Americans gave Democrats control of the House of Representatives Tuesday but ensured divided government for at least two years by strengthening Republicans’ hold on the Senate.

Democrats won back the House for the first time since 2010, guaranteeing that Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) will be elected speaker again provided she has support of her caucus. As of Tuesday, Democrats had won 222 seats to the GOP’s 199, with more than a dozen races still undecided in the 435-seat chamber. A party needs 218 seats to win power.

“Today is more than about Democrats and Republicans,” Pelosi said after networks called the House for Democrats. “It’s about restoring the Constitution’s checks and balances to the Trump administration.”

Pelosi, though, indicated she wanted to stop the division between the two parties and emphasized “unity for our country.”

“We have a bipartisan marketplace of ideas that makes our democracy strong,” Pelosi said. “A Democratic Congress will work for solutions that bring us together, because we have all had enough of division.”  

President Trump, during a Wednesday press conferences, spotlighted the Republicans’ success in the Senate. 

“Last night the Republican party defied history to expand our Senate majority while significantly beating expectations in the House,” he said. “…We did this in spite of a…

A Texas pastor who began living on a barge on Lake Ray Hubbard in Dallas nearly a month ago and pledged to keep living there until he raised $2.29 million to help provide clean drinking water for all of Liberia by 2020 is now home after meeting his goal in a surprising moment on Monday.

“I couldn’t believe it. We had hit the mark in one of the most exciting and most fulfilling moments of my life,” Pastor Todd Phillips, founder and executive director of The Last Well, told The Dallas Morning News.

The Last Well is a Christian nonprofit that has made it its mission to not just bring clean water to all of Liberia — one of the poorest countries in the world — by 2020, but access to the Gospel as well.

Phillips, 49, began his latest fundraising campaign on the lake on Oct. 10. And since then he has been chronicling his experience there through daily Facebook Live broadcasts where he’s been joined by sports stars such as former Dallas Cowboys safety Darren Woodson and Hall of Famer Mike Singletary as he raised funds for Liberia.

When he began his broadcast on Monday, according to The Dallas Morning News, Phillips was about…

Many of those attending last week’s national conference of the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) were left feeling unsure and broken. The conference, somewhat ironically titled “Rooted”, observed speakers referencing recent allegations of odious behavior surrounding CCDA president Noel Castellanos.

According to Christianity Today, Castellanos’ departure was finally announced by the CCDA’s board in a “…sincere effort to keep the focus on this tremendous milestone as well as honor the life and commitment of our founder, Dr. John Perkins.”

As the leader of the Christian justice ministry for over a decade, Castellanos has spent the last two years attempting to reconcile with former coworkers: “While my resignation was offered in part due to our inability to resolve the conflict with former staff, it was also a decision that I have been contemplating for the last year to allow me to pursue other passions and opportunities.”

Numerous women explained that the work environment was “abusive”, detailing their experiences on a website known as 3 Rs Revisited, #RememberRepentReconcile.

The former CCDA employees stated that the “CCDA community has not always been aware of the toxic environment staff endure,” before naming the alleged issues at play, including “unpredictable emotional explosions, mismanagement of…

Both prideful churches and Christians who put sports before worship are to blame for the “vast gap” some churches see between membership and attendance, said a North Carolina pastor.

Kevin DeYoung, senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, wrote in The Gospel Coalition on Tuesday that he is seeing a “vast gulf” emerge in churches between membership and the worship attendance. While there can be good explanations for why the numbers don’t always match, the gap should roughly be no more than 10 to 20 percent, he noted.

“Your church may have shut-ins, college students, snow birds, missionaries, and helping professions (like doctors, nurses, police officers, and firefighters) who, understandably, are missing from worship (at their home church) on many Sundays. You may also have volunteers in the nursery and kids scattered across various classes (if you count covenant children as members). Add that all up and you have a legitimate gap,” he wrote.

“But not a massive gap. In most churches, those categories don’t add up to a large percentage of the church.”

DeYoung argued that when it comes down to it, both churches and congregants share the blame for these gaps.

He argued that some churches simply fail to mark when members have left, and keep them on…

Israeli defense forces located two hand grenades hidden inside the tomb of Joseph as more than 1,000 Jewish worshippers descended on the site on a religious pilgrimage.

World Israel News reported that the grenades were “of makeshift design and appeared to be manufactured locally.” The IDF believes they were left at the site by “Arab terrorists targeting Israeli visitors.” 

Joseph’s tomb is located near Shechem. The land has been under Arab control since the Oslo Accords, but Jewish authorities still have access to the tomb, which is considered a holy site. Visits to the tomb must be coordinated with the IDF.

The IDF claims that other violence took place during the pilgrimage as well. A group directed gunfire at an IDF jeep and others threw stones and Molotov cocktails. 

Last year, riots broke out as pilgrims visited the tomb during Hanukkah. Israel evacuated the tomb in October 2000 and a group of Palestinians ransacked the site, causing “extensive damage.”

No one has been taken into custody for the grenades, but the IDF brought in one suspect on charges related to the shooting. 

An army spokesperson explained the events Wednesday. “Overnight, IDF, Border Police, Israeli Police, and Civil Administration secured the entrance of a thousand worshippers to Joseph’s tomb in Nablus. Upon the forces’ entrance, two self-manufactured grenades were found in the area of the…

The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina has passed a resolution honoring the late Rev. Billy Graham in advance of what would have been the famed evangelist’s 100^th birthday.

At their annual meeting in Greensboro on Monday, the messengers at the convention adopted the “Resolution in Appreciation for the Life of Billy Graham.”

“That the messengers to the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina, November 5-6, 2018, grieve the passing of Billy Graham on February 21, 2018, while also celebrating, honoring, and commemorating his life and ministry as a beloved Southern Baptist who traveled the world sharing the good news of Jesus Christ,” read the resolution in part.

“… we desire to celebrate Billy Graham’s legacy by committing ourselves to sharing the gospel, living lives of personal holiness, and finding joy through an eternal peace with God accomplished by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Voters in Alabama and West Virginia passed constitutional amendments Tuesday that could result in abortion being outlawed if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. 

Alabama voters, by a margin of 59-41, approved an amendment to the state constitution that recognizes and supports “the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life.” It also states that “nothing” in the state constitution “secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion.”

In West Virginia, voters passed an amendment, 52-48 percent, that says “nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of abortion.”

Both amendments would make it easier to ban abortion in the two states if Roe is overturned. That’s because state courts would be unable to legalize abortion by using the state constitutions. 

Rick Renshaw of the Alliance for a Pro-Life Alabama called passage of that state’s amendment “a testament to the conservative values of Alabama.”

“It’s also going to be a victory for truth because we were massively outspent $1.4 million [from Planned Parenthood] to $8,000 dollars,” Renshaw said, according to Al.com.

But pro-lifers lost a ballot initiative in Oregon that would have restricted taxpayer funding of abortion. With 90 percent of the vote…