Connecting
man to man to God
For week of September 28, 2008
Issue
224
"We
also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering
produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character,
hope.”
Romans 5:3-4
CONSIDER
“Be
kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming
away better and happier. Be the living expression of God's
kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness
in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.” Mother
Teresa
A CHRISTIAN VIEW OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS
by
R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
The headlines tell the story as recent
days have seen the American economy and its financial system
buffeted by seismic failures and the virtual disappearance of
major investment banks. The debate raging in Washington these
days concerns the form and extent of government intervention that
will be required in order to restore stability to the financial
markets.
Comparisons to the Great Depression are
inevitable, but today's crisis bears little resemblance to the
total economic collapse of the late 1920s. Capitalism is not in
crisis and the fundamentals of the American economy remain strong.
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933, the
nation faced a genuine crisis and economic collapse. For the most
part, the banks were closed and the nation was out of
business.
Nothing like that is happening now, but the
financial system is clearly in need of reform and realism. The
fundamentals of the economy remain intact. These include American
innovation, a dedicated labor force, strong consumer demand, vast
natural resources, and unlimited intellectual capital.... Read
this in full
at
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080925/a-christian-view-of-the-economic-crisis_pageall.htm
WITH WALL STREET IN TURMOIL, SOME IN SUITS TURN TO RELIGION
As
financial workers suffer through tumultuous times on Wall Street,
some are turning to an old source of solace: religion. Religious
leaders said attendance was up at lunchtime meetings in New York's
financial district, with many more people in business attire than
usual.... Read this in full
at
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2008-09-22-wall-street-churches_N.htm
SOME CHRISTIANS KEEP TITHING EVEN AS THEY FACE
FORECLOSURE
While
millions may lose their homes during the worst housing slump since
the Great Depression, some devout Christians among them will do so
in part because they will not give up tithing -- a voluntary
contribution to their churches amounting to 10% of their gross
income.... Read this in full
at
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2008-09-23-tithing-housing_N.htm
DON'T OVERLOOK THE POOR IN WALL STREET BAILOUT, CLERICS
SAY
Religious
leaders are warning that the global financial crisis threatens
progress made against poverty and world hunger, and urged
political leaders not to ignore the poor while debating how to
solve the current international financial panic.
"It's
a teachable moment to move the agenda of hunger and inequality in
the world," said Lorraine Dickerson, an anti-hunger advocate
with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. "It's a moral
imperative."
Dickerson was one of some 75 religious
leaders and representatives who attended a Sept. 24 interfaith
consultation on global hunger. The summit parallels a meeting at
the United Nations to evaluate progress on a set of development
goals adopted by the U.N. in 2000.... Read this in full
at
http://pewforum.org/news/display.php?NewsID=16546
"'SEE YOU AT THE POLE' LET STUDENTS TAKE A STAND"
Across
the nation thousands of students gathered around flagpoles to pray
for such things as their schools, their families and the
government Sept. 24, marking the annual observance of See You at
the Pole, a student-initiated prayer movement.
At Downey
High School in Modesto, Calif., about 50 students met in front of
the building for small group prayer and then formed a large circle
to sing songs and intercede collectively.
"I do it
because I love Jesus with all my heart," Colin Horne, a
senior, told The Modesto Bee newspaper. "We want people to
see that God loves them."
The reporter asked what he
would say to people who object to religion on campus, and Horne
replied, "God's in our lives all the time. We can separate
Him from our curriculum, but He's still in our hearts."
Meaghan
Jones, a sophomore, told The Bee she took her spot at the flagpole
because she wanted to change the way people at her school think
about Jesus, and Jonathan Beckman, another student in Modesto,
said, "I believe God wants to change our school, and I wanted
to be part of it." Read this in full at
http://is.gd/38zY
ON THE GRAND CANYON BUS
by
Philip Yancey
In may, exactly three months before the
Democratic National Convention in Denver, I spoke at a state
prayer luncheon in the convention center that would soon be filled
with delegates wearing silly hats and blowing noisemakers. City
officials were anxiously organizing squads of policemen to control
the expected platoon of demonstrators outside. Inside the same
hall where we were focusing on prayer, politicians would take
turns promising to turn the nation in a new direction and right
its wrongs.
Thinking about what to say to the leaders
gathered, I recalled a line from the contemporary German
philosopher Jürgen Habermas: Democracy requires of its
citizens qualities that it cannot provide. Politicians can
conjure an exalted vision of a prosperous, healthy, free society,
but no government can supply the qualities of honesty, compassion,
and personal responsibility that must underlie this vision.
For
all its strengths, the United States shows some alarming signs of
ill health. With less than 5 percent of the world's population, we
have 25 percent of the world's prisoners—more than Russia
and China combined. We consume half of all the prescription drugs
in the world, and yet by most standards our overall health ranks
lower than most other developed countries'. In every major city,
homeless people sleep in parks and under bridges. And our leading
causes of death are self-inflicted: obesity, alcohol, sexually
transmitted diseases, stress-related illnesses, drugs, violence,
environmental cancers. Obviously, politicians have not solved all
our problems.... Read this in full
at
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/september/35.102.html
LEADERSHIP TIPS (BUSINESS, FAMILY, LIFE)
"3
Traits of a Tough Leader"
* they defuse tension
* they
get up off the floor
* they let off some steam...
Read this
in full at
http://is.gd/38em
VERSE TO PONDER
“Do
not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your
heart rejoice, or the Lord will see and disapprove and turn his
wrath away from him. Do not fret because of evil men or be
envious of the wicked, for the evil man has no future hope, and
the lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out.”
Proverbs
24:17-20 (NIV)
CONSIDER
“If
monotony tries me, and I cannot stand drudgery; if stupid people
fret me and the little ruffles set me on edge; if I make much of
the trifles of life, then I know nothing of Calvary love.”
Amy Carmichael, If [1938]
BRIAN MCLAREN ON SIN, STORIES, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
by
Scott Noble
“If we really understand what’s at the
core of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we’ll find exactly the
resources we need to begin re-programming” contemporary
society’s “suicide machine.” Read the
interview, as well as a review of McLaren’s book Everything
Must Change (Thomas Nelson, 2007),
at
http://www.esa-online.org/Article.asp?RecordKey=C64D377E-C9F0-41EE-8465-E148DBBA5C4E
THIS IS WHO GOD IS
“God
is looking for a body, flesh and blood to show the world a proper
marriage of the divine and human. What happens when your body
looks nothing like you? What happens when your people become the
embodiment of everything you are against? What happens when
you're being given a bad name? What happens when your people are
unfaithful to the vow they made to you? What happens when your
people "go back that way again," the way you rescued
them from? The Hebrew Scriptures have a very simple and direct
message: God always hears the cry of the oppressed; God cares
about human suffering and the conditions that cause it. God is
searching for a body, a community of people to care for the things
God cares about. God gives power and blessing so that justice and
righteousness will be upheld for those who are denied them. This
is what God is like. This is what God is about. This is who God
is.” Rob Bell and Don Golden, Jesus Wants to Save
Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile
THE CHURCH’S WEAKNESS
“Modern
Christianity is crucially weak at three vital points. The first
is its compromised, deficient understanding of revelation. Without
Biblical historicity and veracity behind the Word of God, theology
can only grow closer to Hinduism. Second, the modern Christian is
drastically weak in an unmediated, personal, experiential
knowledge of God. Often, what passes for religious experience is a
communal emotion felt in church services, in meetings, in singing
or contrived fellowship. Few Christians would know God on their
own. Third, the modern church is often pathetically feeble in the
expression of its focal principle of community. It has become an
adult social club, preaching shop, or minister-dominated group.
With these weaknesses, modern Christianity cannot hope to
understand why people have turned to the East, let alone stand
against the trend and offer an alternative.” Os Guinness,
The Dust of Death [1973]
FREE BOOK DOWNLOAD
The
book Essential Church by Thom Rainer is available online as a free
pdf download. Here’s an excerpt: “The American church
is dying. Conversions are declining in almost every denomination.
Even in some of the more relatively healthy denominations,
conversions to Christianity have stagnated. In our own
denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), which is one
of the largest Protestant denominations in the world, baptisms
have not increased in decades. Despite the growth of the nation,
the SBC is baptizing no more people today than it did in 1950.
Worse yet, the church is losing influence in culture. Local
churches are having trouble relating to their local community and
the younger generation. While some peg this irrelevance as the
major underlying factor of declining churches, we believe that it
is merely symptomatic of a much greater issue: the church is no
longer essential to people’s lives. Unless a dramatic
change occurs, the American church will continue down the same
path as the European church, which is all but
dead.”
http://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/leadership/contestslw.asp
ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD
by
Rich Tatum
"She is a longtime member of the Assemblies of
God. That's all you need to know." That's how political
blogger Andrew Sullivan recently summarized Governor Sarah Palin's
faith background. But entertain the crazy thought that some
people might want to know more. What would we learn from the
media about the Assemblies of God?
It's "the
evangelical experience on steroids," "where sitting is
an option but clapping is not," where beliefs "stray a
bit from the mainstream" and which "mainstream
Christians don't understand." There's the usual report of
tongues, faith-healing, and "end times" —
threateningly caricaturized as "a violent upheaval that …
will deliver Jesus Christ's second coming." Combine "holy
laughter, divine dancing, silver tooth fillings turning into gold,
[and] the regeneration of a large intestine," and you see why
Palin's childhood faith has been "deemed irrelevant by the
liberal intelligentsia because it is regarded as fundamentalist
and...irrational."
Then again, news accounts of
"rational faith" have been rather scarce.... Read this
in full
at
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/septemberweb-only/138-21.0.html
INTRODUCING THE NATIONAL BIBLE BEE - OVER $260,000 IN PRIZE
MONEY FOR THE 2009 INAUGURAL COMPETITION
The first annual National Bible Bee, a motivating Bible memory
competition for children and youth from 7 to 18 years of age, will
be sponsored by the Shelby Kennedy Foundation. The goal of the
Bible Bee is to build godly character in young people by calling
them back to the lost discipline of Scripture memorization. Most
people are familiar with the Scripps National Spelling Bee, where
youth compete annually in the nation's longest- running
educational contest. While it is certainly beneficial for our
children to commit the spelling of words to memory, imagine how
much more life- changing it would be for them to memorize the Word
of God!
Local Bible Bee Contests will be conducted
throughout the United States on Saturday, September 12, 2009. One
hundred finalists from each of three age categories will then
advance to the National Bible Bee for a two-day, world-class
competition held in Washington D.C. on November 5-6, 2009.
The
National Bible Bee will distribute more than $260,000 in prize
money with $100,000 being awarded to the first-place winner of the
top age bracket.
http://biblebee.org/
KNOWING GOD
“Knowing
God is more than knowing about Him; it is a matter of dealing with
Him as He opens up to you, and being dealt with by Him as He takes
knowledge of you. Knowing about Him is a necessary precondition of
trusting in Him, but the width of our knowledge about Him is no
gauge of our knowledge of Him.” James I. Packer, Knowing
God [1973]
CONSIDER
“No
one is safe by his own strength, but he is safe by the grace and
mercy of God.” St. Cyprian (?-258)
VERSE TO PONDER
“The
LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is
the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” Psalm
27:1 (KJV)
THIS WEEK'S HYMN: ALWAYS ENOUGH
Words:
William I. Dale, circa 1914
Music: S. L. Merritt
Always
enough of grace is giv’n to me from day to day,
Always
enough of grace to help me on the upward way.
Refrain
Always
enough for me (for me),
Always enough for me (for me),
This
is my song, the whole day long,
There’s always enough for
me.
Always enough of comfort to console me when I’m
sad,
Always enough of peace in time of storm to make me
glad.
Refrain
Always enough of Jesus’ love to fill
me with delight,
Always enough of hope to keep faith’s
altar burning bright.
Refrain
Always enough of joy to
make my heart rejoice and sing,
Always enough of pleasure in
the service of my King.
Refrain
>from
CyberHymnal at
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/a/l/alwaysen.htm
ON
PRAYER
“Grant
that I may not pray alone with the mouth; help me that I may pray
from the depths of my heart”
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
PRAY
FOR PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS TODAY
http://christiansincrisis.net/
DAILY
BLESSING PACT
Use
the following list as your daily prayer guide. Think of a brother
or situation that applies and lift them up in prayer.
I am
agreeing in prayer with you for God’s blessings to overtake
you!
PERSONAL
Marital harmony
Family unity
Children
saved
Faithful pastor
Spirit-filled church
Real
friendships
Relatives redeemed
Educational
benefits
Recreational time
Fulfilling career
Favor with
God and man
Be in God’s will
FINANCIAL
Better
Jobs
Raises or bonuses
Benefits
Sales &
commissions
Business Growth
Settlements
Estates &
inheritances
Investment increase
Rebates &
returns
Checks in the mail
Gifts & surprises
Money to
be found
Bills decrease while blessings increase
"And
all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou
shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God" (Deut.
28:2).
[As you travel on business or vacation, let me know
if you'd like the church guys to pray for your safety and
spiritual effectiveness. I'll add your name to the list for the
time you'll be away.]
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Life
isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...it's about learning to
dance in the rain
Min.
Frank Coleman, Editor
[email protected]
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