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Business

Israel Trip

Israel Day 6: History, Business, & West Bank

World Council of Churches

We started off the day by meeting with Yusef Daher, a Palestinian Christian working for the World Council of Churches. He works for non-violent ways to wage peace. He is the Executive Secretary of the Jerusalem Inter-Church Center of the Heads of Churches of Jerusalem in association with the World Council of Churches and the Middle East Council of Churches. Also, Yusef teaches at Bethlehem University in tourism.

Yusef works within the World Council of Churches drawing together several church centered organizations and theologians striving for causes of residency, peace, current challenges for Christians. In 2009, these groups issued the Palestine Kairos document. (He told a joke: Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a theologian? The difference between a terrorist and theologian is that you can negotiate with a terrorist.) The Kairos document was based on three themes: word of hope (Palestinian Christians will survive this conflict), word of faith (how to read the Bible together), word of love (what is requested of Palestinian Christians)..

Jerusalem is a focus for the World Councils of Churches because this is the main center for much of Israel. What happens here sets the stream for the rest of the region.

Residency of Israelis is another focus of the WCC. Many who are Palestinian born Israelis and travel abroad can lose their residency because of frequent travel or staying in a country to long. Also, if Palestinians live outside Israel for longer than 7 years, you automatically lose your citizenship. Sometimes husbands and wives can only see one another on a one month visa because of this. The WCC focuses these concerns, through the Vatican, to the Israeli government.

NCC was a part of issuing the Kairos Palestinian Document, a document issuing declaring wrongs done to the Palestinians by the Israeli government and outlining how God calls people to reconciliation. Upon issuing a document of the Palestinian Kairos, the Jerusalem Post criticized the writers but not the content of the Kairos document of calling for peace. However, two local Israeli Jewish theologians opened communication by calling the document a valid concern.

Danny Seidemann tour and meeting

Continue Reading…

Church Leadership, faith

A Theology For Planning

A plan for the future is always a challenge, especially when it deals with money. The former CEO, Alan Schwartz of defunct investment bank Bear Stearns was apparently delusional in March 2008 when he stated that things were going fine with the faltering investment bank:

Bear Stearns’s balance sheet, liquidity and capital remain strong… Our liquidity position has not changed at all, our balance sheet has not changed at all…

Less than two days after Schwartz spoke these words, Bear Stearns filed for bankruptcy.

How can someone be so off, delusional, and even dense?  No wonder nobody wants to trust governmental or business leaders these days.  With stuff like this going on, who wants to?  When things are going well or when things are going bad there has to be a plan for the future.

Many of us like to think we have a plan, but do we really have a sound plan for our futures? Continue Reading…