Solving the Missing Member Puzzle
Solving the Missing Member Puzzle

Author: Arlon K. Stubbe

Publisher: CSS Publishing

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 0788023527

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Something is wrong. People are going missing, right in front of your eyes! One minute they are staring back at you from their favorite pew, the next Sunday you are looking at an empty spot in that pew. Is there a way to determine ahead of time which members are the likely "religious dropouts"? Often the clues are clearly visible -- but can you recognize them? What's more, do you know what you can do now to keep your "missing members" from drifting away? The secret lies in knowing and understanding the attitudes and belief systems that people hold, because certain sets of attitudes are linked to inactivity. A detailed examination of this distressingly common experience, Solving The Missing Member Puzzle can help you spot potential dropouts in advance, learn the reasons why they become inactive, and counteract the process with a proactive strategy for reaching them while they are still within your grasp. Based on "blind" interviews with individuals from ten different congregations, it reveals the underlying attitudes and belief systems that encourage or discourage dropping out of church. Solving The Missing Member Puzzle is a valuable tool for leaders of any church or organization -- it shows how you can develop more faithful members, and assists in their growth, participation, and retention. Don't wait until people drop out before you take action. Learn ways to anticipate which members of your congregation might become inactive and the preventive measures that you can take to help keep them in the pews. Arlon K. Stubbe is the pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in Sharon, Pennsylvania. He previously served parishes in Michigan. He is also the author of Shaping the Word (LPTC Publishing). He is a graduate of Carthage College and the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

Missing Persons
Missing Persons

Author: Gayle Greene

Publisher: University of Nevada Press

Published: 2017-10-18

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0874176468

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Missing Persons is a memoir about dealing with death in a culture that gives no help. As the last of her family, Greene’s losses are stark, first her aunt, then her mother, in quick succession. She is as ill-equipped for the challenges of caring for a dying person at home as she is for the other losses, long repressed, that rise to confront her at this time: the suicide of her younger brother, the death of her father. As the professional identity on which she’s based her selfhood comes to feel brittle and trivial, she is catapulted into questions of “who am I?” and “what have I done with my life?” The memoir is structured as an account of her mother's and aunt’s final days and the year that follows, a year in which she reconstructs her life. This is a powerful story about family, what it means to have one, to lose one, never to have made one, and what, if anything, might take its place. It’s the story of a vexed mother-daughter relationship that mellows with age. It is also a search for home, as the very landscape shifts around her and the vast orchards are dug up and paved over for tract housing, strip malls, freeways, and the Santa Clara Valley, once known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight, is transformed to “Silicon.”

Missing Member
Missing Member

Author: Jo-Ann Power

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Published: 2006-09-19

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780312357993

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Few Americans remember these days that politics can be funny. But Texas congresswoman Carly Wagner knows this firsthand. She won her first election delivering one-liners about her opponent that made people chuckle so hard they voted her into his seat. She won not only because she could outtalk her rival but also because she wasn't shy about employing her sexy contralto, big baby browns, and the long legs that once got her the crown of Miss Texas. She doesn't apologize for her methods, either---in the Lone Star State, sassy women have always plowed tough ground to get what they want. Although she currently sleeps alone, professionally, Carly knows politics can make strange bedfellows. But when she walks into her office one morning and finds her party's second most powerful man murdered in her office chair, she finds out that politics can also be deadly serious. Someone has to find the culprit before this capital crime kills Carly's prospects for reelection. Resourceful and gutsy, she wants to go it alone, but her party can't take that chance. When they send in the cavalry, she can't believe the kind of man they choose. He's young, yummy, and lethal. He calls himself Mr. Jones, owns toys like Mr. Bond---and acts like Mr. Corleone. He's one of the town's secret weapons of mass destruction---and she wants nothing to do with him. Then she wants to do everything with him. Missing Member is the first in a vastly entertaining new series featuring the crime-solving duo of Congresswoman Carly and the delectable Mr. Jones.

Veto Power
Veto Power

Author: Jonathan Slapin

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2017-05-09

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 047290079X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"This is a terrific book. The questions that Slapin asks about intergovernmental conferences (IGCs) in the European Union are extraordinarily important and ambitious, with implications for the EU and for international cooperation more generally. Furthermore, Slapin's theorizing of his core questions is rigorous, lucid, and accessible to scholarly readers without extensive formal modeling background . . . This book is a solid, serious contribution to the literature on EU studies." ---Mark Pollack, Temple University "An excellent example of the growing literature that brings modern political science to bear on the politics of the European Union." ---Michael Laver, New York University Veto rights can be a meaningful source of power only when leaving an organization is extremely unlikely. For example, small European states have periodically wielded their veto privileges to override the preferences of their larger, more economically and militarily powerful neighbors when negotiating European Union treaties, which require the unanimous consent of all EU members. Jonathan B. Slapin traces the historical development of the veto privilege in the EU and how a veto---or veto threat---has been employed in treaty negotiations of the past two decades. As he explains, the importance of veto power in treaty negotiations is one of the features that distinguishes the EU from other international organizations in which exit and expulsion threats play a greater role. At the same time, the prominence of veto power means that bargaining in the EU looks more like bargaining in a federal system. Slapin's findings have significant ramifications for the study of international negotiations, the design of international organizations, and European integration.