Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.
–Psalm 1:1-3
At a time when many Christian leaders today are failing, we need to reclaim these eight vital qualities:
1. You must have a sure calling. Nehemiah said to the king: “Send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may rebuild it” (Neh. 2:5, NASB, emphasis added). Nehemiah was a “sent one.” He was called by God, and he surrendered. You must be convinced that you are called. You may have great preaching skills, a powerful anointing or a magnetic personality, but human abilities and God-given talents alone will not make you successful. You must know that you know that you know that God has sent you.
2. You need a heavenly burden. When Nehemiah heard that Jerusalem’s walls were destroyed and that the Jews were displaced, he wept (1:4). His call to leadership flowed out of true compassion for people. The most successful leaders step into their assignments not because they want to make a name for themselves or because they want a paycheck from a church, but because they want to help others. If love is not your motivation, do us all a favor and wait until God’s compassion grips you. The church today does not need any more leaders with personal agendas or selfish ambitions.
Bishop Vicar of Quincy Keith Ackerman once again lit up smiles of parishioners at Christ Church Limestone where he performed service Sunday morning.
Ackerman, the retired eighth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy for the Anglican Church in North America, came back to the Hanna City church after current Bishop Juan Alberto Morales of Quincy asked him to return to the area for a diocene convention.
Ackerman spoke about the importance of giving thanks to God, family and friends.
Virtually all countries still embrace the principles of international trade and investment. They want to enjoy the benefits of globalisation, but as much as possible they now also want to insulate themselves from its downsides, be they volatile capital flows or surging imports.
Globalisation has clearly paused. A simple measure of trade intensity, world exports as a share of world GDP, rose steadily from 1986 to 2008 but has been flat since. Global capital flows, which in 2007 topped $11 trillion, amounted to barely a third of that figure last year. Cross-border direct investment is also well down on its 2007 peak.
Much of this is cyclical. The recent crises and recessions in the rich world have subdued the animal spirits that drive international investment. But much of it is a matter of deliberate policy.
[LUCKY] SEVERSON: Bobby Dellelo knows what it’s like. He was in solitary for over five years.
BOBBY DELLELO (Former Solitary Prisoner): It was a horror show. You go insane in there. You go crazy. You hear guys saying, “Yeah, ho.” “No, what?” The ventilator called his name. The thing that really scared me in there is I was watching my humanity and compassion slipping out of my grasp.
SEVERSON: John Rosser is chairman of the Washington, DC Corrections Officers Union. He thinks, as do many prison guards nationwide, that solitary is getting a bad rap. It’s necessary to preserve the safety of inmates and guards within the prison.
SGT. JOHN ROSSER (DC Corrections Officers Chairman): I do not see how you could run a prison system at all without some type of segregation. And I don’t prefer to use the term…
SEVERSON: …solitary?
Asthma ”” the most common chronic disease that affects Americans of all ages, about 40 million people ”” can usually be well controlled with drugs. But being able to afford prescription medications in the United States often requires top-notch insurance or plenty of disposable income, and time to hunt for deals and bargains.
The arsenal of medicines in the Hayeses’ kitchen helps explain why. Pulmicort, a steroid inhaler, generally retails for over $175 in the United States, while pharmacists in Britain buy the identical product for about $20 and dispense it free of charge to asthma patients. Albuterol, one of the oldest asthma medicines, typically costs $50 to $100 per inhaler in the United States, but it was less than $15 a decade ago, before it was repatented.
“The one that really blew my mind was the nasal spray,” said Robin Levi, Hannah and Abby’s mother, referring to her $80 co-payment for Rhinocort Aqua, a prescription drug that was selling for more than $250 a month in Oakland pharmacies last year but costs under $7 in Europe, where it is available over the counter.
Retired Episcopal Bishop Bud Cederholm ”” affectionately known as the “Green Bishop” ”” sprinkled holy water on the new solar panels installed at Grace Episcopal Church on High Street. Cederholm, who earned his nickname for his environmental advocacy, got a lift in a city truck to sprinkle water on the 25-kilowatt solar installation. Grace Episcopal is part of The Genesis Covenant, a worldwide coalition of Christian churches that aim to save the environment. Each member commits to reducing its own carbon footprint by 50 percent. Along with solar panels, Grace Episcopal has installed compact fluorescent lights, energy-efficient appliances, and a high-efficiency gas heating system.
Read it all (requires full subscription).
[A family of Syrian refugees]…briefly described their life in Syria as farmers on fertile land that produced crops like barley, tomatoes and potatoes in good supply. Theirs was a good life, and they had been happy there.
But the good life disappeared. The people living in the area were soon surrounded by government forces commanded by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and supplies were cut off. The family’s teenage daughter demonstrated how troops intentionally trampled the crops, cutting off residents’ food supply.
The family fled to Jordan several months ago.
The family’s 14-year-old son described the chilling experience on June 1, 2012, when soldiers opened fire and bullets struck him in the leg and tore through the tendon of his then 6-year-old brother’s leg behind the knee. The older brother had thrown himself onto his younger sibling to protect him from further harm.
“We are a very media-conscious generation. We know the power of the mass media on the public mind. Consequently, we want to use the media in evangelism. By print or tape, by audio or videocassette, by radio and television we would like to saturate the world with the good news. And rightly so. We should harness to the service of the gospel every modern medium of communication which is available to us.
Nevertheless, there is another way, which is still more effective. It requires not complicated electronic gadgetry; it is very simple. It is neither organized nor computerized; it is spontaneous. And it is not expensive; it costs precisely nothing. We might call it ‘holy gossip.’ It is the excited transmission from mouth to mouth of the impact which the gospel news is making on people. ‘Have you heard what has happened to so and so? Did you know that such and such a person has come to believe in God and has been completely transformed? Something extraordinary is happening in Thessalonica: a new society is coming into being, with new values and standards, characterized by faith, love and hope.'”
–John R. W. Stott, The Message of 1 & 2 Thessalonians (Bible Speaks Today)[Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity, 1991], pp.37-38, and quoted by yours truly in this morning’s sermon
The Church as people who are Gossippers of the Gospel
[Evangelism] is telling the good news about Jesus, and doing it with honesty, urgency, and joy, using the Bible, living a life that backs it up, and praying, and doing it all for the glory of God.
–Mark Dever
Evangelism is not simply a matter if bringing individuals to personal faith, though of course that remains central to the whole enterprise. It is a matter of confronting the world with the good, but deeply disturbing, news of a different way of living”¦the way of love.
–Tom Wright
To evangelize is so to present Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, that men shall come to put their trust in God through Him, to accept Him as their Savior, and serve Him as their King in the fellowship of His church.
–William Temple
How do the definitions of evangelism above speak to you right now where you live and move and have your being? Think and pray over them.
Think of the word witness and the word eyewitness. What are the qualities of an effective witness to you? In a lawcourt? In an accident?
In the service of Baptism, the baptismal covenant includes the following Q and A:
Celebrant: Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? People: I will, with God’s help.
Against the standard above how would you evaluate yourself as a witness? In word? In deed?
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:44). What is the role of prayer it witnessing? What is the role of prayer in your witnessing?
If you could name one person in your life for whom you had a particular burden for them to come to know Jesus as Savior and follow him as Lord who would that be? How have you been praying for that person? Is there a way your prayers could be changed going forward? If so,how?
Suppose you had to study Jesus as a witness to God’s kingdom in the gospels? What specific things does he have to teach us about how to witness?
What is the role of listening in witnessing? Of question asking? What are the ways this week God is calling you to listen and ask kingdom oriented questions?
Make a friend, be a friend, bring a friend to Christ. How does this saying speak to you about witnessing? Are there ways for you to pay about your friends God is calling you to? Is there anyone in your life you may be missing who needs a friend?
–From this morning’s Bulletin insert in our series on the Church, cited by yours truly in the sermon
Millibeth Currie, a nationally board-certified teacher who chairs the science department at Moultrie Middle School, was involved in the first phase of the standards review this go-round.
“Science is everywhere. It’s explaining our system of our universe that exists right now,” which means a student’s family background or philosophy or religion doesn’t even factor into the equation.
When religious concerns are raised, “I kind of neutralize it. There’s no way of being able to answer who’s right or who’s wrong” among different religions, she said. “The focus should be on discovering the commonalities in our universe.”
One of my friends has the delightful habit of sending me New Yorker cartoons. Certainly one of the best features a man behind a bookstore counter on top of which is prominently featured Allen Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind. He has a big smile on his face and says to the customer “I haven’t read it, but it’s a great book!”
Alas, that is too often a true reflection of how many Episcopalians actually relate to Holy Scripture.
It is such a fabulous book, but we only experience it when we learn to be Scripture students and spiritually attentive Bible readers.
Consider the story of when Simon the Pharisee has the preacher over for dinner (Luke 7:36-50). As for many a good Episcopalian, having the rector over is a big deal for Simon. Etiquette must be properly followed. Invitations must be carefully issued. Everything must be done in correct Anglican fashion, decently and in order.
Then a woman from the wrong side of the tracks crashes the party….
Read it all from 2007 (brought to mind by the Bible readings this morning).
O Lord God of time and eternity, who makest us creatures of time that, when time is over, we may attain thy blessed eternity: With time, thy gift, give us also wisdom to redeem the time, lest our day of grace be lost; for our Lord Jesus’ sake.
–Christina Rossetti
One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house, and took his place at table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “What is it, Teacher?” “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, to whom he forgave more.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
–Luke 7:36-50
Q: David and Goliath is quite famous, yes. What about Jesus? Where might he fit in in your narrative?
A: He does fit. Here is one of the most revolutionary figures in history. He comes from the humblest of beginnings. He never held elected office. He never had an army at his disposal. He never got rich; he had nothing that we would associate with power and advantage. Nonetheless, what does he accomplish? An unfathomable amount. He is almost the perfect illustration of this idea that you have to look in the heart to know what someone’s capable of.
Q: Many Christians point to some kind of personal conversion experience? Did you have one?
A: I realized what I had missed. It wasn’t an “I woke up one morning” kind of thing. It was a slow realization something incredibly powerful and beautiful in the faith that I grew up with that I was missing. Here I was writing about people of extraordinary circumstances and it slowly dawned on me that I can have that too.
Rising industrialization and urbanization in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries helped push the graveyard out of town, and these shifts coincided with the rise of a new reserve, in which displays of strong emotion, such as grief, were unseemly.
But during the 1950s, the landscape changed. In 1955, Geoffrey Gorer’s fascinating essay “The Pornography of Death,” argued that proscriptions around death had replaced the Victorian taboo against sex. In 1959, psychologist Herman Feifel came out with The Meaning of Death, a collection of essays often credited with singlehandedly establishing death, dying, and bereavement as legitimate areas for study. Yet neither Feifel nor Gorer made their way to American dinner tables. It was [Jessica] Mitford who got ordinary people talking. The American Way of Death made its way into soap operas, newspaper cartoons, and even the cover of Good Housekeeping. (An extract appeared in a 1964 issue alongside such articles as “Coming, a New Kind of Refrigerator” and “How Well Can Carpets Take It?”) Her take-charge, do-it-yourself message helped liberate Americans from the rigid rules and roles they were eager to cast off, as they were beginning to do in so many other areas of life.
That doesn’t mean The American Way of Death encouraged Americans to rethink their cultural relationship with death, exactly. The book is a narrowly conceived exposé, a screed against expensive funerals and the men who sell them, not an analysis of how or why funerals got that way. It’s interesting to contrast Mitford’s book with the seminal death texts of the past, such as the two in the fifteenth century that were both called The Art of Dying, or the Tibetan and Egyptian books of the dead. Those works helped individuals prepare for death by prescribing a series of attitudes and rituals designed to ensure a good death and a better afterlife. Such rituals helped people grapple with death’s great challenge to the self; they made death mean. By contrast, Mitford’s book is a Consumer Reports of death. Instead of prayers and meditations, she offers tips on the best way to get a cheap casket (just keep asking the salesman; it’s often out in the garage).
The Senate’s top two leaders have asserted control over budget negotiations with the White House for a deal to reopen the federal government and avoid a default on the nation’s debt.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., met Saturday morning with Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., to begin preliminary discussions.
“I hope that our talking is some solace to the American people and to the world,” Reid said. “This should be seen as something very positive, even though we don’t have anything done yet.”
The global financial crisis has strengthened the Church of England’s drive for more ethical business practices by making companies and shareholders more receptive to change, according to the man who manages its investment fund.
With about 5.5 billion pounds ($8.8 billion) of financial and property assets, the Church has greater clout than many hedge funds. But it has often struggled to make its voice heard.
That is starting to change, according to First Church Estates Commissioner Andreas Whittam Smith.
“Because of our unique witness and commitment to introducing our students to the historic English choral tradition, with its rich and varied approach to change-ringing, the gift of these magnificent bells will enhance our work and common life together,” said Canon Joseph A. Kucharski, professor of church music.
Change-ringing is common in England, where there are more than 5,000 towers, but there are fewer than 50 such towers in the United States.
The majority of local parishes and clergy, including Bishop Mark Lawrence, disassociated from The Episcopal Church last fall over theological and administrative disputes with that national church. Lawrence’s group filed a lawsuit against The Episcopal Church to retain control of property and identifying titles and marks.
“I’m encouraged by this ruling for the clarity it allows us in continuing with the mission and ministry of the diocese,” Lawrence said after Friday’s hearing.
The…[new TEC] diocese is led by Bishop Charles G. vonRosenberg who was installed three days after the temporary restraining order was issued.
…what happened late last week was not minor. Kill did not feel well as Minnesota prepared to leave for Michigan, and he stayed behind, and he hoped, right up until he had another seizure, that he would be able to fly to Ann Arbor on Saturday morning and lead his team to a statement win.
Only he did have another seizure. He stayed home. This was the first time he had not attended a game at all because of a seizure. And it was his fifth seizure on a game day and his second one this season.
Kill and the Minnesota football program did the right thing in light of all that Thursday. They did the right thing for the team, but more important ”” way, way more important ”” they did the right thing for Kill. When he can coach, he should. Until then, his health is more important. More coaches should consider that.
A jury found a Manhattan psychic guilty on Friday of swindling two women out of $138,000 in a case that probed the fine distinction between providing an unusual service and running a confidence scheme.
The fortune teller, Sylvia Mitchell, 39, who plied her trade at the opulent Zena Clairvoyant psychic shop on Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village, scowled as the verdict was read, reaching up only once to dab an eye.
After the verdict, Justice Gregory Carro of Manhattan Supreme Court said he considered Ms. Mitchell, who lives with her two teenage children in Connecticut, a flight risk and ordered her held in jail. She faces up to 15 years in prison when she is sentenced on Oct. 29.
In “Our Father’s World,” Northland pastor Joel Hunter makes the argument to conservative Christians that saving energy, recycling waste and reducing your carbon footprint are all based on Scripture.
“The Bible provides a direct mandate to be caretakers of the garden,” Hunter says in the documentary. “While creation still belongs to God, he has graciously entrusted it to our care and stewardship.”
But the film also points out that evangelical Christians have abdicated the care of God’s creation to the New Age and secular environmentalists.
University of Michigan researchers will interview 3,000 American adults as part of an $8 million study of how religion and health are related, the school announced Tuesday.
The John Templeton Foundation is financing the study, which seeks to establish “solid explanations for why religion has both positive and negative effects on human physiology,” the Ann Arbor school said in a statement.
Public health professor Neal Krause and four colleagues from other schools will conduct the study.
A new text for the Catholic Mass which integrates centuries old Anglican prayers into the Roman Rite was officially introduced in a London church on Thursday.
The new liturgy, known as the Ordinariate Use, has been devised for the personal ordinariates ”“ the structures set up by Benedict XVI to allow Anglicans to enter into full communion with the Pope, while preserving elements of their distinctive Anglican liturgical and pastoral traditions.
The Mass, at the church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street, was celebrated by the leader ”“ or Ordinary ”“ of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, Monsignor Keith Newton. It was offered in honour of the patron of the Ordinariate, Blessed John Henry Newman, whose feast was on October 9.
THE Anglican Bishop of Wellington is to live a week in a small cabin-like “cell”, praying for New Zealand’s 8000-plus prisoners and their victims.
Bishop Justin Duckworth’s prayer vigil in the cell on the front steps of Wellington Cathedral of St Paul is part of Wellington diocese’s week-long focus on penal reform.
He will go into the cell after preaching at this Sunday’s 10am service in the cathedral and won’t leave it until next Sunday’s service.
In certain parts of America, the word fiancé does not mean what it used to. I first became aware of this when I was reporting a story in a small town in Wisconsin a couple of years ago and “Bug” Smith, a 50-year-old man who worked as a machinist introduced me to his “fiancée.” I was about to say “Congratulations!” but something stopped me. Their union did not have the air of expectant change about it. From their domestic surroundings, it looked like they lived basically as a married couple already, his boots next to hers by the front door, pictures of kids above the mantel. I later found out they’d been living together for 15 years and had two children.
ince then I have come across this phenomenon dozens of times, almost always in working-class couples, and usually younger ones. Someone will introduce me to his or her fiancé. But what they mean is more like my “steady lady” or my “steady man.” It could mean the person they are living with, or the father or mother of their child. It could also just mean the person they’ve been dating for a long time….
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for all who believe in Him; to whom with thee, O Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, be ascribed all honour and glory, dominion and power, now and for evermore.
Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Go and say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Will you not receive instruction and listen to my words? says the LORD. The command which Jon’adab the son of Rechab gave to his sons, to drink no wine, has been kept; and they drink none to this day, for they have obeyed their father’s command. I have spoken to you persistently, but you have not listened to me. I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, sending them persistently, saying, ‘Turn now every one of you from his evil way, and amend your doings, and do not go after other gods to serve them, and then you shall dwell in the land which I gave to you and your fathers.’ But you did not incline your ear or listen to me. The sons of Jon’adab the son of Rechab have kept the command which their father gave them, but this people has not obeyed me. Therefore, thus says the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing on Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the evil that I have pronounced against them; because I have spoken to them and they have not listened, I have called to them and they have not answered.” But to the house of the Re’chabites Jeremiah said, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Because you have obeyed the command of Jon’adab your father, and kept all his precepts, and done all that he commanded you, therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Jon’adab the son of Rechab shall never lack a man to stand before me.”
–Jeremiah 35:12-19