April 27, 2024

Mendel Mintz – Chabad Community Center Offers Adult Education Classes

Mendel Mintz

Mendel Mintz

Rabbi Mendel Mintz is an active part of the Aspen community, where he serves as executive director of Chabad Community Center. The center celebrates Jewish history and tradition, combining it with modern-day Jewish teachings, according to Mendel Mintz. Recently, Mendel Mintz spoke with the staff of Interviewing Experts about the adult education courses offered at Chabad Community Center.

Interviewing Experts: Are your adult education courses geared toward converting non-Orthodox Jews to Orthodox thinking?

Mendel Mintz: Not at all. At Chabad Community Center, we strive to provide Jews with an open forum to learn about a wide variety of topics of concern to the Jewish community. Most of our participants are not Orthodox, actually.

Interviewing Experts: What is the focus of many of these courses?

Mendel Mintz: The Torah, the greatest gift to humanity, is at the core of all of our teachings.

Interviewing Experts: You teach your members to read Hebrew. How many lessons does that usually take?

Mendel Mintz: Our “Read Hebrew” course is six simple lessons that help participants learn this 5,000-year-old language.

Interviewing Experts: Does someone have to learn Hebrew?

Mendel Mintz: No, but the lessons can help someone better understand what we’re going over during services.

Interviewing Experts: It might also help if someone is planning a visit to Israel.

Mendel Mintz: Yes, definitely. It can help with everything from reading street signs to understanding menus in restaurants.

Interviewing Experts: But doesn’t a foreign language take a while to learn?

Mendel Mintz: Most do, but the basics of reading Hebrew can easily be learned during these six lessons.

Interviewing Experts: What if someone learned Hebrew in school?

Mendel Mintz: Our six-class lesson can be a great refresher course.

Interviewing Experts: How much does it cost to register for this course?

Mendel Mintz: Our Hebrew adult education class is only $50.

Interviewing Experts: What other courses do you offer at Chabad Community Center?

Mendel Mintz: We offer classes in mysticism, Jewish history, or any other subject someone might be interested in learning.

Interviewing Experts: Does someone have to be a member to enroll in class?

Mendel Mintz: No, classes are open to all , even if they’ve never visited Chabad Community Center.

Mendel Mintz welcomes visitors to Chabad Community Center, which is located in Aspen, Colorado. For those interested in learning more about Chabad Community Center, Mendel Mintz invites them to come by and check it out or visit the center’s website at www.jccaspen.com.

 

God’s Luv International Ministries Church: Getting Stuck and Giving Up

God's Luv International Ministries Church

God's Luv International Ministries Church

God’s Luv International Ministries Church’s Dr. Pierre Bennett has learned the value of perseverance over the years, through a term in the military The founder of God’s Luv International Ministries Church succeeded through turbulent economic times and continues to succeed today.

The God’s Luv International Ministries Church pastor took time out of his busy schedule to speak to Interviewing Experts about how he helps his God’s Luv International Ministries Church members to progress to the next level in their spiritual journey.

Interviewing Experts: In listening to a recent God’s Luv International Ministries Church sermon, you cleared up one misconception I’ve had—that once someone is saved, there’s no way he or she can get stuck in his or her spiritual journey.

Dr. Pierre Bennett: As I regularly tell my congregation at God’s Luv International Ministries Church, it’s all about casting away those old thoughts and beliefs that are holding us back in our journey.

Interviewing Experts: But as you said in your sermon at God’s Luv International Ministries Church, it’s important for followers to keep trying and working at it, even when it becomes difficult.

Dr. Pierre Bennett: Especially when it becomes difficult. The alternative to continuing to try is to stay stuck, and that’s no alternative at all.

Interviewing Experts: What happens when someone stays stuck?

Dr. Pierre Bennett: You see it all the time—at God’s Luv International Ministries Church and at churches all over this great country of ours. There are people who get stuck and stay stuck. They attend church every Sunday, all their lives, and never quite get to the promise.

Interviewing Experts: But how could that happen?

Dr. Pierre Bennett: Easy. As the God’s Luv International Ministries Church members here will attest, some people accept Jesus as their Savior, but they never quite turn everything over to him. They can’t let go of all that old junk that is tying them to their worldly selves.

Interviewing Experts: Because they want to continue living in sin?

Dr. Pierre Bennett: Sin, a vision of what a person thinks they want their life to be—it can vary from person to person. What we’ve found at God’s Luv International Ministries Church is that unless someone lets go of all of those worldly things and gives it over to God, they’ll remain stuck.

Interviewing Experts: But even after your congregation members at God’s Luv International Ministries Church have reached that level of enlightenment, there still will be bumps in the road, right?

Dr. Pierre Bennett: Trials and tribulations are a part of life. I tell my brothers and sisters at God’s Luv International Ministries Church to expect them. These  tests, great and small, serve to strengthen you in your faith and make you a better person. Many of those tests come from the enemy, but He will be there to protect you and get you through it.

Interviewing Experts: We hear a lot about “backsliding believers.” How do you prepare your congregation at God’s Luv International Ministries Church for that?

Dr. Pierre Bennett: I use the example of using profanity. Some of my God’s Luv International Ministries Church members have vowed to kick that habit, but of course, that doesn’t mean they’ll never slip up. But there may come a day when you feel a heavy temptation to cuss again. I urge my members at God’s Luv International Ministries Church to prepare for it and pray their way through it. He can move you past that temptation and onto the next level, if only you’ll turn it over to Him.

For more information about God’s Luv International Ministries Church, please call (703) 395-1430.

Apostle Pierre Bennett: Praying for One Another

Apostle Pierre Bennett

Apostle Pierre Bennett

Apostle Pierre Bennett has lived a life full of ups and downs, on his path to find true righteousness. While in church with his grandmother as a child, Apostle Pierre Bennett was first introduced to the Word, but it wasn’t until 2008 that Apostle Pierre Bennett was inspired to found God’s Luv International Ministries Church.

According to Apostle Pierre Bennett, it’s easier to believe God will work miracles when you pray for a complete stranger. Apostle Pierre Bennett says that when we pray for someone we know, we have our emotions attached to it.  When we pray for people we don’t know, it can be even more powerful than when we pray for ourselves.

Apostle Pierre Bennett   says we are to pray for each other. We often pray more passionately for someone else than we do for ourselves.  That’s because when we pray for others, our own human intellect and feelings don’t get in the way, as they do when we pray for ourselves.    Apostle Pierre Bennett encourages his congregation to have prayer partners. You pray for each other, in addition to praying together for certain blessings. The Bible says one can chase a thousand, but two can put ten thousand to flight, Apostle Pierre Bennett quotes from Deuteronomy 32:30. That means the prayer of two is more powerful than the prayer of just one.

Praying together also helps keep the enemy at bay, according to Apostle Pierre Bennett. Once you’ve prayed together, you’ve agreed and trusted together in it. If one person’s faith gets shaky, the other is there to carry forward. Apostle Pierre Bennett uses the example of people who know something is bothering them but can’t seem to say it. The enemy is holding their tongue, Apostle Pierre Bennett says, because the enemy doesn’t want them to heal. The enemy knows once you are healed you may be ready to move to the next level spiritually. So, Apostle Pierre Bennett continues, by confessing it, you can defeat the enemy.

Pray to God to give you the healing you need, Apostle Pierre Bennett advises. Pray to be delivered and strengthened so you can move past the pain. If God can strengthen you, that particular thing will stop being a weakness and you’ll move forward from it, according to Apostle Pierre Bennett.

But you have to have faith, Apostle Pierre Bennett states. Your faith in God’s power may not be as strong as it should be at that time, but by praying with someone else, together you’ll be able to find the faith you need, at every level.

Dr. Pierre Bennett Stresses Following God’s Word

Dr. Pierre Bennett

Dr. Pierre Bennett

Interviewing Experts recently spoke with Dr. Pierre Bennett about how he feels that the world, as a whole, can learn to work together to fulfill God’s plan for us all.

Interviewing Experts: Good morning, Dr. Pierre Bennett. We thank you for taking this time out of your busy schedule to be with us today.

Dr. Pierre Bennett: I appreciate you asking me. God does have a way of opening up opportunities to spread His word doesn’t He?

Interviewing Experts: Yes, indeed. Can you tell us exactly what you think people can do to live more harmoniously?

Dr. Pierre Bennett: I always refer back to Joshua. You see, God told Joshua he could take the city of Jericho if he followed a specific set of instructions. Joshua, without question, did as God told him.

Interviewing Experts: And the city’s wall fell, yes?

Dr. Pierre Bennett: That’s right. Because Joshua had the courage to be obedient and follow God’s word without question, he was able to achieve his goal. I think that if we all followed this example  we could all achieve our goals individually and learn to live together peacefully.

Interviewing Experts: For our readers’ benefit can you please explain a bit more about the story of Joshua?

Dr. Pierre Bennett: Well, God told Joshua to take the city of Jericho. Jericho was a virtually impenetrable fortress and Joshua only had a few men. Then God directed Joshua and his men basically into an army formation  with the Ark of the Covenant in the center In carrying the Ark the priests carried around the physical symbol of  the essence,  power, and Spirit of God.

Interviewing Experts: For somebody actually there it must have looked like a great marching band.

Dr. Pierre Bennett: That’s right, with the Spirit of God right smack in the middle.

Interviewing Experts: And God had specific instructions too…

Dr. Pierre Bennett: He had a specific instruction for them to march around Jericho seven times. A lot of times we get lax in following instructions. We don’t pay attention to the details. But when God is giving you something very specific it is because He wants you to follow it to the letter.

Interviewing Experts: We wonder how many people in the natural would have said, “I’m not marching around that place seven times. That’s crazy.”

Dr. Pierre Bennett: Amen. Many people would’ve gone around one or two times but then would’ve found a bush to duck behind. They would’ve said something about their feet hurt or they had a tummy ache. They might say they overslept and were too tired to keep on.

Interviewing Experts: Many people would’ve gotten stuck at the Jordan…

Dr. Pierre Bennett: They were in the specific formation that God had said. He also instructed the people to stay completely silent while the priests blew the horns. In other words, don’t shout until the seventh time. How many people would’ve followed that one?

Interviewing Experts: Very few… Seven times. That is very specific instruction.

Dr. Pierre Bennett: God knows what he’s doing. Think about it. In order for you to get to this interview this morning you had to get in your car and drive. You had to follow a specific set of instructions. This place is a little tricky to find. Without the instructions, the directions, you might not have made it.

Interviewing Experts: So what you are saying is that if you don’t pay attention to the specific instructions you can miss the mark for the destination you’re supposed to arrive at, right?

Dr. Pierre Bennett: That is exactly what I’m saying. But my main point is that if everybody in the world would just listen to God, we could each win our own individual battles and conquer our individual fears. And when people no longer have to live with fear, there can be peace.

Interviewing Experts: That makes perfect sense.

Dr. Pierre Bennett: You have to go just on faith. You follow me?

Interviewing Experts: Yes, sir! Well, Dr. Bennett we’re afraid that we’re out of time for the day but we really appreciate you taking this opportunity with us.

Dr. Pierre Bennett: Thank you for having me.

Dr. Pierre Bennett is the Pastor of God’s Luv International Ministries Church.  Meetings are held at the Reston Community Center Lake Anne, 1609-A Washington Plaza, Reston, VA 20191.