Mirroring other Western countries, the nation of Sweden has documented an astronomical rise in gender dysphoria diagnoses among teenagers in the past decade.

Between 2008 and 2018, the rate of teen girls ages 13 to 17 being diagnosed with gender dysphoria grew by approximately 1,500 percent, a report from Sweden’s Board of Health and Welfare said, according to The Guardian.

The report follows backlash, which began in March, in the Scandinavian country after the government, heavily swayed by the Swedish LGBT group RFSL, proposed a new law in the fall of 2018 that would have lowered the age for medicalized gender treatments, scrapped parental consent, and permitted kids as young as 12 to change their gender on legal documents.

In October, an investigative news program highlighted Stockholm’s Karolinska University hospital, which received criticism for performing double mastectomies on trans-identifying females as young as 14.

As has been the case in other gender identity medical outfits around the world, the Karolinska Institute was accused of hurriedly steering young people through the experimental practices without giving due consideration to other contributing factors to gender dysphoria and relevant psychiatric comorbidities. The Swedish center pushed back, asserting it was carefully reviewing every case.

Amid the allegations of the rushing of patients through the gender change process, including one from the father of a trans-identified person — who died by suicide four years after surgery — authorities ordered the Board of Health and Welfare to reassess the issue just before legislation that would lower the age for such treatments was about to be debated in parliament.

In December, the Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment reported that “there was very little research either into the reason for the increase or the risks or benefits of hormone treatment and surgery,” The Guardian reported.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Brandon Showalter

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The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of BCNN1. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author(s).

I’ve always been a student of revival.

Since I was a teenager I have studied revivals and spiritual awakenings with a voracious appetite. I have scoured books about them and have listened to sermons on them, looking for the keys to revival, longing to be a part of the next great move of God on earth.

Books like George Whitfield…Life and Times of the Great Evangelist of the 18th Century Revival (Volumes 1 & 2), Lectures to my Students by Charles Spurgeon, Movements that Change the World by Steve Addison, Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret by J. Hudson Taylor, The Life of Dwight L. Moody by William R. Moody and so many more…have been on my reading and re-reading list for decades.

But, as much as I’ve loved reading these books and others like them, I’m tired of just reading about revival and awakening.

I want to be a part of one.

Just a few weeks ago I was invited to speak at an event called Go2020 USA. My good friend Dave Gibson is the North American Executive Director of Go2020 and he asked me to do the closing challenge to 110 key national ministry leaders attending this catalytic meeting.

Go2020 is a global Gospel advancing movement that is mobilizing 100 million believers worldwide to share the Gospel with one billion people in the year 2020. Of course, this is a movement that everyone at Dare 2 Share, the ministry I lead, is excited about! After all our vision at Dare 2 Share is “every teen everywhere hearing the Gospel from a friend!”

Speaking to these leaders was a great privilege that I did not take lightly. By the time I boarded the plane from Denver to Orlando my sermon was complete. I was going to preach on the 5 characteristics of a movement based on Steve Addison’s book, Movements that Change the World.

But once on the plane, the Spirit of God convicted me that this was not the sermon He wanted me to preach. After praying, He guided me to my new sermon. It was entitled, 3 ways to kickstart a movement based on Acts 4:31-33.

I was ready to preach it…or so I thought.

After a day full of strategic meetings at the Go2020 meeting and just moments before I walked to the stage to preach, I suddenly realized that the 3 points to my sermon were already in full play, not just nationally, but globally.

There was no kickstarting a movement, the movement had already begun, long before I boarded any plane. As I scanned my sermon and looked at the 3 keys to kickstarting a movement, and thought back to all that had been shared that day, it struck me, these 3 keys were starting to happen nationally and were in full swing globally.

Right there I changed my sermon title to “3 Signs a Spiritual Awakening has begun” based on Acts 4:31-33. If there ever was an example of spiritual awakening its the book of Acts and this passage contains all the elements that reflect a true and sweeping spiritual move of God.

Here is the passage and the 3 points I preached that day to these ministry leaders.

“After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all.”  Acts 4:31-33

The first sign a spiritual movement has begun is that…

SOURCE: Christian Post, Greg Stier

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New research by the evangelical Christian polling firm Barna Group, which looked at how Americans relate with the churches they attend, reveals five notable trends affecting pastors and Christian leaders.

The findings are part of the State of the Church 2020 study, a year-long examination of the spiritual and religious trends that define American life these days. The researchers primarily explored two different categories of adults who have relatively recent experience in a Christian church: practicing Christians and churched adults.

“In the first case, we’re talking about those who are the most church savvy adults. In the second, we’re looking at all of those adults who are reasonably familiar with the experience of churchgoing,” Barna President David Kinnaman explained in an article based on the research.

Here are the five trends that Barna discovered:

1. Declining church loyalty, ‘church hopping’

Barna found that nearly two in five churchgoers report regularly attending multiple churches, suggesting that just because somebody might attend church doesn’t mean they attend the same church every time.

However, 63 percent of churched adults and 72 percent of practicing Christians tend to stick with a single congregation. And nearly two in five churched adults and one-quarter of practicing Christians at least occasionally attend other churches.

“Interestingly, church hoppers are just as likely as more loyal attenders to report weekly attendance. In other words, just because they select from a handful of different churches to attend doesn’t make them any less likely to actually attend church on any given weekend,” the study says. “Also, those who ‘hop around’ don’t do so as a routine part of their churchgoing in a given month, but typically attend another church occasionally.”

2. Churchgoers on the value of church

The study shows that two-thirds of churched adults say they attend church because they “enjoy doing it,” and the same is true for four in five practicing Christians. One in six churchgoers says they attend because they “have to” and one in seven says they do so “out of habit.”

“While most churchgoers attribute positive feelings to their participation in church, half of Christians agree that ‘church as usual’ is declining in popularity. Or, at least, churchgoers perceive that other people feel this way,” it says.

About half of Christians and more than half of churched adults overall admit that people they know are tired of the usual type of church experience, it adds. “While you might think that some groups of Christians are more likely than others to feel this way, data show no significant difference across denomination, generation or faith segment.”

SOURCE: Christian Post, Anugrah Kumar

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The 2020 Movieguide Awards aired on Hallmark Drama Monday and “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” took home the top prize at the faith and family Hollywood event. 

The mainstream film won the honor of Best Movie for Families, and the hit film about Fred Rogers, “A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood,” won Best Movie for Mature Audiences.

“There’s nothing cooler than looking at a dad laughing at one of our jokes and he looks down at his 8-year-old daughter and she’s laughing at the same joke. It’s just so inspirational,” “The Lego Movie 2” Director Mike Mitchell told The Christian Post on the red carpet and then repeated when accepting the award.

“I’m so thankful for you guys and [Movieguide founder and publisher Dr. Ted] Baehr to honor a film that’s for the whole family. That’s so great that everyone can laugh at,” he added while on stage.

Co-director Trisha Gum celebrated and told the audience her mother was “praying” that their film would win.

Other award winners included:

SOURCE: Christian Post, Jeannie Law

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Trump administration can enforce a rule denying Title X funds to family planning clinics that promote abortion.

In an opinion released Monday and authored by Circuit Judge Sandra Ikuta, the Ninth Circuit vacated multiple injunctions from lower courts against the Protect Life Rule and sent it back to the lower courts for further proceedings “consistent with this opinion.”

“Regulations issued in 1988, and upheld by the Supreme Court in 1991, completely prohibited the use of Title X funds in projects where clients received counseling or referrals for abortion as a method of family planning,” wrote Ikuta.

“In light of Supreme Court approval of the 1988 regulations and our broad deference to agencies’ interpretations of the statutes they are charged with implementing, plaintiffs’ legal challenges to the 2019 rule fail.”

Ikuta took issue with the term “Gag Rule” that critics use, as Ikuta wrote that the Trump administration regulation, created in March of last year, is less restrictive than the 1988 regulations.

“But the 2019 rule is less restrictive in at least one important respect: a counselor providing nondirective pregnancy counseling ‘may discuss abortion’ so long as ‘the counselor neither refers for, nor encourages, abortion’ … There is no ‘gag’ on abortion counseling,” noted Ikuta.

Circuit Judge Richard A. Paez authored a dissent, being joined by Chief Judge Sidney R. Thomas and Circuit Judges Kim McLane Wardlaw and William Fletcher.

“Three separate district courts in well-reasoned opinions recognized that the Rule breaches Congress’s limitations on the scope of HHS’s authority and enjoined enforcement of the Rule,” dissented Paez.

“In vacating the district courts’ preliminary injunctions, the majority sanctions the agency’s gross overreach and puts its own policy preferences before the law.”

SOURCE: Christian Post, Michael Gryboski

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