A United Methodist Church bishop has defended a plan to remove the denomination’s official stance against homosexual acts, claiming that while “not perfect” it welcomes both liberals and conservatives.

Next year, the UMC will hold a special General Conference to determine whether to retain its official opposition to homosexuality and gay marriage.

One proposal, known as the “One Church Plan,” seeks to allow individual congregations and some regional bodies to determine their position on sexual ethics.

Louisiana Area Bishop Cynthia Fierro Harvey, president-designate of the UMC Council of Bishops, released a video on Wednesday, explaining her support for the “One Church Plan.”

Bishop Harvey stated that of the possible plans, the One Church Plan is “the one that’s most faithful to my consecration as a bishop, to guard the faith and the unity of the church. Not the uniformity of the church, but the unity of the church.”

Harvey went on to note her own experiences of being excluded when growing up, due to things like being a woman, Latino, and coming from a rough neighborhood.

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A Canadian-based organization released a series of YouTube videos Sept. 5 that use puppets to teach children that gender identity confusion and transgenderism is normal.

The three short videos target children by using a lively puppet named Julien, who says his name once was Julia. The videos show Julien’s transition from a girl to a boy and include skits about the puppet getting a haircut, wearing new clothes, and playing with new gender-specific toys.

“Hello. My name is Julien,” the puppet says in an introductory video. “When I was little, people called me Julia and thought I was a little girl. But in my heart, I felt like I was a little boy. If you want to get to know my world, friends and wonderful story, click on this link.”

The link takes viewers to other videos – available in English and French – that show Julien’s transition.  

“I feel sad,” he says in the first video when he is a girl.

“Really? Why do you feel so sad?” Julien’s friend asks. 

“I need people to stop calling me Julia.”

“Alright. What do you want them to call you?”

“Julien,” the puppet responds. “I’m not a little girl. I’ve never felt like a girl. Everyone thinks I’m a little girl. … I don’t want to wear dresses or girls’ clothes anymore.”

Julien’s friend then tells him that she’ll be his friend and go to…

Cru Inner City is helping 25,000 students head back to school this season with all the supplies they need. According to the Kids in Need Foundation, more than 16 million kids live in “extreme poverty in the U.S. and arrive on the first day of school without the supplies they need to learn.” In Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, Cru Inner City is working to help the nearly 100,000 kids in the area who are living in poverty. 

Cru Inner City is a Christian organization that partners with inner-city churches across the U.S., and this year in Minneapolis and St. Paul, they partnered with 80 churches to help distribute backpacks filled with school supplies, which they call Power Packs.

The powerpack initiative is setting kids in these two cities up to have successful school years and are also connecting families with churches.

According to The Christian Post, Cru Inner City has packed and distributed thousands of Power Packs to some of the most impoverished areas in the U.S.

In a video posted to Pureflix.com, one of the initiatives sponsors this year, Aaron Robertson of Cru Inner City explained that “The scope of poverty in the inner city is complex and overwhelming,” and the organization hopes to show “God’s heart for the poor.”

The organization also hopes that Power Packs can work to not only provide kids with the resources they need to be successful but to…

Family and friends of late Inland Hills Church Lead Pastor Andrew Stoecklein, who died after attempting suicide on Aug. 24, said their final farewells in a touching tribute Saturday as his widow, Kayla, vowed to continue a campaign to improve mental health awareness in the church.

“If there is one encouragement I can leave you with today it’s don’t give up. If you are struggling, tell someone, tell them everything, don’t worry about them judging you for it. The enemy wants you to feel isolated, the enemy wants you to feel unloved and worthless. I am here to tell you that you are loved and valued more than you could ever imagine and God has a great plan for your life no matter who you are, no matter your past, God’s got you, God’s got this, and God can do impossible things,” Kayla Stoecklein, 29, told those gathered for her late husband’s funeral at California Baptist University in Riverside, California.

She went on to reiterate the advice on Sunday on the Stoecklein family’s blog, God’s Got This, just a day before the marking of World Suicide…

Talks aimed at bringing a peaceful end to the civil war in Yemen ended Saturday after the Houthi delegation failed to show. The United Nations’ mediator Martin Griffiths vowed to keep pushing for a diplomatic solution to the crisis. 

The conflict in Yemen has become a proxy battle for supremacy in the troubled region. Saudi Arabia backs the government led by Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which was displaced by the war. President Hadi, a Sunni Muslim, has been living in exile in Riyadh. 

Iran supports the Houthi rebels, members of the Zaidi branch of Shiite Islam, who control of the capital city of Sana’a. The most recent statistics show that 56 percent of Yemen is Sunni and 42 percent identifies with the Zaidis.

Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthis blamed the Saudi-led coalition for their inability to get to the peace conference. In a speech on al-Masirah TV, he said, “We all know that the talks collapsed because of the obstruction of the national delegation from leaving and traveling to Geneva by the coalition forces.”

The group was to travel to the conference in a plane provided by neighboring Oman. They said they asked the United Nations for assurances that they would not have to stop in Djibouti to be inspected by the Saudis, who have controlled Yemeni airspace since 2015.

Martin Griffiths announced plans to travel to the Arabian Peninsula to revive peace talks….

President Donald Trump is expected to head a United Nations Security Council meeting centered on the Middle East.

According to The Jerusalem Post, Trump is trying to push through sanctions against Iran.

“We want to make sure that [the Iranians] understand the world is watching [and] that is the biggest reason for this meeting,” US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said.

The meeting is scheduled for later this month.

“President Trump is very adamant that we have to start making sure that Iran is falling in line with international order,” Haley said.

“If you continue to look at the spread Iran has had in supporting terrorism, if you continue to look at the ballistic missile testing that they are doing, if you continue to look at the sales of weapons we see with the Huthis in Yemen – these are all violations of security council resolutions.

“These are all threats to the region, and these are all things that the international community needs to talk about,” she added.

Meanwhile, the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted a statement, claiming that Trump was a bully.

“There’s only one UNSC resolution on Iran. @realDonaldTrump is violating it & bullying others to do same. Now he plans to abuse [the rotating] presidency of [the Security Council which Washington holds in September] to divert a session—item devoted to Palestine for 70…

A Methodist pastor testifying before the U.S. Senate Friday used Scripture to argue that Christian and religious groups should be forced to cover abortion-causing drugs and devices. 

Alicia Baker, a Free Methodist Church pastor from Indiana, urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to block the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court in part due to a dissenting opinion he wrote in 2015. In that opinion, Kavanaugh asserted that he would grant exemptions to religious organizations in Obamacare and allow them to decline coverage of drugs and devices that can cause abortions post-fertilization. 

Baker was preparing for her wedding in 2016 and exploring birth control options. She opted to use an IUD and assumed that her insurer — Guidestone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention – would cover it. But she received a message from Guidestone saying that the insurer “does not provide coverage for abortions or abortion-causing drugs, as this violates our Biblical convictions on sanctity of life.”

Said Baker: “An IUD is a form of birth control that prevents pregnancy; it does not terminate pregnancy.”

Guidestone and other religious organizations point to scientific evidence that IUDs – and morning-after pills – can act post-fertilization. Those organizations believe life begins at conception. A United Nations report in 1996 said…

Christian philanthropist, Magic basketball team owner, and billionaire Richard DeVos passed away on Thursday at the age of 92.

According to the Oakland Press, DeVos, died at home in Ada, Michigan, following complications from an infection. 

The deceased’s grandson Rick DeVos took to Twitter to update DeVos’s followers in a series of tweets saying, “Early this morning our family’s patriarch, Richard DeVos Sr. went home to join his dear wife Helen with Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. These next days will be full of great joy and sadness as our family celebrates a life truly well lived and mourns the coming days without him.”

Early this morning our family’s patriarch, Richard DeVos Sr. went home to join his dear wife Helen with Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. These next days will be full of great joy and sadness as our family celebrates a life truly well lived and mourns the coming days without him.

— Rick DeVos (@RickDeVos) September 6, 2018

Rick DeVos continued, “We celebrate Grandma & Grandpa’s incredible legacy of creation & generosity as a generational chapter closes. The next generation has already taken up their standard, and another follows close behind. It is an unbelievable honor to carry the name Richard Marvin DeVos III.”

We celebrate Grandma & Grandpa’s incredible legacy of creation & generosity as a generational chapter…