The Hills Church revealed on Sunday that Patrick Garcia would be their new lead pastor, despite his controversial firing from the Crossroads Christian Church in Indiana two months ago.

The Hills Church, which according to The Christian Post, was created by former Crossroads leaders and members, announced Garcia’s arrival as he walked out onto the church stage to a standing ovation.

“Thank you so much. It is such an honor to be here,” Garcia said as he walked to center stage. 

“It is an honor to be a part of this family. And it doesn’t go without saying that we stand on the shoulders of so many of you including Rick and Dave and Darryl who took steps of faith early on to start this thing and so we’ve got to give credit where credit is due. And so thank you for stepping out in faith guys,” Garcia, 31, said.

In August, Garcia was fired from the Crossroads Christian Church after elders accused him of being inexperienced and power-hungry and wanting “complete control.”

According to The Christian Post, Garcia told them in an interview on Monday, that he had philosophical differences with the elders about leadership and purpose, noting, “When you get down to the heart of it that’s what it was.”

Garcia continued, “Am I an inexperienced leader? To a degree. Yeah. I mean I’m 31 years old. I was working with guys on the Crossroads…

Pastor Ryan Guard, former director of Willow Creek Community Church’s high school ministry, Student Impact, has said that the real reason he left the ministry last year is because he was fired due to low attendance, not because he wasn’t “gifted enough as a leader” as stated in an earlier narrative.

Guard, who is now lead pastor at Prodigal Church, made the revelation in a series of tweets Monday in which he suggested his former boss at the South Barrington, Illinois, church, Scott Rubin, was “obsessed with numerical growth.”

“A year ago we announced I was leaving Willow Creek to explore new opportunities. The whole truth is that they fired me because attendance was down. Youth pastors: I’m done playing games, and you should be too. If your boss is obsessed with numerical growth — call it out and QUIT,” Guard advised.

“They offered me a severance, but forced me to sign a non-disclosure. Well, come and get it. We shared a half-truth to protect their image, but that ship sailed and sank, and I’m done lying for you. I love the Student Impact students, staff and volunteers, and they deserve better,” he continued.

“I can understand why some people stay silent,…

ABC News’ chief legal correspondent Dan Abrams is launching a new streaming service which will live stream Christian sermons. 

According to a report from an online outlet called The Hill, Ambo TV will be launching in November and its goal is to broadcast “Christian sermons with an in-studio discussion.”

According to a statement from Abram’s new company Mediaite, Ambo TV, which also means Pulpit TV, is expected to feature continuous and simultaneous sermons on Saturdays and Sundays, along with added commentary throughout the day.

CBN News reports that Ambo TV has already secured partnerships with Victory Church in Tulsa and the multi-site Fresh Light Church, in Montana who will be streaming their sermons on Ambo TV.

“The network will be hosted out of the newly built Abrams Media studios in Herald Square in New York City, and viewers will be able to engage with other viewers in a live-chat feature through the programs,” the company’s statement reads.

Yale Divinity School graduate Brooke Girley is set to lead the streaming network which she described as an “inspirational network for younger Christians” that is “long overdue.”

“Ambo TV will allow viewers to watch compelling sermons, in real time, from pastors of my generation and discuss them with other viewers from around the world,” she said. “This is the type of network many of us have been…

New Zealand-born evangelist and best-selling author Ray Comfort, who’s best known for his street evangelism, has released a new two-part book to help Christians gain a biblical to help those in despair.

Comfort is hoping to aid readers in addressing chronic depression and suicidal thoughts in his new book, The Final Curtain: Fame, Fortune, and Futile Lives. The book aims to explain why wealthy and famous people live with debilitating depression that sometimes leads to suicide.

“Suicide rarely makes national news, unless it is a celebrity who takes his or her life. Then it becomes international news — because it’s hard to reconcile the thought that someone who is rich and famous would take their own life,” Comfort told The Christian Post in a recent interview.

“Experts are also mystified as to why so many are becoming depressed. They have no idea of the cause, neither do they know the cure. I’m not an expert, [but] I know the reason why the World Health Organization says that 350 million people are depressed. There’s a common sense explanation for this, and it’s not because they have a mental disease. I expand what the Scriptures say, in this book — using celebrities as a…

A group of people, who used to identify as LGBTQ+, are preparing to take to the Los Angeles streets to declare the transformative power of Jesus’ love.

On November 4, the group will host a Freedom March that, according to CBN News, will feature worship, praise, and testimonials from former homosexual, bisexual, and transgender individuals. 

The group hosted their first march in May of this year in Washington D.C. 

At the D.C. march, the group welcomed two survivors of the Pulse nightclub shooting, who shared testimonies of how they left their LGBT lifestyles behind after the attack.

“Going through old pictures of the night of Pulse, I remember my struggles of perversion, heavy drinking to drown out everything and having promiscuous sex that led to HIV,” Luis Ruiz told CBN News. 

“It wasn’t a gay to straight thing. It was a lost to a saved thing. Someone encountered me and told me how much God would change me if I stopped doing it on my own strength. If I fall in love with Christ, he would do everything else,” he continued.

The founder and CEO of the Freedom March, Jeffrey McCall, who was a former prostitute who lived as a transwoman named Scarlet, told CBN News that he wants to create a space where former LGBTQ+ people can be heard.  The outlet said, McCall “wants the world to know that you can change your lifestyle, no matter who you…

Greg Laurie has become one of the most well-known preachers in America. He’s the founder of Harvest Crusade and Harvest America and the pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California, but the well-known faith leader wasn’t always a believer. In fact, his early years were characterized by a lack of faith, drugs and generally moving in the “wrong direction.”

Read Also: 10 Best Sermons Online When You Can’t Get to Church

Laurie, author of the new book, Jesus Revolution: How God Transformed an Unlikely Generation and How He Can Do It Again Today, recently appeared on PureFlix.com’s “Pure Talk” to reveal his spiritual journey — and his quest to reach youths with the Gospel.

“I was a 17-year-old kid. I was using drugs every single day. I was going in the wrong direction in my life,” he said, noting that he stumbled upon a Bible study one day on the lawn of his high school, and it changed everything. “I sat down close enough to eavesdrop on what was being said.”

That’s when Laurie heard someone proclaim a truth that stuck with him: “Jesus said, ‘You’re for me, or against me.'” The statement struck him and he wondered, “Am I against Jesus?” He was so…

JUBA, South Sudan, October 23, 2018 (Morning Star News) – After torturing them and threatening to charge them with serious crimes, authorities in Sudan have released 13 Christians arrested in the Darfur Region, sources said. 

Personnel from Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) released 12 of the Christians by Sunday (Oct. 21) and freed church leader Tajaldin Idriss Yousif on Monday, all without charges, but they threatened to charge the native Darfur evangelist and others with apostasy, public disturbance and crimes against the state, sources said.

“All of them were said to be tortured by NISS and are in bad shape,” a source said. “One of them is said to be in critical condition owing to torture. He is said to have been vomiting and bleeding. He was rushed to a hospital, but he was not attended to by the physicians in that hospital.”  

The 13 Christians from four different house churches were worshipping together on Oct. 10 in Nyala, capital of South Darfur state in western Sudan’s Darfur Region, when NISS officers disrupted the service and arrested them, sources said.

NISS authorities did not give any reason for the arrests, but sources said they are targeting converts from Islam from Darfur and, in south-eastern Sudan, South Kordofan state. Three of the Christians were said to be from the Nuba Mountains area in the country’s…