A pastor connected to the sexual assault case of Highpoint Church Teaching Pastor Andy Savage has resigned from his Texas-based church.

Larry Cotton, pastor at The Austin Stone Community Church, announced his resignation last Thursday from the position of director of Internship and Residency Program with the church’s Austin Stone Institute.

In January, Jules Woodson accused Savage of sexually assaulting her in 1998 when he was a youth pastor and she was 17. Savage admitted that her story was correct.

At the time, Woodson had told Cotton about what had happened between her and Savage, but he did not report the incident to authorities.

In his resignation letter, Cotton explained that he opted to step down from his positon at Austin Stone due to “the weight of my mistakes.”

“I now understand that I did not do…

A church in Australia weighed in on the gun control debate following the mass school shooting that took place in Florida, asking on its marquee sign: “When will they love their kids more than they love their guns.”

Gosford Anglican Church, a congregation based in new South Wales known for posting controversial messages supporting progressive viewpoints, posted the sign in response to the Parkland, Florida, school shooting that resulted in 17 deaths.

In a statement posted to its Facebook page last Thursday, Gosford Anglican gave its condolences to the victims and families and also called for a response to gun violence.

“[The United States] is a society destroying itself from within, an empire in decline, it can never be great again. A culture that loves guns more than children has no future other than corruption, decline and death,” stated the church.

Just days after baptizing his young daughter Mallory, Shane Hall, the beloved pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, died following a three-year battle with stomach cancer on Friday. He was 46.

“Dear First Southern Church Family …Our dearly loved Pastor Shane passed this afternoon peacefully at home. God has chosen to heal him in an eternal way. Certainly, our prayers, support, and sympathy are extended to Misty, the girls, and the extended family. For us, as a church family, we grieve and seek to understand while we lean on a loving, faithful God,” Joe Sherrer, associate pastor for discipleship at First Southern Baptist, announced in a statement on Facebook Friday night.

Hall’s wife, Misty, who had been sharing updates on her husband’s health, declared in a hope-filled post on Facebook Friday night that “Tonight he is worshipping with Jesus.”

“‘For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.’ Phil 1:21’we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.’ 2 Cor…