The Bristol Post asked locals to nominate ‘100 Great Westerners’ and the team at The New Room, also known as the John Wesley chapel, put forward John Wesley. Along with 50 others, his name was chosen at a celebratory dinner on Wednesday evening.
John Wesley was a pastor and theologian in the 1700s who became a Christian after he heard someone reading Paul’s letter to the Romans. He founded the Methodist Church and was the brother of hymn-writer Charles Wesley.
Premier spoke to David Worthington, the Manager of The New Room, the oldest Methodist building in the world. He nominated John Wesley’s name and said: “we thought that it was appropriate to at the very least put John’s name forward and we were obviously delighted when we heard last night that the judges agreed with the nomination and have said that his name has been chosen be attached to one of the trains which will be rolling out in the next few years”.
He was an itinerant preacher for much of his a life, probably one of the most well-travelled men of the 18th century, so we thought that although he pre-dates Brunel by about 100 years we though a train was a good thing to have his name on.”
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Funds are often tight in dying churches. So when you’re replanting, how do you come up with the funds needed to turn things around? Today, we discuss 10 simple ways.
Today’s Listener Question:
FROM JUAN
I came to my church about 6 months ago as the bi-vo pastor at a church in an economically depressed area. I guess you could call it a replant or revitalization effort. Anyway, God has shown us favor, and we’ve grown from just under 40 to more than 60 over the past few months. But we are starting to have budget problems now. I think I know what needs to be done to keep the momentum going, but the funds to match the vision just aren’t there right now. How can I find more funds to continue the work God is doing here?
Episode Highlights:
“When financially squeezed, you have to determine where good dollars are going and where they’re being wasted.”
“Success is not making people in a church happy. It’s making disciples and reaching your community.”
Churches often spend a lot of money on things that don’t accomplish much.
Growth in giving nearly always lags behind growth in church attendance.
“The widow didn’t designate her mite.”
Funding follows vision.
The ten keys to funding a church replant that we cover in this episode are:
Adjust the existing budget
Review every contract and commitment
Expect losses
Deal with designated funds
Develop ministry partners
Raise personal support
Propose new priorities
Launch multiple giving venues
Cast the vision repeatedly
Trust God
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 death rate of existing churches while simultaneously increasing the birth rate of new churches. To learn more about what it means to become a replanting pastor or to explore resources for replanting and revitalization in your own church, visit ChurchReplanters.com.
Submit Your Question:
Do you have a question about church revitalization or replanting for us to use on the podcast? Visit the podcast page to submit your question. If we use it on the show, you’ll get a copy of Autopsy of a Deceased Church and Reclaiming Glory.
Wildfires continue to cause destruction in California’s wine region. The death toll from the fires is also rising.
According to ABC News, 23 people have now lost their lives in the blazes. Additionally, thousands of homes, businesses, and properties have been destroyed.
At least 8,000 firefighters are working to battle the 22 wildfires which have already burned through 170,000 acres of land. At least 20,000 residents have been forced to evacuate.
California’s Gov. Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency in three counties: Napa, Sonoma, and Yuba.
“Life is more important than property,” Sonoma County Sheriff Robert Giordano said at a press conference Tuesday, warning people that it is better to wait for the fires to be put out than to go back home to assess the damage prematurely.
Giordano added that he believes the wildfires will be “one of the worst natural disasters in California history.”
California resources are stretching thin, so federal reinforcements, as well as firefighters, medical personnel, and other officials have come from neighboring states to assist in the effort to get the wildfires under control.
Firefighters are facing an uphill battle as winds are only strengthening the blazes and the weather forecast predicts they could grow even stronger by the weekend.
(Photo: Paul Halco)Worship held at the Crystal Lake campus of Willow Creek Community Church.
A satellite congregation of the Chicago, Illinois-based Willow Creek Community Church will be moving into a new 193,000-square-foot facility later this month.
Willow Crystal Lake, which has an average weekly worship attendance of about 4,000, will hold its first worship services at the former site for Oak Industries the evening of Saturday, Oct. 21 and then Sunday, Oct. 22.
Willow Crystal Lake Lead Pastor Marcus Bieschke told The Christian Post that while some megachurches were gearing for more autonomy in the near future, Willow Creek would continue to function as a unit.
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(Screenshot: Willow Creek Community Church)Pastor Bill Hybels speaks about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during his sermon at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, on January 18, 2015.
“For 15 years, Willow Creek has been a multisite church. Today, we have eight locations across Chicagoland,” explained Bieschke.
“Our congregations collaborate on key global issues while also leveraging the local congregations to meet the unique needs of their communities. As we have grown in this model, we have confirmed time and again that we are better together.”
Founded in 1975 by Bill Hybels, over the span of four decades Willow Creek has gone from holding its first worship service in a movie theater to having eight church campuses, which boast approximately 25,000 regular attendees.
In 2015, Willow Creek’s Crystal Lake congregation decided to search for a new site, as they had outgrown their 56,000-square-foot facility.
In April 2016, the Crystal Lake Planning and Zoning Commission voted 5-0 to allow Willow Creek Community Church to open a new campus at a former Oak Industries site.
Elizabeth Maxwell, a city planner for Crystal Lake, told CP in an interview last year that Willow Creek “will be improving an underused manufacturing building that has been on the market for nearly 30 years.”
“They will have space within their building that is open to the general public such as a café, meeting areas, and other programs. They also illustrate significant exterior improvements to make a large gathering and community space,” said Maxwell.
“Also, with the church services an additional 1,600 people will be coming to this spot and they have a great opportunity to patronize the Downtown businesses.”
In advance of the first worship services, Willow Crystal Lake is holding an open house for the new facility on Oct. 19.
“We’ll gather in our new auditorium for one final time as a team before we welcome hundreds of new people! We’re going to give our Guest Experience and Promiseland Teams an opportunity to do a rehearsal for the big day,” noted the church.
“Full Promiseland programming will be provided so that you can experience the check-in process and your kids can acclimate to their new rooms. We will also take some time to thank God for His favor and ask Him to bless the days to come.”
REUTERS/Adnan Abidi/File photoA salesman checks a customer’s iPhone at a mobile phone store in New Delhi, India, July 27, 2016. It has been revealed recently that Apple’s iOS is prone to phishing.
Mobile app developer Felix Krause has revealed that the iOS is vulnerable to phishing.
In his personal blog, Krause detailed how attackers could use the pop-up dialogue boxes as a means of tricking a user into entering their Apple ID password voluntarily. While there seems to be no difference between the legitimate pop-up and the phishing attack pop-up, Krause made a proof-of-concept app to show the security vulnerability in iOS and explained that the only way to distinguish the fake from the real one is by pressing the device’s home button.
According to Krause, pressing the home button would result in the closing of the fake pop-up along with whatever app it appears in. Hence, if a user is playing a game when the fake pop-up appears, pressing the home button will close the pop-up, along with the game he is playing with.
Krause also went to explain that a legitimate pop-up that asks for the user’s password would not close even after the home button has been pressed. According to the mobile app developer, the reason for which is that a real system pop-up runs on a different process from that of a standard app.
Because of what he discovered, Krause suggested that it would be better if an app’s icon is included in the pop-up dialogue boxes. This way, Krause believes, it would be easier for users to identify an app pop-up from a system pop-up or, more importantly, a fake pop-up from a real pop-up.
Krause also advises users of Apple devices to use 2-factor verification processes to increase the security of their devices. This way, if an attacker succeeds in obtaining one password, he will have to go through other security processes, which will limit his chances of carrying out his phishing attack successfully.
The mobile app developer also opines that iOS should not constantly ask Apple devices users for credentials so that they will not be prone to phishing activities.
“Initially I thought, faking those alerts requires the app developer to know your email. Turns out, some of those auth popups don’t include the email address, making it even easier for phishing apps to ask for the password,” Krause said.
It’s a decision that activists have hailed as an important step towards ending child marriages.
Indian law says a woman must be at least 18 to marry and consent to sex, but there are exceptions and a man was permitted to have sex, even forcibly, with a girl as young as 15, as long as she was his wife.
The Supreme Court in New Delhi ruled on Wednesday that sexual intercourse with a girl younger than 18 is rape.
Mandy Marshall is the director of Restored, which is an international Christian domestic abuse education charity.
She told Premier this is could be the beginning for more rights for girls and women in the country.
She said: “It’s bringing consistency in the laws within India.
“The child protection laws already prohibit an adult having sex with someone below the age of 18, but this new law actually recognises there’s a lot of child marriage in India and wanting to make that unacceptable.
“It’s a positive step in the right direction but there’s a heck of a long way to go for changing the culture around child marriage in India.”
According to the 2011 government census, the percentage of under-18 marriages in India was as high as 47 per cent.
The government estimates that child marriages in rural areas are three times higher than in urban centres.
Marshall added that although the law seems to be going in the right direction, a cultural change will take longer to happen.
She told Premier: “We’ve worked with Christian organisations in India that know it’s a problem linked with poverty and status and illiteracy, and that needs to change.
“They see girls as a burden rather than seeing a child as precious and honoured in God’s sight, and worth of dignity and respect as much as a boy child.”
Listen to Mandy Marshall speaking with Premier’s Cara Bentley:
Join us on our podcast each weekday for an interesting story, well told, from Charisma News. Listen at charismapodcastnetwork.com.
Pastor Francis Chan warned an audience assembled at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, that too many Christians are ashamed of the gospel and, as a result, are changing their theology.
“We live in a time when Christians are starting to change their theology, because they’re ashamed of the words of Jesus Christ, because it’s not popular,” Chan said during an event called “America’s Tent of Meeting.” “We can busy our lives with good things that aren’t the most important thing, and I feel like there’s a cop-out in Christianity today.”
While he said many Christians are more than willing to participate in good causes such as racial reconciliation and fighting poverty, he said too few people are spreading the gospel.
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(Photo: Facebook)Tullian Tchividjian appears in this updated profile photo he posted to Facebook on November 2, 2016 after remaining quiet on the platform for almost a year.
Tullian Tchividjian, the grandson of well-renown evangelist Billy Graham, is openly regretting his transgressions two years after he lost his church and wife to an adultery scandal.
In a recent blog post shared on his website, Tchividjian admitted he “selfishly wrecked” his life and the lives of many others. Although now remarried, he wanted to set the record straight.
“Whatever bad stuff you may have read or heard about me, whether it is true or false, this I can tell you for sure: I am way worse than anyone knows,” he said in the letter’s introduction.
“In fact, I am certain that if all my sins (thoughts, words, and deeds) over the last four decades were broadcast universally, the only person who would still love me is Jesus (and sometimes in my darkest moments of doubt and despair, I have wondered whether even he would),” the former ordained pastor said.
Tchividjian stepped down last summer from his position as pastor at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after admitting to an extramarital affair. At the time, he also filed for divorce from his now ex-wife, Kim, and South Florida Presbytery likewise stripped him of his pastoral credentials.
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(Photo: Facebook)Tullian Tchividjian and his new wife Stacie pose with their children from previous relationships.
In the blog, he said the consequences of his actions are “omnipresent” and his sin has damaged everything around him.
“There isn’t a day that goes by when I am not reminded, in some way, of what I’ve done and the damage I’ve caused,” Tchividjian continued.
The 45-year-old recalled recently visiting a Barnes & Nobles and spotting his name on a book of a young author who had asked him to endorse his work because of the value it would bring to his writing.
“There it was, my name, sticking out like a discrediting blemish on his hard work. I felt sick,” he loathed.
He said that moment reminded him of the “far reaching effects” of his sin and how so many people he’s never even met “were hurt” by him.
“God gifted me with a family to care for, people to love, a high calling, a life-giving message, and a large platform to shout it from-and I blew it,” Tchividjian said. “I blew it all when I had every reason (and opportunity) not to. And I alone am to blame for this.”
Although throughout most of the post, Tchividjian was lamenting over his past mistakes, he did offer some hope for those who find themselves in a similar situation as him.
“Here’s what I know: there are a lot of people out there just like me. People who live with guilt and shame and regret and sadness because of what they have done or failed to do. People who would do anything to go back in time and make different choices but are presently plagued by the realization that they can’t.”
Still sharing his minister’s heart for others, Tchividjian invited others who have fallen to turn to Jesus with him.
“Come with me to your deepest bottom, and together, there, let us find hope and comfort and love and forgiveness and grace and mercy,” he added. “Because the bad news that we are all guilty is met with the best news that God loves, forgives, and heals the broken hearts of guilty people. After all, God’s office of grace IS at the end of our rope.”
“Discover that we can still have hope amidst the ruins of our lives because Jesus plus nothing still equals everything,” he concluded.
REUTERS/Lucy NicholsonAn Apple store is seen in Los Angeles, California, United States, April 22, 2016.
Less than a month after it released the iOS 11, Apple has recently released the latest version of the iOS, the iOS 11.0.3.
As its name suggests, iOS 11.0.3 is the third update to the iOS 11, which was released last Sep. 19. With the arrival of the latest iOS, iPhone and iPad users can now bring back the old features they have lost as the update is all about bug fixes, again.
The issues that the iOS 11.0.3 are expected to deal with include the audio issues and haptic feedback that doesn’t work properly in iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus devices. It is also expected to fix the issues of some iPhone 6s displays that don’t properly respond to touch in some cases.
So far, all the updates released for the iOS 11 have been in conjunction with security issues or bugs. For instance, the iOS 11.0.1 fixed a security flaw of the new iPhones. On the other hand, the iOS 11.0.2 came a week after the iOS 11.0.1 was released and fixed the crackling audio issues of the new iPhones. With these, some can’t help but opine that Apple rushed the release of its IOS 11.
While the three updates to the iOS 11 are nothing more than fixes, it is said that the OS will receive some major updates soon, specifically the iOS 11.1, which is already in its beta stage. Reportedly, this major update will enable the peer-to-peer Apple Pay transactions and usher the 3D Touch app switcher back into the system.
Meanwhile, mobile app developer Felix Krause has revealed on his personal blog that the iOS is vulnerable to phishing. According to Krause’s discovery, because iOS constantly requires Apple device owners for log-in details through pop-up dialog boxes, phishers have now found it easy to copy the users’ passwords and other details through fake pop-up dialog boxes that deceives users into voluntarily entering their passwords.
As Krause has revealed that the only way to find out if a pop-up dialogue box is legit or fake is to press the home button, explaining that the fake pop-up will close along with the app it appears with once the home button is pressed, will Apple deliver an update to the iOS that will address this security issue too?
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