Department Of Homeland Security Compiling Database Of Journalists And ‘Media Influencers’
The details of the attached Statement of Work, however, outline a plan to gather and monitor the public activities of media professionals and influencers and are enough to cause nightmares of constitutional proportions, particularly as the freedom of the press is under attack worldwide.
Churches Rarely Reprimand Members, New Survey Shows
According to the phone survey of 1,000 Protestant senior pastors, 16 percent of pastors say their church has disciplined a member in the last year. That includes 3 percent in the last month, 5 percent in the last six months and 8 percent in the last year.
More than half (55 percent) say no member has been disciplined during their time as pastor or before their tenure. Twenty-one percent say a member was disciplined three or more years ago. Five percent say there was a case of discipline in the last two years.
Three Steps to Better Doctrinal Disagreements
- Care about the person; critique the idea.
- Ask yourself: If understood charitably, does the person have a valid point?
- Use a tactical approach.
- Don’t read the words.
- But even better, remember that slides are free.
- Better still, don’t use words.
- Many organizations use decks as a fancy sort of memo, a leave-behind that provides proof that you actually said what you said.
- Reconsider the memo.
The Divorce & Remarriage of Evangelism and Discipleship
Some churches and ministries have a laser focus on evangelism at the expense of discipleship, and the church ends up a mile wide and an inch deep. Other ministries have decided that they don’t want shallow Christians, so they spend all their time and energy emphasizing discipleship.
This, however, easily results in ‘coffee club’ or ‘Sunday school’ Christians (which one of these often depends on the generation!) who get together, drink coffee, study the Bible, and pray. While those are certainly important components of discipleship, this is only a partial picture.
Christian women in the U.S. are more religious than their male counterparts
More than seven-in-ten U.S. Christian women (72%) say religion is “very important” in their lives, compared with 62% of the country’s Christian men, according to Pew Research Center’s 2014 U.S. Religious Landscape Study. Roughly eight-in-ten Christian women also say they are absolutely certain God exists and that the Bible is the word of God, compared with about seven-in-ten men who say this.