Here is what you have to do to be a national acronym:
- Do something impossible.
- Advocate something so important that you are willing to die for it.
- Assume that you will spend your whole life working from a minority position.
- Visit and get comfortable with the fringe!
- In spite of the previous four conditions, you have to be a person that others will listen to and work with because you cannot accomplish anything alone!
Read the book of Exodus as I am and you will find an amazing story of God trying to give an entire nation freedom but eventually they rejected it. There are so many lessons in this amazing book. I can understand why Mr. King drew on its imagery in that speech.
God still wants to lead people to freedom but not everyone is willing to pay the price. Mr. King was.
The U.S. Warfare State and Evangelical Peacemaking
Retired U.S. Army Col. Andrew Bacevich argues in several important recent books that the direction of U.S. foreign and military policy is slipping from democratic control. It is instead dominated by a cohort of active and retired military, intelligence, law enforcement, corporate, lobbyist, academic, and political elites whose power in Washington is sufficiently impressive as to foreclose serious reconsideration of what Bacevich calls the “Washington rules.” The elites enforcing these rules consistently drive us to policies of permanent war, a staggeringly large global military presence, and regular global interventionism. This analysis stands in striking continuity with the warnings offered 50 years ago by President Eisenhower about the “military-industrial complex.”
First Impressions By Your Church
Here are some things I learned from my last church visit.
- Create a culture of hospitality
- Train your greeters
- Design a logical flow of traffic
- Spell-check everything
- Mark your entrances
- Avoid awkward greeting times
- Prepare a concise explanation of the child care system
- Be careful how you gather information
- Train members to assume they’re the only point of contact
- Treat visitors like VIPs
Overchurched people know a lot of information about God, Jesus, and the Bible. They have simply chosen to not allow it to impact their lives. Overchurched people, for various reasons, have been vaccinated against Christianity. It is as if they have received a tiny injection of Christianity, and they have built within themselves a spiritual immunity to Jesus and his church.
The Main Reason People Leave A Church
Certainly we recognize there are many legitimate claims by church members of unfulfilled expectations. It can undoubtedly be the fault of the local congregation and its leaders.
But many times, probably more than we would like to believe, a church member leaves a local body because he or she has a sense of entitlement. I would therefore suggest that the main reason people leave a church is because they have an entitlement mentality rather than a servant mentality.
How Far Ahead Should You Book To Get Low Airfares?
The short answer: seven weeks before takeoff. On average, fares bottomed out 49 days before the flight, then increased slightly, but remained steady until about a month out. After that, prices climbed as the travel date approached.
But too much advance planning isn’t good for the bottom line, either. Though, not surprisingly, the highest fares, came with bookings made 11 or fewer days in advance, the next worst timing was 208, 209, and 210 days out, according to the analysis.