Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence says he relied on Scripture during his team’s last-second victory in the College Football Playoff semifinals Saturday.

The No. 3 Tigers edged No. 2 Ohio State 29-23 in the Fiesta Bowl thanks in part to Lawrence’s 34-yard touchdown pass to Travis Etienne with 1:49 left.   

After the game, Lawrence told a national audience that he relied on a Bible verse – Ephesians 3:20 – written on his left wristband.

“I have Ephesians 3:20 and it says, ‘God can do immeasurably more than any of us can because of Him within us.’ And that’s just so true,” Lawrence said, paraphrasing the verse. “Me, what we did tonight – it ain’t us. It’s about this program and who we are. And just our brand.”

Clemson trailed 23-21 with 3:07 left when Lawrence led the Tigers on a four-play, 94-yard touchdown drive. Asked what he told his teammates before the drive, Lawrence said, “Let’s go win it. We were built for this.”

Lawrence – who finished seventh in this year’s Heisman Trophy voting – is known for his Christian faith. His Twitter bio reads, “Pursuing Him at all costs.” In 2018, he told media members, “I put my identity in what Christ says, who He thinks I am and who I know that He says I am.” 

“Football is important to me, obviously, but it is not my life,” he said in 2018. “It is not like the biggest thing…

Two churchgoers were killed on Sunday when a gunman entered a Texas church and opened fire. The gunman was also killed after armed parishioners returned fire.

According to local news station KIRO 7, more than 240 parishioners were gathered inside West Freeway Church of Christ near Fort Worth, Texas, when a gunman began firing upon them. The gunman shot two members of the church before two members of the church’s security team drew their own weapons killing the shooter. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told the Associated Press that the church security team “responded quickly and within six seconds, the shooting was over.” He added, “Two of the parishioners who were volunteers of the security force drew their weapons and took out the killer immediately, saving [an] untold number of lives.”

According to MedStar spokeswoman Macara Trusty, the gunman and one victim were initially pronounced dead at the hospital. Dallas Morning News reports that after going into cardiac arrest en route to a hospital, the shooter’s second victim was initially resuscitated. Unfortunately, later that evening, news stations reported that the second victim, too, had died.

Authorities have yet to release the names of the shooter or the victims, though one family member told NBC 5 affiliate KXAS-TV that her father was one of the victims killed.

Tiffany Wallace recalled the moment she noticed her father, Anton “Tony” Wallace, had been…

A former Nike employee who identifies as “transmasculine” filed a $1.1 million lawsuit against the company last week, claiming gender identity-based harassment due to the use of wrong pronouns.

Jazz Lyles was a computer engineer at Nike from May 2017 to September 2018 and was often “misgendered” by employees, according to the lawsuit. Lyles prefers the pronouns “they/them/their,” according to CBS News.

“When someone refuses to acknowledge a person’s gender identity or insists on referring to them by a gender to which they do not identify (called misgendering), this causes real and significant harm,” the complaint says, according to CBS News. “This is particularly true when a person is misgendered repeatedly on a daily basis.”

Lyles, the suit says, was given the responsibility of educating fellow employees about the preferred pronouns. One co-worker refused to use the preferred pronouns due to religious reasons. Another worker allegedly said, “I know I’m not supposed to call you ‘she-male.” Still, another worker did not want to work with Lyles. 

“Nike allegedly fostered a ‘boys-club ‘jock mentality’ work culture that was hostile to people who do not fit gender stereotypes, which the complaint said is contrary to the progressive reputation the sporting goods company enjoys with the public,” CBS News reported.

Lyles reported the incidents to Nike, which often…

Grace Fellowship UMC of Katy, Texas has voted to leave the United Methodist Church denomination over its debate on homosexuality.

According to the Christian Post, the Texas church voted earlier in December to make the split as the United Methodist Church denomination debates making an amendment to the Book of Discipline. The change would remove language calling homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Jim Leggett, the founding pastor of Grace Fellowship, said Monday that the congregation wanted to “remove ourselves from the dysfunctional fighting going on in the United Methodist Church so that we can fully devote our energies to fulfilling the mission and vision that God has given to us.”

“At one point, we looked up and noticed that we were spending easily 30 percent of our leadership meeting time discussing the issues of the UMC, and we realized that this was not good stewardship of our time and resources for the Kingdom of God,” said Leggett.

“In the last year, it has become clear to us that despite having biblical standards of morality on paper in the denomination’s Book of Discipline, the leadership of the United Methodist Church is unable or unwilling to live by those standards.”

He said the congregation may affiliate with the Free Methodist Church.

“We have a distinct culture with deeply-held values that have been shaped over our 160-year history,” the…

Nick Ahmed is known as one of Major League Baseball’s top defensive players, but six years ago, he was a struggling minor leaguer, unsure what the future held. 

Then he gave his life to Christ.

Ahmed, a shortstop for the Arizona Diamondbacks and a two-time Gold Glove winner, said recently during a “Breakfast & Baseball” speech at Hillside Community Church in Bristol, Conn., that his outlook on his career and life changed during an encounter with God on a hot and muggy night in Mobile, Ala. – right in the middle of a minor league game.

LISTEN: Gold Glove shortstop @nickahmed13 of the Diamondbacks shares a portion of his testimony recently in Connecticut at @Hillsidebristol church. pic.twitter.com/NQdl0ORjzR

— Sports Spectrum (@Sports_Spectrum) December 24, 2019

“The first two at-bats were terrible. I strike out. I ground into a double play. I’m like, ‘Here we go again.’ I [had] all this fear and anxiety and worry about my dream being ripped away from me. … Every day I showed up to the ballpark, I was like, ‘Man, this is going to be my last game. I’m going to fail again. The next day I’m going to get released. I’m going to have to give up on my dream and it’s going to be over.’”

But between the fourth and fifth innings, he handed his career to God. 

“I [ran] out to play shortstop, play defense, and for whatever reason I just stood there, and I didn’t take…

Nearly 200 faith leaders are pushing back against a recent Christianity Today editorial calling for President Trump’s removal from office, saying the piece “offensively questioned the spiritual integrity and Christian witness of tens-of-millions of believers who take seriously their civic and moral obligations.

“It not only targeted our President; it also targeted those of us who support him, and have supported you.”

The comments were made in a Dec. 22 open letter to CT President Timothy Dalrymple and published by the Christian Post. The letter also takes umbrage at comments Mark Galli, the editorial’s author, subsequently made during a cable news interview about the fallout.

“It was astonishing to us that your editor-in-chief, Mark Galli, further offensively dismissed our point of view on CNN by saying, “Christianity Today is not read by the people—Christians on the far right, by evangelicals on the far right—so they’re going to be as dismissive of the magazine as President Trump has shown to be.”

The letter went on to talk about the need for Christian involvement in public service.

“We are proud to be numbered among those in history who, like Jesus, have been pretentiously accused of having too much grace for tax collectors and sinners, and we take deeply our personal responsibility to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s—our public…