Ministering to Addicts

                                
As a pastor, I often find myself counseling people with addictions. Having served in local church settings for more than twenty years, I find ministering to addicts and their families to be one of the more difficult, complicated, and sad things I do. Every week, I preach the Word of God to people who have never been addicts and may never become addicts, to former addicts, to addicts themselves, and to future addicts. There are some addicts who know they are addicts, some who are seeking help for their addiction, and some who either do not know they are addicts or do not want to admit it. Some people think they will never become addicts because they do not have an “addictive personality.” Others think they will never become addicts because their parents were not addicts. And some fear becoming addicts because they think they have an addictive personality or because so many in their family history were addicts. Whatever the case, all of us have been somehow affected by addicts and addictions.
Statistics reveal that the prevalence of addictions is growing rapidly around the world, even among children who are becoming unknowingly addicted to behavioral and psychotropic medications. We are most familiar with addictions to illegal substances, medicines, gambling, and pornography. Yet we are less familiar with addictions involving sex, screens (video games, TV, smartphones, and so on), and self-injury. In addition, there are numerous people who struggle with addictions that many of us mistakenly deem as “harmless,” such as overeating, shopping, exercise, work, social media, and Internet addictions. Whether public or private, big or little, outward or inward, addictions are real and are ultimately matters of the heart in the lives of image bearers of God.
All addictions have consequences and must be taken seriously. We should not underestimate the significance of addictions in our lives or in the lives of others. What’s more, we should not make addictions insignificant things and simply ridicule and threaten addicts, leaving them to themselves and abandoning them in their addictions. If we ignore an addiction, the consequences can be devastating. We must be compassionate and courageous as we come alongside one another. We must pray, confess, confront, admit, intervene, befriend, and love. As the family of God, we must not give up on those who struggle with addictions as we depend on the transforming and renewing work of the Holy Spirit through the gospel of Jesus Christ, who has overcome the world.

Written by Burk Parsons
 Burk Parsons is editor of Tabletalk magazine and serves as copastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla. He is author of Why Do they have Creeds?. He is on Twitter @BurkParsons.

Iranian scientist Shahram Amiri executed for treason

                                                  

An Iranian scientist who provided the US with information about the country's nuclear programme has been hanged for treason, the government has confirmed.

Shahram Amiri was executed for giving "vital information to the enemy", a judiciary spokesman said.
Amiri disappeared in Saudi Arabia in 2009 and resurfaced a year later in the US, where he claimed to have been abducted and interrogated by the CIA.
He subsequently returned to Iran and was given a long prison sentence.
News of his execution emerged on Saturday, when Amiri's mother said the body had been handed over with rope marks around his neck.
On Sunday a spokesman for Iranian judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, told reporters: "Through his connection with the United States, Amiri gave vital information about the country to the enemy,"
Amiri, went missing after taking a pilgrimage to Mecca.
After reappearing in the US in 2010, he said he had been kidnapped and put under "intense psychological pressure to reveal sensitive information".
However US officials at the time said Amiri had defected of his own accord and provided "useful information".

How To Start A Bible College

                                         

Creating a Bible College in your local church has many advantages. You can…

• Attract new people to your church
• Train church leaders
• Educate your members
• Refresh your own Bible education
• Increase awareness of your church
• And much more

Starting your own Bible college by yourself, isn’t easy because There are many barriers, pastors run into when they try to create their own Bible institute in their local church, including:

• Creating a new curriculum. 
• Finding enough staff to maintain the school. 
• Getting accreditation.

If you are a pastor considering how to start a Bible College in your own church, Faith Christian University may be able to help. By becoming an extension campus, you can start your own Bible college in your local church.

How To Start A Bible College With FCU?

Starting a Bible school with FCU begins with determining the level of interest in your local church. To be an extension campus for FCU, you will need at least 5 interested students. If you have the interest, we can assist you through the use of our online education technology.

Your extension campus will utilize our online program giving you access to all our curricular materials, including video recordings of class lectures and instruction. You simply provide a facilitator for the course to foster discussion and give additional assistance to the students. FCU will be providing the instruction and the entire curriculum.

If you are ready to start your Bible college as an extension campus of FCU, we will arrange a site visit to assess the suitability of your facilities. Maintaining the integrity of the school is important to both FCU and the extension campuses. FCU also recognizes that each school would like their own identity, which is why every school is allowed to name themselves and simply adding that you are an extension campus of FCU.

Keep Your Leaders At Your Church

Another benefit of becoming an extension campus of FCU is that if the students in your extension school would ever move or relocate away from your local church, they could still continue their studies online with FCU.

Real Degrees

Typically, the extension campuses run a 2 year program and at the end of the 2 years, your students will receive an Associate’s degree. Students who have credits to transfer may be eligible for a higher degree. Also, all students are able to continue, if they wish, with the online program to get a bachelor, masters, or even doctorate degree.

Compiled by Faith Christian University 

www.fcu.edu, Email: faith@fcu.edu

Jonathan responsible for hunger, hardship –Mbaka

                                                   
Controversial Enugu Catholic priest, Reverend Father Ejike Mbaka, hit out afresh yesterday at former President Goodluck Jonathan and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for running the economy aground.
He said the party brought upon the country and the citizens the current hunger and hardship in the land.
Mbaka who was clarifying his recent statement ‘Bless and Be Blessed’ said it was largely misunderstood to mean that he attacked or blamed President Muhammadu Buhari for the economic crisis.
He said he merely drew the president’s attention to the level of suffering in the country and tried to suggest the way out.
 All these years of Jonathan, nothing happened in Niger-Delta specifically to be recorded in the annals of history. What a shame! What an embarrassment!
“The place where the oil has been coming from remained underdeveloped under a man from the same soil. If you go to Niger Delta today you will cry. But what worries me is that our people are good in shifting blames.”
Continuing, Mbaka said: “There is a sword that is moving about in the country. People are dying like flies. The sword of hunger is eating the land. And as I have told you this is just the beginning. If anybody is telling you it is going to be well very soon that person is deceiving you. “This is because many of us were among those that were alive during the years of the past government. The past PDP government was a grasshopper and locust to Nigerians.
“The past government was a disaster to the land of Nigeria; the past government was cancer to this country. There is no need trying to cover their incalculable and iniquitous mess. If you don’t feel it now, you will feel it later.
“The impact of their horrific mess is yet to be felt. It was a regime where hooliganism became a political slogan; where looting became the order of the day; where the neglect of youths became a pattern of administration. The result is what we are passing through now. Hunger is everywhere; the hunger was created before this new government came in. Buhari is not the maker of the hunger.”

7 Personal important questions you must ask yourself

We all have ambitions; things we would like to do, be or have. We set goals and we attempt to pursue our objectives. However, we often start too late in the process. It is easy to get carried away in all the excitement of goal setting and objectives. Just as with projects in the workplace, there is one crucial ingredient that is often forgotten when we try to make big changes to our lives. It’s a great adventure when we decide to set our life in a new direction but before we change our direction, we need to know where we are. If you don’t know where you are; how do you know which direction to take to get to where you want to go? You should regularly ask yourself the following personal development questions to help you determine the changes you need to make in your life.

The following personal questions help you determine where you are in life so; you can then decide where you want to go and what direction you need to take to get there.

1. What is the purpose of my life

What are you trying to achieve with your life. Fast forward to the end of your life and ask yourself what you would like to be remembered for when it’s all done. What difference would you like to have made? What contribution would you like to have made to your family, friends, community etc.? Once you know your purpose, your purpose should then shape your goals and everyday actions, allowing you to create the life you want to live.

2. What are my values?

Values are personal qualities and characteristics. They are like rules for life which guide your decision making in the most crucial moments. Sadly, values are often forgotten but when you live in contradiction to your values, you will struggle to be happy. For example, if you value honesty, how would you feel about stealing money from somebody else in order to buy something you want?

In all likelihood, you would be completely opposed to the idea. That is values in action. There are many more potential values which guide you; though they are not all as obvious as that. It is important that you have clarity about your values so that you can make the right choices when it matters most.

3. What really makes me tick?:

You can be just about anything you want to be in life but many of your greatest achievements, will require large quantities of effort, commitment and dedication. Always remember that self-improvement is not just about the physical or philosophical change you have to undergo, but it’s something that you must really want because if you don’t really want something; you are likely to give up before you achieve your objective.Therefore, before you set your goals, it is important that you know what makes you tick before you start setting goals which you are not truly motivated to achieve.

4. What do I really want from life?

Life is not all about giving either. You must be able to derive some enjoyment from life and a great deal of this enjoyment will come from the achievement of your goals. We have already covered some of the things you must consider before you set goals, now you must identify the things you would like to be, do and have. When doing so, it is important that you consider all of the important areas of your life so that you can design a well balanced, successful and, stress-free life.

5. Am I prepared to change?

Achieving goals and objectives requires a great deal of personal growth and change. However, the element of change is often forgotten.Resistance to Change can be one of the biggest factors in failing to achieve your goals. It is a form of self sabotage. Before you set off on your new adventure, it is important to ask yourself ‘Am I prepared to make the necessary changes?’ It is one of the most important but least used personal development questions.

6. What do I like about my life?

There is no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. When you make changes to your life, it is imperative that you only change that which needs to change. To ensure this, regularly take the time to identify and be grateful for the positives in your life. Then, when making plans for self improvement; plan to maintain or increase the things that you like.

7. Have I done enough for myself?

This is another often forgotten, personal development question. This is one that, when you answer honestly, can have a dramatic effect. Sometimes when you fail to achieve a goal; you will have set the right goal and, you will have set the right plan. The problem will be that you have not done everything you could to make it happen.

Often, when we fail to get what we want, we look for someone to blame. Sadly, this often leads us to point the finger at others, rather than accept that we are rather the source of our problems

Written by Carthage Burkley

How to Deal with Rude People – Co-Workers, Associates, Customers, Strangers, etc.

                                 
Dealing with rude people can be a tricky thing. I personally really hate dealing with rude people, and as much as I can, shed them away.
However, there are times when you don’t have the luxury of choice. Say, if the person is a co-worker, a manager, a business associate, a customer, or even a frontline personnel you need to talk to get what you need. While you can choose to avoid this person, this decision can make things difficult for yourself. If it’s in a workplace setting and you’re at an entry-level position, being combative can cause you to lose your job and/or ruin advancement opportunities.

A Rude Client

This brings to mind a rude client whom I worked with years ago, whom I’ll refer to as T. T was one of the rudest people I had met. For perspective, I have a very high threshold for what’s considered rude, given that I used to work in a very high-stress environment where exchanges could get very direct, depending on the personalities involved. Even though outsiders (as in, people not from the company) might see these exchanges as rude and stressful, we the employees didn’t. Instead, we learned to objectify any harsh comments and see them as constructive criticism.
Hence, when I say that T was rude, she really was quite rude. When I first met her, I was miffed by her attitude. Details aside, let’s just say she was not the most respectful person in the world. She would raise her voice and lose her temper, was unsupportive with requests, talked to me in a dismissive way, used her authority as a weight to push me around, and didn’t even acknowledge my presence whenever we met in person, even after I smiled and greeted her.
The worst thing was that her rude behavior seemed specifically targeted at me. I had no idea why as her rudeness was evident from Day 1. What’s weird was that she was extremely sweet and friendly—a complete 180 from how she would treat me—to my employee, who happened to be a guy. My most logical guess was that her rudeness might be some form of catty behavior from one woman to another; we’ll never know. Either way, there was no excuse for such bad behavior.
Even though I could have dropped this deal, I chose not to. At that time, I was just starting PE and I valued every opportunity I could get. This was no different. Even if this person was being an ass, even if she was being demeaning, I refused to balk. After all, she was really more like an agent of the organization I was working with—I wasn’t working for her as much as I was serving the organization and the participants of the workshop I was going to conduct. I wasn’t about to let go of a business deal and an opportunity to touch others’ lives over someone like that. Not at all.
In the end, I delivered the workshop successfully, received great feedback, and used this experience to build up my portfolio and seal new opportunities and deals.
How many of you have faced such a situation before? Perhaps not with a client per se, but a situation where you needed to deal with a rude, disrespectful person/co-worker/manager/customer/even stranger, even though you’d rather not?
If yes, I hear you. Many of my clients have shared with me unpleasant encounters with terrible, rude people, so you’re not alone.

Learn to Deal with Rude People

Honestly, I wish there isn’t any rude people in this world. If everyone is kind and helpful to one another, I think the world will be a much better place.One of my goals is to raise the consciousness of the world, to bring people up from lower consciousness levels of hate, anger, and apathy, to higher levels of love, joy, and courage. When that happens, I believe that there’ll be less angry and hateful people, and more caring, empathetic, and supportive souls in this world. I personally am working hard at being a more empathetic soul myself.
However, there is still a long way for us to go. Until we live in a world where everyone is vibrating at the state of joy, we need to learn to deal with rude people as a fact of life. I know people who quit their jobs each time they face a rude manager/co-worker, and guess what? It doesn’t solve the problem. What happens is that they subsequently run into this same situation in their next workplace, after which they do the same thing—quit. In the end, these people become serial job hoppers. Nothing changes as they still have to face rude people, and they back themselves into a career dead end, having burned bridges from their previous jobs and having a shaky track record. This is obviously not the solution.

So how do we deal with rude people? Here are my best tips to do so:

1) Keep calm:The tricky thing about dealing with rude people is that you may feel like beating them or boxing their faces sometimes, especially if the person is being very obnoxious and demeaning.

But I’ve found that while it may be momentarily satisfying to lash out in a moment’s anger, it’s often not worth it. Firstly, when you lose your cool, you lose control of the situation. You may feel like you’re in power, but you are no longer operating at the higher consciousness part of your brain. Next, when you lash out at someone, you may end up saying or doing something that you regret later—something I know I’ve been guilty of.So no matter how angry you are, get a hold of your anger first. Consider these:

1. So what if you lose your temper at this person—what do you accomplish? Note that at the workplace setting, losing your temper—assuming you’re not the big boss—may make you appear unprofessional and cause you to lose respect among your co-workers. 
2. How will making the other person miserable positively change your life in any way? Chances are, probably not. So, why do it?
3. Will anger help this situation? Do you need this person to achieve a particular outcome, aim? (For example in customer service, you may feel like screaming at the rude staff. But perhaps this person is the gatekeeper to something you need. So if you lose your temper, you may not get what you want, or take a longer time to get to what you want.)

2) Don’t take it personally:When we face rude people, it’s easy to put the blame on ourselves. We may think that there’s something wrong with us, that perhaps there is some unappealing quality about us that triggered such reactions in others. I know I often think this way—when someone is being mean to me, I’ll automatically assume that there’s something wrong with me.

Yet when I take a step back and stop the self beating cycle, it becomes clear that it’s not about me. Perhaps that person had a bad day. Perhaps the person has an attitude problem. Perhaps the person has anger issues. Even if the person is specifically being rude to you, like T was to me, that person probably has some personal hangups or triggers that got fired off when he/she came into contact with you.

3) Confront if necessary. Otherwise, stay away

Confrontation is a very tricky thing, and I usually avoid it where possible. There are 3 main criteria I use to decide if a confrontation is necessary:

1. The person has totally crossed the line in rude behavior (e.g., name calling, abuse,violation of personal boundaries)
2. The person is of the same or lower level authority compared to you (e.g., a subordinate or a work peer)
3. Calling the person out will achieve more gains than losses, and you are prepared to deal with the losses

Why so? It’s not because I condone rudeness—I don’t. It’s more that there are pros and cons to every action, and while it’s tempting to call out someone on their rudeness and put them in their place, I’ve found that it doesn’t achieve anything sometimes. In fact, sometimes it creates more harm than if you just let it pass.
For example, with my experience with T, I didn’t call her out on her ridiculous behavior because it wasn’t worth it to me. Firstly, she was a very senior ranking staff well in her late 30s. Given her age and rank, she really should have known better. The fact that she acted that way meant that she intentionally wanted to do so, and hence wouldn’t have cared what I had to say. Secondly, we were in a client-provider relationship. As the in charge, she could have dismissed me if I gave her the slightest reason to—and as I mentioned above, the project was important to me. Even if she couldn’t, she probably would have made things even more difficult for me, and I wasn’t interested to get more trouble.

Written by Celestine Chua
Celestine Chua is life coach and founder of Personal Excellence. Her life purpose is to help you achieve your highest potential in life

Dating someone from another culture

                                       
Keeping lines of communication open can help strengthen your relationship, particularly if you and your partner come from different cultural backgrounds.
Historically, falling for someone from another culture might have been big trouble, but a lot has changed over the last few decades and people are generally much more accepting of young people’s choices of partner these days.
Research shows that dating across different cultures – which includes different races, ethnicities, or different faiths – has become much more common among young people and carries less stigma than it used to. Some studies have shown that couples from different cultures might be more likely to experience conflict in their relationships.
Talking about these difficulties, however, not only alleviates the conflict but can actually help your relationship to develop and grow stronger . In other words, having differences can be a really positive thing, as long as you celebrate them. Making an effort to understand and appreciate each other’s backgrounds can be an enriching experience that also helps you maintain your relationship quality.
If you have a partner whose religious beliefs are different to your own, you may find your differences are particularly pronounced, which could lead to more disagreements that are harder to resolve. This may be because we often develop our religious beliefs from a young age, but also because we feel them strongly and can struggle to articulate them .
On the other hand, you may also find it’s possible to ignore your religious differences for the most part. They may not affect your romantic relationships at all until you reach major life events like marriage – when you’re younger and still exploring relationships, religion doesn’t necessarily have to be a huge issue.
Generally speaking, it’s really helpful to be open and communicative about any cultural or religious differences you have with your partner, as this can help you both feel more satisfied with your relationship.
If you’re in a relationship with someone from a different culture or religion and you haven’t talked about it yet, have a think about how you might express an interest in your partner’s background and beliefs, and see where it takes you.

Written by Obaseyi Peters