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Basic Estate Planning
Here are my notes for today’s “(Actually!) Setting Your House in Order” Sunday School class. We’re tackling the topic of BASIC ESTATE PLANNING: INTRODUCTION 1. Disclaimers/Goals: a. It’s been a long time since Tara has practiced law as an estate planning attorney—and even when she was actively licensed: a) it was in Illinois, not Montana; and b) she practiced in a highly specialized area of the law (high net worth/charitable estate planning), not general practice. Therefore … b. This Sunday School Class is NOT going to provide you with any specific legal advice. Either you will research, prepare, and execute your documentation yourselves (without legal counsel) or you will need…
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Responding to Attacks (by Ajith Fernando)
A THREE-PRONGED RESPONSE TO ATTACKS by Ajith Fernando How should Christians who are a minority in their land respond when fellow Christians and churches are attacked? I have thought about it a lot because churches are often attacked in Sri Lanka too. One thing is certain—never should our motivation be one of tit-for-tat or revenge. I want to suggest a three-pronged response. LOVING OUR ENEMIES We live in a region where the understanding of the concept of honour requires that if someone hits us we must ht back. In some countries the so called ‘honour killings’ are even sometimes ignored by the authorities. This is totally different to the Christian…
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Volume of Knowledge vs. Volume of Words
Oooooh! It’s hard to see yourself in such a quote, isn’t it? But so good too–helps me in my continual goal of speaking LESS. Courtesy of Pastor JollyBlogger: “Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them, while on the other hand to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgment upon anything new.”
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Director of Training Position Available at Peacemaker Ministries
(Just received this announcement and asked for permission to post it for you all. How great it would be if one of you moved to beautiful Montana! 🙂 ) ———- Director of Training Position Available Peacemaker Ministries (PM) is an international ministry based in Billings, Montana that exists to assist and equip Christians and their churches to respond to conflict biblically. We are a team of thirty staff with a network of 150 Certified Christian Conciliators working together to encourage a culture of peace in churches around the world. We are currently seeking an individual to join the Peacemaker Team as our Director of Training. This individual will provide direction…
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Tempted to Morbid Introspection — But INSTEAD …
This morning when I woke up, my first thoughts were DARK: 1. I kept thinking of the mean words that an atheist wrote in a comment to our little “Books of the Bible” video: I felt badly for him (what kind of person trolls around YouTube looking for Christian videos just so he can write mean words?). Plus, just the thought of how MEAN people can be on the internet (anonymous blog comments, flamingly rude emails meant only to attack and tear down) really got me down. (Oh, and I deleted and banned the guy–so don’t look for his comment on the link above. I do the same thing when…
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Truman and Hume (HT: Somber and Dull)
I couldn’t resist popping over to a blog named “Somber and Dull” when TulipGirl referenced it in a post. I’m glad I did! I’ll definitely give it some time in my “provisional blog reading” favorites and see if it lands in my (not too long) list of blogs I read regularly. These two posts on President Truman and a man named Paul Hume were definitely worth the read: Vision Beyond Emotion The Value of a Team
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Extra Grace Required
Lydia Browback posted recently on women who are “EGR” — Extra Grace Required: “One category of “widows and orphans” that’s easy to overlook is the socially poor. In one of my former circles, we referred to them as EGRs—extra grace required. I look back on that now and cringe. What made us think that we weren’t EGRs ourselves? The very fact of the cross proves that we are. But what we had in mind when we used the term are those who make others uncomfortable by their lack of the social niceties–those who can’t talk about anything other than themselves, those who complain constantly about their problems but refuse to…
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Life and Teachings of Jesus
TakeYourVitaminZ linked to a fantastic teaching by one of my favorite seminary professors, Dr. Dan Doriani: The Life and Teachings of Jesus I encourage you to check it out!
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Consistently Attracting the Irreligious?
TulipGirl quoted Tim Keller’s “The Prodigal God” today and it has me thinking, oh, about a zillion thoughts as I sit here playing/working with Sophia: ‘Jesus’s teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the…
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Quiet day at home …
We decided NOT to go and see the opera “Carmen” this morning because we had a BIG spring snowstorm come through. Remember the front porch where I took Soph’s Easter dress picture? This was the change in only a few HOURS: Montana weather is so strange! Our tulips and daffodils are quite rugged to pull through these spring snows. Oh well. At least SOMEONE enjoyed the day: Our friend also sent us a cute picture of Soph from our church’s Variety Show. Finally! I got to see how her hot pink tights and cowgirl boots looked: Hope your day was a blessed one! Yours, Tara B.
