Identity Shaping Communication

Identity formation is a chaotic time for adolescents. Every realm of life—biology, social, spiritual—is a changing target for every person as they navigate these waters. Society has many ways of handling adolescents. One way is to ignore and hurry these young people into adulthood. Another is to worship and adore adolescents, to meet their every need and desire. The Church also has historically offered discipleship to young people to either quickly transition them into adulthood or in essence worshipped them as the “church of the future.” The preached word of God is a place to form each person’s discipleship. Preaching can be a formative and holy moment where the Lord God is made known to his people. It can also go astray and be a place of vague spirituality or about personal performance and not lasting relationship with Jesus Christ. With life adjusting all around them, adolescents are desperate for truth. Preaching should be a place where the Word of God comes alive and reaches their hearts. It should point them to the deep absolute truth of a God who loved them and the deepest reality is they are his. The purpose of this project is to understand the uniqueness of identity formation and marry that with making Christ known to his Church. To aid First Presbyterian and other youth leaders this project seeks to create a preaching framework that could be used in various settings. The application will walk through a sermon series with materials for small group discussion to demonstrate the ability to tailor communication styles to aid in adolescent identity development. The goal is to create a grid for faithful communicators to reveal Christ and the hearers to see their deepest identity in Him

The Earliest Mustelid in North America

Until now, the pre-Miocene fossil record of mustelids in North America has been restricted to specimens attributable to oligobunine taxa and isolated remains tentatively allocated to the genus Plesictis. In the present study, we report on a nearly complete cranium and a referred dentary of a new genus and species of mustelid. The specimens were recovered from the Turtle Cove and Kimberly Members of the John Day Formation, Oregon, USA. These excellently preserved specimens more confidently confirm the presence of mustelids in the Early and Late Oligocene (Early and Late Arikareean) of North America. Like the holotype specimen of \u27Plesictis\u27 julieni, the new species lacks an alisphenoid canal and a postprotocrista on the M1 (synapomorphies of Mustelidae), but retains a dorsally deep suprameatal fossa (a feature occasionally suggested to be unique to Procyonidae). Phylogenetic analyses, applying parsimony and Bayesian inference to combined molecular (five genes totalling 5490 bp) and morphological data, recover this new species of mustelid as sister-species to \u27Plesictis\u27 julieni. The results of these analyses reveal that the new genus is a close relative of other species of Plesictis and several taxa traditionally allied with Oligobuninae, thereby rendering Oligobuninae paraphyletic. We further discuss the significance of the relatively small size of this new mustelid as it relates to predictions based on increased aridification of the palaeoclimate and the expansion of open habitats in the Oligocene