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Those of you who know me, who have been a part of our church for any time know that I love the church. Through the years of ministry I have had occasion and opportunity to consider other kinds of ministry as to mission field ministry and educational ministry and various and sundry kinds of opportunities that have come my way. But no matter how wonderful they might have been, no matter how attractive, no matter how great the need, I have never found myself able to disassociate from the church and the ministry in the church. I love the church. It is my life. It has been the center of my life since childhood.
When I was born my father was a pastor of a church. I grew up in church. It is the place where I was led to the knowledge of God, where I learned about Christ, a place where I gained the knowledge of saving and sanctifying truth. It was in the church that I learned all the stories of the Scripture, Old Testament and New Testament. It was in the church that I learned God's moral standard for life. It was in the church where I learned how to pray. It was in the church where I learned how to sing. In the church where I learned how to live and love and serve. It was in the church that I set the standards and direction and goals for my life. It was in the church that I experienced the leading of the Spirit of God in directing me into a life of ministry.
The church is where I met my life partner, my wife. The church is where I've raised my children. And now my grandchildren. And the church is where I've made my life-long friends. And the church is my life.
I have other titles and other responsibilities but they're just sort of on the fringe and periphery of the church which is my life. And frankly, it will be forever, even in eternity we will be the gathered church, redeemed and glorified.
I am committed to the church with every ounce of being that I have. I'm committed to it with all my heart and all my soul. And there are people who say to me, "Why do you always write these books that deal with issues and why are you always concerned about all of these things going on, can't you just sit back and enjoy your Christian experience in ministry?" And the answer is, I love the church so much I want to see it be all God wants it to be. And that means I need to be a pastor, because if I wasn't the pastor I'd be driving the pastor crazy. The Lord knew that.
I don't understand people who don't love the church. I don't understand people who...who don't have a love affair with the church and can't wait to assemble with its people. I don't understand people who say things like, I heard a person say recently, "Boy, our church has a Saturday night service and it's great. You get the deal over in one hour and it doesn't mess up Sunday." That's inconceivable to me. Cannot understand that.
Or someone else who said, "I like our early-morning Sunday service, it's over in an hour and it doesn't blow the whole day." I can't wait to get here on Sunday morning and I can't wait to get back on Sunday evening. And it's been that way in my life for all my life.
I am attracted, as you well know, to eastern Europe and I'm attracted to the ministry that God has given us over there. It's limited because I don't know the language and I've told you before, if I did I'd probably go there and stay. But there is another reason I like it over there. It's not just that there's a freshness about it and a joy in the church over there. I like it over there because they have church Tuesday night, Thursday night, Saturday night, Sunday morning and Sunday night. And they get together all the time and everybody is always there. It's their life.
There was a time when coming to Christ meant coming to His church. There was a time when salvation meant union with the visible gathered body of Christ. Becoming a Christian meant fellowship. That's really changed. The emphasis, the contemporary emphasis in evangelicalism is having a personal relationship with Christ. And the process of personalizing this and banging on this issue of personal relationship to Christ which has become the pervasive theme of contemporary evangelism rarely is there any discussion about the church. It is extremely rare to pick up a gospel tract or a gospel presentation that ends with any discussion of a believer's relationship to the church. There is very low emphasis on church involvement, church membership, being a part of the family of God, the visible gathered household of redeemed saints.
And in our massive effort to make personal salvation the issue, we have really left the church behind to detriment of many, many souls. Many churches don't have memberships, they don't want memberships. They don't want people to join their church. They...in fact...teach against that. There are churches, I just read of one yesterday that doesn't require membership, doesn't require baptism, doesn't require any doctrinal statement, doesn't require anything and calls itself an evangelical church.
The reality of this low commitment to the church is upon us. It's evident everywhere. Let me just summarize it in three ways. If I look at this low level of commitment, I look at it in several ways. Number one, I can see it by the pattern by which professing Christians relate to the church. People just don't relate to the church as significant. They tend to be, I guess what I would call, ecclesiastical consumers...church hoppers. They don't really have any loyalty or any commitment to a given assembly of redeemed and gathered saints. They feel little or no attachment or obligation or regular attendance to church involvement, it's not a priority with them. They just sort of bounce and float and hop and skip and jump around. The church may meet but certainly doesn't mean they need to be there. The church may gather to study or to pray or be trained or learn or whatever, but that doesn't really apply to them. They're, after all, involved with a personal relationship with Christ and don't understand their involvement, their life connection to the church. Much of their Christianity exists outside the church and there are plenty of things outside the church that are under the Christian banner which can occupy their life without ever getting very committed or involved in the church. That's tragic.
This low-level of commitment shows up not only in the pattern by which people relate to the church and just sort of float around and make no commitment, but secondly, by the neglect of the ordinances of baptism and communion. There are many people who would call themselves Christians who have never been baptized. There are many more who call themselves Christians and may well be Christians and may well be Christians who have little or no interest in attending the Lord's table. And if it happens to hit on a night when they can schedule it in, they'll come...or a morning when they can schedule it in, they'll come, but in general that's not a priority for them. This is even more serious, by the way. And many churches are now deprioritizing baptism and deprioritizing communion, just sort of regulating it to some backwater because they feel that if done in the public service it becomes offensive. It's a sad thing because baptism itself is the single greatest testimony that the church has to the changing power of Jesus Christ, right? Why would you put on a church skit to dramatize that when you can have a living testimony? On the other hand, they deprioritize communion because they feel communion would offend an unbeliever who happened to be there because it shuts him out and communion is how we show forth the Lord's death until He comes and what is our message?
Some ignore baptism all together and many churches don't require it. They don't require it after you're saved. They don't talk about it. They don't talk about it. They don't require it for church membership. And they're not concerned about the Lord's table. That is to say, it's not required for everyone, it's not an urgency of the lives of people and yet those are the two things that Jesus said we were to do.
And even where baptism and communion are administered, for the most part they're directed at personal faith rather than at the unity of the church. They don't celebrate the commonality of the church, all being baptized into one body, namely the church of Jesus Christ, and all gathering at the foot of the cross to share in the Lord's table in common as mutually recognizing our sin and repenting of it. People can attend many churches and never experience a baptism, many churches and never experience a communion.
Thirdly, another dramatization, another evidence of this disinterest in the church is the massive development of ministry outside the church. There has been a significant evangelical power shift, if I can could call it that, away from the church. Para-church ministries have developed and proliferated beyond imagination. And for every Christian who seems to have a little idea about what he'd like to do, there's liable to be a Christian organization started. And then that Christian organization creates an environment in which it can exist and raise money and do whatever it needs to do without any consideration to the church, usually indifferent to the church and not accountable to the church.
The best of these succeed. The most inept of them fail. Highly promoted slick wealthy ministries led by unusually talented and gifted people supported by wealthy patrons will survive and they'll use sophisticated marketing methods to engulf millions of dollars. And they can build a very highly successful operation. Some of what they do is very good, it just doesn't have anything to do with the church. It isn't the church, it's out there, it was intended to come alongside and help the church. At the turn of the century the church liberalized and that's what caused independent churches to grow up because the denominations were so corrupt and heretical. And along with the denominations came all of these independent ministries and now in the typical noble independence of the American spirit, we continue to proliferate that kind of thing until there are so many of them you can't even keep up with them. Some of you know how many there are because they come to your home in the form of mail unendingly.
National Christian personalities have become the heroes of evangelicalism. And local pastors are basically unappreciated and often maligned. It was interesting recently to read about a meeting that President Clinton had with twelve evangelical leaders and out of the twelve evangelical leaders who were going to come to him, he wanted them to represent to him their concerns about Christianity in America and related to the government. And ten of them were outside the church. The system even recognizes that the church is not necessarily the spokesman. This is the shift, significant shift in the power of evangelicalism. I think that shift is even going further. Now we're having a shift from just para church power, para church organization to mega para church organization. And the mega para church organizations are redefining Christianity and they're establishing who the heroes are. And the sad apart about it is they tend basically to be atheological, adoctrinal without regard for doctrine, theology.
Even the educational side of evangelicalism is fallen victim to this in some ways. I can give you an illustration of that. There is a journal called "The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society," of which I am a member. To belong to that society you have to affirm the inerrancy of Scripture and be associated with some scholarly endeavor in terms of theology. And in "The Journal of Evangelical Theology" they have been printing articles of original research and insight on things scriptural for 34 years. In 34 years they have produced one article on the nature of the church...one in 1969, none before and none since.
Evangelicals are systematically turning away from the church. It's sort of a pervasive kind of thing. Busy winning people to Christ but not to the church. This is totally foreign to Scripture. Coming to Christ is coming to the church. Any idea of experiencing salvation without belonging to a local church is foreign to the New Testament. The epistles of the New Testament were written to churches and in the case where they were written to individuals, such as Philemon and Timothy and Titus, they were in key roles of leadership in churches. And the general epistles seem to have been directed at assemblies of saints even though they are not identified in any given local. Sometimes as in the case of James, scattered believers who were meeting in various places. You only need to start to read the epistles of the New Testament to know that the Lord assumed that believers would be in gathered assemblings, not running around loose. The Holy Spirit wanted to communicate a message to believers, the title of it is 1 Corinthians and this is what it says, "Paul, called as an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother to the church, the church which is at Corinth." And when the Holy Spirit wanted to send another letter, 2 Corinthians, "Paul an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy our brother to the church, which is at Corinth." And when the Lord wanted to reach saints and give them instruction about the law and freedom and grace, He inspired Paul to write and Paul wrote the book of Galatians, "Paul an Apostle and all the brethren who are with me to the churches." First Thessalonians 1 says essentially the same thing, "Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, to the church." In 2 Thessalonians it says, "Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, to the church."
The assumption in all of this is that people are gathered in a local assembly where the Word of God is disseminated. They are a gathered community of worshiping saints, belonging to the church, not just the church invisible but belonging to the visible gathered militant church, as its been called in the world, is at the very heart of Christianity. It is the expressed unity of the body made visible. The church gathers to participate in worship and baptism and communion and ministry, it expresses its spiritual reality in its corporate identity. The Lord never established any institution except the church. Christ is the head of the church and under His headship come a plurality of godly pastors and elders who lead those who serve. And that's the definition of the church. And there's nothing beyond or outside that. There are many, many now Christian organizations, para church organizations that are led by people who are not qualified to be pastors or elders, who have no accountability to an assembly of redeemed and gathered saints, who have no regard for things like baptism and communion.
Frankly, the idea of an unbaptized Christian isn't even in the New Testament. Baptism even becomes a term that is a synonym for salvation...one Lord, one faith, one baptism. That's talking about the baptism that is the outward expression of an inward relationship, an inward identification. Failure to be at the Lord's table in a New Testament setting was cause for grave concern and perhaps church discipline. In fact, even coming to the Lord's table without having your heart right could be a cause of sickness or death.
It's obvious that the early church knew its flock. In Acts 20 the Apostle Paul wrote to the elders at Miletus and said, "You're to shepherd the flock of God." It's very difficult to shepherd if you don't know who your flock is. And sheep don't survive well just roaming around on their own. In Acts, just to give you an illustration of this sense of belonging, in Acts chapter 2 verse 41 where the church is born it says, "So then, those who had received his words...the words of Peter...as he preached were baptized." Of course, that was obvious, inevitable, immediately they would be baptized. "And there were added that day about 3,000 souls." Added to what? Added to the others. Who were the others? Well at least 120 that gathered in the upper room would be on the list. And they must have had a secretary or somebody who could take the names of these people who were baptized and they were all added to the list. And then in verse 47, "The Lord kept adding to their number day by day those who were being saved." And the church was meeting day in and day out, celebrating its life and its joy in the Messiah. And the Lord was by the power of the Holy Spirit converting many and they were being added to the church.
Come over to chapter 5 of the book of Acts, verse 14, "And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women were constantly added to their number." And this thing was growing. Somebody was keeping a list of who was in the flock. The indication of these being added implies there was someplace where they were added. There are references, of course, throughout this period in the book of Acts to the whole church. The church saved, baptized continuing, remember that in Acts 2:42 in the Apostles doctrine, prayer, fellowship, and the breaking of bread? They were all together. They were all one. This is how it was. And then the church was started in Antioch and developed from there. Then the church went west in the ministry of Paul and those who traveled with him. And the church was seeing people come to Christ and then being baptized and then being gathered in a local assembly. Any time somebody moved or relocated, as people do today, they would send letters. In Acts chapter 16, for example, pardon me, chapter 18, I think it's verse 27, we read about that kind of thing. This is a passage talking about Apollos, and when he wanted to go across to Achaia the brethren encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. This is very typical. Here's a Christian brother, he's going from one place to the next. They're going to write a letter of commendation so that the church that's receiving him knows he comes with the blessing of the church from which he came.
In Romans, the last chapter, chapter 16, there's a commendation in verse 1 of a lady named Phoebe apparently who was on her way to Rome and when she arrives in Rome she is going to come with commendation because the Apostle Paul says in Romans 16, "I commend to you our sister Phoebe who is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea. Receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints and help her in whatever matter she may have need of you for she herself has also been a helper of many and of myself as well." Here is a typical letter of commendation. Here is a member in good standing named Phoebe moving from Cenchrea to Rome. The Roman church needs to accept her. That's the church keeping track of its sheep and letting other congregations know that this individual is to be received as one who is genuine in naming the name of Christ. The church was very concerned to keep the tares out, to maintain its purity and to be sure that those coming in were not factious, heretical or sinful people. There was this tremendous concern to keep the church pure.
In Colossians chapter 4 and verse 10 it mentions Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sending his greetings. And then it mentions Barnabas' cousin Mark. And then there's a parenthetical comment about Mark in Colossians 4:10, "About whom you received instructions, if he comes to you, welcome him." So again when Christians move from place to place, there was a letter, a letter authenticating their conversion and their good standing in the life of the church.
And then in 2 Corinthians chapter 3 Paul says, "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again?" In other words, do I have to start all over again with you Corinthians like you didn't know me? "Do we need as some letters of commendation to you or from you?" They were treating him like a stranger and he said, "Do I have to go back through that process again?" What I'm calling to your attention there is just that there was a process...letters of commendation, recommendation, transfer in the relocation of believers was a part of church life.
And so, the early church knew nothing but baptism and assembly in gathered groups of believers in a local area for the purpose of worship, the Lord's table, prayer, fellowship and witness. My heart is really grieved at the nature of the evangelical church today and I do feel responsible to confront it because I know the Lord loves His church, He died for His church, He shed His blood for His church. I know the church is not only the body of Christ through which He will work His will in the world but it is the bride of Christ, the object of His affection and love. And He wants a chaste and pure bride. He wants the church to be all it should be. Hence this message this morning.
Now many of you are members of Grace Church. That's biblical. If you're sort of a non-member, you're just floating in that limbo out there. That's something totally foreign to Scripture. Many of you are members of Grace Church. Some of you are faithful members. Some of you are not faithful members. Some of you are not members. And some of you not members are faithful not members. And some of you are not faithful not members.
According to Hebrews 13 I have to give an account to God for you. How can you shepherd the flock to which you must give an account to God if you don't even know where the sheep are or who they are? It's very difficult...very difficult. It's very difficult, for example, when someone leaves the church who is not a member of the church to have any way to know they ever left...except in a small group of people that may know them. Sometimes a person will leave a church and we will try everything we can to track them because we feel responsible for their spiritual life and so we hear that they end up in a church in another place and so it may come down to a letter that says "we think this person was at our church until so-and-so and now we think they've gone to your church, we're not sure," that's very difficult. And we may get a letter back and say that the person you think was in your church who you think is in my church I don't think is in my church. How can we be responsible for shepherding? How can we be responsible for keeping account of people to which we have to give an answer to God?
So if you want to do it as Hebrews 13:17 says so that we can do it with joy and not with grief, then you learn to submit and obey and be a part of the flock with which you identify. Half of any Sunday morning congregation at Grace Church are non members. I mean, some of you for a long time. Two dear folks turned in their little membership card to join the church this morning who have been coming for 22 years...22 years. One conversation went like this, "I've been in the choir for 13 years, I think I ought to join." Well it might be ignorance. You're just ignorant about it. It might be indifference. It might be fear of being exposed for some sin in your life. It might be reluctance to be given any kind of ministry responsibility. None of those is acceptable to the Lord, is it?
Now I want to teach you some essential issues of church membership, okay? And these are things that I think will be clear to you and hopefully motivating.
First of all, it's an obedience issue. Identifying with the church, officially joining and being a part is an obedience issue. I've just pointed that out. The New Testament clearly indicates that believers were baptized and assembled into gathered recognizable groups. Their names were on a list. They were identified as the flock and the shepherds knew who they were. And when they moved from one place to another, some letter went along with them in order that a transfer might be effected to another local assembly of believers.
Letters, epistles of the New Testament were written to those gathered believers. There was never any assumption that some Christian would be floating around loose all by himself. There was a real spiritual unity of saved souls. And that real spiritual unity just as it is today was manifest in local groups of believers gathered together for the purpose of sanctification and worship and witness. It's a biblical pattern. And what we have today in this evangelical consumerism is not biblical. This church hopping and bouncing around, we do everything we can to track every person that comes and goes from our church. I read one of the little lists, someone had left our church and the little comment at the bottom after they were called and we send letters and we try everything we can to know where they go was "We're now attending...and they listed a certain church...and a couple of other churches." That's a dead giveaway to me. What that means is they're not probably going anywhere very frequently. And when they do they hop around to where the action is...utterly unknown to a biblical pattern of identification with a gathered group of believers to whom we commit ourselves for the glory of Christ. It is an obedience issue.
And I think it may be a sin issue, there may be things in your life that you don't want exposed...let me encourage you by saying all the rest of us have problems too. Don't wait till you get perfect before you come. One lady said, "I don't want to join the church, there are too many hypocrites." I said "Fine, we can always take more." It's only a question of degree, right? I didn't say that to anyone this morning...that was...that was when I was young.
It is an obedience issue. Secondly, it's a fellowship issue. Believers were introduced into a church, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ for the sake of common shared spiritual life. We are those of like precious faith. We have entered into a fellowship, a partnership, participation. Paul told the Corinthians they had been called into the fellowship, the fellowship of His Son, God's Son...a fellowship which was so wonderful and so unique and so blended that they were to make sure there were no divisions and no quarrels and no arguments and no debates in the fellowship.
John the Apostle in writing 1 John 1 verse 3, "What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you that you may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ." Saved to enter into the fellowship, the partnership. The word koinonia means partnership. Galatians 2:9 says, "In recognizing the grace that has been given to me, James and Cephas and John...Paul writing...who were reputed to be pillars gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of...what?...fellowship." That's why we do that. It's New Testament. You're taking them by the hand and bringing them into the fellowship, common participation in eternal life as its manifest in the visible life of the church.
In Hebrews chapter 10 is a wonderful section of Scripture, verse 23, "Let's hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together is the habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near." The closer we get to the return of Jesus Christ the more we need the fellowship. Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together. Stimulate one another to love and good deeds. It is the habit of some, he says, not to be together, not to be in the assembly. It's wrong, sinful. I can't understand why people aren't here every time the gathered believers meet. I can't understand how people feel they've done some kind of a duty on Sunday morning and don't need to come back on Sunday night. And, you know, most churches are jettisoning Sunday nights systematically, I mean, we're one of the few left that have a Sunday night service. I can't comprehend that. I'm always trying to think of how to have more services.
I had the opportunity to gather with believers in another local assembly on Thursday night and I relish that privilege and that joy. And it's usually...usually happens to me every week, some other place. The sharing of our common life, the building of friendships, the bearing of burdens, mutual care, mutual prayer, that's the life of the church. It's the life of sharing love. It's the life of sacrifice. It's the life of giving sacrificially, both my money and my time and my energy on behalf of others. It's coming together for the sake of the Lord's table. It's coming together to sing praises to Him and the collective choir, the collective hallelujahs that rise from an assembled congregation. That's the fellowship. Coming to the Lord's table is when we come for purging and purification and repentance and confession and renewed devotion. And that's a precious, precious treasure. And the fellowship should run deeper and deeper as our lives are more entwined and as we get to know each other more and more and we really do have spiritual friendships that are deep and profound and life changing and strengthening. It is a fellowship issue to be a part of a church, a local assembly.
Thirdly, it's an authority issue. Believers are to be brought into the church under pastoral rule. Now we rule not by might or by power but by the Word of God. I don't have any authority over your life. Some pastors like to think they do and you get these pastors and these churches that are somewhat abusive or dictatorial where they tell you you can't marry this person, you can't marry that person, you can't take that job, you can't move your family over here, you can't do this and they want to control your life. That is...that is an illegitimate authority. The only authority we have is the authority that comes out of the Word of God and by the Spirit working through our giftedness applying the Word to your life. But you need to come under that authority.
In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 12, "We request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you," that's your elders and pastors and teachers, "and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction." You need to appreciate those whose role it is to lead you and guide you, oversee your life, to instruct you, to teach you, to train you. You are to esteem them very highly in love because of their work.
And as I noted earlier, in Hebrews chapter 13 verse 7, "Remember those who led you, who spoke the Word of God to you. Imitate their faith." And then in verse 17 he says, "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief for this would be unprofitable for you." And it is a grief when you're responsible to shepherd people who won't be faithful to be in the flock. We're here to train and disciple and support and serve you. We're here to pray and teach. We're here to give you oversight.
We're here also to admonish and to warn and to reprove and rebuke and exhort and even to discipline in the application of the Word of God to your life. But that's all for your good, isn't it? To evade that, to avoid that is to your detriment. We're here to enforce the Word of God. Occasionally where we find a factious man, we rebuke him once and twice and then reject him. Where we find someone who continues in sin, we discipline and put him out of the church, admonishing him to repent but not allowing him to associate with us. All of that is for the purity of the church. All of that is for the cleansing of the church, for the virtue and holiness of the flock.
We're here to protect you from the wolves who would tear you up, from the people who would steal away your heart and your resources, your energies confuse you about the truth. You need the oversight. It is an authority issue. It is a soft authority. It is a biblical authority. It is not a personal one, it is not a harsh one. It's for your benefit. It's the authority of a loving father and a tender mother as Paul described it to the Thessalonians. You wouldn't imagine, would you, that a child would flourish on its own, and yet how many Christians try to do that? Little wonder they're confused. And in the battle with sin, they're losing.
Fourthly, this matter of church membership is an identity issue...it is an identity issue. You are by title a Christian, that means a little Christ. You have been joined together with Christ. There's no way to tell, in a sense, where He stops and you start. Your life and His life are together. Your life is hid with Christ in God, nevertheless you live, yet not you but Christ lives in you...Galatians 2:20. You are His own. You have been bought with a price, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. You bear His name. That's who you are. More than anything else, you are Christ's by virtue of His salvation and you bear His name more than any other name. You are His church, you are His body and you are His bride.
It is true, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, one Spirit, one church, one hope...we are all united with the self-same Christ. Are you ashamed to belong? Are you like Timothy, maybe, on the edge of that when Paul said to him, "Don't be ashamed of the Lord or of me His prisoner?" Are you ashamed to bear that identification and to bear the identification with other believers of like precious faith? Amazingly the Lord is not ashamed to call you His and that could ruin His reputation, frankly, to be identified with you and me. And though He's not ashamed to call us His, are we ashamed to call Him ours? Are we ashamed to identify with Him? You must be a part of what you believe in.
I'm amazed how many things people join that reflect what they believe in. I mean, people join all kinds of organizations for what they believe in. And more than any other thing, any other organization on the face of the earth if you want to talk about really belonging then you really belong when you're a Christian because you're not even a citizen of this world. You belong to an eternal family. Shouldn't you be willing outwardly to identify with the visible gathered members of that group to which you eternally belong?
Church membership is an issue of obedience, fellowship, authority, identity. Fifthly, it's an issue of loyalty. It is an issue of loyalty. We're like a family. I love loyalty. In fact, I can't think of anything I like better than loyalty. I love the fact that God is loyal to His own and Christ is loyal to His own. I love the fact that believers are loyal to one another and loyal to the Lord. Loyalty was what Jerry was singing about this morning when he said, "Though my foe may slay me, I will serve the Lord." There's no way you can take my loyalty away. And believers are called to be loyal to Christ and loyal to each other.
But that isn't how people think today. People don't say, "You know, I probably ought to go to church tonight because there might be somebody there who would need me. There might be somebody there I could pray for. There might be somebody there I could sit with and sing hymns, praise to God. I better go tonight because it might encourage the pastor that I'm there and I better go because the Spirit of God might have something to say to me that's going to make my life more effective as a witness to the people around me. You know, I really need to be there because there are going to be people there who probably have burdens and maybe I'll run into one of them, they'll share it with me and I'll need to know it so I can pray about it." We don't think like that. We say, "Well, let's see...shall we go to dinner over here or shall we go to church? Well, we could go visit Aunt Martha over there, you know, she'll leave us in the will if we show up enough times...or whatever." We just grieve in our hearts who are pastors at the disloyalty of so many people. They're loyal to their own interest but they're certainly not loyal to the interest of others, the needs of others and the gathered church.
Listen to Ephesians 2...yes, verse...well I'll start at verse 19, "So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens." We're not just floating around out there. "But you are fellow citizens with the saints and you're of God's household." Wow. Part of a family. We've tried to raise our family to understand family loyalty. You never do anything that violates family loyalty. These are the people God has given you. These are the most precious people in your world. These are the people you need most. These are the people that mean the most. These are the people that offer the most to you. Family is a precious thing and you need to be loyal. There should never be rivalries within the family or animosity in the family...it's too precious. We need each other. It's a difficult world. You don't want to ever alienate your children from their grandparents. You don't want to alienate brothers and sisters because they need each other. And in the spiritual dimension that is so true. How crucial it is to realize we're God's family and there needs to be a high level of loyalty to that family.
I come because I want the fellowship, because I want to be with you, I want to be with God's people. It isn't just that I want to speak to you, it is that I want to be a part of your life, that I sense a loyalty to family. You're sitting at home maybe saying, "Well, you know, we can always get the tape." That's a selfish approach, isn't it? If he says anything on the tape worth hearing, we'll hear it...it will show up in a book or somewhere. That isn't the idea. This is a family and we meet and you're part of the family. And you give yourself in loyalty to the needs and interests and the heart cries of the others.
Sixth, it's a ministry issue or service issue. All the spiritual gifts function in the church. The church is the place where spiritual gifts are to be ministered. It's what the New Testament calls the fellowship of serving. Unselfish love will make you serve. You come to serve. You say, "I want to go cause I might be able to talk to somebody, I might give them counsel out of the Scripture...I've been reading a book on this and maybe somebody will need the answers that I've gained from this book...maybe I'll be able to pray with somebody...maybe I'll be able to encourage somebody, or comfort somebody, maybe my spiritual gifts can be used, whether it's a gift of preaching or teaching or a gift of helps or a gift of giving or a gift of instruction...whatever that spiritual gift might be." That all goes on in the church.
You see, we're here as apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastors and teachers, as Ephesians 4:11 says, for the perfecting of the saints for the work of service. We're here simply to pour our lives into you so you can serve each other. That's how the whole thing works. That's how a body works, right? It just ministers to itself. It mutually meets all the needs of all the parts so it functions perfectly.
It grieves me that people can be involved in a church superficially and have no ministry. They can be very busy in a whole lot of stuff that's going to burn, perish and have absolutely no heart for what will alone last forever.
I have a hero, a real hero in my life. His name is Epaphroditus and Philippians chapter 2 tells about him. Paul says, verse 25, "I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus...listen to this...my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier." Here was a man who had come alongside the Apostle Paul and served with him. He is a servant to my need, he says. And he said the reason I'm sending him because...verse 26...he was longing for you all and was distressed because you had heard that he was sick. He was upset not because he was sick but because he thought they'd be upset because they found out he was sick. What a compassionate selfless man. Indeed...verse 27 says...he was sick to the point of death. He almost died. But God had mercy on him and not on him only but on me, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. If there's one guy I didn't want to lose it was him.
How did he get sick? Verse 30, "He came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was deficient in your service to me." He almost killed himself in service. Boy, that's a far cry from what many people, most people are willing to do. He almost killed himself in serving someone else. Did he ever preach? I don't know, none of his sermons are recorded. Did he ever have the front? I don't know. I don't know if he ever said anything profound, significant or life changing but whatever he did on a personal...I mean to a large group...but whatever he did on a personal level was life changing and Paul couldn't imagine anything but sorrow upon sorrow if he wasn't there. That's how he had endeared himself to Paul by being a servant. It is an issue of ministry. Belonging to the church is an issue of sharing your life and your spiritual gift and pouring yourself into the needs of others. Service. This is the place for that. This is where that happens.
And we always say that. When you become a part of the church you're saying I'm ready to serve. And when you don't become a part of the church you're saying I don't want to serve. Don't get me into that, I don't want responsibility. Well listen, you're also going to miss privilege and blessing and joy and peace and fulfillment and eternal reward.
And then seventh and lastly, it is a...it is a witness issue. It is an evangelistic issue. You know, I just grieve in my heart sometimes when I ask myself...what do people in the world think Christians are? Just these floating people who sort of call themselves Christians and just kind of wander around out there and say, "Well, I'm a Christian," and somebody says, "Well, what church do you belong to?" "Well, I'm a free Christian, I just..." It's like a range chicken, you know, they...whatever those are. "I just sort of float around and..." You know, it's a wonderful thing in this community after all these years to be able to say, "Well, you know, I go to Grace Community Church," because there's a platform of credibility in this community for the years of ministry that this church has had that's going to cause some people to say, "Oh, I know." It was wonderful the testimony of Robert Logistrom(?) who died of AIDS and was saved out of the homosexual community. He had asked somebody, "Where can I go? I'm going to die of AIDS, I need help. Where will I go?" And I don't even know who he asked, somebody in the homosexual world. And they said, "Well, if you're really serious, there' a place called Grace Community Church."
We had at our Christmas concert thousands of people. And through the years they've come and they know we proclaim Christ, right? They don't have any question about that. They know exactly where we stand. And when you identify with us, you identify with what they understand to be our message. They know.
John 13:34 and 35, Jesus said, "By this shall all men know that you're My disciples if you have love one for another." They're going to...your witness is going to be believable on the basis of your relationships. First Corinthians 14:24 and 25, an unbeliever comes into the assembly, he hears the Word being proclaimed, he sees you worshiping, he falls on his face, he repents.
I remember a lady was going to the synagogue down here on a Saturday...no, on a Sunday. She was going to what they call...they have sort of a Sunday training thing and so she was going there and she saw this huge crowd coming down here...she told me all this. And she said, "I thought this must be a better deal than that one cause all these people are going down here." So she got in the flow from the synagogue parking lot. Parked her car in the synagogue parking lot and got in the flow to Grace Church. Came down here, was saved and baptized. Now I...she said to me when she was being baptized that before we were talking she said, "You know, I never heard a word you said in that sermon." She said, "But I was overwhelmed at the love and I was overwhelmed at the worship. I was overwhelmed at the singing. I was overwhelmed at these people who obviously knew God and knew what they believed and were affirming all of that." And it took a matter of two or three weeks and she turned from Judaism to embrace her Messiah and was saved and baptized.
First Peter chapter 2 verse 9 says, "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation." I love that. You are a nation. You are a group, "A people for God's own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." Here we are collected together proclaiming the reality of Christ. This is powerful. I mean, imagine an unbeliever who just goes into a little sort of dead church, half filled with indifferent people and what he assumes to be their relationship with their God. Very different. We have a tremendous impact in a collective testimony here. When we gather together on a Sunday night, and unbelievers come, this church is filled with people excited to worship God, to exalt Christ and to be a part of the gathered fellowship, that says volumes to that person. Much more than our cleverness and ingenuity could ever say...much more.
There's reality here. We don't need to dramatize, we just need to show you reality. Not becoming a member, obedient to the scriptural standard, not fellowshipping faithfully with other Christians, not submitting to the applied authority of the Word taught by pastors and teachers, not being willing to identify with Christ and Christ's own, not being eager to accept the rich privileges of family in its loving loyalty is sin. And not joining the church is saying I don't want to serve the only institution that Christ ever built. And not joining the church hampers our witness because it shows a lack of non-commitment on the part of people who name the name of God. How wonderful can Christ be if we're not even committed to be associated with His church? Commitment in a day like today is so crucial.
Now you're saying, "But you're talking about our church?" Sure because you come here. If you're part of another church and you're involved and you're a member of another church and you're faithful to that church, you be faithful as long as they're faithful to the Word of God. But I'm telling you that Grace Community Church is an unusual church and God has brought you here and God has blessed this church uniquely.
You say, "Well, the problem with this church is it's too big." Too big for what? Too big for what? "Well I like a small church." Well look, they tell us you can only have 200 friends in your widest circle of friendship. Nice thing about Grace Church, you can pick the 200 you want. Shop around. The church too big for what? Too big for praise? Too big for glorious corporate worship, music? No. Too big for the preaching and teaching of the Word of God? No. Too big for training and discipling and nurturing of your children, your young people? No. Too big to reach out to the lost? Too big to reach the handicapped and disabled? Too big to reach the world through missions? No. This is a very unusual church. The reason it's big is because of what it is and that's what God has done.
This church has had and still has blessed people, loving, supportive, faithful, prayerful, kind, generous, dedicated people. I could leave and go to another church but I've never found a church that I would want to leave and go to.
You say, "Well if you went somewhere else you'd be the preacher." Yeah, but I'd still have to deal with the people. And you're the best I've ever met. Plus, I've had all these years to get you where you need to be, you know. And the thought of starting over again is paralyzing. People sometimes say to me, "Have you ever had a revival in your church?" And I say no, because we've never been dead...so what's to revive. I think we've been in it all along. We have high points and sometimes low points.
And this isn't the work of men. People ask me how do we do it and I don't know, I'm a spectator just like you. What Christians all over the world would love to experience of God's Word and God's power, we've lived through, haven't we? There are millions who would trade places with you. They've languished in dead places, praying for some movement of God's power. They've seen only glimpses of what we see in abundance. This is an extraordinary place. God has done it all. And I confess personally that myself along with the other caretakers of this church while we desire to be wise and godly men are frail and weak. And what has been done here has been done by God. And just because we fail and because we are weak doesn't make it less the work of God, it makes it more the work of God, right? Cause His power is perfected in our weakness.
If you want spiritual resources, they're here. Every imaginable opportunity for spiritual growth, development, training, ministry, it's all here. You just need to come to the table and be a part. It's really your church, not my church. I hear people say John MacArthur's church...this isn't my church, it's your church. I'm the servant serving this church, it's your church.
I wish I could tell you all the things the pastoral staff gave me this week. I had them turn in some little vision sheets and tell me all the things that they saw in the future in terms of ministry needs and opportunities, and it's just a tremendous thing. I don't have time to do that. But we have a glorious and marvelous future. The Lord has been faithful to this church. His hand is on this church. He's taken us through the good times and the hard times. He's brought us to the best of times right now. He's brought you this far to be associated with this church and it's time to belong, it's time to be a part. It really is.
This article is also available and sold as a booklet.
This sermon series includes the following messages:
Please contact the publisher to obtain copies of this resource.Publisher Information


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subset: commoncrawl


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Class A CDL Company Truck Driver (Teams) (York)
- Employer
- Super Service, LLC
- Location
- York, PA
- Posted
- Oct 13, 2017
- Closes
- Oct 16, 2017
- Function
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- Automotive, Delivery and Transportation
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- Experienced (Non-Manager)
- Hours
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text:
Terrence Malick became a critics' darling, a hot young director to watch, with his first two features, "Badlands" (1973) and "Days of Heaven" (1978). Then he disappeared for 20 years.
By the time he returned with "The Thin Red Line," he had become, not surprisingly, a cinema legend.
His 2011 "Tree of Life" was the best of four "recent" (i.e., within the last 15 years) efforts. A slightly disguised memoir of his youth, that film was almost a memory-driven time machine, making suburban Texas in the '50s so real, so tangible, that the viewer had the remarkable sensation of being there.
His new "To the Wonder" is stylistically so similar that some Malick fans might think of it as "Tree of Life 2"; sadly, it struck me as more like "Undernourished Sapling of Life" — a pale shadow of its predecessor. Malick's evocative visual style is not enough to carry us past the very slender — almost non-existent — story. I loved "Tree of Life," despite the voiceover of whispered prayers and religious questions, which fell just shy of being irritating. An almost identical voiceover here doesn't fall shy; no, it reaches, then far surpasses, mere irritation.
And of course this one doesn't have dinosaurs or exploding stars.
The central line running through "Tree of Life" was something like, "Dad could be scary, but now I realize the frustrations that fueled his anger, and Mom pulled us through by sheer grace, and I'm still working all that stuff out. Oh, and what is life all about, anyway?" In "To the Wonder," it's more like "I think I love my wife but maybe not and she's kinda crazy, and I like someone else but fatherhood would be cool. Oh, yes: and what is life all about, anyway?"
The story simply meanders as Neil (Ben Affleck) meets beautiful foreign single mom Marina (Olga Kurylenko), brings her and the kid back to the U.S., more or less drives them away and back to Europe, except they come back, and what ever happened to that other hot number (Rachel McAdams) Neil was consorting with in the meantime?
We really don't much care. Neil is a cipher, utterly opaque. This may partly be the fault of Affleck — he simply is not as powerful or skilled an actor as Brad Pitt — but it's more the fault of Malick's relation to his issues and the film's resultant muddled construction. It took him decades to come around to the realizations and attitudes in "Tree of Life"; perhaps 20 years from now, he'll have gotten a handle on his more recent history.
By one of those odd coincidences of distribution, Kurylenko also stars in this week's big science fiction actioner, the Tom Cruise vehicle "Oblivion." It would be a cheap shot to say that oblivion is where this misshapen epic is heading, so let's pretend I didn't write this sentence, OK?
It's 2077, and a war with invading aliens has left Earth uninhabitable. The remaining humans are building a colony on Titan, one of Saturn's moons, and Jack (Cruise) is part of a cleanup team — along with Victoria (Andrea Riseborough, also in the current "Disconnect") — maintaining the huge Earth-based generators — or something — and wiping out the Scavs, subhuman surface-dwellers. Then Julia (Kurylenko) seems to appear from Jack's dreams, and things get more and more baffling. To me, at least.
The semifinal big sequence intercuts current time — I think — with Cruise visually remembering a previous mission — I think — as he listens to the flight recorder. And then the dead walk again — I think.
Maybe I fried my brain sitting too close to the IMAX screen.
As directed by Joseph Kosinski ("Tron: Legacy"), "Oblivion" has one outstanding element — the cool mechanical designs of Jack's home base, his ship and his motorcycle. That, needless to say, is not enough.
ANDY KLEIN is the film critic for Marquee. He can also be heard on "FilmWeek" on KPCC-FM (89.3).


text: Ramadan, a holy time when more than a billion Muslims around the world fast and focus their attention on giving to charity, starts today. Most Muslims will direct their charitable gifts towards helping those stricken by poverty and hunger. Check out our site for a listing of highly rated charities which either work in countries with large Muslim populations or strive towards the alleviation of hunger.


text:
1. Why is the heuristic of doing the most expensive job first not optimal? Well, suppose that there are 5 jobs: 45 min, 40 min, 15 min, 11 min, 9 min and two machines. According to the heuristic, they should be scheduled this way m1: 45 min, 11 min m2: 40 min 15 min, 9 min But it would be better for m2 to do 11 and 9 when it's finished with the 40 minute job. Then all jobs would complete in 60 minutes rather than 64 minutes.
2. Order the items from longest to shortest. Put the trucks in a line. For each item, put it on the first truck on which it will fit. All trucks but one will be at least half full. Here is why: if any two trucks A and B are less than half full and A precedes B in line, then all the items on B would have gone on A or onto some other truck. So this is within a factor of two of the minimum possible number of trucks (possibly with one extra truck). In practice, it will usually be much better.
3. Go up and down the minimum spanning tree edges as shown in Figure 3. Since the minimum spanning tree costs no more than the optimal route, traversing every edge both ways cannot cost more than twice the optimal route. This can be improved by taking shortcuts as shown in Figure 4.
Further Reading
How to Solve It: Modern Heuristics by Z. Michaelewicz and D. Fogel, Springer Verlag, ISBN 3642061346.
Approximation Algorithms for NP-Hard Problems by Dorit Hochbaum, Brooks/Cole Pub Co; ISBN: 0534949681; 1st edition (July 26, 1996).


text:
Lisa Perry presented her autumn/ winter 2013 collection as NY fashion week kicks off today. Revlon Global Artistic director, Gucci Westman partnered with the designer to create retro chic makeup looks which offered a definite nod to the mod look made popular in the 60's.
Deep purples and cool blues were used for liner instead of black and a vibrant blue shadow was added to the look to create additional drama. The rest of the face was kept natural.
Here's a rundown of what Westman used:
Revlon PhotoReady Bronzer in Bronzed and Chic, $12.99
Revlon ColorStay 16H Eyeshadow Quad in Free Spirit from The Spring/Summer '13 Collection by Gucci Westman, $7.49 (available April 2013)
Revlon PhotoReady Primer and Shadow in Muse from The Fall '13 Collection by Gucci Westman, $9.99 (available October 2013)
Revlon ColorStay Liquid Eye Pen in Blackest Black, $8.99
Revlon ColorStay Eyeliner in Brown, $7.99
Revlon PhotoReady Kajal Intense Eyeliner + Brightener in Blue Nile, $8.99 (available June 2013)
Revlon Fantasy Lengths Maximum Wear Glue-On Lashes in Intensifying and Wispy (depending on model), $5.49
Revlon PhotoReady 3D Volume Mascara in Blackest Black, $8.99
Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter in Sugar Frosting, $7.49
Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter in Cupcake $7.49
Revlon ColorStay Longwear Nail Enamel in Provence, $7.99
For more details visit http://www.revlon.com


text:
Water Resistant LED Light Strip
Yellow – 5M
As part of our shop clean-up, we have various odd-n-ends that we are offering at clear out pricing.
Stock is extremely limited normally to one single piece.
Water Resistant LED Ribbon Strips. We have a special purchase on a limited supply of water resistant LED ribbon strips. These are factory coated with a clear epoxy making them a great solution for moisture prone areas. One a few of each color is in stock and they are priced to sell quick.
Designed for the average home owner as well as lighting professionals, flexible LED strips can be used for architectural lighting, sign letter lighting, concealed lighting, perimeter lighting, in campers and trailers for low-cost high-efficiency lighting, in cars for accent lighting, in your firearms or gun safe to light up your possessions – the possibilities are endless. They are a cool and efficient way to decorate tables, TV rooms, display cases, and closets. They can also function as eye catching special effects at stores and expo booths. The strips feature an adhesive backing (3M Double-Sided tape) allowing for self-adhesion to non-porous surfaces.
Each length of 1m (39.4-inch) contains 60 LEDs with this being 5m, there are a total of 300 LEDs.
Frequently Asked Questions:
- Can I Run This On a 9v Battery: The LED strip will run on DC voltages from 9v to 14v. It will run with a 9v battery but the intensity will not be as bright. It is suggested that you run shorter lengths of the LED ribbon to conserve battery life. Operation on a 12v battery such as a car battery are totally fine.
- Can I Use This With a Wall Adapter for Power: Yes, a DC wall adapter will run the LED display just fine (see our power adapter here). Keep in mind that the current draw for 5m is approximately 2A (2000mA), so ensure your adapter can supply 12v at 2A. Because the ribbon is can be trimmed in shorter lengths, you can customize the length and power requirements. The ribbon can be trimmed every 5cm (1.97") which gives you three LEDs – the current draw for three LEDs is only 20mA, so if you wanted a shorter length, you can trim the ribbon down in size. If you were to customize a length to say 20cm, this would have 12 LEDs and would draw only 80mA of current at 12v.
- Will This Work In My Car/Truck/Motorhome or Trailer: Yes, the LED ribbon is fantastic for use in mobile applications. Because they run on 12v and draw very little current, they are absolutely great substitutes for standard lighting applications. Remember the LED Ribbon also have an adhesive backing on them to aid in mounting, such as under-counter, stairways, walkways, etc.
Yellow Water Resistant LED Light Strip
5m Length - 12v - 14v DC
- Product Code: Water Resistant LED Light Strip 5M - Yellow
- Availability: In Stock
Related Products
Tags: led, ribbon, white, warm white, blue, red, green, flexible, light, strip, water resistant


text:
Southeast Asia
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text:
My opinions on this series and in fact this season have not exactly made me Mr. Popular. It's a good thing that was never a goal in doing this for me even in the times my views were or are popular. I think regardless of what people think of my thoughts and ideas it gives me some sense of consistency and credibility. What exactly am I getting at with all of this? I have as most people are aware have not picked the Raptors to win this series. Heading into game 4, as I said the last time I wrote about this series it had gone to script.
All of this said the level of how impressed I was with the Raptors play in game 4 is beyond words for me to express in some ways. The fact that Amir Johnson and DeMar DeRozan were at the core of the Raptors best effort in this series by far makes me smile. The Raptors won game 4 by fixing one of many issues they have had in this series but it may have been the most important one. They took control of the game early and built a large lead.
Yes they would let that led completely go away and the Nets would take the lead at some point in the third. The thing was the Raptors had more energy to fight back having not had to expend as much when they were in control of the game. People try and make this game far more complicated than it actually is with all of their analysis. They want to appear to be smart and know more than you. Keep in mind these were the same people that gave the Raptors no chance to be good this season. None of us did if we are being completely honest.
What has got this team to this point is a lot of heart and effort and self believe. They fought through injuries in this game and showed an inner toughness that they may have even not been aware they had. The ability to be able to do that had its root in the there great play in the first half.
This was far from a perfect performance they still continue to be far too sloppy with the ball and far too dependent on three point shots that are not falling. The Raptors need to attack this team and smack them in mouth if we have learned nothing in this series other than one thing it is the Raptors have an advantage inside. K.G is an old dog whose bark now far exceeds his bite at this point in his career. They need to go at the Nets and attack again and again. This will help with another problem that has been far overblown.
The conspiracy theorists want to desperately believe that the Raptors are being hard done by the NBA and its officials. I would humbly suggest to you with events going on in L.A with the Clippers and trying to find out how to deal with something far great than the result of any basketball game. Adam Silver is dealing with how to get rid of racist owner that is an embarrassment to everyone that considers themselves a NBA fan. We all should not be proud of what Adam Silver did today,he only did what was the obvious thing to do. We should instead wonder why we all stood by and accepted someone that we all were pretty aware was a suspected racist be an owner in this league for over 30 years. We should be concerned that legally he likely can keep ownership of that franchise and profit from the work of people he clearly sees as lesser than him.
If you think that racism does not exist in this world you are fooling yourself. The problem with this politically correct world that we live in is people are afraid to express how they truly feel. So they hide in the shadows not saying anything. The United States elected a black president and it was seen as historic moment and great step in race relations for the United States. It was a tremendous moment and one I will remember even as a Canadian till the day that I die. But it did not bring an end to racism anymore than what Adam Silver did today. While Adam did the right thing and it was a big moment in his first few months on the job it didn't solve the problem or address how it was allowed to happen in the first place. We all own a piece of that blame by turning a blind eye to something we had been made aware of. We also should not feel this is a problem solved and it is time to move on.
I care deeply about civil rights and one of the people that were part of that struggle that I respect the most was Malcolm X. If he had survived to be alive today I seriously doubt he would deem today as any kind of success. This was just a realization of a failure that had not been addressed for far too long. Here is the harsh reality that most people don't want to address but if not for TMZ the reality is Mr. Sterling would still be the owner of the Clippers and sitting court side for game 5 of the Clippers vs. Warriors series.
So what was it that started that whole conversation again? Oh right the NBA being out to screw Canada and the Raptors as some evil plan that is formed in the offices of New York City. A secret conspiracy with all the refs that the NBA employs to make sure the Canadian team doesn't win the series.
To say I think all of people moaning and complaining about officiating is completely laughable is a huge understatement. The simple reality is the refs have not been as good and consistent for both teams in this series. There were four straight calls against Brooklyn in the close to game 4. Was anyone complaining about them at that time? Not really no because that kind of kills the whole idea of the evil refs being real.
Raptors fans are loud and passionate but when you turn that passion to anger towards the refs that is not helping the Raptors or doing them any favours. The Raptors do themselves no favours by complaining about and losing focus on the task at hand to beat the Nets. When you let the refs enter into the equation now you are battling your own thoughts and the other team. It also makes you not focused on the task at hand. Do your job and let the chips fall where they may. If the Raptors take the advice I said and play aggressive and attack the basket that is the best way they can handle things. Put it on the refs to do their job and if they do, things should take care of themselves.
I mentioned my love and admiration of both Amir Johnson and DeMar DeRozan. I love them as people and never once did the colour of their skin matter to me. Just like in high school one of my best friends was half black but for me he was just my friend Chris.
I watched a bit of the most recent edition of Open Court and saw how much DeMar truly loves his daughter. I hope and pray for a world for that little girl that doesn't see colour and treats her like anyone else. Likely she will be ok to some extend by having a father with the money to give her a good life. Still the amount of money you have, the job you have or any other thing doesn't change the fact that we still live in a world that is not as tolerant as we want it to be.
You can bury your head in the sand to that or you can wake up to the fact we may think we have come along way but we really haven't come as far as we think. Paul Jones said today that whole matter of racism is a marathon and it takes a long time to finish a marathon. The one way you can't finish that marathon is to stop running.
So yes this series is a big deal in a certain context. In another it really is just a game and there are bigger and more far reaching things in life. It really isn't worth cursing a city because they happen to be your opponent. I have had a lot of things change for me in this season in how I view a great many things.
This is supposed to be fun but in a lot of ways at least for me it hasn't been. I am different and unique from a lot of folks. I don't see the world the same as a lot of people. But at the core of everything I am, it comes down to some simple things. I am honest and say what I feel is the truth. I am loyal to the people that have earned my loyalty. I respect all people that respect me regardless of who they are or what colour they maybe.
The Raptors have an opportunity to win this series. Regardless of the outcome they have earned some respect. They may not being playing as well as they should in this series but their effort can not be questioned. Regardless of what the future holds beyond this season this is a special group of people. A group that is made up of people from many places and cultures all working together for a common goal. That can happen on a basketball floor making it happen in the world as whole is far more difficult.
If Only The World Was As Easy To Understand As The Raptors and Basketball Can Be
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Thank you for this blog. That's all I can say. You most definitely have made this blog into something thats eye opening and important. You clearly know so much about the subject, youve covered so many bases. Great stuff from this part of the internet. Again, thank you for this blog."ReplyDelete
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I don't doubt that you could get close or get a pretty good grasp of the matter. I mean, if the sound "ga" is transliterated into contemporary Chinese and Korean sources with a related sound, that would give you some clues -- or if some contemporary source stated that the Japanese look like they're swallowing a bowl of rice when they utter the sound ... You would still only be arriving at an approximation.
Quote from: ialmisry on July 03, 2011, 08:40:53 AMAnd yes, we do know what chi, rho and gamma sounded like.Isa, the failing might be mine, but I just don't see how this is remotely possible.It wouldn't matter how many "related" sounds in other languages sound like the Japanese "ga" or how many descriptions of what the lips look like when the sound is uttered are discovered, without actually hearing the sound pronounced, you cannot really know what it sounds like.
And yes, we do know what chi, rho and gamma sounded like.
By the way, I really appreciate the scholarship in this thread and would not dare to attempt to answer it. My objection is more of a philosophical one than a linguistic one.
Someone speaking the reconstructed pronunciation could actually be understood by an Ancient Greek. There is some question on whether an Ancient Greek would recognize the "received pronunciation" as Greek, let alone understand it.
The Episcopallian road is easy and wide, for many go through it to find destruction. lol sorry channeling Isa.
In addition to pursuing the reconstruction of Koine, use of the reconstructed Attic accent at times aids learning. Even if some vowels had shifted by the time of the New Testament, learning words according to their Attic pronunciation helps remember spelling. For students of Modern Greek, spelling is not easy when you have so many vowels that are all pronounced alike. And as I said, morphophonemic alterations only make sense if you're aware that phi, chi and theta were originally aspirated stops and not fricatives.
Even the Church has maintained anachronistic details for the sake of avoiding ambiguity in texts. Think of all the various meanings of a single eta depending on what diacritic(s) it has. My editions of the Church Fathers all notate the Classical Greek pitch accent (acute, grave, circumflex) and rough or smooth breathings, even though this system had almost certainly changed before the birth of Christ.
Quote from: ialmisry on July 03, 2011, 06:20:00 PMSomeone speaking the reconstructed pronunciation could actually be understood by an Ancient Greek. There is some question on whether an Ancient Greek would recognize the "received pronunciation" as Greek, let alone understand it.But they're all dead, so who cares? (this is a serious question, not being flippant).When I read ol'school Japanese, I read the characters in my head as if they were pronounced according to modern readings. Most of the time, it won't make any difference how the ancients pronounced the characters, because they are all dead. However, by doing it this way, I could read the text to any modern speaker of Japanese and the meaning could be understood. Surely this is advantageous?The best argument I can think of in favour of the reconstructed pronunciation is that it is so heavily entrenched in the West that it would be a bit too much trouble to change now. All the Koine speakers in the West understand each other when they speak in the reconstructed pronunciation and the whole point of a spoken language is to make yourself understood. If the reconstructed pronunciation had never taken root in the West, I believe my argument would be even stronger.All pronunciations are ultimately arbitrary, are they not? We could all agree to pronounce Koine according to the rules of elvish and as long as we all agreed to do so we could understand each other.
Btw, no one, for instance uses Old Church Slavonic reconstructed pronunciation, which would be unintelligible. Except in learning paradigms and philological discussion.
Quote from: ialmisry on July 03, 2011, 09:03:02 PMBtw, no one, for instance uses Old Church Slavonic reconstructed pronunciation, which would be unintelligible. Except in learning paradigms and philological discussion.I suppose you're talking about Church Slavonic. Old Church Slavonic would be spoken aloud purely among historical linguists, and we do use the reconstructed pronunciation for it.
A reconstructed pronunciation for Church Slavonic is hardly necessary, since Church Slavonic already reflects the major changes that led to the modern Slavonic languages, namely the disappearance of the reduced vowels and shift to a stress-based accent.
I do hear that some isolated traditions maintain nasal vowels, though.
I was just responding to the claim that Greek doesn't operate like every other human language.
Apologies to Volnutt for hijacking his thread!PS: have you considered which language will contribute more to your style/coolness points?
Christ my God, set my heart on fire with love in You, that in its flame I may love You with all my heart, with all my mind, and with all my soul and with all my strength, and my neighbor as myself, so that by keeping Your commandments I may glorify You the Giver of every good and perfect gift. Amen.
If you were to ask 100 average Americans on the street if they could tell you about the following words -- divine condescension, providence, atonement, ascetic, salvific, cruciform, prelapsarian, ascension, beseech, prostration, ecumenical, eschaton, anchorite, presbyter, ineffable, incarnate, begotten, sanctified, etc -- I guarantee that the majority would know very little of them. Many people would know absolutely none. Studies show that levels of literacy and especially religious literacy are extremely low.The point being: Everyone has to learn theological vocabulary to understand the liturgical services, including native speakers of English worshiping in English. The language of Orthodox worship is poetic, theologically rich, and substantially more sophisticated than average speech. That's a real and significant barrier to many people, young and old. Overcoming it requires education, exposure, and effort. Such is true, in my experience, of most Greeks. Those who are (a) educated and/or (b) spend a lot of time in Church don't have much trouble understanding the Divine Liturgy and common liturgical hymns. As long as you overlook the priestly prayers, the vocabulary and syntax of the fixed parts of the Divine Liturgy are relatively simple.
no matter which one you learn, Greek is a difficult language to learn.But this web site might help.http://www.greek-language.com/Learn-Greek-2.html
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You are heavenly delightful, gloriously beautiful, and absolutely wonderful. Yes you, you who are reading this. You're gorgeous, both inside and out. You're perfect. You're created by Sacred Geometry, by the laws of form that define the creation of everything, from the atomic structure of a single cell, to the galaxies in the cosmos. From the nautilus to the rose, from the lotus to the stars, from music to emotions. You are made of the same formula. Yes, you with the rolls of fat and me with unruly, curly white hair; you with the burns and me with the marks; us with our short legs, dark skin, big feet, boney arms and open pores; with our stutters and our wheelchairs; single, childless, gay, divorced, abused; us who can't cook, sing, drive or count; us who hear we are difficult, defiant, deviant and odd. We who are the other extreme of an ideal woman, us who don't fit any standards or norms, not even close to an average. We are Venus, goddesses of absolute beauty. You are Venus of Willendorf and I am Venus of Hohle Fels. You are Seraph, an angel with inextinguishable light; I am Sirena, whom only the really happy can hear and even fewer can see, I am as difficult to catch as human happiness. We're fractals of perfection, a little piece of everything that's right with the world. Yes, you, my divinely beautiful girl, are absolutely perfect. My God, you are paradise! From the farthest reaches of the cosmos to the atomic structure of a single cell within the body, the same laws of form and mathematics apply to everything in nature. A consistent language of geometric design underpins every level of the universe; everything in creation is based on specific patterns, energy blueprints, whether we speak of higher spiritual realities, psychological and behavioural patterns, energetic patterns, or actual structures in the physical world. This spiritual geometry is symbolic of the underlying metaphysical principle of our interconnectedness, inseparability and oneness; and provides us with a continuous reminder of our relationship to the whole.We are all created on the same geometric archetypes, we are each perfect fractals of the same whole; no matter how different our physicality and personality may be, we are essentially all exactly the same. 4 finger negative space ring that fits comfortable into your hand. Each motif is a fractal derived from the laws of sacred geometry; Star tertrahedron, Fibonacci Spiral, Path of Venus, etc.
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In my latest post about the iframe attack that used free domains from dynamic DNS hosting providers that pointed to a network of compromised dedicated server, I asked readers for any additional information they know about this attack. A few day later I received this email:
Hi there.
Since this may I am watching this network (I named it "quicksilver") after two PCs/users ran into cn-8080-iframe-modified websites. Using only "white hat" instruments (dig, whois, malzilla, VMWare, google and my brain ;) ) I was able to collect information about the basic frame of this network.
It is not a simple botnet – it combines three networks with different functions to form a "malware superstructure".
Nearly everything in this network is constantly moving (thus the name) and uses compromised machines acting as proxies or slaves. The machines of the real black hats are movable themselves – the older "gumblar" network (which i think is a precursor to quicksilver) used an ukrainian c&c-server with a different ip address.
At the end of the email, the reader said that he had a chart of this network and asked me if I wanted to take a look at it. The information looked interesting so I asked if he would like to publish it on my blog and got his permission:
you have my explicit permission to publish everything I send you – anonymously. Although I have a name and a title, the only thing relevant is to unmask those networks.
So here it is. I've published the story as is. I just added some formatting and converted the chart to GIF format to avoid PDF security concerns.
Continue »»


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By KATHRYN FLAGG
ADDISON COUNTY — Talk of a congress and "community organizers" might bring to mind national politics — but for the planners behind this year's Addison County Conservation Congress, a daylong summit slated to take place later this month at Mount Abraham Union High School, those words ring true a little closer to home.
The Oct. 25 event, sponsored by the Addison County Relocalization Network (ACoRN) and Vermont Family Forests (VFF), aims to bring together anywhere between 150 and 300 county residents to dig into this year's theme: "Addison County in Transition: Visioning Our Community in 2020 and Mapping the Next Steps to Get There."
The day aims to do exactly what its title calls for: dream up a portrait of the county in 12 years, and begin work on the roadmap necessary to make that vision a reality.
That lofty goal is a departure from the country conservation congresses of the past, which started in 1992, explained David Brynn, a forester with VFF. After five annual meetings, organizers took a hiatus from the project — a break that ended up lasting 10 years.
Brynn and other planners revived the meetings last year. But according to Brynn, this year's congress signals a paradigm shift for the event.
"The first six were about finding controversial conservation issues that we could deliberate and argue about in a supportive setting," Brynn explained. "The idea was really to debate them and not necessarily to reach any consensus but to get things out in a respectful environment."
This year's congress, the seventh, focuses more on the human community, and the future Addison County's residents can create for themselves in the face of three major challenges: peak oil, climate change, and the financial crisis.
ADDISON COUNTY — Look for parents in Addison County and around the state this week sporting buttons that declare "This employee made possible because of daycare" and "Support Vermont's economy, support quality childcare."
These parents, along with other allies of early child development programs, are doing their best to draw attention to the necessity for up-to-date subsidies for families struggling to meet steep childcare costs, as well as the importance of available quality childcare in the state.
Organizers are calling the weeklong event a "virtual strike" — a sort of "what if" question. What if early childcare and education programs weren't available? What if these programs, on which hundreds of parents in the county depend, were to close for the day?
The strike, coordinated by the Kids Are Priority One Coalition, kicks off Tuesday and runs through Saturday. According to Susan Hackett, the local coordinator for the strike and the regional director for a children's advocacy group called Building Bright Futures, almost 1,000 buttons have been distributed to parents and allies around the county.
Organizers hope that the buttons will raise awareness about the link between childcare and economic development, as well as draw attention to subsidy eligibility guidelines that some childcare advocates say are out-dated and insufficient.
"There is childcare assistance," said Ginny Sinclair, a referral specialist at Addison County Childcare Services. Sinclair helps families find childcare with one of the roughly 60 local home childcare providers or one of the county's three state-licensed centers.
Subsidies are based on a family's income, she explained, as well as a "service need" demonstrated if a parent is working, attending school full-time, or medically incapable of caring for a child at all times.
By JOHN FLOWERS
ADDISON COUNTY — Vermont State Police dispatchers at one of the state's four E-911 communications centers may soon stop fielding "non-emergency" calls for local police, rescue and fire departments due to the heavy volume of work they are now handling.
At issue are citizen calls made to local police departments' seven-digit phone numbers during times when the local dispatchers are not on duty. That's usually 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and Sundays, for most local departments.
During that time, anyone who calls — for example, the Middlebury police number at 388-3191, or Bristol police at 453-2533 — currently finds their call picked up by a VSP dispatcher in Rutland, who then directs it to the appropriate local public safety official.
But due to staffing issues, the VSP may stop taking those calls.
State police officials stressed the shift in policy would not have an impact on E-911 calls, and that the switch would not occur until the affected departments have found additional technology or manpower to field their own seven-digit calls at times when their local dispatchers are off duty.
Addison County officials this week were candid in their displeasure with news the VSP may soon drop the service, a move they said could cost communities plenty by forcing them to hire additional dispatchers or acquire pagers/cell phones through which to have calls automatically routed to officers in the field.
"As a police officer, I'm not crazy about this idea; as a taxpayer, I'm offended," said Bristol Police Chief Kevin Gibbs.
The proposed change would affect more than 30 police, fire and rescue agencies in Addison County, according to VSP Capt. Donald Patch, commander of the state police "C Troop," which includes the New Haven, Rutland and Shaftsbury stations.
MIDDLEBURY — Middlebury's Town Hall Theater has been nourishing the soul with quality entertainment since it officially opened its doors in July. The historic venue will take on the added role of nourishing the body beginning on Nov. 1, when it hosts the first in a series of Saturday "winter markets" that are slated to stretch until next spring.
The "Middlebury Winter Markets" are being spearheaded by the Addison County Localvores. Bay Hammond, a member of the localvores group, explained that Middlebury resident Kate Gridley informally floated the idea last year.
"She said, 'Wouldn't it be great to have access to local goods and foods throughout the year?'" Hammond recalled.
Others took a shining to the concept, to the extent that the localvores — affiliated with the Addison County Relocalization Network (ACoRN) — decided to explore the feasibility of a winter market. Hammond explained that the market could logically become an extension of the Middlebury Farmers' Market, though that organization has been very busy with its summer/fall offerings each Wednesday and Saturday in the Marble Works.
"Our main goal was to just get (a winter market) up and started," Hammond said of the localvores' role this year. "It seemed like the time was right. There are a lot of winter markets popping up all over the state."
Localvores found willing partners in the THT and its executive director, Douglas Anderson.
"(Anderson) loved the idea," Hammond said. "We have been working hard to set up dates."
Organizers believe the THT space will accommodate around 18 vendors, who are likely to sell types of produce with a longer shelf-life (potatoes, garlic, various herbs), as well as frozen meats, baked goods, prepared foods, breads and crafts.
BRIDPORT — Jill Vickers' recollections of Afghanistan had been of a proud, resourceful population working hard to get by in a foreboding yet majestic setting.
But Vickers' vivid memories, culled from a stint as a Peace Corps worker in Afghanistan from 1969-1971, had become clouded this decade — not as much from the passage of time as by TV footage of bombings and some media portrayals of Afghans as terrorists.
"Afghanistan is a place where terrorists live and thrive? This was not our experience," Vickers said of her and her colleagues' recollections of Afghanistan, where they had scoured the countryside inoculating people in small towns against smallpox.
The Bridport resident and her 16 fellow Peace Corps associates are now sharing memories of their experiences in a new documentary film titled "Once in Afghanistan." The recently completed 70-minute film was produced by Vickers and Jody Bergedick, the youth program coordinator for Middlebury Community Television (MCTV).
Set for its premier at Castleton State College's Casella Theater on Thursday, Oct. 16, at 3:30 and 7 p.m., "Once in Afghanistan" features heartfelt and poignant interviews with the 17 Peace Corps volunteers who are now spread throughout the country.
The film, which Vickers expects to air on MCTV at a later date and will be available on DVD, includes still photos of the vaccinators and 1960s-era footage of Afghanistan supplied by Middlebury resident Foster McEdward.
Vickers unwittingly planted the seeds for "Once in Afghanistan" in 2004, during a reunion with her former Peace Corps colleagues. Wanting a keepsake of the gathering, Vickers interviewed the women. She brought the footage back to Addison County and eventually into the MCTV studios. There, with Bergedick's help, she condensed the material into a seven-minute segment.
By JOHN FLOWERS
MIDDLEBURY — Construction crews last week were replacing ties and unloading new rail along sections of the railroad tracks stretching from Middlebury to Salisbury and from Proctor to Florence.
Meanwhile, rail officials last week also confirmed a "minor" derailment of a fuel car on tracks near the Woodbridge Condominiums on Sept. 5. David Wulfson, president of Vermont Rail, said the incident involved one car.
One set of wheels jumped the tracks, according to Richard Hosking, rail project manager for the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans).
"It was put back on (the tracks), and that was it," Wulfson said. "Those things happen all the time."
Fortunately, the incident did not nearly rise to the level of the multi-car derailment that occurred almost exactly a year ago on tracks near Merchants Row in downtown Middlebury. Fourteen fuel-laden cars and three carrying rock salt tipped over during that Oct. 22, 2007, incident.
Hosking said the Sept. 5 incident was small enough that it did not warrant notification of local emergency response teams.
"It wasn't due to track conditions," Hosking added. "It was like blowing a tire on a car."
Still, some Middlebury residents living in homes near the tracks said they get little comfort from the term "minor" being used in the same sentence with "derailment."
Fred Barnes, a resident of the Woodbridge Condominiums, said he went to the scene of the Sept. 5 derailment when workers were jacking the car back onto the tracks at 3 a.m.
"We are told this is not dangerous," Barnes said. "But whenever we go a step closer to the tanker falling over and spilling gasoline, we are increasing the probability of disaster.
ADDISON COUNTY — FairPoint Communications plans to bring full broadband Internet coverage to Middlebury, Salisbury and Vergennes by the end of 2010, marking the complete coverage of high-speed Internet access for all of Addison County.
The other two telephone and Internet service providers in the county — Waitsfield Champlain Valley Telecom, which serves towns in the northern and eastern part of Addison County, and Shoreham Telephone, which serves towns in the southwest quadrant of the county — have already established full broadband access for their service areas.
MIDDLEBURY — Developers of a proposed small-scale hydro operation at the Otter Creek Falls in Middlebury recently filed the requisite state and federal permit applications for their project, and have shifted their focus back to becoming a wholesale producer of electricity rather than an exclusive provider of power to portion of the town and Middlebury College.
Anders Holm, whose family is spearheading the project, said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is reviewing a preliminary application for the project, while the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) is determining whether the plan can receive a water quality permit.
"Our preliminary FERC application has been accepted. That's in, and we're getting as much information as we can about the specifics of the site at this time, still looking at how much power it's going to make," Holm said on Thursday. "The preliminary application is just letting FERC know that there is ongoing interest in the site and we are doing some of the preliminary steps and they can expect more information from us in the future."
The plan includes a water turbine that would harness electricity from the creek as it flows through a flume under a building (owned by the Holms) that borders the south side of the Otter Creek Falls. The project also includes a powerhouse, a penstock of approximately 120 feet long by 7.5-feet in circumference, and a transmission line of around 500 feet.
In an effort to expedite the ANR's review of the project, Holm has asked the agency to review a previous, more ambitious hydropower project application that had been submitted by central Vermont Public Service Corp. (CVPS) for the same site around 20 years ago. The project was never implemented.
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text:
Safety Study of Talimogene Laheraprepvec Injected Into Hepatocellular Carcinoma and Metastatic Liver Tumors
*Trial for liver mets
*Talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) injected intrahepatically, into liver tumors, included metastases from CRC.
*Several locations: California, Kentucky, Missoury,New Jersey, Spain, Switzerland.
*Liver tumors must not be estimated to invade approximately more than one-third of the liver.
*Must have measurable liver tumors that are suitable for injection.
*Adequate hematological, renal, hepatic and coagulation function is required.
More info on the trial page https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02509507
Important: T-VEC is an APPROVED, SINCE 2015, IMMUNOTHERAPY FOR MELANOMA LESIONS. Very well known agent.
IMLYGIC® (talimogene laherparepvec) was the first oncolytic viral therapy approved in US, in 2015, for melanoma. Intratumoural injection on lesions.
"Talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) produced (Amgen) is a drug created from a genetically modified herpes virus, allowing it to not only directly attack the cancer cell, but to change the DNA of a tumor cell as well. The genetic modification to the tumor causes it to excrete a continuous stream of GM-CSF, an immune system "emergency signal." This attracts T-cells to the tumor in large numbers for as long as the tumor exists. As a treatment T-VEC has an impressive safety profile."