On their return the apostles told him what they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a city called Bethsa’ida. When the crowds learned it, they followed him; and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God, and cured those who had need of healing.
–Luke 9:10-11
Dr Charles Reed the Church of England’s International and Development Affairs adviser said:
“World Food Day’s “fight hunger to reduce poverty” campaign reminds us of the continuing need for emergency supplies faced by many in our own country as well as abroad. Our churches support those in need in the developing world as well as in our own communities….
Read it all and follow the link as well.
I wonder if the very concept of “the weekend” is biblical. It seems to me that “the weekend” turns Sunday into a second Saturday. Home Depot may gain, but we lose. It turns Sunday into a day to catch up on what we didn’t do Saturday or a day to ramp up for what’s ahead on Monday. It hollows out our whole week, because it marginalizes God and church and sermons and all the other vital things that happen in our lives only when we make the vital things also the central things. If we accept the concept of “the weekend,” we risk “fitting God in” rather than centering our every week around him. We risk living soul-exhausted lives, and wondering why God isn’t more real to us, why we’re grumpy
With Vatican II, the Catholic Church sent out the message that it was part of the modern world, said Thomas Ryan, director of the Loyola Institute for Ministry. “Not against, not above, not apart, but in the modern world,” he said. “The church sought to engage, not condemn.”
The council documents say there must be a conversation between the church and the world, Aymond said. “The church, by its teaching and by its discipleship, has something to say to the world. At the same time, the world is saying something to the church. It’s saying some good things, I think, about globalization and the environment, respecting people of all genders and classes and cultures and languages.
“We can’t just say we’re not going to be involved in these conversations. As the church, we have to be in conversation with others who agree and disagree with us.”
…despite its long history, ZocDoc has refrained from launching new products, opting instead to focus on scaling out the reach of its flagship scheduling offering to an audience that includes medical providers in 31 metro areas in the United States. That is, until last week, when ZocDoc started rolling out “Check-In,” a new feature that lets patients fill out medical forms online prior to their doctor’s appointments.
Science and faith need each other for the benefit of all of creation, a Nobel-prize winning geneticist told Pope Benedict XVI and the world’s bishops.
Werner Arber, a Swiss microbiologist who serves as the president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, also said that, while there is still no proof, he is one of a number of scientists who believe there may be life on some planets outside of Earth’s solar system….
“If Jesus Christ would live among us today, he would be in favor of the application of solid scientific knowledge for the long-term benefit of humans and their natural environment, as long as such applications” fully respected the laws of nature, said Arber, one of three winners of the 1978 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.
Listen to it all if you so desire.
From an interview with the authors of the Simpson-Bowles reform plan and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein:
“…We just met with — a dozen of the largest high-tech company CEOs in the country. Not only are they hoarding cash. All their customers, all their suppliers are. They’re scared to death we’re going to go over this cliff and it could be a catastrophe….”
You can find a summary article to read there, it has briefer video links, but the best use of your time is to watch the full interview over here or read the transcript (about 42 1/2 minutes). Also, David Brook’s piece on the debt indulgence is worth a careful revisit.
World grain reserves are so dangerously low that severe weather in the United States or other food-exporting countries could trigger a major hunger crisis next year, the United Nations has warned.
Failing harvests in the US, Ukraine and other countries this year have eroded reserves to their lowest level since 1974. The US, which has experienced record heatwaves and droughts in 2012, now holds in reserve a historically low 6.5% of the maize that it expects to consume in the next year, says the UN.
“We’ve not been producing as much as we are consuming. That is why stocks are being run down. Supplies are now very tight across the world and reserves are at a very low level, leaving no room for unexpected events next year,” said Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Like many things, Five Talents started in a very small way. It began its life at the Lambeth Conference in 1998 when Martin Mimms came to tell me about Five Talents. I was immediately smitten by the idea and made a donation towards. It has gone on to become a firmly established NGO in both the USA and UK ”“ with professional staff and committed supporters. And I do want to say how much I admire the leadership of Tom Sanderson whose vision and drive is behind the success of Five Talents.
The organisation has grown quickly ”“ raising several millions (c.£5m) in its lifetime to help support 15 Microfinance programmes around the world. I recall the setting up of the Mama Bahati project some years ago which an organization led by Brian Griffiths raised several thousands of pounds ”“ including donations from Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. This was taken over by Five Talents and it is thrilling to read from Five Talents on the Web that it is now serving 3,139 women in Tanzania.
But what is micro finance? The term ”˜micro-finance’ means providing very poor families with very small loans to help them engage in productive activities, or small businesses, to help them out of poverty. It is of no surprise to those of us who have visited Africa and India that it is women who have gained so much from this initiative. The former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, described it as ’a critical anti-poverty tool for the poorest, especially women’. Indeed, women have emerged as credit worthy clients, offering reliable and conscientious commitment and, in turn, micro-finance initiatives have strengthened social and human capacity of women in the family and community. I read recently that the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh offers loans to 7,000 people, 97% of whom are women. Women are transforming their own life chances and are emerging from poverty as a result.
Two factions that divided the Episcopal church in Pittsburgh four years ago as part of a national schism have agreed to work together to support a ministry for homeless veterans and others in need.
An accord between the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh and the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh clears the way for Shepherd’s Heart Fellowship to take title to all property at its Uptown location and to seek a more favorable financing of its debt.
The Episcopal Diocese considers the ministry of paramount importance, spokesman Rich Creehan said.
Neil Gordon understands the comfort some people feel in having their civil union blessed by a church.
An Anglican priest who was married by a justice of the peace 25 years ago, Gordon was thrilled to have Kent Clarke, the Archbishop of Edmonton, say a simple prayer for him and his Jewish wife at their wedding dinner.
“I can’t tell you how much it meant to me,” Gordon, the rector of All Saints’ Cathedral and dean of Edmonton, said. “It told me the church was pulling for us. It was a wonderful gift.”
In a Cairo school basement, two dozen women analyze facial expressions on laptops, training the computers to recognize anger, sadness and frustration.
At Cambridge University, an eerily realistic robotic head named Charles sits in a driving simulator, furrowing its brows, looking interested or confused.
And in a handful of American middle school classrooms this fall, computers will monitor students’ emotions in an effort to track when they are losing interest and when they are getting excited about lessons.
On April 23, Good Friday, Hans wrote to Dietrich””not knowing, of course, whether the letter would be delivered. His message was one of soul-searing regret:
That I am responsible for you, Christel, the children, and the parents having to bear this pain, that my beloved wife and you are robbed of freedom””you won’t believe how this depresses me”¦. If I knew that you all””and you personally””don’t think of me with reproaches, a weight would be lifted from my soul.
Dietrich quickly reassured him:
There is not a grain of reproach or bitterness in me regarding what has happened to you and me. Such things come from God, and only Him. And I know that you and Christel are at one with me, that before Him there is only submission, endurance, patience””and gratitude.
Read it all and then take the time to go through the numbers here and also a summation there.
Keep us, O Lord, constant in faith and zealous in witness, after the examples of thy servants Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer; that we may live in thy fear, die in thy favor, and rest in thy peace; for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Blot out, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord, our past transgressions; forgive our negligence and ignorance, our mistakes and misunderstandings; and uplift our hearts to thee in new love and dedication; that unburdened from the grief and shame of past faithlessness, we may henceforth serve thee with renewed courage and devotion; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Be strong and of good courage; for you shall cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you; turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success.
–Joshua 1:6-8
No matter who gets elected president next month, the United States economy in 2013 will have only tepid growth.
Does that sound like this year all over again? Yes, indeed.
At least that’s the view of 44 professional economic forecasters, members of the National Association of Business Economics, who on Monday released their outlook for the coming year.
Canadian household debt has shot past the sky-high levels that foreshadowed the U.S. housing bust.
But it’s taken a statistical revisions by Statistics Canada to get there.
Canadians’ debt-to-income ratio reached 163.4 per cent in the second quarter, up from 161.7 per cent at the end of last year.
Eileen Guenther, the national president of the American Guild of Organists, reveals behind-the-scenes church struggles in her new book, “Rivals or a Team?: Clergy-Musician Relationships in the Twenty-First Century.”
Guenther, an associate professor of church music at Washington’s Wesley Theological Seminary and the former organist at Foundry United Methodist Church, talked with Religion News Service about her findings and advice. Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Q: You titled your book “Rivals or a Team?” From your research, which is a better description of most clergy-musician relationships?
Among the words they are looking at–FAQ, Disco, and Bellini….
Read it all and visit over here as well.
[China’s]…economy has gone from being rather smaller than Italy’s to the world’s second largest, and is now home to one million US$ millionaires. By the time the new generation of leaders hands over power to the next in 2022, China could be challenging the US for top spot.
This transformation has changed the way the world does business. Cheap Chinese labour has helped dampen prices in the West for everything from moccasins to mops to mobile phones. It is now the biggest investor in Africa, promising to shift the continent’s focus away from Europe and the US for the first time in two centuries. And China is now the biggest foreign holder of US government debt – a threatening stick, or a foolhardy bet?
The key question now is whether the new leaders can keep the economy growing at the same rate as in the past, and help the rest of the world recover. Most Western analysts expect it to slow from 10% a year to a still impressive 6-7%, but argue that deep reforms are needed if China is to become a rich rather than middle-income country.
This one-man show by David Payne gives a good feel for C.S. Lewis as a man and as a thinker.
The setting is 1963 (the last year of Lewis’s life), with Lewis addressing in his home a group of writers from America. It’s an hour and a half in length:
Watch it all and check out the other links as well.
If you spend nearly all your working day sitting at a desk, as 50 to 70 percent of Americans do, you may be shortening your life.
“Sitting is the kiss of death,” said Ron DeAngelo, director of sports performance training at UPMC’s Center for Sports Medicine. “We weren’t designed to sit. In prehistoric days, we never sat.”
People who sit for most of the day are 54 percent more likely to get a heart attack than people who sit for less than three hours a day, according to a study published in July by researchers at Louisiana State University. Active people live about two years longer.
Read it all and there is another article on this from the BBC here.
“The Christian is not a seeker; the Christian is one who has found. “Come, see a man”¦” (John 4:29); “We have found the Messiah”¦” (John 1:41); “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth”¦” (John 1:45). Christians are men and women who have found; they have found something to give; they are not merely seeking”¦By definition Christians have something; they have something to say”¦ So the great question we must all ask ourselves is this: do we have something to give to people who are in need? I like to think of it like this. Imagine that tonight when you are in your home, somebody knocks at your door or rings the bell. You go to the door, and there you find a messenger. What is the message? Well, it is a request, an appeal, from a man whom you have known for years; perhaps you have known him since you were children together. Unfortunately, poor fellow, he has gone wrong in life, he has lived a godless life, and yet you somehow liked him. Whenever you met him, you were glad to see him, you always spoke to him, and you often tried to urge him to come with you to listen to the gospel. But he would not come; he laughed it off, as such people often do.
Now here is the message ”“ this afternoon that poor fellow had a sudden heart attack, and he is desperately ill; in fact, he is dying. The doctor can do no more for him. He has told the family, and this man realizes the truth ”“ he can see it in their faces. And suddenly he has come to himself. He sees that his life is finished, and he is going to the unknown and to darkness. He has nothing ”“ nothing to lean on in his past life, nothing to lean on in the present. Nobody can help him. He is absolutely alone, as we all shall be sooner or later, as our soul passes from time to eternity and into the presence of God. He does not know what to do or where to turn; he is in agony of soul. But suddenly he has thought of you because he thinks of you as a Christian and as a member of a church, because you have invited him to go with you to church. So he has sent for you ”“ that is the message. Of course, you have no choice; you must go. And when you arrive in the room, there is your friend lying on his back in bed.
This is the test as to whether or not we are Christians. Do you have something you can give him that will make all the difference in the world to him? What is the point of telling this man that you are also a seeker and a searcher after the truth ”“ he will be dead before midnight? What is the point of saying to him, “I hope that my sins are going to be forgiven sometime, I’m doing my best, I’m living a good life”? Does that help him? That puts him into hell while he is still alive. Or how does it help him if you turn to him and say, “Well, at last you see it. How many times have I told you that the life you were living was wrong? If only you had live as I live!” What is the value of that? That is sheer cruelty. That, again, is putting him in hell while he is still alive. It is of no value at all.
No, no; that is not the Christian way. Christians are not seeking truth or seeking forgiveness. They are not trying to make themselves Christians by living good lives; they are not merely church members. What are they? Well, in the end it just comes to this: they are men and women who, like the woman of Samaria, have met Christ, the Son of God. They are able to tell this poor fellow that it is not too late, that it is not hopeless, that no one is justified by their works or by their lives, that we are all sinners, and there is no ultimate difference between us at all, but that this is the message: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever [even he] believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Christians can tell this man not about their own experience but about Jesus Christ. There is no time to give experiences; there is no time to go through your drill and mechanically quote this or that. All they can say is, “Jesus Christ ”“ look to him!” They just tell the dying man about him, who he is, what he has done. And that is the only way this man can be helped, the only way he can find peace and rest for his soul.”
–Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981), Living Water: Studies in John 4, quoted by yours truly in yesterday’s sermon
During the service a group of four women chained themselves to the pulpit and shouted out a list of grievances against St Paul’s as well as reading part of the bible. The Dean of St Paul’s, The Very Reverend Dr David Ison, who was about to preach, allowed them to speak, following which the rest of the service continued without interruption.
Afterwards the Dean said: “After working constructively together with Occupy Faith on this act of worship, we regret the abuse of the Cathedral’s hospitality and its daily worship. We also disagree with the way in which some protesters are continuing to pursue the agenda of conflict with St Paul’s, rather than consulting with us about how together we might better achieve the reforms which many people including Occupy are looking for.”