Travel back 200 years in Christian history to John Newton, the slave-trader-turned-pastor and hymn writer. He would receive almost unbelievable answers to his prayers because he believed in what he called "large asking." When explaining what he meant, Newton would often cite a legendary story of a man who asked Alexander the Great to give him a huge sum of money in exchange for his daughter's hand ...

For 45 years, Pat Summerall's voice and face spelled football. He anchored CBS and FOX's NFL telecasts (often alongside John Madden) and broadcast 16 Super Bowls (and served as a CBS Radio analyst or pregame reporter for 10 more). This is the part of Pat Summerall's story that most people know. In the Christian sports magazine Sports Spectrum, reporter Art Stricklin tells the rest of Pat's story:

Pat ...

I grew up a pastor's son. My father's church, located next to our home, was often used for meetings of pastors belonging to a certain denomination that was passing through considerable theological controversy. Often I would sneak into the church and listen to these pastors vent their frustrations and plot their strategies for upcoming denominational conferences.

The name of one denominational leader ...