Americans lead the world in charitable contributions, giving $300 billion a year to charities. Sounds like a lot right? But this is just a drop in the bucket compared to the over One Trillion Dollars needed to keep US charities in operation, more than the US government collects in taxes. The rest comes from their own assets, government support, and foreign investment.
via Charity: Who Cares? | MintLife Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice.
The existing icon of Panagia Soumela was iconographed by the Evangelist Luke who was both a physician and an iconographer. According to tradition, whenever Luke drew icons of Panagia, the Holy Mother was very pleased and blessed his works. Furthermore, she encouraged him to draw more icons. When Luke died, his disciple named Ananias, took the icon and transferred it to the Church in Athens dedicated to Panagia. The icon was venerated as Panagia Athiniotissa.
via The History of the icon of Panagia Soumela – Pontos World.
Among the 175 “free-standing” institutions in the Association of Theological Schools, 39% were “financially stressed,” with less than a year’s worth of spendable assets, a fall 2008 report says. That’s up from 26% a year earlier, and the data don’t reflect fallout from the stock market crash in the fall.
I have been thinking about it for a while to write about few of the most heartbreaking reasons and consequences of the Icelandic Financial Collapse. Here I will not look at the victims, but more at the devastating pitfalls the “elite” stepped into on the way. Continue reading The Financial Collapse in Iceland
A website about sustainability and responsibility.
We like to claim the cross as a sign for all humankind. How can we do that when it is constantly used as a sign of a personal cause, a part of a nations flag, as a justification of injustice, or as a way of leading us a stray from justice.
Cause-Effect thinking is a useful tool, or at least it can be. However it is usually automatic re-active thinking rather than pro-active. The world is unfortunately more complicated than cause-effect.
Being a reactive thinking it tends to call for bigger hammer, nicer packaging, or a new program instead of getting us to think about the whole.
Change is not an extreme makeover. Real change happens slowly and through time, when we learn to confront our loss.
Our task in Christian education is to claim we have been claimed.
Confirmation model
This should lead to transformation allowing us to go deeper, both personally and analytically.
The depth can lead to commitment change.
Growth happens during anxiety, before we enter into automatic phase of being reactive. When we turn into automatic we stop growing and start to bite.
The Icelandic Church went through an interesting process, creating a vision and mission document for the years 2004-2010. It was both interesting to see who participated in the creation of this overall document and who did not.
I have not spent a lot of time in Iceland since this document was formed and I wonder about its impact, but in 2010 it will be re-assessed and hopefully in an honest way.
When addressing leadership model, I have to come to the issue of reactive vs. proactive again and again. It is especially important when it comes to the question of the Icelandic Church and how it is going to respond to the question of separation of church and state.
Does that call for a reaction, trying to slow the pace of the discussion, or are we going to be proactive and take over the discussion.
The separation of religions and religious ideologies on one hand and secular thoughts and ideologies on the other is a modern western concept and completely meaningless to most people that have lived on this Earth. One could even claim that it is meaningless for many Constantine Christians still living in the Empire of Christian thought in the western world.
Crises force children to ask: What about Me?
The reply we give should be a prayer and asking what they think. We should never ever try give easy answers to that question. After all it is a question about them.
As soon as we start writing ecclesiology we begin objectifying the church, it is unavoidable. When we start applying managament models on top of that, the crime is perfect.
