A large study conducted by Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has indicated that nearly half of its leaders, ministers and members believe the denomination is not equipped to welcome people with mental health concerns into the daily life of the church.

While 97 percent of members know someone who has or previously had a mental health concern, at least 49 percent of members say the church lacks the capacity to help integrate people with significant mental health issues into the regular church life, according to the Presbyterian News Service, which cited results of a recent study conducted on behalf of the Presbyterian Mental Health Initiative that was called for by the 2018 General Assembly.

The churchwide study, in which 6,000 people from the denomination participated, also shows that while 54 percent of church leaders think their church is interested in learning more about mental health ministry, only 30 percent think they are equipped for that ministry.

“PC(USA) members, leaders, and ministers want to address the issues of mental health and mental illness in their communities and churches but do not know what to do, or what resources are available to them and, in general, are unprepared to act,” the summary notes of the study say.

The study, which surveyed five different demographic groups — church members, ministers, local church leaders, mid-council leaders and seminaries — shows that 90 percent of members are unaware of funds, information or resources available to churches for mental health ministries.

“The study helped clarify that churches are often in the role of ‘first responders,’ but many don’t feel equipped to respond when someone is struggling with mental health,” said Donna Miller, associate for Mental Health Ministry within Compassion, Peace & Justice Ministry. “The study also showed the need to address stigma and make churches safe places to talk about mental health struggles.”

SOURCE: Christian Post, Anugrah Kumar

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Dr. Arthur Brooks, a Harvard professor and the former president of the American Enterprise Institute, delivered an impassioned speech at the National Prayer Breakfast last Thursday, calling all Americans to help usher in “national healing.”

Surrounded by politicians, including President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Brooks, who is a political conservative and a Catholic, spoke about the importance of “loving others,” regardless of political disagreement.

“I’m a follower of Jesus — the Jesus who taught each of us to love God and who taught us to love each other,” Brooks said. “The biggest crisis facing our nation … [is] the crisis of contempt and polarization that’s tearing our societies apart.”

Watch the speech at the 55-min mark:

But he went on to say that this crisis can also usher in an amazing opportunity to bring people together, and he pointed to Jesus — “history’s greatest social entrepreneur” — as the litmus test for positively moving forward.

“Here’s what [Jesus] said,” Brooks recapped, quoting from the Book of Matthew. “‘You have heard that it was said, ‘love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I tell you ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’”

The professor noted that these words have had a shocking impact on human history — one that continues to reverberate today.

“It changed the world starting 2,000 years ago,” Brooks said. “And it is as subversive and counterintuitive today as it was then.”

SOURCE: Christian Post; Pureflix.com, Billy Hallowell

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Warning: This article contains spoilers

A new four-episode Netflix docuseries highlights the story of a Christian pharmacist in New Orleans suburb who turned the grief from his son’s death into a determination to shut down a doctor he believed was fraudulently prescribing painkillers to thousands in his community.

The online streaming platform released the new series, “The Pharmacist,” last week. The program centers on the efforts of Dan Schneider, who worked for years at a local pharmacy in St. Bernard’s Parish, an upper-middle-class community located adjacent to New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward.

The Lower Ninth Ward had developed a reputation through the decades for crime and drug addiction. It was a community plagued by the crack epidemic during the 1980s and 1990s.

In 1999, Schneider’s son, Danny Jr., was shot to death during what was believed to be a drug deal gone bad in the Lower Ninth Ward. With so many killings happening in the Lower Ninth Ward at the time, Schneider was not pleased that authorities were not able to find and hold accountable his son’s killer.

As Schneider took time off from his job to run his own investigation into his son’s murder, the entire first episode was devoted to his months-long quest to find out who killed his son. Schneider canvassed the streets looking for clues. Thanks to a courageous witness who faced death threats and had to flee her hometown, a teenager named Jeffery Hall was identified and eventually sentenced to prison for the crime.

After Schneider returned to work at the pharmacy following Hall’s conviction, he noticed a high number of teenagers about his son’s age coming in with prescriptions for OxyContin.

Produced by Purdue Pharma, the pill was billed at the time as somewhat of a revolutionary pain medication that was supposed to have a lower risk of addiction. However, the people he noticed coming into this pharmacy to fill the prescriptions showed no signs of obvious pain that would warrant such pain medication.

Schneider would often ask questions of the customers to figure out what their need for the medication was and consulted many of them not to take the medication.

Schneider began to notice a troubling pattern as he looked through the records at his pharmacy — most of the prescriptions the store was filling were for pain medications being prescribed by the same doctor. That doctor is Dr. Jacqueline Cleggett.

What Schneider was noticing was the beginning of the nation’s opioid epidemic in his community. Being that many of those filling prescriptions were his son’s age, he saw his son’s spirit in them. He wanted to do something and he did.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Samuel Smith

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Professional baseball player turned gospel singer Todd Dulaney sings words taken straight from the Bible in his newly released EP, Back to the Book, and says he’s already seen a mighty move of God in response.

The award-winning singer was first encouraged to sing the literal word of God when he was invited to an International House of Prayer event in Ohio. The hosts of the event flew the singer out, all expenses paid, not so that he could perform there but so they could share a message with him.

While there, he recalled them prophetically telling him that he would “sing Scripture.” Dulaney told The Christian Post he didn’t immediately receive the word wholeheartedly because he didn’t know how he would be able to format scripture verses into choruses and melodies that would “rhyme.”

IHOP intercessors told him his ministry would be similar to Fred Hammond who is one of the few gospel artists who has also used scriptures in his music.

Dulaney opened the Bible and started creating melodies inspired by the written word of God and his new EP, Back to the Book, was born.

“Write them on the tablet of your heart … I am the Vine, you are the branches / He who abides in Me / Will forever be fruitful indeed / I am the Way, the Truth and the Light / No one gets to the Father / Except that he comes through Me,” Dulany sings in his EP, the words taken from Psalm 3.

“I feel like language is essential to precise communication, and the language of the Kingdom of Heaven is God’s word,” Dulany told CP in an interview on Monday. “This book allows us to speak the same language regardless of where we’re from in the world.”

SOURCE: Christian Post, Jeannie Law

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A coalition of parents in Canada filed a complaint against a gender clinic and two of its surgeons who use gruesome photos in their marketing of transgender surgeries to young people on Instagram.

The complaint to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario highlights the McLean clinic in Mississauga and Drs. Hugh McLean and Giancarlo McEvenue, asking the organization to review the impact social media has on impressionable young minds and the standard of care applied to youth who self-identify as transgender.

The parent coalition that filed the complaint includes Canadian Gender Report, Parents of ROGD Kids, Canadian Women’s Sex-based Rights and GNC Centric.

“There is a several thousand percent increase in the number of youth seeking medical means to change their gender in Europe, Australia, and North America. In the past year, the Ministers of Health of the UK and Australia have ordered government inquiries to understand why the number of adolescents seeking gender transition is increasing so rapidly,” the complaint notes.

“The exponentially increasing rates of youth presenting as gender dysphoric, combined with the increasing numbers of detransitioners emphasize the need to take a more cautious approach in terms of intervention until more research has been conducted.”

Such detransitioners — individuals who once lived and identified as transgender or nonbinary — have become more visible in recent months as the experimental medicalization of gender has begun receiving more government scrutiny, court cases have been initiated, and young men and women who pursued that pathway but now regret doing so take to social media to speak about their experiences, detailing how their bodies were harmed.

“With more and more detransitioners coming forward, the medical community would be negligent if they don’t take a closer look at what’s going on. And I don’t think the general public is aware of how experimental the treatment is and how much marketing and promotion is behind it,” said Pamela Buffone, founder of the Canadian Gender Report, in an interview with The Christian Post Monday.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Brandon Showalter

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The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of BCNN1. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author(s).

One of the things I learned from years of teaching students how to defend their faith is sometimes the best way to test an idea is through questions: “What do you mean by that?” “Why do you believe that?” and “Can you define that?”

My colleague Joseph Backholm is a master of asking these revealing questions. You may know him from a viral video from a few years back when he asked university students whether they would accept him if he identified as a six-foot-five Chinese woman. They reluctantly all said “yes,” even though Joseph is a not-even six-foot white guy.

Over the last year, Joseph has led the Colson Center’s “What Would You Say?” video series. As part of this project, Joseph traveled to Washington, D.C. a few weeks ago to interview participants at two very different demonstrations: First, the Women’s March, and then, the March for Life. His question this time was probing, and the answers were revealing.

“What is a woman?” It seems like answering that question would be a prerequisite for participating in, I don’t know, a women’s march. Yet incredibly, none of the women he talked to—despite their passionate advocacy of women’s rights—could give him a clear answer.

“A woman is anything that she wants to be defined as,” said one. “A woman is someone who chooses to express themselves,” said another. “That’s a trick question,” said still another. Two other women who were selling uterus pins told Joseph that they don’t think having a uterus is what makes a person a woman!

Joseph and I talk about these interviews on the latest episode of the BreakPoint Podcast. He explains how the video wasn’t produced by cherry-picking or selective editing. None of the women he talked with could clearly or objectively define a woman.

“They have been catechized so effectively,” Joseph said, “that they don’t spend any time thinking about whether what they say is true or consistent.”

SOURCE: Christian Post, John Stonestreet and G. Shane Morris

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On Monday, the Tim Tebow Foundation (TTF) released its official “Night to Shine” 2020 Highlight Video, honoring all of the people with special needs who were able to attend the sixth annual “Night to Shine.”

With a song track performed by Rascal Flatts, the four-minute video captures the fun and fulfillment experienced by thousands of “prom” queens and kings. 

The annual “Night to Shine” event gives people over the age of 14 an opportunity to have an “unforgettable prom night experience, centered on God’s love.”

As CBN News has reported, former NFL quarterback turned professional baseball player Tim Tebow created the event in an effort “to bring faith, hope, and love to those needing a brighter day in their darkest hour of need.”

“In 2015, Tebow’s foundation launched an idea to honor people with special needs with a celebration of God’s love for them. Now, every year around the world hundreds of thousands come together on one night around one dream,” Tebow wrote in a statement posted along with the video to Instagram.

“I want to say thank you to all of the host churches and coordinators, volunteers, vendors, prayer warriors, and donors who have helped make Night to Shine possible not only this year but every year,” he continued. “We’re so incredibly grateful for each of you, and truly could not do this without your support. Thank you for being a part of this family, this movement, and this effort to value every person’s life. I sincerely believe us coming together is making a huge difference in the lives of individuals all over the world!”

In 2015, the Tim Tebow Foundation launched an idea to honor people with special needs with a celebration of God’s love for them. Now, every year around the world hundreds of thousands come together on one night around one dream… #NightToShine Thank you to all of the host churches and coordinators, volunteers, vendors, prayer warriors, and donors who have helped make Night to Shine possible not only this year, but every year. We’re so incredibly grateful for each of you, and truly could not do this without your support. Thank you for being a part of this family, this movement, and this effort to value every person’s life. I sincerely believe us coming together is making a huge difference in the lives of individuals all over the world! Thank you to our Night to Shine Global Partners: @ars_rescuerooter & @1sharehealth

A post shared by Tim Tebow (@timtebow) on Feb 10, 2020 at 4:41pm PST

“This year, we saw 721 host churches come together, across all 50 states and 34 countries, through the support of 215,000 volunteers celebrate 110,000 honored guests!” the foundation reveals in the video posted to several social media platforms, including YouTube. 

The event holds a special place in the hearts of Tebow and his wife Demi-Leigh. The couple met during a Night to Shine event that Demi-Leigh attended with her sister Franje, who suffered from cerebellar agenesis. Sadly, Franje passed away in 2019 at the age of 13. 

TTF recently announced the launch of a new ministry that is connected with Night to Shine. “Shine On” centers on nine special needs ministries that are lending their knowledge and experience to Night to Shine host churches.

One church that is associated with Shine On shared a positive response.

“I am so excited about Shine On,” Lynn Ebner from Royal Redeemer Lutheran Church said. “The families we serve really appreciate the ministry, and we are forming wonderful relationships. I’m so excited to share the rest of the resources you have sent with our special needs ministry team. God is so very good.”

TTF wrote on their website, “It is our hope, our prayer, and our belief that God will use Shine On to encourage and equip each and every church to continue loving, celebrating, and living out the Gospel to those with special needs in a way that goes far beyond Night to Shine.

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A U.S. Air Force base in Illinois has removed a commander’s name from a prayer breakfast invitation in response to a complaint from one of the nation’s leading secular legal organizations. 

Last Thursday, the New Mexico-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation sent a demand letter to Scott Air Force Base in St. Clair County on behalf of 15 unnamed Air Force officers, enlisted personnel and civilians.

The letter was sent to Col. Jerimiah Heathman, objecting to a mass email he sent out to those stationed at the installation. The email included an invitation to the “National Prayer Breakfast” scheduled to take place on Feb. 25 at the base’s event center. The invitation was sent under Heathman’s formal title of commander of the 375th Air Mobility Wing.

Because Heathman urged recipients to send in their RSVPs, MRFF argues that the invitation signified a “command priority.”

MRFF also contends that Heathman violated the constitutional rights of subordinates under his command by “establishing religion” in a manner that violates the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

“You have additionally created a de facto ‘religious test,’” MRFF President Michael Weinstein said in the letter.

MRFF further argued that Heathman “blatantly breached the bounds” of several Department of Defense and U.S. Air Force directives, instructions and regulations. The letter cites Air Force Instruction 1-1, Section 2.12, which states that “leaders at all levels must balance constitutional protections for their own free exercise of religion.”

SOURCE: Christian Post, Samuel Smith

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