Interview with Pastor Rick Warren (HW below)

The following is a recent interview with pastor Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life"...Hope you are encouraged and challenged by it... His wife now has cancer, and he now has 'wealth' from the book sales. In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said :'People ask me, 'What is the purpose of life?' And I respond : 'In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.'One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body--but not the end of me. I may live to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense. Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness. This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is 'my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others. We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her. It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people. You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72. First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church. Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call 'The Peace Plan' to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation. Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free. We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)? When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, 'God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better.' God didn't put me on earth just to fulfil a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings. Happy moments, PRAISE GOD. Difficult moments, SEEK GOD. Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD Painful moments, TRUST GOD. Every moment, THANK GOD. '

Greeks, gods, Gettysburg and other Goodies

Go to the web address below and scroll to the bottom of the page. There you will find sections on Greek mythology, heroes, and stories. Choose any two names or topics each day and write a brief description detailing the main points of each essay. Then express your opinion telling me what interested you most. Finally, at some point during the week,using the second link, read the account of the Battle of Gettysburg by teenager and eyewitness Tillie Pierce, and in light of most of you having been there yourself recently, describe your feelings about her account.


http://www.historylink102.com/greece2/index.htm

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/gtburg.htm

In view of our discussion in class today of the influence of humanism, I was interested to see two articles on the front page of The Washington Times this morning - one is about the rise of homeschooling...In this article note CAREFULLY the opinion of the NEA, the National Education Association...very interesting...The other is about former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the role of faith in his life and politics and the OPINION of the British society at large regarding people of faith...Read these articles at some point this week and give me your impressions in a BRIEF paragraph....Have a great week and remember, let your faith go deep into your SOLE (soul) and into the very PIT of your being... : )

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071126/NATION/111260033/1001

http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20071126/FOREIGN/111260058/1003/FOREIGN

Finally, the following website is an excellent source for more information regarding the meaning and teaching of humanism as discussed today in class - the quotes listed here are truly chilling - check them out and share your thoughts...Thanks...

http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/secular-humanism.htm

NO HOMEWORK 11/19 - 11/25 !!!

That's all!!!!! :) Have fun over the break!!!!

I Can Almost Taste the Turkey!

Thanksgiving is almost here, which means that I can almost taste the turkey and all the fixin's...It also means you will enjoy a week of NO homework from your mean ol' teacher who has driven you all like Egyptian slaves under the taskmasters of old...Keep in mind we will leave for Gettysburg on Mon the 19th at 9 am from Bishop Cummins...For this week, I would like you to go to the site below on Ancient Greece and over the next week read three entries under each of the eight main sections on the homepage...Tell me BRIEFLY what you learned and what interested you the most in your readings for that day...You may do as much or as little as you want each day, as long as you have read three entries under each heading and written your summaries by next Monday night the 19th at midnight...Starting on the 20th, you are not allowed to do any World History HW until you return to class on the 26th - that is an order - you have earned the break! Enjoy it - lol :)

PS - For your info, there are two excellent links at the bottom of the web site which take you to some amazing pictures of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the D-Day landings in France during WW II - Check them out if you are interested - :)

http://www.historylink102.com/greece3/index.htm

EYEWITNESSES

Hey guys...Here is your homework for the week - Go to the site listed here : http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/index.html This is a terrific site which has historical information, as you will see, on all eras and times - enjoy checking it out, but for this week's HW, click on "ancient world" link and you will find 16 articles on historical events from ancient Greece and Rome...Read one article per day, any one you want, and then write a BRIEF summary of the article, what you learned from it, what you found most interesting, etc...As always, all HW to me by midnight each day, Monday through Fri...Thanks guys and remember...Have fun. :)

HW 33 - 37 - follow instructions above...

ps - Sometime during the week, pick out ANOTHER article from any other era other than ancient history on any subject you want - read it and do the same for it as you did for the other articles - a brief summary - and don't forget to tell me WHY you chose that particular article to read...Thanks...