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SERVANT LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS (GREENLEAF)

GATHERINGS, NETWORKS & SERVANT LEADERSHIP Leadership and following (discipleship) are two sides to the same coin. “Discriminating and determined servants as followers are just as important as servant leaders, and everyone, may from time to time, be in both roles.” SL (18*) In a relationship between two persons, person A leads only if person B decides to follow. THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSION OF SERVANT LEADERSHIP “I now embrace the theory of prophecy, which holds that prophetic voices of great clarity and with quality of insight equal to that of any age, are speaking cogently all the time.” SL (22) Greenleaf recognizes the graced nature of servant leadership; the charism of discernment is given not only given to the prophet but also to seekers. “It is seekers who make prophets and the initiative of any one of us in searching for and responding to the voice of contemporary prophets may mark the turning point in their growth and service” SL (22) Therefore servant leader

Radio Isn't Dead

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  STATISTA: Radio Isn't Dead by  Anna Fleck,   Aug 20, 2024 Radio appears to have done a better job than TV at holding its own in the face of subscription services - at least, for now . Data from the IFPI Engaging With Music 2023 report shows that the medium remains popular around the world across all surveyed age groups. While the youngest age category of 16-24 year olds had the lowest share of respondents saying that they had a strong engagement with radio in 2023, the figure was still 59 percent. This rises with age, reaching 78 percent of respondents saying the same in the 55-64 year old category. This popularity is largely driven by a love of music. Of the 43,000 internet users interviewed across 26 countries, 63 percent said that without music, they would not listen to the radio. 85 percent of radio listeners said that if that were the case, they would then seek music elsewhere, most often through subscription streaming services. A key reason for radio maintaining its pull w

Has Obesity Peaked?

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STATISTA: Has Obesity in the U.S. Peaked?   by Felix Richter, Oct 11, 2024 After decades of rising obesity rates in the United States, the country may have turned a corner in its fight against the condition that increases the risk of hypertension, type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease. According to the latest results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the prevalence of obesity among U.S. adults aged 20 and older was 40.3 percent during the August 2021 – August 2023 survey period, down from 41.9 percent between 2017 and 2020, which marked the highest prevalence ever recorded. According to historical data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, adult obesity prevalence climbed from 13 percent in 1960-1962 to 23 percent between 1988 and 1994 and first reached 30 percent in the 1999-2000 wave of the national survey. Aside from two small dents, the prevalence of obesity has continued to climb from there, reaching 41.9 percent in the last p

GALLUP: U.S. Depression Rate Reaches New High in 2023

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  STATISTA: U.S. Depression Rate Reaches New High In 2023 by Anna Fleck,  Sep 9, 2024 According to survey data, three in ten people in the United States had been clinically diagnosed with depression at a point in their lives in 2023. This is the highest rate since the question started being asked, up 10.6 percentage points from 2015. The rate of increase was particularly steep in the first year of the pandemic, jumping up from 22.9 percent in 2020 to 28.6 percent in 2021. Meanwhile, 17.8 percent of respondents said that they currently had depression in 2023. These averages hide figures even more extreme, as Gallup data reveals how rates among women, young adults, as well as Black and Hispanic respondents have risen particularly fast. According to the survey, 36.7 percent of women report having been diagnosed with depression in their lifetimes versus 20.4 percent of men. For young people aged 18-29, 34.3 percent had been diagnosed with depression, while for 30-44 year olds it was 34.9

Mental Health and Social Media

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  STATISTA: Mental Health and Social Media: What Message Prevails? by  Anna Fleck,   Aug 11, 2023 Mental health is a topic never far from the minds of girls as young as 11-15 years old in the United States, according to a recent study by Common Sense Media, an online parental guidance platform. In real life, nearly seven in ten girls reported having had exposure to helpful mental health content and information in real life each month. But on the flip side, just under half (45 percent) said they heard or saw harmful content about suicide or self harm while just under four in ten (38 percent) said the same of harmful content on eating disorders. Social media, in many ways an extension of daily life, appears to have the same contradiction. As the following chart shows, girls aged 11-15 years old face a high risk of exposure to harmful content on social media in the United States, including on the topics of suicide, self-harm and eating disorders. The report found that girls report that ex

Cost a Barrier to Mental Health Treatment

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  STATISTA: Mental Illness: Cost is a Major Barrier to Treatment by Martin Armstrong, Oct 10, 2023 October 10 marks World Mental Health Day, with the theme in 2023 being 'mental health is a universal human right'. As described by the WHO, this means: "Everyone, whoever and wherever they are, has a right to the highest attainable standard of mental health. This includes the right to be protected from mental health risks, the right to available, accessible, acceptable, and good quality care, and the right to liberty, independence and inclusion in the community. In the United States though, for example, a Mental Health America study indicates that this is still far from the case. There, 42% of adults with a mental illness whose treatment needs went unmet in 2022 said that this occurred because they simply couldn't afford it. Also of concern, 27% said they didn't know where to go to get the support services they needed and 17 percent said that, despite having health in

Majority of Americans Have Struggled with Mental Health

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  STATISTA; Mental Health Issues in the United States b y Felix Richter,  Apr 30, 2024 Having long been stigmatized as a sign of weakness, mental health problems have become much less of a taboo in recent years.  The pandemic, with its unique set of challenges, accelerated that trend, as it not only caused a spike in symptoms of anxiety or depression, but also led to more people opening up about their problems.  In a recent Statista survey, 3 in 4 American adults reported that they have struggled with mental health in some form or other in the 12 months preceding the survey, making an open discourse about mental health issues all the more important. According to the findings from Statista Consumer Insights, 52 and 49 percent of U.S. adults have experienced stress or anxiety in the past year, respectively, up from 46 and 38 percent in 2019. 29 percent of respondents reported having felt loneliness or social isolation in the past year, while 34 percent stated that they have gone through

Homelessness on the Rise

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  STATISTA: America's Homeless Population on the Rise by  Katharina Buchholz,   Oct 7, 2024 According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's latest report on homelessness in the United States, 653,104 Americans were homeless in 2023. Last year, levels of homelessness climbed for the sixth year. While in 2017 and 2018, growth was slow, homelessness increased more in 2019 and 2020 and finally skyrocketed in 2023 by growing 12 percent compared to the year prior and even climbing 10 percent above the 2007-2022 average.  As Covid-era protection programs expired and the cost-of-living crisis hit the country, homelessness numbers rose. At the same time, Covid restrictions on shelter capacity ended, leading to more homeless individuals living in shelters once again. During Covid-19, most of the increase in homeless populations had come from unhoused individuals. In 2023, sheltered populations rose by almost 14 percent, while unhoused populations rose by less than 10

The Spiritual Leadership of the Baptized

  DECREE ON THE APOSTOLATE OF THE LAITY Promulgated on November 18, 1965, this Vatican II document has not received the attention that it deserves.  Discussion of the role of the laity has focused upon  Lumen Gentium,  the Constitution on the Church with its emphasis upon the People of God and the universal call to holiness.  Constitutions are more theoretical documents and therefore get the long    term attention of theologians; decrees are more practical pastoral documents adapted to the differing needs of times and cultures Language has been a big barrier to the use of this document; very long Latin sentences; a very bureaucratic style, and words that are not attractive in English. The document needs to be condensed and address the contemporary situation in America. The present document is a step in that direction The word “laity” has been translated as “the baptized ” because the apostolate is the common shared activity of priests, religious and laity that flows from baptism. It is

Conceptualizing and Measuring Forms of Religious Capital: A Bible Study Exemplar

 2009 DIVISION36 CONVENTION PROGRAM  FOR THE 116TH ANNUALCONVENTION OF THE  AMERICANPSYCHOLOGICALASSOCIATION  AUGUST 6–9, 2009, TORONTO Psychology of Religion Division 36 of the American Psychological Association   Jack Rakosky 6737 Stratford Road , Concord Township , Ohio 44077 ______________________________________________________________________________ Religious capital is conceptualized in this paper as consisting of human capital, social capital, cultural capital and spiritual capital used by entities from single persons, through small groups, congregations to global denominations. This particular conceptual scheme is illustrated with the exemplar of bible study as a particularly promising locale for studying all these four forms of religious capital (i.e. human, social, cultural and spiritual) at both the personal and institutional levels. Wuthnow (1994) has estimated that there are more than 900,000 bible study groups enrolling 15-20 million persons in the United State