A Moment of Worship

[Central Church of God Sanctuary Choir]

More Than 5,000 Pastors Take "The Preacher's Pledge"

Pastors across the U.S. and around the globe are affirming The Preacher's Pledge -- a declaration of the centrality of the Bible in preaching and sermon preparation. More than 5,000 preachers have now taken The Pledge, with many more affirming it every day.

The Pledge was introduced by http://www.sermoncentral.com/, the world's most highly trafficked sermon website. More than 250,000 visitors come to the site each month to access over 140,000 sermons and illustrations, amounting to nearly a half-million pages of online Scripture commentary.

"We introduced The Pledge because we think preachers must engage the Bible in their sermon preparation and not simply short-cut the process using someone else's study," says Ron Forseth, general editor for SermonCentral.com. "Our site is a valuable supplement--but not the primary source for a sermon. God's Word is."

Sermon manuscript and illustration databases have been around long before the advent of the Internet. But in the cyber age, the availability of such resources is far greater and, in the case of SermonCentral.com, free. Some preachers have been known to drift from the centrality of the Bible or even plagiarize others' work. The Pledge allows preachers to make a public commitment to integrity in their preaching.

Scott Evans, president of Outreach, Inc., which owns SermonCentral.com, adds, "SermonCentral.com offers an unprecedented opportunity for pastors to share their thinking on various passages of Scripture and relevant topics. We want to strengthen the quality of preaching in pulpits around the world. The Preacher's Pledge is helping to do that by affirming pastors that keep their messages purely and intentionally biblical. With every sermon on our site, we encourage pastors to affirm The Pledge."

The Preacher's Pledge was drafted by a group of Christian leaders on the site's advisory council. The Pledge states:

"I will make the Bible my primary resource in sermon preparation and preaching. I may use other resources such as commentaries and web sites to enhance, not replace, my personal interaction with Scripture. As I study I will strive to accurately understand and honestly apply God's Word, allowing Him to uniquely proclaim His truth in a relevant way through me."

Pastors wishing to affirm The Pledge may do so by visiting www.sermoncentral.com/pledge.

Questions or inquiries may be directed to the site's communications coordinator, Cindy Harper, at support@sermoncentral.com.

[Source: Christian Newswire]

Career Leadership in Difficult Times

10 tips for leading in challenging times:

1. Work hard and perform. Wow, isn’t that profound? I’m serious, though. As leaders, these are times that require sacrifice, hard work, and perseverance. This is how battles are won and great companies get turned around. It’s the collective hard work from each and every one of us, especially our leaders. No one’s going to put in the extra effort if they see their leaders coasting.

2. Radiate confidence and optimism. Another well known blogger said that if a CEO did this, it showed he was clueless. I strongly disagree. Our people need to see that their leaders are not afraid, that we believe in our organization, and that we are committed to success. In recent SmartBreif reader poll, most business leaders said the media’s focus on the negative is hurting businesses. I think it’s true for leaders too – fear and pessimism will make your situation worse.

3. On the other hand… that doesn’t mean we hide the truth and sugar coat bad news. We can do both. Let people know exactly what the situation is and what needs to be done. Ask for their help. Yes, they can “handle the truth”, and once they get over it, will want to pitch in and be willing to sacrifice in the short term for the greater good.

4. Enlist your team’s help. Give them a sense of control, something to do to help make a difference, even if it’s just a small difference. In a crisis, leaders make sure everyone is focused and engaged.

5. Don’t bad mouth your manager, your company, or your co-workers. Don’t point fingers, make excuses, or look for pity or a bailout. Focus on what you and your team can do, and offer to help your manager and co-workers.

6. Don’t take advantage of low turnover and a tight job market to take advantage of your employees, just because you CAN. Again, this is counter to some advice I’ve been reading, and it seems freezing 401K contributions is becoming the latest cost-cutting fad. Take advantage of your employees now, and they will take advantage of you the first chance they get.

7. Tough times are an opportunity to drive change and innovation. No one wants to listen to your radical ideas during good times – there’s no reason to change. Just be smart about it. I’m not talking about panic-driven change, rather well though out process improvements and innovation. It’s a great opportunity to ask “what if…”, and “why not?”

8. Now’s the time to collaborate across functions. Big problems require big, enterprise-wide solutions, so tear down the walls and start working across boundaries. Think task forces, committees, action learning, and Kaizen workshops. Even sworn enemies should be able to band together to fight off an invasion of a common foe.

9. Communicate, communicate, and communicate some more. Got it?

10. It’s a leadership development opportunity - really. As leaders, we all need to learn how to lead during tough times, and how to turn around a struggling organization. It’s a required course in your leadership curriculum. Ask yourself; ten years from now, what would I have liked to learn from all this? And more importantly, how would you like this chapter to read when your leadership biography is written?

[from Great Leadership by Dan McCarthy]

Today's Quote

Look to this day for it is life,
For yesterday is already a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision,
But today, well lived, makes every yesterday
A dream of happiness and ever tomorrow,
a vision of hope. -- Kalidasa

Church Property Disputes

An Episcopal priest who proposed rewriting Texas law to favor dissident congregations in property disputes said January 30 he considers it “the next natural step” in an attempt to halt lawsuits within the church.

“It’s shameful we’re spending so much money suing one another when we could be using that money for mission,” said the Rev. Canon Ed Monk, rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Corsicana.

He and other leaders of the conservative 300-member St. John’s, located about 50 miles southeast of Dallas, contacted state Representative Byron Cook, a three-term Republican. On January 22, Cook introduced House Bill 972, which directs courts to find a “just and right” division of property, having “due regard” for all parties.

Cook did not return calls January 30, but Monk said that the changes were inspired by a Virginia law which awarded property to dissident congregations, contradicting Episcopal Church canons. “I thought it would be good to have a similar one,” he said.

This would affect all centralised churches.

[From Positive Infinity, by Pat McCaughan - Episcopal Life]

Rural Churches Grapple with a Pastor Exodus

Carol Porter, 63 and no word mincer, sits in her modest kitchen in Euclid, Minn., and recalls the day her 118-year-old church was burned to the ground. "I was baptized, confirmed and married there," she reports. Her family had moved two lots down from Euclid's First Presbyterian, so she was able to watch through the kitchen window a few years ago as fellow parishioners knocked down the church, buried its fixtures and then put a match to what remained, sending a thousand Sundays of memories up in smoke.

America's rural congregations, thinned by age and a population drain that plagues much of farm country, have gotten too small and too poor to attract pastors. No pastor means no church. And losing one's church -- well, Porter has a vivid memory of that, living as she does in an area where abandoned buildings are control-burned for safety. The flames were taller than a man, she remembers. "In plain English," she says, "it looked like hell."

The ticktock of farm auctions and foreclosures in the heartland, punctuated by the occasional suicide, has seldom let up since the 1980s. But one of the malaise's most excruciating aspects is regularly overlooked: rural pastors are disappearing even faster than the general population, leaving graying congregations helpless in their time of greatest need. Trace Haythorn, president of the nonprofit Fund for Theological Education (FTE), says fewer than half the rural churches in the U.S. have a full-time seminary-trained pastor; in parts of the Midwest, the figure drops to 1 in 5. "It's a religious crisis, for sure," says Daniel Wolpert, pastor of First Presbyterian in Crookston, Minn., and a partner with the FTE, which supports young ministers and religious teachers. "And to the extent that these churches are anchoring institutions, it's a crisis of community." The sign for one lovely wood-framed church in nearby Buxton, N.D., says it all: GRUE LUTHERAN CHURCH. FOUNDED SINCE 1879. PASTOR -- and then a blank where a name should be.

Why are the pastors disappearing? Mainline churches (as well as some Evangelical) prefer their ministers seminary trained. But the starting salary for debt-burdened seminary grads now runs to $35,000 a year. That can break a poor and aging congregation, says Elizabeth Rickert Dowdy, pastor of the Tar Wallet Baptist Church in Cumberland, Va., who recently helped disband her other church: "When you have a congregation that's historically been able to survive at 20 members and loses 12, they close." And for the first time in American history, the majority of seminarians don't come from rural areas. Shannon Jung, a rural-church expert in Kansas City, Mo., says of young pastors, "A town without a Starbucks scares them." Wolpert recalls a professor's warning to a promising seminarian to shun a rural call: "Don't go. You're too creative for that."

But creativity isn't the problem in places like this gorgeous, wind-strafed corner of Minnesota, where clergy are trying out several innovative ways to keep God in the heartland. The fertile, Scandinavian-settled farm towns in the Red River Valley were the models for Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon; for decades, thousands of farmers comfortably worked 80-acre lots and prayed in small, ethnically uniform churches. But starting in the 1970s, Wobegon was hit with sinking commodity prices and job-cutting farm technology, a combo that sharply reduced the population. Churches foundered. But only in the past few years have people like Haythorn and Wolpert begun experimenting with new ways to counter the trend.

One response to the pastor shortage is "yoking" two congregations to share a circuit-riding minister -- and one salary. Along the Minnesota -- North Dakota line, the yokes stretch thin. Jeff Gustafson, in the town of Warren, Minn., adds a degree of difficulty: he's Methodist, but one of his two yoked churches is Presbyterian. Another pastor travels 200 miles (about 320 km) every weekend to serve five churches. A botched three-pastor attempt to connect three already yoked churches (including Grue) with four more resulted in, among other things, shut-ins being overlooked and not receiving Communion for years.

Yet the believers don't give up. Many denominations are exploring ways to allow laypeople to preach. Some ordain laymen and - women but restrict them to their home pulpit. Wolpert of Crookston's First Presbyterian entertains even more radical visions. The average age of his Sunday flock is 63 (Carol Porter is now a member). But he is also founder of the Minnesota Institute of Contemplation and Healing, an energy-independent, nationally ambitious retreat center offering ancient disciplines such as icon and walking meditations and surrounded by a storybook hayfield with a view of the Red Lake River. Wolpert sees God's future here as extending beyond small-town churchgoers to northern Minnesota's more ethnically varied newcomers and even to religious tourists. "This is an incredibly powerful landscape," he says. "If something here is passing, then God will raise up other forms of worship, because people will be drawn here."

His friend and more down-to-earth counterpoint is Nathan Baker-Trinity, a 31-year-old Lutheran pastor and FTE fellow who shuttles a red Mercury Tracer between two yoked churches near the White Earth Indian Reservation. His answer to the pastor shortage is simply to commit to the countryside (he grew up in rural Iowa). "I was like, 'Why wouldn't you go to a rural area?'" he says. Baker-Trinity is an indefatigable local booster. "They're talking about making my whole town wireless!" he says enthusiastically. Equally smitten are his parishioners, like Howard Steinmetz. After decades working his farm -- most of them minus a hand lost to a field chopper in 1959 -- Steinmetz is finally auctioning off the land. Selling, he says, "is tough." But his religious life is supporting him. "Everybody was pretty excited to get a young one," he says, indicating Baker-Trinity.

On All Saints' Day in November, when Lutherans recognize the holy who have passed on and their connection to the living, Baker-Trinity notes that the holiday reinforces the web of community that "has always been the rural church's strength." Before the sermon, he gathers the children. There are at least 10 -- an extraordinary tally for a congregation in this area. The young pastor, with two babies himself, talks softly about a God who never departs. "God is with you wherever you are going," he tells the youngsters. "God never says goodbye to us. Let's pray: O God, thank you for not saying goodbye. Thank you for always being with us."

[By David Van Biema / Crookston - Time Magazine]

NBC Won't Play It - I Will

Six Habits of Highly Defective People

• They have a losing attitude: People generally get whatever they expect out of life. Expect the worst, and that’s what you’ll get.

• They quit growing. People are what they are, and they are where they are because of what has gone into their minds.

• They have no game plan for life. As William Feather, author of The Business of Life says, “There are two kinds of failures: Those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.”

• They are unwilling to change. Some people would rather cling to what they have rather than embrace what might be better because they are afraid of getting something worse.

• They fail in relationships with others. People who cannot get along with others will never get ahead in life.

• They are not willing to pay the price for success. The road to success is uphill all the way. Anyone who wants to accomplish much must sacrifice much.

[From Success One Day At a Time, by John Maxwell - as posted on Eagle Flight: Reach ~ Restore ~ Relate by Pastor Milton Gordon]

Pastor Stacey Prewett Honored at Chamber Banquet

The Willow Springs (MO) Chamber of Commerce annual banquet was held Saturday evening at Frank D. Hicks’ multipurpose room at Willow Springs Elementary School.

Howell County Presiding Commissioner Larry Spence served as the emcee for the evening, and the invocation was given by Scott Williamson, pastor of Willow Springs First General Baptist Church.

Howell County News publisher Kim Wehmer was named the Adult Citizen of the Year, with the award presented by chamber of commerce board member Loretta Jones.

Business of the Year went to Stacey Prewett, owner Prewett’s Collision Repair, whose business location was damaged heavily by fire last year.

In the award presentation by First National Bank president and chamber board member Jon White, White said Prewett was in Branson at the time of the fire.

"Within a matter of days, he summoned help to relocate his business to the other end of town,” locating at a former Missouri Department of Transportation building near the north junction of U.S. Highway 60-63 and its business route.

In May 2008, repairs to his buildings were complete, and Prewett’s returned to its original location, on Main Street across from ALCO Discount Store and First National Bank.

White said Prewett is the pastor of the Church of God of Prophecy, and has suffered tremendous family loss – with five family funerals in recent months, including his father and grandfather. White said Prewett’s wife used three words to describe him – loving, compassionate and caring. “You can’t have one without all three,” said White.

The President’s Award and Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to former Bears’ coach Brent Colley, with the award presented by Larry Spence.

The 2009 chamber board will include Andrew Gilmore, Jon White, Derene Kissee, Mike Wake, Jackie Williamson, John Bailey, Phillip Chaffin, Loretta Jones, Mitch Harris and Vicki Sigman.

The Get Motivated Seminar Was Awesome

Pastor Robert Schuller

Zig Ziglar

Rudy Giuliani

Synergy was pleased to be a part of the Get Motivated seminar in Huntsville Wednesday. It was not only an inspiring experience, it was a new way to have church. The venue was packed.

President Obama to Appoint a Pastor to the Faith-Based Office

President Barack Obama will reportedly name a religious outreach director to head the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

According to The New York Times, Obama has tapped Joshua DuBois, 26, the Pentecostal pastor who spearheaded arguably the most aggressive faith outreach for a Democratic presidential campaign in U.S. history when he served as Obama’s religious affairs director.

During the Obama campaign, DuBois helped organize meetings with some of the most prominent Christian leaders in the nation, including those with markedly different views on culture war issues.

Exit polls after the November election showed that Obama had made significant gains among religious voters compared to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry in 2004.

Prior to working for Obama, DuBois had studied political science at Boston University where he graduated cum laude. He then went to Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and National Affairs where he earned a master’s degree in public affairs in 2005.

He was studying law at Georgetown University when he left to work for Obama.

Religious leaders, who have been informed of DuBois’ selection, say that he will not only be directing the office created by former President George W. Bush, but be in charge of expanding it to help groups more effectively address social problems, according to The New York Times.

The religious leaders requested anonymity because the appointment has not yet been formally announced.

Under Obama, the office will be renamed the Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and will continue to facilitate the distribution of grants to religious and community groups.

Among the most pressing issues that await DuBois when he assumes the position is the debate over whether faith-based organizations will be forced to hire people whose faith differs from theirs if they receive government money.

Bush had allowed religious groups that accepted funding to hire employees that share the same religion.

But Obama, during a campaign speech last year, said that if a group receives a federal grant then it “can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them – or against the people you hire – on the basis of their religion.”

It is unclear if Obama still plans to rescind Bush’s memorandum on the issue.

The White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI) was created in 2001 by executive order to “level [the] playing field” for faith-based organizations seeking federal funding. It was also created to lead a “determined attack” on poverty, disease, and other social problems combining the strengths of the government and faith-based and other community organizations. Bush had called these organizations the “armies of compassion,” praising them for being able to work more effectively with the local communities and those in need than government programs alone.

As of 2008, the concept of FBCI has been replicated by 36 governors (19 Democrats, 17 Republicans). More than 100 mayors have also created an FBCI office or liaison.

[By Jennifer Riley - Christian Post Reporter]

Oral Roberts University Board Elects New President

Oral Roberts University has elected its next president, ending a 14-month search that began after the resignation of former president Richard Roberts amid allegations of misspending.

Yesterday, the ORU Board of Trustees and Board Chair Mart Green announced the election of Dr. Mark Rutland as the school’s next president following a board meeting that day on the school's campus in Tulsa, Okla.

“We are excited about the future under the leadership of Dr. Rutland,” stated Green. “He has been selected as the result of a careful process and we are confident that he will take the university to new heights while continuing to uphold the mission and vision of Oral Roberts University.”

It’s been over a year since Richard Roberts, ORU’s last president and the son of ORU founder Oral Roberts, resigned after he and his wife were accused of using university money for shopping sprees, home improvements and a stable of horses for their daughters at a time when ORU was more than $50 million in debt.

Three former ORU professors had filed suit early October 2007, claiming that they were forced out after uncovering financial and ethical wrongdoing by the school's former president and family. The suit was finally settled late October 2008 after a court-ordered mediation session, bringing to a close the scandal that engulfed the charismatic school.

Two months later, the committee behind ORU‘s search for a new president selected Rutland as a candidate to recommend to the school’s Board of Trustees. Rutland, who is serving as the president of Southeastern University in Lakeland, Fla., was among the more than 130 presidential prospects submitted for consideration by Bruce Dingman of Dingman Company, Inc., the executive search and selection firm that helped with the search process.

According to Southeastern, Rutland will remain Southeastern’s president until spring commencement on May 2 while Southeastern's Board of Regents will appoint a search committee to begin identifying presidential candidates. Rutland will assume the presidency at ORU in July 2009.

[from The Christian Post by Eric Young]

Today's Quote

"You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity." O. A. Battista

[from Eagle Flight: Reach ~ Restore ~ Relate by Pastor Milton Gordon]

Christian Leaders Denounce Approval of Overseas Abortion Funding

Christian leaders and pro-life activists strongly denounced President Barack Obama’s repeal of the U.S. policy banning the federal funding of international organizations that provide or promote abortions.

"President Barack Obama promised that he would govern from the center if elected President, but his signing of an Executive Order overturning the Mexico City policy shows that he is committed to spreading abortion around the world,” criticized Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition. “This is hardly governing from the center on the sanctity of human life,” she said.

Instituted by former President Ronald Reagan in 1984 at the U.N. International Conference on Population in Mexico City, the Mexico City policy requires that all international groups receiving U.S. funds agree to “neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.”

Since Reagan’s administration, the policy has been twice repealed, first by former President Bill Clinton and by Obama last Friday. The policy had been immediately reinstated when former President George W. Bush came into office in 2001.

Last week’s move by Obama drew fire from a number of conservative groups, including Family Research Council, the Susan B. Anthony List, Wisconsin Right for Life, Concerned Women for America, and Priests for Life.

“Thanks to his (President Obama’s) actions today, U.S. taxpayers will be forced to take part in exporting a culture of death,” said Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, in a statement.

“We have a responsibility to respect the policies and traditions of the other countries, which have laws recognizing the right to life of the unborn, and it is an insult to fund organizations that are intent on overturning those laws by promoting an elite ideology of abortion on demand,” he added.

Despite the strong statements, most were not surprised by Obama’s rescinding of the Mexico City Policy, including Father Thomas Euteneuer, president of Human Life International. "We are disgusted, but we are not surprised," he said. “President Obama knows that this is shameful, but he needs to placate those who got him into office,” Euteneuer added.
Obama was also criticized for signing the executive order one day after more than 200,000 pro-life activists filled the nation's capital in protest of Roe v. Wade, the controversial Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States.

[from The Christian Post by Ethan Cole]

Today's Quote

"Nobody’s perfect, so everyone’s welcome, because anything’s possible."