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January, 2012

  1. Look Better With Medi Spa Treatments

    January 24, 2012 by infowriter

    Whether you find yourself preparing to work for the day, being ready for a date or enjoying the calm of retirement, your image is usually an important part for any individual. How someone looks plays a important role in everyday life. “You look as sensible as you feel” can be reversed in several cases to actually mean “you feel as good as you look”. That being said, much of one’s happiness relies on the image and how they are perceived by others in society. Fighting the signs of aging is not only possible but moreover it’s currently simplified by undergoing a non-surgical “Ultimate Quick Lift”. The procedure consists of Laser Skin Resurfacing, Botox, Xeomin or Dysport and the correct Facial Fillers administered by very skilled and caring experts. There is minimal to no down time and also the results are completely breathtaking.

    As an individual gets older the many signs that are connected to aging could be a pretty worrying. If you are male or female, no person desires to abandoning of their youthful appearance. To assist counter these signs many have invested thousands over the years on a variety of creams or serums promising to maintain a youthful look. The problem is most of such options produce pretty limited results and usually may not match the promises they have made through advertising.

    If you find you’re a person who has made these investments only to be left unsatisfied, then the opportunities of Botox treatments could offer you with better pleasure. When many individuals consider the likelihood of spa treatments, they right away relate it to a high cost process.

    While financial savings could be appealing to several the most advantage of using these treatments is seeing real results in the battle against aging. Botox treatments would tighten the skin, get rid of wrinkles and let you to maintain your youthful appearance while discovering immediate results. This could grant you immediate satisfaction from your investment that you can enjoy for roughly three months before requiring a different treatment. Best of all the opportunities of Botox only scratch the surface of age reduction treatments that are offered with medical spa treatments.

    Taking advantage of a chance like permanent makeup may assist you to create a long term solution for looking your best continuously rather than coping with the struggle associated with getting ready for the day. The advantages of laser hair removal are beyond compare. Permanently eliminating unwanted hair from locations that may be tough to handle or a frequently remain a distraction from conveying confidence regarding your appearance. Pixel Laser Skin Resurfacing can assist reduce and even eliminate age spots, sun spots, scaring, blemishes and fine lines and wrinkles therefore you may recapture the youthful look you seek.

    If you would like to discover more on the incredible possibilities of botox treatments and all of the solutions you can benefit from through medical spa treatments, start by getting a Free Premier Club Membership and instant $25 gift certificate by visiting the Top Sensational Medical Spa in Westchester York http://www.prettyfacemedispa.com

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  2. There is something fishy about Jonah!

    January 24, 2012 by infowriter

    The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2“Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

    5And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. 6When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” 10When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

    When I decided that this week I’d preach on the book of Jonah I immediately started to think of fish stories that I could introduce my reflection with, and the only one I could think of is one I fear I’ve already mentioned.

    It concerns a guy going fishing at his favourite spot by the river, but when he gets there he realises that he’s forgotten his bait, but he notices a lovely fat looking tree frog sunning himself on a lily pad, so he decides to stalk the frog and capture it and use it for bait. And he’s just about to grab the frog when he realises that there’s a brown snake alongside him who also has his eyes on the frog, and before he can do anything else, the snake has leapt forward and swallowed the frog whole!

    Not thinking about what he was doing, but angry as hell at the snake, the guy leaps forward and grabs the snake around the throat and yanks the frog out of its mouth and drops the frog in his bait box. It’s then that it really strikes him that he has an angry, snapping venomous snake in his hand that he can’t simply pat on the head and let go.

    Thinking quickly, he grabs his hip-flask with his free hand (which is full of whiskey), opens it, and pours a goodly amount into the open mouth of the snake. The snake goes limp and the fisherman places it on the ground and walks away to get on with his day’s fishing.

    About twenty minutes later he feels a tapping at his shoe. He looks down and sees it’s the snake, with two more frogs!

    It’s not really a brilliant joke, but what was less brilliant really was my knee-jerk reaction to the mention of Jonah – thinking that I needed to come up with a fish story. I hear the word ‘Jonah’ I think ‘fish’, which really only reflects my historic failure to really grasp what the book is about!

    For the fish in the book of Jonah is only mentioned in three of the forty-seven verses of the book, which is in itself a solid indication of the fact that the fish is a minor character in the drama, and hardly the central theme of the book!

    I’m not going to beat myself up about this, as Jonah’s under-water antics are indeed the only part of the prophet’s career that are generally remembered in our culture.

    I still remember being introduced to the story of the prophet as a child by means of a picture book that had an image of Jonah and his fishy friend on the front cover – a book that I seem to remember was entitled, “Jonah and the Great Big Fish!”

    Moreover, the association of Jonah with his scaly friend has so penetrated Western history that the pair long ago became a part of a distinctively maritime lingua-franca! I have read, at least, that the term used by sailors of the under-water grave, “Davey Jones’ Locker” does in fact go back to the book of Jonah!

    Apparently there never was any famous underwater character named ‘Davey Jones’ (the lead singer of The Monkeys included). The name is rather a bastardisation of the Western Indian words, ‘Duffy Jonah’ (meaning ‘prophet Jonah’), which means that ‘Davey Jones’ Locker’ is in fact another reference to the fish!

    Even so, as I say, the Book of Jonah is not really a book about fish (nor about whales for that matter [for those who feel a need to point out that if Jonah had been swallowed by a whale, a whale is not actually a fish, technically speaking]).

    Let’s just clear the deck (so to speak) of fish and whales – neither of which are really significant themes in the book of Jonah. But if the maritime adventure of Jonah is not the key theme of the book, what is it all about? That is the question!

    Personally, I stopped seeing Jonah as a fish story once I gave my life to Christ as a teenager and joined a youth group, for it was there that I learned that the book of Jonah was not really a book about fish but was rather a book about priorities and about obedience, and about the importance of submitting ourselves to the will of God, even when God’s plans for our lives conflict with our own personal agendas.

    God had a plan for Jonah’s life. Jonah had other plans. Jonah had to learn that in the end it is God’s will that has to be done rather than your own. The book of Jonah, when seen from this perspective, is a challenge to each of us to submit ourselves to the will of God, lest we find ourselves thrown off a boat, drowning in the water, swallowed by a great fish, and spat out in the direction that submission to the will of God would have originally taken us anyway.

    We might refer to this interpretation of the Book of Jonah as the pious interpretation, and there’s obviously a lot of value in this ‘Thy will be done’ application of this book, but in my view now, as an adult now, the pious interpretation of Jonah is as far removed from the central message of the book as is the maritime adventure theme!

    In truth, I think it is very hard for us Sydney-siders of the 21st Century to grasp the central message of the Book of Jonah for one very simple reason: we just don’t harbor any real hatred towards the Assyrians!

    The Book of Jonah was written a long time ago in a culture far removed from our own, and the issue that upsets Jonah in the book and the issue that would have upset most of the original readers of the book was not simply that God had a plan for Jonah’s life (in some a general sort of way) but that God called Jonah to prophesy in Nineveh, which was the capital of Assyria, and both Jonah and the Book of Jonah’s original readers hated Assyrians!

    And the Jews didn’t just hate the Assyrians because they looked different either. They hated the Assyrians because the Assyrians had a history of killing them!

    Assyria was once the world’s most fearsome superpower! From the middle of the tenth century B.C. right through to the end of the seventh, the Neo-Assyrian Empire dominated the Middle East, and, during the 8th century reign of Tiglath-Pileaser III most especially, their empire was vast – covering all of what is modern-day Iraq and Syria, and covering enormous chunks of what is today Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and, of course, it covered all of Israel and Palestine!

    And it was an Empire built on violence! That in itself is in no way unique, of course, as indeed all the world’s empires have been built on violence, and yet the stories of the savagery of the Assyrian armies do seem particularly horrible.

    Nineveh’s military machine was renowned for being sadistic. If enemies resisted surrender during the siege of their city, once defeated, the whole population would be horribly mutilated and slaughtered. Their houses and towns would be torn down and burned, and the flayed skins of their corpses prominently displayed on stakes as a warning to others who might have been considering resistance.

    After their battles, public amusement would be provided for the people of Nineveh via a victory procession wherein enemy survivors were led down the city streets by leashes attached to rings inserted through their lips, with the vanquished nobles wearing the decapitated heads of their princes hanging around their necks. And all of this fun was accompanied by music from bands of minstrels playing merry tunes! Oh, the people of Nineveh knew how to enjoy themselves!

    And they enjoyed themselves like this for more than 300 years! It must have seemed as if the arrogant might of Nineveh would never fade and that their power-hungry god, Assur, was unbeatable. The Assyrian war-machine enjoyed so many bloody victories over their enemies in those 300 plus years between the 934 and 609 B.C., but none was remembered in the Bible more clearly and more bitterly than the sacking of Samaria and the destruction of Northern Israel in 721.

    The Jews did not hate the Assyrians because they looked funny or ate strange foods or just didn’t make an effort to mix in with the locals. They hated the Assyrians for far more obvious (and surely far more valid) reasons.

    They hated them because the Assyrians had destroyed more than half of their country. They hated them because of the countless number of their kinsfolk who had been slaughtered, imprisoned, enslaved and/or humiliated by the Assyrians. And they hated the Assyrians because in 721 B.C. it seemed that their god, Assur, had been victorious over the God of Israel.

    That day in 721 B.C. would forever be remembered by the people of Israel, not just as a day of mourning, but as a day of national humiliation. Their people had been butchered, half their country destroyed, and their temples desecrated.

    It was all done by the Ninevites, and so Jonah hated the Ninevites as the readers of Jonah hated the Ninevites. And now God asks Jonah to go to Ninevah to preach to the people there, and call on them to repent! And Jonah did not want to go there. Why would he? The only Jews that went to Ninevah were dragged there in chains!

    And yet it’s not only because he hates their city and might well fear for his life in such a place, but most of all because he feared that if he went to Ninevah, God might use him to do something good for the people of Ninevah, and in as much as Jonah might have feared that the people of Nineveh might do him some evil, his far greater fear was that he (Jonah) might be for the people of Nineveh the instrument of some good!

    National hatred of an enemy race is a terrible thing, but something we are all familiar with.

    I remember being told of a Jewish man and a Chinese man who, amongst others, are sitting at a bar, slowly drinking away the night. There were plenty of others perched between these two at the bar but the Jewish guy kept looking over at the Chinese guy with a surly expression on his face and was mumbling curses at him that got increasingly louder with each beer he consumed!

    Eventually the Jewish guy gets up and walks over to the Chinese guy and pours his beer over the poor guy’s head! The Chinese guy says, “What’s that for?” The Jewish guy says, “That’s for Pearl Harbour! My uncle was killed at Pearl Harbour!” The Chinese guy says, “I’m Chinese. That was the Japanese, you fool!” The Jewish guy says, “Chinese, Japanese … what’s the difference?” and he returns to his stool.

    Two minutes later the Chinese guy walks over to the Jewish guy and pours the contents of his beer over the Jewish guy’s head. “What’s that for?” asks the Jewish guy. The Chinese guy says, “That’s for the Titanic! My grandfather died on the Titanic!” The Jewish guy says, “What’s that got to do with me?” The Chinese guy says, “Steinberg, Goldberg, iceberg … what’s the difference?”

    Humour can be an effective way of confronting racial prejudice. So can stories such as we find in the Book of Jonah.

    The Book of Jonah is a book that is written with a purpose, and it’s purpose is not to encourage us to submit ourselves to the will of God (as important as that is) any more than it is to chronicle an ancient yarn concerning ‘the one that got away!’ It’s purpose is in fact summed up very succinctly in the final verse of the book of Jonah (chapter 4, verse 11) which I will read to you, but not just yet!

    Before I do read it, I want to raise the question with you, very briefly, as to who might have been the original audience that the Book of Jonah was addressed to?

    For the book is set in the 8th century B.C., but most Biblical scholars assume that the book wasn’t actually written till a great deal later – most probably in the post-exilic period, late in the 6th century.

    If so, it is quite possible that it was published at around the same time that Ezra and Nehemiah were active in trying to rebuild the ancient city of Jerusalem – a city that had been lying in ruins since the Babylonians had destroyed it 50 years earlier.

    And if you are familiar with the history of that time you will know that it was a time of great nationalistic fervour.

    The Jews were returning to their homeland and they were rebuilding their ancient city and they were rebuilding their temple, and all of a sudden, for the first time in a great many years, it felt good to be a Jew again!

    And leaders like Ezra and Nehemiah did a great deal to encourage the patriotic fervour of the returning Jews and to get them excited again about their city, about their religion and about their God.

    And in the process of doing that the issue of racial purity became a sticking point for a lot of people, and indeed both those leaders – Ezra and Nehemiah – became very upset over the issue of inter-marriage between Jews and non-Jews.

    Ezra indeed accused the men of mixing their ‘holy seed’ with the people of the lands (Ezra 9:2) and he encouraged large numbers of Jewish men to divorce their foreign wives and to send them away, along with the children of their mixed marriages!

    And I’m not saying that the Book of Jonah was written specifically as a response to the nationalistic ‘reforms’ of Ezra (though a lot of scholars have suggested exactly that) but I am suggesting that at around the same time all that was happening, a little tract was certainly circulating that told a story of how God had called one of His prophets to minister in the land of the Assyrians, because the God of Israel loved and respected foreigners too – even the people of Nineveh!

    In Jonah 4:11 – the final verse of the Book of Jonah – God says to Jonah “And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons that cannot discern their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

    Jonah is a remarkable book. Indeed, perhaps the only thing more remarkable than the book itself is the fact that our Jewish fathers and mothers, when it came time to put together the collection of books that have become known as our ‘Old Testament’ recognised that this book – the Book of Jonah – deserved to be included too, as one of the inspired works of God!

    It is a book that strikes at the heart of every manifestation of religious nationalism, as indeed it is a book that confronts religious arrogance in all its forms, for it a book that reminds us that the God of Israel, the God of the faithful and the God of the upright, is also the God of the Assyrian, of the unfaithful and of the not-so-upright too!

    And that’s why the Book of Jonah is a book our world needs to hear right now.
    As our political leaders and media beaver away at dehumanising Arabs and Iranians and Muslim people in general, to prepare us for further bloodshed.
    When being Christian has somehow once again become associated with being white!
    And when refugees of all kinds are being treated with suspicion and contempt because of their strange foreign habits and strange foreign gods.

    It’s time to once again hear the message of the Book of Jonah.

    “And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4:11)

    ‘Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.

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  3. Trade Forex More Efficiently Using Computer Programs

    January 23, 2012 by infowriter

    Foreign exchange trading (Forex) is one of the most tough markets for beginners within the stock exchange, but it could be the most lucrative when you identify the way to function. For years, those entering the Forex trading floor have had to sort through piles and piles of information in order to determine how foreign exchange stock is likely to perform. Only recently programmers have begun to make Forex trading software devices which will be used to assist you on working out whether you should purchase or sell your shares in some foreign currencies. This software allows you to stay ahead of the game faster and easily.

    With a robot trading system designed to assist you run foreign currencies, you can assist yourself in making the proper choices and begin to trade currencies like a real professional. You can choose between two different sorts of Forex trading software, called the side service and also the client side software.

    The former could be a additional essential sort of software, enabling you to manage your Forex accounts, while the latter is more like a robot trading system, operating on your computer and permitting you to include relevant data and make necessary choices regarding your stock. The majorities of software systems that can be downloaded on to your computer are like the latter and are used to huge accomplishment by many members of the stock market.

    There are several factors why any beginner ought to seriously check out getting a robot trading system. Initially, it allows you simple and in-depth analysis of your products and could give you with a simple snap-shot of the present Forex markets. Secondly, it can provide you with a chart which would guide you towards your next purchase or sale, and if you practice interpreting the data, you will quickly be ready to accumulate a significant profit.

    Another issue that you must consider is that you have an extra measure of security that implies that you do not have to worry regarding potential hackers. Of course no software is totally protected, but the majority of Forex trading software systems operate using a secure program that is a good defense against hackers. When you are trading in considerably huge amounts of cash, it is always a good idea to confirm that you are totally protected against all possible threats to your security and by employing a completely safe Forex trading system, you may ensure that you are not susceptible while you are trading. Rather than operate from somebody else’s website it makes sense to decide on a program that may be simply downloaded to your own computer.

    A system like that provided at http://www.GeckoSoftware.com may actually help you in making the most from your Forex trading software. Gecko Software, Inc. has been in business for 19 years creating tools for traders, software and platforms for trading Stocks, Robot Trading System, Futures & Foreign Currency. Gecko Software’s flagship product line, Track ‘n Trade, has won Stocks & Commodities Annual Readers Choice Award six times. Gecko Software is also the creators of the line of products known as TradeMiner; tools designed to help traders identify historically accurate cycles and trends from any given market. Visit the website to know more about the software.

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  4. Know The Trade Trends Through Futures Trading Software

    January 21, 2012 by infowriter

    As a starter in the futures market, it is all too easy to miss the minute shifts in patters which will affect your current investments and however it is important to your earnings that you simply continually monitor those same investments and ensures that nothing occurs to them. The futures market is comparatively unstable, since it depends on traders bidding upon the outcome of events which have not yet occurred, and this may lead to a lot of hesitation and uncertainty. Futures trading are as a consequence one of the most difficult markets for beginners to break into without any formal training.

    Even the data assessment in futures trading is difficult to read and understand. Several traders depend upon printed reports to analyze the potential for their investments, and then either buy or sell as they decide. It is terribly difficult for the beginner to get a real hang of data understanding, and so they often fall back on a few easy designs that they have been trained and hope that this can be enough to get them through to the next stage of their investment.

    Generally, as many of traders are doing the same, it is really tough to get lucky and make a vital trade. In order to progress to the next level, buying some futures trading software can make a real difference to your investment portfolio and start bringing in few sensible profit.

    Real success on the Forex market involves learning how the system works and the basic patterns that control the stock which is being floated on the market. Futures trading software can truly assist you in identifying many trends and spot any signs of trouble within the trading patterns that you are monitoring. For instance, a common program in futures trading software involves the tracking of seasonal changes.

    Futures are considered to follow consistent seasonal pattern of investment (indeed, few are directly affected by harvests and holidays, and so on), and also the futures trading software could pick up any designs and connect them with previously identified seasonal changes. Locating such patterns may take a lifetime’s worth of ability, but by using software, you may start early and permit the computer to indicate you the significant patterns within the seasons. By using the information from your programs, you may invest in some futures, and take your money out of another. This permits you to make a profit even when events won’t be in your favor.

    A great software program that runs automatically is that the system developed by http://www.trackntrade.com. Their programs have reinvented the investment wheel and can be used by anyone, whether they’re an old hand in futures, Stocks Trading Software or a raw beginner. Track ‘n Trade revolutionized the way people learned how to trade the futures market and now continues to revolutionize the way people trade the futures, forex and stock markets. Someone new to trading can practice until he or she feels confident enough to invest personal capital. Track ‘n Trade also introduced an interactive chart which gave the user the ability to place trades directly on the chart itself thus coining the phrase “The Ultimate Trading Machine for the Visual Investor”. Visit the website to know more.

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  5. Forex Traders Can Improve From A Trading Magazine

    January 21, 2012 by infowriter

    The foreign exchange market could be a difficult area for anybody just beginning in the world of trading, and for many learners it could be an intimidating field to operate. This is where a Forex trading magazine could make lots of difference and actually help you to determine what your next move could be.

    By following advice from seasoned professionals, you can quickly find out how to improve your trading strategy, and follow a currency productively from a falling price to a rise in income for you or your business.

    The very nature of Forex trading makes it both exciting and nerve-wracking and good guidance is hard to come by on the bull pit floor. While you can have jumped right in to trading while not giving thought to an exit stratagem, it is not very late to find out and reading a Forex trading news magazine will create few vital ideas on how your purchases may best be managed. By learning the main points of your trade from professional writers, you can be sure that you have all the up-to-date data on the currencies you are interested in. By reading a Forex trading magazine, you can start enjoying like a professional.

    If you happen to be a beginner in Forex, then you can be overwhelmed by the large number of currencies offered to the trader. From USD to CHF and all in between, the currencies of every major country and the most of the smaller ones, are placed in the Forex ring and left to traders to sort out. Since cash and exchange rates are seriously affected by world news, it is vital to stay updated, and a Forex trading magazine can be probably the best methods to do this.

    Even when you have been working within the foreign exchange markets for years, it could still make sense to take out a subscription to a Forex trading magazine, because several of those news sheets provide vital information on the latest changes to currency rates, and also because there are often articles by retired providing simple guidance that may be ignored by people who have been working in the stock markets for years. Reading a magazine which covers Forex trading could assist you to put your own struggles with the stock market into perspective and would allow you to advance your trading skills to the next level.

    There are plenty of trading magazines of all varieties available, but for a professional and highly informative news sheet, http://www.PitNews.com can supply you with all you require. Subscribe today and ensure that you just get the newest updates and articles on Forex trading across the world. PitNews.com is a targeted market Trading Magazine website for traders. Their mission is to deliver valuable, timely information to traders of the Futures, Forex and Stock Market. Lan Turner is the Editor in Chief of PitNews Magazine, he has been working in the financial industry for over 19 years, and has taught his Stocks, Futures & Forex trading ideas and concepts to clients, professional traders, and brokers from around the world. You can find Mr. Turner online at PitNews. Visit the website and get your free eMagzine subscription today!

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  6. Bring People To Your Business With Workshops

    January 20, 2012 by infowriter

    If you’re trying for new methods to promote your business, then trying into holding workshops is one way that few businesses ever consider. Workshops could actually show your customers that you are curious about forming a strong relationship with them, and even enable you in promoting a brand product or service that needs a little bit of assistance. If you have recently launched a new item, for example, or are expanding your business into a new area, such as Sydney, then you may want to hold a few workshops in order to tell the public of your new step.

    There are various reasons why a Workshops Sydney function may be the best possibility, however the major of those is that holding a workshop permits you to interact along with your customers in an intimate means that creates a strong bond between you and also the customer. Another common selling choices, that are seminars, could assist you to market your business, however are a lot formal and less interactive. You may fit more clients into a seminar, but they’re less probably to feel a strong relationship with you, your company or your products. Holding a workshops Sydney based session would assist you to make your relationship, and is very important to building a brand for your company.

    Another big reason why you should think about the workshops Sydney choice as a good way is that it may facilitate you to increase your credibility with the individuals in that city. A hands-on workshop in Sydney area will allow you to create an image of yourself as the expert in that product or service. It increases trust in you and this is often a helpful tool when it involves generating sales and building customer interest.

    The third reason why the workshops Sydney choice would be considered is its capability to get leads, and create sales. When you have got a large group of the overall public gathered around you, trying at you with interest and looking at your product, then there is no way a good time in making new sales. The workshop Sydney affair may even create an atmosphere of trust, that could lead to people providing you with contact information. Having a section in your function where people can provide you their names and addresses, or emails, would allow you to make up a customer contact base that can then be used when you are promoting new merchandise, or looking to get sales in the future.

    Holding a workshop is the perfect way to boost your relationship with the general public, and could enable you to make contact with people who are curious about your product.

    Are you searching for the best events management firm in Sydney? Then visit http://www.MCME.com.au where you can tap into a team of professionals who have the knowledge, expertise and resources that require to accomplish any kind of events successfully. To find out more about events management Sydney log on to http://www.MCME.com.au

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  7. Know How To Find The Best Fat Transfer Plastic Surgeon

    January 18, 2012 by infowriter

    So you’ve decided you’d like a fat transfer (commonly called “fat graft”) procedure.

    No matter whether it’s for aesthetic factors or reconstructive ones, one thing is for sure – you want the best fat transfer plastic surgeon taking care of you.

    With plastic surgery, the results are visible right away after the procedure. For this reason, it’s fundamentally necessary you seek a doctor who will execute the process with the best degree of skill. An expert surgeon could work with you when it involves preparing the procedure, and then perform it specifically as planned, leaving no scope for any surprises.

    In today’s article, we’ll take a closer look at this increasingly popular procedure.

    The Method – Are You Eligible?

    The general idea of a fat graft is simple: take fat from one part of the body and redistribute it to an area that needs it. From this simple method, it’s simple to fix a multitude of issues. Additionally, because of the overall simplicity of the process, healing occurs relatively quickly ensuring you’re off the operating table and back living your life within a very small time period.

    The best doctors for plastic surgery in Manhattan can do a fat injection procedure on almost any part of your body. The most common area is the face, however this could be a fantastic procedure on other areas too.

    So are you eligible? A fat graft is a surgical procedure, meaning you ought to be in good physical and emotional health before considering it. Furthermore, you ought to be able to run your expectations regarding the results.

    The fat graft would enable you to improve the appearance of few elements of your body, but it isn’t a magic pill for an improved life. For that reason, keep in mind that though the surgery will probably give you a big boost in confidence, what you do with that boost in self-esteem is completely up to you.

    The “Mommy Makeover”

    A fat transfer plastic surgeon can assist correct problems with reconstructive surgery, however he could even assist you achieve a selected look with aesthetic surgery.

    Currently, one of the most popular types of aesthetic surgery is the “mommy makeover.” Essentially, with this surgery, you may almost erase the toll childbirth and raising children has taken on your look. Additionally to smart liposuction, breast augmentation and tummy tucks, fat transfer body sculpting procedures are often done to minimize facial aging and provide you a new and well rested appearance. With an expert fat transfer plastic surgeon at the helm, you’ll be well cared for and in love with the finished product!

    Locating a Surgeon

    So, irrespective of your reasons for surgery, you have to get the surgeon who’s right for you.

    How to do it? Well, probably the easiest ways is to examine their credentials. With plastic surgery in Manhattan, there are a large number of surgeons to select from, but not all of them have excellent credentials – not all of them have a good reputation.

    Seek for public options on the surgeon you’re looking into. For example, Dr. Diktaban has been featured in Castle Connolly’s “Best Plastic Surgeons in New York,” and the New York Times “SuperDocs of New York,” simply to name a few. These awards are evidence of a career of excellence. What a feeling to be able to relax before your surgery, knowing you’re being cared for by one of New York’s best.

    Dr. Theodore Diktaban, a board certified plastic surgeon and certified otolaryngologist, has worked for years ground-breaking techniques of minimally invasive liposuction. In over 30 years of practice he has carried out a lot more than 20,000 procedures and brings an expertise to each and every patient’s care not accessible in so many practices. He carries out low-fat injection body sculpting at his offices in New York City for patients from around the tri-state area as well and countries all over the world. Get in touch with him at http://www.drdiktaban.com for a private consultation to see if Fat Transfer Procedure is an option for you.

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  8. Improve Your Organization With Coaching And Mentoring Specialists

    January 17, 2012 by infowriter

    Several corporations turn to business analysts in order to have ideas on their present situation, and steps that can be taken to improve their organization. Getting advice from analysts on the various ways in which you may grow your business could be a vital step forward for any company, however it is unhappy fact that usually the advice is executed without any support and the corporate finds itself falling back down the rankings. For most firms, this seems proof that business analysts are not worth the money and so they discontinue a huge source of information, preventing them from learning how to improve their projects and procedures while raising the profile of the company.

    Maybe among the most significant things that any business analysts group will consider is how to improve process management. Processes need to be finely tuned to have the most from strategies, planning and implementation and they are also necessary to the establishment of appropriate risk management development.

    If your processes are just working at a fundamental level, then your company may be struggling without the managers even realizing it and also the business will definitely not be living up to its full potential. By focusing on how your procedure improves and impedes your business strategies and objectives, business analysts may provide you vital information about how to change your procedures so as to maximize these resources.

    When you employ an analyst to evaluate your current process management procedure, you can expect them to use a lot of analytic strategies to fully assess your procedures. They will often begin with a requirement analysis, which looks at the gaps and defective procedures in the company. They can even decide what process methods to modify in order to stop these gaps. They will also consider the effectiveness and productivity of the company, analyzing different problems like a lack of effort in teams, the benefits that staff training could give and if the corporate is meeting its performance targets or not. This would then continue with a style to assist you improve your process management to a degree where your company is noticing improved profits and productivity among its members.

    Typically, analysts could suggest few small modifications that are not long-term, however by educating you regarding how your process effects the members of your company you can start to make changes yourself every time your business starts to show decreased efficiency.

    This means that instead of providing you with the finished product, business analyst companies like http://www.roblyncorp.com will give you the tools to develop process strategies and make changes as they’re required. This offers you a lot of flexibility and allows you to adapt to the demands of the market. Roblyn helps organizations do what they do better by improving the effectiveness of their people, processes and projects saving time, money, and enabling them to reach peak performance.

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  9. The Mystery of Christ

    January 16, 2012 by infowriter

    “In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

    I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Ephesians 3:4-11)

    It’s my privilege today to preach on Ephesians chapter 3 – our Epistle reading.

    ‘Oh great’ somebody says. ‘Finally somebody is preaching on Ephesians 3!’

    Well, … somebody might say that. I’ve been here almost 13 years and no one yet, so far as I remember, has ever preached on Ephesians 3 during that time. It’s probably about time someone preached on it. Perhaps someone has been waiting anxiously for this to happen? It’s not likely of course. No one is likely to say ‘Great, Ephesians!’ You’re more likely to ask me to spell the word for you, and this despite the fact that we read from the book only a few minutes ago.

    This is always the problem with the Epistle reading I think. And I’ve noticed that those who determine our weekly readings keep trimming the length of the Epistle reading down. And this makes sense to me, for unless you’re a bit of an enthusiast it seems to be pretty hard to keep the Epistle reading in your head for too long.

    Oh, we remember the Old Testament reading, which was about David and Bathsheeba. And we can probably remember the gospel reading. But we have trouble remembering the Epistle reading, and perhaps especially this Epistle reading. It seems to be particularly forgettable.
    Does anyone remember what it was about?

    In Ephesians 3 Paul talks about the ‘mystery of Christ’.

    “When you read this” Paul says, “you will perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ”.

    This is one of Paul’s last letters. This is a letter written from prison. This is the sort of letter you write to people who you know you are probably never going to see again. It’s the sort of letter where, if you’ve got something important to say, this is the time to say it, because you don’t know how much more time you’ve got left. And for Paul, the important thing he wanted to talk about was the ‘mystery of Christ.’

    “You will perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ” Paul says. It is a mysterious truth, he says, “that was not made known to the sons of men in other generations”, but that has been revealed to him and to his Christian contemporaries by the Holy Spirit! And what is this mysterious truth kept secret for so long but finally revealed in Christ?

    1.#That Jesus is the Son of God?

    2.#That He was crucified, died and was buried, but rose again on the 3rd day?

    3.#That Jesus reconciled the world to Himself on the cross?

    No. None of the above. The mystery of Christ, now made know, Paul says is … “that the Gentiles are fellow heirs” – that Jews and non-Jews are members of the same body, equally partakers of the promises of God, brothers and sisters in the same church!

    This is not the climactic answer we might have expected from Paul. What’s so mysterious about the equality of the races? But listen to him eulogize further:

    “Now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace.”

    Is Paul talking about the mystical ‘peace’ between humanity and God? No, he’s talking about the peace that Christ brings between people of different races.

    “For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility … that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.”
    And so he continues.

    This is the heart of Paul’s theology in Ephesians. Does it surprise you? Didn’t Jesus come into the world to save sinners? The death of Jesus on the cross spells for us forgiveness and the possibility of a new beginning. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Well, according to the book of Ephesians, the climactic work of Christ on the cross is that by his blood he broke down the dividing wall of racial hostility between Jew and Greek!

    That may seem to trivialise the significance of the death of Christ for us. Of coursed this may be related to the fact that we don’t live in Israel!

    It’s easy for us to preach the equality of all races when we live in a situation that is relatively tolerant of different cultures. Put yourself in Israel and start preaching that all Jews and Palestinians are sisters and brothers. See how popular you are. And don’t just preach it quietly over coffee to your friends. Preach it the way Paul did – setting up churches made up of Jews and Greeks and Palestinians and Arabs – all publicly worshipping together in the middle of the hostility.

    If Paul were alive today, I believe I know exactly where he’d be right now on a Sunday morning. He’d be in the middle of the Gaza strip, leading a magnificent service of joint worship between Jewish and Palestinian Christians. He’d be doing it in the open air, with tanks visible in the background, and people looking on through cracks in the wall out of their bombed-out homes. And he’d be preaching ‘Peace to those who are far off and peace to those who are near, for Christ has made one new man out of two and has brought our hostility to an end.’ The message of reconciliation takes on a different feel altogether when you relocate yourself a bit.

    Some of us have just returned from a historical tour of the US. One of the places we visited there was the John Brown wax museum in Harpers Ferry. John Brown was a fiery preacher in the mid nineteenth century who preached the equality of blacks and whites, and who tried to start an armed rebellion amongst the slaves, beginning at Harpers Ferry. Whether you agree with Brown’s methods or not, no one could doubt the integrity of his zeal, nor the fact that his convictions grew out of a fundamentally Biblical mandate that through the death of Christ all the races have been made one!

    John Brown was hanged in Harpers Ferry. In the years that followed his death many thousands and tens of thousands went off to war because they believed that they had to fight in order to make that proclaimed equality a physical reality by ending slavery.

    Preaching genuine equality is dangerous business. It cost Paul his life too.

    The details of Paul’s ultimate end have always been a little hazy, but we know that the prison letters were the last letters he wrote, and we believe that he was executed by the government – probably beheaded -not long after writing this letter to the Ephesians.

    Why did Paul have so many enemies? How is it that he stirred up so much trouble such that the authorities had to keep stepping in to silence him, and eventually felt the need to silence him altogether? Was it because he went around telling people to be nice to each other and to live good middle-class lives? I don’t think so. It was because he challenged what was at the heart of the religion and culture of his own people – the idea that his people (the Jews) were God’s special people, and that the rest of the world were not.

    In my understanding, there are some things that are essential to being Jewish in this world and there are other areas where there is a great degree of flexibility.

    As to how you envision God and His relationship with the world, I understand that there’s plenty of room for discussion within the Jewish community. As to your beliefs about the Messiah, again, traditional Judaism, I’m told, takes a fairly liberal attitude in terms of allowing different people to believe different things. You might think Jesus is the Messiah. I might disagree. This in itself would not necessarily mean that we can’t worship happily together in the same synagogue.

    But there’s one point of dogma in Jewish understanding where there is really very little room for maneuver. That’s the understanding that the Jews are God’s chosen people. That’s the fundamental basis of the faith. The Jews are God’s chosen people and for that reason they are different, and so much of what we associate with traditional Jewish religious practice was developed to reinforce exactly that point.
    As a Jewish parent you would teach this to your children – that we dress differently and eat differently and live differently because we are different. We are God’s special people – chosen at the beginning of history to be the guardians of God’s law and the messengers of God’s truth to the rest of the world. We are a holy people, a separate people, and that’s why we don’t associate with people who are not of our race.
    Paul comes along and says ‘Well, that was yesterday. But now that Christ has come, that wall of hostility has been broken down, and these two people have become one!’

    Paul started out on the other side of the fence of course. He was brought up as a strict Jew and trained as a Pharisee. And we know that he spent much of his early career trying to wipe out the church for exactly this reason, because he saw the threat that the inclusive attitude of the Christians posed to his own community. But Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, and so he came to say that all that good breeding and upbringing that had once made him feel so self-important and unique he ‘counted as crap’ for the sake of knowing Christ and making him known.

    In Paul’s understanding, whatever distinctive role the Jewish people had to play in the historic plan of God for the world – whatever role they had as guardians of the law and messengers of the truth – was now over. The time of separateness was finished. Through Christ all people were being reconciled and brought together. The hostility had to come to and end! This was the stand that would ultimately get Paul killed.

    They say that Martin Luther King Jr. was a very shy and retiring man who probably would not have upset anybody too much if he’d kept his radical preaching and ideas about equality squarely inside the walls of his own church. The problem was that he started doing those marches, and thrusting the whole thing into everybody’s faces.

    Paul, likewise, was a guy who pushed the issue of racial equality into everybody’s faces. He had a public showdown over the issue with the apostle Peter early on (you can read about that in his letter to the Galatians). He organised a worldwide aid fund at the end of his life, designed both to relieve the poverty in Jerusalem and also to bring together the churches of the different cultures. And throughout his ministry Paul deliberately fashioned the churches he was involved in to be living testimonies to the rest of the society of the new reality of racial integration and harmony that Christ made possible.

    This brings us back to what I think is the climax of Ephesians chapter 3:

    Paul says that it is his mission in life ‘to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.’

    Let me unpack that for you a little. Paul’s mission is to make known the mystery, which, as we have seen, was the mysterious coming together of the different peoples of the world through Christ. Paul now goes further and says now that the wonderful consequence of this mysterious coming together is that through the church the manifold wisdom of God is made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.’

    Here is one of the few times that I, as a preacher, am glad that I know a little Greek (the original language in which this letter was written) for I can tell you that the word ‘manifold’ here (the ‘manifold wisdom of God’) can more be literally translated as ‘multicoloured’.

    The church proclaims, Paul says, the ‘multicoloured’ wisdom of God around the world – and not only around the world but even beyond the world and into the heavenly realms, so that even the principalities and powers in the heavenly places can see the wondrous mystery of Christ made known! And they see it through the church, not simply because we’re talking about it, but because, as a multicoloured community, we proclaim the wisdom of God just by being who we are!

    •#Think about that friends! We proclaim the coming of a new Kingdom:
    •#A world where every tear will be wiped away
    •#Where lions and lambs lie down side by side
    •#Where war is no more because people can genuinely get on with one another
    •#Where black and white, rich and poor, male and female, slave and free are all equal.

    We proclaim the coming of Christ’s kingdom, but we must admit that there are very few indications in this world that this Kingdom is really on its way.

    Someone said to me only the other day “I’ll bet you all I’ve got that this Kingdom of yours ain’t coming”. I said “I’ll take that bet”, but I know full well that as you look around the world you don’t see people coming together everywhere. You see more and more people and nations splitting further apart!

    But this is where St Paul says to us, ‘But wait. Look at the church! In the church you see people living in genuine community. In the church you see black and white, slave and free, rich and poor, male and female all living together as one! In the church we see a living sign of the world to come, for in the church the multicoloured wisdom of God is being proclaimed to the very principalities and powers in the heavenly places!’

    Of course the church doesn’t always look quite that good. Often the church is just as divided as the rest of the world.

    Even here, we have not been immune from the natural phenomenon that ‘birds of a feather tend to flock together’. OK. We don’t have a huge issue with Jewish people not being treated as equals in our midst, and I’m sure that we would state very dogmatically that nobody is consciously excluded from our community. And yet, like any group of human beings, we’ll tend to mix with people we feel natural with. We’ll tend to gravitate towards people who have a similar cultural background to what we do and a similar educational level to what we have, because those are the people who are likely to understand us best and so those are the sort of people we are most likely to enjoy.

    What would St Paul say? I think he would simply urge us ‘people, be the church!’ You are the church of God, called to be a sign to the rest of the world of the Kingdom coming, called to be a living example of true community, assigned the privilege of proclaiming to the world, and to the worlds beyond our own, the multicoloured wisdom of God through the very multicoloured beauty of your own congregation!

    Let’s not forget! It’s too easy to forget the Epistle reading, to easy to forget what Paul was talking about in Ephesians 3, and to easy to forget who we are supposed to be as the church.

    Around the world I think much of the church has forgotten who we are supposed to be, and it is quite possible that we will let this go in one ear and out the other, just as we did with the Epistle reading when it was first read to us today.

    Let’s not let that happen. Let’s not forget who we are and who we are called to be. We are the church of God. We are the people who, in our very communal life, make known the mystery of Christ to the rest of the world. We are the people who proclaim to the principalities and powers in the Heavenly places the multicoloured wisdom of God. And we do this just by being the church, and by living together in love as Christ taught us to.

    ‘Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.

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  10. I Had A Dream

    January 16, 2012 by infowriter

    I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. … I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. … I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

    In Acts chapter 11 we are told that Peter had a dream, and the thrust of these two dreams is remarkably similar!

    In a bar in New York there are two guys sitting at opposite ends of the bar eyeing out each other as they sink a few beers. One guy is a Jewish American. The other guy is a Chinese American. After his third beer the Jewish guy takes what’s left of his glass, walks over to the Chinese guy, and pours it over his head saying “That’s for Pearl Harbour. My grandfather was killed at Pearl Harbour.” “Pearl Harbour!” the Chinese guy says. “I’m Chinese. It was the Japanese that bombed Pearl Harbour.” “Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese – all the same to me!” the Jewish guy says. The Chinese guy then takes his beer and pours it over the Jewish guy’s head, saying, “That’s for the Titanic. My great Uncle was killed when the Titanic went down.” “The Titanic” says the Jewish guy, “what have I got to do with the sinking of the Titanic?” “Goldberg, Steinberg, Iceberg – all the same to me!” the man replies.

    “Prejudice is the child of Ignorance” said William Hazlitt a couple of centuries ago. For the most part he is surely right, but not in some situations. Having just emerged from two weeks in Israel, I’d have to say that the prejudices that vibrate across that country are deep and complex – not a matter of simple ignorance. When I look at the way battle lines were drawn between different ethnic groups in New Testament times, the situation there is also complex.

    The Jews of 1st century Palestine did not mix with the Greeks and the Romans. Why not? Partly because they (the Romans) were an unfriendly foreign power that had invaded their land. Partly because they represented a style of life that the Jews saw as idolatrous and self-seeking and that threatened to corrupt their youth. Partly because Biblical piety demanded that the Jews remain a separate people – distinct in appearance and in lifestyle from their neighbours. And partly, I suppose, because they just looked different.

    Visit Israel today and you will likewise find a situation that is complex, yet the reality of prejudicial hatred and violence is everywhere. It was a good learning experience for me – being on the wrong end of prejudice. Being male, middle-class and white, I’m normally well ensconced on the comfortable side of racial tensions. Not so when I went to Israel. It was a first for me to feel looked down upon, to be threatened, kicked and spat upon, though I was always conscious of the fact that I was just a tourist. Others had to live with this every day.

    If we had met the Apostle Paul before his conversion – when he was still known as ‘Saul’ – we would have found him hard to get on with. Well … I suppose he would have had no dealings with us. Even so, if we caught a glance from him as he was passing by we would have felt him looking down his nose at us. He wouldn’t have deemed us worthy of his conversation, let along his presence at a meal.

    I imagine Peter to be naturally warmer than that. My guess is that Peter would have managed a smile for just about anyone – from his fellow Jews to Samaritan women! Even so, the early Peter would never have consented to sit down to have a meal with us, as he would not stain himself by coming under the same roof as us.

    And it’s not a case of simple prejudice based on ignorance. God Himself had given the people of Israel a variety of rituals with which they circumscribed their lives, and the whole point of those rituals was to make themselves different as a people.

    To be ‘holy’ always meant to be ‘separate’ or ‘different’. The Jews were self-consciously different. And they wanted to remain different because God wanted them to be different!

    It was written: ‘every male among you shall be circumcised’. That made them different.

    It was written: you don’t eat pork (Leviticus 11). That made them different too.

    Indeed there were lots of things written that were designed to remind you that you, as a child of God, were different from the rest of the world – holy, pious, focused on God.

    Of course this sense of thinking that you were different from others easily lends itself to thinking that you were better than others, which is where the critique of Jesus upon the whole system begins. According to the dream in Acts 10 and 11 though it appears that the entire system is to be abandoned! The actions runs as follows:

    1. Peter has a dream of a great picnic where God is telling him to have a bite of all the things that he isn’t supposed to eat. Peter has this dream three times!

    2. As he finishes dreaming, representatives of Cornelius the Roman centurion come to his house and ask him to accompany them to meet Cornelius.

    3. Peter goes with them, enters Cornelius’ house, starts talking, and everybody starts speaking in tongues, reminiscent of the day of Pentecost!

    4. Peter says, “These people have received the Holy Spirit just as we have”, and so everybody gets baptised.

    This is my summary of Acts 11, and Acts 11 is actually just a summary of Acts 10. This is a story that gets repeated over again in the book of Acts, presumably because it is important.

    I think I’m right in saying that there is only one other story in the book of Acts that gets this sort of treatment. It’s the story of Saul’s experience on the road to Damascus – where he’s thrown of his horse and blinded and where he hears Jesus speaking to him.

    Ironically, in both cases, the truth that God brings to the men is roughly the same – that God does have a place in His heart and in His Kingdom for non-Jews.

    What we need to understand is that this was the big issue in the first century church. This was why the early Paul (or ‘Saul’) and so many of his pious contemporaries hated the Christians.

    It wasn’t just because the Christians thought that Jesus was the Messiah. That might have been a sticking point for some, but within the Jewish faith there were then (as there are now) different beliefs about who was the Messiah.

    It wasn’t just about who the Messiah was. It was most fundamentally about the fact that the Christians were dissolving the dividing wall between Jew and non-Jew, and this was seen as a threat to the entire fabric of their faith and their society!

    There might well have been room within Jewish society to accept different beliefs about different Messiahs. Look at the literature of 1st century Israel and you will see that different groups had different Messianic expectations. Most people were waiting for a warrior leader. Some were waiting for a priest. If you look at the Dead Sea Scrolls, it seems that the Qumran community, who were a group of Jewish monks, were expecting both!

    1st century Judaism might well have been able to absorb within its ranks any number of godly Jews who recognised Jesus as the Messiah, and had not God given Peter this dream, and had not God struck down Saul and turned him into Paul, and had not God very deliberately forced the church to burst the bounds of any narrow ethnic exclusivism, then we might still be a small sect within the larger body of Judaism.

    But it was not the will of God that his people should remained defined by any one ethnic group, just as it is not the will of God that we remain defined by any one social group, just as it is not the will of God that we be defined by any homogeneous unit that separates us from our fellow men and women.

    On the contrary, as we read about God building the church in the book of Acts what we see is that He was very deliberately building a multi-coloured community where in Christ there was ‘no Jew nor Greek nor Palestinian nor Arab, no rich or poor, no slave or free, no male or female, but where all are one, for all are in Christ as Christ is in all.’

    Peter had a dream. Martin Luther King had a dream. Some of us find that this dream continues.

    It took us some 2000 odd years, and it is taking the church longer than most, but we seem to be finally discovering that there is indeed no male nor female in Christ, but that women are in fact equally capable of ministry and service as are men. It turns out that “These people have received the Holy Spirit just as we did”. By the grace of the Spirit of God some of us have discovered that, and so the dream continues.

    For me the biggest personal spiritual breakthrough in the last ten years has been a realisation concerning my brothers and sisters who share a different sexual orientation to mine. By the grace of the Spirit of God I came to see that “many of these people had received the Holy Spirit just as I had”. And so the dream continues.

    For many of us here the Spirit of God is still at work expanding our vision and enlarging our hearts, helping us to realise that young people as well as old, uneducated as well as educated, working class as well as middle class, people of all types and colours and backgrounds are all one in Christ Jesus, indeed, that “these people have received the Holy Spirit just as we have”.

    It is a dangerous thing to dream. And it is certainly unsettling for the church leadership. Things would be so much easier if God restricted Himself to communicating with us only through the direct study of the Scriptures. Such a God would be a lot easier to contain and to predict. But it seems to be built in to the package, that if we are going to worship a living God, then we are going to have to put up with ongoing surprises.

    And the surprises, I believe, keep coming in this same area – that God is continuing to open us up as a community to become the truly multi-coloured family that He always intended us to be. They tend to keep being in the area of pushing us beyond our comfort zones and moving us from ‘me’ to ‘we’ and from ‘us and them’ to just ‘us’.

    I must admit that spending a couple of weeks in Israel has deepened my perspective on these matters. I’ve now had the experience of being kicked and spat upon because I am different. This is not the way things are supposed to be. This is not the way that things one day will be. And God has very deliberately constructed the church so that it might be a sign to the world now of the fact that things don’t have to be this way.

    We are not there yet, but we can keep building and we can keep praying and we can keep dreaming, of that great feast when all peoples will come together and share together in the good things that God has given us, of that day when former slaves and former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of fellowship, of that day when every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

    ‘Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.

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