The Leadership Mind by Teddy A. Jones

From time to time some new song is aired and there are calls for it to be censored. Immediately the preachers of the freedom of speech argument get agitated. There have been instances when the Broadcasting Commission has intervened and actually banned some songs. A recent one was Chuck Fender's, 'Gash dem and light dem.' Advocating harsh penalties against child molesters, rapists etc. The commission claimed that a better lyric would have been, try them and incarcerate them. Fender refused to adjust his lyrics and the song was banned. In light of the difficulties the JCF is facing to get persons who witness the many brazen, even daylight murders and other acts of violence it seems to me that someone in authority needs to take a zero tolerance approach against artists who continue to label those who talk to the police as informers, and advocate that informer fe dead. The persons wants to see justice and the back of crime and violence broken and is willing to speak out ...

Scientist tell us that that once we enter into REM(Rapid Eye Movement) sleep we dream each night, its just that we dont always recall that we had a dream. Dreams can be very very embarassing to say the least and bothersome. I find that dreams are for the most part a subject that very little is know of. With all kinds of theories as to their origin, interpretation, and meanings. Some have made major life changes as a result dreams, some have become depressed and suicidal as a result of dreams. Some make a career out of dreams. Dreams have also been used by God to speak to His people, this is quite frequent in the OT in particular. In my own experioence I have had dreams that were very vivid, and shortly after awakening, I was given the interpretation by the Holy Spirit. Other times its not quite clear. This morning I awoke at 3:11 a.m, having had a very disturbing dream. I am still praying through the interpretation of it. I am almost complete in my assessment and it is disturbing as it...

Fancy sanctuaries, lofty steeples, clanging bells, air conditioned halls, multi media projeectors and clean sound systems. The churches are doing well... some even will soon implement debit machines so that if you left the cheque book or the cash at home you won't have to worry about not getting to pay your tithe, or make your offerings. Are we really effective? How is that measured and determined then? Are we scratching where no one is itching? Are we barking up the wrong tree? Recently, I had the chance to minister at three camps this past summer. It brought me face to face with some harsh realities. Many churches say that they are youth focuses, some don't even care that the majority of the Jamaican population is youth, their budgets do not betray the supposed concern for youth and reaching and keeping youth. Its mere lip service if so much. While some are busy fighting for fiefdoms and kingdoms and turfs the youth are dying. Most feel so out of place. With the vast majority...

Hurricane Dean, the dean of discipline, the dean of natural disasters schools? Dean was described by one Weather channel meteorologist as a well organized storm and a text book kind of storm, with very tight circular motion around a very well defined eye, with wide outer bands. He described it in excited tones, then his voice became somber as he all but said that Jamaica could not miss being directly hit by this one. The local ones stopped just short of saying that only God can divert this one. There are many who have buried God, so the very thought of God diverting a hurricane would seem preposterous to them. They would laugh at th every thought. When Ivan diverted, we were told that there was a high pressure ridge just north of Jamaica, which pushed Dean south of us. I wonder what they will find to excuse away the divine hand of God's mercy this time. Maybe there is a permanent high pressure ridge over Jamaica. Thank you God for watching over us and sparing us in your mercy again...

By now you've probably heard of blogging, or a blog. It short for weblog. A simple way to get your ideas online, to have a small and simple website (though some persons have very complex blogs). Google has an excellent free blog service (which is what I am using right now) www.blogspot.com. So I started blogging about a year ago, I have like five different blogs. As I continued to learn about internet marketing I joined some safelists to advertize my affiliate sites. One day I received an email telling me of how I can make money by posting to my blog. The link led me to www.payperpost.com Advertizers are willing to pay posters to write about their products, and services, using their guidelines and once you meet these guidelines you are paid into your paypal account. This is what the payperpost advertisments look like: blog network So of course I was all excited about this but it took me almost a year of resubmitiing blog site after blogsite till I satisfied the requiremen...

Yesterday was one of those sad days working in community. A young man who has already spent over a year in a juvenile remand centre, who used to carry a gun, who has been on the run from the police in the past, now desperatley trying to walk the legal pathway, find himself a job came to me in a very bitter mood. He had been walking around town trying to find a job in a supermarket. One enterprise asked him to bring in a resume (the poor youth had never even heard the word before), then they asked him to bring in a recommendation. I assisted him with getting both. Then they asked him to come for an interview and take with him a signed photogrpah by a notary public. This he got and went. He was practically interrogated and then summariuly dismissed simply on the basis of his home address. This after he literally begged and pleaded with the boss to give him the job. Just because of where he lives he was sent home still jobless. He was fuming, he was so disappointed, I could see him fighti...

It has been said that the church is so unlike the armies of the wolrd in that we kill or ignore the wounded. We often get puffed up when someone falls into a sin. We so often kill the fallen brother, especially with sins of a sexual nature, as if they have gone beyond the grip of grace. How easy it is for us to sit in judgment against the fallen brother forgetting that we are just as fallible. Just a prone to wander and leave the God we love... The fallen brother needs the community at that time more than any other. Rather than finding love and acceptance, he finds rejection and scorn as if he has become a leper. I find that we are so eager to have grace meted out to us yet so stingy with grace. It betrays a false understanidng or no understanding of grace itself to withhold it from one who needs it... One of the modern classics for me has to be Phillip Yancey's "What's So Amazing About Grace?" I highly recommed it. There we are taken into the belly of Grace, be prepa...