PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT - ISN'T THAT GOOD?

ANYONE CAN BE A LEADER!

Here's the best quote on leadership I've ever read (outside the Bible):

Go to the people.

Live with them.

Learn from them.

Love them.

Start with what they know.

Build with what they have.

But with the best leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say "We have done this ourselves"

LaoTzu

THE FOUR CANDLES

HOMOSEXUALITY

Homosexuality is the most argued-about topic these days in the church. We are living in/through a 'paradigm-shift' in our thinking on the subject as the church has done in the past with issues like slavery and the leadership of women. First a clever take-off by Rowan Atkinson of the bad news:



See here for an imaginary interview with Jesus on this complex issue, and here for the best summary I've read on the subject.

Rowland Croucher

ENCOURAGEMENT

First, watch this (and be encouraged!) -

http://worriersanonymous.org/Share/OnlyYou.htm

Now read some of these articles on Encouragement -

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/catalog/keyword/e-4.htm

Shalom!/Salaam!/Pax

Rowland Croucher

ART

The Christian church has always held that God speaks to us, not only through Scripture or history or conscience or ultimately in Christ, but also in nature and in artistic creativity and our aesthetic sensitivity. Art takes the real stuff of life - complex, colourful but often discordant.

A work of art, said Denis de Rougemont, is a 'trap for meditation.' I like that.

HYPOCRISY

I have met pastors who have not been able to deal with the situation where their own views are at odds with their congregation's (or of permission-withholders in their congregations). It's a phenomenon, for example, where a racially progressive pastor in the American South is 'integrationist in their prayers but segregationist in their sermons'.