Most people would agree that the church is an amazing concept—the idea that people who share faith in Christ can worship and serve together and enjoy sweet fellowship that has love, forgiveness, and mutual support as its hallmarks. But the reality is often quite different. When people who are part of the church behave in ways that are thoughtless, selfish, and even vicious, then that shining ideal dims drastically and people get wounded, sometimes never to recover. Suddenly, the one place in the community that should symbolize hope and light becomes a house of horror. Why does this happen? The easy answer is to point an accusing finger at Satan, but what about our own culpability? Troublemakers in the Church: Dealing with the Difficult, the Dangerous, and the Deadly identifies twenty-five types of troublesome church members and offers insights on how to deal with them, while also offering a specific plan for how to build a church culture that manages and minimizes trouble.

The author’s purpose for writing this book is to help young ministers who are seeking to pastor their first church. There are many young ministers who don’t know the procedures for accepting a church. Therefore, the author has penned those procedures from the Called into the Ministry to the First two years of the Pastorate. There are many books for the young minister that address what to do once the church calls a pastor, but there are very few books that give instructions on what to do in order to acquire a church. This book not only focuses on the young ministers, but also may be helpful for the veteran preachers who have been in the ministry for some period of time never pastoring a church. The author covers eight chapters in this book: I. The Call To The Ministry 1)The pastoral ministry is a calling 2)What is meant by the called II. Pray For Spiritual Guidance 1)The aspiration to pastor 2)Personality acceptance 3)The importance of mentoring III. Submitting A Resume/Philosophy Of Ministry/Be Professional 1)The letter of intention 2)Things to submit to the pastoral search committee 3)Example of a complete (pastor’s) resume 4)A concept of leadership 5)The visionary/philosophy of ministry statement IV. The Pastoral Interview 1)How to dress/what to do in an interview 2)The two types of interviews 3)The personal application 4)Questions for pastoral search committee V. The Invitation To Preach 1)You have made it pass the interview process 2)What to preach 3)How should you dress 4)Who will accompany you to the church VI. The Pastor’s Compensation 1)Negotiating the pastor’s salary VII. The Letter Of Acceptance 1)I will accept the position of pastor 2)Sample letter of acceptance VIII.The First Two Years At Your New Church 1)The honeymoon years 2)The do’s and don’ts of the new pastor 3)The installation service 4)Sample of a pastoral installation service 5)Can you produce 6)Ministering to the needs of the people 7)The new pastor relating to his board of directors 8)How do you handle troublemakers 9)Preaching that get results 10)The pastor compared to another pastor 11)The days of trouble for the pastor 12)The pastor being an example to his congregation 13)The pastor and funerals 14)The counseling ministry of the pastor 15)The counseling rules for the pastor 16)How to properly resign a church 17)Sample letter of resignation 18)The final rewards for the pastor It is the author’s prayer that those who read this book will gain some knowledge about how to accept a church. May the blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you! Grace, Love, and Peace, Roy Wade, Sr., D.Min.

How did religion contribute to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Heated disputes and alienation among Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and Russia contributed to Russian aggression in Crimea and Donbas in 2014, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This book examines attempts from the early twentieth century to the present day to liberate the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from Russian control. It explores the causes of bitter alienation, Russia’s use of soft power to maintain control, the development of hate speech used to discriminate against independent-minded Ukrainians, and the transition from soft to hard power from 2014 to the present.

Learn the Essentials of Biblical Greek So You Can Study the New Testament More Deeply This newly revised third edition of Greek for the Rest of Us by Greek instructor William Mounce is crash-course on "Greek for the rest of us" that acquaints the reader with the essentials of the language so they can study the New Testament more deeply. Readers will gain a sound knowledge of the fundamentals of Greek and learn how to use tools that will add muscle to their Bible studies. In Greek for the Rest of Us readers will learn to: Read and pronounce Greek words Learn the fundamentals of the Greek noun and verb system Conduct effective Greek word studies Learn the basics of Greek exegesis for biblical interpretation Understand why translations are different Read better commentaries Be comfortable using reverse and traditional interlinears Understand the information displayed by biblical software For anyone interested in seriously studying the New Testament, Greek for the Rest of Us is your gateway to learning the skills and tools you need to accomplish your goals. You can enhance your learning experience even more with the Greek for the Rest Us Workbook (sold separately) which contains exercises to help practice and reinforce the concepts you are learning in the main book.

The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1981, volume 2, contains messages given by Brother Witness Lee on November 2 through December 11, 1981. From December 23, 1981, through January 2, 1982, Brother Lee spoke twenty-eight messages that were published in Life-study of 1 Corinthians. The Life-study messages are not included in The Collected Works of Witness Lee. From the last week in October until the end of November, 1981, Brother Lee traveled to Seoul, South Korea; Hong Kong; Taipei, Taiwan; and Tokyo, Japan. He returned to Anaheim and ministered there until the end of the year. The contents of this volume are divided into two sections, as follows: 1. Twenty-eight messages given in Hong Kong and in Taipei, Taiwan, on November 2 through 24. These messages were translated from Chinese and are included in this volume under the title The History and Revelation of the Lord's Recovery. 2. A message given in Anaheim, California, on December 11. This message is included in this volume under the title The Center of Paul's Completing Ministry.

Serving the local church as senior pastor is not a small undertaking. Regardless of your education or the years of experience you may have, the job is still tough to manage. The senior pastor of the local church is one person, no matter how large the staff he or she may supervise. Rarely is there a person that can walk into their first-time pastoral experience and hit a home run at first bat. Often the opposite is true. First time pastor’s make plenty of their own mistakes. Often, they haven’t learned how to handle some of the emotional baggage that comes along with their newly assumed pastoral role. Pastor Randle examines his own pastoral experience at his first church to demonstrate how a minister can learn from the principles presented in this book, potentially avoiding the bumps and bruises of ministry. Read this book whether you are serving as a pastor for the first time or not. Your ministry will be blessed.

A powerful history of student protests and student rights during the desegregation era In the late 1960s, protests led by students roiled high schools across the country. As school desegregation finally took place on a wide scale, students of color were particularly vocal in contesting the racial discrimination they saw in school policies and practices. And yet, these young people had no legal right to express dissent at school. It was not until 1969 that the Supreme Court would recognize the First Amendment rights of students in the landmark Tinker v. Des Moines case. A series of students’ rights lawsuits in the desegregation era challenged everything from school curricula to disciplinary policies. But in casting students as “troublemakers” or as “culturally deficient,” school authorities and other experts persuaded the courts to set limits on rights protections that made students of color disproportionately vulnerable to suspension and expulsion. Troublemakers traces the history of black and Chicano student protests from small-town Mississippi to metropolitan Denver and beyond, showcasing the stories of individual protesters and demonstrating how their actions contributed to the eventual recognition of the constitutional rights of all students. Offering a fresh interpretation of this pivotal era, Troublemakers shows that when black and Chicano teenagers challenged racial discrimination in American public schools, they helped remake American constitutional law and establish protections of free speech, due process, equal protection, and privacy for students.

This valuable reference helps believers understand as never before the books of the New Testament and how they fit into the total revelation God has given us of Christ and His redemptive work.

Inside the pages of this book, Rev. Dr. Larry A. Brookins examines three significant contexts from the Bible that bring to the forefront how God views sin and disobedience, whether outside the church among the peoples of the world, or within the church among the congregations of the saints. It also highlights the heart of the God of both Old and New Testaments, as it relates to the life that is lived in submission and conformity to the Will of God. In Seven Things that God Hates, Seven Letters to Seven Churches and Let Go of Your Neighbor's Throat no camouflage is presented. Jesus said: "ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). The God, Who is Love, has word against the transgressor of His commandments. The goal is not condemnation but correction (see II Timothy 3:16). The objective of divine admonition is forever?"repentance" (see II Peter 3:9). More than anything else God desires to bless, but He will curse. More than anything else the gates of Heaven invite all, but what of the reality of Hell? The love of God is unconditional and embraces every sinner with an invitation to salvation, regardless of individual sin. But don't misinterpret divine love for acceptance of a lifestyle that displeases God and or for absolute salvation without the condition of faith and obedience. Jesus died for all, but not all will enjoy the fruit of His sacrifice.