I have recently run across some blog posts and blog comments that, although the writer wants very much to be strongly oriented on Christ and wants to do some Christ-honoring work, he/she cannot find anything to do in the world of Christian work or ministry. This blog post is designed to alleviate that problem.
There is a world of constructive, Christ-oriented, work in our country; and with the resources available, there is no excuse for anyone to have difficulty finding multiple sources for many kinds of Christian work.
I would suggest that anyone looking for Christian ministry look first at Google and search “Christian ministries (then enter the name of your city); that will produce more ideas than you can ever digest. Another very good source is USAChurch (your city). Christian matching services are available to help you find the best match for your skills and available Christian positions. Those services can be found at Intercristo and Finishers.com. If you are looking for work in a pregnancy center, look on Google for Care Net and Heartbeat International. If you are looking for Christian missionary work, look at the web sites for SIM International and TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission).
Happy browsing, and may God bless you in your search for things to do for Him!
Monday, March 21, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
How Committed Are We To The Word of God?
You have heard me speaking about a book I have been reading recently—Radical, by David Platt. That book is a challenge to really live the Christian life. Anyone who reads that book and takes it to heart cannot help being motivated and moved to practice the admonitions of Christ! Below, I have quoted one paragraph:
“Meanwhile, we hold the matchless Word of God in our hands, and it demands a superior position in our lives, our families, our small groups, and our churches. Do we realize the battle that is waging around us? There is a true God over this world who wants all people to bow at the feet of a loving Savior, and there is a false god in this world who wants all people to burn in hell. The battle is intense, and it cannot be fought with the little thoughts in a daily devotional or petty ideas from a preacher on Sunday. It certainly can’t be fought with minds numbed by the constant drivel of entertainment on television, DVDs, video games, and the Internet. If you and I are going to penetrate our culture and the cultures of the world with the gospel, we desperately need minds saturated with God’s Word.”
“Meanwhile, we hold the matchless Word of God in our hands, and it demands a superior position in our lives, our families, our small groups, and our churches. Do we realize the battle that is waging around us? There is a true God over this world who wants all people to bow at the feet of a loving Savior, and there is a false god in this world who wants all people to burn in hell. The battle is intense, and it cannot be fought with the little thoughts in a daily devotional or petty ideas from a preacher on Sunday. It certainly can’t be fought with minds numbed by the constant drivel of entertainment on television, DVDs, video games, and the Internet. If you and I are going to penetrate our culture and the cultures of the world with the gospel, we desperately need minds saturated with God’s Word.”
Monday, March 14, 2011
A European’s Warning To America
Daniel Hannan wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal on March 12; it appeared on page A15. Mr. Hannan has been a member of the European Parliament for 11 years; he is a Briton. He wrote to warn the United States to avoid the mistakes that the European Union has been making for the past few decades.
Mr. Hannan notes that the United States has been following the European example for several years, i.e., we have embodied in our society and our government higher taxes, less patriotism, a bigger role for state bureaucracy, and a transfer of sovereignty to global institutions. Many Americans seem to genuinely believe that it would be a good idea to make our country less American and more like the rest of the world—namely, more like Europe. These changes are seen as the way to a more comfortable and peaceable way of life.
In America, we have traditionally designed our government to limit the power of the state by recall mechanisms, ballot initiatives, balanced budget rules, open primaries, localism, states’ rights, term limits, the direct election of public officials from the sheriff to the school board. The EU places supreme power in the hands of 27 unelected Commissioners invulnerable to public opinion.
Mr. Hannan notes that as the U.S. applies a European-style economic strategy based on fiscal stimulus, nationalization of businesses, bailouts, and the regulation of private-sector remuneration, unemployment in the U.S. has leaped to European levels.
Legislation in the U.S. is increasingly implemented through executive orders, bypassing the Congress and Senate. In short, we are losing our freedoms to big government.
Many people don’t even see America as a good place to live—can we blame immigrants who come to our shores for refusing to acculturate into American society?
Let’s get back at it, America! Let’s stop this trend toward big government and the “blame America first” attitude. We have a great country! It is worth sustaining and supporting.
Mr. Hannan notes that the United States has been following the European example for several years, i.e., we have embodied in our society and our government higher taxes, less patriotism, a bigger role for state bureaucracy, and a transfer of sovereignty to global institutions. Many Americans seem to genuinely believe that it would be a good idea to make our country less American and more like the rest of the world—namely, more like Europe. These changes are seen as the way to a more comfortable and peaceable way of life.
In America, we have traditionally designed our government to limit the power of the state by recall mechanisms, ballot initiatives, balanced budget rules, open primaries, localism, states’ rights, term limits, the direct election of public officials from the sheriff to the school board. The EU places supreme power in the hands of 27 unelected Commissioners invulnerable to public opinion.
Mr. Hannan notes that as the U.S. applies a European-style economic strategy based on fiscal stimulus, nationalization of businesses, bailouts, and the regulation of private-sector remuneration, unemployment in the U.S. has leaped to European levels.
Legislation in the U.S. is increasingly implemented through executive orders, bypassing the Congress and Senate. In short, we are losing our freedoms to big government.
Many people don’t even see America as a good place to live—can we blame immigrants who come to our shores for refusing to acculturate into American society?
Let’s get back at it, America! Let’s stop this trend toward big government and the “blame America first” attitude. We have a great country! It is worth sustaining and supporting.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
How To Live Longer
A new book called The Longevity Project by Friedman and Martin seeks to identify childhood traits that lead to long life. The best childhood predictor of longevity, it turns out, is a quality best defined as conscientiousness: “the often complex pattern of persistence, prudence, hard work, and close involvement with friends and communities that produces a well-organized person who is somewhat obsessive and not at all carefree.
High intelligence and advanced educational degrees did not correlate with long life. Rather, the ability to navigate life’s challenges was a better predictor of longevity.
Cheerful children turned out to be shorter-lived than their more sober classmates. These children died more often because they had a tendency to throw caution to the wind when it came to life-shortening habits like smoking, drinking, and driving fast cars. The chipper types were also more likely to die from homicide, suicide, or accident.
The early death of a parent had no measurable effect on children’s life spans or mortality risk, but the long-term health effects of broken families were often devastating. The grown children of divorced parents died almost 5 years earlier than children from intact families.
Long-livers had a higher level of physical activity and a habit of giving back to the community, a thriving and long-running career, and a healthy marriage and family life.
Those with a dark disposition, i.e., those who viewed every stumble as a calamity were the most likely to die sooner.
(The above was excerpted from the Wall Street Journal 3-9-11 page A15.)
In looking at this book, I am reminded of the admonition in the book of Ecclesiastes 7:2,3 “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting. for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter because a sad face is good for the heart.”
High intelligence and advanced educational degrees did not correlate with long life. Rather, the ability to navigate life’s challenges was a better predictor of longevity.
Cheerful children turned out to be shorter-lived than their more sober classmates. These children died more often because they had a tendency to throw caution to the wind when it came to life-shortening habits like smoking, drinking, and driving fast cars. The chipper types were also more likely to die from homicide, suicide, or accident.
The early death of a parent had no measurable effect on children’s life spans or mortality risk, but the long-term health effects of broken families were often devastating. The grown children of divorced parents died almost 5 years earlier than children from intact families.
Long-livers had a higher level of physical activity and a habit of giving back to the community, a thriving and long-running career, and a healthy marriage and family life.
Those with a dark disposition, i.e., those who viewed every stumble as a calamity were the most likely to die sooner.
(The above was excerpted from the Wall Street Journal 3-9-11 page A15.)
In looking at this book, I am reminded of the admonition in the book of Ecclesiastes 7:2,3 “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting. for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter because a sad face is good for the heart.”
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The Illegal Immigration Argument Marches On!
The United States still tussles with illegal immigration; and it seems that the states are making some progress despite the languor of the Federal government.
Utah is probably going to pass a bill that will allow illegal immigrants to stay in the state and work legally if they pass a criminal check, pay a fine of $2500, and apply for a permit from the state’s Department of Workforce Services. This program is very reminiscent of the Bracero Program that allowed alien Mexicans to come into the U.S. legally for limited periods between 1942 and 1964. Those Mexicans were imported temporarily to work in agricultural venues, for the most part. The Bracero Program decreased illegal immigration by 95% between 1952 and 1959.
My wife and I work with illegal immigrants twice weekly in a food bank; and there is one problem we see with this Utah solution: We do not know a single undocumented Mexican who can raise $2500 to pay the fine required. But…this idea of Utah’s is a start back to sanity on the part of the U.S. concerning illegal immigration.
The other disincentive for illegal immigration that is cooking through U.S. legislative channels is a move to eliminate the automatic awarding of citizenship to babies born to illegal immigrants in the U.S. About 340,000 babies are born to illegal Hispanics in the U.S. each year; and these “anchor babies” serve as justification for keeping their parents in the U.S. permanently, despite that fact that the parents are illegals.
If you wish to contribute to the passage of this kind of legislation, I would appeal to you to write to your Congressional representative and ask him/her to vote for and support the passage of the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011 (H.R. 140).
Utah is probably going to pass a bill that will allow illegal immigrants to stay in the state and work legally if they pass a criminal check, pay a fine of $2500, and apply for a permit from the state’s Department of Workforce Services. This program is very reminiscent of the Bracero Program that allowed alien Mexicans to come into the U.S. legally for limited periods between 1942 and 1964. Those Mexicans were imported temporarily to work in agricultural venues, for the most part. The Bracero Program decreased illegal immigration by 95% between 1952 and 1959.
My wife and I work with illegal immigrants twice weekly in a food bank; and there is one problem we see with this Utah solution: We do not know a single undocumented Mexican who can raise $2500 to pay the fine required. But…this idea of Utah’s is a start back to sanity on the part of the U.S. concerning illegal immigration.
The other disincentive for illegal immigration that is cooking through U.S. legislative channels is a move to eliminate the automatic awarding of citizenship to babies born to illegal immigrants in the U.S. About 340,000 babies are born to illegal Hispanics in the U.S. each year; and these “anchor babies” serve as justification for keeping their parents in the U.S. permanently, despite that fact that the parents are illegals.
If you wish to contribute to the passage of this kind of legislation, I would appeal to you to write to your Congressional representative and ask him/her to vote for and support the passage of the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011 (H.R. 140).
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Sermon on the Mount. Do Christians Obey It? NO! Why?
A question is often asked by Muslims: Do you Christians obey the Sermon on the Mount? If we answer 'yes', he will believe we are hypocrites, for nobody does and nobody can. If we answer 'no' then he will tell us to go home and practice what we preach before trying to teach it to him.
So…what can we say about the Sermon on the Mount, a real cornerstone to our Christian faith? The uncompromising absolutism and perfectionism of our Lord's ethical teaching in the Sermon on the Mount can be most clearly seen in his conception of the holiness of God. It is because we believe that Jesus reveals God to us in all that He was, said and did--including his ethical teaching--that we can accept the Sermon on the Mount into our faith experience with Him. We see that the ethics of Jesus show us what man is NOT and what God IS. Our Lord's teaching does not relate man to man so much as it relates God to man. Put in another way, when a man stands in the presence of God, after having had Jesus as his Teacher, he realizes that his ethics are not God’s ethics. Man’s ethics were designed to help and protect man against man in the crosscurrents of conflicting social claims. Man’s ethics come from the practical efforts to control the explosions caused by aggressive egoism, and they are not the ethics of pure love and absolute, infinite perfection. Man’s ethics are but the makeshift measures of a corrupt humanity in its effort to control and suppress the grosser forms of evil in society. The man standing in the presence of God, as Jesus presented Him, understands that he will be judged, not by the standard of his own very best efforts, but by the standard implied and expressed in the ethics of Jesus.
For the Christian, the Sermon on the Mount is the inspiration and the motivating force behind his every ethical decision-—achievable or not-—these principles are the things that should motivate our every decision. The principles of the Sermon on the Mount should, also, motivate and drive every policy decision made by our government and by other organizations to which we belong.
So…what can we say about the Sermon on the Mount, a real cornerstone to our Christian faith? The uncompromising absolutism and perfectionism of our Lord's ethical teaching in the Sermon on the Mount can be most clearly seen in his conception of the holiness of God. It is because we believe that Jesus reveals God to us in all that He was, said and did--including his ethical teaching--that we can accept the Sermon on the Mount into our faith experience with Him. We see that the ethics of Jesus show us what man is NOT and what God IS. Our Lord's teaching does not relate man to man so much as it relates God to man. Put in another way, when a man stands in the presence of God, after having had Jesus as his Teacher, he realizes that his ethics are not God’s ethics. Man’s ethics were designed to help and protect man against man in the crosscurrents of conflicting social claims. Man’s ethics come from the practical efforts to control the explosions caused by aggressive egoism, and they are not the ethics of pure love and absolute, infinite perfection. Man’s ethics are but the makeshift measures of a corrupt humanity in its effort to control and suppress the grosser forms of evil in society. The man standing in the presence of God, as Jesus presented Him, understands that he will be judged, not by the standard of his own very best efforts, but by the standard implied and expressed in the ethics of Jesus.
For the Christian, the Sermon on the Mount is the inspiration and the motivating force behind his every ethical decision-—achievable or not-—these principles are the things that should motivate our every decision. The principles of the Sermon on the Mount should, also, motivate and drive every policy decision made by our government and by other organizations to which we belong.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The Golden Rule in Islam?? Not a chance!
Howard P. Kainz of Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin writes in First Things March 2011, page 10:
“In my research, I have found that there are clear cognates to the Golden Rule in Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Judaism but that Islam mandates reciprocity and amity only among fellow Muslims—not with unbelievers. In fact, one finds in the Qur’an the exact opposite of the Golden Rule. For example, Surah 48:29 reads, ‘Muhammad is the messenger of Allah; and those who are with him are strong against unbelievers [but] compassionate among each other.”
“In my research, I have found that there are clear cognates to the Golden Rule in Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Judaism but that Islam mandates reciprocity and amity only among fellow Muslims—not with unbelievers. In fact, one finds in the Qur’an the exact opposite of the Golden Rule. For example, Surah 48:29 reads, ‘Muhammad is the messenger of Allah; and those who are with him are strong against unbelievers [but] compassionate among each other.”
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