How Did This Favorite American Celebration Come Into Existence?

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REUTERS/Shannon StapletonA woman dressed as a witch walks along the street during Halloween celebrations in Port Washington, New York, October 31, 2007.

While Halloween is popularly celebrated in the United States, not so many people know that the holiday originated from Europe.

According to the National Retail Federation, Americans are expected to spend a total of $9 billion this year, including expenses on Halloween costumes, decorations, and candies for trick-or-treating. With the projected collective expenses of the American people for the Oct. 31 holiday, there is no denying that Halloween is, indeed, a popular celebration in this country.

However, not so many people know that Halloween is not a homegrown American tradition as it originated from the ancient Gaelic/Celtic Festival, the Samhain, which celebrated the end of the harvest season. As the ancient Gaels/Celts believed that the wall dividing the physical and spiritual world was thin, they would set up dinner tables for the spirits and light bonfires to ward off the evil ones so that their crops would not be damaged.

Halloween is not the celebration that it is known for today if participants did not wear costumes. However, this tradition, although highly commercialized these days, was also a part of the Samhain celebration. As the Gaels considered the Samhain as the time of year when spirits make their way to the physical world, they wore masks made of animal skins believing that they could trick the roaming spirits into thinking that they, too, were spirits and would spare them from harm.

The popular trick-or-treating Halloween…

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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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How Much Time Do Pastors Take for Vacations?

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This topic was hotter than I expected.

I asked pastors and other church staff about the amount of time taken for vacations each year. Most of the responses came from pastors, and many of those pastors were pretty intense about it.

They spoke of their dire need for vacation time; of the constant interruptions during vacations; of learning the hard way about forfeiting vacation time; and about some church members who don’t believe pastors should take any vacation time.

After I put the survey out on social media, I received many responses. Here are the reported annual vacation times, mostly from pastors:

  • None to 1 week 21%
  • 2 weeks 28%
  • 3 weeks 14%
  • 4 weeks 25%
  • 5 or more weeks 12%

The results were fascinating, almost forming a perfect bell curve. But note that nearly half of the pastors take only 0 to 2 weeks of vacation.

We also heard several other issues related to vacations:

  • Very few pastors take all of their allocated vacation at one time.
  • Many of the pastors were very sensitive about how many Sundays they missed. Some of them were in churches that would not let vacation time be inclusive of Sundays.
  • Two factors typically contributed to more vacation time: size of the church and length of pastoral tenure.
  • One-third of the pastors volunteered that they always take fewer vacation days than the church permits.
  • Some of the pastors are challenged to take vacation time if their spouse works. Coordination of schedules is not always easy.
  • Bi-vocational pastors, as a rule, have much greater difficulty…

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

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Tennessee Church Shooter Heard Voices, Saw Visions Before Killings

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The gunman who open fired at a church in Tennessee last month claimed he heard voices and had visions of a particular church at that, a detective said on Monday.

REUTERS/Jamie GilliamThe scene where people were injured when a gunman opened fire at the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ, in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. September 24, 2017.

Nashville Police Detective Steve Jolley said at a hearing in Davidson County General Sessions Court on Monday that the gunman, who has been identified as Emanuel Kidega Samson, 25, told police about his visions of Burnette Chapel Church of Christ. But when police pressed for more answers, he would not say any further details.

“He was just very vague and he didn’t really elaborate on anything,” the detective stated.

Jolley also confirmed reports of a note that was found in Samson’s car, referencing a white supremacist massacre back in 2015. “Dylann Roof was less than nothing,” the note read. It was first reported by The Associated Press. The gunman, Roof, killed nine people from a black congregation.

Samson fatally wounded a woman and injured seven other people when he went on a shooting rampage on Sept. 24 at a church in Nashville. All victims were white. As of now, it remains unclear if he specifically picked them out based on their…

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Father Admits to Watching Toddler Choke on Milk

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Wesley Mathews, the father of an adopted girl named Sherin Mathews, has now changed his story. He claims that he saw his daughter, who was first reported to be missing, die as she choked on milk.

Courtesy Richardson Police Department/Handout via REUTERS

Adoptive father of 3-year-old Sherin Mathews changes story of his daughter’s death

The 3-year-old girl was found dead on Sunday in a culvert about half a mile away from the Mathews’ home in north Texas. Sherin was adopted last year from an orphanage in India.

Initially, Wesley, 37, stated that he left his daughter outside of their house at three in the morning on the 7th of October for refusing to drink her milk. He checked on her 15 minutes later and said she disappeared. The girl’s adoptive father claimed he went back in, washed his clothes, and waited until the sun rose.

On Monday, Wesley voluntarily provided an alternate statement of events for authorities, in which he said he attempted to feed his daughter her milk in their garage. When she eventually started drinking, the 3-year-old started to choke. He checked her pulse, and could not feel any. He admitted to removing Sherin’s body from their home.

“As he’s giving us the information, it’s coming together with the rest of the investigation. He’s come to us, it’s making sense to us,” Richardson police said.

They added, “It’s the worst type of case you get to work on where innocent children are harmed. We want to assure people that there’s no predator or something like that out there.”

Sherin’s adoptive mother, Sini, has co-operated with identifying the young girl’s body. She has not,…

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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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Autopsy of a Deceased Church

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What does it look like inside a dying church? Today we cover 11 characteristics of dying churches and how those have changed over the past few years.

Today’s Listener Question:

FROM ADRION

In the three years since you wrote and released Autopsy of a Deceased Church, what have you learned from church leaders as it relates to your 11 points in the book?

Episode Highlights:

  • Dying churches are doing so now at a quicker rate than ever before.
  • Urban and suburban churches die at a quicker pace than rural churches.
  • If you want your church to look like its community, the leadership must reflect the community.
  • So much of what churches do is done just to maintain the organization.
  • You cannot pay your way out of the Great Commission. You have to actually do it.

The 11 characteristics of deceased churches that we cover in this episode are:

  1. Slow erosion
  2. The past is the hero
  3. The church refuses to look like the community
  4. The budget moves inwardly
  5. The Great Commission becomes the Great Omission
  6. The preference-driven church
  7. Pastoral tenure decreases
  8. No praying together
  9. No clear purpose
  10. Obsession over facilities
  11. Neglect of facilities

Resources mentioned in this episode include:

Revitalize & Replant is sponsored by the North American Mission Board and ChurchReplanters.com. More than 10% of churches in North America are at risk of closing and the North American Mission Board is committed to reversing this trend by decreasing the…

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

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‘Footprints of God’ Discovered in Israel, Puzzle Archaeologists .

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

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Teens’ Open Heavens 25th October 2017 by Pastor Adeboye – Spiritual Adultery Forbidden!

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Teens’ Open Heavens 25th October 2017 by Pastor Adeboye – Spiritual Adultery Forbidden!
Teens’ Open Heavens 25th October 2017 by Pastor Adeboye - Spiritual Adultery Forbidden!

Topic: Spiritual Adultery Forbidden! [Wednesday 25, October 2017]

Memorise: ” For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.” – Isaiah 54:5

Read: Hosea 2:2-5

2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.

4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.

5 For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.

Bible In One Year: Luke 7-8. Hymn: Sing Hymn 5 – Oh Spread The Tiding Round

MESSAGE:

The relationship between God and humans can be likened to the relationship between a husband and his wife. God, who instituted marriage, patterned the relationship in marriage after His relationship with His people. This is why spiritual adultery is severely punished from time to time in the history of man and his interaction with his maker.

God is jealous, like a man can be jealous over the relationship of his wife with another man, when humans follow other gods besides Him(Exodus 20:5). Our Lord Jesus Christ also said that our love cannot be possibly shared between God and ephemeral things of this world (Luke 16:13). Serving God and mammon is spiritual adultery, punishable by rejection and shame.

Beloved, beware of spiritual adultery, stick to Jesus Christ, the Lover of your soul and He will do you good.

Prayer Point: Father, please forgive me of any spiritual adultery I might have committed against You and our spiritual matrimony. For Christ sake please do not reject me.

Open Heavens Daily Devotional for Teen’s guide was written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, one of the largest evangelical church in the world and also the President of Christ the Redeemer’s Ministries.


He Can Use What You Have

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He Can Use What You Have


A Promise For You From Bible Promises:

Topic: He Can Use What You Have [25/10/2017]

For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. 2 Corinthians 8:12. 2 Ki 4:1-8.

While we wallow in the valley of ignorance of nothingness, the devil laughs at us while God tries to make us see the wealth of potentials He has deposited in our lives right from creation. Just as we said yesterday, God does not create anything useless and without a purpose in His heart. Everyone of us are heavily loaded with everything we need to succeed in life. The gifts from one person to another differ but we’re all created unique.

Just when Gideon saw nothing in him, the angel of the Lord called him a man of Valor whom the Lord had chosen to deliver the children of Israel out of bondage of the Philistine. His heart and his background deceived him, but only God who knows what He had deposited in every man told him the truth about him. There is nobody (not even yourself) that can tell you about yourself than your Creator – God.

Note that God cannot require from you or to do what you have no capacity to do because that would amount to wickedness. What do you have? He can use it to the highest if you release it to Him. He can multiply that your little into abundant. Release to Him, and you will never end little.

#BiblePromisesPrayer

* Lord Jesus, multiply the little in my hand to abundance in Your Name. Amen


Winning Wisdom: Comfort in Grieve

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Winning Wisdom: Comfort in Grieve

Topic: Comfort in Grieve [Wednesday 25th October, 2017]

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 1 Thessalonians 4:13

We’ve all lost someone dear to our hearts. We’ve also had to comfort someone that lost someone dear. The hardest part of losing someone is comfort. In those times it would appear that there are no suitable words for comfort, or all the words shared feel out of place, or just makes you feel more hollow. Some persons borrow from Job’s ignorant statement and say “the Lord gives, the Lord takes”. But this only makes us angry at God for taking and causing such pain. Why would He take the righteous that walks according to His will, and leave the wicked and unrighteous? Even I don’t know the answer. But the answer is irrelevant. What is relevant is our knowledge of the fate and hope of those that sleep in the Lord.

Paul says to the Thessalonians “but I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (1  Thessalonians 4:13‭-‬14‭, ‬16‭-‬17). We need not cry without end and hopelessly because we have lost a loved one, for we have a hope that as Christ was raised up, so also would they be raised up at the Second Coming, and we shall be caught up with them to be with Christ forever. This is our hope and comfort in grieve, that they rest in God and would be resurrected at the Second Coming, and that we would be caught up with them also.

“Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:18). There is no more hopeless grieve,  we stand fast in hope and knowledge of the resurrection. And we therefore rejoice in anticipation of our seeing them again.

Keep winning daily.

Wise Action:

When next (its inevitable) you’re confronted with grief or placed in a position to comfort someone in grief, don’t jump to routine ineffective words. Use words of hope and comfort as provided in scripture, thereby not only comforting the grieved, but also boosting their hope and faith in God.

By Esun Tekeme


Cindy Jacobs Issues Urgent Call to Uphold Prophetic Reformation Manifesto .

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

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