Gospel Acts VIRTUE Return with New Style and Music

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Gospel Acts VIRTUE Return with New Style and Music

Dove award winning, Grammy-nominated veteran Urban Contemporary Gospel female trio VIRTUE returns with new look and music after an eight year recording hiatus. Comprised of sisters Ebony Holland, Karima Kibble, and Heather Martin – the dynamic trio will release their long-awaited first single “You Deserve” written and produced by Grammy® Award winner Fred Jerkins (Beyoncé , Destiny’s Child, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson) and Grammy® – nominated Alvin Garrett (Joe, Deitrick Haddon, Ruben Studdard) to gospel radio in September 2014.

The trio is slated to release their full length album in 2015 on their new record label home Mixed Bag Entertainment (founded by Christian Hip Hop artist Da Truth).

“We are so excited and blessed to be able to have another opportunity to share our ministry with the world.” [states Heather]

“We’ve grown tremendously and God has shown us so many different things during the time we were away. We’ve missed performing together, our friends in the industry and especially all of our fans, so it’s long overdue and we are ecstatic about this new season for Virtue!”

VIRTUE are widely known for their inimitable vocal hits like “Get Ready,” “Put Your War Clothes On,” “Til’ You Believe,” “Lord, I Lift My Hands,” and more. Their discography shines on the hems of five studio albums – VIRTUE (1997), GET READY (1999), VIRTUOSITY (2001), FREE (2003), and TESTIMONY (2006) that brought with them no shortage of critical and commercial acclaim with career sales exceeding well over 400,000.

After a successful career and countless achievements, VIRTUE returns as pre-distinguished figures in Urban Contemporary Gospel music. Undoubtedly inking yet another page to their illustrious story – A journey that saw its humble beginnings in New Orleans the trio thrilled audiences with airtight harmonies and heartfelt deliveries of praise-and-worship numbers.

Now, with nearly a decade separating them from their last studio release, the ladies are ready to carve a new path along the trail of Urban Contemporary Gospel. Having supplemented their time away from the genre’s spotlight to tend to family matters, the trio is now preparing a project to not only showcase their maturity as women, but as artists as well.

Label co-founder Gary Crockett explains, “We are beyond excited to have a group like Virtue signed to Mixed Bag Entertainment as one of our marquee artists. They are one of the original Gospel girl groups in the industry and to be able to work with a group that left such an impact in Gospel music is a blessing! It has been almost 10 years since the world has heard new music from them, so not only are we excited as a label, but we know Virtue fans are going to love what they have been working on this past year!”

Source: PraiseWorld Radio

African Religious Leaders Unite for Climate Change

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African Religious Leaders Unite for Climate Change

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) As climate change devastates communities in Kenya, church leaders are helping to address the crisis locally while also calling on industrialized nations to own up to their responsibilities for spewing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

I think they (industrialized nations) are responsible for most of the emissions,” said Peter Solomon Gichira, the climate change program officer at the All Africa Conference of Churches. “They have responsibility to support climate change adaptation and mitigation as a moral obligation.”

“But we (in Africa) also have a role to play because we have not been very good stewards of the environment,” added Gichira, a poverty and development expert.

People living in the Global South such as Kenya are suffering the worst consequences, climate experts say.

Droughts have become more severe and recurrent and are frequently followed by excessive rains or floods. Temperatures are much higher and weather patterns are now unpredictable.

In conferences, church leaders and officials have heard from experts that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide from industrial plants trap heat, slowing or preventing it from being lost in space.

“We need enhanced adaptive capacity in partnership with the nations,” said the Rev. Patrick Maina, a conservationist with the Presbyterian Church of East Africa.

Maina runs a massive tree planting project on church compounds and members’ farms in his presbytery in the Great Rift Valley area. He also gives talks on climate change.

Recently, Maina and other church leaders have stepped up efforts to help communities cope with the crisis.

In eastern Kenya, villagers are constructing structures known as sand dams with support from the Mennonite Central Committee. Working through the Utooni Development Organization, a self-help group, villagers in the largely Christian Utooni area are building large concrete walls across a dry riverbed, stopping or slowing down the rapid flow of rainwater to the Indian Ocean.

The simple structures — 231 have been built since 2009 — store water under the riverbed, so it can be used for irrigation, tree planting and domestic consumption throughout the year. With 50 sand dams constructed each year, the area is much cooler and better to live in, according to Esther Mbolu, a resident of Utooni.

Selena McCoy Carpenter, Kenya representative with the Mennonite Central Committee, said some people who did not have water can now access it and others who could not grow food are now capable of farming.

“By providing basic needs, we are showing God’s compassion,” she said.

On the slopes of Mount Kenya, Trade Craft East Africa, a nongovernmental organization and the Christian Community Services of Mount Kenya East, a development agency in five Anglican dioceses, are helping small-scale farmers adapt to climate change through use of both modern and traditional weather forecasting methods.

Farmers predict weather by using indigenous practices such as watching flying dragonflies, low-swooping swallows or flowering acacia trees.

But with weather patterns becoming unpredictable, farmers have been adding scientific forecasts delivered by meteorologists to determine when or what crops to plant.

“This is resulting in good harvest,” said Eston Njuki, a program officer at British-based Christian Aid, which funded the project with the Anglican Diocese of Mbeere. “The farmers are able to beat or reduce the threat of climate change.”

Source: RNS

Spanish Nurse Contracts Dreaded Ebola

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Spanish Nurse Contracts Dreaded Ebola

A Spanish nurse has contracted Ebola after treating two patients who died from the disease at a Madrid hospital, the government said Monday, in the first known case of transmission outside of Africa.

The 40-year-old began to feel ill on September 30 but did not go to hospital until Sunday, complaining of a fever.

Two tests have now confirmed that she has been infected with the deadly virus that has killed more than 3,400 people in west Africa.

Spanish health officials are scrambling to find out who she may have come into contact with, and are monitoring 30 people — including her co-workers and husband — closely for symptoms of the deadly disease.

The woman was part of a medical team at Madrid’s La Paz-Carlos III hospital that treated two elderly Spanish missionaries who died of Ebola shortly after they were repatriated from Africa.

She had gone on holiday the day after the second patient died on September 25, Madrid’s primary healthcare director, Antonio Alemany, said at a news conference, without specifying where she had travelled to.

The nurse, who is married without children, is now being treated in isolation at a hospital in Alcorcon, a southern Madrid suburb.

She is in a stable condition although still running a fever, Alemany added.

– Repatriation deemed risky –

News of the nurse’s infection has sparked renewed questions about the Spanish government’s decision to repatriate infected missionaries from Africa, with critics saying that the nation’s hospitals were not adequately equipped to deal with Ebola cases.

The nurse had treated Spanish priest Miguel Pajares, 75, who was infected with Ebola in Liberia and died on August 12, as well as Manuel Garcia Viejo, 69, who was repatriated from Sierra Leone and died on September 25.

Pajares was the first patient in the fast-spreading Ebola outbreak to be evacuated to Europe for treatment.

Both missionaries were treated in isolation at La Paz-Carlos III hospital, and the medical team that cared for them were closely monitored.

But a union that represents Spanish doctors, Amyts, had called the repatriation “risky”.

“We are working to see if all the protocols which were established were strictly followed,” Health Minister Ana Mato told the news conference.

“Spain follows all the recommendations of the World Health Organization,” she added.

The Ebola virus causes fever, muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and sometimes internal and external bleeding.

It spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of someone who has the virus, and the only way to stop an outbreak is to isolate those who are infected.

There is no market-approved drug for treating Ebola yet, and no vaccine to prevent it.

Of several prototype treatments in the pipeline, one dubbed ZMapp has been fast-tracked for use, developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical in California in conjunction with the US Army.

Ebola has caused 3,439 deaths out of 7,478 cases across five west African nations — Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal, according to the latest tally from the World Health Organisation.

Europe and the United States have also been touched by the disease, but until now all the cases stemmed from people who caught the virus in west Africa.

– ‘Extraordinarily low’ chance of US outbreak –

Seeking to allay fears about contagion in the United States, President Barack Obama said the chances of an outbreak in his country were “extraordinarily low”.

He vowed however to press world leaders to step up the global fight against the deadly epidemic in west Africa.

US health officials said a Liberian man diagnosed with Ebola in Texas had received an experimental drug called brincidofovir, the first time the medicine has been used to fight the virus.

The man’s condition worsened from serious to critical over the weekend.

Also on Monday, the charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced that a Norwegian employee had contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone and would be repatriated shortly.

Another MSF worker, a French nurse, caught the virus while volunteering in neighbouring Liberia but has been cured, according to the French government.

French President Francois Hollande said before the Spanish case was revealed that France was ready to deal with any outbreak of Ebola on its soil.

“We would be capable of providing treatment if any cases occur in France,” he said.

Source: BCNN 1

US Supreme Court to Decide location of Jerusalem

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US Supreme Court to Decide location of Jerusalem

(Washington, DC)—It all started when the American parents of Menachem Zivotofsky—in Jerusalem in 2002—wanted to add “Israel” to their son’s passport which now simply says “born in Jerusalem.” (Photo: Jerusalem/Wikipedia Commons)

Such small requests can produce B-I-G consequences, as is the case starting this week when Supreme Court justices begin deliberations to determine the outcome of the request.

According to an earlier report on Virtual Jerusalem, in 2002, President George W. Bush signed a bill declaring Israel as Jerusalemites’ nationality into law, but added a signed statement condemning it as unacceptable interference in the president’s powers to conduct foreign policy.

Breaking Israel News (BIN) notes that the case, Zivotofsky v. Kerry, “highlights a major dispute between the US Congress and the US president with complex Middle Eastern politics serving as a background.”

That is because the high court judges will not be ruling as to whether or not the US will recognize Jerusalem as being located in the country of Israel, but whether or not the President of the United States alone has the authority to say who Jerusalem belongs to.

BIN also noted that The Obama administration maintains that the law would be viewed as a US endorsement of Israeli control over Jerusalem. The executive branch says that the Congressional law interferes with the president’s right to recognize a foreign country.

Source: Christian Breaking News

Preacher Charged With ‘Religious Aggravation’

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Preacher Charged With ‘Religious Aggravation’

Street evangelist Mike Overd, a client of the Christian Legal Centre, is being prosecuted in the United Kingdom for an alleged religious aggravation public order offense.

The charges follow a complaint to police in Taunton, that Overd made a comparison between the perfect life of Jesus and the life of Islam’s prophet, Muhammad.

Police have informed the former paratrooper that the Crown Prosecution Service wishes to bring three charges against him under Section 5 of the Public Order Act.

A Taunton police sergeant recently gave an interview to BBC television and a newspaper locally, urging residents to film the evangelist’s preaching as it was alleged that Overd’s preaching was “causing offense.”

The officer has also asked local traders to film Overd if they believed he was preaching “offensively.”

Overd insists that when he made a comparison between the perfect life of Jesus and the life led by Muhammad, he did not speak in a hateful way.

“It was a simple comparison and it was factual. Muhammad did marry a 9-year-old girl. I have no hatred of Muslims in me at all and only preach the truth of the gospel. Recently a Muslim man came to my defense when I was preaching and a local shopkeeper started to shout at me.

“The Muslim gentleman didn’t take offense because he said he knew I was simply preaching what I believed and agreed there was no hatred in me. I’ve got this incident on video, and I also have video evidence of the incidents which have led to this forthcoming prosecution.”

Overd has been told his case will come to court before the end of this year.

Source: Charisma News

NY High School Violates Rights of Christian Students

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NY High School Violates Rights of Christian Students

Educators at Ward Melville High School are either woefully ignorant of the U.S. Constitution or they really don’t like Christian teenagers.

For the second year in a row, the Long Island, New York high school has denied students the right to form a Christian club.

“I feel like they have something against me and my faith,” 17-year-old John Raney told me. “I feel marginalized.”

John is the founder of Students United in Faith, a service-oriented Christian club. Nearly 20 young people wanted to join the club—but the school said no.

“I wanted to start the club because I thought it would provide a safe space for Christians to meet and talk about their faith,” he said.

As John noted, there aren’t many places like that in Long Island—especially at Ward Melville High School.

So here’s the backstory:

Last year, the school pulled the same stunt. They banned John’s club because of its religious nature. Attorneys with Liberty Institute, a law firm specializing in religious liberty cases, stepped in and threatened to sue.

After a school district investigation, Superintendent Cheryl Pedisich reversed the ban and apologized to John.

She told television station WCBS the initial reason for rejection was “apparently inaccurately conveyed.”

And by “inaccurately conveyed” she means they got their hand caught in the religious liberty cookie jar.

Fast forward nine months later and the school once again is telling the Christian kids they aren’t welcome to co-mingle.

I called the school district to find out what was going on. Twice. I also sent an email. They got back to me late Monday afternoon. Superintendent Pedisich sent me a prepared statement denying their decision had anything to do with religion.

Here’s what she said, “The religious club called Students United in Faith was denied because contractual guidelines regarding minimum participation (20 students) in student co-curricular programs was not met, nor did Ward Melville High School have the financial means to fund this program. The district does not have a practice of discrimination of any kind. We embrace our diverse school community and strive to maintain an environment that promotes tolerance, understanding and respect for all.”

Her statement is linked with what Assistant Principal Christian Losee told John. He cited a lack of student interest in the group as well as the school’s “financial limitations.”

So John picked up the phone and called Liberty Institute, a nationally known religious liberty law firm. “I cannot imagine why they would come back a second time to discriminate,” said attorney Hiram Sasser. “For some reason, Ward Melville High School does not want to follow the Equal Access law.”

Sasser fired off a letter to the school district demanding the Christian students be allowed to form their club.

“This is not a complicated issue,” Sasser wrote. “Simply put, public schools cannot discriminate against religious clubs and must treat them equally, and provide them equal access to school facilities, as non-religious clubs.”

Sasser was able to compile a list of all the school’s clubs—33 in all. They’ve got everything from a fishing club to a ceramics club. They even have a Gay-Straight Alliance.

“They let all these other clubs meet with no problem whatsoever,” John told me. “But the second me and my friends mention faith or mention God, they get up in arms about it—like there’s something wrong with believing in these things.”

Sasser said the law is clear. It doesn’t matter if only two people wanted to join the Christian club—the school would have to accommodate them.

“If they allow the fishing club, they have to allow the Christian club, too,” he said. “They cannot exclude the Christian club.”

After what happened last year, I suspect the school knows that. It seems to me they’re just engaged in a bit of bullying and intimidation.

“It sends a chilling message to all faith groups—telling them the school views these clubs as not acceptable,” Sasser said.

John’s mom, Trudy Fischer, told me she’s proud that her son is sticking up for the club.

“I was really surprised in today’s age that children still have to stand up for their First Amendment rights,” she said. “Tolerance is really preached in their school. They talk about tolerance, but when it comes to this—there is no tolerance. They want to shut them up.

That’s right, Trudy. They want your son to shut up. They want to marginalize these young Christian teenagers and make them think there’s something inappropriate, something sleazy about their religious beliefs. But what’s truly sleazy is government-employed bigots continuing to bully Christian teens trying to do good deeds.

Source: Charisma News

It’s All about Jesus

CM Editor
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It’s All about Jesus

In a very real sense the New Testament is the answer to this question. Thus, the best and fullest answer to the question who is Jesus Christ is found through careful study of the four Gospels and the other New Testament writings. The brief description that follows is based upon the New Testament writings, which we believe to be God’s true revelation to mankind. Jesus Christ is the founder of the Christian Religion. He was a Jew, born in Bethlehem, Judea in approximately 4 B.C. and died in Jerusalem in 30 A.D. Other than briefly describing His birth and one incident at age 12, the New Testament focuses upon his three-year earthly rabbinical ministry, begun at age 30. Today nearly two billion people profess allegiance to Jesus Christ.

His Name

The name “Jesus” was the name that God through the angel Gabriel gave him. The name means “The Lord saves.” “Christ” (from the Greek word christos, which in turn is a translation of the Hebrew word mashiyach, i.e., Messiah), means “the anointed one.” This is a title, rather than a name. It means that Christ is God’s long promised Savior.

Read more …

Jesus - He Lived Among Us

Pastor invites Muslims to Church

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Pastor invites Muslims to Church

As fears about the rise of the Islamic State (IS) increase, an Australian church minister is challenging discrimination against Muslims in his own community.

“Images of arrested Muslims dominated our airwaves for quite a few days,” Michael Barnes of Gordon Uniting Church in New South Wales told the Huffington Post after increased anti-terrorism efforts by the Australian government took hold.

“I was concerned that this, unwittingly, fed into and exacerbated general fear and anxiety in the community and more importantly that it made Muslims feel unwelcome in their own country.”

Barnes said that discrimination against minority groups in Australia is increasing, and “misunderstanding and anxiety expressed about Muslims” is particularly prevalent.

He has therefore had the words “Muslims welcome here” put on a sign outside the church, and has begun an Interfaith Month, during which services exploring other religions and traditions will be held.

A discussion entitled “Why jihadists do not represent Islam” will also take place, led by a local Muslim.

It’s all part of extending Gordon Uniting Church’s motto, which challenges its congregants to “Love wastefully” and care for all those around them, no matter what their beliefs.

“From my connections with the Muslim community, I know that they live with anxieties about attitudes to them in the community,” Barnes explained.

“So many people don’t meet with Muslims and yet have strong views about them.”

Barnes says he wants his church to “offer a different message” – of unconditional love and acceptance – and explains that his own inter-faith connections have helped him on his personal journey.

“It has caused me to rethink many views on life, God and the future,” he said.

“While it can at times be challenging, it is very rewarding and, in our world, utterly necessary.”

Australia has recently joined the US-led anti-jihadi coalition in an attempt to stop the spread of IS.

According to the Guardian, Australian Super Hornet jets have already begun “non-combat reconnaissance operations” over Iraq, and will soon take part in air strikes.

A poll conducted for News Corp shows that 62 per cent of Australian voters support this move, with just 21 per cent opposed.

Source:Christian Today

Pope Admonishes Bishops about Virtues

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Pope Admonishes Bishops about Virtues

During the opening session for the extraordinary synod on the family, Pope Francis told participants not to be afraid of saying what they truly think, and that only by doing this can they reach real conclusions.

“You have to say all that which in the Lord you feel you have to say: without human respect, without timidity,” the Pope told synod participants in his Oct. 6 opening remarks.

“And, at the same time, you must listen with humility and accept with an open heart what your brothers say. Synodality is exercised with these two attitudes.”

Initiated yesterday with a mass presided over by the pontiff, the Extraordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the Family reflects on the theme “The pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelization,” and was called for by the Pope in order to form a more concrete reflection for the Ordinary Synod to take place in 2015.

The synod will conclude with the beatification of Pope Paul VI, institutor of the synod of bishops, by Pope Francis on Oct. 19.

Speaking directly to the synod rapporteur, secretary-general and the three president delegates of different episcopal conferences present, Pope Francis explained that they bring to the meetings “the voice of the particular Church, gathered at the level of local churches by the Episcopal Conferences.”

“This voice you bring in synodality. It’s a great responsibility: to bring the realities and problems of the Church, to help them walk that road that which is the Gospel of the family,” the Pope continued.

And one basic condition of synodality, he said, is to “speak clearly. No one say ‘You can’t say this; think of me this way or that…’ You have to say everything that you feel with frankness.”

Pope Francis then recalled how he received an email from a cardinal after the consistory that took place in February, saying “it’s a shame that some cardinals didn’t have the courage to say some things out of respect of the Pope, feeling, perhaps, that the Pope was thinking something different.”

“This is not good, this is not synodality, because you have to say all that which in the Lord you feel you have to say,” the Pope explained, saying that they must also be humble and open to the opinion of others.

“I ask you, please, (to have) these attitudes of brothers in the Lord: speak with frankness and listen with humility.”

The Roman Pontiff also expressed his “deep and sincere thanks to all the people who have worked with dedication, patience and with competence for many months, reading, evaluating and developing themes, texts and works for this Exraordinaty General Assembly.”

He gave special appreciation to Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, Secretary General of the Synod, Msgr. Fabio Fabene, Undersecretary, as well as all of the speakers, writers, consulters, translators and staff of the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops.

“They have worked untiringly, and continue to work, for the good outcome of this Synod: thank you very much and may the Lord reward you!”

Also recognizing the various cardinals, patriarchs, bishops, priests, religious men and women and laypersons present, the Bishop of Rome explained that their presence “enriches the work and the spirit of collegiality and synodality for the good of the Church and of the family!”

He encouraged discussion to take place “with tranquility and peace, because the synod always takes place with Peter and under Peter, and the presence of the Pope is a guarantee for all (in the) safeguarding of the faith.”

So “we collaborate with all because it affirms with clarity the dynamic of synodality.”

Source: Catholic News Agency

Fire guts Indianapolis Church

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Fire guts Indianapolis Church

An Indianapolis church built in the 1940s was destroyed by fire overnight.

Firefighters battled the two-alarm fire at Friendly Church of the Nazarene on W. Ray Street and S. Holmes Avenue for nearly an hour Thursday morning.

The call came in at 12:02 a.m. and the Indianapolis Fire Department arrived within four minutes and found heavy flames and smoke coming through the roof. Thirteen IFD crews and two units from Wayne Township had the fire under control by 12:56 a.m.

The south part of the church was built in 1945 and the north end was added in 1967. The church recently finished renovations.

Damage is estimated at $300,000. IFD says the church has insurance.

Arson investigators were on the scene Thursday, and the cause of the fire is still under investigation. IFD says it’s unclear at this time if there were working smoke detectors.

There are about 35 members of Friendly Church of the Nazarene.

A civilian at the scene was treated for slight smoke inhalation.

Source: Fox 59

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