How families currently function

Today’s “Pastor’s Briefing” email (from Focus on the Family) included the following. Some is encouraging (not as bad as I feared), but overall it is pretty sad…

[my comments are inserted within the brackets]

Families Still Eating Together

According to a new poll commissioned by The Associated Press, 60% of those who live with families said they sat down with family for dinner at least five nights in the past week. The research also revealed:

• 25% of families have the television turned on during dinner [why put such an obstacle in the way of conversation?]
• 50% of families feel pestered by phone calls during this time together [only half? Love your family more…]
• E-mailing or texting on a cell phone is constantly taking place during dinner for 5% of families [I suspect its actually higher]

The poll was conducted November 5-9 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media, and was based on phone interviews with 1,006 adults. [MercuryNews.com]

The Bible reminds us that some gatherings are made worse because of the behavior of some present (1st Cor. 11:17, But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse.)

Let us strive to do better!

Psalm 133:1, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together”

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What’s more important, human rights or climate change?

Just as President Obama’s domestic agenda disturbs many, comes word of his misguided – if not shameful – foreign policy agenda….

A Christian professor and author of note, wrote a short blog post on On Not Speaking Truth to Power

Obama refuses to meet with the Dali Lama and 1143237_little_girlfigures opposed to tyranny. This is typical of the hard left. They refuse to support those who speak truth to tyrannical power; instead they curry favor from the powerful, as long as they are hostile to the West. This is unjust, perverse, and ungodly in the extreme. Wake up, America. Your president is a no friend of freedom, democracy, or “hope.”

Beyond the shiny spectacle of this “historic” president is an empty suit, political mantras (meaningless), a magic teleprompter, and a man who is putting America and its deepest ideals at risk for the sake of his neo-Marxist ideology.

What had triggered this?? He’d read an article by one of the senior statesmen of evangelicalism, Chuck Colson, on human rights (here). That article begins with some shocking revelations….

What’s more important to the administration’s foreign policy—climate change or human rights? The disturbing answer.

Many were shocked last February when Secretary of State Clinton said that pressing China about its human rights abuses “can’t interfere” with more important things — like “the global 1053013_great_wall_chinaeconomic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis.”

Even the Washington Post was shocked; its editors said Clinton’s comments were “misguided.” But now it seems that Clinton was only stating what was to be official Obama administration policy.

We saw this same attitude last month when Barack Obama declined to meet with the Dali Lama. The snub was an apparent effort to curry favor with Chinese leaders — leaders who deny religious liberty and human rights, not only to their own citizens, but also to Tibetans.
(read the rest here)

Friends, the need to pray for our country, and for those in power, has seldom been greater than in our own time…
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