In hard times, you can either panic, decline, or grow. Which do you choose to do? This is not a time to tweak your church budget. It is not a time to slash and burn it indiscriminately across the board. Nor is it the time to hunker down in the bunker and wait things out. Now is the time is exercise wisdom and to act strategically. In fact, it's a great time to be the church. People need us to live out our mission as radically as we can possibly imagine. This book will help you make wise decisions about how to weather the economic storm and emerge on the other side of it a much stronger congregation. It's a simple book with a simple message: you don't get to choose when you go through hard times, only how you respond to them.

James, our life coach. James, the brother of Jesus, was not a believer until after the Resurrection. Then his whole life changed. He was made the leader of the early church. We often think of the great apostle Paul as the greatest leader in the early church, but whose counsel did Paul seek when he had to make a crucial decision three times? Was it not James whose counsel he sought? James was Paul's life coach, and by reading and studying the sacred and inspired writings of James, he can then can become our life coach.

hard times tough churches awesome god! 13 Churches that faced losing almost...Everything! Miami Detroit Orlando San Diego Jacksonville New Orleans Mobile Springfield Oklahoma City Birmingham

Since the mid-1990s, Indian thinking on national security has been based on the assumption that the country would progress on a growth trajectory sufficient to modernise its defence capacities and thereby enable some form of parity with a rising China. The reality has been otherwise. China's spectacular growth – and accompanying military modernisation – has hugely outpaced that of India while the Indian military modernisation has moved fitfully. In the past several years, budgets have committed less than 2 per cent of GDP –the lowest levels since the war of 1962 – for the military. Even if spending were to rise to 3 per cent, little funding would be available for modernisation after allowing for rising pensions, salaries and other components of the budget. Put simply, the authors state, India needs a national security strategy for hard times. It would be a strategy grounded in reality – India's priority has to be the raising of vast numbers of its people out of abject poverty, even if the strategies of countries like China and the United States, economically more developed, can aim at being global powers. In Hard Times is an important collection that highlights the major challenges India confronts and the ways they can be tackled, especially in the light of the upheavals caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Its contributors include former military officers, including Admiral Arun Prakash and Lt Gen. D.S. Hooda, whose views have helped shape discussions on strategy, as well as commentators such as Dr Sanjaya Baru. Experience tells us that in war it's often the smarter side that wins, not the stronger one. These essays point us in that direction.

Southern Europe has been at the heart of the European sovereign debt crisis and in the vanguard of the programmes of radical economic austerity implemented to confront it. During the first two crisis years, the consequences for domestic political stability were dramatic. Across the region, 2010-11 saw the overthrow of incumbent governments, the breaking down of established political affiliations and the emergence of new political actors. The culmination was the simultaneous downfall of three South European governments in the space of eighteen days in November 2011. This volume offers a collection of case studies of the twelve popular votes during this period in Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Cyprus and the Turkish Cypriot community. The contests include legislative, presidential and sub-national elections and a national-level referendum. In our control case, Turkey, there was no economic crisis and no government change. Elsewhere in Southern Europe, the studies indicate the progression of the crisis, from the limited disapproval of Berlusconi government registered in the Spring 2010 Italian regional election to the electoral collapse of the Spanish socialists in late 2011. The volume indicates a build-up of popular frustration with the democratic process which can only be dangerous for the future of South European democracy. This book was published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.

Wouldn't it be great if you could sit down with a room full of seasoned kids ministry leaders with nothing but time and a list of questions to ask? Now, with What about Kids Ministry?, you can do just that! Never are people more impressionable, more passionate, or more eager to learn than in their childhood years. For this reason, those who parent and minister to children have incredibly consequential jobs! But they often lack the answers and solutions to some of their most important questions. In What About Kids Ministry?, kids ministry expert Bill Emeott has curated a series of questions and answers from some of the most authoritative voices in kids ministry today. In doing so, he has created the go-to resource for every kids and family minister or parent seeking practical answers to their questions about how to minister to children.

When Jeff Simmons started in ministry, he was surprised at how much of his time involved business. Yet business was never a part of his theological education. He’s not alone. Most people in ministry receive little or no training in this area. When faced with multiple business decisions and tasks a day, leaders can become discouraged or frustrated. We need help and guidance to become effective and wise stewards of the money and resources entrusted to us by God. Pastor and entrepreneur Jeff Simmons equips you with the training you need to have the greatest kingdom impact. When pastors and nonprofit leaders are good at the business side of their ministry, more people can be blessed and supported. Simmons explores topics such as: The Tension between Faith and Business The Importance of Strategic Planning Financial Transparency Resources and Buildings Work and Life Balance Developing a Community—and more This book will help every ministry, church, and nonprofit maximize their resources for greater kingdom impact.

The global aspects of the new Pentecostal churches in northern Cameroon are in this volume discussed through descriptions of the movement's relationship with mainline churches, traditional religion, and Islam.

The economy didn't go through the Great Depression - people did. Margaret DuBois grew up in a period of historic deprivation. Her family had to retreat to her grandparents' Ozark farm to survive. The farm patriarch, her grandfather, was an orator - a minister who had once served as a State Legislator. Their home-life differed from most similarly-situated Ozark families in its focus on spiritual duties and the love of learning. Books lined their shelves. Political bombast and pious sermon occupied their dinners. They didn't get up pre-dawn as most farm families did. Hard times drew out the best and worst of human character. As she watched her family cope with all manner of human failing, and unremitting rotten luck, Margaret saw that people are complex and rife with contradictions. In her family's composure through bitter disappointments she saw a strength of character worthy of remembrance. And on that rocky ground where the DuBois family held fast, she hatched her dreams.

Based on research carried out under Labour governments throughout the 1990s in Western Australia, the authors consider the social, political and economic conditions under which policy is formulated, understood and enacted. They look at how the state structure affects the content and nature of policy statements and provide an outline of the history of policy developments and point to future possibilities and probabilities. Outcomes within funding ceilings, accountability frameworks and national guidelines are but some of the changes referred to. The emergence of competency-based standards in education and training in schools, workplaces and the professions is evident throughout Australia at state level, but the concern is whether issues of education should be played out within the state and outside civil society. The authors argue for the mediation in implementation of policy - rather than a lambasting of policy formulation and implementation. This text is intended for heads of education departments, PGCE, BEd. MEd. students and researchers interested in education policy and planning. Education policymakers, and educational historians.