A Lifelong Journey with Islam
by Chawkat Moucarry

From childhood, I've been learning about—and witnessing to—Muslims.

How should Christians who have a passion for evangelization relate to Islam? For North Americans, the question took on new urgency in the wake of September 11. But Christians in Muslim-majority societies have dealt with the question far longer. Growing up Christian in Syria gave Chawkat Moucarry many opportunities to interact with Muslims and learn about Islam. In this installment of the Global Conversation, World Vision International's director of interfaith relations describes his commitment to both dialogue and mission.

I have never understood why some people look at dialogue and mission in either-or terms. In my experience, these words belong so much to each other that they should never be divorced. Evangelical Christians (whose theology I share) have shown an unwarranted suspicion of dialogue, simply because some have used it as a substitute for mission. Not only are the two words compatible, but they must shape each other.

I have always believed in God and Jesus Christ. Growing up in a Muslim-majority society, I knew as a child that I was different, and I gradually realized that this difference implied that I had something precious to share with my Muslim friends.

Read more at ChristianityToday

10 Ways to be Your Child’s Hero

1. You are their Superman
   Every child needs to feel secure. As their Dad, they look to you to provide that feeling at all times. When those little eyes look up at you, they see Superman. Live up to the hype.
   
   
2. Open your heart
   In society, men are expected to be strong. This is a good thing. However with your children, open all of yourself to them. Show them compassion, sympathy and forgiveness. They will, in turn, do the same with their kids when they grow up.
   
   
3. Love and respect your wife
   Your children will learn how men should behave from you. Treat your wife with gentle care and the utmost respect. You can’t love your wife perfectly, but your kids should never doubt your love for her. If your children are raised in a loving marriage, they have a great model for future relationships.

Read more at AllProDad

Review: Linux Mint 9 Isadora
http://cristalinux.blogspot.com/

Linux Mint 9 (codenamed Isadora) was released just two days ago, on May 18th. You can read the official ANNOUCEMENT from their site, which explains what the main changes/improvements are, as well as highlighting the most notable new features.

To begin with, I want to stress that Linux Mint 9 is derived from Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. As a result, it gets the best from the latest Ubuntu improvements, but also suffers from its shortcomings. This is something to keep in mind before installing Linux Mint 9 and something I have also taken into account when putting together this review. In other words, I won't go into those issues explicitly, but I recommend reading the full LIST OF KNOWN ISSUES, which is part of the Ubuntu 10.04 Release Notes.

The good news is that Isadora makes up for many of Ubuntu's mishaps while keeping the best of its strengths very much alive. Before you start reading the review, though, make sure you are ready for a healthy overdose of GREEN!

Read more at The Linux Experience

Gospel Intimacy in a Godly Marriage: an interview with Alan Dunn

In Reformed Baptist Fellowship on Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 11:59 am

Alan Dunn is a good friend, and one of the pastors of the Grace Covenant Baptist Church, Flemington, New Jersey, and has been since the church’s inception in 1985.  He is married to Patricia, and they have three sons and one daughter.  He has recently authored the book Gospel Intimacy in a Godly Marriage: A Pursuit of Godly Romance (Pillar & Ground Publications).  He has previously written a book on masculinity and femininity called Headship in Marriage: In Light of Creation and the Fall.

Gospel intimacy . . . hmmm.  To borrow a phrase: “Is this a kissing book?”

 No, and yes.  It is a “wuv, twue wuv” book.  I use the term “intimacy” to speak of the all-inclusive nature of the one-flesh relationship.  Marital intimacy entails a profound knitting of soul.  As we pursue soul intimacy with our spouse, we will inevitably foster physical intimacy as both kinds of intimacy feed into each other.  The book focuses on relational intimacy.  However, sexual intimacy, which is integral to marriage, will emerge from a wholesome relational intimacy.  If you’re asking, “Is this a book about sex?” I would say, “Yes, but it will improve that area of a relationship only as a result of cultivating a deeper intimacy of soul.”

Thank you for the explanation.  That being so, please can you give us a précis of the book?  What can we expect to find?

I’ve attempted to look at marriage in the light of who we are as men and women created in the image of God and as those redeemed by Christ and indwelt by His Spirit.  I consider marriage against the backdrop of the Bible’s large emphases on God, Creation, the Fall, and Redemption.  After I define the couple in terms of creation and redemption, I then consider the greatest challenge to marital intimacy: our sin.  Only the gospel can address the threat that sin poses to our marital intimacy, so we need to learn how to give each other “gospel love.”  We face other challenges to intimacy as well, such as who will take the lead, how to overcome our innate selfishness, how to cultivate wholesome communication patterns, and how to grow more intimate as we age and face the prospect of death.

Read more at Reformed Baptist Fellowship

Reinventing Date Night
By: Tara Parker-Pope in the New York Times


Long-married couples often schedule a weekly "date night" — a regular evening out with friends or at a favorite restaurant to strengthen their marital bond.

But brain and behavior researchers say many couples are going about date night all wrong. Simply spending quality time together is probably not enough to prevent a relationship from getting stale.

Using laboratory studies, real-world experiments and even brain-scan data, scientists can now offer long-married couples a simple prescription for rekindling the romantic love that brought them together in the first place. The solution? Reinventing date night.

Rather than visiting the same familiar haunts and dining with the same old friends, couples need to tailor their date nights around new and different activities that they both enjoy, says Arthur Aron, a professor of social psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The goal is to find ways to keep injecting novelty into the relationship. The activity can be as simple as trying a new restaurant or something a little more unusual or thrilling — like taking an art class or going to an amusement park.

The theory is based on brain science. New experiences activate the brain's reward system, flooding it with dopamine and norepinephrine. These are the same brain circuits that are ignited in early romantic love, a time of exhilaration and obsessive thoughts about a new partner. (They are also the brain chemicals involved in drug addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder.)

Read more at AllProDad.com

3 Tips To Enhance Your Interview Audio With Audacity

by Ryan Dube on May. 6th, 2010

I use the Audacity audio recording software to record and edit all of my interviews. My recording setup is about as simple as it gets – an Olympic earpiece that doubles as both a microphone and an earphone, so that I can hear the person on the phone while the microphone feeds the conversation into the laptop and Audacity. This works well, and produces high quality conversations, but like anything, there are flaws in the setup that produce less than optimum conditions.

The beauty of Audacity is that you have the capability to “fix” those flaws. The three most common problems that I’m going to touch on in this post are removing background noise, amplifying voices, and integrating quality introduction with music.

Read more at MakeUseOf.com

A Summary of the Gospel  
from Jeremiah Burroughs
http://www.ligonier.org/blog/summary-gospel/

The gospel of Christ is the good tidings that God has revealed concerning Christ. As all mankind was lost in Adam and became the children of wrath, put under the sentence of death, God, though He left His fallen angels and has reserved them in the chains of eternal darkness, yet He has thought upon the children of men and has provided a way of atonement to reconcile them to Himself again.

The second Person in the Trinity takes man’s nature upon Himself, and becomes the Head of a second covenant, standing charged with sin. He answers for it by suffering what the law and divine justice required, and by making satisfaction for keeping the law perfectly. This satisfaction and righteousness He tenders up to the Father as a sweet savor of rest for the souls that are given to Him.

And now this mediation of Christ is, by the appointment of the Father, preached to the children of men, of whatever nation or rank, freely offering this atonement unto sinners for atonement, requiring them to believe in Him and, upon believing, promising not only a discharge of all their former sins, but that they shall not enter into condemnation, that none of their sins or unworthiness shall ever hinder the peace of God with them, but that they shall through Him be received into the number of those who shall have the image of God again to be renewed unto them, and that they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

That these souls and bodies shall be raised to that height of glory that such creatures are capable of, that they shall live forever enjoying the presence of God and Christ, in the fullness of all good, is the gospel of Christ. This is the sum of the gospel that is preached unto sinners.

From Gospel Conversation (1657) and reprinted by Soli Deo Gloria. 

The Tension Over Doing It All
Why are women more unhappy than ever?
Halee Scott

I began with the best intentions. A few weekends ago, while my husband was working out-of-town, I planned to work at least 10 hours on my dissertation, crank out a 1,500-word article plus two blog posts, prep for some upcoming interviews, dissect a single chapter of John Paul's Theology of the Body with a friend, and finally read (and write a book review of) three other books in preparation for an upcoming speaking engagement. While this schedule may seem crazy and chaotic to some, for me this break-necked speed felt normal until just a little less than a year ago. Anything less and I felt unaccomplished and downright bored.

Enter my daughter, Little Miss Marathon, who, on her very best days, slept three to four hours straight and ate only the minimum required for her age. For the past six months (i.e. her whole life), we'd been trying to figure out ways to get her to sleep and eat—but it seemed that all she wanted to do was go, go, go. Her energy levels made even me feel like a century-old centipede. And all this came to a roaring head that particular weekend.

After 24 hours of my baby screaming, not sleeping, and fighting food at every turn, I finally decided to step back, relax, and let her decide how much she was going to eat and when. By Sunday, she was a new baby—both her eating and sleeping had regulated themselves into a more normal pattern. On one hand, I felt successful in my role as a mother because my baby was now comfortable and content; in another sense, I felt like a failure for not doing every single thing on my to-do list.

Read more at Kyria

10 Things to do to Help Your Marriage Feel Less Stressed

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” - The Serenity Prayer, attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr

Stress is fingered for a lot of health issues in America, among them heart disease, depression, hair loss, obesity, sexual dysfunction, ulcers and hypertension. Possibly its biggest negative impact, though, is felt in marriages where stress can cause interpersonal tension and dysfunctional relationships.

But there is good news! A lot of the stress we experience in marriage is avoidable - if only we understand what’s going on. Here are 10 things we can do to reduce the amount of stress in marriage:

1. Always put your spouse first: This is a HUGE principle and key to reducing relationship stress. Ideally, husband and wife both put the other first. But the only aspect you can control is you.

Read more at All Pro Dad

Good to Great to Godly

Corporate wisdom means "getting the right people on the bus," but spiritual leadership requires something more.

Mike Bonem | posted 4/05/2010

 

"We need more structure in our decision making. Without that discipline, we'll never accomplish anything."

"We're a church, not a business. We need to rely on God. We can't operate like the corporate world."

Ever been on one side or the other of this argument? Or perhaps in the middle? The tensions are present in most churches in America today. As corporate "best practices" are applied to church life, church leaders struggle to make sense of it all.

When I worked in business, Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras was one of a handful of keep-at-my-fingertips references. It identified factors that enabled organizations to achieve superior performance over the long haul. So it was with great anticipation that I went to a Leadership Network event where Collins was to speak. In his presentation, he described the research findings that led to his second book, Good to Great. He emphasized the importance of getting "the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus." Collins discovered that strategic direction was less important than having the right leadership team. If you have the right people, they will help define the future direction of the organization. If they're in the wrong positions but have great potential and fit well, you can move them to a "different seat on the bus." But when someone is wrong for the organization, whether due to personality clashes or lack of ability, hanging onto that person can drag the entire enterprise down. Collins concluded that we should focus on senior staff as a top priority.

I nodded my head in agreement. Even though my job was in the marketplace at the time, I was also consulting with churches on pastoral leadership issues. I knew the tendency of many churches to make excuses rather than confront underperforming staff members. I remember thinking, Wouldn't the church be much more effective for the Kingdom if we got the wrong people off the bus?

Little did I know that within a year I would join a church staff and gain first-hand opportunities to test this and other business principles as a church leader. I did not foresee the challenges I would encounter.

 

Read more at LeadershipJournal.net

Wet Oatmeal Kisses
By: Erma Bombeck
taken from All Pro Dad

One of these days you’ll explode and shout to all the kids,
“Why don’t you just grow up and act your age!”
And they will…

Or, “You guys get outside and find something to do –
without hurting each other. And don’t slam the door!”
And they don’t.

You’ll straighten their bedrooms
until it’s all neat and tidy,
toys displayed on the shelf,
hangers in the closet, animals caged.
You’ll yell, “Now I want it to stay this way!”
And it will…

You will prepare a perfect dinner
with a salad that hasn’t had all the olives picked out
and a cake with no finger traces in the icing
and you’ll say, “Now this is a meal for company.”
And you will eat it alone…

You’ll yell, “I want complete privacy on the phone.
No screaming, Do you hear me?”
And no one will answer.

No more plastic tablecloths stained
No more dandelion bouquets.
No more iron-on patches.
No more wet, knotted shoelaces,
muddy boots or rubber bands for ponytails.

Imagine…. a lipstick with a point,
no babysitters for New Years Eve,
washing clothes only once a week,
no PTA meetings or silly school plays where your child is a tree,
no car pools, blaring stereos or forgotten lunch money.

No more Christmas presents made of library paste and toothpicks,
no wet oatmeal kisses,
no more tooth fairy,
no more giggles in the dark,
scraped knees to kiss or sticky fingers to clean
Only a voice asking, “Why don’t you grow up?”
And the silence echoes: “I did.”

http://www.allprodad.com/playbook/viewarticle.php?art=402

Spotting a New Leader
Understanding the traits that can identify an effective leader.
Fred Smith

The most gifted athletes rarely make good coaches. The best violinist will not necessarily make the best conductor. Nor will the best teacher necessarily make the best head of the department.

So it's critical to distinguish between the skill of performance and the skill of leading the performance, two entirely different skills.

It's also important to determine whether a person is capable of learning leadership. The natural leader will stand out. The trick is identifying those who are capable of learning leadership over time.

Here are several traits to help identify whether someone is capable of learning to lead.

1. Leadership in the past. The best predictor of the future is the past. When I was in business, I took note of any worker who told me he was superintendent of a Sunday school or a deacon in his church or a Boy Scout leader. If he showed leadership outside of the job, I wanted to find out if he had some leadership potential on the job.

2. The capacity to create or catch vision. When I talk to people about the future, I want their eyes to light up. I want them to ask the right questions about what I'm talking about. The founder of Jefferson Standard built a successful insurance company from scratch. He assembled some of the greatest insurance people by simply asking, "Why don't you come and help me build something great?"

A person who doesn't feel the thrill of challenge is not a potential leader.

3. A constructive spirit of discontent. Some people would call this criticism, but there's a big difference in being constructively discontent and being critical. If somebody says, "There's got to be a better way to do this," I see if there's leadership potential by asking, "Have you ever thought about what that better way might be?"

If he says no, he is being critical, not constructive.

But if he says yes, he's challenged by a constructive spirit of discontent. That's the unscratchable itch. It is always in the leader.

People locked in the status quo are not leaders. I ask of a potential leader, Does this person believe there is always a better way to do something?

Read more at Building Church Leaders

Show a Little Dignity

A clear and gentle answer turns aside testiness.

Gordon MacDonald | posted 11/23/2009

Years ago I met a man who spoke of becoming enmeshed in a "multi-personed conflict" that spun out of control. An aggressive spirit of hate and vengeance saturated the attitudes and conduct of everyone involved.

When I asked how he resolved the mess, he mentioned a friend who confronted him and said, "Someone has to show a little dignity in this thing. It really should start with you." Apparently, it was the perfect rebuke, and it caused this man rethink his behavior and bring some sanity to the situation.

I've never forgotten that unusual phrase—to show a little dignity—and whenever I've faced testy situations where the next word or the next deed would either fan the flame of conflict or spread the oil of peace, the reminder that my dignity is in play has been helpful.

Testy situations? Here's a real-world example.

Read more at Leadership Journal

How To Make The Best Use Of God Mode In Windows Vista & 7
By Tim Lenahan on Jan. 21st, 2010

God Mode is an interesting name for it and perhaps it should be dropped. I say this for several reasons. First of all, it’s not true to its name because it really doesn’t do anything above and beyond what Windows Vista and Windows 7 allow us to do already. Secondly, the term “God Mode”, contrary to popular thought, does not really need to be part of the process.

That being said, God Mode is a title that it has acquired and therefore it is pretty widely known as such. The God Mode hack for Windows Vista and Windows 7 is a quick and easy way to make a panel that offers quick and easy access to quite the exhaustive list of Windows settings.

Read more at makeuseof.com

The Myth of the Perfect Parent

Why the best parenting techniques don't produce Christian children.

Leslie Leyland Fields | posted 1/08/2010 10:16AM

It is time to acknowledge there is only so much influence parents can have. Scripture has taught us this all along. We are not sovereign over our children—only God is. Children are not tomatoes to stake out or mules to train, nor are they numbers to plug into an equation. They are full human beings wondrously and fearfully made. Parenting, like all tasks under the sun, is intended as an endeavor of love, risk, perseverance, and, above all, faith. It is faith rather than formula, grace rather than guarantees, steadfastness rather than success that bridges the gap between our own parenting efforts, and what, by God's grace, our children grow up to become.

Read more at Christianity Today

The Primitive Scriptures

God’s Word is fundamentally clear, and fundamentally obscene

In the sixteenth century, the Reformers declared their total confidence in what they called the perspicuity of Scripture. What they meant by that technical term was the clarity of Scripture. They maintained that the Bible is basically clear and lucid. It is simple enough for any literate person to understand its basic message. This is not to say that all parts of the Bible are equally clear or that there are no difficult passages or sections to be found in it. Laymen unskilled in the ancient languages and the fine points of exegesis may have difficulty with parts of Scripture, but the essential content is clear enough to be understood easily. Luther, for example, was convinced that what was obscure and difficult in one part of Scripture was stated more clearly and simply in other parts of Scripture.

Read more at Next

10 Reasons to Love Windows 7

You'll probably have to move to Windows 7 at some point, but there's good news: Microsoft's new OS has lots of great features. Here's what we love -- and don't love.

By Gary Olsen 09/01/2009

Unless you've been stuck on a desert island for the last six months, you know that the big buzz is the impending release of Windows 7 and its partner, Windows Server 2008 R2.

Now, I'm a guy who hates change in the desktop. I always turn on the classic view and still run Windows XP on my laptop. I don't like having to re-learn where things are and how to do common tasks.

But with Windows 7, it was love at first byte. I've been running Windows 7 since March, and I can't wait for the official release next month. Of course, there are a few drawbacks to the new operating system, and I even have my doubts about some its most touted features. So, here are my top 10 reasons why you should move to Windows 7 -- and a few notes of caution.

Read more at Redmondmag.com

I'm testing audio streaming of our Sunday sermons. The first link uses mydatanest.com as the mp3 storage. The second link uses Google Sites.

SGBC Sermon Archive: Introduction to the book of Ecclesiastes

from mydatanest.com with max free storage of 2GB



from Google Sites with max free storage of 100MB:

How a Mighty Church Falls

What it takes to prevent congregational decline.

Gordon MacDonald | posted 11/29/2009

Churches and marriages have something in common: they are both organizations. One had better know how to run them. I didn't.

It was in those "awakening" days that I was introduced to my first organizational leadership book: The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker. It became one of the most important books I ever read. It opened me up to understand how people are empowered to attain objectives that are otherwise unreachable. That book probably delivered me from a first-round knockout in my life as a pastor.

Since that time more than 40 years ago, countless other writers have tried to improve upon Drucker's insights. In my opinion no one has succeeded quite like Jim Collins, who has given us books like Good to Great and Built to Last. I'm not sure that Collins had people like me in his crosshairs when he wrote those books, but many of us in faith-based and pastoral leadership have learned much from him.

Recently Collins and his team of researchers produced a smaller work titled, How the Mighty Fall, which he says began as an article and ended as a book. Being a preacher (and a writer), I understand that.

Collins says How the Mighty Fall was inspired by a conversation during a seminar at West Point where a few dozen leaders from the military, business, and social sectors gathered to explore themes of common interest. He had posed this question to the group: "Is America renewing its greatness, or is America dangerously on the cusp of falling from great to good?"

The conversation came during a break when one of the CEOs approached Collins to say: "I found our discussion fascinating, but I've been thinking all morning about your question in the context of my company. We've had tremendous success in recent years, and I worry about that."

Read more at Leadership Journal

One year of flame
taken from AllProDad

One cynic described marriage as one year of flame and forty years of ashes. I believe he thought this because he related love to feeling, not to a daily decision. The feeling of love comes and goes and comes back again, like your appetite.

The commitment of love is unrelenting and sure. Loving commitment is an act of the will - a self-disciplined lifestyle. Act in love towards your wife even if you don't always feel like it. The feeling will return in time, and flood your soul with joy.

Here are some ideas for fanning the flames of romance.

Huddle up with your wife tonight and ask: How can I love you better?

Read more at AllProDad