Even though many medical experts say that America is not at risk of an Ebola breakout from Brantly’s treatment in this facility, many Americans seem unwilling to accept any possibility of any remote risk associated with treating Brantly in a facility designed to do just this. Sooner or later, it seems to me, this disease will surely find its way outside West Africa. The questions we have to ask are: Will we support those trying to fight the disease there? What will we do if they get sick? And, how will we respond when someone here in America does get sick?
Engaging an Ever-Changing Culture With a Never-Changing Gospel
I’ve said many times before that if the 1950s were to make a comeback, there would be all too many churches who could go on without missing a beat. The good news is that they found a ministry strategy that works. The bad news is that the only people they reach now are seventy years old.
Before long, the ministry strategy is as old as the congregation and the church that once thrived with innovative ways to reach their community has now shriveled to a handful of people that have completely lost touch with the surrounding neighborhood.
Is the Church trying too hard to identify with the world?
We get out of balance. We have a dual responsibility. We’re to seek and save the lost but we’re also to shepherd the flock. We get out of balance when we focus totally on evangelism and neglect discipleship. Sometimes older Christians are abruptly told, “We’re focusing on reaching the seeker, so go someplace else if you don’t like it.” However, even mature sheep need to be fed and nurtured.
What Can Be Done About Gender Inequality in the Church?
Which brings us back to your question, Leah. You asked, “…I want to bring this up, but I don’t want to step on any toes or go against the Bible. What can I do?” What I would do is study, pray, consider and then engage in the conversation. Your male leaders aren’t bad guys for not being 100 percent certain that women should be allowed into all facets of ministry—really, they’re not. So have patience with them. We don’t know everything that there is to know yet, and the conversation is still being had. Someday, we’ll be at “Z” and all be on the same page (whatever that page may be). But until that point, we need to be patient and kind with each other have a civil discourse on those things that have yet to fully reveal themselves.
So we know what we don’t know, but what, as Christians, do we know? Here are four certainties with which to face the uncertainties of the next year — and the next 100 years.
1. God is in control of all things small and great.
2. God’s word, like his character, is unchanging and unfailing.
3. Jesus, mighty to save, continues to gather worshipers from all peoples.
4. Christ is risen, and our lives are forever bound up in his life.
When It’s Bad to Have Good Choices
Unsurprisingly, when people were asked to decide between something like an iPod and a bag of pretzels, they didn’t feel particularly anxious: the choice was clear and life was good. When both choices were low in value, the emotions were similarly clear-cut. No one was particularly happy, but neither were they anxious. But when multiple highly positive options were available—a digital camera and a camcorder, say—anxiety skyrocketed, just as Lipowski had predicted. The choices between those objects that they valued most highly were both the most positive and the most anxiety-filled. The more choices they had—the study was repeated with up to six items per choice—the more anxious they felt. “When you have more good choices, you don’t feel better,” Shenhav says. “You just feel more anxious.”
Culture Shock in Pictures: Grocery Shopping
Also, I’m not trying to slam either culture. I love that I can anonymously run in and out of a Cub Foods in Minnesota and that I can be almost guaranteed to find exactly what I want exactly where it was the last time on the shelf. I love shopping in the market and talking with the vendors in Djibouti, I love the freshness of our food and the creativity of preparing so much from scratch.
But I don’t love the overwhelming amount of choices in the American supermarkets and I don’t love the limited options at some points in Djiboutian markets. Both can feel quite, well, shocking, at times.
MIT Wristband Could Make AC Obsolete
If it comes together, though, it would be a compelling sell–a wearable that offered personalized, dynamic climate control. It might not solve the AC energy problem in one fell swoop, but it could nudge us away from the central-heating-and-cooling mindset that is taking us there–more of a next-gen fan or handwarmer than a full heating and cooling replacement. It’s certainly an intriguing approach. As Shames says, “Why heat or cool a building when you could heat or cool a person?”
Blogger fired from language school over ‘homophonia’
But when the social-media specialist for a private Provo-based English language learning center wrote a blog explaining homophones, he was let go for creating the perception that the school promoted a gay agenda.