Five hundred years ago, on Oct. 31, 1517, German born Martin Luther (1483-1546) challenged the religious system of his day by posting his 95 Theses on a church door in Wittenberg. This one act ignited a flame that set things in motion to reform the Christianity of his day, thus beginning the Protestant Reformation.
This Reformation paved the way for us to experience the religious freedom we have today. Only once in every 500 years does a generation get the chance to celebrate such…
The Maryland building had been used as a secret abortion clinic. A 2010 raid found the remains of 35 frozen late-term aborted babies, including one that had been at 33 weeks gestation.
Tenant Steven Brigham and his business partner, Nicola Riley, faced a combined six charges of first-degree murder, six second-degree murder charges and one count of conspiracy to commit murder.
Brigham was not licensed to carry out abortions in the state.
The facility was discovered after one of their patients had to be hospitalized after a botched abortion in 2010.
The Cecil County Pregnancy Center is now housed in the building.
“It feels like a fresh breath of healing and encouragement is blowing through Cecil County with us being able to take over that space,” Dan Mohler, who serves as the center’s executive director, said. “In the very room where he was doing his abortions, we’re putting our ultrasound, and we’re going to be saving lives. I like the transforming beauty of that.”
According to LifeNews.com, the center is the latest pro-life center or ministry to convert a former abortion clinic.
Earlier this year, a Philadelphia AlphaCare added a location next to the abortion clinic that was once operated by Kermit…
(Photo: Screen shot via Vimeo)Hillsong NYC lead pastor Carl Lentz (L) interviews Christian Cultural Center Senior Pastor A.R. Bernard at the Hillsong NYC Conference on Aug. 4, 2016.
Hillsong NYC megachurch Pastor Carl Lentz has revealed in a new book that in the past he ran away from church and feared that God wasn’t real.
On Thursday, The New York Times published an interview with Lentz about his new book, Own The Moment, in which he detailed his struggles on the Christian path.
“I have a real palpable disdain for religious jargon. I grew up in church. I ran from church. I know a real Christian from a churchgoing nominal Christian better than most,” Lenz reveals.
He added that on the day he found God he was “riddled with fear.”
“Things like ‘What if this isn’t real?’ ‘What if this means I have to give up everything that I love?’ ‘What if this means that for the rest of my life I have to listen to terrible Christian music and wear pleated khaki pants and get a haircut that looks like literally every single Alabama football fan?'” he wrote.
The book deals with a variety of different issues, with NYT describing it as a “collection of sermons.”
“The way I try to preach is the way I tried to write this book,” Lentz said in the interview.
Senate Chaplain Barry Black—known for his stirring prayers and speeches—delivered a powerful invocation calling for more politicians who, without regard for consequences, are willing to call out sin for what it is.
“Give us more senators who are true to duty as the needle to the pole,” Black prayed. “Give us more legislators who are not afraid to call sin by its right name. Lord, provide us with more patriots who will stand for right, regardless of the…
Early in 2017, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price recommended faith in God as a viable solution to the current opioid crisis. He is a medical doctor, yet he claims that faith-based treatment is more effective than MAT in treating opioid addiction. (U.S. Air Force photo illustration/Tech. Sgt. Mark R.W. Orders-Woempner)
Every day in America, approximately 91 people die of an opioid overdose. According to the Centers for Disease Control, from 2000 to 2015, more than a half-million…
(Photo: Adam Mason)Mark Batterson, pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C. and author of “Whisper: How to Hear the Voice of God.”
WASHINGTON — Prominent megachurch Pastor Mark Batterson says many Christians “have hearing problems” when it comes to God’s voice and his new book shows them how to tune in and hear God speak to them.
A New York Times best-selling author, Batterson, who leads National Community Church, a multi-site church community with eight locations spread across the metro area, explained how one hears the voice of the Lord, the subject of his latest work, Whisper: How to Hear the Voice of God, in an interview with The Christian Post.
Prayer is a dialogue, Batterson says, yet too often when we pray what we fail to do is listen. And if you never stop to listen you are certainly not going to hear His voice and thereby able to discern His will. For the Christian, nothing is more important than this, he stresses.
The first and foremost language of God is the Scripture, Batterson writes in Chapter 5; the Bible is “the key of keys” to hearing Him. But he is quick to caution against the impulse of “bibliolatry” because God speaks in seven love languages, including Scripture.
“I think there are people, well-meaning people, who believe that God only speaks through Scripture, but they are really undermining Scripture because in Scripture God speaks through desires, doors, dreams, people, promptings and pain,” Batterson told CP, naming the other six love languages.
Whisper contains chapters where he unpacks each one of those languages, demonstrating…
Church replanting is becoming more frequent in churches and denominations. Today, Mark Clifton explains five reasons why.
Today’s Listener Question:
FROM ALYSSA
My husband listens to Rainer on Leadership all the time when we’re in the car. He absolutely loved the episode with Mark Clifton about replanting as well as this podcast. He explained that the concept of replanting is a newer one. Why is that?
Episode Highlights:
In North America, we’ve lost the “local” in our local churches.”
Our communities should be noticeably better because of their local church.
Your church should be an integral part of its community and neighborhood.
We live in a DIY world. Remodelling and reclaiming old church buildings fits in that.
The 5 reasons we cover in this episode are:
The rise of home grown and local
The rise of thrift and vintage
Commuter fatigue
The DIY trend
Closing churches give new people new opportunities
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
Revitalize & Replant is sponsored by the North American Mission Board and ChurchReplanters.com. More than 10% of churches in North America are at risk of closing and the North American Mission Board is committed to reversing this trend by decreasing the death rate of existing churches while simultaneously increasing the birth rate of new churches. To learn more about what it means to become a replanting pastor or to explore resources for replanting and…
Dodgers Star Pitcher Clayton Kershaw: ‘It’s Giving up My Life to God That Puts My Life in Control’
The World Series matchup this year between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Houston Astros has proven thus far to be a thrilling competition. Those who follow baseball may know the earned run averages, runs batted in, and a myriad of other stats about the players, but what we may not know about is the deeply-held faith of some of the men on the field.
One such person is Clayton Kershaw, the star pitcher for the Dodgers. At only 29, Kershaw has already had a highly acclaimed career in baseball. He is the youngest pitcher since 1985 to have won the Cy Young Award, and in 2011, he led the National League in victories, ERA, and strikeouts.
But as he explains in an “I am Second” video from 2012, he knows that life is about more than his career success.
He shares a helpful metaphor, comparing pitching to living life. With pitching, he says, rather than hyper-focusing on exactly where the ball needs to go and what you need to do, if you instead “have in the back of your mind where you’re supposed to throw it just say, ‘I’m going to throw it as hard as I can right at that glove’…it’ll be around there more often than not.”
“It’s almost the same in life,” he continues, “the more you try to grip control of your life, the more God’s going to untangle that from you. He’s going to make things go to where you have to…
The list by Historic England details places of worship that are in poor condition and need of funding and repair.
St George the Martyr church near London Bridge, also known as the ’Little Dorrit’ church is in need of repair and so has been added to Historic England’s list. The vicar of the church, Reverend Jonathan Sedgwick told Premier: “the roof leaks, so my office under one of the corners gets flooded whenever it rains very hard and some of the stone work is coming off the outside of the building, so just things that need fixing.
“We’re very thankful that since we’ve been put on the list we have been able to get the Heritage Lottery funding involved and grants from a number of other funding bodies.”
St George the Martyr church has funding to begin renovations and hope this will help them continue to do what they already do in the community.
He added: “It’s also really important that they [churches] live and do their job as churches today…we’ve got a concert going on as I speak to you, we have a foodbank here this afternoon and a café.”
Andrew Reynolds, artistic director and curator of St Luke’s Bombed Out Church in Liverpool spoke to Premier’s Cara Bentley about how the venue had been taken off the Heritage at Risk list:
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