The Study Corner    

In honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month, the U.S. Census Bureau has collected the following Hispanic statistics:

• 42.7 Million – The estimated Hispanic population of the United States as of July 1, 2005, making people of Hispanic origin the nation’s largest ethnic or race minority. Hispanics constituted 14 percent of the nation’s total population.
• 102.6 Million – The projected Hispanic population of the United States as of July 1, 2050. According to this projection, Hispanics will constitute 24 percent of the nation’s total population on that date.
• About 1 of every two people added to the nation’s population between July 1, 2004, and July 1, 2005, were Hispanic.
• 27.2 – Median age, in years, of the Hispanic population in 2005. This compares with 36.2 years for the population as a whole.
• 13 – The number of states with at least half a million Hispanic residents. These states are: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Texas and Washington.
• 19 – Number of states in which Hispanics are the largest race or ethnic minority group.
• 1.6 Million – The number of Hispanic-owned businesses in 2002.
• 67% - The percentage of Hispanic families consisting of a married couple.
• 44% – The percentage of Hispanic families consisting of a married couple with children under the age of 18.
• 22% – Percentage of population under age 5 that is Hispanic, as of July 1, 2005.
• $35,967 – The median income of Hispanic households in 2005, unchanged from the previous year, in real terms.
• 21.8% – The poverty rate among Hispanics in 2005, unchanged from 2004.
• 58% – The percentage of Hispanics age 25 and older who had at least a high school education in 2004.
• 11% – Percentage of all college students in October 2004 who were Hispanic.
• 68% – Percentage of Hispanics age 16 and older who are in the civilian labor force.

Over at The Zone Gathering (a part of the NCC Online Community) they have a nice weekly piece call the Thursday Leadership Lesson. They are always encouraging and edifying.

This is a part of one of their most recent pieces.

Thursday Leadership Lesson: Developing an Attitude of Service

We are launching into our new series on service, and we begin today at the very beginning– developing an attitude of service in our own lives as leaders. Here is the bottom line: we need to view service as a lifestyle, not a project. If you are like me, there is a tendency to view “service” as an activity to schedule on the small group calendar. And we will definitely talk about service projects and how to bring those into the rhythm of your group life. But real service must take root in the attitude and life of the leader to make any real and lasting impact. We’ve got to throw out our ideas of what we think leadership is and follow Jesus’ example of leadership. We’ve got to obey the most fundamental command of all Christ-followers: “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross daily, and follow me.” That’s what it means to “Be One.”

… Head on over to The Zone Gathering for the rest of this very good lesson!

This is a post from Mark Batterson‘s blog at Evotional.com from his presentation at the MinistryCOM.

At the end of my session at Ministrycom I shared a top ten list.

Here is it in edited form.

Top Ten Ways to Redeem Technology

1) Start blogging
2) Start podcasting your sermons
3) Communicate with your congregation via e-newsletter
4) Redesign your webpage all the time
5) Shoot, Edit, and Produce video trailers for your sermon series
6) Launch a leaders-only podcast for vision casting and leader training
7) Send out an email version of your messages
Do word of mouse marketing via evites
9) Brand all of your sermon series with series graphics
10) If all else fails, hire a Digital Pastor

A piece we did to illustrate a teaching point on “Trash Talk”.

This is a post from theresurgence.com by John Frame. You can view original here.

Quite a few people have suggested recently that “inerrant” is not a good word to use in describing Scripture. I shall seek to respond to them in this article. Before we take up the specific term “inerrant,” however, it will be well for us to remind ourselves, in more general terms, of what the Reformed faith, and the Bible itself, teach us about Scripture.

First, Scripture is the covenant constitution of the people of God. The first written Word of God, the first Bible, was the ten commandments, written by the very finger of God on tables of stone (Ex. 24:12, 31:18, 32:15f, 34:1). In it, God speaks as the author of the document: “I am the Lord your God.” That written Word was put in the holiest place in Israel, beside the ark of the covenant, where it was to stand as God’s witness against Israel (Deut. 31:26). As such, the written Word was to govern every aspect of the lives of God’s people (Deut. 4:1-14, 5:32-6:25). Nearly every chapter in Deuteronomy urges the people to obey all the laws, testimonies, statutes, commandments, words… (such eloquent redundancy!) of God’s written word. Nearly every verse of Psalm 119 calls God’s people back to these statutes; revival in Israel is always a revival of obedience to (sometimes rediscovery of) the law. (Read on …)