a diagonal across the field. And out of the Vikings' grandstand come two kinds of hosannas, the old kind and the new kind. One part of the crowd is yelling: "Catch him! Catch him, Willie!" (That's the old hosanna.) The other part of the crowd is yelling, "You got him! You got him, Willie!" (That's the new hosanna.) The word moved from plea to praise; from cry to confidence.

So when we sing "Hosanna" now, let's make it very personal. Let's make it our praise and our confidence. The Son of David has come. He has saved us from guilt and fear and hopelessness. Salvation! Salvation belongs to our God and to the Son! Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!

DesiringGod. Hosanna. March 27, 1983. John Piper

https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/hosanna