Thursday, September 6, 2007
In order to sustain growth, or at least maintain the present levels in church membership from generation to generation, it is vitally important to focus on the special religious needs of young people. With that in mind you will see that there are an ever increasing amount of ministry catering to the young. It is two entirely different things though, ministering to adults, than it is ministering to youth. Good luck getting kids to listen politely if the topic doesn't interest them. You really have to deliver lessons in a way where the intended audience can relate. The best way to do this is to take advantage of the numerous youth ministry resources that are available these days.
Youth ministry resources generally fall into two classes, the ones that you must pay for and the no-cost resources. The kind of youth ministry resources you use very much depends upon your budget and the stated objective. Once you decide how much you can spend on products, you can proceed with your search for specific items.
Here are a few suggestions that you may find beneficial. First of all, hand puppets are some of the most popular youth ministry resources around, for the little ones of course. Kids seem to love puppets, so putting on a puppet show would be a wonderful way to get your message across. You can find biblical characters produced by many different manufacturers, which will allow you stage or reenact a multitude of scenes. In addition, there are ready-made scripts that you can purchase if you don't have time to write your own.
Music is an outstanding youth ministry and resource that is universally loved. There's certainly no shortage of music with Christian lyrics out there, but it may not be all that easy to find the type of music that will effectively complement your lessons. By taking advantage of websites offering youth ministry resources and general help, however, you can efficiently locate exactly what it is you're looking for. This means you'll be able to spend less time preparing for your Sunday school classes or other meetings and more time doing what is truly important and that is interacting with the kids.
Some other really great youth ministry resources include, Bible study guides, lists of discussion questions, videos, sermons, Power Point presentations, and story books.
Helping introduce God to the youth that you are fortunate enough to interact with is a truly noble and inspired undertaking. Fortunately, you're not alone in your mission. Go on the Internet and take a look at all of the wonderful youth ministry resources that are available and make your next Bible study group a more interesting, rewarding and educational experience for all.
About The Author:
Morgan Hamilton offers his findings and insights regarding youth ministry. You can get interesting and informative information here at Youth Ministry Resources
The 2006 Elections - What does it mean to the Christian
As always right after any election the phrase “the American people have spoken” is being resounded profusely. Given that only forty percent of Americans have voted and of those the disenthralled, the unlearned and the well coaxed make up a goodly percentage of the voters, some are more willing to say “the American people have regurgitated.”
Majority rule has never proved itself to be infallible. From lynch mobs to the landslide re-election of former President Nixon in 1972 which ended in cries for his impeachment, majority rule has in so many ways proven that a crowd can be just as mistaken as an individual.
It is also said that the seats were lost because Americans want a new Iraq policy. Staying the course is out and getting out is in. Abrogation from anything that requires a little resolve and the slightest protraction of time and effort is not so surprising in this country today. America is the undisputed avant-garde of the X generation. In a society where information is ingested in split second spots and daily life is broken down into hundreds of little segments of business and complexity it is little wonder that Americans are said to have the shortest attention spans of any people in the world. Stay the course? It would be easier to stop a swarm of killer bees by asking them to calm down.
Adding to a short American attention span is short sightedness concerning the nature of the conflict in Iraq. Removing Saddam from power can only be a good thing for Iraq and for the rest of the world but that is about where it ends. Trying to set up a democracy where a religion formerly carried the ball for over fifteen centuries is like trying to get the whole world to replace soccer with American football.
We are not dealing with clear cut ideologies like communism, fascism or socialism in this region. We can’t call for the removal of a wall as we did in 1989 or send aid to distressed countries as before to help them and generate goodwill for the U.S. Now we are a spiritual entity according to the Muslims (Satan) and it takes more than guns to bring down Satan. It is an Islamic theology not a political ideology that is what is making the U.S. Iraq policy ineffective.
Whether Allah is God or anything like God is up for major dispute but that Arabs rule their countries as not so benevolent theocracies is not. America is anything but a theocracy and there are few Americans who can extend their thinking far enough to understand that kind of government. To America government and theology are miles apart. They may compliment each other but they don’t share the same seat.
It is wrong to say that all democrats are liberal but entirely safe to say that the majority of liberals involved in politics can be found in the democratic camp. While it is only a slight overstatement, liberals are the crowd that generally believes that anything goes. They have been severely suppressed these last twelve years by both the predominantly republican house and a strong executive branch that has defined and carried out policy that kept the old jack at bay. The democratic rebellion was inevitable.
What does the democratic victory in both houses mean to the conservative and more so what does it mean to the conservative Christian and the Christian church? It is not a cause for panic but it is something to carefully note because the political shift is probably a precursor of yet darker and far more ominous trends and events.
Prophetically it would seem that just another shift between the political left and the conservatives is nothing new, so why worry? Normally that would be true. American politics has made countless shifts in the past without plunging into confusion. The one difference today is that nearly every major prophecy about the second coming of Christ is now far underway. This put simply means that what America and the world are running out of is not democracy, hopes for peace, theocracy or any other form of government. What we are running out of is time.
It is not the seats in the Congress that are so important to the believer but the seat of the Antichrist. For almost all conservative eschatologists, theologians and Christians in general, that seat is without doubt the newly formed European Union. Also the unanimous cry of the ancient biblical prophets is that when Israel regains independent sovereign nationhood and possesses Jerusalem again there is but a single generation left before the arrival of Messiah. Other signs and portents are emerging in full force through world events, nature and increased warnings from those in the Christian community who have been called upon by God himself to give stern and urgent warning to all who will listen.
Let’s do the long and the short of it. What liberals have already engineered and what they are actively pursuing today might give us a clue of what they could seek to accomplish in the future.
Liberals have brought in abortion, removal of school prayers, stem cell research, removal of religious symbols in various places, restraints on military chaplains concerning prayer, gay rights and same sex marriage and civil contract laws. This is just scratching the surface the full history would take up more space than this article is wont to produce.
To the serious student of bible prophecy the liberal progressives are the most likely candidates to bring in the changes that are implied or specifically warned about in the scriptures. With all other last days’ prophecies merging and barreling forward to the final rise of the world’s last and worst dictator, the 2006 elections look like yet another step in the wrong direction for America.
Here are some of the things that we will see ahead.
1. A totally new view of marriage and family that includes same sex and multiple partners which will be protected under the law.
2. Laws that will attempt to limit what gospel preachers can say from the pulpit about gays, abortion or any other disputed issue that has come under constitutional protection through the law.
3. Removal of many of the protections and freedoms guaranteed under 501-C exemptions for churches and ministries.
4. The possible rise of a politician or someone akin to a minister of science (the false prophet) that will encourage America to ally with the emerging dictator of the European Union. (the Antichrist)
5. A participation in the world’s newest economic system that tracks all the personal information on every person in the system.
6. The active demonizing and persecution of Christians first, then on to any religion false or real.
7. The jailing and eventually the instant execution of anyone resisting the new dictator by not becoming compliant with his economic program.
8. The shaking of the whole world by wars, natural disaster, disease and pestilence which culminates in the bloodiest battle the world has ever known, Armageddon. Where all the armies of the world will be gathered in the vast plains of Esdraelon but will fall completely.
9. The second coming of Christ, who removes the governments from men and sits in Jerusalem to rule for one thousand years of peace.
The new cultural churches of the day have become increasingly uncomfortable with these kinds of prophecies. But to those who fully understand the commission laid on them by the Lord Jesus Christ there can be no apology or shrinking away from proclaiming them. I too would rather that the world would come into its own and acquire peace and harmony throughout the nations but this is not what is going to happen. To apologize for broadcasting such portents would be the equivalent of saying “I’m sorry for raising my voice” to someone whose life was spared because you yelled at them to jump out of the way of a falling piano.
One item that is often missing in any warning about biblical prophecy is a bit of advice to bolster or prepare the hearers of such prognostications. The biblical prophets always provided their listeners with a way out or a way to change course at least for individuals if they were willing to listen. Here is my best advice.
Turn your life over to the Lord Jesus Christ. Start by confessing your sins and then ask him to endow you with the Holy Spirit so you can live the rest of your life under His Lordship.
Study your bible starting with the New Testament. Ignorance of Gods plan will cost more than any crash of the stock market or personal loss you may ever experience.
If you are already a believer stop being ashamed of the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel. If you are in a cultural or any other kind of liberal church that is ashamed of him and every word he spoke…get out of it! “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Matthew 8:38
Hurry! I don’t know the day or the hour Jesus is coming but I am persuaded that we are approaching the midnight hour at breakneck speed and when the smoke clears every now and then you can see the final station just ahead.
Rev Bresciani is the author of two Christian books. His articles on the second coming of Christ, faith, politics and the American way of life are read in every country in the world. Come visit http://www.americanprophet.org
Hades - The Greek Deity
In practically every religion practiced throughout time there is the concept of good and evil. In the case of Hades, the underworld was his domain but was he the embodiment of evil?
Hades - The Greek Deity
Hades is an important term in many cultures. Aside from being the name of Hades, the Greek diety of the underworld, it is also a name given to the underworld itself. Christians have adapted the term “Hades” to mean a place, such as hell, where souls that have fallen from grace reside. While in Greece, Hades originally just meant the name of the diety, eventually, the term “Haidou” (the House of Hades) was shortened to Hades as well, so the name took on the meaning of the Greek Underworld.
Hades' name in Greek literally means “unseen”, and it is said that Hades was born of two of the Titans, Chronos and Rhea. Hades had three older sisters, Hestia, Demeter and Hera; he also had two brothers, Poseidon and Zeus. Zeus was the only of his siblings to be born outright, and he caused his father, Chronos, to disgorge the rest of his siblings (he had swallowed them at birth). Together with allies, the six children started the Titanomachy, a war between them and the Titans, in which the Titans lost.
When each of the new deities took their place among the Mount Olympus pantheon, Hades became the ruler of the underworld. He chose a consort, Persephone, and managed to get her to stay with him through trickery. Although Hades was often tricky and wise, he was not really the evil figure some made him out to be in later works. Instead, Hades was often simply passive, and even in some instances helpful to others.
Hades was not only the ruler of the underworld, but of the dead themselves. He held domain over all the deceased souls, and employed demons to help him to keep order. Hades became very angry whenever a soul under his rule tried to leave the underworld, and kept a tight reign on his subjects. Very few mortals were able to pass in and out of Hades' realm, and those who did were all considered heroes. Heracles, Odysseus, Aeneas, Orpheus, Theseus and Psyche were the only ones who managed to survive a trip through the underworld.
While generally seen as evil or horrifying, Hades was really more of a way for ancient Greeks to come to terms with their ideas of death and afterlife. Hades ruled over the Elysian Fields (analogous to Heaven) as well as Tartarus (Hell), so he was not really as similar to the Christian devil as some would make his figure out to be. Instead, he represented a continuation of the soul after the body died.
Richard Monk is with Facts Monk - a site with facts about Greece.
