Doctrines and theology: The 20th century Wesley scholar Albert Outler argued in his introduction to the 1964 collection John Wesley that Wesley developed his theology by using a method that Outler termed the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. In this method, Wesley believed that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture; and the Bible was the sole foundational source of theological or doctrinal development. The centrality of Scripture was so important for Wesley that he called himself "a man of one book"-meaning the Bible-although he was well-read for his day. However, he believed that doctrine had to be in keeping with Christian orthodox tradition. So, tradition was considered the second aspect of the Quadrilateral. -- Wesley contended that a part of the theological method would involve experiential faith. In other words, truth would be vivified in personal experience of Christians (overall, not individually), if it were really truth. And every doctrine must be able to be defended rationally. He did not divorce faith from reason. Tradition, experience and reason, however, were subject always to Scripture, Wesley argued, because only there is the Word of God revealed "so far as it is necessary for our salvation." -- The doctrines which Wesley emphasised in his sermons and writings are prevenient grace, present personal salvation by faith, the witness of the Spirit, and sanctification. Prevenient grace was the theological underpinning of his belief that all persons were capable of being saved by faith in Christ. Unlike the Calvinists of his day, Wesley did not believe in predestination, that is, that some persons had been elected by God for salvation and others for damnation. He understood that Christian orthodoxy insisted that salvation was only possible by the sovereign grace of God. He expressed his understanding of humanity's relationship to God as utter dependence upon God's grace. God was at work to enable all people to be capable of coming to faith by empowering humans to have actual existential freedom of response to God. -- Wesley defined the witness of the Spirit as: "an inward impression on the soul of believers, whereby the Spirit of God directly testifies to their spirit that they are the children of God." He based this doctrine upon certain Biblical passages (see Romans 8:15-16 as an example). This doctrine was closely related to his belief that salvation had to be "personal." In his view, a person must ultimately believe the Good News for himself or herself; no one could be in relation to God for another. -- Sanctification he described in 1790 as the "grand depositum which God has lodged with the people called `Methodists'." Wesley taught that sanctification was obtainable after justification by faith, between justification and death. He did not contend for "sinless perfection"; rather, he contended that a Christian could be made "perfect in love". (Wesley studied Eastern Orthodoxy and particularly the doctrine of Theosis). This love would mean, first of all, that a believer's motives, rather than being self-centred, would be guided by the deep desire to please God. One would be able to keep from committing what Wesley called, "sin rightly so-called." By this he meant a conscious or intentional breach of God's will or laws. A person could still be able to sin, but intentional or wilful sin could be avoided. -- Secondly, to be made perfect in love meant, for Wesley, that a Christian could live with a primary guiding regard for others and their welfare. He based this on Christ's quote that the second great command is "to love your neighbour as you love yourself." In his view, this orientation would cause a person to avoid any number of sins against his neighbour. This love, plus the love for God that could be the central focus of a person's faith, would be what Wesley referred to as "a fulfilment of the law of Christ." Wesley believed that this doctrine should be constantly preached, especially among the people called Methodists. In fact, he contended that the purpose of the Methodist movement was to "spread scriptural holiness across England." -- Advocacy of Arminianism: Wesley entered controversies as he tried to enlarge church practice. The most notable of his controversies was that on Calvinism. His father was of the Arminian school in the church. Wesley came to his own conclusions while in college and expressed himself strongly against the doctrines of Calvinistic election and reprobation. -- Whitefield inclined to Calvinism. In his first tour in America, he embraced the views of the New England School of Calvinism. When in 1739 Wesley preached a sermon on Freedom of Grace, attacking the Calvinistic understanding of predestination as blasphemous, as it represented "God as worse than the devil," Whitefield asked him not to repeat or publish the discourse, as he did not want a dispute. Wesley published his sermon anyway. Whitefield was one of many who responded. The two men separated their practice in 1741. Wesley wrote that those who held to unlimited atonement did not desire separation, but "those who held 'particular redemption' would not hear of any accommodation." -- Whitefield, Harris, Cennick, and others, became the founders of Calvinistic Methodism. Whitefield and Wesley, however, were soon back on friendly terms, and their friendship remained unbroken although they travelled different paths. In 1770 the controversy broke out anew with violence and bitterness, as people's view of God related to their views of men and their possibilities. Augustus Montague Toplady, Rowland, Richard Hill, and others were engaged on the one side, and Wesley and Fletcher on the other. Toplady was editor of The Gospel Magazine, which had articles covering the controversy. In 1778 Wesley began the publication of The Arminian Magazine, not, he said, to convince Calvinists, but to preserve Methodists. He wanted to teach the truth that "God willeth all men to be saved." A "lasting peace" could be secured in no other way. His system of thought has become known as Wesleyan Arminianism, the foundations of which were laid by Wesley and Fletcher.

Family life: The bishop and historian Eusebius of Caesarea states that she was about 80 [years old] on her return from Palestine (Israel). Since that journey has been dated to 326-28, Helena was probably born in 248 or 250. Little is known of her early life. Fourth-century sources, following Eutropius' "Breviarium," record that she came from a low background. Saint Ambrose was the first to call her a stabularia, a term translated as "stable-maid" or "inn-keeper". He makes this fact a virtue, calling Helena a bona stabularia, a "good stable-maid". Other sources, especially those written after Constantine's proclamation as emperor, gloss over or ignore her background. ... Relic discoveries: Constantine appointed his mother Helen as Augusta Imperatrix, and gave her unlimited access to the imperial treasury in order to locate the relics of Judeo-Christian tradition. In 326-28 Helena undertook a trip to the Holy Places in Palestine. According to Eusebius of Caesarea she was responsible for the construction or beautification of two churches, the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, and the Church on the Mount of Olives, sites of Christ's birth and ascension. Local founding legend attributes to Helena's orders the construction of a church in Egypt to identify the Burning Bush of Sinai. The chapel at St. Catherine's Monastery--often referred to as the Chapel of Saint Helen-is dated to the year AD 330. -- Jerusalem was still rebuilding from the destruction of Emperor Hadrian, who had built a temple dedicated, according to conflicting accounts, to Venus or Jupiter over the site of Jesus's tomb near Calvary and renamed the city Aelia Capitolina. According to tradition, Helena ordered the temple torn down and, according to the legend that arose at the end of the fourth century, in Ambrose, On the Death of Theodosius (died 395) and at length in Rufinus' chapters appended to his translation into Latin of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, which does not mention the event, chose a site to begin excavating, which led to the recovery of three different crosses. Then, Rufinus relates, refusing to be swayed by anything but solid proof, the empress (perhaps through Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem) had a woman who was already at the point of death brought from Jerusalem. When the woman touched the first and second crosses, her condition did not change, but when she touched the third and final cross she suddenly recovered, and Helena declared the cross with which the woman had been touched to be the True Cross. On the site of discovery, Constantine ordered built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as well as those on other sites detected by Helena. -- She also found the nails of the crucifixion. To use their miraculous power to aid her son, Helena allegedly had one placed in Constantine's helmet, and another in the bridle of his horse. Helena left Jerusalem and the eastern provinces in 327 to return to Rome, bringing with her large parts of the True Cross and other relics, which were then stored in her palace's private chapel, where they can be still seen today. Her palace was later converted into the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. This has been maintained by Cistercian monks in the monastery which has been attached to the church for centuries. Tradition says that the site of the Vatican Gardens was spread with earth brought from Golgotha by Helena to symbolically unite the blood of Christ with that shed by thousands of early Christians, who died in the persecutions of Nero. -- According to one tradition, Helena acquired the Holy Tunic on her trip to Jerusalem and sent it to Trier. Several of Saint Helena's treasures are now in Cyprus, where she spent some time. Some of them are a part of Jesus Christ's tunic, pieces of the holy cross and the world's only pieces of the rope to which Jesus was tied with on the Cross. The latter has been held at the Stavrovouni Monastery, which was also founded by Saint Helena.

Adelante Recovery Center announces its prestigious CARF accreditation, underscoring its commitment to exceptional standards and client-focused care in addiction treatment.

Asset Management Group, Inc. of Stamford, CT., is pleased to announce that the College of Financial Planning has granted Michelle L. Ross the Accredited Wealth Management Advisor (AWMA®) Designation.

Stamford, CT - Asset Management Group, Inc. is proud to announce that Jennifer Brucato has been awarded the Accredited Wealth Management Advisor (AWMA®) Designation by the College of Financial Planning. This prestigious designation recognizes Jennifer's commitment to providing comprehensive and expert financial advice to high-net-worth clients.

Asset Management Group, Inc. proudly announces the achievement of LeGrand S. Redfield, Jr. CLU, ChFC, CFP, who has successfully obtained the Accredited Behavioral Finance ProfessionalSM (ABFP™) designation from the renowned College for Financial Planning.

Guest Resources announces expanded accredited skills training, focusing on human resource learnerships and national certificates. These programs aim to empower South Africa's workforce by bridging the skills gap and enhancing employability, supporting economic growth.

Borro's team of accredited luxury asset experts and financing specialists tailor loans to meet individual and business needs, making Borro a trusted lender to over 15,000 clients since 2008.

Simply UK Gadgets will be back shortly. Simplyukgadgets Forums, . Be sure to read the related article, Giving. Simply UK Gadgets, Simplyukgadgets Forums. ...

Simply UK Gadgets will be back shortly. Simplyukgadgets Forums, . Be sure to read the related article, Giving. Simply UK Gadgets, Simplyukgadgets Forums. ...

Unlike the CEOs of major public companies, whose personal financial situation has little effect on their companies borrowing, if you are a small business owner, your personal credit is a major factor influencing your companys access to capital. The power of personal credit scores to predict small business loan repayment, the legal structure of many small businesses, and small business owners’ use of personal guarantees and personal borrowing to finance business operations, all link small business owners personal credit to their companies’ access to capital.

Many, if not most, lenders will look at your personal credit score if you are a small business owner seeking a loan for your company. A 2006 report written for the U.S. Small Business Administration found that 71 percent of banks used small business owner credit scores when underwriting small business loans.

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Owners of both new and established small businesses can benefit from a broad range of valuable perks offered with credit cards. Business credit cards not only provide a means for building and establishing business credit, but they can assist in record-keeping, preserving cash flow and separating business and personal finances. Much like consumer credit cards, the right business card can offer a plethora of rewards that you can redeem for flights, hotel stays and cash back on purchases.

Here are seven significant credit card perks for small business owners.

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As with personal credit cards, business cards can be dangerous if you do not use them responsibly. High interest rates and fees can add up. But if your business needs a little leverage and you do not have more favorable options, a small-business credit card can be a valuable tool both to get your business up and running and to streamline your handling of operating expenses.

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Why does qualifying for a small business loan have to be such a mystery?

According to a CB Insights study, cash flow issues are the second most common reason startups fail, accounting for 29% of failures. In many cases, access to capital would make a big difference. Yet the loan application process is notoriously opaque for small business owners. Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows the average small business owner spent 26 hours searching and applying for credit, contacted three financial institutions and submitted three credit applications. Despite this time-consuming work, only half of small-business applicants end up being approved for the loan amount they applied for.

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As any entrepreneur will tell you, owning a business comes with a lot of demands, pressure and hard work, but it can also be extremely rewarding. Thanks to an impactful conversation with an old friend and fellow business owner several years ago, I realized that I was wasting a lot of money by just having one credit card to pay business expenses.

Multiple credit cards can provide big bonuses.

Credit card companies are fighting a turf war, and they all have enticing offers to get us to sign up with them. My rationale is, why be exclusive to one bank? Why choose only one credit card? Why not enjoy the benefits from multiple banks?

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With the tax filing deadline approaching, make sure your company is getting all the assistance available from government programs. For instance, that means checking that you've fully utilized the Employee Retention Credit (ERC), the refundable tax credit designed to make it easier for businesses to keep employees on the payroll.

The credit is getting extended as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, the $1.9 trillion relief package just signed by President Biden. Originally scheduled to end on June 30, ERC will continue through year end, giving business owners access to as much as $33,000 per employee in incentives.

How the credit works, depending on the time frame
First half of 2021:

Eligible employers can claim a refundable credit against the employer share of Social Security tax equal to 70 percent of a full-time employee's qualified wages paid--including certain health plan expenses--from January 1 through June 30, 2021. The maximum ERC amount available is $7,000 per employee per quarter or $14,000 for eligible wages paid in the first half of 2021.

3TOP Aviation Services Ltd. Leatherhead, Surrey, Se United Kingdom: ASA 100 Accreditation Expires: 27 January 2024: 53 North Aviation Ltd Manchester UNITED KINGDOM: ... Prime Air Europe Hemel Hempstead, Herts UNITED KINGDOM: ASA 100 Accreditation Expires: 29 July 2023: Heico Aerospace Corp. - Seal Dynamics, LLC

[Nile Post] In Uganda, youth entrepreneurship is seen as a powerful tool for economic growth.

[Premium Times] This year, the COP29 agenda is expected to be anchored on climate finance, mitigation, and adaptation, with the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) designed to provide support for vulnerable communities in global climate solutions.

January 6, 2006 – A new credit card scam has appeared in New York and appears to be moving west. Victims of the scam receive a call that they think is from their credit card company. Unfortunately, a lot of people are falling for this new telephone pitch, and having their credit ruined in the process.

January 31, 2006 – In the new year, a variety of state legislatures continue to debate credit freeze law. Among these are states, on opposite sides of the country are working on unique credit freeze solutions. One of them is probably the best credit freeze law proposed in any state. The other is dumbest credit freeze proposal that we have ever seen.

August 10, 2005 – There are a lot of people carrying large credit card balances which they will be lucky to pay off in their lifetime. Some consumers are being hit with interest rates in excess of 30% even though they have never been late on their credit card payments. The reason for this is that many credit card companies now use a system called "universal default", which allows them to raise your interest rate for reasons other than being late in the payment of your credit card bill.

If you have overdue books at the local library, you may want to return them now. That’s because a number of cash strapped libraries have started using collection agencies to collect fines and fees that are owed to them for overdue books. And once your name is turned over, there is a pretty good chance that you will find your library fines showing up as unpaid bills on your credit report.

MyPerfectCredit.com (MFC) is a website that supposedly provides consumers with copies of their credit report for free. But what the company is actually doing to consumers is anything but ethical, and it certainly isn’t free.

September 1, 2005 – As of today, residents of every state are eligible to receive their credit reports free of charge from the credit repositories (Experian, Equifax and Trans Union). These free credit reports were mandated by Congress with the passage of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) in late 2003. Under the law, eligibility to receive free reports was phased in nationally, from west to east.

September 15, 2005 - If you are one of the 35 million Americans who only make minimum payments on your credit cards, you are going to be in for a rude surprise over the next year. The amount that you are going to be required to pay is going to double due to a little publicized federal lending rule that is about to go into effect. Unfortunately, most lenders don’t want you to know about the payment increases until after October 15th. That’s the date that new federal bankruptcy laws go into effect.

Exclusive: US scrutinizes Russia accounts UBS took over from Credit Suisse, sources say  ReutersView Full Coverage on Google News

Bobby Maddex intervies Dr. Frank Papatheofanis, the founder and president of St. Katherine Orthodox College in San Diego, California, about the school's recent regional accreditation by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

Pensioners Eddie and Maggie, from Wallsend, will get £10,000 a year after they were helped to apply.

Aim/Purpose: This study examines differences in credit and noncredit users’ learning and usage of the Plant Sciences E-Library (PASSEL, http://passel.unl.edu), a large international, open-source multidisciplinary learning object repository. Background: Advances in online education are helping educators to meet the needs of formal academic credit students, as well as informal noncredit learners. Since online learning attracts learners with a wide variety of backgrounds and intentions, it is important understand learner behavior so that instructional resources can be designed to meet the diversity of learner motivations and needs. Methodology: This research uses both descriptive statistics and cluster analysis. The descriptive statistics address the research question of how credit learners differ from noncredit learners in using an international e-library of learning objects. Cluster analysis identifies high and low credit/noncredit students based on their quiz scores and follow-up descriptive statistics to (a) differentiate their usage patterns and (b) help describe possible learning approaches (deep, surface, and strategic). Contribution: This research is unique in its use of objective, web-tracking data and its novel use of clustering and descriptive analytic approaches to compare credit and noncredit learners’ online behavior of the same educational materials. It is also one of the first to begin to identify learning approaches of the noncredit learner. Findings: Results showed that credit users scored higher on quizzes and spent more time on the online quizzes and lessons than did noncredit learners, suggesting their academic orientation. Similarly, high credit scorers spent more time on individual lessons and quizzes than did the low scorers. The most striking difference among noncredit learners was in session times, with the low scorers spending more time in a session, suggesting more browsing behavior. Results were used to develop learner profiles for the four groups (high/low quiz scorers x credit/noncredit). Recommendations for Practitioners: These results provide preliminary insight for instructors or instructional designers. For example, low scoring credit students are spending a reasonable amount of time on a lesson but still score low on the quiz. Results suggest that they may need more online scaffolding or auto-generated guidance, such as the availability of relevant animations or the need to review certain parts of a lesson based on questions missed. Recommendation for Researchers: The study showed the value of objective, web-tracking data and novel use of clustering and descriptive analytic approaches to compare different types of learners. One conclusion of the study was that this web-tracking data be combined with student self-report data to provide more validation of results. Another conclusion was that demographic data from noncredit learners could be instrumental in further refining learning approaches for noncredit learners. Impact on Society: Learning object repositories, online courses, blended courses, and MOOCs often provide learners the option of moving freely among educational content, choosing not only topics of interest but also formats of material they feel will advance their learning. Since online learning is becoming more prolific and attracts learners with a wide variety of backgrounds and intentions, these results show the importance of understanding learner behavior so that e-learning instructional resources can be designed to meet the diversity of learner motivations and needs. Future Research: Future research should combine web-tracking data with student self-report to provide more validation of results. In addition, collection of demographic data and disaggregation of noncredit student usage motivations would help further refining learning approaches for this growing population of online users.

As research begins to accumulate on employee volunteering, it appears that this behavior is largely beneficial to employee performance and commitment. It is less clear, however, how employee volunteering is perceived by others in the workplace. Do colleagues award volunteering "credit"- for example, associating it with being concerned about others - or do they "stigmatize" it - for example, associating it with being distracted from work? Moreover, do those evaluations go on to predict how colleagues actually treat employees who volunteer more often? Adopting a reputation perspective, we draw from theories of person perception and attribution to explore these research questions. The results of a field study revealed that colleagues gave credit to employee volunteering when they attributed it to intrinsic reasons and stigmatized employee volunteering when they attributed it to impression management reasons. Ultimately, through the awarded credits, volunteering was rewarded by supervisors (with the allocation of more resources) and coworkers (with the provision of more helping behavior) when it was attributed to intrinsic motives - a relationship that was amplified when stigmas were low and mitigated when stigmas were high. The results of a laboratory experiment further confirmed that volunteering was both credited and stigmatized, distinguishing it from citizenship behavior, which was credited but not stigmatized.