Breaking down the anatomy and aesthetics of a perfect pie with the owner of New York’s favorite late-night pie shop.
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One Weird Letter as an Example of What Pastors Have to Endure (Particularly in a COVID Era)
I received an email through Church Answers a couple of years ago. A team member sent it to me because she thought it would lighten my day. It was a bit strange after all.
I decided to hold the email for a while and choose a good time to share it with our readers. Our team has noted that the COVID era is a period when all the complaints pastors get seem to be coming at once.
Well, this letter epitomizes this era. I changed some of the verbiage that would identify the writer, the church, and the pastor. Note that the writer is not a member of the church. She decided to do her own investigation based on the complaints of others. She further insisted that Church Answers do its own investigation of this pastor.
The Weird Letter
Hello. My name is Betty and I am writing you a formal complaint against Bill Jones who is the pastor at Community Church in Gravetown. I had heard numerous complaints about his so-called preaching and I decided to make a couple of visits to the church.
In my opinion, he shouldn’t even be a pastor, let alone be the pastor at any church. Here are my reasons why. I think your organization should take time to investigate this matter.
First of all, he calls the church site a campus, and he does not refer to it as the house of God. Secondly, he only reads one Bible verse, and the rest of the time he is either talking about sports and how teams played or not played, or he is talking about his children.
Then it’s all about politics. He said abortion was a sin. I…
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Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Thom Rainer.
Postcard from Beaufort in coastal North Carolina
Summer is ending, but you wouldn’t know it in the North Carolina town of Beaufort.
Beaufort, located at the southern range of the famed Outer Banks, is a perfect place to visit during the shoulder season. Here the water at Fort Macon State Park and other beaches is warm enough for swimming in October.
Of course, there is much more to do and see than the beaches.
North Carolina’s third-oldest town (population 4,186) has several blocks of old homes — some dating to the mid-1700s. Talk about curb appeal.
Among the oldest houses are those on Front Street facing Beaufort’s harbor, the waters of which were known to Edward Teach (better known as Blackbeard) and other pirates more than a half-century before American independence in 1776. One of the houses belonged to Jacob Henry, a Jew twice-elected to the state legislature at a time when Protestantism was the official state religion.
Across the waterfront is Carrot Island, a barrier island-turned-nature reserve with a herd of wild horses. More wild horses can be found at Shackleford Banks, part of the Cape Lookout National Seashore.
To discover all of the history, visit the North Carolina Maritime Museum. The collection includes around 300 artifacts from Blackbeard’s flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge.
Continue exploring the past at the Beaufort Historic Site. The grounds feature several old…
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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – The Christian Post.
The First Step Act, Chuck Colson, and the Church’s work of restoration
I’m old enough to remember that time, way back in 2018, when Democrats and Republicans worked together. Really, it did happen and resulted in a major, bi-partisan criminal justice reform bill called “The First Step Act,” which sought to reduce the number of people in overcrowded federal prisons and improve conditions for those behind bars.
When he endorsed the bill, President Trump said, “We’re all better off when former inmates can receive and re-enter society as law-abiding, productive citizens.” At last month’s Republican National Convention, Ivanka Trump called the First Step Act “the most significant criminal justice reform of our generation.” That’s not an overstatement.
A major feature of the bill is that it reduces mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders, especially “low-level, nonviolent offenders.” For those already serving time for crack cocaine-related offenses, the reductions were retroactive.
In its first year, the First Step Act has literally changed thousands of lives. According to a recent report from the United States Sentencing Commission, the sentences of more than 7,000 federal prisoners, deemed able to safely return to their communities, were reduced.
As the libertarian publication Reason rightly noted, the First Step Act is a modest, but very real, “first…
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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – The Christian Post.
Man whom Tim Tebow prayed over at baseball game is seizure-free after 2 years, praises God
Thirty-four-year-old Arizona resident Brandon Berry will never forget the day that he had a seizure, passed out in the stands along the third-base line at a baseball game and woke up to find Tim Tebow praying over him.
A couple of hours earlier on Oct. 11, 2016, Berry, who had suffered from epileptic seizures that kept him from being able to drive since 2013, had rededicated his life to Christ. The decision came after he met a man who was talking about God to a reporter in the stands at the Arizona Fall League contest.
“I introduced myself to him and we got to talking and I just told him that I felt like I was saved before but I was losing my faith in God. I felt like God was punishing me and I didn’t know if He took away my salvation because of all this stuff that was happening to me with my epilepsy,” he said.
“He told me that God loves me. We went over Scripture and we prayed and I rededicated my life in the stands that day. A couple of hours later, I started feeling ill and getting a metal taste in my mouth right there on the third baseline. I tried my best to get on the ground or somewhere where I would be safe. The seizure happened and blacked out. I woke up to Tim praying over me.”
The encounter made mainstream news headlines as it was Tebow’s first game with the Scottsdale Scorpions. The Christian athlete shocked the world earlier…
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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – The Christian Post.
Calif. pastor moves worship outdoors after county fines church $112K for indoor services
The pastor of a 3,000-seat California church said he will stop fighting Santa Clara County and hold services in the church parking lot as per local COVID-19 guidelines after fines rose to over $112,000. The county said it will not forgive the fines.
Jack Trieber, the pastor of North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara, has chosen to obey the county’s directives banning indoor services, according to ABC7News.
The church was being fined $5,000 for every service it held as well as fines for other violations such as singing.
ABC7News reports that Trieber told his congregation in an outdoor meeting this week that senators told him they had given President Donald Trump the pastor’s personal phone number and if he would be willing to receive a call from the White House. But the pastor said he didn’t want to take that course of action.
Trieber also reportedly said he has put on hold a campaign that was aimed at flooding local government offices with one million emails from supporters. “I don’t wish anything evil to happen with authorities. Tonight was the right decision to move out here,” he was quoted as…
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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – The Christian Post.
City drops charges against pastor fined $800 for holding worship services
The city of Niles, Illinois, has dropped all four “disorderly conduct” citations against Romanian Pastor Daniel Chiu who had been asked to pay a fine of $800 for holding morning and evening worship services on two consecutive Sundays.
Announcing the dropping of all charges against Chiu of the Logos Baptist Ministries, Christian legal firm Liberty Counsel said it will now ask the Supreme Court to review the case in the federal lawsuit against Gov. J.B. Pritzker “for his unconstitutional executive orders discriminating against churches.”
“It is beyond belief that a pastor would be charged with ‘disorderly conduct’ for peacefully and safely holding a church service,” Liberty Counsel founder and Chairman Mat Staver said.
“Think about it — a pastor who survived communist Romania is charged with ‘disorderly conduct’ for holding a church service in America — the land of the free,” he added. “This is shameful. The repression against the church under communism failed, and it will not succeed here in America.”
“While Gov. J.B. Pritzker removed all restrictions on churches and…
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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – The Christian Post.
Hollywood Star Nicole Weider Opens Up about How God Gave Her Life Purpose, Not Fame
Nicole Weider, the executive producer of “Switched,” a movie about what it would be like for a popular girl and social media star to walk a day in the shoes of a girl who lacking in confidence, opened up on her faith and how God gave her purpose and fulfillment after she gave up trying to do things her way.
Before becoming a Hollywood star, Weider had a successful career in modeling, but she never felt fulfilled. She thought her career didn’t leave a positive impact. “It’s interesting because when I was involved in commercials and modeling and doing things without God and doing things that did not have a faith message, I was constantly faced with scrutiny and felt like I never measured up,” Weider told Fox News. “I was actually hurting my self-esteem, but when I gave my life to God it’s amazing how he opened up so many doors.”
Before becoming a Christian, Weider was known for being one of the Victoria Secret angels. In another interview with The 700 Club, Weider warned teen girls not to get swept up in trying to always look like a model to find approval and validation from others, because it leads to a life of depression, anxiety, and not having a true sense of self. In the interview she states how she used to say to herself: “Nicole, this isn’t what you’re meant to do. You’re not meant to just be parading your sexuality for pictures, and I started feeling really bad…
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Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Christian Headlines.
Trump to Launch ‘1776 Commission’ to ‘Promote Patriotic Education’ in Schools
President Trump on Thursday said he soon would establish a national commission to promote “patriotic” history in America’s schools and counter what he called “propaganda” that is teaching students to be “ashamed of their own” country.
The president made the comments on Constitution Day at the National Archives Museum during a White House conference on American history.
The new commission will be called the 1776 Commission and promote “patriotic education,” he said. Trump said he will sign an executive order to establish it.
“It will encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history and make plans to honor the 250th anniversary of our founding,” he said.
Trump made the announcement during a speech in which he criticized a “radical movement” within the nation that is attempting to “demolish” American history.
“We can’t let that happen,” he said.
The U.S. Constitution, he said, was the “product of centuries of tradition, wisdom and experience.” No political document “has done more to advance the human condition or propel the engine of progress,” Trump said.
“Our mission is to defend the legacy of America’s founding, the virtue of America’s heroes, and the nobility of the American character,” he said. “We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and classrooms, and teach our children…
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Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Christian Headlines.
‘The Goal Was to Emphasize Diversity’: Church Apologizes for Ad Featuring Jesus with Breasts, Wearing Makeup
An Icelandic church recently received backlash after running a cartoon ad featuring a bearded Jesus with breasts, makeup, and in a white dress.
According to the Daily Mail, the advert first appeared on the National Church’s Facebook page on September 11, which has since been deleted. The ad was meant to be used as a means to introduce young people to Sunday school.
The graphic apparently showed Jesus dancing under a rainbow shaking his breasts while pointing to a church. Several children are also shown across the advert.
In response to the controversy, the Icelandic church has issued a statement apologizing for their actions.
“’The 2020 Assembly of the National Church regrets that the picture of Jesus in a Sunday school – has hurt people. The goal was to emphasize diversity, not to hurt people or shock them,” the church said.
Petur Georg Markan, a media representative for the Church of Iceland, explained the necessity to share various forms of Jesus as the church’s way to endorse diversity.
“In this one, we see a Jesus who has breasts and a beard. We’re trying to embrace society as it is. We have all sorts of people and we need to train ourselves to talk about Jesus as being ‘all sorts’ in this context,” Markan said.
“Especially because it’s really important that each and every person see themselves in Jesus and that we don’t…
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Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Christian Headlines.
