Pastor Rick Warren: You Need the Support of Your Spiritual Family

September 18, 2018 By Leave a Comment

By Rick Warren — September 18, 2018

”God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure” (Ephesians 1:5 NLT).

The Bible says, “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure” (Ephesians 1:5 NLT).God wanted more than angels and animals and plants. He wanted a family. The Bible says the whole reason you exist is because God wanted you to become a part of his family, and that family is going to last forever.

Your spiritual family, God’s family, is going to outlast even your physical family. Physical families don’t last. They grow up, they move away, they die. But the spiritual family of God is going to go on and on for eternity.

The Bible says that God never meant for you to go through life alone. In fact, God hates loneliness. When God created man, he put him in the Garden of Eden, a perfect environment, and the first thing God said was, “It is not good for man to be alone.” God wants you to be part of the family of God.

What is God’s family? “That family is the church of the living God, the support and foundation of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15 NCV). The church, the body of Christ, is not an institution. The church is not a bureaucracy. The church is not an organization or a social club. The church is God’s family. It’s not about rules and regulations and rituals and religion. It’s about relationships. It’s about love.

The church is “the support and foundation of the truth.” What happens when a building has no support and foundation? It collapses. Those of us in California understand this more than most because we have earthquakes. If you don’t have a good foundation under your building, it’s going to collapse when the earthquake comes.

God says your life is the same way. You’re going to experience some earthquakes in your life—financial earthquakes, health earthquakes, emotional earthquakes, relational earthquakes, career earthquakes. When those tough times come along, you’re going to collapse if you don’t have a spiritual family to support you.

You cannot fulfill God’s purposes by yourself. God wired us to need each other. We need each other in the family of God.

Talk It Over

  • God wants you to have the support of your spiritual family when life’s earthquakes come. How can you support someone in the family of God who is experiencing tough circumstances right now?
  • How do others in the family of God know the best ways to support you when you need it?

Give hope, prayer, and encouragement below. Post a comment & talk about it.

Filed Under: Columns

Seventh Annual Criminal Justice Roundup for Scholarships set for Oct. 22

September 18, 2018 By Leave a Comment

INA, Ill. – The seventh annual Criminal Justice Roundup for Scholarships fundraiser is returning next month to raise money for Rend Lake College students. The event is set for 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 22 in RLC’s Student Center, Private Dining Area, on the Ina campus.

During the fundraiser, RLC faculty and student scholarship recipients will address the audience about current events in the program. Students, family, friends, and patrons are invited to partake of hors d’oeuvres throughout the evening.

Annually, the evening brings in funds for students from individual donors, local law enforcement agencies, college faculty and staff, and many others. Last year, the program raised over $3,000 during the event.

2017RoundupWSix criminal justice students were on hand at the 2017 Roundup for Scholarships event. They are, FROM LEFT, Jordan Pike (McLeansboro), Alan Fox (Tamaroa), Anthony Amato (Ina), Jena Holden (Christopher), Associate Professor Ron Meek and Chelsey Bundy (Thompsonville). Click on the image for a larger view.
(RLC Public Information)

The cost to attend the fundraiser is $25. Those wishing to attend should RSVP to Ron Meek at 618-437-5321, Ext. 1239 or meekr@rlc.edu by Monday, October 15.

Filed Under: Breaking News

Walter Wendler: You, You, You, not Me, Me, Me

September 18, 2018 By Leave a Comment

An effective leader must do everything within his or her power to create a strong organizational culture. Teamwork, knowledge of process, values shared by all workers, a clear understanding of organizational purpose, and a shared goal of attaining that purpose are the foundation for a positive culture according to Edgar Schein, the father of understanding organizational culture.

Walter V. Wendler

Herb Kelleher had a fix on how to create a strong culture. He said in a typically disarming fashion, “A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than by fear.” The power in this thought is simply that love exists person to person. In addition, real love is always outward bound. Inward bound love is narcissism.

Self-centeredness wreaks havoc on any organization both for the individuals who comprise it and the goods, products and services produced. The power of Herb’s perspective is not just a touchy-feely engagement. According to a Strategy+Business, Herb’s contention was that at Southwest Airlines, “People are business.” Nice sentiment, but what value does it have in the marketplace? Well, by 2004, the Southwest Airlines that started in 1971 became the fourth largest airline in the United States with 30 consecutive years of profitability. In addition, and more astoundingly, $1 invested in Southwest Airlines’ 1972 public offering was worth $1400 in 2004.

Put people first. For Southwest Airlines, it was about putting employees first—even in front of customers. For Herb, customers occupied second chair, and stockholders were the caboose. This is a powerful testimony to what happens when a corporate culture values the work that people do regardless of the position they hold. A few things must happen if that is to be the case.

Precept One:  Leaders should do everything possible to accept and even celebrate well-intended failures. When someone in the organization attempts in good conscience to do something right, good or just in response to the need of someone served, and something goes awry, that is not failure. Instead, it may be the highest form of accomplishment. Fear of failure drives people who are there to serve into a mindset of no service at all, a mindset of self-preservation. Life is choked out of the heart of the servant and the soul of the enterprise.

Precept Two:  Leaders should welcome dissenting opinions intended to move the organization forward to greater heights of service. In too many organizational cultures, yes-men and yes-women rule the roost, and quality wilts just as a tree starved of water dies. Healthy differences of perspective create strength, not weakness.

Precept Three:  People must have confidence in leadership meaning what it says and saying what it means. Clarity in vision that people can easily grasp and embrace is essential. An unclear sense of purpose of leadership increases as proximity to the point of service decreases. The enterprise and the customer both lose.

Precept Four:  There must be passion for purpose. Everyone at every level must sense that everyday actions help meet the primary objective of the enterprise. If the worker bee cannot connect the dots back to primary purpose, the organization will fail miserably. Importantly, fault lies with leadership. This morning when I came to work I had a conversation with Marilyn who cleans my office. She told me that even though she is not an employee of the University—she works for a contracted maintenance company—our students are her students. She felt an obligation to clean the buildings, “To help students get an education.” How powerfully effective would be our university if everyone, from myself to this custodial worker, expressed that passion in action.

Precept Five:   If leaders do not champion the purpose of the organization every day in thought and deed, the organization will fail. Our university is here to serve students, and, as a public institution, the taxpayers of the state of Texas and the Panhandle. But our first priority in service is to faculty—to create a place where faculty can ply their craft. Such a sense of purpose will elevate the act of teaching to where it must be in the framework of actions that comprise the University. This happens at the very first contact that a student has with the University. For many that’s a campus visit or an application for admission. There should be in those processes a purposeful commitment by all engaged to connect the students’ desire to learn with the faculty members’ desire to teach. Processes should be crisp, clean, efficient, timely and painless. This is value-based leadership according to Brent Gleeson, combat veteran, and author of “TakingPoint: A Navy SEAL’s 10 Fail-Safe Principles for Leading Through Change,”

Strong organizations put energy where service occurs.

Strong universities do the same.

Filed Under: Columns

Your Daily Prayer: A Prayer for God’s Design

September 18, 2018 By Leave a Comment

Your Daily Prayer Devotional Banner

A Prayer for God’s Design
By Matt Chandler

“Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness” … So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”  Genesis 1:26a-27, NIV

In this passage, we get what theologians have called for a few millennia the Imago Dei, the image of God, and the idea that men and women are different from all of creation because we have been made in the image of God.

The Imago Dei is God’s investment in humanity of God-like glory and moral capacity to reign and rule the earth as His representatives. This is what sets us apart.

What are the implications of the Imago Dei? There is an intrinsic human dignity that places us above everything else in the creative order.

We have an intrinsic value because of the image God has given to us. It’s not a functional thing as much as a gift from God. And it shapes how we view humanity — those we live side-by-side with and those we’ll never meet.

Yet we forget this amazing truth, and sin messes us up, and we treat each other in ways that must break God’s heart.

What if we could really grasp that we have intrinsic value because we are made in the image of God? The difference would be incredible. This is God’s beautiful design for us, and we were made to walk in this beauty.

Write one area where you consistently look to the world (created things) for purpose or meaning. What would change if you began to look toward God and His good design in that specific area?

Father, I thank You for our sameness. I thank You that we are brothers and sisters by Your design. May that truth shape how we view others, but first, may it shape how we view ourselves. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

 

Filed Under: Columns

Kavanaugh confirmation: Four ways Democrats’ plan to derail nomination could backfire

September 18, 2018 By Leave a Comment

During Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing earlier this month, Senate Democrats seemed content just scoring points with their base by quizzing the Supreme Court nominee about President Trump, abortion, dark money, racial issues and the like. Now, in the wake of Christine Ford’s sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh, Democrats appear to be shifting to a new strategy aimed at delaying the final confirmation vote until after the November 6 election and actually defeating the nominee.

Here’s a link to the editorial at Fox News.

Filed Under: Columns

RLC Foundation hosts 38th Annual Golf Outing

September 18, 2018 By Leave a Comment

WHITTINGTON, Ill. – Twenty-nine teams and 175 golfers teed off at the 38th Annual Rend Lake College Foundation Golf Outing on Sept. 13 in a fundraising effort for the RLCF, and the Men’s and Women’s Golf teams.

The outing, held at the Rend Lake Golf Course in Whittington, raises thousands of dollars every year for the Foundation and the teams. Foundation CEO Kay Zibby-Damron the turnout at the outing this year speaks volumes.

“We are overwhelmed by the incredible generosity of our sponsors and participants,” said Zibby-Damron. “We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day to enjoy golf, have some fun and, most importantly, raise support for RLC students and our golf teams.”

Winning the first place championship plaque was team Jason Drew comprised of team captain Jason Drew, and Jeff Clark, Red Hart, Andrew Mitchell, Jesse Sanders, and Corey Smith with a score of 50.

In the A flight, first place went to Tres Hombres’ team of captain Jeff Vaughn, alongside Chris Barrett, Luc Damien, Tim Stotlar, Ryleigh Vaughn, and Tammy Vaughn with a score of 56.

JasonDrewW
Team Jason Drew placed first at the 38th Annual RLC Foundation Golf Outing. Pictured is, FROM LEFT, Jesse Sanders, Andrew Mitchell, Jeff Clark, Red Hart, Team Captain Jason Drew, and Corey Smith.
(ReAnne Palmer / RLC Public Information)

For B flight, first place went to Du Pont’s team of captain Steve Braden, with Kelsey Bowman, Ryan Buchanan, Bobby Catron, Michael Dillon, Matt Hall, and Tanner Spicuzza with a score of 63.

To learn more about the RLC Foundation, call 618-437-5321, Ext. 1214 or email foundation@rlc.edu.  To view all the team images from the day, visit RLC’s Flickr account at www.flickr.com/photos/rendlakecollege.

Filed Under: Breaking News

Cardinals keep Braves behind with four home runs

September 18, 2018 By Leave a Comment

With a gleaming opportunity to set the pace in the wild-card race as it nears the turn, the Cardinals’ offense had to first mash the pedal to stay ahead of their bullpen.

Here’s a link to the story at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Filed Under: Sports

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle to announce run for Chicago mayor this week

September 18, 2018 By Leave a Comment

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle will announce this week that she will run for Chicago mayor, sources with direct knowledge of her plans confirmed Monday.

Here’s a link to the story at the Chicago Tribune.

Filed Under: Breaking News

NL Central tracker: Cubs’ magic number at 10 after road victory over Diamondbacks

September 18, 2018 By Leave a Comment

The Cubs opened their last trip of the regular season Monday night with a 5-1 victory over the Diamondbacks in Phoenix. Their lead in the National League Central remained at 2½ games over the Brewers, who routed the Reds 8-0.

Here’s a link to the story at the Chicago Tribune.

Filed Under: Sports

Defense shines as Bears top Seahawks 24-17; Matt Nagy picks up first win as coach

September 18, 2018 By Leave a Comment

The Seahawks were driving against the Bears for a potential tying touchdown midway through the fourth quarter Monday night at Soldier Field.

Here’s a link to the story at Chicago Tribune.

Filed Under: Sports
« Previous Page
Next Page »
Benton, West Frankfort, Illinois News | Franklin County News