A parable of hope-- and how our society-- our world -- needs hope.

The parable of Jesus which we refer to as "The Sower" recorded in Matthew 13 is a parable about growth. Growth starts when the seed is planted. This parable talks about sowing the seed-- it also talks about a harvest. It is a parable of hope and of promise. Not all the seed that is sown will bring forth a bountiful harvest-- but some of it will. Some of it will be watered and nourished-- and it will grow and multiply. Others of it will be snatched away, some scorched by the sun, other of it choked out by the weeds. But some of it will bring forth fruit. A parable of hope-- and how our society-- our world -- needs hope.

It is not hard to lose hope in a world like this. We read the headlines of our daily paper, which remind us that violence and vengeance are rampant. More crime is fought with more prisons -- one in 47 of our citizens is either in prison or on probation. Wars and refugees, hunger and homelessness, dishonesty and greed, racism and bigotry-- all these forces join together to suggest that all the "seed" of love, justice, humility before God-- all the preaching and teaching of the church over the ages --has brought forth only a meager harvest of righteousness. But, let US not lose hope.

That parable of Jesus was-- and still is-- realistic. Not all seed falls on good ground. The seed that falls on the receptive spirit is indeed that which will bear fruit. "The receptive spirit"-- what is it? This question brings me back to the subject with which I began, --growth. Not only does the season of Pentecost encourage growth in numbers within the church, it challenges the individual Christian to grow-- to mature-- to move forward in faith that makes a difference-- to you and me-- and to the world about us.

This sermon and its title "Life in the Spirit" is based upon the portion of Paul's letter to Rome which I read this morning. In Romans 8:11, Paul reminds us: "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead ill also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. "

This passage is also about growth-- growth in our understanding of the difference God can make in our lives. And He makes that difference through the presence of His Spirit. This passage, too, can help keep hope alive in us. But how do we live life in the Spirit? Join us for worship and Holy Communion on Sunday morning as we reflect together on this vital question. Everyone is welcome! E-mails are welcome: riggsaw@earthlink.net

FREE BIBLE

RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY

August 31, 2007

COVER STORY: TV Ministries

PROFILE: Circuit Preacher David Brown

WEB EXCLUSIVE: A Tale of God's Will

WHAT PASTORS DO ALL WEEK

Religion and the Presidential Vote: A Tale of Two Gaps

For many political prognosticators, one of the issues to watch in the 2008 campaign is the "religion gap." But a new analysis of voting patterns explains that there are at least two religion gaps, one based on religious affiliation and the other based on frequency of attendance at worship services. Together they played a major role in 2004 and may do so again in 2008.

Read the analysis

Sheep and Goats

Places of Worship Reviewed

By Matthew Lickona
Published August 30, 2007
[Sheep and Goats from previous weeks]

St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, Encinitas

Brian Corcoran

Denomination: Roman Catholic

Address: 1001 Encinitas Boulevard, Encinitas, 760-753-6254

Founded locally: 1946

Senior pastor: Brian Corcoran

Congregation size: 3200 families

Staff size: 8 in ministry; 16 in parish

Sunday school enrollment: 536 children in St. John's school

Annual budget: about $830,000

Weekly giving: $16,000

Singles program: no

Dress: semiformal

Diversity: majority Caucasian, some Hispanic and Asian American

Sunday worship: 7:30 a.m., 9 a.m., 10:30 a.m., noon (Spanish), 5 p.m.

Length of reviewed service: 1 hour

Website: none

HOMELESS PERSON OF THE WEEK

Skip

by Kelly Davis

Skip's standing at the corner of 10th and G downtown, holding a white sign that's supposed to read "Dollars Please," but the P and E in "Please" are almost entirely rubbed off.

"I gotta find a pen and fix that," he says. He holds up the sign to motorists and pedestrians, tries to make eye contact and then raises his eyebrows to indicate that he's asking a question. Regardless of whether he gets a response, he flips the sign around to "Thanks" written on the back. He says the word as he flips the sign. It's a little after noon on Sunday and, so far, he's gotten nothing.

Skip, who's "not 60" (he's 59), is around 5-foot-5 and a bit on the roly-poly side. He doesn't laugh—he chuckles. And he likes to flirt. Despite the heat, he's wearing a Padres knit hat pulled over his unruly white hair.

Skip was born in Columbus, Ohio. He used to be a musician until a car accident 30 years ago left him paralyzed on his left side. He played "rhythm guitar, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, piano, flute, trumpet"—pretty much everything. When he wasn't touring with his brother's band, he taught private music lessons to kids or played studio sessions for Columbia and Capitol records. He got by quite well on his patchwork income, he says, but he didn't have health insurance or, being only in his 20s when the accident happened, anything to fall back on. Compounding the paralysis, which three decades after the accident still significantly affects his speech and mobility, he says he's been diagnosed with something called "coronary brain syndrome," which means his blood pressure's erratic and his "brain's messed up."

So, now he panhandles to get by and sleeps on the sidewalk at night.

Skip says other people on the streets often ask him for money. Sure enough, an acquaintance stops by and asks if Skip will loan him 50 cents. "He's a loan shark," the man says. "You have to repay him double what he loans you." Skip refuses—he's got no money to loan—and the guy walks away.

"See—always asking for stuff," Skip grumbles.

He's hesitant to have his picture taken and agrees only with the promise that he can look at the camera's screen and pick out the photo he likes best. After assessing a few shots, he asks for a close-up. "You can't see my face," he points out.

So people will recognize you when they see you with your sign? he's asked.

"Yeah, as long as they treat me nice," he replies.

Doing Your Job as Jesus Would Do It

Dallas Willard

From: The Divine Conspiracy (Harper SF, 1998)

Consider your job, the work you do to make a living. This is one of the clearest ways possible of focusing upon apprenticeship to Jesus. To be a disciple of Jesus is, crucially, to be learning from Jesus how to do your job as Jesus himself would do it. New Testament language for this is to do it “in the name” of Jesus.

Once you stop to think about it, you can see that not to find your job to be a primary place of discipleship is to automatically exclude a major part, if not most, of your waking hours from life with him. It is to assume to run one of the largest areas of your interest and concern on your own or under the direction and instruction of people other than Jesus. But this is right where most professing Christians are left today, with the prevailing view that discipleship is a special calling having to do chiefly with religious activities and “full-time Christian service.”

But how, exactly, is one to make one’s job a primary place of apprenticeship to Jesus? Not, we quickly say, by becoming the Christian nag-in-residence, the rigorous upholder of all propriety, and the dead-eye critic of everyone else’s behavior.

Read more of this devotional here.......

Excerpted from The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God by Dallas Willard (Harper SF, 1997). Used by Permission. All rights reserved.

Dallas Willard is a Professor in the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He has taught at USC since 1965, where he was Director of the School of Philosophy from 1982-1985. He lectures and publishes extensively in the area of spiritual formation and living christianly. His book The Divine Conspiracy, from which this article is excerpted, was selected as Christianity Today's "Book of the Year" for 1999.

Billy Graham, Pastor In Chief

Thursday, Aug. 09, 2007

By NANCY GIBBS, MICHAEL DUFFY

You have to climb a steep and narrow road, past the moonshiners' shacks and dense rhododendrons and through the iron gates to get to the house on the mountaintop that Ruth Graham built after her husband Billy became too famous to live anywhere else. By 1954, after she caught her children charging tourists a nickel to take a picture of their old house and noticed Billy crawling across the floor of his study to keep people outside from catching a glimpse of him, she knew it was time to move.

So up the mountain they went, and now, decades later, the house looks as if it just grew there naturally, instead of being assembled out of pieces Ruth salvaged from older cabins and then put back together like Lincoln Logs. The Graham home is modest in style but had plenty of room over the years for their five children and the family dogs, not to mention the visitors who came by. Fellow preachers and Presidents, moguls and movie stars, icons like Muhammad Ali--all visited with the Grahams here. Bono once showed up and played songs on the piano in the living room. It's a house of surprise rooms and fireplaces and winding halls filled with souvenirs of their travels. And now it's a little too quiet.

We first met Billy Graham in the winter of 2006, when after long negotiations, we were invited to talk to him about the one topic in his much examined life that he rarely discussed: his intense private and public relationships with every President going back to Harry Truman. He wasn't doing many interviews anymore, especially since Ruth was now quite ill and he didn't like leaving her side. But he was willing to share some final lessons and confessions as his life and ministry began to wind down.

At a time when the country was bitterly debating the role of religion in public life, we thought Graham's 50-year courtship of--and courtship by--11 Presidents was a story that needed to be told. Perhaps more than anyone else, he had shaped the contours of American public religion and had seen close up how the Oval Office affects people. We wondered what the world's most powerful men wanted from the world's most famous preacher. What worried them, and what calmed them? "Their personal lives--some of them--were difficult," he told us. "But I loved them all. I admired them all. I knew that they had burdens beyond anything I could ever know or understand."

Read the whole story here.....

The Messianic Character of American Education

By R.J. Rushdoony

Rushdoony's study tells us an important part of American history: exactly what has public education been trying to accomplish? Before the 1830s and Horace Mann, no schools in the U.S. were state supported or state controlled. They were local, parent-teacher enterprises, supported without taxes, and taking care of all children. They were remarkably high in standard and were Christian. From Mann to the present, the state has used education to socialize the child. The school's basic purpose, according to its own philosophers, is not education in the traditional sense of the 3 R's. Instead, it is to promote "democracy" and "equality," not in their legal or civic sense, but in terms of the engineering of a socialized citizenry. Public education became the means of creating a social order of the educators design. Such men saw themselves and the school in messianic terms. This book was instrumental in launching the Christian school and homeschool movements.

Hardback, 410 pages, and index.

Price: $20.00 (Order today!)

Evangelicals Turn Toward ... the Orthodox Church?

The Iconoclasts by Jason Zengerle
Post date: 08.27.07
Issue date: 08.27.07

he ministry is a calling, but it is also a career, and, in 1987, a Baptist minister named Wilbur Ellsworth was given the career opportunity of a lifetime. After nearly two decades of pastoring modest congregations in California and Ohio, Ellsworth, at the age of 43, was called to lead the First Baptist Church of Wheaton, Illinois--one of the most prominent evangelical churches in what was then the most prominent evangelical city in the world. Often called the "Evangelical Vatican," the leafy Chicago suburb is home to Wheaton College--the prestigious evangelical college whose most famous graduate is Billy Graham--and a host of influential evangelical figures, a number of whom worshipped at First Baptist. "I was now preaching to these people every Sunday," Ellsworth recalls. "It was all sort of heady and exciting."

read the whole story here......

What's happening in North Park

· NPCA Members Mixer at Caffe Calabria 9/6/07

· 5th Annual Renaissance Awards

· Take Action on Drug Paraphernalia in NP Smoke Shops

· 23rd Annual California Coastal Cleanup Day Sept. 15

· Tuition-free Community Emergency Response Team Classes start Sept. 27

· Urban Design/Project Review Subcommittee 8/27/07 (Sept. mtg.)

· NPCA History Committee 8/28/07

· North Park Main Street Design Event 9/5/07 and 9/8/07

· Public Facilities/Transp/Parks/Public Art 8/2/07 Draft Minutes

· Policy/Housing/Community Relations 8/8/07 Draft Minutes

Starting a Focused Military Ministry

Does YOUR church have a heart to minister to the military?

Would you like to know how YOUR church can reach the military with the gospel?

Are you interested in learning how YOUR church can equip the military for a greater impact in the world?

Then this conference is for YOU!

Many churches love and welcome the military. Some even have significant numbers of military comprising the fabric of their church family. Yet few seem to have taken the time and effort to develop a vision, plan and strategy in terms of having any kind of organized military ministry. This is a practical, how to conference on starting a strategic military ministry in the local church context. In this special one day conference, participants will have the opportunity to meet and dialogue with others who have a similar passion to reach, disciple and minister to military members and families.

Who should participate? This conference is for pastors, staff, and those in the congregation who are either leading or interested in starting a military ministry. Really, it is for anyone who is military or who has a heart for the military!

Upcoming Conference

Date:	Saturday, October 13, 2007
Location:	New Song Community Church, Oceanside, CA http://www.newsongchurch.com/app
Schedule:	9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Registration and check-in begins at 8:30 a.m. Coffee and pastries available beginning at 8:30 a.m. Come early for the fellowship!
Cost:	$35 in advance/$40 at the door. $25 each for 4 or more from the same church with a single payment from the church required in advance Lunch and refreshments included.
Registration Deadline:	October 12th online Register/Pay at the door on October 13th Confirmation will be provided once your registration is received Directions available at http://www.newsongchurch.com/app
Conference Leader:	Reverend Gary Sanders

So those who were scattered went on their way proclaiming the message of good news.

Acts 8:4

---

Quotation:

The Christian cell in a factory or a professional circle, funding its own activities, deciding its own pattern of work, studying the Bible and perhaps celebrating the Lord's supper as an entity on its own, comes very much closer to Independency as Robert Browne saw it than the unholy isolationism of a prosperous suburban church, with 200 members who scarcely know each other by sight. If a sizable proportion of the Free Church ministry were enabled to become itinerant once again--not necessarily itinerant in the geographical sense, but itinerant in the complex mazes of contemporary society, fathers in God to Christian organisms evolved by the lay men and women who spend their lives in these mazes--new heart would be put into both ministry and laity, and incidentally, new impetus given to the search for Christian unity.

... Christopher Driver (1932-1997), A Future for the Free Churches? [1962]

---

Quiet time reflection:

Lord, the people You have saved are salted throughout the world.

RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY

August 24, 2007

COVER STORY: Katrina Evacuees Two Years Later

FEATURE: Santa Fe Artists Retreat

NEWS FEATURE: Indian Farmers Suicide

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Jazz and Genius

FIVE YEARS' IMPRISONMENT FOR HOSTING WORSHIP SERVICES?

UZBEKISTAN: When seven police officers with a video camera raided his home on Sunday morning, 29 July, Nikolai Zulfikarov was away. But this did not stop prosecutors launching a criminal case to punish him for "illegally" organising a religious community, with a possible sentence of five years' imprisonment. The small Baptist congregation that meets in his home in the eastern Namangan Region refuses on principle to apply for state registration. One local Baptist told Forum 18 News Service that prosecutors wanted to sentence Zulfikarov immediately, but now there is "total silence". He added that "it is not clear if this means they will abandon the attempt or if they are moving stealthily behind the scenes". Other church members were questioned for many hours and at least one was beaten. The church was again raided the following Sunday during its service. Forum 18 was unable to reach lead investigator Abdumalik Motboev. Ikrom Saipov of the government's National Human Rights Centre in Tashkent said he could not comment on cases he was not familiar with but denied that religious freedom is restricted. "We don't repress religious believers because of their faith," he claimed to Forum 18.

A Banquet at a Pharisee's House

The Gospel lesson from Luke 14:1-14 tells of a banquet at a Pharisee's house at which people seated themselves according to the manner in which they perceived their relationship to the host. Jesus warned that we should show care not to think too highly of ourselves, but to let the host decide where we should be. The concluding verses urge that when WE give a banquet, we should invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind.

The Epistle lesson from Hebrews 13:1-3 urges us to "not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing, some people have entertained angels." I've titled this message: "Minding Our Manners" and some rationale and introduction follows: This may seem a strange sermon title. It isn't about table manners or anything of that nature. I leave those sorts of things to "Miss Manners" in her syndicated column. The reading from the Gospel of Luke gives some insight into the customs of the day -- a time before the host put place cards at the table; and the Epistle lesson from Hebrews talks about "entertaining angels". Hence, even this "far-out title" can be Biblical.

I have never personally had an encounter with a supernatural being. We do know that angels are an important part of the Biblical story. As early as the story of Abraham and Hagar, we find angels speaking for God. Angels announced our Lord’s birth. Throughout scripture people encounter angels—intermediaries between heaven and earth. Many people today are comforted by the thought that, in the words of the old spiritual, there are “angels watchin’ over me.”

The writer of Hebrews believed in angels. And he said something interesting: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Now there are a couple of ways of interpreting his words. IT COULD BE THAT HE WAS ADVOCATING SIMPLE HOSPITALITY TO STRANGERS: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers . . .”

That word that’s translated “strangers” is also translated “Foreigners” from both the Hebrew and the Greek. Hospitality to strangers was a cherished tradition in Middle Eastern countries in those centuries in which Biblical history was recorded. There is an old legend that tells how Abraham pitched his great tent at a crossroad. The flaps of that tent were lifted on all four sides so that he might discern the approach of any stranger and hasten out to meet him. Once, when Abraham ran out to offer his hospitality to three strangers, he discovered that they were angels. They blessed him, of course. Maybe that is the story the writer of Hebrews had in mind.

Hospitality. Kindness to strangers. It’s something we are sadly short on in this modern world. So many harmful things have happened that we have to teach our children to be fearful of strangers. And if a stranger pulls out in front of us in traffic, we become enraged. Hospitality. What a sweet concept it is—particularly when we are on the receiving end. If you have ever been a stranger, a newcomer, then you know how great it feels to encounter any show of hospitality, no matter how small. Jesus said, “A cup of cold water given to a stranger in my name will not go unrewarded.” (Matthew 10:42)

You and I probably need to pray for the ability to be more hospitable to strangers. And I’m using that word in both translations: those who are strangers because we’re meeting them for the first time, and those who are here from a foreign land. How can we show the love of Jesus to the world if we regard strangers with fear and distrust? I strongly supported the stand taken by the Archbishop of Los Angeles when the Federal Government was proposing that anyone who gave "illegals" food would be arrested. The Archbishop reminded the whole church that there are times when we must obey the Word of God rather than the laws of man -- especially when they so directly contradict the Biblical injunction. The ancient question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" continues to crop up and the Biblical answer never changes -- WE ARE! In fact, Jesus went further than the writer of Hebrews. He indicated that when we help the stranger, we are in fact ministering to him—Christ. (Matthew 25: 40). On the surface the writer of Hebrews is telling us simply to be hospitable to strangers. But he seems to be saying more than that. Come think with us about Minding Our Manners in the Biblical sense of this counsel. 

 E-mails to Pastor Riggs are welcome and everyone is invited to worship with us at 9:45 on Sunday.

Church Planting & Movement Training

We believe it is important to provide potential church planters a new kind of missional training through the Tentmaker Group and discussions with the Porterbrook Network (created by the authors of Total Church and the pastors of the Crowded House. Read more

Missiongathering Christian Church

HOMELESS PERSON OF THE WEEK

Jana

by Kia Momtazi

Jana sits on a blanket beneath a tree in the northwest corner of Balboa Park. She's surrounded by her boyfriend—snoozing under a pink comforter, despite the heat—a couple of backpacks and her friend's dog, Blondie.

Jana's been homeless for five years. Her last job was at a Shell station in Encinitas, where she managed a 24-hour shift three days a week. When the owner sold the business, she lost her job and "fell into the tailspin," taking up with a guy she met who was living in a squat.

"Part of it was just laziness," Jana says. "Just falling into it and being in that mental thing where I lost the job, not really wanting to go through it again."

These days, she says, she and her man keep pretty much to the Hillcrest area.

"The Hillcrest neighborhood is real tight-knit," Jana explains. "Certain people, they leave and come back—they're still just gonna be in the community."

They spend their days in the park and bathe in a nearby apartment Jacuzzi by night. "It feels really nice in the summer," Jana says. "As hot as it's been, you really feel like you want to wash up."

Jana's friend Allie appears—she's Blondie's mom—walking up the hill from the direction of the canyon, wearing red-rimmed coke-bottle glasses and a goofy grin. She's also homeless, but she's got a job working for "a mad scientist," as Jana describes. According to Jana, the guy gives her tests—like trying to figure out combination locks—and pays her a few bucks for every one she figures out.

Allie plops on the ground, rubs Blondie's ears and coos doggie noises.

"Oh, we had such an exciting day," Jana tells her. "He likes to eat the little dark-haired Chihuahua, 'cause it looks like a squirrel."

"Oh, no!" laughs Allie.

"Her mama got all scared and picked her up, and we caught a field mouse," Jana reports.

Jana's boyfriend wakes up, hangs out for a while, and then joins another homeless man on a different blanket, where they share some watermelon.

"It's interesting—there's a positive side to it, too," Jana says as she contemplates homelessness. Thinking about going back "inside" is in many ways overwhelming, she says. "I would like a place where I can drop in, take a shower once in a while and watch a little TV," Allie chimes in. "But I would only be in there for, like, two, three hours. I'd still pitch a tent in the backyard."

Sheep and Goats

Places of Worship Reviewed

By Matthew Lickona
Published August 23, 2007
[Sheep and Goats from previous weeks]

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Encinitas

Wesley Hills

Denomination: Episcopal Church USA

Address: 890 Balour Drive, Encinitas,
760-753-3017

Founded locally: 1885

Senior pastor: Wesley Hills

Congregation size: 1000

Staff size: about 20, including part-time and full-time

Sunday school enrollment: 125

Annual budget: $650,000

Weekly giving: average pledge per giving unit of $1700

Singles program: yes, young adults program

Dress: semiformal

Diversity: mostly Caucasian

Sunday worship: 8 a.m., 10 a.m.

Length of reviewed service: 1 hour, 10 minutes

Website: www.standrewsepiscopal.org

CANNIBAL TRIBE IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA ISSUES APOLOGY

Source: WorldWide Religious News

A tribe in Papua New Guinea has apologized for killing and eating four 19th century missionaries under the command of a valiant British clergyman. The four Fijian missionaries were on a proselytizing mission on the island of New Britain when they were massacred by Tolai tribesmen in 1878. They were murdered on the orders of a local warrior chief, Taleli, and were then cooked and eaten. The Fijians - a minister and three teachers - were under the leadership of the Reverend George Brown, an adventurous Wesleyan missionary who was born in Durham but spent most of his life spreading the word of God in the South Seas. Thousands of villagers attended a reconciliation ceremony near Rabaul, the capital of East New Britain province, once notorious for the ferocity of its cannibals. Their leaders apologized for their forefather's taste for human flesh to Fiji's high commissioner to Papua New Guinea. Cannibalism was common in many parts of the South Pacific - Fiji was formerly known as the Cannibal Isles - and dozens of missionaries were killed by hostile islanders.

Trinity House 2nd Anniversary Recognition Gala

REALITY: There are approximately 9,600 homeless in the San Diego Region.

REALITY: There are only approximately 4,500 shelter beds available in the San Diego Region (Emergency Shelters, Transitional Housing, and Permanent Supportive Housing).

REALITY: Over 4,000 individuals and families are left seeking shelter in places such as doorways, alleys, under bridges, and on the streets.

REALITY: Nearly 40% of the homeless are families with children.

EVERY BIT HELPS: The Trinity House has been successful in assisting over 175 families and individuals, and over 90 children avoid homelessness over the last 24 months.

Many of these families and individuals were able to avoid homelessness all together by coming to The Trinity House.

However, WE CAN NOT DO IT ALONE.

YOUR SUPPORT CAN MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE. There is still time to purchase tickets for The Trinity House 2nd Anniversary Recognition Gala Luncheon held on Saturday August 25th at the Mission Valley Handlrey Hotel and Resort, from 12:00 to 3:30. All proceeds raised at this event will go towards helping the homeless in San Diego by bringing homeless families and individuals into a warm, loving and supportive environment at one of the four Trinity Houses. Please join us in this worthy cause where we will honor the biggest supporters of the homeless and families in transition at The Trinity House (Pastors Matt & Shannon Ortiz of Crossroads Church, Sister Markay McKinney of St. Stephens COGIC, Elder Kevin Mondane of Faith Chapel COGIC, and Elder Ronald Randle of St. Stephens COGIC. Our keynote speaker is San Diego's own Scott Silverman, Founder and Executive Director of Second Chance/STRIVE.

For more information regarding the event, and to purchase tickets go to http://www.thetrinityhouse.org/sleepout.htm. Tickets are available for only $35.00.

Don't miss out on an opportunity to bid on the many silent auction items. Below is a list of just a few of the items available (and there is much much more):

• 2 Round Trip Airline Tickets from Southwest Airlines
• Simply Spa Escapes Spa Retreat including roundtrip luxury chauffer driven limousine to and from the Laguna Beach spa
• Several Starbucks Gift Baskets
• Original autographed photograph of San Diego Padre Mike Cameron
• San Diego Chargers goodie basket
• Designer Purse (Lizz Russell designer for the stars)
• Gift cards
• Tickets to the Zoo or Wild Animal Park
• Laser Tag passes
• Passes to The Birch Aquarium
• Tons of Bamboo Plants
• Art (Including Albert Fennell Pieces)
• Hornblower cruise passes
• AND MUCH MUCH MORE!

Corporate chaplains

Praying for gain

Aug 23rd 2007 | WASHINGTON, D.C.
From The Economist print edition

A fad for piety infiltrates the realm of Mammon

DOES your job seem pointless? Are problems at home draining your zest for work? Is your boss a blithering idiot? Then why not consult the company chaplain?

Corporate chaplains are a booming business in America. There are roughly 4,000 of them (precise numbers are hard to come by) working everywhere from giant multinationals to tiny family firms. And their numbers are growing. America has several thriving rent-a-chaplain companies, and two seminaries that offer degrees in corporate chaplaincy, yet demand still exceeds supply.

Some companies prefer to rely on in-house chaplains. Tyson Foods, a meat-processing giant, employs 128 chaplains to minister to 85,000 employees in the United States, Mexico and Canada. John Tyson, the company's boss, also employs an ordained minister as an executive coach to help him wrestle with ethical questions. Read the whole story here......

What's happening in North Park?

· PHOTOS - Bird Park Concert Saturday 8/18/07

· 5th Annual Renaissance Awards - Online Nomination Form

· Take Action on Drug Paraphernalia in NP Smoke Shops

· NPCA's Five Pillars of Service to the Community

· Planning Committee 8/21/07

· NPCA Board Meeting 8/22/07

· North Park Farmers Market - Every Thursday

· North Park Action Team 8/23/07

· North Park Main Street Design Event 9/5/07 and 9/8/07

· SanDiegoMama.com Calendar of Family Events

· 23rd Annual California Coastal Cleanup Day 9/15/07

· Tuition-free Community Emergency Response Team Classes start 9/27 and 9/29/07

Boxes?

RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY

August 17, 2007

COVER STORY: Genetic Enhancement

INTERVIEWS: Michael Sandel & Gregory Stock

FEATURE: Prosperity Gospel

INTERVIEWS: Michael Eric Dyson & Rev. Jeremiah Wright

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Jazz and Genius

K-PRAISE wants to include your prayer

August 16, 2007
Dear Pastors,

K-PRAISE wants to include your prayer in our daily broadcast. K-PRAISE would be honored to air pastors saying a prayer from throughout the San Diego church community. We want to give you the opportunity to pray for anything you have a passion about; here are some ideas of prayers like marriage, city leaders, children, military, people who suffer with an addiction, etc. The Idea: K-PRAISE reminds you to pray about San Diego. This series of rotating prayers will be aired on 1210am KPRZ.
So, can I have ten minutes of your day to record you saying a prayer?

If you are interested in participating please respond to today to schedule a recording session, preferably through a landline, anytime today or tomorrow. 10am-5pm Monday thru Friday.

In him,
Susy Lopez
1210am K-PRAISE
9255 Towne Centre Drive, Suite 535
San Diego, CA 92121
(858) 535-1210 Ext. 250

"Another Look at Faith" based on Hebrews 11

The sermon for August 19^th at Plymouth Congregational Church is, "Another Look at Faith" based on Hebrews 11.

There are lots of new electronic gadgets on the market, and it seems that children are the first to master them. Some time back I clipped a Dennis the Menace cartoon showing Mr. Wilson with a big smile on his face holding the door open for Dennis to come into his house. Mrs. Wilson could hardly believe what she was seeing, so she asked, "George, do you mean you're glad to see Dennis?" "of course", he answered, "he's over here to program the VCR." A mom tells of listening to her five-year-old son as he played with his Speak-and-Spell computer. At one point he typed in the word “God” and waited for the computer to say it back to him. To his surprise, the computer said, “Word not found.” He tried again and the computer repeated, “Word not Found.” The mom reports that little son glared at the computer and announced, “Jesus is not going to like this!”

Just as there are machines that don't have God in their vocabulary, so there are also people who don’t have faith in their lives. I’ve characterized faith as a journey, but that doesn’t really capture the meaning of faith. Perhaps it is a concept, that like a fine diamond, must be looked at from many angles. So, on this 12th Sunday in the season of Pentecost, this time when the Church focuses on our personal spiritual growth, I want us to take another look at our faith.

A mother tells a story about her three-year-old fiddling with a toy trumpet as she watched television. The program featured a skilled musician who played a fabulous trumpet solo. The little girl listened intently to the whole song, held up her own trumpet, and announced, “Mine doesn’t have that kind of music in it.”

And we can relate to that. When we compare our own faith journey to that of some of the heroes of the Bible, we are like that little girl who compared her meager efforts on a toy trumpet with those of a professional musician on a real trumpet. We felt pretty self-satisfied until we heard what real music sounds like. So we come to Hebrews 11 with open hearts. And we read these words inspired by God, “Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen . . .” O. K., we can live with that—”the assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen . . .” But it’s a little abstract. So we turn to the writer of Hebrews and ask, “Could you be more specific? Could you give us an example?” And he does. Among others, he gives us the example of Abraham. By taking another look at the faith of Abraham, can we be inspired to look at our own? More importantly, will we be moved from where we are to a more vibrant and fulfilling faith?

Everyone is welcome to share in worship and fellowship at Plymouth Congregational Church. e-mail inquiries or comments are always welcomed as well.

HOMELESS PERSON OF THE WEEK

Addie Apassfer

by Eric Wolff

Skinny and rugged after years of street life, Addie Apassfer wears a red hat and a platinum-blonde wig and spends mornings and evenings in front of the post office on Midway Drive. Her pushcart holds lotion to keep her skin from cracking, extra clothing against the weather and an umbrella for the occasional storm, not to mention a ready supply of malt liquor.

"You'll never find me sober no more," she said.

Addie remembers faces well, and she seems to have a coherent idea of where she is and what she's doing, but her speech is punctuated with nonsense words and her lucidity ebbs and flows. Her grip on her past is slippery, and sometimes she starts rambling on in strange directions.

She seems to have led a peripatetic life. She wasn't born in San Diego, but she went to school here. At various times she has lived in Chicago, Buffalo and San Francisco. She recalls working as a nurse here in San Diego. She says she ended up on the street because she got sick and had to take medicine. Possibly this means she developed an addiction to pills, which she now makes every effort to acquire from local emergency rooms and clinics. The nurses have learned to check the authenticity of her symptoms, and it's become harder for her to get the pills.

Her body is bent after years of difficult living.

"I got beat quite a few times, but I was never insexuated. I resisted that," she said.

These days, she seems to have settled into a routine. She spends nights picking up litter in the post-office parking lot. During the day she goes downtown to sleep and maybe get fed, then it's back up to the parking lot. But post-office workers and regulars know Addie. They greet her, and she replies equally and to all with a cheery, "Joy to you!" and a smile.

Write to ericw@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com