As Religious Freedom Summit Ends, State Department Announces New Alliance, Sanctions

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As Religious Freedom Summit Ends, State Department Announces New Alliance, Sanctions


As Religious Freedom Summit Ends, State Department Announces New Alliance, Sanctions


WASHINGTON (RNS) — Trump administration officials announced a new alliance with U.S. partners focused on religious freedom and new sanctions against foreign military officials supporting countries the U.S. considers to be instigators of religious persecution.


The developments Thursday (July 18) were among the highlights of the last day of the State Department’s Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom. Foreign ministers also took turns stating ways their nations are working to affirm religious liberty. That followed two days of meetings where survivors shared their stories of persecution and some of the almost 900 religious leaders and activists in attendance made plans to foster interfaith understanding.


Before a gathering of representatives of 106 countries, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced plans to create the International Religious Freedom Alliance.


“We hope that this new vehicle — the first-ever international body devoted to this specific topic – will build on efforts to date and bring like-minded countries together to confront challenges of international religious freedom,” he said. “It will provide a space for the work that we do here to flourish throughout the year.”


Vice President Mike Pence, speaking later in the day, announced that the U.S. had placed sanctions on two leaders of Iranian-backed militias, groups he said…

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Association of Christian Teachers’ director agrees with MPs call for ten year plan for education system

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Association of Christian Teachers’ director agrees with MPs call for ten year plan for education system

They have called on the government to put aside billions of pounds for schools and colleges.

The Education Select Committee has claimed there are now a series of extras that need paying for, such as mental health services, as well as rising pupil numbers.

 

 

MPs on the Education Select Committee said a long-term approach and a “multi-billion cash injection” is necessary.

Its report on school funding confirms the concerns of head teachers and teachers’ unions who have protested about worsening budget shortages.

The committee found that schools and colleges “desperately need” extra cash.

A Department for Education spokeswoman accepted that schools were facing “budgeting challenges”.

The Association of Christian Teachers director, Clive Ireson told Premier he agrees with MPs that the education system is broken from a finance viewpoint: “I think it is broken from the point of view of the finance of the education system, people are struggling in all areas at the moment, not just schools, further education colleges and elsewhere, because we have more children in the system. We have required children to stay on until they’re 18, yet we’ve not really prepared for this adequately.”

He said if it were to happen, the cash injection would be good for pupils: “In particular special needs schools are struggling to provide the needs of special needs people and that shouldn’t be the…

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Why the Pendulum on Church Metrics May Be Swinging Too Far

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Podcast Episode #555

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There is a pendulum swing in church leadership circles as it relates to the viewpoint of church metrics. Numbers and tracking numbers aren’t inherently bad, but they can be abused. Today, we discuss this swing and the negative sentiments often associated with it.

Some highlights from today’s episode include:

  • If numbers are all you care about at your church, you may end up compromising on principles to get the numbers up.
  • What you measure in a church becomes important to the church.
  • Tracking metrics will move you to action in certain ways because you have a more accurate picture of reality thanks to the trends shown by the metrics.
  • Group participation and attendance is the most important discipleship-related metric to track.

The nine observations we discuss are:

  1. Emphases on church metrics have been cyclical.
  2. Understanding the phenomenon through the lens of mainline denominations.
  3. Metrics engender accountability
  4. Metrics move leaders to action
  5. Key metric: worship attendance
  6. Key metric: groups attendance
  7. Key metric: total and general giving
  8. Key metric: conversions
  9. Trend today: responding to metrics too late

Resources mentioned in today’s podcast

Rainer on Leadership is a member of the LifeWay Leadership Podcast Network

Episode Sponsors

The mission at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ by equipping students to serve the…

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Elderly Christian Woman Raped, Stoned to Death in Syria

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Elderly Christian Woman Raped, Stoned to Death in Syria


Elderly Christian Woman Raped, Stoned to Death in Syria


Islamic militants have subjected an elderly Christian lady to a prolonged rape before stoning her to death.


International Christian Concern reported that 60-year-old Suzan Der Kirkour, who was a gardener and Arabic teacher, was discovered dead outside her village of Al-Yaqoubiyeh July 9 after being subjected to a sickeningly cruel ordeal of sexual violence.


The sordid details of the attack were confirmed by humanitarian organization SOS Chrétien’s d’Orient, who obtained an autopsy report conducted after the attack. Kirkour “died under the repeated assaults of the jihadists of al-Nusra,” the charity noted.


The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also confirmed the incident. “The body of a citizen woman in her fifties was found on Tuesday the 9th of July 2019, and it was revealed later that she is a Christian woman,” the group noted in its report.


“The woman is from Ya’qubiyah village north of Jisr Al-Shughur in the western countryside of Idlib, where her body was found with marks of torture on it, and according to the forensic medicine; the woman had been tortured for about 9 hours before she was stoned till death by unidentified persons.”


Jabhat al-Nusra group is a terrorist organization that was formerly affiliated with al Qaeda.


In a statement, ICC’s Regional Manager for the Middle East, Claire Evans, said that Suzan “was a pillar in…

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‘The Eagle has landed!’: The courage to change the world

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‘The Eagle has landed!’: The courage to change the world

“Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed!” With these words spoken fifty years ago tomorrow, astronaut Neil Armstrong announced to our world that he and Buzz Aldrin had become the first humans to land on another world.

Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. identified the moon landing as the most significant event of the twentieth century. More than 530 million people watched the broadcast of the moon landing on television. It is estimated that 93 percent of all the televisions in the US were tuned into the event.

But few of those watching had any idea how dangerous the mission truly was.

A flying prodigy and courageous pilot

Yesterday we focused on Michael Collins, the astronaut who stayed aboard the command module while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. Monday, we’ll consider Buzz Aldrin’s story and the legacy of his faith.

Today, in preparation for tomorrow’s anniversary, let’s focus on Neil Armstrong, the astronaut who commanded the mission and was the first person to walk on the moon.

Like the other two Apollo 11 astronauts, Armstrong was born in 1930. A flying prodigy, he earned his student flight certificate before he had a driver’s license.

He began studying aeronautical engineering at Purdue University at the age of seventeen and joined the Navy two years later. He flew seventy-eight combat missions during the Korean War, service for which he was highly decorated. He then returned to Purdue to complete his degree.

Armstrong did not know how important his courage would be to the success of the mission we are celebrating today.

How Neil Armstrong saved the moon landing

So much could have gone wrong with Apollo 11.

The spaceship’s heat shield was applied by hand with a sophisticated caulking gun; the parachutes were sewn by hand and then folded by hand. (The only three people licensed to fold and pack the Apollo parachutes were considered so indispensable that they were not…

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Bishop writes to Sturgeon over SNP ‘attacks’ on anti-abortion MP

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Bishop writes to Sturgeon over SNP ‘attacks’ on anti-abortion MP

President of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, Bishop Hugh Gilbert, wants the First Minister to provide public reassurance that freedom of conscience will be protected in the SNP and wider public life.

His letter addresses the experiences of MP Dr Lisa Cameron, who represents East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow, who said her office had received more than 900 messages, including “abuse” and “cyber bullying” after her stance sparked an angry reaction from some, including SNP members.

 

 

She fears being deselected from the party after voting in the House of Commons against lifting the ban on abortion in Northern Ireland, where terminations are currently only allowed if the mother’s life is at risk or there is a danger of permanent and serious damage to her mental or physical health.

While the matter was a free vote, enabling individuals to decide in line with their own conscience, Ms Sturgeon made clear if she was in Westminster she would vote in favour of “women’s right to choose” and the result was 332 votes for to 99 against.

Dr Cameron, a consultant clinical psychologist whose anti-abortion stance is partially due to having suffered two miscarriages, said since the vote she has been subject to “attacks” including a person threatening to “come over and ‘abort me'”.

In his letter, Bishop Gilbert writes: “In the days following the vote Dr Cameron has been…

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Overcoming Family Challenges (Part 1) by Pastor Faith Oyedepo

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RCCG Sunday School STUDENT Manual 21 July 2019 – Lesson 47

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Joel and Victoria Osteen’s Devotional 19 July 2019 – Get Excited About Your Future!

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Joyce Meyer Devotional 19 July 2019 — Willpower: The Fair-Weather Friend

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