Samuel Koranteng Pipim: Happy New Year 2014 Questions to Make This Year You’re Best Ever

Another year is about to close it's doors, and a new year will open before us. For most, this past year was undoubtedly filled with many challenges. No matter how you faced these obstacles, whether you succeeded or failed in overcoming them, they also came with the wisdom of valuable life lessons. Each obstacle came with it's own unique gift. Each darkness also held within it Light. It may not have seemed so at first.

No matter how filled your year was with challenges, each day also brought much to be grateful for. This New Year's Eve, before leaping into another set of resolutions, take some time to pause and reflect on the year gone by. Give yourself a gift of time for reflection, and time sit with yourself and review previous months.

As we end the year, it seems particularly fitting to devote some time to reflecting on the year past and where we find ourselves as the new beginning is upon us. We revisit the past to gain some insight into the future. An honest, non-judgmental self-analysis can be beneficial to gain a clear picture of what was.

Allow a quiet moment to stop and notice yourself. Take stock of how wonderful you already are. Who you are is more valuable than what you do. Because of who you are, the people who come into your world are touched and changed. Your very presence affects others.

This year, live life true to your own Spirit.

Samuel Koranteng Pipim, the Executive Director of EAGLESonline, is a respected writer and mobilizer of African youth and young professionals, both on the continent and Diaspora.  

Africa Must Think- A 4-Day Excellence, Leadership and Empowerment Lecture Series

The aim of the Africa Must Think Lecture Series is to create a new kind of awareness, inspire, and empower participants to be instruments of positive change whenever they may be. it is call to be a new kind of leadership development and empowerment. The ultimate goal is to improve the quality of solutions offered for Africa's problem.

Africa Must Think Lecture Series is for anyone who feels called to be a change-maker or transformative leader wherever they are, or whatever their place in society.

Africa Must Think Presenter:
Dr. Samuel Koranteng Pipim
Author, Inspirational Speaker, Leadership Trainer, and Advocate for Youth Empowerment

A TRIBUTE TO NELSON MANDELA by Samuel Koranteng Pipim

Dr. Samuel Koranteng Pipim is the Director of EAGLESonline (www.EAGLESonline.org). He and the EAGLEsonline team were in Harare, Zimbabwe, conducting an “Africa Must Think” lecture series when Nelson Mandela died. The lecture series was hosted by the Catalytic Concepts Group, a young professionals' organization in Zimbabwe.

He is known to have inspired millions. He will be remembered for having gifted us with words that will transcend the spectrum of time, and remain of relevance to all classes and races. But, let it be remembered that, like Nkrumah, Mandela's vision for his country was not always appreciated at the start. Though initially branded and vilified, he forged ahead, uninhibited by the lack of applause, and the misunderstanding and misrepresentation that often attends the painful work of visionaries.

How easy it is to honor the heroes of yesteryears from our safe harbors today! How comfortable it is to marry cowards than to be widows of principled nonconformists! And how secure it is to be sheltered in the shade of apathy than to be burned by the battle for right.

Mandela was an eagle, not a chicken. And he leaves us comforted, having given the best of his energy, vigor, intellect, courage, and compassion to the cause of Africa’s liberation and development. He ran fearlessly 95km of a race that is not defined by distance, but by the accomplishment of bold causes that will place Africa in its rightful place in the world. He escaped assassination and execution by forces too grand to be natural, and too divine to be human. Unlike many of Africa’s patriots of liberation, he lived and died at a ripe, old age of 95, having spent and been spent to make Africa and the world better than they were at his birth. He died, knowing he had lit the candle for every Africa who understands the cause he stood for, and shares the burden to live and die for the good of a better world.

Very Risky - Samuel Koranteng Pipim

Anything risky requires a license to operate. Hence we need licenses or permits to drive, to practice our professions, to own guns or restaurants, and even to get married. Anything risky—except US! We’re the greatest risk to operate, yet exempt from obtaining a license to run our lives. We were created with the power of CHOICE—an absolute freedom to think, choose, be, or do as we please. How risky! You want proof of this “license-free” right? See how we’ve used it to hate and love, be ignorant and stupid, arrogant and self-sufficient. You want ultimate proof? Look what we did to our Creator on Calvary! Human beings without God are walking time-bombs—they’re “deceitful … and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9)! WE’RE very risky! —Samuel Koranteng-Pipim

Samuel Koranteng-Pipim: Permission is granted to share thought nuggets from this website provided they are reproduced in full and are for non-commercial use only. Pertinent quotes can also be excerpted from the nuggets and shared with others. Users of both nuggets and/or quotes must acknowledge Samuel Koranteng Pipim as the author and give the appropriate EAGLESonline link as the source.

Samuel Koranteng Pipim: AFRICA, Be out of Your Mind!

Africa’s peculiar problems demand a peculiar solution… And in the context of our peculiarities, foibles, & failures, I declare: Africa, Be Out of Your Mind!  Can we? Yes, we can. Should we? Yes, we should. Will we? Yes, we will! For it is merely a matter of time before this continent of the brave & beautiful, the smart & the industrious, teeming with agile men & women capable of undertaking every human endeavor will continue along time-tested paths & find the chart & compass for new paths yet unknown, leading to the desired end. But only if we first get out of our current minds… & have “the mind of Christ.”—S.K. Pipim,

Samuel Koranteng Pipim: Permission is granted to share thought nuggets from this website provided they are reproduced in full and are for non-commercial use only. Pertinent quotes can also be excerpted from the nuggets and shared with others. Users of both nuggets and/or quotes must acknowledge Samuel Koranteng-Pipim as the author and give the appropriate EAGLESonline link as the source.

Samuel Koranteng Pipim GAIN FROM PAIN

Pain is an asset to be invested. Difficulties, trials, and tribulations are often the best resources for future gain. The ancients used an instrument called a “tribulum” (from which we get the word "tribulation") to beat out the ripened grain and separate the wheat from the chaff. No farmer wastes his time and energy to run his “tribulum” over straw, chaff, or weeds, but rather to gain precious grain.  Similarly, our Savior doesn't needlessly put us under the pressure of suffering and pain. No! “We also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3, 4). Don’t waste your pain, for it is a capital asset that has long-term value.—Samuel Koranteng Pipim

Samuel Pipim: African Imports Mindful Nugget

We are brainwashed by whatever is imported onto our continent in the name of Christianity. It’s like having someone chew your food for you & spitting it into your mouth to swallow! Of those who get overseas education, many come back with secondhand ideas, like the way we import secondhand clothes, shoes, underwear, & electronics. …We allow Biblically half-baked preachers, teachers, and healers from the West to dupe us into remaining in mental chains. I fear that some of our mindless leaders will impose such misguided ideas and practices upon unsuspecting Africas, simply because they refuse to think for themselves!—S.K. Pipim, The Transformed Mind, pp. 207-208.

Samuel Koranteng-Pipim: Permission is granted to share  thought nuggets from this website provided they are reproduced in full and are for non-commercial use only. Pertinent quotes can also be excerpted from the nuggets and shared with others. Users of both nuggets and/or quotes must acknowledge Samuel Koranteng-Pipim as the author and give the appropriate EAGLESonline link as the source.

More About Samuel Koranteng Pipim

Dr. Samuel Koranteng Pipim is a Bible-believing scholar, well-known around the world for clarifying, articulating, and defending Christian beliefs and practices. He has spoken extensively in the various world Divisions, teaching or lecturing at several public universities and Christian/denominational institutions, conducting ministerial retreats, preaching at camp meetings, church revival and evangelistic meetings, and speaking extensively at events for youth, students, and young professionals. While greatly appreciated by many Bible-believing church members and leaders around the world, his apologetic writings, candid messages, and influence among young people have not always been appreciated by theologically-liberal thought leaders within the church. 

Religious Background:  Born in a small village in Ghana, West Africa, he was introduced to the Seventh-day Adventist faith at a very early age. However, in his search for something "better," he gravitated towards the "gospel of power," becoming an active member and leader of a non-denominational, charismatic-renewal movement. Years afterwards, the diligent study of the Bible and the message of the book The Great Controversy led him to become a committed Seventh-day Adventist--a church he describes as "the most biblically-consistent, Evangelical Protestant denomination." 

Professional Training: Dr. Pipim first trained as an engineer at the (Kwame Nkrumah) University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana, where he later worked as a research and teaching assistant. In 1982 he resigned from his work at the university in order to serve the Central Ghana Conference as its coordinator of campus ministry. He later pursued a ministerial training at Andrews University, Michigan, where he received a Masters of Divinity degree (1987) and a Ph.D. in systematic theology (1998), specializing in biblical authority & interpretation and ecclesiology. The title of his 410-page doctoral dissertation was "The Role of the Holy Spirit in Biblical Interpretation: A Study in the Writings of James I. Packer," and it was under the supervision of Raoul Dederen, with Clark H. Pinnock as the external examiner.

Biblical and Theological Scholarship:  Dr. Samuel Pipim enjoys theological research and writing. While pursuing his doctoral studies at Andrews University, he was hired by two successive Seminary deans (Dr. Werner Vhymeister and Dr. Raoul Dederen) to serve as their research assistant. The Seminary also employed him as a contract teacher to teach courses in theology, ethics, and church ministry to both its on-campus and off-campus graduate students. Since 1988 he has also lectured and taught courses in ethics and theology on different campuses around the world.