Minister Of Salt And Light

So often when we hear the word ‘minister’ it conjures up images of a person in some or other clothing of the clergy, or who carries a fancy title in the church. The truth is, the concept of a minister has become distorted for hundreds of years. We are all called to administer the Gospel as ministers of the Kingdom. We are all called to be active in the Kingdom of God, fulfilling the Great Commission. We are all called to be disciples of God, and we all have a calling and have been empowered with gifts and abilities to establish the Kingdom of God in the hearts of man. We are all, and not a few, called to ‘minister’ in accordance to the Great Commission, within various functions as the royal priesthood. Today we sadly sit with so mostly inactive disciples because of wrong teachings, thus disciples who believe they are not called to minister at all! It is time for all disciples to become true servants worth the salt and light in our corporate effort to proclaim the Good News far and wide so that God may be glorified and the lost saved.

Our Lord often used common illustrations to teach great truths. He used ordinary objects, relationships, and events to communicate extraordinary principles. Much of Paul's instructions, too, were given through metaphorical language to which his hearers could relate. Analogies and metaphors help us grasp larger truths because they take us from our everyday experiences and lead us to what God desires to be daily realities in our Christian walk. In this curriculum, we will examine thirteen metaphors that will help define, clarify, and instruct us in specific aspects of our relationship with the Lord. As we examine the basic characteristics of each, we will more thoroughly understand our responsibilities as Christians and learn how to successfully fulfill God's design for our lives.

Meeting House Essays in a series of papers reflecting on the mystery, beauty and practicalities of the place of worship. This popular series was begun in 1991, and each resource focuses on a particular aspect of space, design or materials and how they relate to the liturgy.

Hollywood, 1956. Journalist and war widow Evangeline Kilhooley is assigned to write a ";star profile" of the fading actor Bela Lugosi, made famous by his role as Count Dracula. During a series of interviews, Lugosi draws Evi into his curious Eastern European background, gradually revealing the link between Old World shadows and the twilight realm of modern horror films. Along the way, Evi meets another English expatriate, Hugo Radelle, a movie buff who offers to help with her research. As their relationship deepens, Evi begins to suspect that he knows more about her and her soldier husband than he is letting on. Meanwhile, a menacing Darkness stalks all three characters as their histories and destinies mysteriously begin to intertwine.

Arnold calls us to build up a just, peaceable society motivated by love. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus puts aside his usual parables and speaks plainly in language anyone can understand. Like Francis of Assisi and others, Arnold chose to live out Jesus' teachings by embracing their self- sacrificing demands. In this collection of talks and essays, he calls us to live for the Sermon's ultimate goal: the overturning of the prevailing order of injustice. In its place, Arnold writes, we must build up a just, peaceable society motivated by love.

We live in a broken world with broken people. Often it is easy to ignore the needs of the people around us. But what would God want us to do? In His ministry here on earth, Jesus reached out to the most hurt, most abused, and most reviled members of His community. He healed not only their bodies but their spirits. Should we do any less? The Seventh-day Adventist Church has a unique opportunity to serve the hurting in their community through a Home-Based Care ministry. With our mission to love, serve, and teach, and with the numerous church resources already available, we can do what many others cannot—be the safe haven of health and healing that God intends His church to be. While this book focuses on ministry to individuals and their families dealing with HIV and AIDS, the principles found here can be applied to anyone with a terminal illness who finds himself/herself on the other side of accepted society. It shows us that instead of being critical, we should accept where people and their choices have led them, doing our best to minister with the love and care of Jesus.

Jesus calls us to be salt and light in our world. Salt and light are both important in our lives - salt to add flavour and to preserve freshness; light for our safe well-being and to enable us to see clearly. The call is for the disciples of the Lord to bring freshness and direction to the lives of others by the qualities we associate with salt and light. They represent creativity, confidence, hope and openness to whatever God requires of us as disciples - people who live for others, being for them the signs and realities of God's presence and God's purposes. One way we discern God's purposes within the long teaching tradition of our church is by listening and sharing the Scriptures, broken for us each Sunday at Mass, offered to us by faithful preaching of the Word of God or by thoughtful reflection in classroom and other settings. The task of preachers, teachers and commentators is somehow to bring the selected readings to life so that they connect with our lives as we gather to worship, to listen, to be strengthened and encouraged in our life of faith week by week. This new series of reflections on the Sunday Gospels in the year of Matthew is not concerned primarily to be commentary on the text but on the message of the text; their purpose is not so much to inform as to inspire. The reflections by a master craftsman are written to unpack the Gospel - not simply Matthew's special theological emphases but his teaching about how we are to live with one another in the stuff of the everyday. Integral to the book is the author's assumption that life and faith belong together; that God who brings freshness and light in our lives is lavish with gifts, patient and energising for goodness, for fruitfulness, for life in its fullness. Here is a book that takes seriously the command of Jesus that we be life giving in our world, encouraging us to become people fully alive with the energy of the life of the Creator. The book is for priests and preachers, parents and teachers and for all who seek the transformation and fullness of life that God offers us in the breaking of the Word and who have the courage and the wisdom to accept the challenge of the Word and incarnate its message in our daily lives. Peter Varengo is a Salesian priest, presently engaged in full time Adult Retreat Ministry. He has been a professed religious for more than fifty years and a priest for more than forty. He studied Theology at the Salesian University in Rome; and Religious Education in Maynooth (Ireland) and in Boston College (USA). He has taught at Catholic Theological College in Melbourne and been involved in parish ministry for many years.