The Episcopal Church has approved a project to translate the Book of Common Prayer into the Native American language of Lakota.

The Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota recently received a United Thank Offering grant of $45,000 to translate the BCP into contemporary Lakota.

Archdeacon Paul Sneve of the South Dakota Diocese told The Christian Post in an interview on Tuesday that they were in the beginning stages of the translation project.

“Episcopal Congregants from our nine reservations are submitting names of fluent speakers [and] writers who are also familiar with the English BCP. We have decisions to make especially in regard to how best to accommodate the three dialects spoken here, as well as what to include in book,” explained Sneve.

“It has become evident early on that the finished book will be different than the English BCP in that we have liturgies that we use that aren’t included in the 1979 book.”

The $45,000 grant will be used to fund the work of the Translation and Editorial Committees, Formatting, as well as the printer preparation work and the eventual printing.

Before…

After the Chinese government shut down a church in Chengdu, members of the house church took the gospel message to the streets.

In a video shared earlier this week, Christopher Gregory, of the China Missions organization, showed members of the church gathering in a public park to sing, pray and share the gospel. Gregory was later arrested and then released.

Gregory told Christian News Network that the church hosted both morning and evening services earlier this week.

“The local authorities shut down a house church in Chengdu last week, so they thought that was the end of it— it wasn’t,” Gregory said on his social media account, adding that police “looked on in bewilderment not knowing what to do.”

“For the first time, people throughout China are saying, “NO!” to what the Communist party wants— control,” he said. “Control over what they can do, what they can believe, where they can go, what they can say.”

“It’s yet another sign something is beginning to take shape here in China, the call for democracy! The call for freedom!”

The video has more than 43,000 views.

According to the organization China Aid, churches must register with the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. The Movement is the only authorized Protestant Church in China. Any churches who do not register are considered illegal, and authorities can arrest or jail church members.

Officials can also…

Pat Robertson has directly commanded the incoming Hurricane Florence to stay away from the east coast region.

Robertson, who founded Regent University in Virginia who and is also the chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network and host of “The 700 Club,” spoke on Monday at CBN’s special Week of Prayer service, where he reminded the audience that Jesus commanded the sea and the waves at the sea of Galilee to be still.

Speaking of Florence, the category 4 hurricane that is expected to make landfall and cause devastating damage in the Carolinas and Virginia starting Thursday, the evangelist asked the faithful to believe in God.

“I don’t want that thing to come in,” the preacher said of the storm.

“I don’t want it to hurt Regent, I don’t wait it to hurt CBN, I don’t want it to tear up the beautiful campus, I don’t want it to tear these trees down, I don’t want to see any damage, I don’t want a bunch of glass flowing,” or damage to the area, he added.

He asked people at the service to raise their hands toward the Atlantic.

“We declare in the name of the Lord that you shall go no farther, you shall do no damage in this area,”…

Hurricane Florence, a powerful Category 4 storm, is less than 48 hours out from making landfall in the Carolinas. This morning, Hurricane models are predicting that Florence will stall over the Carolina coast and make an unexpected shift south toward South Carolina.  According to Fox News Senior Meteorologist Janice Dean, this behavior might cause “a major flooding event.”

Though the storm is predicted to veer south, meteorologists are still urging Virginians to prepare for the possibility of heavy rains and tropical storm speed winds. 

According to the Washington Post, the Cat. 4 storm is predicted to have damaging winds, cause flash flooding, and could possibly cause widespread power outages.

The Post reports that the storm could cause the sea level to rise by 9 feet at its peak and heavy winds have the potential to take down trees and damage property. Similar to Hurricane Harvey’s behavior, Hurricane Florence is expected to slow significantly when it reaches the coast and dump dangerous amounts of rain in the Carolinas.

Florence is predicted to be the most intense storm to strike the region since Hugo, some 25 years ago.

Forecasts hypothesize that Florence’s center will arrive at the South and North Carolina border on Friday as either a Category 3 or 4 hurricane. As the storm approaches the coast, its forward motion will rapidly slow, with the winds and…

(RNS) — When Sarah Joy Hays learned in the summer of 2016 that her pastor in Baton Rouge, La., had been having an affair with another woman in their church — a woman who had been her spiritual mentor for many years — she was angry and confused.

“I got pregnant out of wedlock, and she was one of the first people I told,” Hays recalled. “She kind of pastored and mentored me through it.

“To find out she was actively involved in this affair throughout that — that’s where I had the hardest time, figuring out how to react to that. I was going through something that was very obvious, an ‘external sin.’ And she was in the same situation, essentially, but nobody knew.”

Both the pastor and the woman with whom he had an affair were disciplined by their denomination, and he was removed from the pastorate, Hays said.

Two years later, the small congregation has a new pastor, many members have taken advantage of periodic one-on-one and group counseling provided by their denomination, and some measure of healing has been achieved.

But Hays said she is still guarded spiritually. “It causes you to question any amount of wisdom and discernment from then on,” Hays said. “It helps determine trust and how you give away trust.”

Bill Hybels. Theodore McCarrick. Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. Tariq Ramadan. Andy Savage. Paul Pressler. Retired Mormon missions president Joseph L. Bishop. Creation Festival founder Harry Thomas. Rabbi Haskel Lookstein. Stanley Rosenfeld.

The shameful roster of spiritual leaders who have been accused of committing…