How to Use Your God-given Influence to Be a Kingdom Builder (Part 1), Rick Warren. Pastors.com

Everyone has influence. We all influence someone. And God expects us to be good stewards of that influence for His kingdom’s sake. He didn’t give us our influence for selfish purposes on our part, but so that we might share the good news about him – so that we could be Kingdom builders.

What exactly is a “kingdom builder?” It’s someone who has…

·         A great purpose to live for. And for the Christian, we have the greatest purpose of all – to rescue people for eternity through Jesus. Kingdom builders demonstrate a great commitment to the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.

·         Great principles to live by. A Kingdom builder is one who has a different source from which to draw wisdom – God’s eternal truth revealed in the Bible.

·         Great power to live on. A Kingdom builder operates in a different power that the rest of the world – the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit who offers guidance every step of the way.

·         Great people to live with. A Kingdom builder gathers with God’s people and joins up with a small group for encouragement and accountability.

Read more here:

The wardens on £3k bonuses urged to issue scores of parking tickets daily, target vulnerable people and take photographs at angles to make offences seem worse Daily Mail

While working at the car park at Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust (pictured), Tony Taylor was told by his bosses to get wardens to focus on the hospitals’ cancer wards

  Cowboy parking wardens earn up to £3,000 a month in bonuses, it is claimed

  Leaked emails show bosses at firms push staff to issue scores of tickets daily

  Wardens allegedly using a vile array of 'dirty tricks' to boost their pay

  Some have been ordered to target patients outside cancer wards knowing they are likely to be distracted and late returning to car  

The penalties – which are often issued unfairly and without legal authority – are followed up with intimidating letters from bailiffs and unregistered legal firms threatening court action.

Last night, a whistleblower claimed the firms:

■Give staff huge financial incentives to issue as many tickets as possible. They penalise those who do not give out enough,

■ Target the ill and vulnerable, with ‘no concern if they are disabled – or even dying’,

■Hide in their cars so drivers do not realise they are on patrol,

■Issue ‘ghost tickets’, where parking notices are photographed on car windscreens before being removed so drivers do not know they have been given a ticket and later have to pay an inflated fee,

■Take photographs at angles to make offences seem worse than they are and make sure blue badges issued to disabled drivers are out of shot.

The whistleblower’s claims are supported by research from the Citizens Advice Bureau, which has been inundated with complaints over rip-off penalties.

While working at the car park at Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust, Mr Taylor was told by his bosses to get wardens to focus on the hospitals’ cancer wards. Mr Taylor has correspondence which lifts the lid on the threats made by management to staff.

Read more here:

Further Reading

Cancer charities: Stop these bullies! Bosses join Mail's fight to rid Britain of the scourge of car parking pirates

OUTRAGE: Labour propose 15 per cent death tax, Daily Express

Ed Miliband, Labour Leader.

Ed Miliband’s team were accused of plotting a compulsory levy that could snatch £46,000 from the average estate.

Critics warned that families still grieving for lost relatives could face a “secret tax bombshell” under the proposals.

The row was last night threatening to derail the Labour leader’s campaign to highlight party ­election promises.

And it was also being seen as a slap in the face to the hundreds of thousands of Daily Express ­readers who backed this newspaper’s ­crusade for the abolition of ­inheritance tax.

Tory Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “People who save all their lives deserve better than a secret tax bombshell if Labour were ever to get in.”

The death tax proposals were exposed when comments made by shadow health secretary Andy Burnham – at a conference ­organised by the Left-wing Fabian Society last month – were revealed yesterday.

Labour chiefs previously abandoned plans for a levy to cover the costs of social care before the last general election in 2010 – but Mr Burnham confirmed the measure was being revived in “internal party discussions”.

Read more here:

Further Reading

Labour death tax proposal is the last thing we need, Daily Express

It's good to tax the dead, they don't vote, jokes Ed Miliband's guru friend Lord Glasman

TAXPAYERS would be the equivalent of £5,500 worse off if union-backed Ed Miliband became Prime Minister, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has warned.