Dr. Blackaby, founder and president emeritus of Blackaby Ministries International, an organization built to help people experience God, spoke to The Hope Center staff on Spiritual Leadership.

Listen to the full speech by downloading the audio here.

A brown bag luncheon for women who lead within a faith-based organization.

Bring your lunch, or purchase one at the Hope Center Cafe, and connect with other women leaders.  Discuss leadership challenges, resources, and take away new ideas for developing yourself and your ministry or organization.

Thursday, April 29, 2010
11:30am-1:00pm
The Hope Center (first floor conference room)

This is a FREE Event, but please RSVP to hold your seat:  prowant@gmail.com Space is limited.

For more information about WNPA, go to www.womensnpa.org

Josh McDowell, along with Son Sean, Delivers a Crowning Work to Equip
the Church and Christian Families to Pass On “The Unshakable Truth”

(DANA POINT, CA), April 16, 2010—In a time when many Christians are looking to their faith for answers, best-selling authors Josh and Sean McDowell direct us to the very foundations of Christianity’s 12 Unshakable Truths originally established by 300 Church Fathers in Nicaea in AD 325. In The Unshakable Truth: How You Can Experience The 12 Essentials of a Relevant Faith, father and son invite readers to experience anew the authentic truths that are both real and relevant to our everyday lives. Harvest House Publishers is pleased to release the book nationally, June 1.

Fifty years in the making, The Unshakable Truth marries Josh’s first loves in his teaching ministry—truth in relationships and evidence that reinforces our faith. This book stands as the crowning opus of Josh’s past 115 different works.  It brings together roughly five decades of ministry experience, evidential research, and a proven track record of living the truth out in his own relationships. Sean offers the perspective of his generation and is living testimony that truth can be passed down from one generation to another.

The Unshakable Truth is a practical, user-friendly handbook consisting of more than 500 pages, 51 chapters and three appendices, designed as a revolutionary discipleship tool for students, parents, youth leaders and pastors. Each of the 12 foundational truths is divided into four chapters that identify: a core truth of the Christian faith, why we can believe the truth with confidence, how the truth is relevant to our relationships, and how to live the truth out.

“Moral truth isn’t something you or I create or decide for ourselves. In fact, it isn’t even something God decides,” the McDowells write. “It is something he is. It is God’s nature and character that define moral truth. The basis of everything we call moral and right springs from the truth that resides in the character of the eternal God who is outside us, above us and beyond us.”

The book is underscored by thought-provoking research including a recent survey showing that “75 percent of Christian leaders were not able to clearly define the core of Christianity and the process of spiritual maturity.”  (Barna Research Group, 2008)

“The truth process does not stop with believing. It continues on and affects our behavior. When we become intimate with the truth, it transforms how we conduct ourselves in community with others, and that results in godly living,” state the McDowells.

Many churches and families are searching for a practical and systematic means to instill the true faith and a Christian worldview within their young people. “Our worldview,” the McDowell’s state, “must be formed out of our relationship with God defined through Christ by his Word and empowered by his Holy Spirit. To put a succinct definition to the Christian faith that forms our worldview, we could say it is a way of knowing and being and living in right relationship with God, ourselves, others and the world around us. It is Christ’s “way” that we must regain and recapture; and when we live in that “way,” our joy is complete.”

The McDowells go on to provide an in-depth understanding of how to know and live out the 12 truths shared in this book. Then they show us that these truths are not dry theological concepts for discussion and debate. “Rather, this is the true and gripping story proclaimed from Genesis to Revelation, the story that gets to the very heart of what life, relationships, human happiness, and joy are all about.”

More about the authors

Since 1961, Josh has delivered his ministry messages to more than 10 million young people and adults in 113 countries, and has written or co-written 115 other books, including classics More Than A Carpenter and Evidence That Demands a Verdict

In his own right, Sean is an author, conference speaker and educator who heads the Bible Department at Capistrano Valley Christian Schools. Sean graduated Summa Cum Laude from Talbot Theological Seminary, his father’s alma mater. Sean is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in apologetics and worldview studies from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Since 2006, Sean has authored or co-authored several Christian books, including Ethix: Being Bold in a Whatever World, Understanding Intelligent Design along with William A. Dembski, Evidence for the Resurrection, the revision to More Than A Carpenter with Josh McDowell, and was the general editor of Apologetics for a New Generation.

Josh and Sean McDowell live with their families in Southern California.

For information and a free downloadable brochure on The Unshakable Truth, visit www.josh.org/truth beginning in early May.

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To interview The Unshakable Truth’s co-authors Josh and Sean McDowell and/or to receive review copies and press materials, media should contact Gregg Wooding of I AM PR Services

at 972-567-7660 or gregg@iampronline.com.

The 23 men and women Chaplains, many of who braved a wicked winter storm, the Snowmaggedon, which shut down much of the Northeast United States, attended the training to learn how to care for others in the grief and grieving, caregiving services which are so much a part of today’s railroad industry.

President and COO Richard S. De Witt opened the nearly three-day conference and the railroad chaplains heard from three executive leaders from two railroad organizations.

Arlington Police Chaplain Harold Elliott spoke to the Chaplain leaders about proper death notification with the sessions being closed by Marketplace Founder, Chairman and CEO Gil A. Stricklin.

“These dedicated men and women are truly the best of the best who are willing to care for others in today’s railroad industry,” Stricklin said.

The conference concluded with the chaplains being awarded a Certificate of Completion for their rigorous training and being sent out to serve others in today’s railroad workplace.

Contact Information:  C.G. Maclin, 972-941-4400

http://mchapusa.com/05magazine.aspx#tcRRCATraining

Hope Matters Marriage Ministries, Inc. announces the follow up to Focus On The Family’s Tim Tebow Super Bowl Commercial.

You have probably heard about (or even saw) the controversial commercial that Focus On The Family sponsored during the Super Bowl with Tim Tebow and his mother’s story. The commercial presented a website, which has several options to hear stories about life struggles, one of which is Jeff & Cheryl Scruggs’ story, with Hope Matters Ministries.

If you know of anyone struggling in marriage, or needing encouragement in marriage, please suggest watching our video or visit focusonthefamily.com. Please pray our story will encourage those that need it!

Online video simulcast:
Also, Focus on the Family’s simulcast, February 27, 2010 called Focus On Marriage. We have been blessed to be one of the featured couples on the simulcast, as well as a great array of speakers: Gary Thomas, Francis Chan, and Gary Chapman to name a few. For more information go to www.focusonmarriage.com

Benefiting Need Him Ministries — Ministering to the Mind, Body and Spirit for Heart Healthy Women

Date: Friday, February 5, 2010

Time:
10:30am to 1:30pm
Doors open at 10:30 for Mingling, Silent Auction,
and Live Music by Jenn Petersen
Lunch from 12pm to 1:30pm

Place:
Join us at our new location, The Hope Center
2001 West Plano Parkway, Plano, Texas

Attire: WEAR RED! We are officially partnering with Go Red for Women and The American Heart Association

Guest Speaker: Amena Brown.

Amena Brown is a gifted Spoken Word Artist. Since the age of 12, she has been writing poetry, and since the age of 17, she has been blowing audiences away with her spoken word. She now travels the country, reaching audiences as intimate as 50 and as sprawling as 15,000. She is driven by truth and wants to challenge and inspire a generation to do the same. For Amena Brown, that is the last word.

Get Involved:

• Be a Table Hostess
  Invite 7 friends to enjoy the Silent Auction and luncheon!
  Contact: amy@powerpublicrelations.com

• Be a Sponsor
  Help provide additional funds to lead more people to Christ.
  Contact: caralee@needhim.org

• Individual Tickets: $45

• Donate an Auction Item
  Contact: chasity_terry@sbcglobal.net
  

Register Online: https://needhim.ejoinme.org/?tabid=190841

For more information, please visit:
https://needhim.ejoinme.org/MyEvents/TenderHeartsLuncheon/tabid/190382/Default.aspx

Haiti (MNN) ― The United States Military says it will have the Port-au-Prince, Haiti seaport open in two or three days. This could alleviate some of the bottleneck at the small international airport in the city. More than 30 countries have rushed relief to Haiti since the devastating earthquake, choking the airspace and the ramp at the small airfield, which has only one runway.

CEO of Global Aid Network (GAIN USA) Duane Zook has been on the ground since Friday in Port-au-Prince. He says aid coordination has been an issue, especially since the earthquake hit the downtown part of Port-au-Prince. “Much of the government structure is totally gone. That’s where the U.S. and others have come in to help figure out how to distribute the [aid] in a controlled environment so there’s not mass confusion. I think a lot of the governments and agencies are still trying to figure that out.”

However, Zook says, “One of the things we’re seeing is beginning points of hope as triage centers are being set up, as feeding centers are being set up.”

Zook says a container full of meals and other aid had been sent in case of an emergency weeks before the earthquake. So far, Zook says, “In three or four distribution centers, they were able to distribute 100,000 meals. That’s not a lot on the one hand, and yet it’s beginning to happen, and it’s beginning to happen through our church partners.”

Video and pictures are helping the world see the disaster the way it really is. It’s sensational footage because it’s a sensational story.

According to Zook, the people are doing what they can to survive. “One side of the two-lane highways are  actually closed off. People are laying out blankets and pads and so forth to sleep on. They are afraid to go back into their houses at night time in case they collapse, or else their houses are already destroyed.”

While food and water are in great demand, medicine and hygiene items are, too. Zook says the shipping container is meeting some immediate needs, but they’re also purchasing items in the Dominican Republic and driving them in to Haiti. GAIN is also planning on shipping in more containers as soon as the port opens.

In the midst of the tragedy, many are talking about God. Zook says, “People are questioning, and some people actually are asking, ‘How can a loving God love me when I’m going through a situation like this?’ Other people are actually driven toward God because they’re looking for hope.”

Zook observed that a number of churches were meeting Sunday. He says, however, that many congregations were much smaller. “Some of the people are still missing, and some have fled to the countryside. The rest were there, and I sensed a real joy in their dependence on God. But they’re hurting.”

Christians are being asked to fervently pray, give generously, and go help rebuild when the time is right. “I know everybody wants to jump on the next flight down here, but right now is not the time to do that. Down the road, that might happen. Right now, they just need orthopedic surgeons and other medical personnel to help.”

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Mission Network News – Posted 1/19/2010 (Source: http://mnnonline.org/article/13771)
(Photo Courtesy of Mission Network News)