Using Illustrations And Storytelling Via Incarnational Ministry To Reach Post-Christian Young Adults

Problem Post-Christian young adults are generally not interested in Christianity and therefore are unlikely to attend church or hear preaching. Therefore, a preaching strategy must be developed and implemented to reach post-Christian young adults in their setting. Method The subjects of the study were 24 young adult males from the community who attended the weekly open-gym basketball outreach. They ranged in age from 16 to 34 and were of various races and some of mixed race. All were born and raised in the United States and spoke English. Of these subjects only two were from the church I pastor. One was the youth leader and the other a recently baptized former post-Christian who first started coming to church via the basketball outreach. There were four groups among the subjects: post-Christians, Christians, individualized Christians who practice their spirituality on a regular basis but only attend church occasionally or never, and non-practicing Christians who do not practice their spirituality on a regular basis, even if they attend church. A comparison group from my church was used for part of the study. The intervention began by being incarnational with the target group at the basketball outreach. I played basketball, socialized, and ministered to their needs. Then I invited participants to the project talks, which were based on felt needs, to further build relationships and trust. Next came follow-up talks to present Christ and spirituality. Three surveys and a focus group evaluated the effectiveness of my intervention, which consisted of 15 talks over almost five months: November 3, 2015 to March 22, 2016. Results There were six post-Christian young adults in the basketball group and all responded positively to my project talks, including the illustrations and storytelling, and all were interested in follow-up talks. They were also more favorable to all questions on the post-presentation survey than any young adult or adult from the comparison church group, except the post-Christian young adult church group, which was able to imagine the stories more. Also, all the young adults from the basketball group marked “strongly agree” on the post-presentation survey at a higher rate for all questions than all young adults or adults from the church group. In addition, 98% of the basketball group was interested in follow-up talks, but only 78% of church adults and 65% of church young adults were. The pre-presentation survey revealed that post-Christian young adults from the basketball group preferred face-to-face communication and opening up to an adult female slightly above an adult male, as well as someone not their parent/legal guardian. Also, the majority of participants from the basketball group, including post-Christians, reported watching TV/movies and using internet and a cell phone every day. Thus, participants were likely to be visual with shorter attention spans, comfortable with story as a teaching medium, and used to having things at their fingertips, including a vast amount of information. The focus group feedback from all participants in the basketball group, including post-Christians, was almost all positive, except for a few minor dislikes. After attending the follow-up talks, during which I presented Christ, all post-Christians from the basketball group made spiritual decisions, including one who did not attend any project talks and only one follow-up talk. However, the three post-Christians who made the most spiritual decisions attended the most. They also attended the most project talks. One of these participants attended the majority of the project talks, but only one follow-up talk and the review. Although he made many spiritual decisions, he did not accept Christ. In addition, after attending the follow-up talks and filling out the follow-up survey, even though all six expressed belief in God’s love and four believe in Jesus, that God will help them, and that God created them, only three confessed their sins and asked God for forgiveness and are involved in prayer and Bible study, and only two accepted Christ. These two who accepted Christ also attended the most follow-up talks. Of these two, one only attended two project talks and the other only three. Conclusions My talks were specifically geared for the post-Christian young adults in the basketball group. The results reveal that my project talks appealed to this group. This seems related to their being visual and comfortable with story as a teaching medium. The small group format, face-to-face communication, participant involvement in illustrations, and shorter talks seem to have helped reach them. Had I been an older female, they may have had a slightly easier time opening up. The results also reveal that my follow-up talks were effective in leading all post-Christian young adults from the basketball group to make spiritual decisions, even though Christian belief did not necessarily translate into Christian practice for some. In addition, the more they attended the project and follow-up talks, the more likely they were to make more spiritual decisions. Also, the more follow-up talks they came to, the more likely they were to accept Christ, even if they only came to two or three project talks. In fact, the two post-Christians who accepted Christ were ready for spiritual things with less project talks. Thus, although building up during the project talks was important before sharing Christ, ample time to hear about Christ during the follow-up talks was more important and an indicator of whether or not they would accept Christ. Therefore, it may be more productive in the future to begin with less project talks and then go into the follow-up talks and present Christ. This will also shorten the overall length of the series and may help more participants attend more follow-up talks, rather than just more project talks. Furthermore, I used teaching methods that connect with today’s post-Christian young adults. However, culture changes and in the future other teaching methods may be better suited

Wave Propagation and Diffusive Transition of Oscillations in Pair Plasmas with Dust Impurities

In view of applications to electron-positron pair-plasmas and fullerene pair-ion-plasmas containing charged dust impurities a thorough discussion is given of three-component Plasmas. Space-time responses of multi-component linearized Vlasov plasmas on the basis of multiple integral equations are invoked. An initial-value problem for Vlasov-Poisson -Ampere equations is reduced to the one multiple integral equation and the solution is expressed in terms of forcing function and its space-time convolution with the resolvent kernel. The forcing function is responsible for the initial disturbance and the resolvent is responsible for the equilibrium velocity distributions of plasma species. By use of resolvent equations, time-reversibility, space-reflexivity and the other symmetries are revealed. The symmetries carry on physical properties of Vlasov pair plasmas, e.g., conservation laws. Properly choosing equilibrium distributions for dusty pair plasmas, we can reduce the resolvent equation to: (i) the undamped dispersive wave equations, (ii) wave-diffusive transport equation (iii) and diffusive transport equations of oscillations. In the last case we have to do with anomalous diffusion employing fractional derivatives in time and space. Fractional diffusion equations account for typical anomalous features, which are observed in many systems, e.g. in the case of dispersive transport in amorphous semiconductors, liquid crystals, polymers, proteins and biosystems.Comment: 6 page

Laser driven launch vehicles for continuous access to space

The availability of megawatt laser systems in the next century will make laser launch systems from ground to orbit feasible and useful. Systems studies indicate launch capabilities of 1 ton payload per gigawatt laser power. Recent research in ground to orbit laser propulsion has emphasized laser supported detonation wave thrusters driven by repetitively pulsed infrared lasers. In this propulsion concept each laser repetition cycle consists of two pulses. A lower energy first pulse is used to vaporize a small amount of solid propellant and then after a brief expansion period, a second and higher energy laser pulse is used to drive a detonation wave through the expanded vapor. The results are reported of numerical studies comparing the detonation wave properties of various candidate propellants, and the simulation of thruster performance under realistic conditions. Experimental measurements designed to test the theoretical predictions are also presented. Measurements are discussed of radiance and opacity in absorption waves, and mass loss and momentum transfer. These data are interpreted in terms of specific impulse and energy conversion efficiency

The Suitability for Organic Cattle Beef Production of Mixed Farming Systems in the Highlands of North East Portugal

The EC Reg. 1804/99 takes account of animal production in organic farming. However, these specifications may limit implementation and expansion of organic animal production, due to environmental and system constraints. Mixed farming, as defined by Spedding (1988) and Grigg (1996), is commonly practiced in the NE highlands of Portugal. Two farms were studied in this region in order to evaluate their suitability for organic cattle beef production, taking account of the technical specifications of the EC regulation

Vertical pairing of identical particles suspended in the plasma sheath

It is shown experimentally that vertical pairing of two identical microspheres suspended in the sheath of a radio-frequency (rf) discharge at low gas pressures (a few Pa), appears at a well defined instability threshold of the rf power. The transition is reversible, but with significant hysteresis on the second stage. A simple model, which uses measured microsphere resonance frequencies and takes into account besides Coulomb interaction between negatively charged microspheres also their interaction with positive ion wake charges, seems to explain the instability threshold quite well.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures. to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, May 14th (2001

The suitability for organic cattle beef production of mixed farming systems in the highlands of north east Portugal

Two beef cattle farms (Farm 1 – “Barrosã” breed – Montalegre and Farm 2 – “Mirandesa” breed – Vinhais) were monitored for a year (autumn 2002-03) – Farm activities, inputs, outputs, yields components and flows were record

The Prostate Care Questionnaire for Carers (PCQ-C): reliability, validity and acceptability

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Patient experience is commonly monitored in evaluating and improving health care, but the experience of carers (partners/relatives/friends) is rarely monitored even though the role of carers can often be substantial. For carers to fulfil their role it is necessary to address their needs. This paper describes an evaluation of the reliability, validity and acceptability of the PCQ-C, a newly developed instrument designed to measure the experiences of carers of men with prostate cancer.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The reliability, acceptability and validity of the PCQ-C were tested through a postal survey and interviews with carers. The PCQ-C was posted to 1087 prostate cancer patients and patients were asked to pass the questionnaire on to their carer. Non-responders received one reminder. To assess test-retest reliability, 210 carers who had responded to the questionnaire were resent it a second time three weeks later. A subsample of nine carers from patients attending one hospital took part in qualitative interviews to assess validity and acceptability of the PCQ-C. Acceptability to service providers was evaluated based on four hospitals' experiences of running a survey using the PCQ-C.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Questionnaires were returned by 514 carers (47.3%), and the majority of questions showed less than 10% missing data. Across the sections of the questionnaire internal consistency was high (Cronbach's alpha ranging from 0.80 to 0.89), and test-retest stability showed moderate to high stability (intraclass correlation coefficients ranging from 0.52 to 0.83). Interviews of carers indicated that the PCQ-C was valid and acceptable. Feedback from hospitals indicated that they found the questionnaire useful, and highlighted important considerations for its future use as part of quality improvement initiatives.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The PCQ-C has been found to be acceptable to carers and service providers having been used successfully in hospitals in England. It is ready for use to measure the aspects of care that need to be addressed to improve the quality of prostate cancer care, and for research.</p

DNA Specificity Determinants Associate with Distinct Transcription Factor Functions

To elucidate how genomic sequences build transcriptional control networks, we need to understand the connection between DNA sequence and transcription factor binding and function. Binding predictions based solely on consensus predictions are limited, because a single factor can use degenerate sequence motifs and because related transcription factors often prefer identical sequences. The ETS family transcription factor, ETS1, exemplifies these challenges. Unexpected, redundant occupancy of ETS1 and other ETS proteins is observed at promoters of housekeeping genes in T cells due to common sequence preferences and the presence of strong consensus motifs. However, ETS1 exhibits a specific function in T cell activation; thus, unique transcriptional targets are predicted. To uncover the sequence motifs that mediate specific functions of ETS1, a genome-wide approach, chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled with high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-seq), identified both promoter and enhancer binding events in Jurkat T cells. A comparison with DNase I sensitivity both validated the dataset and also improved accuracy. Redundant occupancy of ETS1 with the ETS protein GABPA occurred primarily in promoters of housekeeping genes, whereas ETS1 specific occupancy occurred in the enhancers of T cell–specific genes. Two routes to ETS1 specificity were identified: an intrinsic preference of ETS1 for a variant of the ETS family consensus sequence and the presence of a composite sequence that can support cooperative binding with a RUNX transcription factor. Genome-wide occupancy of RUNX factors corroborated the importance of this partnership. Furthermore, genome-wide occupancy of co-activator CBP indicated tight co-localization with ETS1 at specific enhancers, but not redundant promoters. The distinct sequences associated with redundant versus specific ETS1 occupancy were predictive of promoter or enhancer location and the ontology of nearby genes. These findings demonstrate that diversity of DNA binding motifs may enable variable transcription factor function at different genomic sites