Ideal or Idol: Avoiding the Family Cult in Church
Perhaps this is why most marriage and family material promoted in churches today comes from the social sciences rather than scripture. Proponents seek to align their teaching with scripture, but most of it does not originate there. Much of it is helpful and we can use it to strengthen our families. That’s great. But the purpose of this material is not advancing the Kingdom of God and often has little to do with being disciples. In our understandable anxiety about family, we can easily over-emphasizing family in church and get our families out of place. If that happens, it will not be good for our families or for the church.
A Word of Encouragement to Weary Pastors: God Does Not View Your Labors as “Filthy Rags”
This larger biblical context can provide the proper framework for understanding the intent of passages like Is 64:6. The “filthy rags” in this passage is not a reference to the Spirit-wrought works of the regenerate, but the outward religious grandstanding of the wicked (see Isaiah 58).
Why I Tell Church Leaders How to Behave…
It protects me from temptation. Some of us know our demons and want to ensure that we are protected. But I know of so many instances where temptation ambushed one or both of the people involved. Sometimes it becomes an emotional affair, which provides an opening for Satan to work. Better to be on guard. And I have never know anyone who got in trouble by following the rules.
It protects your flock. In this day and age, how can someone feel safe at church? One way is to protect them from situations that have potential for sin. The leadership at churches that follow some set of rules like these are letting their flock know that they are absolutely safe. The only way for someone to be in danger is for someone to intentionally violate the rules. And if you publicize the guidelines/rules, then people know something is not quite right when someone wants to change them.
It protects you from false accusations. It is hard to lie about what someone said or did when there was someone else there. Nothing is worse than a “he said… she said” controversy. And do not think people will not lie about you.
African Traditional Religion Keeps Them Poor
But then there are some aspects of their culture that I cannot accept because they are harming the neighbors I have come to love. So much so, that they are actually ensuring that an already impoverished people remain in poverty. What I see around me in Cameroon is not a tribal religion that supports a rich culture among its people. Instead, I see a commitment to a system that enslaves its followers. The primary damaging belief comes from their perspective on the afterlife. The worldview of the Bakoum is dominated by a belief that when one’s relatives die, their bodies are buried but their spirits stay in the village. And generally speaking these spirits remain to torment the living — unless they are appeased. They are a force that is behind almost all events in life and the job of the living is to manipulate them to ensure the safety of the individual and the community.
What Small Town Churches Have to Offer
Small and medium size churches in rural areas have much to offer. They contribute significantly to the larger body of Christ. Small churches are not better than big churches, nor are big churches better than small churches. A congregation should not be thought more or less of because they are located in a metropolitan area or a small farming community. What we do need to realize is these churches have different things to offer.
Cashier tells girl, ‘we have lots of other dolls that look more like you.’ Her response is priceless
Friday, Brandi Benner posted a photo of her daughter Sophia, who is white, with a black doctor doll and described a conversation that happened at a Target checkout line.
First the cashier, who Benner described in a Facebook post as an “elderly woman,” asked Sophia if the doll was for a friend, she says. After hearing that Sophia picked out the doll as a prize for becoming potty-trained, the cashier told the 2-year-old, “but she doesn’t look like you. We have lots of other dolls that look more like you,” the post reads.
Sophia quipped back: “Yes, she does. She’s a doctor like I’m a doctor. And I’m a pretty girl and she’s a pretty girl. See her pretty hair? And see her stethoscope?”
These high school journalists investigated a new principal’s credentials. Days later, she resigned.
The student journalists had begun researching Robertson, and quickly found some discrepancies in her education credentials. For one, when they researched Corllins University, the private university where Robertson said she got her master’s and doctorate degrees years ago, the website didn’t work. They found no evidence that it was an accredited university.
How humans will lose control of artificial intelligence
If there’s a way to prevent the far-off possibility of a killer superintelligence with no regard for humanity, it may begin with making today’s algorithms more thoughtful, more compassionate, more humane. That means educating designers to think through effects, because to our algorithms we’ve granted great power.
How do you eat your chocolate bunny? Vast majority prefer to start with the ears
New research carried out online has found that 59% of 28,113 respondents preferred to eat chocolate rabbits starting with the ears, 33% indicated that they had no starting point preference, and 4% indicated that they started with the tail or feet.