As ONE members, we care. We care about the child orphaned by HIV/AIDS. We care about the village that lacks access to clean water. And we care about the millions of people throughout the developing world who will go to bed hungry tonight. For many of us, that caring is borne of our faith.

Last week, the ONE campaign asked students to take action on our challenge: to make poverty history. Now, ONE is reaching out to people of faith and engaging traditions that say that when you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness. (Isaiah 58:10)

We all have a finite amount of purity—innocence lost. Every time we are intimate we give some away. Like the force George Lucas shows us in the Star Wars universe, our actions effect who we are. We do something good, we shift ever so slightly to the light. And the reverse is also true. Whether it is Anakin slaying a village of sand people or going too far on a first date, our actions have consequences.

I just had a grapefruit. The saying goes: the devil is in the details, but I tell you, God is in the details. Fast food, processed food, is killing me. Every day, I need to eat lunch. Every day the fast food corporations try and provide that food — and they are killing us.

Yesterday, instead of going to McDonalds or Wendy’s or even Subway, I went to a local health food grocery. Every day I drive past it; Venturing in, just seemed unnatural. Who would be inside there? The fear of that place kept me driving right on past even though I knew the alternatives we slowly, habitually clogging my arteries.

Another Thanksgiving holiday passes us by and I’m reminded by just how much we have to be thankful for. So much earth-shaking, world-changing events have transpired, just in the last year. It’s often hard to take it all in–and still care. Yet amongst all this, that’s exactly what we have to do, to keep being the people we are.

Media coverage of Katrina and her aftermath is simply beyond my ability to comprehend. We see image upon image of destruction on a scale I could never have imagined. Our thoughts and prayers, indeed the nations, rest upon all the people of the Gulf region.

In Central Florida, we witnessed the most intense season of storms and damage in recent memory. We are still putting back the pieces. Roofs still are missing shingles, a local church is still missing its steeple, and yet four hurricanes pale in comparison to what the people of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are going through.

I recently received an email. In it was a petition, written to President Bush, calling for the reinstatement of prayer in schools. With 1557 names on it, it asked users to forward it on when it reached 2000. I’m sure that happened soon and was diligently delivered. But I’m afraid that the good intentions of the originator is misplaced.

Where does the power really live in American government? Why do so many of us focus on big picture, national issues and ignore their back yard, ignore the community which they live in? Why do we call on the President when we really need to connect here at home?

I’ve just returned home from being engulfed by the dark cinematic masterpiece that is Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. It has much to teach the observant eye—those who are “mindful of their feelings”—about the ongoing wrestling match between human passion and spiritual abandonment.

Teeming with metaphors to the biblical faith that creator George Lucas may or may not have intended, Sith is the culmination of young Anakin Skywalker’s descent into the “dark side” of the Force. The Force, the confluence of all living energy, has a light and a dark side, both of which feed much power to their adherents. (It can be used for good and evil, an important distinction when viewed in respect to the Holy Spirit.)

A recent message circulated throughout the internet shows us, “A Sign From God After a Florida Hurricane”. Now normally my spam filter would keep me from ever seeing this, but for some reason, this one caught my eye.

Last year as wave after wave of tropical fury visited our fair State, we all had to wonder what prompted such an irregular season. I honestly thought that Brevard would never see any real effects from a Hurricane, never mind several in rapid succession. Yes, I bought into the mythos, you’ve probably heard some of it. Stories tell that we built Kennedy Space Center where we did because no storm in recorded history had passed through the area or that native Indians said no hurricane would hit land there.

May 5th, 2005 is the National Day of Prayer. Connect locally and be a part of this awesome event. The National Day of Prayer was created by an act of Congress and is, therefore, intended for all peoples of faith to pray to the God of their understanding. However, our expression of that involvement is specifically limited to the Judeo-Christian heritage and those who share that conviction as expressed in the Lausanne Convenant. If peoples of other faiths wish to celebrate in their own tradition, they are welcome to do so, but we must be true to those who have supported this effort and volunteered their time to promote it. National Day of Prayer is not a function of the government and, therefore, a particular expression of it can be defined by those who choose to organize it. This is not a church/state issue.

With eyes red and tears flowing from Jake’s mom she blurted, “Thank you so much Jason! My son is just not the same. The other night my ex-husband and I were violently screaming at each other. Jake, would normally begin physically fighting with my ex, instead jumped between us and told me that we just can’t go that route anymore”.

Jason, the Youth Pastor at “The House” (House of Prayer International in Palm Bay) said that Jake, now 15, decided to break up with his current sexual relationship believing that it would lead him in the same path of destruction that his parents had experienced. He has improved his school grades, reads his Bible faithfully every day and takes extensive notes on every sermon he hears.

As I write, the television, beaming non-stop coverage of Pope John Paul II’s rapidly deteriorating condition, has just reported his long expected death. All of the major television and cable networks and then some are broadcasting interviews, reflections, commentaries, pontifications and so forth, on the life of this fine man and the impact he has had on the Catholic Church and the world.

A landmark piece of literature that transcends all trends of the liberal arts is The Brothers Karamazov, by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Penned in pre-Bolshevik, Czarist Russia, this masterpiece encompasses every struggle and triumph of the human race. It is a virtual panorama of the best and worst of the inner and outward nature that expresses and exposes who we are upon this fragile earth, and what motivates us.

Published in the Spring 2005 issue of “Stillpoint” by Gordon College.

CIVA Celebrates 25th Anniversary. In 2002 Christians in the Visual Arts hired its first full-time staff and accepted Gordon’s invitation to make its permanent home at the College. This year CIVA celebrates its 25th Anniversary, CIVASILVER, with more than 1,500 members.

I usually have some kind of spiritually oriented book nearby: at my bedside, with me at the gym, in my briefcase while traveling for business. I seem to possess a lifelong need to fill the soul, to add wisdom, to feed the spirit that hungers for deeper dimensions of truth.

Right now Philip Yancey’s Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church is my reading companion. I must admit that sometimes just the right book comes across my path at a season when I am deeply in need of its textual nourishment. I’ve owned this book for several months, but in recent days it jumped off the shelf, standing out from the crowd of other Christian-ese titles, demanding to be devoured.

MOPS stands for Mothers of Preschoolers. It is an international organization with a mission of helping mothers understand and fulfill the philosophy “Because Mothering Matters.”

MOPS is about …
- Celebrating motherhood
- Meeting needs
- Making connections
- Experiencing God’s love…through relationships and resources.

Every day, thousands of individuals and families from every walk of life are taught how to become free from the bondage of debt, financial stress, and the effects of bad money decisions.

Crown Financial Ministries is a nonprofit organization that teaches God’s biblical principles of finances to people around the world. We teach through our award-winning radio programs, church-led small group programs, newsletter, and products, including workbooks and software.

Our mission is to equip people worldwide to learn, apply, and teach God’s financial principles so they may know Christ more intimately, be free to serve Him, and help fund the Great Commission.

During a six-day period that bridged the end of 2004 and the advent of 2005, my wife and our families endured a grueling journey of faith that called onto the table all that we believed and understood about ourselves.

We are expecting our second child in June. A sudden phone call on Dec. 28 indicated a potential serious problem. More tests were needed. We were devastated, scared, uncertain, trying to be hopeful.

John is President of John M. De Marco Communications, and VP & Editor of GreenBrevard.com. John works in the financial services sector and also is a licensed United Methodist pastor. He writes and speaks on a regular basis within and beyond Brevard County, and can be heard weekdays on WMEL AM 920 with his “Intentional Living” one-minute messages.

Where do you see Brevard in 5 or 10 years? Where are we headed?
I see Brevard emerging as a community where a nucleus of existing and developing leaders are coming together and creating synergistic ways to build upon our quality of life. We are doing this through intentional living at multiple levels, especially through building strategic partnerships that have an impact on the business, civic and spiritual arenas.

The Gospel of Mark, Chapter 12:38-44, tells the story of Jesus observing the gift offered by a poor widow who enters the Temple in the midst of all the other would-be worshippers.

The religious leaders and high society folks are making sure everyone notices their grandiose gifts to the Temple treasury. The poor widow, however, unassumingly drops two small copper coins, worth about a penny, into the offering plate.

Jesus declares that she has contributed more than all the others, for she gave out of her poverty rather than simply serving up a slice of her wealth. The numbers do not add up in accordance with what he has said, but Christ is glancing past the numbers and seeing the hearts behind them.

After the current election season, it’s well understood that we live in a divided nation. On the outside it seems that the pressing issues that separate us are all about war, or terrorism or national security. Maybe the economy figures in, or health care or Social Security.

Pulling back the cover of events, issues and personalities enables us to recognize that there are driving ideologolical questions that seperate us. Will America favor socalism over capitalism? Are we driven by those taxed or those who consume the tax? Does big government want to control every aspect of our lives, does the state want to own everything? Will corporations be above the law?