I sat down to do some research on how much American church goers give to support their churches when I ran across this article that really made me think.
Summit Church to Close After 131 Years
By ROWENA PLETT
“Oct. 10 will be a sad day for the remaining parishioners who have faithfully attended Summit United Methodist Church of rural Florence all of their lives. The final worship service will be conducted at 10 a.m. by the Rev. David Ragland of Peabody. Located in Summit Township, the Summit church began as a United Brethren Church. It subsequently became part of the United Brethren Evangelical Church and then the United Methodist Church.
Early records have been lost, and the congregation’s numbers have dwindled considerably as families moved away and the children of those who stayed did likewise. A look at the register on the wall reveals an attendance of nine people this past Sunday and an average of 14 during the past year. Loyal members dug deep into their pockets to keep the church going, but it finally became too much. “We can’t afford to pay the bills anymore,” LaVonne Ammeter said.
Ragland has been ministering to the church congregation for more than four years. He is planning to give a sermon titled, “One Last Time,” based on Jesus’ last meeting with his disciples. He will talk about the church’s closing but will emphasize that the church of Christ continues to march on. “This church has fulfilled the purpose God called it to,” he will tell parishioners.”
Will something like that be written about your church or mine a few years from now? The truth is that many small churches have been struggling for more than a few years and are losing rather than gaining ground. (more…)
The subject of race on this blog is likely to raise some eyebrows, but I believe the body of Christ must be transparent in order to align on such issues.
This all started several days ago when my facebook friend, Gary Ellison, made a bold post. We don’t see eye to eye on everything, but we are brother and sister in the Lord and have had some very good and edifying conversation. His post generated a thread of 409 comments (so far), as many passionate believers debated their views. So here is the post that started it all.
“Every time I see 1 of you Negros post the LIE that Edom is the WHITE-MAN I am coming right behind you and post the TRUTH! The Khazar’s (Ashkenazi Jews) are descendants of Japhet. Edom is a descendant of Abraham Isaac & Jacob, the TWIN brother of Israel. You all need to stop lying in the face of obvious truth. You are making our beliefs & community look stupid with your racist inspired lies. I challenge any 1 who espouse this to a debate on the truth. DONT BE SCARED! Our beef with Ashkenazi is valid, but he is not EDOM”
Gary’s followers and contemporaries believe that they, people of dark color, are descendants of the Israelites. They also believe that the modern Ashkenazi Jews are descended from gentiles that took on the culture and religion of the Israelites.
Well I am just a white girl, raised Jewish, who gave her heart to Jesus after many years of fast living and poor choices. I have no reason to be drawn into this conversation except for the fact that (more…)
“Wrongdoers eagerly listen to gossip; liars pay close attention to slander.” Proverbs 17:4 NLT
About once a year I find myself sending the same message to all of my email buddies after receiving another email that is viraly spreading gossip and lies, reminding them to check things out before they click that forward button. The problem is that we don’t even think about it much. We read something that sounds like a legitimate warning and we want to share it, so we send it on. Some people are not going to like what I have to say, but in reality, we often are doing more harm than good, even if the information is valid.
You probably never thought of it as gossip.
Many people don’t know any better, or just don’t stop to consider that this email has been forwarded over and over. Each time another 10 to 15 email addresses are added to the thread. Malicious programs are trolling cyberspace looking for large lists of email addresses to collect. We add to the problem of spam when we do not take steps to protect our buddies and their buddies by using BCC (blind carbon copy) or just deleting the previous lists of addresses before we click send.
These programs and the people who create them are taking advantage of the fact that most of us will jump on the bandwagon when we read an emotional story or highly charged warning, and share that gossip with as many people as we can. It is human nature. When we do, we are helping the enemy to do his work, totally unaware, actually thinking we are doing a good thing. Many of these bogus emails become so viral they achieve the status of urban legend and continue to spread for months or years.
The Biblical Model For Sustainable Living has eluded mankind throughout the ages.
While the common man has dreamed of a utopian society that could be achieved via a plethora of isms (capitalism, socialism, communism, and so on), that utopia has never been achieved due to mans corruption of the ideals of whatever ism is in place.
Yesterday I left a comment on a blog post about why purchasing quality coffee online made sense, and have found myself thinking about it a lot today. When I consider how most products are produced and brought to market in our country, it just makes me shudder. This business model is certainly not what God intended.
Let’s start with our buying habits. We live in a shop til you drop society. We are always buying more and more stuff, and in six months to a year we will not want, not use, find broken, or deem no longer stylish, and in most cases, just throw it out. We have been taught to consume, and to keep us consuming the manufacturers must provide us with a price point that keeps the treadmill moving. So how do they do that?
Easy, they exploit workers in less developed areas of the world. Men, women, and children in other parts of the world will work long hours in poor conditions for a fraction of what American workers get paid. We want cheap prices, and so we turn our heads and hearts away from the knowledge of how all this stuff can get to market so cheaply. What if we took the initiative to bring about change in the world? (more…)
Those of you who are old enough (children of the 50’s and 60’s) will probably remember your parents telling you to clean your plate because “children in China were starving.” It never made sense the way they said it. Wouldn’t it be impractical to gather up the brussel sprouts that my sister and the dog and I didn’t want, and ship them over to China to help those kids? And how would my consumption of those disgusting green balls help those Chinese kids anyway? Too bad my parents had no idea they were contributing to a legacy of gluttony.
Obviously, we missed the point entirely, but so did our parents!
How did this Legacy of Gluttony begin?
After WWII, the parents of us baby boomers lived a more prosperous lifestyle than had previously been seen in the world. They simply wanted us to appreciate the abundance that we had, and I believe it was this clean your plate mindset that sent our entire generation down a path that led to record breaking rates of diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and all manner of nutritionally preventable disease in the 21st century, in other words a legacy of gluttony.
The easily attainable prosperity of the 60’s and 70’s took us from the clean your plate mindset into an absolute portion distortion trap that has become the norm.
There has been an interesting discussion going on in recent weeks about what exactly will qualify a person to inherit eternal life. I have come across as much watered down doctrine as I have over the top legalistic doctrine, which has left me asking why so many people seem to be set on doing “just enough” to get to heaven? While the over the top doctrine pushers would have you believe that you must believe exactly as they do, the watered down faction seems to be seeking the quickest, easiest, cheapest ticket that will be accepted at the pearly gates.
In any endeavor, when you seek to do “just enough” rather than to excel, you may technically succeed, but you are only cheating yourself when you give less than your best. Here is a real world example – French Toast.
If I take the eggs and beat them just a little, then quickly dip the bread in the eggs and fry it on up in a really hot pan, I will technically have French Toast. It will be dry in the middle and have crusty egg white on the edges, and maybe a few charred spots, but it will have about the same nutritional value as it would have if I were more attentive to the details. (more…)
All I can say is WOW! It has been a crazy busy week, with blessing upon blessing in my business life! All week I have been trying to get a few minutes to share something I learned at a training event last weekend, so here I am, burning the midnight oil because it just can’t wait any longer.
Rev. Jeff Stiggins gave this telling presentation, that is so simple, yet so profound. I would also add that although this is directed at church leadership, the principals are valid for excelling as a leader in any profession or walk of life.
It begins, Once upon a time, church leadership wasn’t so challenging. There weren’t a lot of options, and the options you did have were well marked. Today there are choices, lots of choices, and the signs are sometimes confusing. Today leadership isn’t so simple, to the point where things feel upside down. So here is a formula to simplify leadership in 3 steps.
This Christmas season has been filled with some new and different things for me. As my friend Kris pointed out the other day, this year the network marketers are even taking a break from hammering us with their opportunities and webinars and meetings as Christmas approaches, something that did not happen in years past.
Most impressive to me this year however is the way the story and the message of Christmas are being shared in a more contemporary way, and since that is the call on my life, to reach young people with the word of God within their comfort zone, I am just thrilled at the creativity I have seen this season in the sharing of the Gospel message.
Please relax and really get into this one. It brings the Christmas message home in a very personal way!
Church of rural Florence all of their lives. The final worship service will be conducted at 10 a.m. by the Rev. David Ragland of Peabody. Located in Summit Township, the Summit church began as a United Brethren Church. It subsequently became part of the United Brethren Evangelical Church and then the United Methodist Church.
