Write your own blog post to share your ministry experience with others.
While most information online becomes out-of-date quickly (especially information about technology and websites), this article from The Banner provides timeless tips to keep in mind while designing your website.
At the end of a beautiful farewell evening at our church for my husband, who was the Youth Pastor, a woman came up to me and said "You worked just as hard as he did all these years, because you were the one who had to give him up every night and take care of your family on your own!" Her comment blessed me so much!
My van looks better on the outside than it did on the inside. This got me thinking about some of the youth that I worked with. They said the right things and some even did Profession of Faith. But in all reality, their faith in Jesus Christ was not as good as what the outside made it appear.
Some of my favorite Sunday school story times are ones that allow kids to take center stage. When a story engages our imaginations, it sticks with us long after the lesson. There are three things I keep in mind each time I tell a story with partners.
Most people with disabilities that I know don't want to be pitied. But neither do they want to be reverenced as if they were paragons of virtue or models of triumph of the human spirit. Way too many journalists who feature stories about people living with disabilities frame their stories in the "reverence" light. "Here's Joe who lives with X disability, but look at all he has done! What determination. What spirit. What an example for all of us!" If I lived with a disability...
Bad news never announces that it is coming. Bam...just like that....it's there. I've been occupying the office of Safe Church Ministry for 15 years.
Christians, as the salt of earth, find comfort in these salt shakers; we can call these ‘churches.’ How can we get out there and be the salt that we’re supposed to be?
Goodbye Generation is a book that captures the voice of today's young adults and their unbiased view of the church, God, spirituality, and more.
Leading Sunday school kids can be challenging but we know that every week some of the puzzle pieces are heading out the door with our kids. A song lyric, a glimpse of God, a Scripture verse ... we trust that God is at work, putting those pieces together.
It's Christmas time, which means its time for family, food, presents, lights, trees, and a chance to reflect on how one birth changed the world forever. However, it also means seeing Christmas Decorations in stores as early as August. It seems that there is no end to what you can buy that is Christmas themed.
What is the first image that comes into your mind when you hear the word "Mission?"Do you picture a rescue mission for homeless people in a decaying neighborhood, or a 19th century missionary in a pith helmet and khaki shorts? Perhaps you think of a mission statement which your church labored to produce and now is struggling to implement (or has forgotten about).
Have you considered providing video of your services? What about live streaming video? New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, this last June, started streaming their services live to iPhone and iPod Touch users.
Twitter experienced a boom last year. A big boom. It started 2009 with well under 10 million unique visits a month, and ended with over 60 million. It's an understatement to say that more and more people are starting to use Twitter.
Oh my aching comfort zone! This morning my file folder ripped and a bunch of stuff filed out onto the floor. There was an article by Plantinga on how do we know if we are REALLY -- I mean REALLY -- real followers of Jesus. What it comes down to is whether I'm willing to pay the COST. Do my "good deeds" COST me something?
A new documentary, "A Place for All: Faith and Community for Persons with Disabilities" by the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission, is to begin airing on ABC affiliates December 6. Please call your local ABC affiliate and ask them to air "A Place for All." See Interfaith Broadcasting Commission for more information.
So many times websites break key principles of web design, or just sit dormant and are not updated or fixed. Heal Your Church Website has a great post that details 5 Things that Heal your Church Website. This list helps to curtail these problems with websites and maybe bring some new life into your website.
December 3 has been designated by the United Nations as the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Read a snapshot here. What can you do in your church, your home, your place of employment do to recognize this day?
I was ordained as a ministry associate from 2006-2008. I served Covenant CRC, St. Catharines as a Ministry Director from September 4, 1999 to June 20, 2008. I sustained my classical examination at Classis Niagara in May 2006 and was official ordained in a Sunday morning worship service on June 25, 2006. June 20, 2008 was my last day serving in ministry at Covenant Church as I resigned from my ministry position there without yet knowing where He was calling me to serve Him next.
Empathy is a perspective, a decision, and a skill to reach outside of yourself to connect with someone else. Empathy puts the Golden Rule into action.
The National Association of Evangelicals produced a document in 2004 called “For the Health of the Nation.” The scope of the document reaches far beyond the “traditional” evangelical issues of abortion and marriage.
I read today about Sir James Dyson’s newest product, the air multiplier, which blows a lot of air at constant rate without any visible moving blades. It’s just a big hoop atop a base. It sounds amazing. Dyson and his company have made their living by thinking outside the box about commonplace things.
Most of us forget that everyone needs care and respite, not just some of us. Helen Keller championed that a healthy society will not just look at a person’s need for care, but also their need for justice.
Although we North Americans are getting better at emphasizing diversity in the workplace, people with disabilities tend to be the last ones that diversity practitioners seek to recruit for jobs. I ran across these reflections by Rob McInness today on why that might be so. He writes,
Meditating on Luke 9:50 this morning. Jesus said, “Whoever is not against you is for you.” Sometimes advocacy gets wearisome. It seems like one has to keep pushing constantly to see movement in inclusion of people with disabilities in churches, society, and other people’s lives. My temptation over time is to see most people as being against the work that Disability Concerns stands for. But Jesus pulls me up short on that temptation. “No,” he says, “Whoever is not against you is for you.” That turns the tide. Since most people are not against inclusion, they must be for it.