Via Bloomberg, millennials are opting for jobs instead of enrolling in college. It doesn’t have to be an either-or dilemma. Many employers offer tuition assistance so employees can take advantage of degree programs like Bama By Distance. Through Bama At Work, You can also take advantage of certificate programs, which have the advantage of being cheaper and faster to complete than degrees while providing career-specific skills.
Is news of Christianity’s decline premature?
Via Facebook and the Washington Post, when God is rejected in one place, He goes somewhere else:
While rising numbers of “nones” — those who claim no religious affiliation when asked — claim the attention of religious pundits, the world tells a different story. Religious convictions are growing and shifting geographically in several dramatic ways.
The center of Christianity has shifted from Europe to the global South.
Click the link to see more: Think Christianity is dying? No, Christianity is shifting dramatically - The Washington PostPoints:
- Decline in North America and Europe = 80 percent of the world’s Christians a century ago; 40 percent today.
- Same time frame, more Christians in global South than global North. Africa = 10 percent of world’s Christians a century ago, 25 percent today, 40 percent by 2025
- Asia = 460 million by 2025.
- China = more people at worship services than in USA.
- In general, Christianity is growing world-side.
- Immigration to the US will affect religious patterns.
- Perceived contradiction: those who want greater influence of Christianity in the US oppose immigration of Christians (read Hispanics who happen to be Catholic) to the US.
Don’t fix it if you don’t know why it was made that way to begin with
Via Chesterton.org, a useful principle about change and reform: “The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: ‘If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.’”
Why write in your books
Via Brain Pickings, the importance of writing in your books: “[Marginalia is] simply too essential a canvas for digesting and disputing concepts, too key a voice box for our inner monologue about the world of words and ideas.”
Virginia Woolf on reading
Via Brain Pickings, a recap of Virginia Woolf’s advice on how to read a book: “Woolf — an eloquent champion of the joy of reading — considers reading not a means to some intellectual end, but an intellectual and creative reward in itself.”
Will robots do to jobs what Deep Blue did to Garry Kasparov and Watson to Ken Jennings?
Two items:
What are the ramifications for jobs in these sectors? What must people do to adjust?
Help for the long term unemployed
Via Tuscaloosa News, a non-profit helping the long term unemployed:
Platform to Employment…targets a major scar of the Great Recession: The 2.6 million Americans who have been jobless for over six months. Many of them have long felt ignored by employers who assume their skills, drive or technological know-how have faded.
Platform to Employment provides job-search training before arranging subsidized auditions. This eliminates any risk to employers while giving the jobless an opening to prove themselves.
Rounding out the Gospel
Via Christianity Today, ensuring compassion joins with proclamation and formation in how the church interacts in communities:
I learned that we needed to put compassion front and center. Compassion is a language Christians can understand in our hurting world: the need for a cup of water, clothing, shelter, or some other practical form of love.
We want to help create economic opportunity—to teach people how to fish, and even to own the pond. We want to restore dignity by restoring the ability to care for oneself and one’s family.
Find God in your circumstances, serve others in theirs.
The question is how
Via Verge, a call for true leadership development: “…while most churches believe they have leadership development programs, in actuality they have programs that recruit and train volunteers.”
The article leaves the next step up to you: how to develop leaders to impact the world outside the walls of a church.
Our robot overlords
Via NBC, robots replacing the human workforce: “In the manufacturing industry, a recent study by Boston Consulting Group found that by 2025 robots will do about 25 percent of all industrial tasks—and that inexpensive robots are becoming increasingly available to smaller companies. Robotics are also making it possible for more individuals to start businesses in industries where the need for a substantial labor force once posed a big barrier to entry.”
Two cheers for the Pharisees
Via Christianity Today, some appreciation for the Law: “The ugly side of law still has a hold on us, in part because we have such a hard time believing we are forgiven and accepted, believing that we really are free. But from time to time, we see the truth of our situation, and we are flooded with gratefulness and awe, not due simply to the wonder of grace but also to the glory of law.”
Work as your divine calling
Via Christian Post, viewing work as more than just work with a telling statement by Chuck Colson:
“Christians ought to have a different approach to business. As believers, we should view work as both service and a form of worship. Our work, our vocation, is a high and noble calling, and a means of expressing ourselves.”
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