The popular Hallmark channel television show, “When Calls the Heart,” is releasing an accompanying devotional in September.

The show released its first devotional back in February, but is releasing two more, one next month and another sometime in 2019. The devotional that is being released in September will be coming out just before the holiday season and will be Christmas themed. 

The Christian Post had a chance to sit down with one of the show’s writers, Brian Bird, and ask him about how these devotionals came to be.

According to The Christian Post, Bird said, “I am a Christian. I was raised in the church. My grandfather was a pastor. My father was a pastor, for a time, and I pledged really early on in my writing career that I was going to find a way not to have an agenda or not to browbeat people over the head with my worldview. But my prayer has always been that my words would move men closer to God in some way or another.”

The Christian Post reportsthat Bird feels like the show has a lot to offer, and that TV and film can stir up cravings of the soul. Bird said, “I heard from enough people that if we were to do a devotional, we could take that conversation a little deeper.”

He continued saying, “We could use the episodes as a jumping off point for that conversation, a little summation of the episode and then spin that into a deeper…

Elders of the multicampus Crossroads Christian Church in Indiana have reportedly fired two pastors in a dispute over “philosophical differences.”

“The elders of Crossroads Christian Church have announced that a search will begin immediately for a new lead/senior pastor. This is not a result of any moral failure on the part of the most recent Lead Pastor, Patrick Garcia. This decision was due primarily to philosophical differences in church leadership,” the church headquartered in Newburgh said in a statement on Facebook, announcing the firings of Pastors Garcia and Rick Kyle.

“Teaching Pastor, Rick Kyle, will also be leaving the church. We wish nothing but the best for these leaders who will be pursuing new ministry roles. We affirm our remaining Crossroads pastors and staff, knowing that they will continue to minister with excellence in the communities we serve. Our vision remains steadfast ‘To connect everyone, everywhere to Jesus by multiplying leaders, campuses, and churches,'” the elders added.

Information on both Garcia and Kyle has already been removed from the church’s website.

The announcement of their departures has garnered more than 500 comments on the church’s…

Teachers and staff at a Florida school have donated some 100 sick days to a fellow history teacher who is undergoing chemotherapy treatment.

Robert Goodman, 56, used his own sick leave until he ran out in July, but he still needs chemotherapy for colon cancer until October. For this reason, Goodman was faced with the daunting decision to either return to school or take unpaid leave.

“It truly frightened me,” he told the BBC. “Chemo really messes with you. I was wondering how I could handle getting up at 5am every day.

“How could I handle all the different side-effects around the kids? How could I handle kids bringing the flu and colds to school?”

The Florida school system allows teachers to exchange sick leave with each other or donate it.

Goodman reached out to his coworkers on Facebook.

“I asked for help. I just didn’t expect to get the help in four days,” he said.

Some 60 teachers and employees responded to his message. In total, about 100 sick days were donated to Goodman— enough for him to finish his chemotherapy.

“It surprised me how fast it happened,” he said. “But it didn’t surprise me that teachers gave.

“Teachers always give – it’s a profession of giving, but it was extraordinary that so many people were willing to donate those days to me.

With the donation, Goodman does not have to return to school until January 2019.

“They could have…

The Satanic Temple held a protested the presence of a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Arkansas State Capitol Thursday. At the event, cosponsored by Satanic Arkansas, protestors unveiled a 8 ½ foot Baphomet statue that they would like to see erected at the Capitol. 

The protests stem from a 2017 law passed in the state legislature requiring a legislative sponsor for the installation of a monument. Senator Jason Rapert sponsored the Ten Commandments monument last year and it was erected quickly and with little fanfare.

Less than 24 hours after the monument’s installation, Michael Tate Reed slammed into it with his car and knocked it over. He was arrested at the scene and was found mentally unfit to stand trial. Reed also rammed his car into a Ten Commandments monument in Oklahoma in 2014. 

The Satanic Temple protest featured both Atheist and Christian speakers who called for either the removal of the Ten Commandments or the installation of the Baphomet statue. They argued that the Ten Commandments monument represents a state endorsement of religion and that if one religion can have a statue, then so can another.

Lucien Greaves, co-founder and spokesman of the Satanic Temple, released a statement explaining the rationale behind the event. In it, he said, ““The event is intended to be an inclusive gathering where The Satanic Temple will…

A Massachusetts Republican found a unique way to defeat a bill that would have added a third gender to the state’s driver’s licenses: He forced Democrats to hold an individual vote on 73 specific genders. 

The ploy by state Rep. Jim Lyons took place on the final day of the legislative session (July 31), with House Democrats needing to pass bills prior to midnight. One of those bills would have placed a “Gender X” on driver’s licenses alongside “male” and “female.” 

Knowing that Democrats had the numbers to pass the bill on a straight vote, Lyons decided to make them take a stand on 73 specific genders. Why 73? That’s the number he found on Facebook, according to Boston Herald radio host and columnist Howie Carr, who applauded Lyons’ tactic. The Democrats couldn’t vote against any of the amendments, Carr wrote, because they otherwise would be admitting that the bill “was preposterous on its face.”

“We can’t discriminate, he archly informed them,” Carr wrote. “This is Massachusetts. Gender is an evolving paradigm, to coin a phrase. All genders must be protected. Equal protection under the law.”

Amendment 7 would have added a gender “cis” to the driver’s license, amendment 9 a “cis female,” amendment 13 a “cis woman,” amendment 14 a “cisgender female” and amendment 18 a “cisgender woman.” It…

In a move that sparked division on social media, President Trump opened his cabinet meeting Thursday by asking Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to pray.  

Pompeo said he was using a “Cadet Prayer” booklet from his days at West Point. 

“O God, our Father, Thou Searcher of men’s hearts, help us to draw near to Thee in sincerity and truth. May our religion be filled with gladness and may our worship of Thee be natural,” Pompeo prayed. “Strengthen and increase our admiration for honest dealing and clean thinking, and suffer not our hatred of hypocrisy and pretense ever to diminish. Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never be to content with a half truth when the whole can be won.” 

“Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when truth and right are in jeopardy,” Pompeo said. “Help us to maintain the honor of the United States untarnished and unsullied and to show forth in our lives the ideals of America in doing our duty to Thee and to our nation. All of which we ask in the name of the Great Friend and Master of man. Amen.”

C-SPAN posted the prayer on Twitter. Some applauded it.

“God bless this country!” one person wrote.

Others, though, said it was out of place.

“Is it a religious meeting?…

The Pluralist reports that a young American couple was killed in last month in Tajikistan by Islamic-State terrorists. 

According to The Pluralist, CBS News reported, Austin and Geoghegan, who were on a world bike trip, tragically lost their lives on July 29 when they, along with two other bicyclists – one from Switzerland and the other from the Netherlands – were hit by a car and then stabbed to death. 

​Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghean, both 29, were embarking on a world bicycle trip when they decided to bike in an area that The Pluralist reported, has high volumes of terrorist activity. 

The idealistic couple quit their desk jobs last year in pursuit of adventure and to help other people plan their own adventures. 

Austin said on his and Geoghean’s joint blog, “I’ve grown tired of spending the best hours of my day in front of a glowing rectangle, of coloring the best years of my life in swaths of grey and beige,” Austin continued saying, “I’ve missed too many sunsets while my back was turned. Too many thunderstorms went unwatched, too many gentle breezes unnoticed.”

After writing this, the couple prepared to go abroad and began documenting their trip on their Instagram accounts and their blog. The adventure seeking couple voiced that they wanted to bike this route to show that people are not evil as the “narrative”…