Upon communicating with local health officials and heeding advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, many churches and Christian concerts have made the difficult decision of canceling events until further notice. See below for a roundup.

Megachurches Canceling

1. The Potter’s House is postponing absolutely all church activities, per an update on Bishop T.D. Jakes’ website. However, services will be livestreamed on various mediums such as YouTube, to be watched at home.

2. Jentezen Franklin announced on his Instagram that all of Free Chapel’s campuses will be closed on Sunday, March 15. Services will be available online, via livestream, at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m., here: freechapel.org/live.

The health and safety of every person who walks onto our campuses continues to be a top priority for the Free Chapel leadership. Our team has been carefully monitoring the evolving COVID-19 (Coronavirus) situation through the CDC and local health authorities and will continue to take proactive approaches to keep our community healthy and safe. To that end, we feel the safest course of action is to cancel public attendance to our services this Sunday, March 15 at all of our campuses. However, we will be broadcasting our services and I will be sharing a LIVE message through our streaming services on freechapel.org, Youtube, and Facebook. We will be working closely with local health authorities to determine when we will resume services again. Please pray for those affected by this virus. Prayer is powerful, and God is our perfect source of comfort and care. Join us in praying for the people and regions affected, and for the protection of our nation, community, and church.

A post shared by Jentezen Franklin (@jentezen) on Mar 12, 2020 at 5:00pm PDT

3. The Belonging Co is also canceling all public gatherings and services on Sunday, March 15, and Tuesday, March 17, to honor the request of Mayor John Cooper. People can watch Pastor David McCracken via livestream online Sunday at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. CST, and 4 p.m. CST. Tuesday’s service will be livestreamed at 7:30 p.m. CST here: thebelongingco.churchonline.org/.

4. Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, is also canceling services Sunday, March 15. Services will still be available on Facebook Live, YouTube, Roku, AppleTV, Osteen’s and Lakewood Church’s websites.

Conferences Canceling

1. Beth Moore is moving her Tuesday night “Living Proof Night” to livestream on March 17. Anyone can join online at 7 p.m. CST via her ministry’s Facebook page here.

2. Hillsong’s Colour Conference 2020 is postponing its 2020 events in Los Angeles, California, and New York until 2021. All registrations for those locations in 2020 will automatically transfer to the Colour 2021 events. Click here for the full message.

SOURCE: Charisma News

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Country star Carrie Underwood thanked God during a surprise presentation as her 2018 album Cry Pretty was certified Platinum by the RIAA, according to Nash Country Daily.

“This means a lot, because I feel like this is the project that I’ve done, and the album that I’ve done, that is the most ‘me.’ I’m honored and I’m humbled, and God is good,” said Underwood.

Underwood is open about her faith and doesn’t shy away from talking about God.

In a new interview with Women’s Health, Underwood opened up about the pain of suffering miscarriages.

“For my body to not be doing something it was ‘supposed to do’ was a tough pill to swallow. It reminded me I’m not in control of everything,” said Underwood.

Her Women’s Health interview is not the first time the starlet has opened up about her infertility struggles. In previous interviews, she mentioned how her faith played a role in processing through the trauma.

“In the beginning it was like, ‘OK, God, we know this just wasn’t Your timing. And that is all right. We will bounce back and figure our way through it.’ And I got pregnant again in the spring, and it didn’t work out.”

SOURCE: Movieguide, Allyson Vannatta

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A Democratic political strategist has warned that all too often Christians end up worshiping “lesser gods” when they’re involved in politics.

Justin Giboney, an attorney who’s also president of the AND Campaign, spoke at the Just Gospel 2020 conference at Del Ray Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, last week.

Giboney said that when it comes to politics, while “Christians should be shining like the North Star in the dead of night,” too many “sound like generic Republicans or generic Democrats.”

“Our faith is not evident in our tactics, in our posture, or in our rhetorical devices,” said Giboney. “Let’s be serious, our politics isn’t winning over any converts.”

He said that many American Christians involved in politics have shown that they have “become converts to lesser gods and lesser institutions,” with Christians “discipling backwards.”

“We have evangelicals using terms like ‘patriotism’ to silence pleas for injustice. Even worse, we have some folks using the Gospel as a reason not to do justice,” continued Giboney.

“Then we have some Christians who rightly concern themselves with justice, but aren’t bold enough to speak on the necessity of obedience and personal transformation along with liberation.”

Giboney felt that “many Christians have placed their trust in methods and ideologies that are built on a foundation that’s certain to collapse.”

“We’ve placed our faith in the tenets of conservatism or the forecast of progressivism,” he added. “We’ve outsourced our public witness to secular commentators and think-tanks that now do the thinking for us.”

“Christians have separated our faith from our politics and we’ve allowed our political affiliations to become religious in nature, liturgical in display.”

Giboney believes Christians in the public square must advocate for both justice and “moral order,” arguing that conservative and liberal ideologies have failed to sufficiently lobby for both.

Source: Christian Post

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A theology professor says there are three ways in which Christians’ religious beliefs should influence how they engage in politics.

Vincent Bacote, director of the Center for Applied Christian Ethics at Wheaton College in Illinois, was one of the speakers at the Just Gospel 2020 conference at Del Ray Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, last week.

The first thing one must do, according to Bacote, is recognize that “a Christian is a citizen of God’s Kingdom,” which means “Jesus is their King.”

“Now, if Jesus is their King,” he explained, “that means that they have their ultimate allegiance to Jesus as their King, which makes all other obligations relative. All other commitments relative.”

“If I have ‘non-negotiable political commitments,’ am I willing to have those ‘non-negotiable political commitments’ questioned by this King to whom I have an ultimate allegiance? Can He ask me, ‘hey can we revisit that?’”

Bacote challenged those gathered by stating that “if Jesus is your King,” then “let Him interrogate us all the time,” including on political stances.

The second concept is the Christian process of sanctification and recognizing that no Christian sees the world “with perfect clarity” as they grow in faith, which means they “can miss things.”

Bacote sought to apply this sanctification process to political engagement, saying that “when it comes to your politics, you recognize ‘you know, I might be missing something.’ Which means then that whatever you’re doing with their political commitments you need to have a posture of humility, because you have not arrived,” Bacote continued.

“If a Christian is in a process of becoming holy, holy in position but in a process of living up to what that position is, then we ought to be people of humility when it comes to how we are articulating and pursuing our political commitments.”

The third concept he shared is the Christian belief in the resurrection, which shows that Christians have “the greatest hope of all” and thus should not act as “a peddler of fear.”

Bacote spoke against Christians who openly act like “we’re going to lose it all” if “political fortunes” do not go their way, something that the professor labeled as “Easter amnesia.”

“Did you just go to church? Did you just hear that God conquered death? Because if you believe He conquered death, why are you acting like, ‘but He can’t deal with this?’” he asked.

Bacote also focused on how he believes many Christians form their political views, arguing that most do so because of secular concerns that were made immediate to them through others.

As an example, he noted that African Americans tend to vote for Democratic candidates even though they are usually more socially conservative than the overall party.

Source: Christian Post

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As America begins to settle into the new norm of uncertainty amid the coronavirus outbreak, church life as we know it is changing.

Many churches across the American landscape are temporarily closing their doors. Dunwoody Baptist Church is located on the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia, and like most churches, they’re having to deal with what Sunday will look like.

Christian Headlines sat down with church leaders Allen Taliaferro and Robert Comeaux, to discuss the new changes that their church members will see on Sunday. As soon as the interview begins, one glance at Taliaferro’s face reveals that for this executive pastor this has not been a normal week. He currently has 48 voicemails and text messages that need returning. When asked when he started preparing response protocols, he’s quick to point out the teamwork of the staff and church members.

“One of our members on our leadership team called me last week to ask what our plan would be. At the time I didn’t think much of it, but by the end of the week we had a plan ready to go,” Taliaferro said.

Comeaux, who is the church’s worship pastor, jumped right in, explaining, “We are in a new season of church life in America as we know it.”

Dunwoody has a plan in place for Sunday and practical directives for its members. Taliaferro shared that everything from who holds the door to the Lord’s supper will look different. “Our plan for Sunday will be, for example, only a few people will hold the door open with lots of hand sanitizer.”

The church will also refrain from passing the offering plate and the Lord’s supper will be individually wrapped, compared to the typically shared community of partaking of the Lord’s Supper.

Source: Christian Headlines

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The nation’s largest church said Wednesday it would not hold its upcoming weekend services due to the coronavirus threat, as churches across the country – big and small – grappled with how to respond to the outbreak.

Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston said it would not hold public in-person services in light of an emergency health declaration by Mayor Sylvester Turner, as well as “the fact that Lakewood draws such large numbers of international visitors each week.” Instead, church services will be broadcast online only this weekend. It is the largest church in the United States.

The number of U.S. cases has multiplied in the past week. On March 4, there were 129 confirmed cases in the U.S. That number grew to 554 on March 8 and to 1,215 on March 12.

The Episcopal dioceses of Washington and Virginia are closing or canceling services at more than 250 churches in the region.

Meanwhile, congregations across the U.S. are facing similar tough choices – and in some instances, are being ordered or strongly urged by government officials to cancel.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state’s public health officials on Wednesday said “non-essential gatherings” of more than 250 people should be postponed or canceled “to protect public health and slow the spread of COVID-19.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday he is recommending that “local municipalities and private entities to strongly consider limiting or postponing mass gatherings in the state of Florida.”

Source: Christian Headlines

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Craig Bowron is a physician and writer in St. Paul, Minnesota. He can be reached on Twitter at @billcarlosbills.

As a Christian living in a northern climate, I find it unfortunate that none of Jesus’ teachings directly speak to our cold weather situation, such as “The Parable of the Neighbor Who Never Shoveled Her Sidewalk” or “The Parable of Black Ice.”

Likewise, although Jesus called us to care for the sick, the weary, those in prison, etc., he didn’t give specific guidance about how to do that in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic. And so we’re left to think that through.

When it comes to the COVID-19 panic, our overriding principle might be from “The Parable of the Good Samaritan Who Tried to Help the Man Who Fell Through the Ice,” in which would-be rescuers are advised to first call for help. As the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources cautions, one should “resist the urge to run up to the edge of the hole. This would most likely result in two victims in the water.”

In trying to help others who are stricken with, or on lockdown from, the novel coronavirus, we should first be careful not to behave in a way that promotes further spread of the virus. The virus moves most efficiently person to person, via kerchoo-powered respiratory droplets, and so the more distance we can keep between persons, the harder that will be. If you’re moving through the community helping others as you’re “just finishing getting over a little cold,” you might be spreading the thing that everyone is trying to avoid.

With that in mind, what to do for those who need our help?

You need to find them first, of course. Our efforts are probably best focused on helping those who are at the highest risk of a serious corona infection: older people and those with chronic medical conditions, as well as those who may have a difficult time living through a period of self-isolation, which includes, in addition to those already mentioned, those with disabilities.

Remember, much of this can be done — and might best be done — via a phone call.

The more they stay home, the less likely they are to become infected.

Make sure they have the food, medication, toiletries, etc., that they need, and if they don’t, see if you can get it for them. Leave these items on their doorstep if necessary.

Do they have a plan if they do get sick? As a physician, I’ve seen it many times: For older folks who are still living independently but under suboptimal or marginal conditions, even a simple bladder infection or a medication mix-up can send them tumbling.

For example, an upstairs bedroom might work OK until they get sick and weak. Then what? Can things be decluttered a bit so that pathways to the bathroom are clear? Could a spare bed be moved downstairs so they can live on that level for a while? Do they have an accessible and functional bathroom?

Source: Religion News Service

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