Florida Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency for Alachua County on Monday, in anticipation of a speech from white supremacist Richard Spencer.
Videos, podcasts, blogs and images including prayers are reaching an online audience of 1.2 million a month through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, according to the statistics from the Church of England digital project.
Reach is defined as the number of people who have seen content on social media.
During Christmas, 1.5 million were reached through the Church’s award-winning #JoyToTheWorld campaign featuring short films.
A further 2.5 million were reached during Lent, the season before Easter, through the #LiveLent 2017 project.
The digital campaign has been funded as part of the Church of England’s Renewal and Reform programme and is intended to help the Church of England become a growing church in all places and for all people.
The three-year digital transformation includes the launch of a new ‘A Church Near You’ website by the end of 2017.
In addition, a series of free training courses has been launched for churches on promoting their parishes through social media with more than half of the Church of England 42 dioceses signed up to take part so far.
William Nye, Secretary General to the General Synod, said: “At the heart of the mission of the Church of England is a commitment to proclaiming the gospel afresh in each generation.
“This year’s Statistics for Mission provide a sobering reminder of the long-term challenge we face. This challenge is likely to persist for some years ahead.
“The figures on digital impact, which we are also releasing today, show one of the ways in which we are doing that, as the online dimension of people’s lives becomes ever more significant.
“Our challenge is to join up that growing online Church life to the physical community of Church that forms the body of Christ.”
Adrian Harris, Head of Digital Communications for the Church of England said: “We saw 1.5 million reached by our 2016 #JoyToTheWorld Christmas campaign and 2.5 million with #LiveLent.
“Over the last 12 months we tripled the number of followers on Facebook and Instagram, which indicates that people want to know more of the love of Jesus Christ.”
The teenage daughter of a pastor was kidnapped on Oct. 16 in Diffa, southeastern Niger, in what appears to be the first targeted kidnapping of a Christian by Boko Haram-affiliated militants in the West African nation. (Wokandapix)
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The teenage daughter of a pastor was kidnapped on 16 October in Diffa, southeastern Niger, in what appears to be the first targeted kidnapping of a Christian by Boko Haram-affiliated militants in the West African nation.
The pastor’s daughter was found on Oct. 17 in a village 10km from Diffa. She has now returned to Diffa, where she is being looked after by the authorities.
Aphodiya Garba Maida, 17, daughter of a pastor with the EERN (Église Évangélique de la République du Niger), was on her way to school when she was kidnapped by three women and three men. She was able to use her mobile phone to send a message, saying that she is being held in an unknown location.
The kidnappers are likely affiliated with the Islamist group Boko Haram, and security forces in Diffa have been alerted.
The Diffa area borders Nigeria to the south and Chad to the east, and has seen an upsurge in attacks by Boko Haram in recent months. In July, militants kidnapped 30-40 women and children and slit the throats of nine other people in the village of Ngalewa, while a month earlier two female suicide bombers attacked a UNHCR camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Kablewa.
In February 2015 Boko Haram launched its first attack on Niger territory, targeting Diffa and the nearby town of Bosso, causing thousands to flee. Following the violence several NGOs had to suspend operations and all the churches in the region were closed.
The anti-Christian violence, condemned by the authorities and the Islamic Council of Niger among others, had come as a surprise as the Sahel country had previously been known for its relatively peaceful religious cohabitation, even though more than 98 per cent of Niger’s 17 million inhabitants are Muslim.
Analysts note that the increase in anti-Christian violence is the expression of a growing intolerance in Niger’s society, aggravated by the rise of Islamism.
Meanwhile Boko Haram continues its cross-border raids. While the rebel movement originates from Nigeria, it is “believed to be operating in Niger from largely abandoned islands in Lake Chad”, news website IRIN reports. “Boko Haram’s strategy appears to be to grab what supplies it can ahead of the rainy season, when rising water levels will make crossing the Komadugu River—which flows along the southern border with Nigeria – all the harder”.
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Christ’s atoning sacrifice saved us all from sin and death, and also many other things that shouldn’t be given place in our lives. His finished work has given us the freedom to live our lives in joy, with no obligation to return back to our old, foolish ways.
Many Christians today, however, are unable to live the powerful life purchased by the blood of Christ. They think merely praying the sinner’s prayer is enough to make one get a VIP pass to heaven’s courts.
Many who are in the church today possess a form of Godliness, but deny its power (see 2 Timothy 3:2-5). Sadly, they are unable to enjoy the freedom that comes from the salvation purchased for us by the blood of Christ.
Living Free
To enjoy the freedom that Christ bought for you, there are some things you should do. It’s wrong to believe that God will be the only one making an effort to ensure you live free. While it’s true that God made the way for you to be free, it’s not a green light to do what you want without any consequences. The choice to be free and stay free is yours to make.
To help you jumpstart your faith in Christ, here are some things you should do right after you get saved:
1) Turn from old ways
First, continue turning away from your old ways. This action called “repentance” is very important. Unless we repent of our sins, they can never be forgiven and we can never be rescued from them. Think about it.
Christ the Lord died in our place because He received the punishment for our sins. Of course it would simply follow that we should all turn away from the sins that He died atoning for,
2) Replace old habits with new and Godly ones
What’s the point of repenting of your sin and then not replacing sinful habits with Godly ones? The Bible tells us that we should produce fruit in keeping with repentance. Surely the way to do that is to cut off our sinful and unfruitful habits and replace them with what pleases the Lord.
3) Live a new life in Christ
Lastly, we should all live the new life that Christ purchased for us. Through Him, we are adopted as sons and daughters of God, a people that ought to be holy because the Father is holy, a people desiring to become like Christ in character and in obedience to the will of God.
Our life in Christ is totally new, the Bible says if we are in Him we are a new creation. We are to put off our old ways and put on Christ. We are to forget our past, move on towards growth in Christ, and pursue righteousness and holiness in the Lord.
In Christ our past sins are forgiven and forgotten, our conscience is made clean, and condemnation is taken away. We are freed to live for Him who died for us.
Fulani Militants Raid Village, Kill 28 Women and Children
International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that Fulani militants raided Nkedoron community in Plateau State, Nigeria. During this raid, the militants attacked and killed at least 28 people, mostly Christians, including many women and children. This struggle between Fulani militants and Christian farmers has been an ongoing and bloody struggle for years. As the Fulani continue to migrate south, militants clash with more Christian villages. This year alone, there have been more than 30 attacks on these Christian villages, leaving more than 250 killed and hundreds of homes burned down.
Rev. Andrew Okebe, the Zonal Coordinator of Christian Association of Nigeria, Miango District, told ICC, “The soldiers had told the women and children to go and hide in the primary (elementary) school class at night while the men in the village constituted a vigilante group and join[ed] the soldiers in patrolling the area. Sadly, the militia descended and the soldiers fled, leaving the defenseless villagers to be massacred by the terrorists.”
According to Rev. Okebe, these persistent attacks have left villagers feeling like the security operatives assigned to their communities are not committed to protecting and securing their lives from the aggressors whom they believe to be Islamic jihadists who want occupy their land. This attack followed only a few weeks after a Fulani militia invaded Ancha, a neighboring village to Nkedoron, where 20 members of a Baptist church were murdered in cold blood.
The most disturbing part of this attack is that there were members of the military stationed in the village. These soldiers are a part of Operation Safe Haven, which is the government’s attempt to confront the Fulani militant violence in the Middle Belt. Even though these soldiers were on the scene before the attack, they did nothing to prevent this terrible atrocity. It has left many questioning the dedication of these men to protecting the communities they are charged with protecting.
ICC’s Regional Manager for Africa, Nathan Johnson, stated, “We pray for those who are suffering the pain of loss. This unbelievable act of violence is becoming all too common for Christian villages in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region. The government of Nigeria must not only condemn the violence, but take the necessary steps to ensure that the perpetrators are punished and unable to commit these acts again. Until then, Christian villagers in the Middle Belt will be left to wonder if their community will be next.”
The Christian Resources Exhibition (CRE) in Surrey this week was designed to provide churches with all their service needs.
Thousands of attendees could find church-orientated products, from stained glass to sound systems, cassocks to conference venues, bibles and bespoke heating systems. There were also some quirky items- such a ‘holy socks’.
Brett Pitchfork, CRE’s organiser told Premier: “It’s a big bazaar of everything you can imagine – and an awful lot you probably wouldn’t have thought of that are useful for those working in church leadership.
“We’ve got a flight simulator from the Mission Aviation Fellowship so you can actually have a go at flying a plane in a simulator in some of the conditions the MAF pilots would be doing.
“There are so many different things and lots of different speakers as well.”
Around 200 organisations took part in the event, which also had dozens of seminars available.
Pitchfork added: “Today I bought some holy socks for my Grandson. Why? They were Noah’s ark socks and I thought he’d love them.
“We’ve got a lot of people coming in from churches, people who are involved in leadership – everyone from the Sunday school teacher through to bishops are here to explore what’s new and what’s available to their ministries.”
Listen here for the full interview. Premier’s Cara Bentley began by asking what the exhibition is like:
As natural disasters pummel all corners of the earth, David Wilkerson’s words in The Vision and Beyond sound frighteningly accurate.
In a recent episode of The Jim Bakker Show, Bakker himself reads from the book and discusses how these prophecies may be coming to fruition.
Take a look.
Jessilyn Justice is the director of online news for Charisma. Born and raised in a pastor’s family in Alabama, she attended Lee University and the Washington Journalism Center. She’s passionate about sharing God’s goodness through storytelling. Tell her what you think of this story on Twitter @jessilynjustice.
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An Instagram video of five high school girls screaming racial slurs and profanities has gone viral, urging school administrators to investigate the offensive clip.
REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File PhotoA protester holds up an anti-racism sign as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, U.S., July 28, 2016.
The five white teenage girls have been identified as students from Weber High School in Pleasant View, Utah. School administrators were made aware of the video when it started making rounds on social media.
In the 10-second clip, the group of senior and junior girls dropped expletives.
“We are shocked by the conduct of these students and the contents of the video,” a statement from the Weber School District reads. “School officials have started an investigation and the matter is being taken very seriously. We are trying to determine when the video was made, where it was filmed, why the students would engage in such conduct, and how the clip ended up on social media.”
A report by KTVX stated that Utah, based on a study conducted by the FBI in 2013, had the most number of reported hate crimes among other states in the country with a history of hate crimes.
Jim Dabakis, a state senator, once said that the perpetuity of such crimes is due to Utah’s ineffective actions, that the state does so little to fight them.
The school’s initial findings from the investigation seem to suggest that an app generated such expletives. They believe that the girls may have uttered an incoherent phrase like “surgeon cuff” which barely makes sense. Moreover, they believe that the original clip was initially uploaded to the app which played it backwards and then produced the profanities.
Netizens took to social media to condemn the video, parents included. Many are convinced that the school is only trying to make excuses for the girls’ misconduct.
The school has yet to determine how the students involved would be disciplined, but expulsion from the cheerleading squad is one of the possible consequences.
‘Jungle’, which debuts this week, is based on the real-life story of Yossi Ghinsberg who survived getting lost in the Amazon Jungle.
Ten years after Ghinsberg escaped, he set up an eco-lodge with the indigenous community of San José de Uchupiamonas that helped rescue him.
The lodge, Chalalan, is supported by Christian Aid through its collaboration in ACRE (Access to Capital for Rural Enterprises).
The group supports small and medium sized enterprises and helps them to become investment-ready and to access the long-term capital they need to grow.
Made using local materials and solar-powered electricity, the lodge employs 40 people and invests in health and education projects that benefit the 750 people living in San José.
Its visitors are taken on jungle treks by indigenous guides who share their knowledge about the wild life and stress the importance of protecting the forest that is threatened by deforestation and the effects of climate change.
Ghinsberg said: “Chalalan is a beautiful, sustainable and profitable project made by and for the local people. I wanted to give something back and this was the best way I knew how. It is an enchanting place and anyone who wants to experience the Amazon is in good hands here. “
Ghinsberg said working with the film’s director and Radcliffe has been ‘overwhelming’.
He added: “I never imagined that my story would be told in this way. Any attention that Chalalan receives as a result of this, is just fantastic.”
Christian Aid said it hopes the film will “help shine a light on Ghinsberg’s humanitarian efforts in Bolivia and on the importance of supporting enterprises in poor rural settings.”
Robert Morris: White People Don’t Understand the Depth of America’s Racism
Gateway Church’s Pastor Robert Morris believes that the church—and especially white people—don’t recognize the gravity of the racism problem facing our country. But it’s not out of malice or evil—it’s just out of ignorance. He explains why using a water bottle.
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