Tamed bats could become a ‘tool for mission’

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Tamed bats could become a ‘tool for mission’

Ahead of the Church’s General Synod in York, one of the questions put forward to bishops is about the mammals’ effects on belfries.

According to the Bats and Churches Partnerships project, at least 60 per cent of pre-16th Century churches are estimated to contain bat roosts and at least eight species are known to use churches.

 

Bat populations have historically been in decline because of the reductions in woodlands and changes in farming practices.

However, bats – which are protected by law – can cause churches issues such as dealing with bat droppings and therefore raise hygiene concerns.

Rex

 

Sir Tony Baldry, chair of the Church Buildings Council said there is a hidden advantage to bats making homes in churches with holes in their walls and doors.

“Bats might even prove to be a tool for mission, if we can get them to behave,” The Daily Telegraph has reported he said.

He added: “We have to encourage them out of the belfry to roost in bat boxes in churchyards.”

He explained children could then visit the churches to study the bats and perhaps become Christians in the process.

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Premier Christianity News.

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Notable Voices and the Week in Review: July 6, 2019

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Three Things to Be Careful About Saying at the Start of Your Service — Jared Wilson

Obviously context matters, and there’s no need to be dogmatic about how we informally (or even formally) begin a worship service, but here are some common introductory cliches I think worth weighing in terms of their helpfulness to the congregation’s worship.

How Many Protestant Churchgoers Actually Read the Bible Regularly? — Facts & Trends

Christians say the Bible is God’s Word, but even among Protestant churchgoers only a third spend time reading it every day. The 2019 Discipleship Pathway Assessment study from Nashville-based LifeWay Research found those who regularly attend Protestant churches are inconsistent in their reading and thinking about Scripture.

Your Church Is Not a Restaurant — Trevin Wax

In a consumer-oriented society, the default orientation for church attenders is to see their local congregation as a dispenser of religious goods and services. I say “default” not because it’s inevitable that everyone who goes to church perceives their congregation this way, but because without serious and sustained effort to have a more biblical approach people will naturally gravitate toward a view of the church that is influenced by a consumerist imagination.

Eight Faulty Assumptions of Non-Growing Churches — Chuck Lawless

Most churches are not growing. Not every non-growing church gives evidence of the following faulty assumptions; nevertheless, many do, and these assumptions…

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Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Thom Rainer.

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Ban on Abortion at 22 Weeks May Appear on Colorado Ballot

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Ban on Abortion at 22 Weeks May Appear on Colorado Ballot


Ban on Abortion at 22 Weeks May Appear on Colorado Ballot


A Colorado initiative that would ban abortion at 22 weeks of pregnancy moved one step closer to appearing on the 2020 ballot when the state’s title board ruled Wednesday the proposal deals with a single subject as required by law.


Colorado is one of only seven states that don’t restrict late-term abortion, according to USA Today and the Guttmacher Institute. 


The state’s title board OK’d the initiative, although it still could face legal challenges. Supporters must collect more than 124,000 signatures.


It includes an exception to save the mother’s life if she is threatened by a “physical disorder, physical illness or physical injury.” The proposed initiative explicitly does not include exceptions for “psychological or emotional conditions.”


A clinic in Boulder, Colo., specializes in late-term abortions.


“This is not a theoretical argument for us. This a very home-based issue,” said Suzanne Staiert, an attorney for supporters of the initiative. 


The initiative says there is “substantial medical evidence that an unborn child is capable of experiencing pain by 22 weeks gestation.”


Additionally, unborn babies at 22 weeks can survive if given the chance, the proposed initiative says.


“Modern medical science has the ability to treat a child who is born alive at 22 weeks gestation,” it reads. “And these children survive in hospitals…

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Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Christian Headlines.

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Russians Outraged by Case of Three Sisters Who Killed Their Abusive Father and Now Face 20 Years in Prison – Urban Christian News

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Russians Outraged by Case of Three Sisters Who Killed Their Abusive Father and Now Face 20 Years in Prison – Urban Christian News

In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 26, 2019, Krestina Khachaturyan attends hearings in a court room in Moscow, Russia. Three Khachaturyan sisters, now aged 18, 19 and 20, face charges of the premeditated murder of their father who allegedly abused them for years, could land them in prison for up to 20-years, but the case has provoked outrage in Russia and calls to stop the court case. (Alexander Avilov, Moscow News Agency photo via AP)

MOSCOW (AP) — One evening last summer, Mikhail Khachaturyan decided that his living room wasn’t tidy enough, so he summoned his three teenage daughters one by one and doused each with pepper spray.

Such violence and abuse was not unusual in the Khachaturyan household, according to court records. But Maria, Angelina and Krestina Khachaturyan decided they couldn’t take it anymore. They waited until their father fell asleep in his rocking chair and attacked him with a kitchen knife and a hammer. He put up a fight but died within minutes.

The sisters, now aged 18, 19 and 20, were charged last month with premeditated murder in a case that has drawn outrage and illustrated how the Russian justice system handles domestic violence and sexual abuse cases.

More than 200,000 people have signed an online petition urging prosecutors to drop the murder charges, which could land the sisters in prison for up to 20 years.

Their supporters have protested outside Russian embassies in more than 20 locations abroad, and a theater has staged a show in solidarity. They had planned a major rally in central Moscow on Saturday, but said they had to cancel it, citing a…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Urban Christian News

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Lobsters and lumberjacks on July 4: Is America an exceptional country?

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Lobsters and lumberjacks on July 4: Is America an exceptional country?

From lobster races in Maine to a golf cart parade on Catalina Island and a lumberjack competition in Pennsylvania, Americans spent yesterday celebrating our nation’s independence. President Trump, speaking before the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, declared: “We will never forget that we are Americans and the future belongs to us. The future belongs to the brave, the strong, the proud and the free.”

Two hundred and forty-three years ago, fifty-six brave men pledged “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” to adopt the Declaration of Independence. Their act that day in Philadelphia changed the course of the world. The United States became the first nation in history to be founded on an idea: the principle of freedom. 

From then to today, America has been an exceptional country. 

Is this a God-given fact? If so, why?

I researched that question recently. Here is what I found. 

Our God-given geography is exceptional. 

The Greater Mississippi Basin with the Intracoastal Waterway has more miles of navigable internal waterways than the rest of the world combined. This is important because transporting goods by water is significantly cheaper than over land. 

The American Midwest is the world’s largest contiguous piece of farmland. The American Atlantic Coast possesses more major ports than the rest of the Western Hemisphere combined. And oceans to our east and west, deserts to our south, and lakes and forests to our north insulate us from the rest of the world. 

We are the least densely populated nation of any major global economy. More than half of our sixty largest cities face no restrictions on expansion in any direction. 

Our God-given resources are exceptional. 

With 5 percent of the world’s population, we produce nearly a third of the world’s wealth. The Texas economy is larger than the economies of Canada, Russia, or Australia;…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Denison Forum.

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Catholic nuns evicted from health centres

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Catholic nuns evicted from health centres

According to local sources, around 25 men went to the health centre on Tuesday and removed beds, cupboards, chairs, tables and other property belonging to the health centre before loading everything onto a lorry.

The incident follows the arrest of a Catholic nun just over a week ago who was detained in Keren. Sources have claimed other nuns have faced evictions recently and have been left to “fend for themselves”.

 

In May 2002, Eritrea introduced a registration policy that effectively outlawed all religious practices not affiliated with the Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran or Orthodox Christian denominations and Sunni Islam, and began a campaign of arrests targeting unsanctioned denominations that continues to date, and that also affects the officially sanctioned religious communities.

In 2002, Eritrea outlawed Christian denominations not affiliated with the Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran or Orthodox Christian Church or and Sunni Islam, and began shutting down Evangelical and Pentecostal churches.

Christians who worship in unregistered churches can face punishment and any believers in the armed services caught practising can be imprisoned.

Facebook/Wedi Eri South

 

Christian Solidarity Worldwide’s Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas said: “The forcible eviction of nuns from these facilities demonstrates once again the necessity for the Human Rights…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Premier Christianity News.

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Rhapsody of Realities 7 July 2019 — The Church Is Called “The Way”

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MFM Daily Devotional 7 July 2019 – Unction to Function (I)

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Seeds of Destiny 7 July 2019 Devotional – From Revelation to The Blessing

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Prayer Points on Today’s Open Heaven 7 July 2019

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