Grace Fellowship UMC of Katy, Texas has voted to leave the United Methodist Church denomination over its debate on homosexuality.

According to the Christian Post, the Texas church voted earlier in December to make the split as the United Methodist Church denomination debates making an amendment to the Book of Discipline. The change would remove language calling homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Jim Leggett, the founding pastor of Grace Fellowship, said Monday that the congregation wanted to “remove ourselves from the dysfunctional fighting going on in the United Methodist Church so that we can fully devote our energies to fulfilling the mission and vision that God has given to us.”

“At one point, we looked up and noticed that we were spending easily 30 percent of our leadership meeting time discussing the issues of the UMC, and we realized that this was not good stewardship of our time and resources for the Kingdom of God,” said Leggett.

“In the last year, it has become clear to us that despite having biblical standards of morality on paper in the denomination’s Book of Discipline, the leadership of the United Methodist Church is unable or unwilling to live by those standards.”

He said the congregation may affiliate with the Free Methodist Church.

“We have a distinct culture with deeply-held values that have been shaped over our 160-year history,” the…

Nick Ahmed is known as one of Major League Baseball’s top defensive players, but six years ago, he was a struggling minor leaguer, unsure what the future held. 

Then he gave his life to Christ.

Ahmed, a shortstop for the Arizona Diamondbacks and a two-time Gold Glove winner, said recently during a “Breakfast & Baseball” speech at Hillside Community Church in Bristol, Conn., that his outlook on his career and life changed during an encounter with God on a hot and muggy night in Mobile, Ala. – right in the middle of a minor league game.

LISTEN: Gold Glove shortstop @nickahmed13 of the Diamondbacks shares a portion of his testimony recently in Connecticut at @Hillsidebristol church. pic.twitter.com/NQdl0ORjzR

— Sports Spectrum (@Sports_Spectrum) December 24, 2019

“The first two at-bats were terrible. I strike out. I ground into a double play. I’m like, ‘Here we go again.’ I [had] all this fear and anxiety and worry about my dream being ripped away from me. … Every day I showed up to the ballpark, I was like, ‘Man, this is going to be my last game. I’m going to fail again. The next day I’m going to get released. I’m going to have to give up on my dream and it’s going to be over.’”

But between the fourth and fifth innings, he handed his career to God. 

“I [ran] out to play shortstop, play defense, and for whatever reason I just stood there, and I didn’t take…

Nearly 200 faith leaders are pushing back against a recent Christianity Today editorial calling for President Trump’s removal from office, saying the piece “offensively questioned the spiritual integrity and Christian witness of tens-of-millions of believers who take seriously their civic and moral obligations.

“It not only targeted our President; it also targeted those of us who support him, and have supported you.”

The comments were made in a Dec. 22 open letter to CT President Timothy Dalrymple and published by the Christian Post. The letter also takes umbrage at comments Mark Galli, the editorial’s author, subsequently made during a cable news interview about the fallout.

“It was astonishing to us that your editor-in-chief, Mark Galli, further offensively dismissed our point of view on CNN by saying, “Christianity Today is not read by the people—Christians on the far right, by evangelicals on the far right—so they’re going to be as dismissive of the magazine as President Trump has shown to be.”

The letter went on to talk about the need for Christian involvement in public service.

“We are proud to be numbered among those in history who, like Jesus, have been pretentiously accused of having too much grace for tax collectors and sinners, and we take deeply our personal responsibility to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s—our public…

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Under the dome of Rome’s St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis celebrated the Christmas vigil Mass on Tuesday (Dec. 24) by reminding faithful of the redeeming power of grace and admonishing them to “take courage,” because “God loves you.”

“Do not lose confidence, do not lose hope, do not think that to love is a waste of time,” the pope said in his homily. “Tonight, love has conquered fear, new hope has arrived, God’s kindly light has overcome the darkness of human arrogance. 

“Mankind, God loves you; for your sake he became man. You are no longer alone!”

Francis said that like the shepherds who ran to the manger to see Christ, faithful today have many failures and are “not saints.” At Christmas, he added, they are all invited and called to God, in whose presence they need not be afraid. This lesson remains true today, Francis said, as the scandals in the Catholic Church and people’s personal doubts impede them from going to Christ.

“Whatever goes wrong in our lives, whatever doesn’t work in the church, whatever problems there are in the world, will no longer serve as an excuse,” he said. “At Christmas, the question is this: ‘Do I allow myself to be loved by God? Do I abandon myself to his love that comes to save me?”

The Mass was celebrated with the typical liturgical colors of white and gold, before a large crowd…

MINDANAO, Philippines, December 26, 2019 (Morning Star News) – A grenade attack near a Catholic cathedral and radio station in the southern Philippines on Sunday (Dec. 22) could have been aimed at a military advance team for a presidential visit as much as the Christian sites, according to local reports.

The grenade explosion injured at least eight soldiers and six civilians in Cotabato on the island of Mindanao, according to reports. Police stated the grenade was thrown near the Immaculate Conception Cathedral, seat of the archdiocese of Cotabato, and the radio station owned by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

Mass-goers huddled in the cathedral upon hearing the explosion and the ensuing brief gunfight between soldiers and the assailants. They later returned to worship, but a service scheduled for 6:30 p.m. was cancelled, parish priest Zaldy Robles told Minda News.

“It is sad that this kind of violence is happening while we are celebrating the holy Christmas season,” Robles told the news outlet. “Let us not let the reign of darkness rule over us.”

He added that it was fortunate the grenade was not thrown into the worship service. In 2009, a bomb attack at the same cathedral in Cotabato killed five civilians and wounded dozens of others.

After Sunday’s grenade attack, a second blast a short distance away injured a passer-by, according to Vatican News.

Explosions in two cities…

A Michigan pro-life coalition submitted more than 350,000 signatures on Dec. 23 to a government entity in hopes that the signatures would lead to the banning of late-term abortion procedures that involve the dismemberment of unborn babies. 

The Michigan Values Life coalition submitted 379,418 signatures to the Michigan Bureau of Elections in favor of the ban – significantly more than the 340,047 that are needed, although the signatures now must be verified by the state.   

The coalition actually collected more than 400,000 signatures but tossed out several thousand it believes would have been ruled invalid. 

If the signature drive is successful, then the Republican-controlled House and Senate must consider a bill that would ban a procedure the bill calls “dismemberment abortion” but is known as dilation and evacuation (D&E) among abortion doctors. Significantly, the bill would not be subject to a veto by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Under the Michigan Constitution, citizens can submit bills to the legislature that don’t require approval by the governor. 

The House and Senate passed such a bill earlier this year, but Whitmer vetoed it. 

“The 379,418 people who signed their names on this life-saving dismemberment ban should be confident that our prolife majorities in the Michigan Legislature will pass the bill again, just like they did back in May,” said Barbara…