btw, i’m super excited about this new “turn” in your (our) church :) i feel i am at the same place as well, turning to an outward focus. i think my heart is still sown with all of yours!! and i read a really great article on ministry and this outward focus and i loved something he said:

“Ministry is not something that you do. Ministry is something that you have to trust. If you know you are the beloved, and if you keep forgiving those with whom you form community and celebrate their gifts, you cannot do other than minister. Jesus cured people not by doing all sorts of complicated things. A power went out from him, and everyone was cured. He didn’t say ‘Let me talk to you for ten minutes, and maybe I can do something about this.’ Everyone who touched him was cured, because a power went out from his pure heart. He wanted one thing–to do the will of God. He was the completely obedient one, the one who was always listening to God. Out of this listening came an intimacy with God that radiated out to everyone Jesus saw and touched.

Ministry means you have to trust that. You have to trust that if you are the son and daughter of God, power will go out from you and that people will be healed.”

He goes on to describe what he means by healing (not in the literally way we think of it sometimes). He says that ministry or outreach is in two words: gratitude and compassion. Basically, when people are hurting in any way at all, its helping them turn everything into gratitude towards God (instead of anger, resentment, etc) and them lavishing compassion on their hurt hearts and souls, suffering with the suffering, weeping with the ones weeping. And this in turn is people feeling the power of God, experiencing Him through us…”touching our garments to be healed.”

This really challenge my “typical” thinking of outward outreach ministry..and i thought it would be challenging to your (our) church there as well :)

I hadn’t looked thoroughly at mannatechscience.org in a while, but I took some time to check it out today, and look at the published studies. There was definitely more than I expected, and I read all of the abstracts for ones that were published to the site.

A few observations:

Effects of a carbohydrate supplement upon resting brain activity – I’m fairly sure what this says is… sugar (specifically, glucose) gives you a sugar rush in your brain. I think I’ve proved this one adequately with my own research of glucose :p.

Effects of a Glyconutritional Supplement on Brain Potentials Associated with Language Processing – This one is clearly a bit more complex. While explaining alot more thoroughly, and using pretty graphs, it again seems to state that sugar makes your head work faster, specifically as far as reaction times go. Take-away quote from conclusion: “Although treatment-related reaction times were in the predicted direction, i.e., reduced in the supplement relative to the placebo condition, these differences were not statistically significant.”

An Open-Label Pilot Study of the Antioxidant Effect in Healthy People of Ambrotose AO™ – Summary – a supplement with anti-oxidants (in this case, Ambrotose AO), results in higher levels of anti-oxidants in test subjects. Makes sense, and seems to be what I or anyone else would expect.

Human Colonic Bacteria Can Utilize Stabilized Aloe Vera Gel Polysaccharides and a Mixed Saccharide-Based Glyconutritional Dietary Supplement, Advanced Ambrotose – Not gonna lie, not exactly sure what’s being tested, and what difference it makes. As far as I can tell, It basically says the colon can use aloe vera and the elements of Ambrotose. Seems to be a promising study if what those effects are can be measured. Seems to be a study that would be a starting point for more advanced studies, yet to come.

That’s enough for now, the other studies are either about basic components that exist in Ambrotose, or completely unrelated products. Not saying they aren’t important, just that they aren’t relevant to the issues at hand, at least in my mind.

1) The leadership….if the main guy has had one mistake, ok, but if he’s had 2 businesses that were fraudulent, sorry, no more credibility…ever. Seriously the leadership says everything about the business. If the guy can’t be an honest businessman, he should go work for a business that is already honest and be forced to learn himself…not run a multi-million dollar business. I wish we could have “business jail” where people can’t open up businesses again if they have been fraudulent in the past. Honest business is not that hard and its what people deserve.

2) Market schemes…even if they are not emphasizing the selling point (props to them for downplaying something that people have already caught on to and realize its dishonest nature)…this is even better marketing and an even better scheme. One step lower. Hate it. Don’t approve of it. Sell your product like everyone else…in stores. If you truly believe in it…you will want to get it out to as many people as possible…and stores is the best way. If it really cures diseases…the business should want to get it to everyone and one-by-one marketing is not to the masses…but its a selling method…its about the money, not the product.

So, that’s my opinion for businesses in general…and this one seems to fit it. I encourage everyone to stay away from wasting their money on these things. However, I do believe in eating healthily, well, staying away from pesticides foods and preservatives and all the other nutrition stuff that’s really much harder than taking the pills.