http://www.cokesbury.com/FreeDownloads/BibleTransGuide.pdf
This is a useful guide on Bible Translations, and I am sharing this link primarily for my friends at West Allis First United methodist.
As you can see, this reference comes from Cokesbury, the United Methodist book-selling division.
This is a great neighborhood mission, operated by a very small church.
In a small building tucked away on a side street in Forrest City, Ark., Kynette United Methodist Church gathers each week. With an average worship attendance of 15 to 20 people, it certainly fits the definition of “small church.”
Rex Winkley touches up paint in a newly-remodeled room of Kynette United Methodist Church in Forrest City, Ark. The space will house a new after-school program to reach out to elementary-aged students and their parents. PHOTO BY SUE WINKLEY
But its size won’t stop it from reaching out into its mission field in a new way this year: through Key’s Afterschool Homework Club, housed in a newly-remodeled room of the building.
Coffee long gone, cup dry-stained, and
Frost etching across these thin-paned portals,
We hear voices, poems clearly ascribed across years.
Three o’clock high, and pain crushes his spirit,
fragile bones dropping him to boyhood lost, and found.
Will the sun bring new day or old?
We pray for those outside, for those alone.
We grab onto those in pain, and those in prisons,
self-made and new-found.
Listen. See.
Hoar frost or soft rime on a cold winter day in Lower Saxony, Germany. Français : Givre ou gelée blanche sur la végétation par une froide journée d’hiver en Basse-Saxe (Allemagne). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
(c) Tom Bolton, 20 January 2013, Milwaukee
We celebrate the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King today.
Some great words by Dr. King:
A great hymn by Charles Wesley:
I am excited about Missions at First United Methodist Church, where I am a member and disciple of Jesus. Last Saturday, we had an awesome visit with folks at God’s Kidz in the Hood, and we made some sandwiches for Larry Under the Bridge. Our friend Karen Jesse 
is in India on a mission trip. She is working with the kids on English as a second language. Last week, she was able to experience a new year celebration, Pong. She inspires us.
Things are positive at the Divine Intervention for the Homeless cold weather intervention, where I help out as a volunteer.
We look forward to Packing Rice as part our Second Saturday Servants program at First Church in February. We will pack rice for hungry kids in Tanzania at Simple Hope at Bethesda Community Church in Watertown, Wisconsin, and one of our Bell Choirs will be playing too. We are doing this with our Youth Group, which makes it special for me. For each of us, a registration fee of $25.00 covers the cost of rice and shipping it to Tanzania. We always learn new things with Simple Hope too. And the Bell choir will be special. This will be great! Simple Hope , founded in 2010, is a Christian non-profit organization, working ecumenically with all faiths to provide hope to compromised communities in rural Tanzania, East Africa. The direct mission of Simple Hope is to save and empower lives through faith, nutritious food, clean water, education, microcredit programs and other identified long term sustainable projects.
Lots of missions going on. These are a few that capture my attention now. I’m fired up today!
I remember again the words of Jesus in John’s Gospel (Chapter 20):
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
We are sent!
Not Cheap
We are forgiven and filled with grace;
shall we not yet repent?
We are in communion with a radical master;
shall we not confess who we are and recognize him?
We are baptized in water pure and eternal;
and where is our discipline in this prevenient grace?
I seize new life in this new year.
New life came with the cost of death.
I submit myself today;
let it be so.
The master is not in any establishment;
disciples, we seek him. We are needy.
Joy in the Word!
(c) Tom Bolton, January 14, 2013, Milwaukee.
Reblogging this well-written, important blog.
“It is barbaric and it is evil and it has no place in a civilized world,” – President Barack Obama
Yet it persists. Did you know more people are enslaved today than have been enslaved throughout history? That law enforcement experts believe human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world?
Human trafficking is a ~32 billion dollar industry that victimizes nearly 21 million people across the world and Florida carries the shame of consistently being one of the top 3 states in our nation for this atrocious crime.
The United Nations defines human trafficking as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of people — by threat, abduction, deception or abuse of power — for the purpose of sexual or labor-related exploitation. Eighty percent of those trafficked are women and girls, and half of all trafficking victims are younger than 13.
Slaves fight our wars, grow our food…
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Hopeful 