What Can It Do?

SOURCE:  "The Ice Cube is Microwaving" by Chris Ritter.  

https://peopleneedjesus.net/2020/07/30/the-ice-cube-is-microwaving/

KEYWORD:  Improvisation, Imagination, Creativity, Ministry, Church 

The movie Apollo 13 is famous for the line, “Houston, we have a problem.” But the more important scene is when the engineers at NASA get in a room to figure out what to do about it. Flight Director Gene Krantz (Ed Harris) announces: “I want you all to forget the flight plan. From now on we are improvising a new mission. How do we get our people home?” With so much blown apart, they had to figure out what systems were still operational enough to sustain life.

"I don't care what anything was designed to do.  I care what it can do."

In Revelation 3:2, the church of Sardis was challenged to “strengthen what remains.” There are U.S. churches within United Methodism that are doing amazing ministry, reaching people for Jesus, producing new leaders, and deploying people for ministry. We have many pastors who called, gifted, and effective. Strong mission partnerships exist. There are denominational leaders and staffers who have vision, drive, and Kingdom vision. These folks need to be freed to do their best work… independent of any goal of denominational institutional maintenance.

Cross-Generational Connections

SOURCE:  "The Rotarian Conversation,"  The Rotarian, July 2020, pg 52.
KEYWORD:  generations, old, young, lonely, loneliness, connection, fellowship, koinonia

Marc Freedman is one of the leading experts in the United States on the longevity revolution and the transformation of retirement.  He was named a Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the World Economic Forum in 2014 and was featured by AARP the Magazine in 2012 among its "50 over 50 influencers. 

"There is a growing appreciation of connections in general these days, fostered by the awareness of how profound the problem of loneliness is in America and elsewhere.  People need a variety of connections -- with their peers as well as across generations.

A Harvard study found that relationships are the key to happiness throughout adulthood.  It shows that older people who connect with younger people are three times as likely to be happy as those who fail to do so.  Why is that bond so important?  One reason is that as we reach the time in our lives when there are fewer years ahead of us than behind us, it's a great comfort to know that what we've learned is likely to live on in younger friends and family members."

The End of the Story

SOURCE:  "You Decide the End of This Story."  The Daily Stoic.  July 23, 2020.

KEYWORD:  eschaton, faith, Abraham, hope, kingdom of God, 

Nothing better encapsulates Admiral James Stockdale and his heroism than this one quote, which applies today to our own adversity just as it did to the horrible ordeal that he went through:

"I never lost faith in the end of the story, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade."