April 15, 2007
A pastor friend put sanitary hot air hand dryers in the rest rooms at his church and after two weeks took them out.
I asked him why and he confessed that they worked fine but when he went in there he saw a sign that read,
"For a sample of this week's sermon, push the button."
Ants in The Pants of Faith
Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don't have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving. Frederick Buechner
If a man will begin in certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. Francis Bacon
You can’t hide from God by missing church.
The prayer closets of God’s people are where the roots of the church grow.
Religious differences are not nearly so disastrous as religious indifferences.
The way to preserve peace in the church is to preserve the purity of it.
Some people who watch “Saturday Night Live” come to church “Sunday Morning Dead.”
After the baptism of his baby brother in church, little Johnny sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied, "That preacher said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I wanted to stay with you guys."
The richest 2% of the world's population owns more than half of the world's household wealth. The findings may be surprising, for what makes people "wealthy" across the world spectrum is a relatively low bar.
The research indicates that assets of just $2,200 per adult place a household in the top half of the world's wealthiest. To be among the richest 10% of adults in the world, just $61,000 in assets is needed. If you have more than $500,000, you're part of the richest 1%, the United Nations study says. Indeed, 37 million people now belong in that category. Half live on less than $2 a day. Sure, you can now be proud that you're rich. But take a moment to think about it, and you'll probably come to realize that the meaning behind these numbers is harrowing. For if it takes just a couple of thousand dollars to qualify as rich in this world, imagine what it means to be poor.
Half the world, nearly 3 billion people, live on less than $2 a day. The three richest people in the world –- Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, investor Warren Buffett and Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helú -- have more money than the poorest 48 nations combined.
OVERCOMING THE NEGATIVE
"I keep the telephone of my mind open to peace, harmony, health, love and abundance. Then whenever doubts, anxiety, or fear try to call me, they keep getting a busy signal - and soon they'll forget my number." -- Edith Armstrong
"De-program yourself. The news is not the news. It is the bad news. It is deliberately shocking. The more you accept it as the news, the more you believe that 'that's the way it is,' and the more fearful and cynical you will become." -- Steve Chandler
"Issue a blanket pardon. Forgive everyone who has ever hurt you in any way. Forgiveness is a perfectly selfish act. It sets you free from the past." -- Brian Tracy
"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." -- John Wooden
"If you wish to reach the highest, begin at the lowest." -- Publilius Syrus
"Start from wherever you are and with whatever you've got." -- Jim Rohn
"There is no money crisis, only an idea crisis. We need new ideas on how we can do what we really want to do." -- Mark Victor Hansen
"Money never starts an idea; it's the idea that starts the money." -- Mark Victor Hansen
WHAT'S 'NORMAL' FOR CHURCHES TODAY? Half of all congregations have fewer
than 100 regularly participating adults, 25% have fewer than 50. Fewer than 10% of congregations have more than 1,000 participating adults. Fifty-two percent of congregations are located in small towns and open country. More than two-out-of-three congregations report sponsoring or supporting a thrift shop. More than one-third are involved in tutoring. More than 80% have or support a food pantry. Most of the growing churches have informal services, preaching styles that are narrative or story-telling, and emphasize prayer and music (especially electronic). For more information, check out http://www.fact.hartsem.edu>. -from a study of 14,031 congregations in 41 denominations, statistically reflecting the experiences of 350,000 congregations and 90% of worshipers, conducted by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research (part of Hartford Seminary),
The Scars of Easter - He knows the wounds of humanity. His hands prove it.
Isaac Newton said, "In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would
convince me of God’s existence." After 40 years as a surgeon specializing in hands, I am tempted to agree. Nothing in all nature rivals the hand’s combination of strength and agility, tolerance and sensitivity. We use our hands for the most wonderful activities: art, music, writing, healing, touching.
Some people go to concerts and athletic events to watch the performance; I go to watch hands. For me, a piano performance is a ballet of fingers -- a glorious flourish of ligaments and joints, tendons, nerves, and muscles. I try to sit near the stage to watch the movements.
Unless you have tried to reproduce just one small twitch of the hand mechanically, you cannot fully appreciate its movements. Often I have stood before a group of medical students or surgeons to analyze the motion of one finger. I hold before them a dissected cadaver hand, with its trailing strands of sinew, and announce that I will move the tip of the little finger.
To do so, I must place the hand on a table and spend about four minutes sorting through the tangle of tendons and muscles. Seventy separate muscles contribute to hand movements. But in order to allow dexterity and slimness for actions such as piano playing, the finger has no muscle in itself; tendons transfer the force from muscles higher in the arm. (Body-builders should be grateful: imagine the limitations on finger movement if the fingers had muscles that could grow large and bulky.) Finally, after I have arranged at least a dozen muscles correctly, I can maneuver them to make the little finger move. Usually, I give this demonstration to illustrate a way to repair the hand surgically. In 40 years of surgery, I have personally operated on perhaps 10,000 hands. I could fill a room with surgery manuals suggesting various ways to repair injured hands. But in those years I have never found a single technique to improve a normal, healthy hand. That is why I am tempted to agree with Isaac Newton.
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." -- Sir Winston Churchill
"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet." -- James Oppenheim
“Worry looks around, sorry looks back, Faith looks up."
Secrets Of Great Golf
A reporter was interviewing Jack Nicklaus. He said, "Jack, you are spectacular, your name is synonymous with the game of golf. You really know your way around the course. What is your secret?"
To which Jack replied, "The holes are numbered!"
"Courage is fear that has said its prayers." - Dorothy Bernard
"God wants to roll away your stone as well. He wants you just as free as Jesus is risen - Christ's death and resurrection were for you. God's intent is to so saturate our lives with his life and Spirit that our everyday existence embodies and expresses the victorious and death-conquering resurrection of his son." - Dutch Sheets, Roll Away Your Stone
"When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us." -- Alexander Graham Bell
Thoughts on Doubt ...
✓ Christ never failed to distinguish between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is can't believe; unbelief is won't believe. Doubt is honesty; unbelief is obstinacy. Doubt is looking for light; unbelief is content with darkness. John Drummond (1851-1897)
✓ Doubt is the disease of this inquisitive, restless age. It is the price we pay for our advanced intelligence and civilization -the dim night of our resplendent day. But as the most beautiful light is born of darkness, so the faith that springs from conflict is often the strongest and the best. Billy Graham (1918- )
I asked him why and he confessed that they worked fine but when he went in there he saw a sign that read,
"For a sample of this week's sermon, push the button."
Ants in The Pants of Faith
Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don't have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving. Frederick Buechner
If a man will begin in certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. Francis Bacon
You can’t hide from God by missing church.
The prayer closets of God’s people are where the roots of the church grow.
Religious differences are not nearly so disastrous as religious indifferences.
The way to preserve peace in the church is to preserve the purity of it.
Some people who watch “Saturday Night Live” come to church “Sunday Morning Dead.”
After the baptism of his baby brother in church, little Johnny sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied, "That preacher said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I wanted to stay with you guys."
The richest 2% of the world's population owns more than half of the world's household wealth. The findings may be surprising, for what makes people "wealthy" across the world spectrum is a relatively low bar.
The research indicates that assets of just $2,200 per adult place a household in the top half of the world's wealthiest. To be among the richest 10% of adults in the world, just $61,000 in assets is needed. If you have more than $500,000, you're part of the richest 1%, the United Nations study says. Indeed, 37 million people now belong in that category. Half live on less than $2 a day. Sure, you can now be proud that you're rich. But take a moment to think about it, and you'll probably come to realize that the meaning behind these numbers is harrowing. For if it takes just a couple of thousand dollars to qualify as rich in this world, imagine what it means to be poor.
Half the world, nearly 3 billion people, live on less than $2 a day. The three richest people in the world –- Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, investor Warren Buffett and Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helú -- have more money than the poorest 48 nations combined.
OVERCOMING THE NEGATIVE
"I keep the telephone of my mind open to peace, harmony, health, love and abundance. Then whenever doubts, anxiety, or fear try to call me, they keep getting a busy signal - and soon they'll forget my number." -- Edith Armstrong
"De-program yourself. The news is not the news. It is the bad news. It is deliberately shocking. The more you accept it as the news, the more you believe that 'that's the way it is,' and the more fearful and cynical you will become." -- Steve Chandler
"Issue a blanket pardon. Forgive everyone who has ever hurt you in any way. Forgiveness is a perfectly selfish act. It sets you free from the past." -- Brian Tracy
"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." -- John Wooden
"If you wish to reach the highest, begin at the lowest." -- Publilius Syrus
"Start from wherever you are and with whatever you've got." -- Jim Rohn
"There is no money crisis, only an idea crisis. We need new ideas on how we can do what we really want to do." -- Mark Victor Hansen
"Money never starts an idea; it's the idea that starts the money." -- Mark Victor Hansen
WHAT'S 'NORMAL' FOR CHURCHES TODAY? Half of all congregations have fewer
than 100 regularly participating adults, 25% have fewer than 50. Fewer than 10% of congregations have more than 1,000 participating adults. Fifty-two percent of congregations are located in small towns and open country. More than two-out-of-three congregations report sponsoring or supporting a thrift shop. More than one-third are involved in tutoring. More than 80% have or support a food pantry. Most of the growing churches have informal services, preaching styles that are narrative or story-telling, and emphasize prayer and music (especially electronic). For more information, check out http://www.fact.hartsem.edu>. -from a study of 14,031 congregations in 41 denominations, statistically reflecting the experiences of 350,000 congregations and 90% of worshipers, conducted by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research (part of Hartford Seminary),
The Scars of Easter - He knows the wounds of humanity. His hands prove it.
Isaac Newton said, "In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would
convince me of God’s existence." After 40 years as a surgeon specializing in hands, I am tempted to agree. Nothing in all nature rivals the hand’s combination of strength and agility, tolerance and sensitivity. We use our hands for the most wonderful activities: art, music, writing, healing, touching.
Some people go to concerts and athletic events to watch the performance; I go to watch hands. For me, a piano performance is a ballet of fingers -- a glorious flourish of ligaments and joints, tendons, nerves, and muscles. I try to sit near the stage to watch the movements.
Unless you have tried to reproduce just one small twitch of the hand mechanically, you cannot fully appreciate its movements. Often I have stood before a group of medical students or surgeons to analyze the motion of one finger. I hold before them a dissected cadaver hand, with its trailing strands of sinew, and announce that I will move the tip of the little finger.
To do so, I must place the hand on a table and spend about four minutes sorting through the tangle of tendons and muscles. Seventy separate muscles contribute to hand movements. But in order to allow dexterity and slimness for actions such as piano playing, the finger has no muscle in itself; tendons transfer the force from muscles higher in the arm. (Body-builders should be grateful: imagine the limitations on finger movement if the fingers had muscles that could grow large and bulky.) Finally, after I have arranged at least a dozen muscles correctly, I can maneuver them to make the little finger move. Usually, I give this demonstration to illustrate a way to repair the hand surgically. In 40 years of surgery, I have personally operated on perhaps 10,000 hands. I could fill a room with surgery manuals suggesting various ways to repair injured hands. But in those years I have never found a single technique to improve a normal, healthy hand. That is why I am tempted to agree with Isaac Newton.
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." -- Sir Winston Churchill
"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet." -- James Oppenheim
“Worry looks around, sorry looks back, Faith looks up."
Secrets Of Great Golf
A reporter was interviewing Jack Nicklaus. He said, "Jack, you are spectacular, your name is synonymous with the game of golf. You really know your way around the course. What is your secret?"
To which Jack replied, "The holes are numbered!"
"Courage is fear that has said its prayers." - Dorothy Bernard
"God wants to roll away your stone as well. He wants you just as free as Jesus is risen - Christ's death and resurrection were for you. God's intent is to so saturate our lives with his life and Spirit that our everyday existence embodies and expresses the victorious and death-conquering resurrection of his son." - Dutch Sheets, Roll Away Your Stone
"When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us." -- Alexander Graham Bell
Thoughts on Doubt ...
✓ Christ never failed to distinguish between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is can't believe; unbelief is won't believe. Doubt is honesty; unbelief is obstinacy. Doubt is looking for light; unbelief is content with darkness. John Drummond (1851-1897)
✓ Doubt is the disease of this inquisitive, restless age. It is the price we pay for our advanced intelligence and civilization -the dim night of our resplendent day. But as the most beautiful light is born of darkness, so the faith that springs from conflict is often the strongest and the best. Billy Graham (1918- )
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