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15 Saved during Church Service Hours before Large Gatherings Are Restricted over Coronavirus
Fifteen people were saved during a church service in France this Sunday, just hours before the French government restricted large gatherings due to an outbreak of the Coronavirus.
In a CBN News video report, Senior Pastor Dorotheé Rajiah of Paris Centre Chrétien – the Paris Christian Center – shared, “Many churches have decided to close their service. So we were wondering what to do. So we decided to stay open and to preach the word and to preach faith.”
The congregation did, however, take additional precautions that meant forgoing long-held cultural and social traditions at the church.
“We told the people,” Raijah said in the video, “they should not shake hands or give [a] kiss. And we told the people that we can wave at people and greet the people with their hands and tell them, ‘I love you from the heart.’”
“And today 15 people got saved. So we are so excited about it,” Rajiah said.
According to CBN News reporter Chuck Holton, there are few protestant churches in France that have more than a thousand members. The Paris Christian Center is one of them.
Holton explained that the Paris Christian Center “doesn’t look much like a church because non-Catholic congregations have been denied building permits for over a hundred years in this country. So the congregation of the Paris Christian Center meets in a renovated parking garage. But that…
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Washington Bill Requiring Sex Education in Kindergarten Moves Forward
A new bill requiring sex education in all Washington public schools, starting at kindergarten, has progressed to the governor.
The highly controversial bill was approved by the state Senate over the weekend despite fierce protests against it, according to KREM-TV.
“I’m offended at the pornography that we’re going to be forced to teach our children,” said Republican state Rep. Robert Sutherland. “I’m offended at what this government is doing to the parents out there.”
The curriculum will focus on teaching kindergartners about boys’ and girls’ bodies, and that gender is on a spectrum and open for interpretation. Older students will dive deeper into issues such LGBTQ, contraception, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and sexual consent.
According to Faithwire, in the first year of implementation, students in sixth through 12th grade will be taught the curriculum. It would expand to all students the next year. Parents are also allowed to opt their children out of the classes.
Opponents of the bill fear schools are going too far.
“Who will decide what is age-appropriate, where there is clearly going to be differences in opinion?” Republican state Sen. Steve o’Ban said. “Should that be a government-mandated decision from [the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction] or should that be based upon the values of parents as reflected in their school boards and…
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Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Christian Headlines.
Democratic debate will be held with no audience: Two life principles
The Democratic National Committee has announced that it will hold Sunday’s presidential debate in Phoenix without a live audience.
This will be the eleventh Democratic debate in this election
season but the first to feature a head-to-head matchup between former Vice
President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard
is still in the race but did not qualify for the debate under the latest set of
rules.
This announcement follows the decision on Tuesday by the Biden and Sanders campaigns to cancel campaign rallies in Cleveland. These changes are motivated, of course, by the coronavirus epidemic sweeping the nation and world.
Two principles follow.
One: Power is not measured by size.
The virus causing so much havoc measures one nine-hundredth
the width of a human hair. Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders are running for what is often
considered the most powerful office in the world. But the former is altering
dramatically the campaigns of the latter.
Power is not always measured by size. A nuclear bomb that
can fit in a backpack or briefcase can destroy Capitol Hill or the Kremlin. An
acorn can produce an oak tree that grows to one hundred feet tall and lives for
five hundred years.
Jesus made the same point in spiritual terms: “The
kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in
his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger
than all the other garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the
air come and make nests in its branches” (Matthew 13:31–32).
Every time you speak a word of biblical truth, you plant
such a seed in an eternal soul.
Two: The audience we cannot see can be more significant than the audience we can.
The absence of a live audience in Phoenix may affect the
dynamics of the debate, but it is not likely to affect its effect on the race.
That’s because Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders are seeking the support…
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Trump DOJ: Christian Photographer Shouldn’t Be Forced to Work Same-Sex Wedding
The Trump administration has sided with a Christian wedding photographer in her fight against a Louisville, Ky., ordinance that could force her to photograph same-sex weddings.
The Department of Justice filed a “Statement of Interest” in federal court Feb. 27, citing the U.S. Constitution, Supreme Court precedent and even James Madison in arguing that the government cannot compel photographer Chelsey Nelson to “photograph, provide photography editing services for, and blog about weddings of which she does not approve.”
“Forcing Ms. Nelson to … participate in a ceremony that violates her sincerely held religious beliefs invades her First Amendment rights,” the DOJ brief says.
At issue is a Louisville ordinance that makes it unlawful “for a person to deny an individual the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of a place of public accommodation, … on the ground of … sexual orientation,” according to the original suit filed on her behalf by Alliance Defending Freedom.
The city of Louisville has acknowledged Nelson would be in violation if she declined a request from a same-sex couple to photograph their wedding.
“The Supreme Court has made plain that the government cannot ‘[compel] individuals to mouth support for views they find objectionable,’” the DOJ brief says.
Nelson, who owns…
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Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Christian Headlines.
Video of Police Officer Singing Gospel Song Goes Viral
A Virginia police officer’s soulful rendition of gospel singer Marvin Sapp’s “The Best in Me” has taken the internet by storm.
After coming off of a shift, officer Mervin Mayo stopped by his church to minister to himself through music. He decided to video the experience in hopes that he could minister to someone else too.
According to CBN News, the video was uploaded on both Mayo’s personal Facebook page and on the Richmond Police Department’s Facebook page.
In the video’s description, Mayo noted that he was inspired by the song and couldn’t get it out of his head, so he decided to sing it.
“I had just gotten off work and stopped by the church, where I am a minister of music, on the way home to do Praise and Worship for myself,” he said, according to CBN News.
“I have to minister to myself before I can minister to someone else,” he added.
The original video was posted by Mayo on March 4 with the caption, “When everyone else around could only see my failures, God saw the best in Me … it doesn’t matter what I did, because God sees me for who I am … He knows MY heart.”
At the time of this writing Mayo’s cover of “The Best in Me” has 1.1 million views across both postings and 40,000 shares on Mayo’s Facebook page, where he sings in full uniform while playing the keyboard.
“I sing in or out of uniform at the drop of a dime,” he said.
“Know that, no matter what you are going…
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Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Christian Headlines.
Here is the True Story of the Coronavirus Plague From a Law Enforcement Officer Who Came Down With the Coronavirus From His Church Choir
Clay Bentley, who is under quarantine and being treated by a Georgia hospital for novel coronavirus, tells CNN what the experience has been like for him.
Source: CNN
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Episcopal Diocese Suspends Communion Wine, Drains Baptismal Fonts Due to Coronavirus
WASHINGTON (RNS) — After an Episcopal rector at a Washington church tested positive for coronavirus, the Episcopal Diocese of Washington is instituting a sweeping set of policies designed to help stop the spread of the disease — including suspending the use of wine during Communion.
This week, officials announced the Rev. Tim Cole, a rector at Christ Church in Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood, had tested positive for the coronavirus that causes the illness known as COVID-19. The cleric was the first confirmed case in the region, and the church’s organist, Tom Smith, has since tested positive for the virus.
The reaction was swift: Cole was quickly hospitalized, Smith is in quarantine, and health officials asked parishioners who attended services recently to self-quarantine due to their potential exposure to the virus.
But church officials expanded safety measures beyond Christ Church on Monday (March 9), when the Rev. Mariann Budde, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, distributed a letter outlining new diocesanwide policies meant to curb the spread of the disease.
The new policies include:
- Suspending the use of the “common cup” and the distribution of wine during Communion, and using wafers instead of bread.
- Ensuring worship leaders sanitize their hands before administering the wafers during Communion.
- Draining all water from baptismal…
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Former Muslim from Sudan Forced into Hiding
JUBA, South Sudan, March 10, 2020 (Morning Star News) – It was more than a year ago that Muslims in the disputed area between Sudan and South Sudan noticed that Ahmed Alnour was no longer reciting his Islamic prayers five times a day.
The tribesman of the ethnic Misseriya Arabs was helping support his wife and seven children in Sudan working as a scrap trader at the Ameth common market in Abyei, a 4,072-square mile special administrative area on the border formed from the peace agreement that ended civil war in Sudan in 2005.
Alnour would soon have to leave that work, forced to flee when area Muslims confirmed that he had become a Christian.
“I saw them and heard them saying, ‘We will kill you because you left Islam and became infidel,’” he said of their attempt to burn down his home the afternoon of April 1, 2019.
Neighbors were able to douse the flames and he escaped unharmed, but on April 8 the assailants returned at 1 a.m. as he slept. He awoke to find his house in flames.
Alnour told Morning Star News that before Christians arrived to rescue him, he heard one of the assailants say in Arabic, “Let us throw him back in the fire, since he has abandoned Islam.”
The Christians took him to a hospital for treatment the following morning. He had lost all his possessions in the fire, including 600,000 South Sudanese pounds equivalent to US$6,000, but he had not lost his faith in Christ, he said.
The…
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Iran Extends Prison Sentence of Christian Convert for ‘Evangelical Zionist Christianity’
JERUSALEM, Israel – Iran has decided to extend the prison sentence of a recently imprisoned Christian convert due to his support for “Evangelical Zionist Christianity,” the persecution watchdog Article 18 reported.
Ismaeil Maghrebinejad, 65, was sentenced in January to three years in prison for “insulting Islamic sacred beliefs,” “propaganda against the Islamic Republic,” and “apostasy.” Maghrebinijad, whose daughter and son-in-law live in the United States, is a former Muslim who converted to Christianity. It is illegal to leave the Muslim faith in Iran.
Now, Maghrebinejad will face two extra years in prison following a hearing on Feb 27 for his “membership of a group hostile to the regime.”
The court document said the group teaches “Evangelical Zionist Christianity.”
Article 18 Advocacy Director Mansour Borji, says Maghrebinejad is a member of an Anglican church, and this labeling of him as evangelical shows that “such blanket labeling is inaccurately applied to any Christian arrested for their religious activities, as the revolutionary courts try to justify their violations of religious freedom.”
Maghrebinejad has 20 days to appeal.
Open Doors USA reports that Maghrebinejad is not a recent convert to Christianity but gave his life to Christ nearly 40 years ago and that he has been “harassed” by Iranian authorities for years.
Maghrebinejad is just one of many Iranian Christians who are persecuted each year.
Article 18 recently reported that nine Christian converts who were sentenced to five years in prison last year for committing “actions against national security” lost their appeals on Feb. 25. None of their attorneys were allowed to attend the hearing.
Their names are Behnam Akhlaghi, Babak Hosseinzadeh, Mehdi Khatibi, Khalil Dehghanpour, Hossein Kadivar, Kamal Naamanian Mohammed Vafada, and Shahrooz Eslamdoost.
All nine were arrested last year between January and February.
Iran is number 9 on the Open Doors’ 2020 World Watch List, and Christians who worship in secret are frequently monitored and imprisoned for following Christ.
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