Connecting man to man to God
For week of November 30, 2008
Issue 233


“Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done.” 1 Chronicles 16:8


CONSIDER
“The object of your faith must be Christ. Not faith in ritual, not faith in sacrifices, not faith in morals, not faith in yourself- not faith in anything but Christ!” Billy Graham


BRIT HUME RETIRING; PLANS TO FOCUS ON FAMILY & FAITH
After 12 years at Fox News Channel and four decades in the news business, Washington managing editor Brit Hume will leave 'Special Report' and daily journalism for a quieter life, spending time with his grandchildren and following his Christian faith ... 'I certainly want to pursue my faith more ardently than I have done. I'm not claiming it's impossible to do when you work in this business. I was kind of a nominal Christian for the longest time. When my son died ... I came to Christ in a way that was very meaningful to me. If a person is a Christian and tries to face up to the implications of what you say you believe, it's a pretty big thing. If you do it part time, you're not really living it." Read this interview in full at
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i50e90e3361925e284330c30439faa35c


EVANGELICALS ADOPTING ADVENT
Evangelical Christians are adopting -- and adapting -- the rituals of Advent, the four weeks leading up to Christmas that are traditionally celebrated by Catholics, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox, and other liturgical churches. They're giving a new, personalized spin to the prayers, candles, and calendars to track the building excitement, and set a spiritual tone day by day.... Read this story in full at
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2008-11-24-advent-evangelicals-christmas_N.htm


ADVENT CONSPIRACY
The story of Christ’s birth is a story of promise, hope, and a revolutionary love. So, what happened? What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists. And when it’s all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas? What if Christmas became a world-changing event again? The Advent Conspiracy invites us to worship fully, spend less, give more, and love all. Check it out, and learn how you can make a real difference this Christmas.
http://www.adventconspiracy.org/


COUNTER-INTUITIVE POWER
“In so many ways, the strength that Christ has portrayed and that God promises is counter-intuitive, a contradiction to the world's idea of strength. It is the power to control our appetites rather than to let them control us. It is the ability to endure rather than to run away. It is the quick instinct to take refuge in God rather than to trust in our own abilities or resources. It is the humility to ask God daily for what we need rather than to work ourselves into a frenzy trying to construct the perfect safety net. It is the ability to keep gazing at God even when trouble and fear assails us. It is the patience to wait rather than to run on ahead. It is the faith to keep praying no matter what. It is the decision to put others first and ourselves last. It is the grace to believe that nothing is impossible because we belong to God. It is the strength to be more than we are because God is more than we imagine. It is the power to run and not grow weary, to walk and not be faint, to ground ourselves in God's might and his power to help and to save.” Ann Spangler, The Tender Words of God


RICK WARREN, READER'S DIGEST CREATE MULTI-PLATFORM NETWORK
One of America’s best known pastors, Rick Warren of The Purpose Driven Life, has teamed up with publishing powerhouse Reader’s Digest Association Inc. to develop a multi-platform network that will serve to train and connect millions of people worldwide who have found the best-selling book helpful and want more biblically-based advice on life.

“Since the book was published, we’ve received hundreds of thousands of requests from readers asking for more help,” said Warren, founder of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and the 162-nation Purpose Driven network of churches.

To respond to the requests, Warren reached out to Reader’s Digest Association, which publishes in 79 countries, and asked if it could help publish the content of his new network, the Purpose Driven Connection, in a variety of high-tech and high-touch formats worldwide.... Read this in full at
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20081126/rick-warren-reader-s-digest-create-multi-platform-network.htm


TAKE ACTION TO END EXTREME POVERTY
This Christmas season, Micah Challenge is offering Christians a chance to share the gift of justice with those living in poverty. From November 29-January 18, Christians will be praying, fasting, and advocating for fast action on extreme poverty. People are pledging to fast, to donate the cost of a meal ($10) to Micah Challenge, and to sign a letter to President-elect Obama urging him to “Act FAST” to support the Millennium Development Goals and cut global poverty in half by 2015. For more information, to sign up, and to download such resources as a 7-Week Prayer Guide, Church Guide, Campus Guide, Act FAST pledge Sign-up Sheets, and more, go to
http://www.micahchallenge.us/take_action.shtml


TV DOCUMENTARY ON P*RN ADDICTION AND HEALING
"Somebody's Daughter: A Journey to Freedom from P*rnography" (http://www.somebodysdaughter.org) will premiere on the ION Television Network (formerly PAX TV) Nov. 30 and Dec. 7. The documentary details the lives of three men and one married couple active in Christian ministry who struggled with and overcame addiction to pornography.

According to recent surveys, nearly 60% of Christian men and 37% of pastors admit to struggling with p*rnography. No longer just a problem for men, 35% of women also admit to the addiction. "Somebody's Daughter" was produced to shed light on how the $13.3 billion p*rnography industry is plaguing those who profess Christianity, and to promote healing and deliverance from the growing epidemic.... Read this in full at
http://www.religionnews.com/index.php?/pressreleases/tv_documentary_on_pornography_addiction_and_healing_among_professing_christ/


THE RECKLESS PHONY
by Charles R. Swindoll
Mark Twain said, “Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows anybody.” Phony living could happen in your house, or my house, or any house...even the White House. Like the set of a television show, behind the scenes, where the camera doesn’t go, life can be a messy network of plastic, metal, and wood -- a flimsy façade -- held together with cheap material.

First Kings 11 tells the story of the fall of King Solomon, a man upon whom God showered wisdom, success, and fabulous wealth. Though he was rich, he let his relationship with the Lord slip, and he began to live like a reprobate. Many would say that success can ruin a man. I say that success reveals who the man was all along. Success doesn’t destroy character; it exposes character.... Read more of this hard-hitting article, which cautions us against hiding our sin and growing comfortable with it instead of conquering it, at
http://www.insight.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7603&security=2021&news_iv_ctrl=2421


VERSE TO PONDER
Jesus said unto them, Truly, truly, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am.
John 8:56-58


CONSIDER
“The ‘now’ wherein God made the first man, and the ‘now’ wherein the last man disappears, and the ‘now’ I am speaking in, all are the same in God, where this is but the now.” Meister Eckhart (1260?-1327?)


ECCLESIASTICAL MYOPIA
by R.C. Sproul
Here in the West, we have become immunized or inoculated against the deep things of God, living our Christian lives on a superficial plane of churchiness and religiosity. This type of Christianity will not do.

Perhaps the most remarkable statement I ever heard a man utter from the pulpit was: “He has a penurious epistemology, which tends to be myopic.” I was seated in the balcony of the church when that statement was made, and I could not restrain myself from laughing aloud. I nudged my wife Vesta and said, “I just might be the only person in the church who understood what that man said.” What is a penurious epistemology? A penurious epistemology is a theory of knowledge that is poverty-stricken or on the verge of bankruptcy. Such a view of knowledge, if it tends towards myopia, is simply suffering a bad case of near-sightedness. I’m afraid that the American church suffers from a similar sort of myopia.

Our vision tends to extend only to the borders of our own nation or at best across the Atlantic to western Europe. We tend to think that Christianity is fundamentally a Western religion. Such a view is penurious, indeed. The Bible, through the lips of Jesus, calls the church to extend the reach of the gospel to the corners of the earth -- to every tribe, to every tongue, and to every nation. The whole world is the mission of the Christian faith. The strength of Christianity does not stand or fall with the strengths of the church in America or western Europe.... Read this in full at
http://www.christianity.com/Christian%20Foundations/The%20Essentials/11596037/


CIA LIED ABOUT DOWNED MISSIONARY PLANE
An internal investigation by the CIA found that agency officials engaged in a cover-up to hide agency negligence in the downing of a private airplane over Peru in 2001 as part of a mistaken attack on an aircraft suspected of carrying illegal narcotics.... Read this in full at
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-shootdown21-2008nov21,0,2543475.story


WHEN GOD DISTURBS THE PEACE
by Fleming Rutledge
There are two competing ways of understanding and presenting the Christian gospel in America. They are equally valid and ideally should complement one another, but unfortunately, battle lines have been drawn on both sides. Some Christians emphasize the gospel as purely a matter of individual salvation; others see it essentially in terms of community and of social justice. This problem is partly cultural, but more significantly, it arises from insufficient knowledge of the Scriptures: "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God" (Matt. 22:29).

American Christians of both the Right and Left find it difficult to read Scripture from the perspective of communities other than our own. On one hand, teaching in the mainline churches is often detached from any foundational convictions about "the Scriptures or the power of God." A service may begin, "Let us worship God," but then go on to celebrate the possibilities inherent in human nature. Transcendent power is not in view; "inclusion" is the operative word.

On the other hand, worship in many American evangelical and Pentecostal churches, while appearing to extol the power of God, focuses attention on very specific and limited categories. Often the spotlight is on redemption from particular sins, like freedom from whatever one's addiction might be (very popular at the moment). Sometimes it is healing of a specific physical ailment, or it may be a version of the prosperity gospel.... Read this in full at
http://www.christianvisionproject.com/2008/06/when_god_disturbs_the_peace.html


A PLACE TO BELONG
“We desire to be included in fellowship with God and with others. We long to belong. This desire is about community. We long to be a part of something larger than ourselves. It helps us feel that we are not alone and gives us a sense of well-being. God includes us in fellowship with himself and with his Son Jesus through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, ‘Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’ (Matthew 12:50). He also said, ‘Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them’ (Matthew 18:20). Jesus tells us to include and welcome each other: ‘Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me’ (Mark 9:37). The apostle Paul tells us that we all have different talents and gifts but that we are part of the same body and that we belong to each other (Romans 12:5–6).” Mark & Debra Laaser, The Seven Desires of Every Heart


BETTER HEALTH FOR RELIGIOUSLY OBSERVANT
A new study, which followed the health of more than 90,000 women over an average of more than 7 years each, found those who attended (religious) services were one-fifth less likely to die than those who did not. The subject has been controversial, and the authors of the study, which appears in Psychology & Health, were at pains not to appear to be making a link between religion itself and health.... Read this in full at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/health/research/25patterns.html


WEBSITE, CONFERENCE EXPLORES LINK BETWEEN RELIGION AND HEALTH
Want to live longer? Go to church.

That's the result of just one of 10 academic studies highlighted on
http://www.FamilyFacts.org, a free, online searchable database of more than 3,500 findings on family and religion from peer-reviewed journals, books and government surveys.

Sponsored by The Heritage Foundation, research on FamilyFacts focuses on the link between religious practice and physical and mental health, among other topics. Visitors also can sign up for a free, monthly "Top Ten" e-mail designed to make the research accessible to the media, scholars, state and national policymakers, and the general public.

Those interested in learning more about the connection between religion and health should also consider registering for "Religious Practice and Health: What the Research Says," a free, day-long event on Dec. 3, 2008 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC.... Read this in full at
http://www.religionnews.com/index.php?/pressreleases/web_site_conference_explores_link_between_religion_and_health/


SEXPERIMENT: PUTTING GOD BACK IN BED
And on the seventh day, there was no rest for married couples. A week after the Rev. Ed Young challenged husbands and wives among his flock of 20,000 to strengthen their unions through Seven Days of Sex, his advice was -- keep it going.... Read this in full at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/us/24sex.html


RELIGION: WHAT'S IT GOOD FOR?
While others might use the insights of evolution to free the world from divine dogma, Dr. (Harvey) Whitehouse and his colleagues are more interested in explaining why religion fits the needs of homo sapiens so well -- to the point where it can be considered an essential part of the human condition.... Read this in full at
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081122.RELIGION22/TPStory/Science


THRIFTINESS IS MAKING A COMEBACK
Fearful that economic conditions could get worse and stay that way, Americans are showing an enthusiasm for thriftiness not seen in decades. This behavioral shift isn't simply about spending less. The New Frugality emphasizes stretching every dollar. It means bypassing the fashion mall for the discount chain store, buying secondhand clothes and furniture, or trading down to store brands. There's more business for repairmen and less for salesmen. Consumers are clipping more coupons and swiping their credit cards less.... Read this in full at
http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/articles/2008/11/19/the_new_frugality_americans_return_to_thriftiness/


TOWARDS AN ECONOMY WORTH BELIEVING IN
by Simon Barrow
What on earth have faith and economics to do with one another? A good deal, actually. The three 'religions of the book' (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) all have ancient, and often overlooked, prohibitions on usury -- interest for profit. The Jewish and Christian scriptures have strong egalitarian strands. The Jubilee tradition of the remission of debts has made a recent comeback through a global campaign to end the financial burden on the poor.

The New Testament word for oikos, household, as a unit of society and Christian gathering, gives us the word oikonomia (economy) as well as oikumene (ecumenism, the search for spiritual, ecclesial and human unity). This suggests that economics is for the service of persons-in-community, rather than the other way round. Jesus's new community of equals, a disciplship group that pre-dated institutional 'church', was rooted in an ethos of gift and sharing. Such values have been upheld and practiced by dissenting groups, including the Anabaptists in the 16th century and Base Ecclesial Communities in the 20th, ever since. Yet today the major church institutions have amassed considerable wealth on the back of what many would consider shady dealing and a legacy of entwinement with power and wealth under Christendom.... Read this in full at
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/6015


CONSIDER
“I believe the promises of God enough to venture an eternity on them.” G. Campbell Morgan


VERSE TO PONDER
“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18


THIS WEEK'S HYMN: COME, YE SOULS BY SIN AFFLICTED
Words: Joseph Swain, 1792

Come, ye souls by sin afflicted,
Bowed with fruitless sorrow down;
By the broken law convicted,
Through the cross behold the crown;
Look to Jesus; mercy flows through Him alone.

Take His easy yoke and wear it;
Love will make obedience sweet;
Christ will give you strength to bear it,
While His wisdom guides your feet
Safe to glory, where His ransomed captives meet.

Blessèd are the eyes that see Him,
Blest the ears that hear His voice;
Blessèd are the souls that trust Him,
And in Him alone rejoice;
His commandments then become their happy choice.

Sweet as home to pilgrims weary,
Light to newly opened eyes,
Or full springs in deserts dreary,
Is the rest the cross supplies;
All who taste it shall to rest immortal rise.

>from CyberHymnal at
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/c/y/cysbysaf.htm


ON PRAYER
“I have found the perfect antidote for fear. Whenever it sticks up its ugly face I clobber it with prayer.” Dale Evans Rogers


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.]


CLASSIFIEDS
Are you looking for something or do you have something to sell? Let me know and I'll put it in this newsletter.

Book your next vacation with us!
ChristianConnectionTravel.com

Books, Music & More!
ChristianConnectionBooks.com

Get your domain name here!
GoGlobalDomains.com

Let me show you how to earn money as you travel!
http://FrankColeman.WorldVentures.biz/
It's as easy as 1-2-3!


SHARE YOUR FAVORITE WEBSITES
Tell us what sites you find enjoyable and why.

Expiration Dates
http://www.realsimple.com/realsimple/content/print/0,22304,676079,00.html

Free Management Library
http://www.managementhelp.org/

All links to websites are provided as a service, and do not imply endorsement by our church.

(BTW: whenever the URLs in this newsletter are too long to turn into links on your e-mail program, just copy the entire URL (two lines or more) and paste it into a temporary email message. Then delete the return in the middle of it and copy it again. Then paste it into your web browser and hit enter.)


Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack?
Min. Frank Coleman, Editor
[email protected]


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