ORU Settles Lawsuit

Mart Green, Billy Wilson, and the Oral Roberts University Board reached a settlement Wednesday with two former professors who sued last year, claiming they were forced out after uncovering financial and ethical wrongdoing by the school's former president and family.

The confidential settlement with Tim and Paulita Brooker came at the end of a court-ordered mediation session and helps bring to a close the scandal that engulfed the evangelical school, founded in the 1960's by televangelist Oral Roberts, and led to the resignation of his son, Richard, as president.

The Brookers also had named the Robertses, former school regents and officials in the October 2007 wrongful termination lawsuit.

In January, the school settled out of court with professor John Swails, who brought the lawsuit along with the Brookers. That confidential agreement resulted in Swails' reinstatement at ORU.

In a statement read by his attorney, Richard Roberts said: "The university decided to settle the lawsuit with the Brookers, and I support the university. I cannot comment any further at this time."

Gary Richardson, an attorney for the Brookers, said, "I'm happy to see the Brookers be able to put this behind them so they can go on with their lives, and of course I'm happy to see it as well for the university."

The school's $50 million-plus debt has since been whittled to nearly $17.3 million, thanks to a $70 million donation from billionaire Oklahoma City businessman Mart Green who now serves as Chairman of the Board along with Billy Wilson.

Men's Ministry Resources

The Tomlinson Center is providing a resource for Men's Ministry. Call, listen and learn. "A Conversation About Men's Ministries" is a recorded conference call by a group of guys from different parts of the nation who are active in ministering to men. These men represent all levels of ministry and are passionate about serving the kingdom of God.

To find out how you can listen in, click here.

United Methodists Begin Effort to Plant 400 Churches

The United Methodist Church recently launched its initiative to plant 400 new churches in the next four years with an initial gift from a Christian businesswoman.

Mary Watson, the wife of a former pastor, pledged $400,000 to the 400 Fund campaign to develop new congregations outside of the United States, according to UMC’s Global Ministries, the international mission agency of the UMC.

The 400 Fund will be used to support clergy training, develop Christian education resources and provide worship facilities for new churches in Asia, West Africa, Eastern Europe and Central America.

"I am excited by the thought of 400 new churches and what God can do with 400 new churches," said Watson, who along with her husband, the Rev. Ralph Watson, have been involved in mission fields around the world, especially in Russia, Estonia and Brazil.

She said her earliest memory of Methodist worship was under a brush arbor where her grandmother was raising money to build a church in Hannatown, a community in Decatur County, Georgia, named after her paternal family.

Starting new churches “is part of what God wants us to do in the world … We are to be God’s hands,” said the pastor’s wife from Atlanta to the directors of the General Board of Global Ministries during their Oct. 13-17 meeting.

Watson was able to make the generous donation because of her successful career in the nursing home industry. Her husband, the Rev. Watson, works for the World Evangelism Institute.

Being a Christian helped her “to realize that everything we have is God’s, everything – our money, our talents – everything is entrusted to us for the sake of doing things for God,” Watson said.

But the successful Christian businesswoman doesn’t want the giving to end with her. Watson urged other United Methodists to also donate to the 400 Fund, calling on children to join in and donate even pennies.

One hundred percent of every gift will go toward starting new churches.

Global Ministries, in addition to its goal of 400 new overseas congregations, also aims to start 650 new congregations in the United States.

[By Jennifer Riley - Christian Post Reporter]

Joy Suckers

If you have seven or eight "joy suckers" in a small- to medium-size congregation, it can cause the fellowship to become dysfunctional as well. So, how do you deal with the "tough stuff" that can make the strongest pastor flinch?

a) You attempt to understand what is the cause of the negative spirit — why do they act the way they do?
b) You consider their family situation.
c) You gauge their level of spirituality.
d) You monitor their influence in your church (Is there a big family connection?).
e) Have you done all you can to talk through the concern with that person?
f) Do you pray for them?
g) Do they have a history of this kind of behavior?
h) What will it cost you to "confront" them?
i) Does leadership understand your challenge?
j) Is the contention severe enough that it renders your ministry ineffective?

[H. B. London]

The 1908 Cleveland Revival

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

On Tuesday, October 28, Dr. David Roebuck will be presenting “Fire in the Tent: The 1908 Cleveland Revival” as the Third Annual Azusa Lecture.

Following the lecture, the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center and the Center for Spiritual Renewal will present the Spirit of Azusa Award to Dr. T. L. Lowery for his many years as an evangelist.

The event will be at the North Cleveland Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) Bryant Fellowship Hall at 7:00 p.m. The pubkic is invited.

Fire in the Tent: 2008 Azusa Lecture

Why Vote?

Same Sex Marriage - Legal Impact

Free Cliffs Notes for Christian Books

It's like CliffsNotes for Christian books, 8-10 page summaries to help you to easily gain wisdom from some of the brightest Christian thinkers.

Another way to say it is Solomon Summaries is like having an executive assistant read the entire book then write you an 8-10 page summary of the book's key points and concepts -- it's like having your own personal assistant save you time and help you quickly glean the wisdom of top Christian thinkers, pastors and scholars.

There's no charge until Dec 1.

http://solomonsummaries.com/How-Does-It-Work.html

http://solomonsummaries.com/images/c/MereChristianity.pdf

[Tip from Dr. H. E. Cardin]

What Do Young Non-Christians Really Think About The Church?

Kent Shaffer over at ChurchRelevance recently reported some statistics from Gabe Lyons, author of unChristian. Non-Christians aged 16-29 years old were asked, “What is your current perception of Christianity?”

- 91% said antihomosexual
- 87% said judgmental
- 85% said hypocritical
- 78% said old-fashioned
- 75% said too involved in politics

Read some more of the statistics here. They are fascinating ...

- 72% said out of touch with reality
- 70% said insensitive to others
- 68% said boring
- 64% said not accepting of other faiths
- 61% said confusing

Read more of Kent’s great post here at ChurchRelevance.com

What do you think? And how do we change the “Christianity First Impressions” among these young people?

[by Todd Rhoades]

Pastors and Porn

According to a recent press release, almost 60% of Christian men and 37% of Pastors admit to struggling with pornography. 35% of women also struggle with porn.

Can this possibly be true?

Cartoon

Inspiring a Movement

Without getting into the difference between a movement and a church or denomination, the most exciting times of my life in ministry were when the movement I was in caught on fire with passion, vision, and inspiration.

What does it take to inspire a movement?

During my years of pastoring, I tried to take the church leadership on a retreat each year to just hang out and think strategically about our vision, mission, goals, objectives, and review our direction. We always had a lot of fun; but during the fun we talked a lot about this question: "What will it take to inspire our movement?" Everyone had their opinions.

Now that I am working with local churches abroad, and some movements, I ponder the same question. How do we inspire a movement?

Out of my experience and work with various church leadership teams, emerged at least five components.

SHARED DREAM - God has a dream for all people to find their way back to Him. That should be our dream too! Jesus articulated that dream in Acts 1:8 when he said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." What if we began to dream and strategically think about impacting 1 billion people. 1 billion is 17% of the world’s population. 17% is an almost magical number because it is a tipping point for changing any size group. So, if we can reach 17% of the world, we believe God’s dream for this planet will be fulfilled! For this dream to be fulfilled it will take millions of new church planters; at least two hundred thousand network leaders and a couple thousand movement leaders. I know these seem like just big numbers, and somewhat overwhelming – but it always starts with a dream.

COMMON IDEOLOGY - Our dream comes from Jesus (Acts 1:8), and our ideology comes from the Apostle Paul. Paul is explaining to a young church planter, Timothy how to accomplish this big dream and he says, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others” (II Timothy 2:2). He explains that the strategy to accomplish Jesus' big dream is to start small and continually reproduce. Paul lays out multiple generations of reproduction: 1st generation: Paul to Timothy. 2nd generation: Timothy to reliable men. 3rd generation: reliable men to others. So the common ideology we share is helping people find their way back to God by reproducing at all levels.

APOSTOLIC LEADERSHIP - Like Paul, it will be apostolic leaders that will start new communities of Christ followers and pass along the values that bring about a movement of reproducing churches. There are three primary functions of an apostolic leader. The apostolic leader will create and empower others to create new communities of Christ followers. The apostolic leader will embed the ideology and values of the gospel into these new communities of Christ followers. The apostolic leader will guard the ideology and values of the gospel in these new communities of Christ followers.

GENUINE COMMUNITY - These communities of Christ followers will not be merely lifestyle enclaves that exist to further the betterment of the life of the community and their own lives. These communities will be “communitas” (community with a cause); a coming together of Christ followers who are willing to trade their life to accomplish the dream of God by following Jesus.

DECENTRALIZED REPRODUCTION - Jesus' dream was not about staying in Jerusalem; it was about going to “the ends of the earth." Paul’s ideology was not about keeping the gospel for yourself, but reproducing it over and over and over again in others. The dream and the ideology demand decentralized reproduction of genuine community led by apostolic leaders.

[Based on an article by Dave Ferguson]

Pastor, I Sincerely Appreciate You.

A Great Way To Do Announcements In Your Church