Competent Evidence of Identity, Cedulas
By Atty. Jose Mari Benjamin F.U. Tirol


While the Rules require the presentation of competent evidence of identity, it does not mention community tax certificates or cedulas or residence certificates which, prior to the effectivity of the Rules, were the only documents that parties to instruments were required to present to notaries public. 



On February 19, 2008, the Supreme Court amended Rule II Sec. 12 (a) of the Rules and enumerated the acceptable competent evidence of identity: 


“(a) at least one current identification document issued by an official agency bearing the photograph and signature of the individual, such as but not limited to, passport, driver’s license, Professional Regulation Commission ID, National Bureau of Investigation clearance, police clearance, postal ID, voter’s ID, Barangay certification, Government Service and Insurance System (GSIS) e-card, Social Security System (SSS) card, Philhealth card, senior citizen card, Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) ID, OFW ID, seaman’s book, alien certificate of registration/immigrant certificate of registration, government office ID, certification from the National Council for the Welfare of Disabled Persons (NCWDP), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) certification; x x x” 


Read more at The Advocate

Losing my Edge

When your initial enthusiasm fades, you need a plan if you're going to bring your best to your calling

Adrian Boykin

There have been successes for sure. I cleared some ministry hurdles. Our church has successfully launched a second campus. We've fought for, and achieved, a healthy organizational structure. We've reworked our statement of faith, and re-articulated our core values. In many ways, we have successfully made the transition from an internally focused fortress to an externally focused fragrance.

In the midst of it all, I went from single man to married with two kids. I've gained some respect in our congregation. But now I am tired. And comfortable. I look forward to just kicking back with "Friday Night Lights." And that deadly sin called acedia (sloth, "not caring") lurks around the corner.

I felt genuine surprise when sloth crept in. Like many energetic young pastors, I figured it would take a lot more to diminish my reservoir of drive. Few have accused me of being talented, but I am driven.

William Carey, the great missionary to India, once remarked that his only real gift was that he was a plodder, plodding through adversity. That resonated. I wasn't the greatest athlete, but I plodded. Not the smartest student, but I plodded. Not the most eloquent preacher, but I plodded. I got to where I needed to go. And now, sloth threatens even that.

Read more at Leadership Journal

When the Unsinkable Sank

Leadership lessons from the deck of Titanic

Gordon MacDonald

When the Titanic was launched from the Belfast ship yards, the world was just acclimating to electricity, the radio, and the automobile. The Wright brothers had demonstrated the possibility of fixed-wing flight just nine years before. And now here was one more mind-boggling innovation: a glorious ship that was speedy andunsinkable. What an appropriate name, Titanic (meaning great force or power), for a ship designed to triumph over nature. But as everyone who has seen the movie knows, the unsinkable sank one dark night on its first time out in the ocean.

One of the more recent and interesting Titanic-themed books is Andrew Wilson's Shadow of the Titanicwhich focuses less on the ship itself and more on the people who were aboard for that maiden voyage to New York. How did they handle themselves when the abandon-ship order was given? And what happened to them in the years that followed?

Read more at Leadership Journal

10 Tips for Counting Cash

Plus, best practices for making cash payouts

by Laura Brown 


When churches receive tithes and offerings, there’s more going on than meets the eye. Along with physically collecting people’s money and bringing it to the bank, you should be tracking how much comes in, who it comes from, what it's used for, and how much each individual gives during a year.


Read more at Manging Your Church

Walking Like Steve

When my friend was diagnosed with a terminal illness, he taught me about dying, and living, well.

Dan Cooley

While visiting at the hospital I told Steve that I didn't know how to pray for him.

"Just pray I will walk the walk God has for me," he replied. Throughout the days that followed, Steve never asked for healing. He didn't mind us praying for it, but he seemed to believe it wasn't the path God had for him.

Steve didn't fear death. He feared dying. He was afraid of the difficulties that cancer and its treatment might require. His greatest desire was that he would "walk the walk." He wanted to die well, to leave a strong legacy for his boys. He did, and he left one for me too.

Read more at Leadership Journal

10 Things to Consider Before You Let Your Children Quit

http://www.allprodad.com/top10/parenting/10-things-to-consider-before-you-let-your-children-quit/

April 13, 2012

Life is difficult. It’s a given! We’re born, we open our eyes, dad misinterprets our cry, mom puts the diaper on too tight, someone else drops our pacifier - and it begins.


But this is how life works. Challenge is built into the equation; learning requires patience; problem solving is a key element to fulfillment; obstacles come our way every day.  World leader Winston Churchill gave a speech at his old school in the darkest days of WW2; he’d had a miserable time there and was considered a failure. He walked to the podium and surveyed the crowd of awe-struck students. “This is the lesson,” he said. “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small – never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense….”


But we also live in this world of entitlement: “’I deserve this.” “I want mine now!” “Children should have everything they want.” “It’s my responsibility to make my kids happy.” “Satisfy me now!”


But, and experience proves this every time, pretty much everything worthwhile comes at the price of investment. It’s not just that the reward is sweeter after the long haul.  It turns out that the process of getting from A to B is intrinsically worthwhile - regardless of the payoff at the end.  The key to success is perseverance.


However, there are times we and our children should quit something.  We do the math and realize the best option is to do something else.  But what are the guidelines?  Here are 10 worth thinking about:


Read more at All Pro Dad

The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time

8:53 AM Wednesday March 14, 2012 

Tony Schwartz

Why is it that between 25% and 50% of people report feeling overwhelmed or burned out at work?

It's not just the number of hours we're working, but also the fact that we spend too many continuous hours juggling too many things at the same time.

What we've lost, above all, are stopping points, finish lines and boundaries. Technology has blurred them beyond recognition. Wherever we go, our work follows us, on our digital devices, ever insistent and intrusive. It's like an itch we can't resist scratching, even though scratching invariably makes it worse.

Read more at HBR Blog Network

Want to Follow God? Go to Sleep

Why rest is paramount to a “successful” spiritual life.

Karen Swallow Prior

Whether you’re a morning person or a late owl, when you sleep is less important than your amount and quality of sleep. Sleep is so important, in fact, that the Centers for Disease Control is increasingly monitoring U. S. sleep behaviors because the effects of sleep-deprivation on public health are so dramatic. Poor sleep patterns are linked to stress,depression, memory loss, weight gain, lower attention, increased accidents. Good sleep habits, on the other hand, are associated with longer life, weight loss, increased creativity, athletic stamina, and higher grades in school. No wonder Shakespeare called sleep “Nature’s soft nurse.”

We know all this, yet as a culture, many of us continue to lead sleep-deprived lives. 

Read more at Christianity Today

Valentine the Brave

FROM R.C. Sproul Jr. Feb 14, 2012 

A godly husband, then is not one who four times a year takes up the aggravating task of trying to be relational, in order to keep his wife from getting grumpy. Instead a godly husband is tasked with the constant call of communicating his love and commitment to his wife. This is not a few days a year, but every day. Too often husbands get frustrated, even offended by this hard reality. “Doesn’t she think I’m a man of my word? I promised ‘Until death do us part’ and I meant it.”

Such reasoning shows our relational weakness. She doesn’t want to know that she can count on you to grimly see your vow through to the end. She wants to know that you would make it all over again today, and tomorrow, and the day after that. She doesn’t want to know that you will stay with her, but that you want to stay with her.

Read more at Ligonier Ministries

Smart is Not a Fruit

by R.C. Sproul Jr.

We will not begin to get better until we embrace this obvious truth: smart is not one of the fruits of the Spirit. Of course we are to love God with all our minds. But we are to love God with all our minds, not merely understand Him. When our knowledge cannot traverse the distance from our heads down to our hearts, we are suffering from spiritual emptiness. We will not begin to get better until we come to embrace this obvious truth: we come into the kingdom not as scholars or students, but as children.

Read more at Ligonier Ministries

The 2012 SGBC Reformed Baptist Camp has a new website.  Visit http://sgbccamp.weebly.com

Beautiful by Design

Why we're lovely at any size

Liz Curtis Higgs

I once asked my readers, "What words come to mind when you think of your body?" Some responses were predictably negative: "the blob," "the lump," "wide load." But the positive answers were thrilling. "Plush, functional, bountiful, dynamic," wrote one woman. "A wonderful piece of machinery," offered another. My favorite body image? "It washes up nicely and never shrinks!"

The best word to describe your body, however, is beautiful. God's Word assures you, "God has made everything beautiful for its own time" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). "Everything" would include you. Top to toe and hip to hip.

Never mind the narrow and ever-changing definition of beauty handed down by Hollywood. God's view is broader and lasts forever. You may never look like an ultra-thin model or movie star, but those celebrities, bless their hearts, will never get to look like you!

Read more at Kyria

Marley and His Message to Scrooge

by R.C. Sproul

Christmas is a holiday, indeed the world’s most joyous holiday. It is called a “holiday” because the day is holy. It is a day when businesses close, when families gather, when churches are filled, and when soldiers put down their guns for a 24-hour truce. It is a day that differs from every other day. Every generation has its abundance of Scrooges. The church is full of them. We hear endless complaints of commercialism. We are constantly told to put Christ back into Christmas. We hear that the tradition of Santa Claus is a sacrilege. We listen to those acquainted with history murmur that Christmas isn’t biblical. The Church invented Christmas to compete with the ancient Roman festival honoring the bull-god Mithras, the nay-sayers complain. Christmas? A mere capitulation to paganism.

Read more at Ligonier Ministries

Celebrating a Calvinist Christmas with a Clear Conscience

‘Tis the season to be informed–sometimes in gentleness, often with vigor–by a variety of Christians (and others [1]) claiming that it is wrong to celebrate Christmas. I have no desire to force anyone to celebrate Christmas against their will. Indeed, it would be insulting to the high holiday to pretend that it needs enforcement. It offers to Christians an opportunity for praise and thanksgiving for Christ’s incarnation, good music, family fellowship, the giving and receiving of gifts, and a great many other blessings. What more could anyone want? Taste and see that the Lord is good! (This doesn’t necessarily apply to the fruitcake, but you can participate in the thanksgiving without that!) If anyone, for reasons of conscience, wishes to abstain from the festivities, that is his or her right. But I am not willing to let go unanswered the all-too-common assertion that celebrating Christmas at home or in Church is somehow sinful and unreformed.

Read more at theologia

Badminton Rules: Doubles – what’s in and what’s out?

• During the main part of a badminton doubles rally, every part of the court is in.
• However, the serve must fall into the ‘short and fat’ area diagonally opposite the server.  The side tramlines are in, but the rear tramlines are out during the serve.
• This means that a singles player and a doubles player have similar amount of court to cover when receiving serve (the service area in singles is 24.4m², while in doubles it is 24.2m²).
• The short and wide doubles service area makes it harder to catch an opponent out with a flick serve, therefore allowing the service receiver to stand further forward and attack the short serves as aggressively as possible. Which makes doubles rallies fast and aggressive right from the first stroke – one reason why badminton doubles is so exciting, whether you’re watching or playing!

Read more at Badminton Doubles

Getting the Gold from the Text 

How to capitalize on the inexhaustible riches of Scripture in your preaching without sounding like a Bible commentary.

John Koessler 

Foundational to all good exposition is the conviction that where the Word of God is faithfully taught, the voice of God is authentically heard. In a generation demanding a "now" word from God, as though that would be in some way separate from, or even superior to, the living and enduring Word of Scripture, the expositor believes that everything God has said he is still saying. The preacher's task is not to try to make the Bible relevant; it is relevant, precisely because it is the living Word of the unchanging, present-tense God. Nor is the task to "do something with the Bible," so as to make it palatable to the contemporary scene. Rather, the task is to let the Bible do something with the preacher, so its truth is incarnated in the expositor's life, as well as words, which become the channel of its powerful message to the hearers.

Read more at Preaching Today

Cut and Sharpen

One of God's underused gifts is time to sharpen.

Gordon MacDonald

 

Somehow the Sabbath idea had not come alive to me before. Sabbath was perceived as a wild Sunday of spell-binding preaching, growing crowds, and successful programming. I never imagined a Sabbath experience of majestic worship, joyful quiet (instead of noise), interior "conversation" and a reordering of the pieces of my life. No wonder I felt so messy. I knew none of these.

 

Read more at Leadership Journal

I Wish Those Days Would Come Back Once More

from R.C. Sproul Jr. Oct 29, 2011

As I sit with my suffering wife as she battles leukemia I have two great comforts. First, Jesus has gone before her. There is no suffering we can experience that He did not experience before us.  Second, because He suffered, those days will indeed come back once more. The specter of death that haunts us wears a leash. Jesus has conquered the Grim Reaper, and so his bloody scythe is the very chariot that carries us home. When we are home we will know sin no more. We will be children again. We stand innocent, in Christ, before His judgment seat now. But then we will be innocent in ourselves. Then we will be back in the Garden, to stay. Those days, for we who are in Christ, are coming again.

Read more at Ligionier Ministries

 

A Preacher’s Decalogue

Sinclair B. Ferguson

What Ten Commandments, what rule of preaching-life, do I wish someone had written for me to provide direction, shape, ground rules, that might have helped me keep going in the right direction and gaining momentum in ministry along the way?


Once one begins thinking about this, whatever Ten Commandments one comes up with, it becomes obvious that this is an inexhaustible theme. My friend, the Editor, could easily run his journal for a year with a whole series of “My Ten Commandments for Preaching.” I offer these ten, not as infallible, but as the fruit of a few minutes of quiet reflection on a plane journey.

Read more at The Gospel Coalition

Reformed and Charismatic?
by Michael Horton


We have had enough “apostles,” “prophets,” and “Moses-model” leaders who build ministries around their own gifts.  We need to recover the beauty of Christ alone upon his throne as the Priest-King of his church, exercising his ministry by his Spirit through preaching, sacrament, and discipline in mutually accountable communion with the wider body of Christ.  Reformed theology is not just the “five points” and “sovereign grace,” but a rich, full, and systematic confession.  It’s a human and therefore fallible attempt to wrestle with the whole counsel of God—in both doctrine and practice, soteriology and ecclesiology.  Until we rediscover this richness, “Reformed” will mean “whatever my leader or circle believes.”

Read more at Out Of The Horse's Mouth