Seven of the Greatest Stressors on Pastors

Seven of the Greatest Stressors on Pastors

  1. Giving their families deserved time.
  2. An unhappy spouse.
  3. The glass house.
  4. Lacking competencies in key areas.
  5. Personal financial needs.
  6. Responding to criticisms.
  7. Lack of a confidant.

Some highlights from today’s Rainer Report:

  • If a pastors has any of these seven stressors, church members and leaders can help to relieve them.
  • A pastor’s first line of ministry is their family.
  • Undue stress on a pastor’s spouse can directly impact the health of a church.
  • Most pastors are grossly underpaid, and too many church members do nothing to help that.

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Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Thom Rainer.

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What Can Christians Learn From Jordan Peterson and His Wide Influence?

(Photo: JordanBPeterson.com)Jordan Peterson

Theologians and other Christian writers are weighing in on the phenomenon of Canadian psychologist and professor Jordan Peterson, whose influence among young men continues to grow.

And even though Peterson is not a Christian, “his understanding of Scripture is something that we can learn from,” said British theologian Alastair Roberts in a Desiring God interview Monday.

“We see that there are structures of meaning and archetypes and these sorts of things. These are represented in Scripture,” he said of Peterson’s views about the Bible.

“But at the same time, it’s not inspired, infallible, or inerrant [for Peterson],” he continued. “It’s not the sorts of things that we as Christians would hold as absolutely essential to an orthodox doctrine of Scripture.”

Many first heard about the University of Toronto professor as a result of his advocacy in 2016 against bill C-16, which added “gender identity or expression” as a prohibited ground of discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act, something which Peterson objected to because in practice it requires belief in gender ideology and compels speech, as people would be forced to use the preferred gender pronouns for individuals who identify as transgender.

Largely since then, he has become an internet and speaking tour sensation, has amassed a huge following online, and his YouTube videos — where he has often given advice to troubled young men — receive millions of views.

Peterson, 56, who was raised Protestant and is unapologetically a “Jungian”— named after Swiss psychiatrist and…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – The Christian Post.

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What Google Searches Reveal – Denison Forum

A note from Jim:

Cynthia Yanof is writing today’s Daily Article. I’ve known Cynthia for many years and know you will appreciate her article. She and my wife Janet are directing the ChristianParenting.org website.

This week they are launching a new podcast called “Pardon the Mess,” honest conversations about the challenges and joys of parenting.

Cynthia is the host of the podcast. She has interviewed a variety of people including Tony Dungy, Michael W. Smith, Mike Singletary, and some local personalities like Chip Waggoner, Kay Wyma, and my personal favorite, Janet Denison.

I encourage you to visit the podcast page and subscribe today.

***

Gone are the days when you plunge into your parents’ living room set of encyclopedias, digging through the volumes alphabetically to find the answer to that relentless question plaguing you: When does the whooping crane migrate?

Today you are one quick Google search away from answering that question and pretty much anything else that inquiring minds want to know. By the way, didn’t want to leave you with a cliffhanger: it’s mid-September for the whooping crane.

Google is the most-searched search engine in the world and also provides insight into what interests us. I googled (yes, it’s a verb now) the top searches in both 2017 and thus far in 2018, and it was a fascinating look into our culture.

What is our culture searching for?

This year it seems Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga were among those who captivated us in the music category, while pop culture had us interested in Matt Lauer and Meghan Markle. Our techie folks were into the iPhone X, and apparently a whole host of you people were trying to figure out how to make slime, while others were in the market to lose belly fat fast.

But 2018 is only half written.

Each December, Google releases the “Year In Search,” a video summarizing the Google searches shaping that given year. I recently watched “Year In Search 2017” and was reminded of the…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Denison Forum.

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Wife of Christian rock star appeals for prayer after his seizure on stage

On Sunday 12th August, Fox collapsed during a gig in Las Vegas playing for another band and was taken straight to hospital.

The Californian band Stryper released an official statement, saying: “After performing an MRI, doctors discovered an area of concern near his brain which they are now running a biopsy on. The doctors have instructed him not to drive or fly for 90 days. No additional information is available at this time. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers and we will communicate additional information as it becomes available.”

They add that he still plans to tour with them but in the meantime a Go Fund Me page has been set up by his wife, Annie Lobert, as he doesn’t have health insurance.

The page says: “We don’t know how much the brain biopsies will cost, nor what will happen when we get the results back–whether he will need more surgery to remove any tumors or treatment plans for healing.”

Annie Lobert wrote on facebook that “this has messed me up!” but added that she was reminded of 2 Chronicles 20: “Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God’s.”

Lobert appealed to his fans: “So here is what I’m asking all of you to do—believe that God is good—worship with us & pray with us as we head into this battle.

“We trust God no matter what. This is how we fight our battles—it may look like we’re…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Premier Christianity News.

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Vue Cinemas settles claim brought by Christian makers of ‘ex-gay’ film

Vue Cinemas, which operates almost 90 venues across the UK and Ireland, has settled in full a legal claim brought by the makers of ‘Voices of the Voiceless’.

Dr Mike Davidson, who produced the documentary, said he was “delighted” by the outcome, adding: “Vue Cinemas has recognised that it was wrong to block us from showing the film.

 

“I hope that in future they won’t fold under pressure from LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] activists who want to suppress the voices of those who want to move away from same-sex attraction and behaviour.”

Dr Davidson had been due to unveil the feature-length documentary in front of 120 people at the Vue Cinema in Piccadilly in February when bosses cancelled his booking one day before the event.

Speaking after media coverage which criticised the premise of the move, Vue bosses claimed the film would be “unlawful”.

Core Issues Trust

 

Although an alternative venue was found in central London, organisers staged a protest (pictured) and mounted legal action against Vue Cinemas, claiming a breach of contract and seeking compensation for wasted expenses.

It has now emerged lawyers representing the cinema chain last week agreed to settle the claim in full after admitting a breach of contract.

Filmed in eight countries, ‘Voices of the Voiceless’ presents reflections from doctors and theologians, as well…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Premier Christianity News.

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Genoa church offers prayers for families caught up in bridge tragedy

Italian authorities have revealed three people are still believed to be missing in the twisted remains of the crossing.

Rescue and recovery efforts have continued at the scene of the disaster, which occurred during a torrential downpour when the bridge was busy with people heading away for the summer Ferragosto holiday.

 

Local pastor, William Jourdan told Premier there could have been even more casualties if the accident didn’t occur in the holiday season.

“For the people belonging to the Church in Italy, it is the major time of holiday so many members of our church are outside of the town and many other people in general are outside of town,” he explained.

“I think that also, one of the reasons why it was possible to avoid a (bigger) tragedy is that if the normal traffic was there, everything could have been worse.”

Vigili Del Fuoco via AP

 

Italian premier Giuseppe Conte has visited the city and called the collapse of the 51-year-old bridge “a serious wound for Genoa, Liguria and Italy”.

Dozens of cars and other vehicles plunged almost 150ft when a 260ft stretch of road broke off from the 150ft high Morandi Bridge, and the cause is under investigation.

The disaster has focused attention on Italy’s ageing infrastructure, particularly its concrete bridges and viaducts built in the post-war boom of the 1950s and 1960s. There had been proposals to…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Premier Christianity News.

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US priests molested more than a thousand children, landmark report concludes

The grand jury said it believes the “real number” of abused children might be “in the thousands” since some records were lost and victims were afraid to come forward. The report said more than 300 clergy committed the abuse over a period of decades, beginning in the mid-1950s.

Pennsylvania attorney general Josh Shapiro said the two-year probe found a systematic cover-up by senior church officials in Pennsylvania and at the Vatican.

 

“The cover-up was sophisticated. And all the while, shockingly, church leadership kept records of the abuse and the cover-up. These documents, from the dioceses’ own ‘Secret Archives,’ formed the backbone of this investigation,” he said.

Significantly, the report faulted Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the former long-time bishop of Pittsburgh who now leads the Washington archdiocese, for what it said was his part in the concealment of clergy sexual abuse.

Mr Wuerl, one of the highest-profile cardinals in the United States, released a statement on Tuesday that said he had “acted with diligence, with concern for the victims and to prevent future acts of abuse”.

The grand jury scrutinised abuse allegations in dioceses that minister to more than half the state’s 3.2 million Catholics. Its report echoed the findings of many earlier church investigations around the country in its description of widespread sexual abuse by clergy and church officials’…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Premier Christianity News.

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‘Staggering’ that Pope may not meet abuse victims, says protest organiser

Colm O’Gorman said: “It is staggering on the part of the Vatican, they can’t even be bothered to go through the motions of making it appear that this matters to them.

“It’s become a trope, he goes to a country and has a confidential meeting and releases a statement about how moved he was by victim testimony, expresses sorrow and regret and we move on.

 

“I’m not sure that meeting would’ve had any value anyway, but the idea that it’s an afterthought, that is utterly unacceptable.”

Mr O’Gorman was repeatedly raped by a local priest in Co Wexford for three years, beginning just a year after Pope John Paul II’s visit to Ireland in 1979, when he was 13.

He said: “When I heard Pope John Paul’s quote: ‘Young people of Ireland, I love you’, it sickened me, he didn’t.

“It’s important that all that has happened here over decades isn’t just swept aside of convenience of the Vatican.

“I respect people’s desire to have faith, I would never deny people their opportunity to profess their faith, but it cannot be at the cost of people all over the country struggling with the hurt and the trauma the church has caused.”

AP Photo/A.M. Ahad

 

The event, to be held in the Garden of Remembrance on Sunday 26th August at 3pm, invites anyone who has been hurt by the church, and those who support them, to attend.

“The response I have had has been extraordinary, so many…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Premier Christianity News.

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Joyce Meyer’s Daily 15 August 2018 Devotional — Let God Interrupt You

Topic: Let God Interrupt You [Joyce Meyer’s Devotional Thursday August 15, 2018]

“For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”Esther 4:14

Have you ever noticed that the men and women we read about in the Bible and consider “great” were all people who allowed God to interrupt their lives and were willing to make tremendous sacrifices for Him?

Joseph saved a nation from starvation, but not before God dramatically removed him from his comfortable home where he was his father’s favorite and allowed him to be imprisoned for many years. Joseph probably wasn’t planning a life of hardship and rejection, but God took him through those things in order to position him to be in the right place at the right time. But Joseph could only know that after the fact.

Esther was a young maiden who undoubtedly had plans for her future when suddenly, without warning, she was asked to enter the king’s harem and gain favor with him so she could reveal the plan of wicked Haman, who intended to slaughter the Jews. She was asked to do things that left her frightened for her life, but her wise uncle knew that God had brought her to this point in her life and allowed everything she had endured in the past to prepare her for a moment of greatness.

These people had plans, but they let God interrupt them, and they followed Him instead. If you will decide that you don’t mind having God interrupt your life, He can prepare you, too, for moments of greatness and use you in awesome ways.

Prayer Starter: Lord, interrupt my life for Your purposes at any time and in any way You see fit. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

If you missed yesterday devotional, please click to read “Joyce Meyer Daily Devotional HERE’’

From Joyce Meyer’s Ministries.

The post Joyce Meyer’s Daily 15 August 2018 Devotional — Let God Interrupt You appeared first on Flatimes.

Civil rights figure Rev Jesse Jackson visits ailing Aretha Franklin

Franklin’s publicist Gwendolyn Quinn told The Associated Press that Stevie Wonder and Franklin’s ex-husband, actor Glynn Turman, also visited the Queen of Soul, who is seriously ill.

A person close to Franklin, who started her career by singing in a church gospel choir, told the AP on Monday that the singer is ill. No more details were provided.

 

Earlier this week, the entertainment website Showbiz 411 reported the Franklin’s friends and family were “asking for prayers and privacy”.

Franklin, who is the daughter of a Baptist minister, cancelled planned concerts earlier this year after she was ordered by her doctor to stay off the road and rest up.

The 76-year-old announced plans to retire last year, saying she would perform at “some select things”.

 

Fans, friends and musicians influenced by Franklin offered positive words to the iconic singer when news broke that she was ill, including Rod Stewart, Mariah Carey, Chaka Khan, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tyler Perry, Missy Elliott and Wayne Brady.

At her concert in Detroit on Monday night with Jay-Z, Beyonce thanked Franklin for her “beautiful music” and said “we love you”.

Former US President Bill Clinton tweeted that he…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Premier Christianity News.

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