Singing Wonder, Michael Jordan Woodard, has been singing the Lord’s praises since the age of 5 years old. Now at age 11, Michael can be seen at concerts all over Philadelphia and the Tri-State area. Michael is also an actor who has appeared in various roles onstage.

Check out more on Michael at www.michaeljwoodard.com. Also check out video on Michael J. Woodard by Sarah J. Glover by clicking the link below:

http://www.philly.com/philly/video/?bctid=30345729001-VIDEO

By Oretha Winston

Our primary calling is not to serve people or meet their demands but to be available to God: to know him and worship him. So we must say ‘no’ to some things so that our ‘yeses’ will have meaning.

A young man talked to his pastor about his conflicts between work and family. The wise pastor replied: ’serving your family is the Lord’s work’.

Our calling to serve others is always a limited call, for specific tasks. We are not called to be Messiahs, but baton-carriers in life’s relay, handing it on to the next person. Workaholics often masquerade as devoted servants, but really it is a sickness, an addiction, a desire to control, an insatiable appetite for ‘glory’. ‘Work enthusiasts’ on the other hand are healthier, are generally better delegators. Be enthusiastic about your job, but do not let it define you.

Stress is what life is about: it is necessary for our wholeness. But when stress produces distress, it’s destructive. Some of the effects of ‘distress’ are reversible, others irreversible. One person out of four in the U.S. – 65 million – suffers from hypertension/ high blood pressure: a state directly attributable to stress. One million of these will die this year from the effects of heart disease. Further: one in 8/9 suffers from a serious gastro-intestinal problem. 50-60 million have sleep problems. One mental health authority says panic-anxiety disorders are the number one mental health problem U.S. women suffer. For men it’s second, after drug and alcohol abuse.
Read more: http://elev8.com/elev8-original/orethawinston/there-is-more-to-life-than-work/#ixzz0hmcQth9h

There’s no question the brother can sing, but it may have been his attitude that put him in disfavor with the judges and voters. Here’s a brief recap.

Last week he performed Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.” And while the judges generally agreed that while he’s a capable vocalist, they thought the performance was too forced and that he was trying too hard to show of his vocal tricks.

Simon also called his singing too old-fashioned (though he did make the same comment about other contestants).

That’s when Jermaine responded by asking Simon to go to church with him, then asked the judges what he should sing next week. Simon speculated that Jermaine might not be there next week, to which he responded that he was a God-fearing man and that they don’t know that.

OK, fast forward to today and as we said up top, Sellers is a former “American Idol” contestant. As MTV’s Eric Ditzian observed:

“Jesus may be his homeboy, but the viewers at home hold his fate in their cell phones.”

One reviewer noted that for him to play the God card shows a lack of willingness to learn from judges and his performances. So now that he’s been booted, instead of evaluating how he could have improved, maybe he’ll just attribute it to God’s will. Maybe.

via eurweb dot com

Fire officials believe this is the work of some teens trying to have fun, but investigators and church members are not amused one bit.

“The disrespect to God’s property is how we see it,” said Assistant Pastor Joel Young.

Charred corners of the Bible are still scattered on the Middle Tennessee Baptist Church parking lot, now part of an arson investigation scene.

On Thursday evening, authorities believe two teens set pages of the holy book on fire then threw it inside one of the church’s buses. Investigators suspect the teens had a change of heart and tried to use the extinguisher to put out the fire.

VIA EUR WEB DOT COM

WASHINGTON (AFP) – They plan to become doctors, researchers and professors, but these students from Liberty University, an evangelical school, also believe God created the Earth in a week, some 6,000 years ago.

Each year, a group of biology students at the Christian university based in Lynchburg, Virginia, travels to the Natural History Museum in Washington to learn about a theory they dismiss as incorrect — Darwin’s theory of evolution.

The young “creationists” examined a model of the Morganucodon rat, believed to be the first and common ancestor of mammals that appeared some 210 million years ago.

Lauren Dunn, 19, a second-year biology student, was unimpressed.

“210 million years, that’s arbitrary. They put that time to make up for what they don’t know,” she said.

Nathan Hubbard, a 20-year-old from Michigan and a first-year biology major who plans to become a doctor, regarded the model with suspicion.

“There is no scientific, biological genetic way that this, this rat, could become you,” he said, seemingly scandalized by the proposition.

Liberty University is the most prominent evangelical university in the United States, with some 12,000 students who adhere to strict rules and regulations regarding moral conduct.

Its biology curriculum includes a course on “Young Earth Creationism”, which juxtaposes Charles Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” with the Book of Genesis.

“In order to be the best creationist, you have to be the best evolutionist you can be,” said Marcus Ross, who teaches paleontology and says of Adam and Eve: “I feel they were real people, they were the first people.”

David DeWitt, a Liberty University biology professor, opens his classes with a prayer, asking God to help him teach his students.

“I pray that you help me to teach effectively and help the students to learn and defend their faith,” he says.

Strongly-expressed faith is not unusual in the United States, a country where 80 percent of the population claim to believe in God and ascribe to established religions.

Polls taken in the last two years found that between 44 and 46 percent of Americans believe that the Earth was created in a week, somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago.

Creationism, an increasingly popular theory in the United States and elsewhere in the world, rejects Darwin’s theory that all living species evolved over the course of billions of years via the process of natural selection.

The school of thought has adherents among Jehovah’s Witnesses and some fundamentalist Muslims, but in the United States it has won most converts in the evangelical Christian community.

Former president George W. Bush, a born-again Christian, is among those who say evolutionary theory does not fully explain the Earth’s creation, though the ex-president also noted he is not a “literalist” when it comes to the Bible.

Creationist belief has implications for the way people understand a variety of fields, including biology, paleontology and astronomy, but also impacts questions about climate change and educational debates.

At the Smithsonian Institute, among crowds of weekend visitors, the Liberty University students visited the evolution exhibition,.

But Darwin’s explanation for why giraffes have long necks — that they evolved over time so they could reach higher foliage — and displays of fossil evidence failed to sway them.

“Creationism and evolutionism have different ways of explaining the evidence. The creationist way recognizes the importance of Biblical records,” said Ross.

He teaches his students that dinosaurs were wiped from the face of the Earth some 4,000 to 5,000 years ago during the Biblical flood that Noah survived by building an ark.

He says carbon-dating techniques that have been used to suggest the Earth is in fact billions of years old are simply not reliable.

He doesn’t reject one prominent theory that dinosaurs were wiped out by a massive asteroid that collided into Earth, but suggests the collision coincided with the Biblical flood.

Though Ross acknowledges that the United States is among the most welcoming environments in the world for creationists, he said it can be difficult to convince people to take him and his beliefs seriously.

“The attitude is when you are a creationist you are ignorant of the facts,” he said.

original post

A photo first posted to the humor Web site FunnyJunk.com and later to the Latino Web site Guanabee.com shows packages of Mattel’s Ballerina Barbie and Ballerina Theresa dolls hanging side by side at an unidentified store. The Theresa dolls, which feature brown skin and dark hair, are marked as being on sale at $3.00. The Barbies to the right of the Theresa dolls, meanwhile, retain their original price of $5.93. The dolls look identical aside from their color.

Editors at Guanabee.com said the person responsible for the photo told the Web site that it was taken at a Louisiana Walmart store. The person did not return e-mails from ABCNews.com.

A Walmart spokeswoman, who could not verify the exact store shown in the photo, said that the price change on the Theresa doll was part of the chain’s efforts to clear shelf space for its new spring inventory.

“To prepare for (s)pring inventory, a number of items are marked for clearance, ” spokeswoman Melissa O’Brien said in an e-mail. “… Both are great dolls. The red price sticker indicates that this particular doll was on clearance when the photo was taken, and though both dolls were priced the same to start, one was marked down due to its lower sales to hopefully increase purchase from customers.”

“Pricing like items differently is a part of inventory management in retailing,” O’Brien said.

But critics say Walmart should have been more sensitive in its pricing choice.

“The implication of the lowering of the price is that’s devaluing the black doll,” said Thelma Dye, the executive director of the Northside Center for Child Development, a Harlem, N.Y. organization founded by pioneering psychologists and segregation researchers Kenneth B. Clark and Marnie Phipps Clark.

“While it’s clear that’s not what was intended, sometimes these things have collateral damage,” Dye said.

Other experts agree. Walmart could have decided “that it’s really important that we as a company don’t send a message that we value blackness less than whiteness,” said Lisa Wade, an assistant sociology professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles and the founder of the blog Sociological Images.

Last year, Wade posted a blog entry on another case where a black doll was apparently priced less than its white counterpart at an unidentified store. Wade said that when white dolls outsell black dolls, it’s usually because black parents are more likely than white parents to buy their children dolls of a different race.

“Most white parents wouldn’t think to buy a black doll for their child, even if they believe in equality and all those things,” she said.

Read More – Original Post

By Latwanas Stephens

If you are like every other yo-yo dieter out there, chances are you have started and stopped several diet plans with no success. The first week is easy. You’re full of excitement. You tell yourself “this time will be different.” The second week is ok, a little harder than the first but you’re still sticking to it. And then what happens? You bend the rules a bit and start falling back into your old habits. Why does this happen? Why do we go through this vicious cycle? I’ll tell you why. We are focusing on the wrong goal. For whatever reason, we must not perceive our weight loss as being “important enough” to achieve. So what would be “important enough” to stick to our new healthy eating habits? Your HEALTH! Nothing in this world is more important than the state of your health. Think about it, your health affects everything else in your life. Once our health is compromised we automatically change our lifestyle habits. Let’s not wait until our bodies completely have a break down before we decide to take care of ourselves. If you feel lousy, everything you do that day is lousy. Likewise, if you feel great, everything you do that day is great.

Ask yourself, “How important is my health to me? How do I want to live the rest of my life? Sick and feeling horrible or healthy and feeling vibrant? Do I want to play golf and tennis in my retirement or do I want to spend it in the hospital?” The answer to these questions will ultimately dictate your weight and your health for the future. Any lifestyle habit that affects your health in a positive way will automatically cause you to lose weight or maintain a good healthy weight.

Follow this checklist towards health and you will see weight come off automatically.

1. Make the time to focus on health.

The number one reason people do not eat healthy or exercise is because they “don’t have the time”. But why is it that once we get sick, have a heart attack, are diagnosed with heart disease, diabetes or cancer, we all of a sudden have the time? This doesn’t make any sense. Prioritize your day. What could possibly be more important than your health? Your children, yes, I agree. But guess what? If something happens to you, who will be there for your children? Prioritize your day so that making healthy meal choices and exercising are right at the top.

2. Take a long hard look at what you are putting into your body.

For one week, read every ingredient of every food you eat. Some ingredient labels on packaged foods sound more like a college chemistry class than anything we should be eating. As a golden rule, if you can’t pronounce it, chances are you shouldn’t be eating it. The majority of the foods you should be eating shouldn’t even have an ingredients label. They should be vegetables, fruits, raw nuts, chicken, fish, eggs, meat. If you make 90% of your diet, fresh food, I guarantee you will significantly change your weight and your health.

3. How much are you eating?

Restaurant portions are about 3 times more than what we should be eating in one sitting. If we become accustomed to seeing this much food on our plate at a restaurant we tend to do the same when we are at home and serve ourselves. According to a study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, women are eating 300 more calories a day and men 168 more calories than 20 years ago. All it takes is 100 extra calories a day to gain 10 pounds a year.

For one week, reduce your portions at lunch and dinner by half. There is no need to “clean your plate”. Most times what’s on your plate is double what you should be eating anyway. If you feel some hunger in the afternoon, add one small apple with a handful of raw nuts as a snack. Your body will quickly become accustomed to the smaller portions and you will eventually not be able to eat as much in one sitting as you did before.

4. Drink WATER!

Dehydration has directly been linked to several forms of diseases including colon cancer, high blood pressure, and elevated cholesterol levels. Take a look at what you are drinking each day.

Coffee or Soda (Diet Coke included)? The caffeine in both will dehydrate you even more and will cause you to feel hungrier during the day.

Diet drinks and sodas? The artificial sweetener actually enhances your appetite and increases food intake.

Orange Juice and other Fruit Juices? The sugar and calories can add up to 10 teaspoons of sugar per drink, which can be anywhere from 150-200 calories. Not to mention the fact that sugar eventually makes you crave more sugar.

Every person should be drinking half of their body weight in ounces of water each day. So if you weigh 150 lbs, you should be drinking 75 ounces of water each day. If you drink coffee or any other caffeinated beverage during the day, the ounces of water needed increases.

<<CLICK HERE FOR TIPS ON FAT LOSS>>

5. How much do you move each day?

Your body was designed to move! Your heart is a muscle and must be worked just like every other muscle in your body. You don’t have to join a gym to move, you just have to challenge your body and your muscles each and every day.

1. Go for a walk. You can go for a walk anywhere and anytime.

2. Set up your home with some free weights and an exercise ball. You will be amazed at the number of exercises you can do with just your body, some free weights and a stability ball. If you don’t know how, hire a trainer to show you or get a good book. Get into the routine of scheduling your exercise time each and every day. No ifs, ands or buts. Make your exercise time more important than phone calls, laundry, errands or lunch dates.

Make a promise to yourself that this time will be about health, not about short term weight loss. Really evaluate how you are treating your body on an everyday basis. Is that the same way you would treat a highly valuable, expensive piece of equipment? Because that’s what your body is. There is no amount of money in the world that will buy you another one, so you might as well take really good care of the one you got!

For more from Latwanas, read her personal blog and follow her on twitter

Read more: http://elev8.com/better-living/health/latwanasstephens/i-dont-have-time-to-exercise/#ixzz0hdrks1MY

Fifth Solo CD “All In One” Hits Stores April 6, 2010

Detroit, MI — Grammy Award winner Karen Clark Sheard is about family. Family has been key to her success as one of music’s most dynamic vocalists. Whether it’s an inspirational R&B track or a down-home gospel groove, Sheard’s multi-octave vocal range and dizzying vocal gymnastics with and without the legendary Clark Sisters have inspired today’s brightest pop divas such as Beyonce and Mariah Carey, among others. It started as a child when Sheard was trained to sing by her mother (gospel music pioneer Dr. Mattie Moss-Clark) and has come full circle with her 20 year old son (J. Drew Sheard II) producing tracks on her first CD in four years, All in One (Karew Records/EMI Gospel), a slick set of urban-flavored gospel that will hit retail and digital stores on April 6, 2010.

Sheard’s Go-Go flavored, up-tempo radio single “Prayed Up” (available digitally on March 16th) is making a fast impact at radio. The song is currently #26 on Billboard’s Hot Gospel Songs chart and rapidly building momentum. The song’s success is a dream come true for Sheard who has aspired to own a record label for years. Sheard and her husband, Bishop J. Drew Sheard (Pastor of Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church Of God In Christ in Detroit, MI, found Karew Records.

All in One features eleven original songs ranging from neo-soul ballads such as “He Knows” a duet with sister Dorinda Clark Cole to the futuristic pop vibes of “Take Me.” In between, there are worship tunes, and good ole Sunday morning church tracks. Sheard pulls in family members for vocal cameos such as sister Dorinda Clark Cole, daughter Kierra Sheard and niece Angel Chisholm. Her cousin Bill Moss Jr. plays the keys. Her son, J. Drew and her cousin J. Moss both individually wrote and produce various tracks on the project. On top of that, Sheard, who won a Grammy for composing the Clark Sisters’ #1 2007 comeback smash “Blessed and Highly Favored,” also co-wrote several of these future classics.

Aside from three decades of hits with her sisters, Sheard is also known for solo hits such as “Balm in Gilead” and “Nothing Without You.”  Sheard released four critically acclaimed solo album projects, starting with her 1997 debut  Finally Karen, a classic; 2nd Chance; The Heavens Are Telling and It’s Not Over. Sheard expresses, “With this new CD, I want to reach my young people but then I have some music the older church folks can rock to, as well.“

Fans of theater can applaud Sheard’s upcoming role in the new musical stage play, “Church Girl” that also stars Robin Givens. The national tour kicks off March 23, 2010 at Detroit’s Music Hall Center and is scheduled to stop through a dozen other cities. On April 6, 2010 Sheard will reminisce about her career and give a mini-concert at “The Experience with Karen Clark Sheard” taking place at the Harold Washington Cultural Center in Chicago, IL.

 All In One CD in-stores April 6 and available on-line at Amazon, ITUNES and more.

 For more information, visit www.karewrecords.com

-The Belle Report

Sinjoyla Townsend and Angelisa Young said they had waited years to marry. They were first in line last week to apply for a marriage license at Washington’s marriage bureau.

“You are my friend, my partner, my love,” Young, 47, told Townsend, 41. “I will love you today, tomorrow and forever.”

After the wedding, those present cheered as the two women embraced and cried. They have been together for 12 years and have children, according to biographical information released by the Human Rights Campaign and D.C. Clergy United for Marriage Equality.

The new law survived a Supreme Court challenge. The measure went into effect last week, but couples had to hold off until Tuesday because of the district’s three-day waiting period.

We’re very excited,” Townsend said last week. She and Young were among 100 couples applying for licenses.

The district joins Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont in allowing same-sex couples to marry.

Mayor Adrian Fenty signed the Washington measure into law in December after the city council overwhelming passed it. It then went through a review period, during which Congress had an opportunity to intervene.

The Supreme Court last week rejected a request from a group of Washington residents to keep the law from going into effect. Local courts had previously turned down lawsuits to block it.

Opponents of the law say city residents should have had a chance to vote on the issue before the city council passed it. They hope to force a ballot initiative to overturn the law.

Also among the first couples to marry Tuesday were Reggie Stanley and Rocky Galloway, both 50. The couple have two daughters, Malena and Zoe Stanley-Galloway, each 15 months old, according to the biographical information released by the equality groups.

Also married on Tuesday were the Rev. Elder Darlene Garner, 61, and the Rev. Lorilyn Candy Holmes, 53, of Laurel, Maryland. Both of them serve in leadership roles in the Metropolitan Community Church. The women are mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers, according to the groups.

During Garner and Holmes’ ceremony, a representative from their families read a statement blessing the marriage.

via cnn dot com

It took the California Highway Patrol to bring the car safely to a stop.

The driver, Jim Sikes, said he was traveling east on Interstate 8 outside of the San Diego area when he attempted to pass a slower vehicle.

“I pushed the gas pedal to pass a car, and it just did something kind of funny … and it just stuck there,” he said at a news conference outside a Highway Patrol office. “As I was going, I was trying the brakes … and it just kept speeding up.”

Sikes said he called 911 for help, and dispatchers talked him through instructions on how he might be able to stop the car. But nothing worked.

At one point, Sikes said he reached down to try to pull the accelerator up, but it “stayed right where it was.”

Alerted by emergency dispatchers, a California Highway Patrol officer was able to catch up to Sikes’ Prius and used the patrol car’s public address system to instruct Sikes to apply the brakes and the emergency brake at the same time.

The tactic worked, and the car slowed to about 50 mph. Sikes said he was able to shut off the car, and it rolled to a stop. The responding officer, Todd Neibert, positioned his patrol car in front of the Prius as a precaution to prevent it from moving again.

Toyota recently issued widespread recalls due to problems related to the accelerator pedal in several of its auto models. One theory behind the sticky accelerators is the vehicles’ floor mats.

But Sikes said “my mat was perfect. There was nothing wrong with my mat.”

Sikes said he took his 2008 Prius into a local Toyota dealership about two weeks ago for service and gave workers there his recall notice. He said he was told his car wasn’t on the recall list.

“I’ll be back there tomorrow,” he said Monday, visibly shaken up.

CHP spokesman Brian Pennings said the ordeal lasted just over 20 minutes.

“We are extremely thankful that there was a safe end to this,” Pennings said.

A Toyota spokesman issued a statement Monday night saying the automaker had been notified of the incident.

“Toyota has dispatched a field technical specialist to San Diego to investigate the report and offer assistance,” the statement said.