Human-to-human bird flu case confirmed
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22410007/
GENEVA - The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Thursday a single case of human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 bird flu virus in a family in Pakistan but said there was no apparent risk of it spreading wider.
A statement from the U.N. agency said tests in its special laboratories in Cairo and London had established the "human infection" through presence of the virus "collected from one case in an affected family."
But it said a WHO team invited to Pakistan to look into an outbreak involving up to nine people, from late October to December 6 had found no evidence of sustained or community human-to-human transmission.
No identified close contacts of the people infected, including health workers and other members of the affected family, had shown any symptoms and they had all been removed from medical observation, the WHO added.
The outbreak followed a culling of infected chickens in the Peshawar region, in which a veterinary doctor was involved. Subsequently he and three of his brothers developed proven or suspected pneumonia.
The brothers cared for one another and had close personal contact both at home and in the hospital, a WHO spokesman in Geneva said. One of them, who was not involved in the culling, died on November 23.
His was the human-to-human transmission case confirmed by the WHO. The others all recovered.
"All the evidence suggests that the outbreak within this family does not pose a broader risk," the WHO spokesman told Reuters. "But there is already heightened surveillance and there is a need for ongoing vigilance."
It was the first human-to-human case of H5N1 transmission in Pakistan, while others have been confirmed in Indonesia and Thailand in similar circumstances of what the WHO calls close contacts in a very circumscribed area.
Global health experts fear the virus — which has killed 211 people out of 343 infections reported since 2003 — could mutate into a form that spreads easily from one person to another, possibly triggering a pandemic that could kill millions.
Asteroid May Hit Mars in Next Month
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/292322.aspx
LOS ANGELES -- Mars could be in for an asteroid hit.
A newly discovered hunk of space rock has a 1 in 75 chance of slamming into the Red Planet on Jan. 30, scientists said Thursday.
"These odds are extremely unusual. We frequently work with really long odds when we track threatening asteroids," said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The asteroid, known as 2007 WD5, was discovered in late November and is similar in size to an object that hit remote central Siberia in 1908, unleashing energy equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb and wiping out 60 million trees.
Scientists tracking the asteroid, currently halfway between Earth and Mars, initially put the odds of impact at 1 in 350 but increased the chances this week. Scientists expect the odds to diminish again early next month after getting new observations of the asteroid's orbit, Chesley said.
"We know that it's going to fly by Mars and most likely going to miss, but there's a possibility of an impact," he said.
If the asteroid does smash into Mars, it will probably hit near the equator close to where the rover Opportunity has been exploring the Martian plains since 2004. The robot is not in danger because it lies outside the impact zone. Speeding at 8 miles a second, a collision would carve a hole the size of the famed Meteor Crater in Arizona.
In 1994, fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smacked into Jupiter, creating a series of overlapping fireballs in space. Astronomers have yet to witness an asteroid impact with another planet.
"Unlike an Earth impact, we're not afraid, but we're excited," Chesley said.
US presidential hopeful Huckabee defends Jesus as point of Christmas
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/us.presidential.hopeful.huckabee.defends.jesus.as.point.of.christmas/15799.htm
Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Jesus Christ is the point of Christmas during a sermon in reference to his Christmas ad, which has come under fire for its frank religious tone.
“Sometimes in the middle of Christmas, Jesus is the one person who’s tough to find. You can find Santa at every mall. You can find discount in every store,” Huckabee said at the 25,000-stong Cornerstone Church in San Antonio on Sunday, according to Fox News. “But if you mention the name of Jesus, as I found out recently, it upsets the whole world. Forgive me, but I thought that was the point of the whole day.”
The former Arkansas governor began running a new ad last week in several of the primary states in which he wishes American voters of all faiths a “Merry Christmas”. In the ad, he references the birth of Christ as the Christmas carol “Silent Night” plays in the background and a cross-like image glows behind him, which he explains is just bookshelves.
“I got in a little trouble this last week because I actually had the audacity to say ‘Merry Christmas’. Isn’t that an odd thing to say at this time of year,” Huckabee said during his 30-minute sermon to a nearly full 5,500-seat auditorium.
The former Arkansas governor was said to receive a 30 second standing ovation and copious applause for his refusal to apologise for referencing Jesus Christ in his Christmas ad, according to Fox News.
Huckabee has surged in state polls in Iowa and South Carolina riding on the support of evangelicals. He has made several stops at churches to deliver sermons while on the campaign trail, but Huckabee clarified that his speaking at Cornerstone was not about politics.
“I have to remind people there’s a time for political things and this is not one of them,” said the ordained Baptist preacher. “Trouble is when you’ve been a Baptist pastor and then you run for office, you become a political person. People get real nervous when you show up for church.”
He said people usually think about two things when they see a pastor and a politician - “you’re going to be here a long time” or he is “going to ask for money”, Huckabee joked.
His sermon focused on the meaning of the Christmas story.
“The great truth of Christmas is that no matter how good we are, we’re not good enough to know God without the Christ,” Huckabee preached, according to The Associated Press. “And no matter how bad…we are not so bad that he cannot find us.
“So while some people seem to want us to lose Jesus, I would like for us to do our best to find him,” Huckabee said at the megachurch founded by televangelist John Hagee.
Hagee is known nationally for his staunch support of Israel and is the founder of Christians United for Israel.
“One hundred years from now when all your worries are over, if your faith is in that child in Bethlehem born that day, and you’ve taken yourself off the throne and you’ve decided you’d rather be a shepherd than a Herod, then the good news for you is, when the game is over no matter what it looks like now, you win in the end. That is the message of Christmas. So I say to you, Merry Christmas! Jesus is Lord!” Huckabee said.
The Republican presidential hopeful said he would return to his home in Arkansas for Christmas before hitting the campaign trail again ahead of the January 3 Iowa caucuses.
EU, Slovenian officials celebrate elimination of borders
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/22/europe/EU-GEN-Slovenia-EU-Borderless-Zone.php
SKOFIJE, Slovenia: Slovenia held a celebration Saturday marking the elimination of borders between nine new EU members and the rest of the bloc, just a week before the former communist country takes over the EU presidency.
On Friday, the nine new EU members were officially incorporated into the Schengen frontier-free zone of Europe, which now stretches from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic.
"This is something we did not ever dare to dream of 15 years ago," Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa said at Saturday's ceremony celebrating the expansion of the EU passport-free zone to Slovenia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Malta. The nine nations, most of them formerly communist, joined the EU bloc in 2004.
The expansion now gives a total of 400 million people the ability to move freely across 24 European nations.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the elimination of borders sent a "very powerful signal of unity" within Europe.
"If we want to have a stronger Europe, we need to show our people that Europe brings concrete results, not just words," he said.
Portugal's Prime Minister Jose Socrates symbolically turned over his country's six-month rotating EU presidency to Jansa, whose tiny Alpine country of 2 million will hold it as of Jan. 1.
Yugoslavia — which Slovenia was part of until independence in 1991 — lived under a milder version of communism, and most people traveled freely both to the East and West.
But customs checks were tight, and the amount of goods that could be imported was limited; many people who lived in the former Yugoslavia remember fretting as customs officials checked their luggage or the trunks of their cars, often finding at least one too many pairs of Italian shoes or boxes of detergent.
At the now-obsolete border crossing in Nova Gorica, an art group set up a so-called "Confessional Room" to film people's recollections of petty smuggling of goods from Italy.
With the expansion of the passport-free zone, the EU has tightened controls on its eastern borders against organized crime, illegal immigration and terrorism.
The main front line against illegal immigration, however, lies to the south with thousands each year attempting hazardous sea journeys to reach the coasts of Spain, Italy, Malta and Greece, or overland trips to the Balkans through Turkey.
Barroso played down fears of some that the new members were not ready to guard their EU borders, saying the EU has earmarked €1 billion (US$1.43 billion) to boost security in those areas, the state-run news agency STA reported.
Italy's interior minister, Giuliano Amato, said: "We can assure everyone that the fall of the border between Italy and Slovenia is not a fall of security, but an increase of freedom."
Slovenia now controls 760 kilometers (472 miles) of EU border.
Neighboring Croatia, which is due to join the EU in 2010, has been granted a concession allowing its citizens to travel to Slovenia, Hungary and Italy with identification cards only. People from Serbia, however, would need EU travel visas.
Israel, Palestinians Can't Break Impasse
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jD4YSkDPlclqd9dHvg2f0Ij18zEgD8TPT39O0
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday held their first summit since renewing peace talks last month, but failed to resolve a dispute over planned Israeli construction in east Jerusalem.
Abbas demanded at the meeting that Israel freeze its plan to expand the Jewish Har Homa neighborhood, Palestinian officials said. Abbas had appealed to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ahead of the meeting to pressure Israel to halt the project, Palestinian officials said.
But an Israeli official said after the Olmert-Abbas meeting that Israel continued to claim a right to build in Har Homa, which lies in the eastern sector of Jerusalem that Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed. Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as their future capital.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Abbas stressed the need to stop all settlement activities in order to facilitate the talks on a final peace accord, which were launched at an international conference on the Mideast in Annapolis, Md.
But although he reported no progress on narrowing the gaps between the two sides, both sides described the two-hour meeting, held at Olmert's official residence, as "positive" — possibly in an effort to defuse tensions before the arrival in the region next month of President Bush.
Bush is coming to the region for the first time in his seven-year tenure in a bid to build on momentum from the Annapolis conference.
Tensions over the plan to build an additional 307 apartments in the neighborhood have already clouded meetings of negotiating teams since the gathering in Annapolis, and have kept peace talks from beginning in earnest.
Har Homa, home to 8,500 people, is part of a ring of Jewish neighborhoods around east Jerusalem where about 180,000 Israelis live.
The Palestinians want a halt to all Israeli construction in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, which they claim as part of a future state. Israel committed to freeze all construction in West Bank settlements under the recently revived 2003 "road map" peace plan, but never honored that obligation.
During Thursday's meeting, Olmert reiterated pledges not to build any new settlements or expand existing settlements beyond their current borders, an Israeli official said.
However, Israel maintains the right to build within the existing limits of major West Bank settlements to account for natural growth. Olmert reiterated that policy Thursday, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks were private.
Some 270,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank, most of them in the major settlement blocs, in addition to about 180,000 Israelis living in east Jerusalem neighborhoods.
Efforts to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table gained traction after Islamic Hamas militants seized control of the Gaza Strip in June. Abbas, a moderate, expelled Hamas from government after the takeover, freeing him to conclude a peace agreement.
Hamas is not party to the talks.
Before the Olmert-Abbas meeting began, Hamas pronounced the meeting a "waste of time."
"Olmert and his government continue their daily aggressions against our people, continue to build settlements, and don't recognize Palestinian political and national rights," the group said.
Israel frequently carries out airstrikes and ground incursions in Gaza to halt ongoing Palestinian racket attacks on southern Israeli communities.
On Thursday, three militants were killed and nine people were wounded, including four civilians, during an Israeli military operation in southern Gaza, Palestinian medical officials and militants said. Among the wounded was a 13-year-old boy. None of the injuries were life threatening, officials said.
The Israeli army said it fired and hit three militants who launched shoulder-propelled grenades.
Earlier in the day Palestinian militants had fired mortars at patrolling Israeli troops, the military said.
Mall Gunman Admitted He was Satanic, Attempted Suicide
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318506,00.html
OMAHA, Neb. —
The teen gunman who killed eight people and himself in a mall this month once told social workers he was satanic and acknowledged that he often acted before thinking of the consequences, according to newly released court records.
Robert Hawkins' file includes hundreds of pages of court transcripts, drug tests and letters from caseworkers, therapists and family members. They give the clearest picture yet of a young man who told a therapist in April 2005 that "he is not sure if there is a God or life after death and that when he dies, he'll probably go to hell."
More than two years later, on Dec. 5, the 19-year-old Hawkins walked into a department store in the Westroads Mall and shot 11 people, then committed suicide.
A judge on Wednesday ordered the documents released after motions were filed by several news organizations, including The Associated Press.
In one report, Hawkins, who had been in and out of the juvenile justice system since he was 14, told a social worker he was feeling overwhelmed by court hearings and school and tried to kill himself.
He told the social worker, Angela Pick, that he wanted to die when he swallowed about 30 Tylenol pills in January 2006, she wrote in a report to Sarpy County Juvenile Court.
Her report said Hawkins ended up in the emergency room. He was released to his father six days later, and his demeanor "appeared to improve. His father and this worker observed him to be more positive," Pick wrote.
"He said that he never wanted to go through that again," she wrote.
Hawkins became a ward of the state in 2002, after a stay in a Missouri treatment facility for threatening to kill his stepmother.
He was released from state custody in August 2006 after caseworkers, therapists and his family agreed that the extra nine months he could have remained in custody until he turned 19 wouldn't have been worth it, given his lack of cooperation.
"Robbie has been in the court system for many years and has reached maximum benefit from what the department can provide," Pick wrote on Aug. 17, 2006. "He has continued to make some poor decisions but not any that are a safety concern at this time."
Hawkins became violent with a staff member at a residential treatment program in Omaha in August 2003 and had to be restrained, according to a letter from therapist Steven Moore.
When it was suggested that Hawkins be sent to a residential facility, the teen said, "I'll burn that (expletive) place down with all of the people in it if you send me there," Moore wrote.
A constant theme of court hearings was Hawkins' drug use. He told social workers he started using marijuana at age 13 and typically smoked twice a week.
By age 17, he said, he smoked marijuana almost daily and had snorted cocaine four to five times. He was expelled from school in October 2005 for trying to sell drugs to classmates.
Hawkins shrugged off criticism of his drug use and acknowledged selling drugs to pay for his marijuana habit, the documents said.
While his father, Ron Hawkins, attended most of his son's court hearings, Robert Hawkins had a strained and sometimes nonexistent relationship with his mother, Maribel Rodriguez, the records show.
Social workers didn't know where Rodriguez was living when Hawkins entered state custody. She requested visitation around July 2005, then told her son that if he lived with her he couldn't have contact with his father, according to a social worker's report.
Ron Hawkins said he was at the end of his rope when he agreed that his son should be released from state custody.
"I can not continue like this," Ron Hawkins wrote in an e-mail dated Aug. 18, 2006, three days before Hawkins left the system. "I love my son, but he will not believe or even listen to anything I try to tell him."
"He will have to stand or fall on his own to learn these lessons about life," Ron Hawkins wrote. "It is beyond my ability and I have to release him to God, praying that He will make sure that nothing happens to him that can not be undone."
Fake underground churches expose North Korean Christians - news agency
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/fake.underground.churches.expose.north.korean.christians.news.agency/15798.htm
The North Korean government is reportedly setting up fake underground churches and disguising national security agents as defectors to expose Christians, reported a North Korea-focused online news agency.
The Daily NK, established by long-time activists who have been working to change North Korea, claims that a portion of underground churches existing in North Korea are disguised churches controlled by North Korea’s National Security Agency.
“The fact that North Korea government formed a fake underground church with National Security Agency agents was revealed as the truth,” an inside source told the Daily NK.
According to the source, NSA agents disguise themselves as defectors and approach Korean church organisations based in China to receive Bibles and money.
After they receive funds by claiming to church organisations that they are engaging in mission activities, they start up secret churches beginning with NSA agents and then concentrate their efforts to arrest real secret churches connected with China.
The Daily NK’s inside source said they verified this fact with an NSA-related member. Among NSA agents, the operation is an open secret.
The fake underground church is receiving funds from Korean churches that do not know the reality of the situation, the inside source claimed.
If the Korean church is not stricter about the security regarding the underground church support project and underground church member circumstances then they will fill up the stomachs of NSA agents and cause damage to the underground church, the source added.
North Korea, one of the most repressive regimes in the world, has been criticised for the systemic, widespread and serious violations of human rights that reportedly take place in the country as well as the government's refusal to cooperate with the UN human rights commissioner or special investigator.
The communist state has also been criticised for its all pervasive and severe restrictions on freedom of expression, religion, assembly and movement, its imposition of the death penalty for political reasons, the detention of thousands in prison camps, the punishment and torture of border-crossers, and the maltreatment of people with disabilities.
North Korea is ranked by the international ministry Open Doors as the world’s worst persecutor of Christians.
Hindu Extremists Attack Indian Churches, Torch Home of Prominent Christian
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318549,00.html
NEW DELHI —
Hindu extremists attacked village churches and burned down the home of a prominent Christian politician Thursday, officials said.
Gangs of Hindus and Christians defied a curfew imposed following two days of attacks by Hindu hard-liners. Local police have been unsuccessful in halting the attacks and the federal government announced it was sending in a paramilitary force.
A mob of Hindus torched the house of Radhakant Nayak, a member of the Indian parliament's upper house and a Christian leader in the area, Nayak told the CNN-IBN news channel.
Superintendent of Police Narsingh Bhol said several churches and prayer houses were ransacked in the Kandhamal district of Orissa state area and some were set on fire. He could not give an exact number.
The Press Trust of India news agency quoted unidentified police officials as saying that 11 small churches and prayer houses were ransacked and burned by Hindu hard-liners in the area.
At least 25 people, belonging to both Hindu and Christian communities, have been arrested for suspected involvement in the violence, Bhol told The Associated Press.
Earlier, police said they had deployed hundreds of officers to the area, restoring calm after hard-line Hindus marred Christmas celebrations, ransacking and burning eight village churches in Orissa state, a corner of the country with a history of violence against Christians. One person was killed.
With the attacks resuming despite the arrests and curfew, the federal government said it was sending in a 300-strong paramilitary force.
"We have to get the violence under control," the junior federal home minister, Sriprakash Jaiswal, told reporters.
In the village of Brahmangaon, a group of Christians burned down several Hindu homes in an apparent retaliation for the attacks on churches. Angry Hindus then burned down the village police station, complaining of a lack of protection, a local police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
India is overwhelmingly Hindu but officially secular. Religious minorities, such as Christians, who account for 2.5 percent of the country's 1.1. billion people, and Muslims, who make up 14 percent, often coexist peacefully. Some have risen to the highest levels of government and business.
But throughout India's history, both communities have faced repeated attacks from hard-line Hindus, with violence against Christians often directed at foreign missionaries and converts from Hinduism.
There were conflicting reports of what sparked the attacks on the churches in the rural district of Kandhamal, about 840 miles southeast of New Delhi. Each side blamed the other.
The Hindu hard-liners said Christians had attempted to attack one of their leaders, 80-year-old Laxmanananda Saraswati of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad group, who leads an anti-conversion movement.
But the New Delhi-based Catholic Bishops Conference of India said the fighting began Monday when Hindu extremists objected to a show marking Christmas Eve, believing it was designed to encourage Hindus at the bottom of the religion's rigid caste hierarchy to convert to Christianity.
Orissa has one of the worst histories of anti-Christian violence. An Australian missionary and his two sons, aged 8 and 10, were burned to death in their car in Orissa following a Bible study class in 1999.
Orissa is the only Indian state that has a law requiring people to obtain police permission before they change their religion. The law was intended to counter missionary work.
Poll: Huckabee Largely Unfamiliar
http://www.newsmax.com/politics/ap_yahoo_poll_glance/2007/12/27/59977.html
THE HORSERACE, THE DEMOCRATS
Hillary Rodham Clinton, 47 percent
Barack Obama, 25 percent
John Edwards, 13 percent
THE HORSERACE, THE REPUBLICANS
Mike Huckabee, 22 percent
Rudy Giuliani, 21 percent
John McCain, 14 percent
Mitt Romney, 13 percent
Fred Thompson, 11 percent
THE WAY THEY WERE
In November, Giuliani had 27 percent, Thompson 17 percent, McCain 15 percent, Romney 11 percent and Huckabee 9 percent. The Democratic race has barely moved.
MIKE AND MITT, WE HARDLY KNOW YE
Fifty percent of all voters and 40 percent of Republicans say they don't know enough about Huckabee to say if they like him or not. Forty-one percent of voters and 32 percent of Republicans are clueless about Romney, while 15 percent overall and 8 percent of Republicans don't know enough about Giuliani to venture an opinion.
ISN'T HE CUTE?
About one in five considers Huckabee attractive, including 18 percent of Democrats and 30 percent of Republicans. Sixty-five percent of men and 59 percent of women say not really. Overall, a quarter consider him refreshing, and more than a third think he is likable, honest and ethical.
AND THE WINNER IS ...
Six in 10 Democrats say Clinton has the best chance in their party of winning the presidency. More than four in 10 Republicans name Giuliani. None of the other candidates comes close.
LOOKING FOR ANOTHER OPTION ...
A third of voters say they would seriously consider voting for a third party candidate. That includes 26 percent of Democrats, 31 percent of Republicans and 49 percent of independents.
DEVOUT FOLLOWERS
About seven in 10 Huckabee supporters are evangelicals, roughly double Giuliani's percentage and triple Romney's.
I KNOW HER. SHE'S ... SHE'S ...
One fourth did not know Condoleezza Rice is secretary of state. One in seven did not know Clinton represents New York in the Senate.
Pope hails persecuted Christians as modern martyrs
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/pope.hails.persecuted.christians.as.modern.martyrs/15802.htm
Pope Benedict said on Wednesday that Christians faced persecution, torture and death in some parts of the world and continued to be made martyrs for their faith.
In a message to pilgrims on the day after Christmas - the feast day of St. Stephen, considered the first Christian martyr - the Pope said Christians who die for their faith pray for forgiveness for their killers.
"We should always note that this is a distinctive characteristic of the Christian martyr - it is exclusively an act of love, towards God and towards men, including the persecutors," he told crowds in a rainy St. Peter's Square.
"Christian martyrdom reminds us of the victory of love over hatred and death," he said.
St. Stephen was stoned to death by a mob in Jerusalem at a time when Christianity was first starting to spread. The Pope said such martyrdoms continued to this day.
"It is not rare even today that we receive news from various parts of the world of missionaries, priests, bishops, monks, nuns and lay people persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, deprived of their liberty or prevented from exercising it because they are disciples of Christ and apostles of the Gospel," he said.
The Pope did not give any examples, but it is less than two weeks since an Italian Catholic priest was stabbed in his church in Turkey, the latest in a spate of attacks on Christians in the predominantly Muslim country.
Another Italian priest in Turkey was shot dead in his church by a teenager in February, and in April three Christians had their throats cut at a Bible publishing house there.
On Wednesday, Hindu hardliners in India burned and damaged 12 churches, killing at least one person, in an outbreak of violence sparked by the reported injuring of a local Hindu leader by a Christian group.
Rick Warren: Tips for concluding your sermons
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/rick.warren.tips.for.concluding.your.sermons/15800.htm
Even some of the great preachers in history struggled with concluding their messages. Many never pressed for a verdict. Instead, they simply trailed off at the end of their sermons. Pastors fail in this area more than in any other part of their messages. I spend a lot of time on it because a sermon without a conclusion is a message without a purpose. Changed lives come from great conclusions.
Here are a few ways to make your conclusions more effective:
Always point back to Christ. Offer an opportunity to receive Christ and expect people to respond.
End with emotional intensity. Preach through the head to the heart. Once you’ve informed their minds, you must touch their emotions and challenge their wills. Your conclusion should be the emotional high point of the sermon.
Ask for a specific response. Nothing becomes dynamic until it becomes specific. I’ve heard it said that the goal of the sermon should be to storm the citadel of the will and capture it for Jesus Christ. Here are some ways that I try to do that:
• Use an argument. Anticipate the objections the audience might have and logically refute them.
• Use a warning. Warn them of the consequences of disobedience.
• Use indirect conviction. Arouse moral indignation and then turn it on them. A good example is the story of Nathan and David (2 Samuel 12).
• Use pleading. Express God’s love and concern for them and others.
• Use vision. Paint a picture of what is possible if they obey God. Help them to have faith.
• Use encouragement. Tell them they can do this with God’s power.
Make it personal. The person listening should feel like you are only talking to him or her.
Restate your major points forcefully. You reinforce the truth by summarizing it.
Use a compelling illustration. This helps to make the message memorable.
Use a piercing question. This engages people in processing and applying the message.
Use surprise. The best conclusions sneak up on congregations rather than being obvious and expected.
Avoid common mistakes:
• Don’t introduce anything new in your conclusion. Don’t add a point that you forgot in the sermon. You’ll just confuse people.
• Don’t just summarize your message. Conclusions are more than summaries. It’s where you challenge your church to apply the message.
• Don’t blame the clock when it’s time to wrap things up.
• Don’t say “now in conclusion” unless you mean it.
Think through your closing prayer. My closing prayer of commitment always applies the points of the message. Remember to say this closing prayer slowly.
Rewrite your conclusion after the first service to make it better. This is an advantage of having multiple services. You know how the sermon feels after preaching it so you can write a stronger conclusion if needed. I don’t change the message, but I often rewrite the conclusion.
Remember, good conclusions lead people to the point of true repentance – to changed lives. That should be ample motivation to work hard on them.
Songwriter Proof of Industry Changes
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/286968.aspx
There's a new Christmas song playing in churches around the world. It's all because a creative worship team is bypassing record labels and getting their music out through the internet. It's a trio technology brought together across the Atlantic Ocean.
Worship leader Tim Light's Christmas song "I Adore You" has already been downloaded by 20,000 churches.
"It's just a love song and a simple worship song where people can connect at Christmas time."
Tim grew up as a "PK" in the UK and after leading worship there for the past eight years, this preacher's kid says churches are starting to reach the lost in new ways.
"I think it's really an exciting time the the UK church. I think we're really seeing a pursuit for holiness. I think critics and media don't really pick up on new churches that are really growing and we're seeing amazing things happening."
As God is moving in Great Britain, Tim has caught a global vision through the internet and it's taking him places he never imagined. He not only leads worship throught the UK, but also in countries like Malaysia, Singapore, and even here in the U.S. That's where he's teaming up with two band members of American Idol Top 10 finalist Chris Sligh.
Sligh's guitar player Adam Fisher and keyboardist Don Chapman both help worship leaders produce their own music. They use computer software instead of going through multi-million dollar record labels.
"Today is such an amazing time to be alive with the internet and computers and how you can do music. You don't have to have a record label anymore and be tied to that." Chapman told CBN News.
The trio met after Tim won a song writing contest on Don's website. Now, Tim and Don co-write songs together across the ocean. Tim records those songs in England and then emails his voice track to South Carolina where Don uses computer software to add in the instruments and Adam mixes it.
As to whether the three will keep their cool little gig going? Fisher is confident, "sure, we have way too much fun for our own good."
Tim's success, which includes the self-produced C.D. "resounding" has prompted others to compare him to the next Matt Redman who is an accomplished British Christian singer and songwriter. So what does Tim think about the comparison?
"It's very humbling to be called Matt Redman, but I like to think of myself as Tim Light as well."
The internet may be producing a new generation of Christian Music but this band of entrepreneurs wants to encourage others that it simply comes down to trusting God with your heart's desires.
Tim says his life is a testimony to that truth, "one of my favorite verses is Psalm 37, 'Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.' and that's just my story really. I'm just amazed everyday at the goodness of God."
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