bs53 The Hope of the Christian explains hope in the spiritual life of the Christian, how it relates to salvation.
Topics: What does “hope” mean? | Faith and Hope | How does Hope function in our Lives? | What do we do while we are hoping? | The Relationship between Hoping and the Word of God | The Person of God is our Hope | What is the effect of hoping? | Those without Hope.
From the Tracts: Hope is a state of mind that arises when what is desired is presented as attainable. Hope is the expectation of soon receiving something one wants... But between believing and having salvation actually fulfilled, there exists time, and in this time, we have to hope for the time when God will fulfill it, when He wants to close history... We can say that faith, believing, began with hope within us that we wanted this good thing that God promises to us.
Read the Tracts: bs53 The Hope of the Christian.

People are the same everywhere No matter where you go, people have the same problems across cultures and places. This article is for pastors, from churchplantingworkshop.com, and explains how turnover in churches is to the preacher's advantage (and the pastor as counselor). I speak to the reuse of counseling and preaching material.
Read the article: People are the same everywhere.

Helpful Windows User Tip for "Searching Everything" on your PC. The Everything Search utility program is a freeware file search utility that is superfast and very useful for finding all occurrences of a file. It takes about 3-6 seconds to start, but after that, every search is just about instantaneous. Very fast, very useful. I highly recommend you download this free PC utility program if you ever have problems finding a file on your PC Computer.
twtutorial.com Helpful Tip "Everything Search".
Note: You can grab and drop files from this tool to other windows.

Helpful Windows User Tip for "Searching Everything" on your PC. The Everything Search utility program is a freeware file search utility that is superfast and very useful for finding all occurrences of a file. It takes about 3-6 seconds to start, but after that, every search is just about instantaneous. Very fast, very useful. I highly recommend you download this free PC utility program if you ever have problems finding a file on your PC Computer.
twtutorial.com Helpful Tip "Everything Search".
Note: You can grab and drop files from this tool to other windows.

Brown The Devil's Mission of Amusement 7 page article from 1889. Hollywood in the church and her ministries. Brown was a student of C.H Spurgeon.
Excerpts:
Different days demand their own special testimony. The watchman who would be faithful to his Lord and to the city of his God needs to carefully note the signs of the times and to emphasize his witness accordingly. Concerning the testimony needed now, there can be little if any doubt. An evil is in the professed camp of the Lord, that is so gross, so brazen in its impudence, that the most shortsighted of spiritual men can hardly fail to notice it....  Amusement for the people is the leading article advertised by each... until the hideous fact has been proved up to the hilt, that "amusement" is ousting "the preaching of the Gospel" as the great attraction... The Concert is fast becoming as much a recognized part of church life as the Prayer Meeting; and it is already, in most places, far better attended.

"Providing recreation for the people" will soon be looked upon as a necessary part of Christian work, and as binding upon the Church of God, as though it were a Divine command, unless some strong voices are raised which will make themselves heard.
Read the 7-page article: Brown, The Devil's Mission of Amusement.

Divine use of Sickness

Job 13:15 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.

There is an attitude within much of Christianity that sickness in any form is bad, and God does not have anything to do with it. For these Christians, they ask God to take the sickness away, and sometimes (as though it was their right to be health) that they demand God to remove their sickness. The reality of life is that they continue ill, and many have a crisis of faith over this. For them, God is impotent, or God does not love them. In other words, their confidence, faith, and love of God depends on God always sending them good things. But this is not how the Bible indicates life is. God uses calamity and sickness for His own purposes, and we have to understand this (and accept it).