9 questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask

Syria and its history are really complicated; this is not an exhaustive or definitive account of that entire story, just some background, written so that anyone can understand it.

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Can Homosexuals Force Christians to Accept Their Behavior?

Now, the question will turn to religious groups themselves. If a single individual cannot “discriminate” against homosexual behavior on religious grounds, on what constitutional ground can a church (which promotes those biblical teachings) stand if it refuses to perform or to permit homosexual weddings to take place in their facilities? The individual is simply a inter-connected part of the whole. If the fruit of the tree is poisonous, how long will it be before the entire tree is declared poisonous?

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8 Good Reasons to Change Modern Church Service

Sunday morning service is not serving the needs of Christians in our present time. Because of this, passionate and committed Christians are working to make up for this shortcoming in their “spare time.” This is simply inappropriate and wrong, and the only reason this is still happening is because church service has become a “sacred cow” no one is allowed to touch. Here are eight good reasons to rethink Sunday morning service.

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A Note to Those Who Criticize Me

But I do want you to know, critics, that I thank you for your words of admonition. I have a strange relationship with you. I dread you and I need you. There will be times when I am right and you are wrong. But there will be many times when you are right and I am wrong.

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The Legal Code: Clarification and Disclaimers

But here is what has changed. The legal texts of Moses were in some cases highly detailed and prescriptive. Some would read the New Testament literature as if it were the same genre as the Book of the Covenant or the Holiness Code. This amounts to viewing the New Testament books, not as occasional literature written to aid disciples in a Christocentric reading of the Hebrew Scriptures, but as a flat law code of new legal stipulations for Christians.

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Football and the Gift of Institutions

Interestingly, often these ingredients can be separated from one another and the institution will still function, at least to some extent. You can take away the football arena and play the game of football in a back yard, and it is still truly a game of football. You could even take away as central an artifact as the football itself: if a group arranged themselves in two facing lines on an unmarked field and one player in the center hiked a ball made of old rags to someone standing behind them, who then handed it off or passed it to one of their teammates, anyone familiar with the game would recognize it as football. Just the constellation of rules and roles would be enough to make it such a game.

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Why French Kids Don’t Have ADHD

French child psychiatrists, on the other hand, view ADHD as a medical condition that has psycho-social and situational causes. Instead of treating children’s focusing and behavioral problems with drugs, French doctors prefer to look for the underlying issue that is causing the child distress—not in the child’s brain but in the child’s social context. They then choose to treat the underlying social context problem with psychotherapy or family counseling. This is a very different way of seeing things from the American tendency to attribute all symptoms to a biological dysfunction such as a chemical imbalance in the child’s brain.

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British man turns the tables on telemarketers by charging them to call him

Since changing his number in November 2011, Beaumont says he’s made about 300 pounds ($464) from the calls. Using a service called PhonepayPlus, Beaumont charges incoming callers 10 pence to connect and additional charges for the longer he stays on the line.

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Fifty Years After “I Have a Dream”
More on the Anniversary of “I Have a Dream”

With all the discussion today of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his “I Have a Dream” speech, we’ve gathered a few more links you might find interesting:

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When the Popular Youth Pastor Gets Arrested Again

Southern churches rightly desire to reach teenagers, as we should want to see every person in our region come to Christ. But this aim will not be accomplished with a more exciting atmosphere, louder music, and a central charismatic figure who can rouse teens. Churches would better reach the next generation if they emphasized compelling biblical preaching and intergenerational discipleship, and if they empowered parents to teach the gospel to their own children.

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Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a choice! But, it is not an emotional choice, it is an intellectual choice. If you wait ’til you “feel like it” you will never forgive someone who has wronged you. The reason you have decided to wait for an apology is that you want to “feel” better. The problem is you can’t “feel better” until after your forgive, not before. You must make a decision. You must tell yourself “I am tired of being bitter and resentful and I’m going to do the right thing and forgive“. Is it that easy? No, it isn’t easy but that’s the way to do it.

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Caring Relationships: The Building Block of Championship Teams

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Before leading your organization to the pinnacle of your industry, you must first convince your teammates that you value them as individuals and care deeply about their personal welfare. When teammates sense that the leader genuinely has their best interests at heart, they’re willing to contribute far more than their job description demands or their paycheck requires.

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Billie Jean King’s ‘Battle of the Sexes’ Win Reportedly Rigged

King beat Riggs, who was 55 at the time of the match, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. The win gave women’s tennis a huge boost in terms of respect and gender equality, but an ESPN “Outside the Lines” report says the whole match was fixed because Riggs owed mobsters more than $100,000 and threw the match to erase the debt.

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The Wars Over Christian Beards

You’re more likely to see a beard in the pulpit today than at any time since the 1800s. But beards—especially among clergy—were once serious, symbolic matters. They separated East from West during the Great Schism, priests from laity during the Middle Ages, and Protestants from Catholics during the Reformation. Some church leaders required them; others banned them. To medieval theologians, they represented both holiness and sin. But historian Giles Constable says that rules on beards sound more forceful than they really were. Clergy (especially powerful ones) were likely to follow fashion in their day, too.

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The 10 worst types of passengers

AirlineRatings.com have listed their 10 worst passenger types, which include people with bad personal hygiene and armrest hogs. Seat recliners and travellers who let their kids run amok tied for top position in the poll, which also includes passengers who never stops talking.

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Mystery And Subterfuge In The Blogosphere

Things are not always what they seem. Seems I’ve been had, deceived by some people who feel that the New Covenant allows us to use lies and deceit in our dealings with one another. Interesting, to say the least.

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Have Progressive Christians Abandoned Too Much?

The realm is there, surrounding us, but maybe we have become too intelligent or perhaps too religious to seek and embrace it. In our quest for being the right kind of Christian, or sometimes for just not being the wrong kind, is it possible that most of us, conservatives and progressives alike, have become Christian extremists, losing the center of what our faith is really about: not right belief, not right words, not right denomination or politics, but an intimate connection with the God who created us, an inner peace unlike any our five senses can provide? It’s scientifically inexplicable. It’s mystery beyond any words. Yet there is where we most clearly experience and encounter God.

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How the West is Helping to Destroy Christianity in Syria

Because most Christians in Syria have remained neutral in the two-year civil war and some have supported the government, the insurgents with the ‘Free Syrian Army’ perceive Christians as enemies. Consequently, they have begun systematically confiscating land belonging to Christians, in addition raping women and killing children. Dozens of churches have also been desecrated or completely destroyed, mainly around Homs and Aleppo.
Astoundingly, the anti-government ‘Free Syrian Army’ is considered moderate by the West and is supported by the David Cameron, the Obama administration, NATO and the EU.

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Can We Stop Talking About “Millennials” Now?

What would happen if we opened up just a little room to explore the idea that not getting our way may actually be ‘The Way?

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What We Should Be Talking About When We Talk About Miley Cyrus

The problem is not Miley Cyrus. The problem isn’t any one person. Not Lady Gaga or Keisha or that guy who sings “Same Love.”
The problem is always, always sin—sin in Miley onstage and sin in you as you listen to her songs on the radio and sing along or read articles about her on-again, off-again love affairs in the check-out line.
Sin is what you saw in graphic detail on your television on Sunday night. And sin is what you see most every other night, too—on tv and in your chair.

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Save the World, Lose Your Own Family…One of the Biggest Issues Facing Ministers

If you are a minister, make sure you make time for two things: 1) Self care: this is time developing your inner self, dealing with your issues (pride, guilt, messiah complex, boundaries, etc) and 2) Your family: don’t leave them in the dust while you pursue your passion and dreams. Make sure to walk along side them. Help grow their faith. Foster in the life of your spouse a deeper relationship with God. Enable your children to develop a deep passion for kingdom work. What good is it if a man saves the whole world but loses his family in the process? Be wise. We are called to sacrifice…sometimes we sacrifice things for the church and other times, if we are wise, we will know when to sacrifice church things for family. This takes wisdom and it won’t always come naturally to you but it has to be done if you are going to make it.

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No, thanks: Stop saying “support the troops”

In reality, the troops are not actually recipients of any meaningful support. That honor is reserved for the government and its elite constituencies. “Support our troops” entails a tacit injunction that we also support whatever politicians in any given moment deem the national interest. If we understand that “the national interest” is but a metonym for the aspirations of the ruling class, then supporting the troops becomes a counterintuitive, even harmful, gesture.

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Hong Kong’s paper crafters work overtime to feed hungry ghosts

The Hungry Ghosts festival that has prompted Ha’s exquisite labors centers on a superstition that the spirits of the dead return to Earth during the seventh month of the Chinese Lunar calendar, which runs from August 7 to September 4 this year.
Five meters (16 feet) long, Ha’s boat is one of numerous paper offerings ordered by Buddhist temples at this time of year, when many Chinese around the world tread more cautiously and make an extra effort to appease the roaming souls.

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Man blows up house inflating air mattress

But the mattress was leaky, so he used an industrial strength puncture repair spray to try and fix it. This reacted with the inbuilt electric pump, causing a violent explosion which threw him across the room, ripped doors off their hinges and smashed windows.

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In the Name of Jesus

One thing you will notice when you highlight every prayer, every supplication on towards God that is uttered in the text of the New Testament is that you will never see a New Testament prayer that ends with the phrase “In Jesus’ name. Amen,” even though the same text teaches you to pray in Jesus’ name. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to draw the conclusion that we are, first, to pray in the name of Jesus, and second, praying in the name of Jesus doesn’t mean ending your prayer with the phrase “In the name of Jesus. Amen,” because it is never done in the New Testament.

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Tips for Approaching Introverts with Ministry Opportunities

Many introverts are cautious about making commitments—they want to think them through and may be concerned about the required energy level. Rather than ask for commitment, give them a chance to try filling a role on a short-term basis.

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Americans Like Evangelicals After All

It doesn’t appear that evangelicals actually experience more oppression than others. In a 2006 study, about 1 in 3 evangelicals said that they hear negative remarks about their religion often or occasionally. That’s close to the national average of 29 percent. (For Mormons it was 60 percent, for Jews 38 percent.) If evangelicals do not actually hear many more negative remarks about their faith, it might be that we’re simply more sensitive to hearing them.
Regardless of our personal experience, evangelical Christians’ sense of being disliked is reinforced when we hear others in our group, especially leaders, telling us we are disliked.

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Dumb, Directionless, Defenseless

Sheep are dumb and directionless. They are also defenseless. Left to themselves, sheep will not and cannot last very long. Just about any other domesticated animal can be returned to the wild and will stand a fighting chance of survival. But not sheep. Put a sheep in the wild and you’ve just given nature a snack.

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Make the Bible Your Native Tongue

Our limitless access to prepackaged devotional, inspirational, and theological insights from others can unwittingly give us a BSL — Bible as a Second Language — orientation on God. But intimacy with him is better reached via a firsthand relationship through his word than through someone else’s translation of it on our behalf. There’s a place for both — God has given us teachers (Ephesians 4:11). We simply must be careful becoming so co-dependent on the one that we fail to do due diligence with the other.

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Going Back to School

There is no age limit on being a student. In fact, one of the best gifts that a parent can give a child is to visibly be a life-long learner. Education is at its best when it launches us into a lifetime of discovery. Christianity ignites its deepest transformation when we live as disciples, students committed to learning and imitating the Teacher.

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Great design = getting people to do what you want

Unethical design, then, is using the power of design to get the user to do something he regrets. Great design is pushing/focusing the user to do something that he’ll thank you for later.
Designing for ‘everyone to do anything’ is difficult to do well and ultimately a cop out. It absolves the designer of responsibility, sure, but it is also design without intent or generosity.
Great designers can easily answer the question, “what do you want the user to do?”

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Stolen Bible Returned 42 Years Later By Guilt-Stricken Thief

They never thought they’d see it again, but 42 years after their Bible was stolen in 1971, Holy Trinity Church in Hastings, England, received an intriguing letter in the mail. The anonymous note was sent to church treasurer Simon Scott and read, “You won’t believe receiving this letter and you certainly won’t believe receiving a bible in the post shortly,” according to the BBC.
To the surprise of the church administration, a huge box containing a large leather-bound version of The Holy Bible, complete with brass clasps, later arrived in the mail, just as promised.

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After Years in Solitary, an Austere Life as Uruguay’s President

In a deliberate statement to this cattle-exporting nation of 3.3 million people, Mr. Mujica, 77, shunned the opulent Suárez y Reyes presidential mansion, with its staff of 42, remaining instead in the home where he and his wife have lived for years, on a plot of land where they grow chrysanthemums for sale in local markets.
Visitors reach Mr. Mujica’s austere dwelling after driving down O’Higgins Road, past groves of lemon trees. His net worth upon taking office in 2010 amounted to about $1,800 — the value of the 1987 Volkswagen Beetle parked in his garage. He never wears a tie and donates about 90 percent of his salary, largely to a program for expanding housing for the poor.

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Ohio couple married 65 years die 11 hours apart

Relatives of an Ohio couple who died at a nursing home 11 hours apart on the same day said their love story’s ending reflects their devotion over 65 years of marriage.
Harold and Ruth Knapke died in their shared room on Aug. 11, days before their 66th anniversary, The Dayton Daily News (http://bit.ly/16KBNAJ ) reported. He was 91, she was 89.

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Helping Others Helps You to Live Longer

A new review of the health effects of volunteering found that helping others on a regular basis — like serving food in a soup kitchen or reading to the blind— can reduce early mortality rates by 22%, compared to those in people who don’t participate in such activities.

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How Do we Learn From The Idiot In The Room?

When I was in New York a couple of years ago doing a training programme for church planters, one phrase in particular stuck with me. We were told that a good church planter/leader was an ‘agile learner’. In other words, somebody who had not shut up shop but was still reading, observing, listening and processing almost all of the time. They had not shut themselves down to people outside of their tribe or to people with new and different ideas. What I have learned is that a good leader does not shut down if the person opposite him is not from his tribe, is slightly irritating and may not even be sound (as I define it).

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Healthy Churches are Messy

A healthy church with a passionate outward focus can expect as much as 50% of the congregation to be loosely connected at any given point. Why? It means spiritually mature people are inviting their friends. Of course, the goal is for people to move from loosely connected to faithful. But once the loosely connected become faithful, the healthy culture of the church should compel them to invite their unchurched friends.

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The Table of Unity

But the principle is the same. If we have something against someone here, or if we know we’ve hurt or sinned against someone else, the Lord calls us to do what it takes to reconcile with your family member in Christ, to forgive them and to do whatever it takes to seek forgiveness from the one we have wronged. For this is a table of unity — and if we eat and drink of the table of fellowship while holding something against another person, we are play-acting. And you know as well as I do that the Master has a great deal of patience with everything except play-acting. His word for play-acting? Hypocrisy.

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Negligent parents, lawbreaking kids

We need to hold parents more accountable, both culturally and legally, for the actions of their children. Maybe then more parents will be more engaged in the lives of their children on the front end, rather than the back end, in front of a judge. Society has avenues for juveniles who refuse to obey their parents. But where are the safeguards for society when parents decide not to use those avenues?
I’m tired of hearing how good the kids who commit heinous crimes are. Maybe we should start putting parents on the witness stand so they can tell us exactly what they did to raise such perfect children.

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The 60 million Americans who don’t use the Internet, in six charts

So why don’t people go online? The Department of Commerce tried to answer that very question in a June report on America’s “Emerging Online Experience” — which, as the department notes, hasn’t quite emerged in some corners of the country. Intriguingly, the agency found that half of offline households simply don’t want Internet — they either feel they don’t need it, they can use it elsewhere, or it infringes on their privacy. For the remaining non-users, the big factor is cost.

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Fort Worth Zoo’s new elephant born into name controversy

Barely born, baby elephant Bowie is already at the center of controversy.
Turns out almost nobody but a Texan knows the right way to say his name.
After 40 years of David Bowie ( Boh-ey) songs, we now have to explain that the Texas city, county, brick boulevard and baby elephant are all Boo-ey. As in that Alamo guy.

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Don’t Remember Sending That Text? You Might Have Been Asleep

“My charger is right there in the corner so sometimes I would keep it right here next to me. I guess I got up and texted and went back to bed but I don’t remember it,” sleep texter Megan told CBS 2′s Kristine Johnson.
Friends and family were receiving messages from Megan that she didn’t even remember sending.
“4 o’clock in the morning, 3 o’clock in the morning, it would just be a sentence of jumbled up stuff,” she said.

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