Help us Help Youth

Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.-
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Life Path Ministries & Services is launching a four-month sponsorship drive for its Youth-N2-Action program.  Youth-N2-Action targets at-risk and low-income youth in grades 10 and 11 for community service, leadership development and tiered mentoring.  Our goal is to teach and train a minimum of 50 youth entering into the 11th grade next school year with leadership skills, mentoring support from community and business leaders, and offer community service and service learning opportunities over an 18 to 24-month campaign period for the class of 2013.  During 2012, we plan to expand the program to include 10th graders and have our Difference-Makers Camp offered for both classes as an excursion of education, exposure and empowerment.

We believe that today's youth are tomorrow's leaders.  It is imperative for today's leaders to teach and train today's youth for tomorrow's leadership opportunities.  Join the effort to help us help youth in San Diego take charge and take action.

Go to the site: http://200club.chipin.com/200-club-youth-sponsors and donate a one-time sponsorship of $200 or a partial sponsorship of $100 during the campaign.  Forward the link http://200club.chipin.com/200-club-youth-sponsors and/ or this post to 5 other people who are concerned and compassionate about the issues facing our youth today and the leadership gap that will exist if the youth are not taught and trained today.

Pray like You Mean it

a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways- James 1:8

Don't find yourself unsure and without faith.  Pray with all faith and trust in God.  Be sure to offer God as much trust as you can muster when you offer Him your petitions.  Be sure to let God know that you trust Him with your whole heart when you pray to Him.

Then Jesus said to the disciples, Have faith in God.- Mark 11:22 (NLT)

Have faith when you pray.  Let your faith come out as you pray.  Pray earnestly. Pray humbly.  Pray expectantly.  Pray with full faith.

Ministers and Movements

"Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever."- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ministers have been involved in social movements for years.  I pray that many clergy who ponder and contemplate the political and social justice arena see the dire need for more ministerial influence over the matters of society today.

Look at the YMCA, Salvation Army, and similar organizations that were launched on Christian principles.  The Temperance Movement had faithful forces such as Billy Sunday and the American Tract Society behind its work to outlaw alcohol.  Look at the work of evangelists like Billy Graham and Oral Roberts to spread the Good News as well as start schools, missionary field work, and other ventures beyond simply preaching from town to town and from tent to tent.  Look at the SCLC and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and their work with the Civil Rights Movement.

The church needs to see where it is being called to serve today.  We need to find where God wants to use us and discover how the new wine will pour out from the new wineskins.  Pray for God to guide today's ministry leaders in a way that will lead today's people for the change that God has in store for them.

Coin a Phrase

"To be or not to be..."


"Beware of the Ides of March..."

"Something is afoul in Denmark..."

"Et tu, Brute?..."

Hamlet .  Julius Caesar.   Shakespeare wrote all of these words. They are contained within his plays and have echoed on stage and in classrooms for years.
 

We can say that we don't put much stock in what others have to say, but our own actions dispel that notion. Attend any seminar throughout the nation, listen to any speech on the radio or TV, or read any editorial in your local newspaper and you will see that many of these same people use quotes from others to drive home their point. The quotes may serve as accent points to highlight the theme and meaning of the author's point.

Test the theory. Visit quotations page on the Web to see quotes available by subject or topic. See how you may be able to use quotes and add some color to your presentations and reports. Include some background information that helps shed light on the quote's connection to your topic or theme.

These words seem like something good to share to break the ice and open a speech:


• How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.

• Inactivity is death.
• I find capitalism repugnant.

Be sure to study up the author of the quote. You do not want to quote someone who was totally opposed to government and bureaucracy when you go to endorse a political candidate. Inform yourself with as much information as possible related to the author and the context of your quote.
Why?

The quotes above come from: Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Fidel Castro. It does matter where you get your material from.

Starting at the Top

Gordon Gekko: "The point is ladies and gentlemen that greed, for lack of a better word, is good." Wall Street (1987)

Truly, characters like Oliver Stone's Gordon Gekko should cause us to either applaud or cringe.  He either exemplifies all that we love about corporate-raiding moguls or everything we simply cannot stand about the stock-splitting takeover scumbags.  One major notion that Gekko's character shared at a stockholder's meeting on screen was that management had no vested interest in the company.

Management, beware! People are no longer going for the norm.  Know that you are one proxy vote mailer or quarterly earnings report from being ceremoniously dismissed.  CEO, COO and uh-oh go together these days.  Companies are no longer afraid to trim from the top.  Today's middle management and upper management are not securely in position like in the days of Carnegie, Ford and Mellon.

After the recent stock market dives and hedge fund scandals, most people are afraid of the words market and meltdown appearing in the same sentence anywhere near one another.  Mention Madoff in some circles and find yourself standing alone with your cocktail in your hand and egg all over your face.  The average Joe is no longer going to wait on his pension fund to tank or his 401(k) nest egg to burst like the market bubble.

Management and its bedfellows had better stay alert these days.  The masses are expecting results.  The investors have higher expectations these days.  The public has higher expectations of corporate managers, too.  Keep your eye out for the bold and brazen businessmen who sip brandy from goblets and snifters as they puff on imported Cuban cigars in exclusive clubs and brag about the mess that they made of a merger for the sake of corporate integrity.  For the sake of corporate integrity? Imagine that.  It seems to be more at the sacrifice of corporate integrity.