Newsletters
Home Blog Page 575

Children’s Bible Verses: 28 Scriptures to Share With Kids and Parents

By
Tamera Kraft
-
thank you notes for children’s ministry volunteers

Throughout the Bible, you can find children’s Bible verses and Scripture about children. It’s important for parents, Sunday school teachers, and children’s ministers to share these verses with kids. While doing so, we remind kids of God’s great love for them.

Below are some key children’s Bible verses, in several categories. You can find many more by conducting a quick search, either online or in printed Bible reference materials. Include children’s Bible verses in your children’s ministry newsletters and on your website. Also encourage Sunday school teachers to use children’s Bible verses as memory work in their classes.

28 Children’s Bible Verses

Admonition to teach children the Word of God

Deuteronomy 6:6-7  And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

2 Timothy 3:14-15  But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

Children are examples of faith

Matthew 18:1-5  At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them.  And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

Warnings against harming children

Matthew 18:6  If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Ephesians 6:4  Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Children are a blessing

Psalm 127:3  Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.

Instruction to bless children and dedicate them to God

Mark 10:13-17  People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.

1 Samuel 21:27-28   I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there.

God’s instructions to children

Leviticus 19:3  Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths: I am the LORD your God.

Proverbs 6:20  My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching.

Ephesians 6:1-4  Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Children are part of the community of God

2 Chronicles 20:12-13   O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you. All the men of Judah, with their wives and children and little ones, stood there before the LORD.

Deuteronomy 30:1-3  And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you, and return to the LORD your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you.

Joel 2:15-16  Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly. Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber.

Include children in praise and worship

Matthew 21:15-16  But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant. “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him. “Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, ”’From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’?”

Psalm 148:12-13  Young men and women, old men and children. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.

Joel 2:28  And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.

Greg Locke Claims a Devil Told Him About Six Witches in His Church, Another Who Leads Worship at Nashville Megachurch

By
Jesse T. Jackson
-
Greg Locke
Screengrab via YouTube @Pastor Greg Locke

This past Sunday, Global Vision Bible Church pastor Greg Locke continued his sermon series “Desperate for Deliverance,” claiming a devil inside a woman’s body had identified six witches who have infiltrated his congregation. Locke also claims that this devil told him about a lead vocalist at a megachurch in the Nashville area, someone whom Locke claims is a “head witch.”

Three weeks ago, Locke told his congregation that children with autism are demonized, because there’s “no such diagnosis in the Bible.” Earlier this month, the church also held a mass burning of “demonic” literature and media, such as Harry Potter, an event that brought out Homeland Security.

RELATED: Greg Locke Says Autistic Children Are Demonized: ‘Ain’t No Such Diagnosis in the Bible’

Preaching from Mark 5, Locke told those in attendance on Sunday, “I know I say this a lot, but I love you enough to be misunderstood if I have to be. So far—and I know I’ve got some encounters to go and we got some witches to confront—the unbelievable voices [of] anger, rage, perversities, screaming, pain, healing, nausea, every bit of what I’ve seen for days has all come out of believers. Not lost people.”

Locke sarcastically implied that people who vote for Democrats are influenced by demons. The pastor then laughed and made a comment regarding a news reporter who was in the service, saying, “That news reporter is like ‘What did he say?’ Yeah I said it—fun part is I meant it, Skippy.”

Telling stories about his children desiring to mimic their father, Locke referred to his family as “demon killers in the name of Jesus.” Locke divorced his first wife after 21 years of marriage in 2017. The couple share four children together. Locke later married his church assistant, who was the center of rumors of an extramarital affair—rumors that both adamantly denied. The couple adopted two children after they married.

“There is no reason for me at all to ever have to extrapolate and exaggerate what I am telling you,” Locke said, emphasizing that what he shares is not made up or inflated to make better stories. “I hate fake. I shut it down. I can’t stand manipulation. It’s demonic in and of itself. So when I tell you the things that I’ve seen—hand to God—in the name of Jesus…If I’m lying, if I’m over exaggerating what I’m trying to tell these people for the purpose of clicks and likes, may I drop dead preaching on this platform having blasphemed the power of the Holy Ghost in front of everybody. I ain’t playing.”

Locke then shared a story about a woman who is new to the church and recently came into the church office while possessed by a demon. Locke said that both he and his wife were present at the time.

RELATED: Pastor Greg Locke to Fight ‘Demonic Influences’ by Burning ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Twilight’

The pastor told of how the demon in the woman knew things that he didn’t tell her, like the time his bus was coming to pick him up for a speaking engagement and how a secret camera was video taping their session.

“That devil gave us the first and last names of the six witches that have been sent as plants at Global Vision Bible Church,” Locke said. “First and last name. I promise. Unbelievable.”

Pastor Who Shared How He Redirects His Same-Sex Attraction Labeled ‘Heretical’

By
Jessica Lea
-
ed shaw
Screenshot from YouTube / @The Pastor's Heart

Tom Buck, pastor of First Baptist Church (FBC) in Lindale, Texas, claims Ed Shaw, pastor of Emmanuel City Centre in Bristol, England, is guilty of “heretical teaching.” Buck takes issue with how Shaw explains navigating same-sex attraction and has called on Sam Allberry and The Gospel Coalition (TGC) not to support Shaw any longer. 

Shaw says that when he sees a man he is attracted to, “I don’t necessarily need to repent of that recognition of beauty because what I’ve recognized is something that I as a human being have been designed to recognize.” Shaw shared these thoughts in a 2019 interview with Dominic Steele of The Pastor’s Heart. In addition to being a pastor, Shaw is the director of Living Out, a ministry whose goal is to ”encourage Christians, equip churches, and engage the world with God’s plan for sexuality and identity.”

Shaw explains, “I’ve been designed to recognize beauty; I’ve been designed to recognize the image of God in somebody else.” The attraction in and of itself is not sinful. What is sinful is what we do with the attractions that we have. Shaw says that in the moment when he recognizes beauty in another person, he has a choice either to sin or to respond in gratitude to God for the beauty he has created. 

“Nothing new about Ed Shaw’s claims,” said Buck in a Feb. 15 tweet of a clip of Shaw’s interview. “I exposed this heretical teaching three years ago…What also hasn’t changed is Sam Allberry’s unwillingness to condemn this as he still remains on the Living Out website, and [TGC] continuing to cover for Shaw.” Allberry is the founder of Living Out, and both he and Shaw have articles published on TGC’s website.

Ed Shaw: Let’s Stop the ‘Journey to Ungodliness’

“I continue to call upon @SamAllberry to renounce the teachings of Ed Shaw and Living Out,” Buck said later Tuesday. ”Sam needs to come out from among them rather than ‘still supporting’ them.’” Buck also gave Shaw as an example “of the wolves that are ravaging the church today.”

The FBC pastor linked to an article he wrote in 2019 where he addressed similar comments that Shaw made in a post on the Living Out website. Buck believes that Shaw’s views are not in line with Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 5:29 to deal with lust seriously or the instruction to believers in Colossians 3:2 to set our minds “on things above.”

“No faithful pastor would give this counsel to a heterosexual man that is dealing with his lusts,” says Buck. “I could never imagine any pastor saying, ‘This is simply your natural response to beauty as you were created to respond. You should appreciate the beauty, but do not let it drift into a sexual fantasy.’”

Ed Shaw and Dominic Steele, however, made this exact point in The Pastor’s Heart interview. At one point, Steele pondered his own thought process of noticing someone who is “pretty,” thinking that person is attractive, and then “moving to ungodliness in my thought patterns.”

“We have become so used to traveling that journey to ungodliness that it’s really difficult to change,” said Shaw. “What I am trying to do and what I am encouraging other people to do is actually try and break that habit and see that noticing that beauty is an opportunity to recognize where that beauty comes from, to recognize God and to worship him and to praise him for the beauty that is just walking past us in the street. It is the decision of the moment, but I think it’s something we can increasingly train ourselves to do.”

This posture of thankfulness helps Shaw not to live in “horrific fear of falling into sin” as a result of his attractions. And it helps him to recognize the depth of God’s love for him. “My sexuality is there to help me appreciate God’s love for me,” he told ChurchLeaders in an interview last April. “When I feel the strength of sexual desire, I’m actually getting just the smallest insight into the strength of God’s love for me.”

More Than 20 Years of Baptisms Deemed Invalid Because of One Wrong Word by Phoenix Priest

By
Stephanie Martin
-
thank you notes for children’s ministry volunteers

The Diocese of Phoenix recently shared “difficult information” with Catholics who were baptized by longtime Phoenix priest Andres Arango: Because he used the words “We baptize” rather than “I baptize” during the rite, thousands of baptisms have been deemed invalid.

The error, which Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted says he believes is unintentional, also may affect subsequent sacraments for those baptized individuals, including confirmation and even marriage. Arango has apologized and resigned from St. Gregory Catholic Church, pledging to “help remedy this and heal those affected.”

Phoenix Priest’s Problematic Wording—‘It Is Christ Who Baptizes’ 

For more than 20 years, Arango served in ministry in Brazil, California, and Arizona. Concerns about his phrasing reportedly surfaced last year. Then last month, Bishop Olmsted posted a statement about the Phoenix priest’s invalid baptisms, saying the conclusion came “after careful study by diocesan officials and through consultation with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome.”

According to the Second Vatican Council, no one, “even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.” As a result, notes Olmsted, any baptisms Arango performed before June 17, 2021, “are presumed invalid.”

The bishop explains the significance of Arango’s wording change this way: “The issue with using ‘We’ is that it is not the community that baptizes a person, rather, it is Christ, and Him alone, who presides at all of the sacraments, and so it is Christ Jesus who baptizes.”

The diocese is offering resources for people about “how to proceed if your sacraments are in question.” Thousands of baptisms may need to be repeated, meaning that additional church sacraments could require do-overs as well.

Phoenix Priest Resigned but Isn’t ‘Disqualified’

Although Arango resigned from St. Gregory on February 1, the diocese says he isn’t “disqualified” from ministry and “remains a priest in good standing.” The priest requests “prayers, forgiveness, and understanding” as he focuses on working to fix the error.

In a recent St. Gregory newsletter, the parish thanks Arango for his “dedication to your vocation, but also for your dedication to the community.”

Bishop Olmsted says, “I do not believe Fr. Andres had any intentions to harm the faithful or deprive them of the grace of baptism and the sacraments. On behalf of our local Church, I too am sincerely sorry that this error has resulted in disruption to the sacramental lives of a number of the faithful.” He adds, “Please be assured that things like this have happened before in the history of the Church.”

Comedian John Crist Jokes About Rehab Experience, Opens Up About Suicidal Thoughts

By
Dale Chamberlain
-
John Crist
Screen grab from YouTube.

In a video recently uploaded to YouTube, Christian comedian John Crist can be seen performing onstage and opening up about his experiences with rehab, sexual addiction, and mental health. During the performance, he shared about the pivotal role some kind words from strangers at a local Five Guys Burgers and Fries played in his healing process. 

Crist made headlines in November of 2019 when it was revealed that he had been accused of sexually manipulating five young women. Charisma News released the initial report detailing the testimony of the anonymous women. While it was noted that the allegations were not criminal in nature, they were nevertheless grievous, especially for a Christian public figure. 

After the allegations came to light, Crist canceled all public engagements. His upcoming Netflix special, which had been set to come out later that month, was put on hold. Crist also took an eight month hiatus from all social media, where he had been actively sharing content for years.  

Crist later returned to social media, posting a video wherein he shared that he had been in an inpatient rehab center for sexual addiction. He apologized for the hypocrisy of presenting himself to the public as one person while being someone else behind closed doors. 

“I can look at you eight months later and say that those choices were on me…I point the fingers at no one else but myself,” Crist said in that video address, going on to explain that “if I am part of the problem, then I can also be part of the solution.” 

Crist has now returned to performing comedy, and has even begun to incorporate aspects of his rehab experience, battles with sexual addiction, and his mental health into his routine, oscillating between irreverent remarks and sincere moments. 

In the recent video on YouTube, Crist joked about his time in rehab, saying that he once called a close friend in tears to share about how difficult it was. 

“I was like, ‘Dude, this place is terrible. You gotta wake up at dawn. You gotta go to breakfast. You gotta go to meditation. You gotta go to yoga. You gotta go to Bible study,’” Crist recounted. “I was crying. His wife grabs the phone and says, ‘I don’t want to interrupt here, but we have three kids under five. This place sounds incredible.” 

When Crist complained about having to talk to a therapist all day, she responded that it must be nice to talk to an adult. When Crist complained about being drug tested, she remarked that it must be nice to have only one person watching you pee. She also brought up how nice it must be to have someone cook you breakfast. When Crist said, “You don’t understand; this place has no sexual activity,” she responded, “This place sounds perfect.” 

Aside from jokes, Crist did open up about how serious his crisis was, saying, “I’ve been through a lot in the last two years of my life.”

“You can Google—well, don’t Google it,” Crist joked. “It’s probably on page two by now, but who knows?” 

Unvaccinated Medical Workers Turn to Religious Exemptions

By
Heather Hollingsworth
-
religious exemptions
FILE - In this June 7, 2021, photo, demonstrators at Houston Methodist Baytown Hospital in Baytown, Texas, wave at cars that honk at them to support their protest against a policy that says hospital employees must get vaccinated against COVID-19 or lose their jobs. Religious exemptions are increasingly becoming a workaround for hospital and nursing home staff who want to keep their jobs in the face of federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates that are going into effect nationwide this week. (Yi-Chin Lee/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)

When nurse Julia Buffo was told by her Montana hospital that she had to be vaccinated against COVID-19, she responded by filling out paperwork declaring that the shots run afoul of her religious beliefs.

She cited various Old and New Testament verses including a passage from Revelation that vaccine opponents often quote to liken the shots to the “Mark of the Beast.” She told her managers that God is the “ultimate guardian of health” and that accepting the vaccine would make her “complicit with evil.”

Religious exemptions like the one Buffo obtained are increasingly becoming a workaround for unvaccinated hospital and nursing home workers who want to keep their jobs in the face of federal mandates that are going into effect nationwide this week.

In some institutions, religious exemptions are being invoked by staff and approved by managers in large numbers. It’s a tricky issue for hospital administrators, who are struggling to maintain adequate staff levels and are often reticent to question the legitimacy of the requests.

“We’re not going to have a Spanish inquisition with Torquemada deciding if your religious exemption is granted or not by the Grand Inquisitor,” said Dr. Randy Tobler, CEO of Scotland County Hospital in Missouri, where about 25% of the 145 employees remain unvaccinated and 30 of them have been granted exemptions.

Tobler, who is vaccinated, said some employees threatened to quit if they were required to get the shot.

“For people that want to judge what we’re doing in rural America, I’d love them to come and walk in our shoes for a little while, just come and sit in the desk and try to staff the place,” Tobler said.

At Cody Regional Health in Wyoming, about 200 of the 620 staffers have asked for religious exemptions and most have been granted. Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte pledged his support last week to “defending Montanans against discrimination based on their vaccination status” in an open letter to medical workers and urged the unvaccinated to consider seeking exemptions. And West Virginia lawmakers have advanced a proposal with health care workers in mind that would let those who quit because their exemption was denied collect unemployment.

As of Monday health care workers in 24 states — all but three of which went for then-President Donald Trump in the 2020 election — will be required to have received their first vaccine dose or an exemption. The mandate already took effect late last month in jurisdictions that didn’t challenge the requirement in court, although enforcement actions won’t begin immediately.

It affects a wide swath of the industry, covering doctors, nurses, technicians, aides, hospital volunteers, nursing homes, home-health agencies and other providers that participate in the federal Medicare or Medicaid programs.

Beyond the federal mandate, some hospitals and cities have imposed their own requirements. One of the most sweeping is in New York City, where public workers faced termination if they weren’t vaccinated by Friday. The military branches have their own vaccine mandates, but commanders have been loath to grant religious exemptions.

In Two Years, This Mainline Denomination Has Paid off $100 Million in Medical Debt

By
Emily McFarlan Miller
-
United Church of Christ
In this RNS file photo from Oct. 20, 2019, the Rev. Otis Moss III, center, joins other leaders of Chicago churches to announce they have purchased and paid off $5.3 million in medical debt for Illinoisans — mostly on Chicago's South Side — through a nonprofit called RIP Medical Debt at a buyout celebration at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. A recent announcement proclaimed that the United Church of Christ has paid off more than $100 million in medical debt since getting involved in the effort. RNS photo by Emily McFarlan Miller

(RNS) — The United Church of Christ has now paid off more than $100 million in medical debt for people across the United States.

The UCC announced Monday (Feb. 14) that it used $200,000 from one of its annual Giving Tuesday campaigns to purchase and pay off $33 million in medical debt for residents of Ohio, where the mainline Protestant denomination is based.

That brought the total medical debt the UCC has purchased and paid off since late 2019 to more than $104 million.

The donation comes as part of RIP Medical Debt’s “A Nation That Cares” campaign, rallying churches and other Christian nonprofits to raise $5 million to relieve roughly $500 million of medical debt across the country. The UCC was one of the first groups to donate to the nonprofit’s campaign, and its donation so far is the largest, according to RIP Medical Debt.

The donation also culminates efforts to purchase and pay off medical debt by the United Church of Christ that started at Thanksgiving more than two years ago.

The effort was launched in Chicago when Trinity United Church of Christ joined with churches from a number of denominations in that city to raise $38,000 to pay off $5.3 million in medical debt. Trinity’s pastor, the Rev. Otis Moss III, said the aim was to help the “poorest of the poor” on the city’s South Side.

Moss said at the time the idea came from a conversation he had with the Rev. Traci Blackmon, who heads the UCC’s Justice and Local Church Ministries. The two were discussing how they could engage their communities when the conversation turned to an article in The New York Times about RIP Medical Debt.

The nonprofit, founded in 2014, purchases “portfolios” of medical debt from health care providers and from the secondary debt market at an average $1 for $100 of medical debt, according to its website.

Those providers sell the debt at pennies on the dollar to try to recoup some of the cost of those unpaid bills. Usually, those who buy that debt then continue to bill people for it.

RIP Medical Debt instead abolishes the debt, with no tax consequences or strings attached for the recipients, according to its site. The beneficiaries, while remaining anonymous to the denomination, receive a letter saying, “The funds that abolished this debt were generously provided by the United Church of Christ.”

The Chicago churches hoped their initial donation to RIP Medical Debt would inspire others to give.

“We are using this as a sacred launching pad in the United Church of Christ,” Blackmon said at the time, as UCC churches across the country made medical debt relief the focus of Giving Tuesday campaigns.

They also hoped it would inspire change, including health care reform.

“Over the last 2 1/2 years, the national setting has partnered with many conferences and local churches to bring some measure of relief to tens of thousands of families unjustly burdened with medical debt,” Blackmon said Monday in a written statement from the denomination.

The UCC’s most recent medical debt purchase in Ohio abolished the medical debt of 10,757 households in 70 counties, according to the denomination. The criteria used by the UCC for qualifying debtors were those earning less than two times the federal poverty level; in financial hardship, with out-of-pocket expenses that are 5% or more of their income; or facing insolvency, with debts greater than assets, according to the press release.

“As we close this campaign by abolishing all the debt available to us in the state of Ohio, we urge you to remember charity and celebrations were never the goal of this initiative. Advocacy was,” Blackmon said.

This article originally appeared here. 

#ItalyChurchToo: Abuse Survivors Demand Italy Church Inquiry

By
Nicole Winfield
-
italy church
FILE - Survivor of sex abuse Francesco Zanardi meets the media during a press conference in Rome, on Feb. 21, 2019. Advocates for Italian clergy sex abuse victims launched a campaign Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2022 to demand an inquiry into abuse and cover-up in the Italian Catholic Church, lamenting the deference still showed the hierarchy in Italy that has conditioned everything from criminal prosecutions to media coverage of the problem. Francesco Zanardi, an abuse survivor and founder of the Rete L’Abuso advocacy group that has worked for years to try to raise awareness of clergy sexual abuse in Italy is spearheading the new initiative. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)

ROME (AP) — Advocates for victims of sex abuse by Italian clergy launched a campaign Tuesday to demand a cover-up inquiry, lamenting that deference showed the Catholic Church hierarchy in Italy has conditioned everything from criminal prosecutions to media coverage of the problem.

A consortium of groups said they hoped recent national inquiries in Germany and France, and planned ones in Spain and Portugal, would pressure the Italian Catholic Church to open its archives to independent investigators to ascertain the scope of the problem, assign responsibility to the perpetrators and bring restitution to the victims.

But they acknowledged the context is far more complicated in Italy than in other European countries given the outsized political, economic and social weight the church carries in the pope’s backyard.

The church’s influence has resulted in a reluctance by prosecutors to investigate clergy abuse cases, a refusal by lawmakers to back parliamentary inquiries and disinterest by the Italian public, organizers of the #ItalyChurchToo campaign said.

“Here, there is a situation of stall,” said Francesco Zanardi, an abuse survivor and founder of the Rete L’Abuso advocacy group who has worked for years to raise awareness of clergy sexual abuse in Italy.

Zanardi, who is spearheading the new initiative, thinks the size of the Italian church—it currently has some 55,000 priests—and a clerical culture that has long put priests on a pedestal would likely result in case numbers that would dwarf those found during inquiries into other majority Catholic countries.

Sensing a growing demand for a reckoning, the Italian Bishops’ Conference has begun discussing some sort of an inquiry. But the outgoing head of the conference, Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, has tapped down expectations, insisting more on a “qualitative” inquiry as opposed to a quantitative one and stressing the conference as a whole must agree to it.

ERLC Hopeful as Immigration Reform Proposed

By
Tom Strode
-
Immigration Reform
Photo via Unsplash.com @sbranch

WASHINGTON (BP) — The Southern Baptist Convention’s ethics entity expressed hope a new congressional proposal is an indication of the start of a focused attempt to reform the immigration system.

The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and other evangelical organizations voiced encouragement at the Feb. 8 introduction of the Dignity Act by first-term Rep. Maria Salazar, R-Fla. The bill is designed to put an end to illegal immigration, to offer a dignified solution to undocumented immigrants living in the United States and to build up the American workforce, Salazar said.

In a Feb. 10 news release from the Evangelical Immigration Table (EIT), Brent Leatherwood, the ERLC’s acting president, and other Christian leaders conveyed their hope for the legislation.

Immigration reform “is too important to be sidelined by partisan politics,” Leatherwood said. He is hopeful Salazar’s bill “signals the beginning of a concentrated effort to reform our broken immigration system.”

“For too long, immigration reform and border security have been pitted against one another,” Leatherwood said. “That shouldn’t be the case. [Salazar’s] proposal provides a framework that encompasses both of those perspectives and, more importantly, starts from the position of affirming the inherent dignity and worth of each and every individual.”

RELATED: ERLC Grateful for House Vote to Grant Citizenship to Adoptees

Shirley Hoogstra, president of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, said she prays the introduction of the Dignity Act “will serve as a catalyst for the bipartisan negotiations necessary to finally resolve these challenges.”

Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, said Salazar’s proposal provides “hope to millions of our immigrant neighbors who wish to earn legal immigration status and continue living and working in the United States. We encourage other members of Congress in both parties to engage in serious negotiations toward a legislative package that can win bipartisan support.”

Among provisions in the Dignity Act, according to a summary from Salazar’s office, are:

  • The completion of border barrier construction, the use of high-quality technology and addition of at least 3,000 border agents.
  • A mandatory, national e-verify system to prevent the hiring of illegal workers.
  • Immediate legal status and a streamlined path to citizenship for Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought across the border as children.
  • A 10-year Dignity Program for undocumented immigrants to earn legal status that requires they pay $10,000 in restitution during the 10 years and pass a criminal background check.
  • An American Worker Fund supported by restitution fees paid by undocumented immigrants in the 10-year program and used to retrain workers.

In introducing her bill, Salazar said, “Our broken immigration system is fracturing America – economically, morally, socially, and politically. It’s threatening the American Dream and our very way of life. While we are a nation of laws, we are also a nation of second chances.”

For about 15 years, the ERLC has advocated for reform of an immigration system that has resulted in an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, but congressional efforts to pass such change have failed. It has continued to back reform as a leading member of EIT since the coalition’s founding in 2012.

RELATED: Religious Liberty, Life Top ERLC’s 2022 Public Policy Agenda

In 2011 and 2018, messengers to the SBC’s annual meeting adopted resolutions on immigration reform that called for securing the border and establishing “a just and compassionate path to legal status,” with restitutionary measures, for undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

EIT, a coalition of evangelical denominations and organizations, said it was encouraged by Salazar’s bill, though it acknowledged it is concerned about some provisions it declined to name. Her legislation includes provisions, according to EIT, that are consistent with the coalition’s “Evangelical Statement of Principles for Immigration Reform.” That document, EIT said, urges a bipartisan solution that:

  • “Respects the God-given dignity of every person;
  • “Protects the unity of the immediate family;
  • “Respects the rule of law;
  • “Guarantees secure national borders;
  • “Ensures fairness to taxpayers;
  • “Establishes a path toward legal status and/or citizenship for those who quality and who wish to become permanent residents.”

EIT also said an immigration reform bill proposed last year by President Biden shares some common elements with Salazar’s legislation.

This article originally appeared at Baptist Press.

Do Your Kids Know That You’re Together Forever?

By
Andrew Linder
-
thank you notes for children’s ministry volunteers

If your child was asked this question, how do you think they’d respond?

Do you think that your mom and dad will stay together forever, no matter what?

In today’s culture, many kids are being raised without the confidence of knowing that mom and dad are in it for the long haul. In fact, many of them can only hope from day to day that their parents’ relationship will stay solid.

God’s plan for children is that their family be a place where they find their greatest security. And what every child wants, needs, and deserves is a family, and specifically parents, that stay together through thick and thin.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Separation and divorce happen, even in Christian homes. And if it’s happened in yours, don’t allow the past to keep you from being all that God intends for you to be as a parent now. And if you’re remarried, it’s just as important now that you strive to make the marriage you’re in successful for the long haul.

In our family growing up, there were some definite rough patches when mom and dad could have thrown in the towel, but I’m thankful that they never did, no matter how hard things got. I can honestly look back and say, that in my mind as a child, even when I knew things were bad, I never even considered the possibility that one of my parents would quit on each other.

Of all the things in life that are uncertain for a child, family should never be one of them.

Parents are the cornerstone of the home. Home is to be the safe place for every child – the one place in life that they know they can count on to be solid no matter what. Every child in the world deserves the right to know that mom and dad are together forever.

When kids have the reassurance that mom and dad are together forever, it provides these things:

1. Stability in the Home

Very simply, a child who is raised with stability in the home has an easier time growing up with stability in their life.

According to statistics from Child Trends – The number and type of parents in the household, as well as the relationship between the parents, are consistently linked to a child’s well-being. Among young children, those living with no biological parents, or in single parent households are less likely than children with two biological parents to exhibit behavioral self-control, and more likely to be exposed to high levels of aggravated parenting, than are children living with two biological parents. Children living with two married adults (biological or adoptive parents) have, in general, better health… and fewer emotional or behavioral problems than children living in other types of families.

4 Most Common Comments From “Regular People” About Studying Theology

By
Eric Geiger
-
thank you notes for children’s ministry volunteers

In the summer of 2020, I led an online theology class for people in the church I pastor. I was blown away that over 1000 people engaged in the class, asked thoughtful questions, and walked through the material each week. We used a theological text book as our reading, and explored a different “ology” each week: Bibliology (study of the Bible), Christology (study of Christ), Soteriology (study of salvation), Pneumatology (study of the Spirit), and so on. There were four overarching comments I heard from people in our church after teaching them theology for eight weeks.

1. Theology Impacts Me Every Day.

Some have wrongly thought that our theology does not impact our daily lives. But theology simply means “thinking about God,” and our thinking about God impact everything about us. A.W. Tozer famously wrote, “the thing that we think when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

  • Salvation accomplished for us in Christ impacts our striving and accomplishing.
  • The triune God existing in community shapes our view of relationships.
  • Jesus being fully God and fully human impacts our prayers.
  • Christ emptying Himself to serve us motivates us to serve others.
  • God as Father impacts our parenting.
  • Work existing before the fall of humanity helps us see how our work can be holy.
  • The Church being the family of God impacts how we engage in our church.
  • The Spirit within us impacts our view of overcoming temptation and sin.
  • And so on…

2. I Have a Better and Deeper Understanding of What I Believe.

C.S. Lewis said, “If you do not listen to theology that will not mean you have no ideas about God, rather it will mean you have a lot of wrong ones.” We want the right thoughts about God. By studying theology, people see how all the different things they believe interact with one another. They see how the person of Jesus cannot be separated from the work of Jesus. How the work of Jesus impacts their salvation being secure. How their salvation being secure impacts their motivation for living. How their motivation for living is connected to Christ returning. And so on…

3. Thinking About God Is Richer in Community.

Many have pointed out that theology must be done in community – that even our historical Christian creeds and confessions were formed in community. We are too frail and too limited in our understanding to come to theological conclusions on our own. And why would we want to? We can be encouraged and challenged by the work Christ is doing in others.

4. The Reading Was Too Much for “a Normal Person.”

I loved studying theology with people in our church. Based on the feedback I received, they loved it too. But the reading was too much for many. “Not enough hours in the day.” “Kept falling behind.” “Wish there was a shorter option.” Those were common comments. Based on that feedback, I am convinced need to make “the great ologies” more accessible to people in our churches.

This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.

Closed Captioning Software for Churches – Here’s How

By
Christina Tazelaar
-
thank you notes for children’s ministry volunteers

A few years ago, the organization I work for implemented a policy that all videos we produced would be closed-captioned. I work at the Reformed Church in America, and part of our ministry is helping churches become places where everybody belongs, and everybody serves. We also wanted that to be true of all RCA events, so we adopted this policy to make videos more accessible to people with disabilities. Now all videos we produce or distribute are closed-captioned, and any videos shown at our annual General Synod meeting include the captions turned on. When staff use videos at other events, they are encouraged to use closed captioning software for churches.

A year into this closed-captioned policy, I can tell you the videos are more accessible to people with disabilities. But what we didn’t expect is that they’re more accessible to tons of other people, too.

Closed Captioning Software for Churches

At synod, we’ve got hundreds of people in a gymnasium, and there’s plenty of background noise. There’s sometimes background noise in the video itself. closed-captioned videos help everyone focus.

Captions also make videos work for people who are in a public place—like the gym or on public transit—and forgot their earbuds, or whose wireless headphones or AirPods run out of batteries. Captions work for people scrolling on their phones in the checkout line at the grocery store or while waiting at the doctor’s office or DMV.

And captions make so much difference on social media. The vast majority of Facebook and Instagram users browse with videos muted. Unless your video has no words at all, captions are essential on social.

Added bonus: if captions are a regular part of your process, it’s easier to add subtitles in another language, since you already have a transcript in hand.

How to use closed captioning software for churches

Plan, so there’s room for the captions. We’ve started using more upper thirds than lower thirds—placing names or identifiers higher on the screen. If you want to go the extra mile, frame your shots when you’re filming so there’s a little more space at the bottom of the screen.

When you finish editing your video, send it to a captioning service. We use Rev.com (starting at $1/minute) and TEMI.com (10 cents a minute, and fully captioned by artificial intelligence, so slightly less reliable on the accuracy). Within a day or two, you’ll get your caption file back. Add it to your video. Alternately, if you already have a transcript of the video, use that to add captions.

How you add the closed-captioned file depends on the editing software or video platform; check the instructions for what you’re using.

Closed captioning vs. open captioning

There are two types of captioning for videos: closed-captioned and open captioning.

Closed captioning lets viewers toggle the captions on and off; people need to click on the “CC.” (This option appears in your video when you add a closed caption file.) We use closed captioning for videos that are posted on websites because it gives the greatest flexibility to the viewer.

Open captioning puts the captions on, period. There’s no option to turn them off; we call this “burning the captions on.” We use open captioning for all videos shown at General Synod. Weirdly, closed captions can only be turned on when the video is streamed from the internet. Streaming introduces potential technical difficulties, so we download our videos before showing them at synod. The downloaded videos get open captions. We also open caption videos we share on social media since many users browse with the sound muted.

Closed captioning offers a more significant responsive design—the font size adjusts to the size of the screen; it looks different on a jumbotron than a phone. Open captioning will always have the same aspect ratio of the video to captions, regardless of how you’re watching. Pro tip: if you’re using open captioning at an event, test it on the big screen in advance to make sure you got the size right.

A final benefit of closed captioning is improved SEO, or search engine optimization. Closed-captioned files are indexable by search engines, which means you can get a slight boost in search engine rankings if you’ve added closed captions to your video. You don’t get that benefit with open captioning, which has the captions embedded in the video file.

 

This article on closed captioning software for churches was first published here, and then appeared at Reframemedia’s Churchjuice.com For more resources on disability and ministry, see the Christian Reformed Church’s Disability Concerns Resources page.

Words to Describe Church: Essential Adjectives for Your Youth Ministry

By
Josh Evans
-
thank you notes for children’s ministry volunteers

Recently, God has been challenging me to define our church’s youth ministry a different way. Usually, when we choose words to describe church or a ministry, we define it with terms such as contemporary, traditional, conservative, liberal, dead, old, happy or progressive.

I understand that pretty much all churches stylistically fall under these categories. But when people describe our youth program this year, I don’t necessarily want them to describe it with these terms.

Instead, God is calling me to transition to new words to describe church. So I’m using new adjectives to describe and define our student ministry. Check them out, and let me know your thoughts!

4 Words to Describe Church and Youth Ministry: A New Approach

1. Gospel-Centered

Now, I understand this first one is technically two words. But it’s so important! I desire this year to be Gospel-Centered in all we do as a student ministry. I want the Gospel to be at the core of why we do what we do. Not only does the Gospel have the power to save us. But it has the power to sanctify us as well. 

2. Intentional

I want to be intentional with the Gospel. I want to be intentional about relationships. And I want to be intentional with parents, youth leaders and teens. This word can just be a trend. But I want it to be real in our student ministry. Simply put, I want to do ministry on purpose!

If King Solomon Wrote Your Valentine’s Day Card, It Might Look Like This…

By
Jesse T. Jackson
-
Photo via Unsplash.com @xxm.

Whether it’s for Valentine’s Day or a wedding anniversary, husbands and wives can usually be spotted in the card aisle of a supermarket reading card after card in an attempt to find the perfect words that best suit their relationship.

But what if the wisest man to ever step foot on the earth, apart from Jesus, wrote those greeting cards? What would they look like? What would they say?

Here at ChurchLeaders, we gathered 10 quotes that might have made the cut if Hallmark ever decided to use the wise King Soloman’s words from Song of Songs.

Don’t worry; we kept it PG-rated. Check them out below.

10 Valentine’s Day Cards King Solomon Might Have Written…

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—for your love is more delightful than wine.” – Song of Songs 1:2

“You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you.” – Song of Songs 4:7

“How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much more pleasing is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume more than any spice!” –Song of Songs 4:10

“How beautiful your sandaled feet, O prince’s daughter! Your graceful legs are like jewels, the work of an artist’s hands.” – Song of Songs 7:1

“You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride; you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace.” –Song of Songs 4:9

“Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.” – Song of Songs 8:6

“He I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey; I have drunk my wine and my milk. Friends Eat, friends, and drink; drink your fill of love.” – Song of Songs 5:1

“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine; he browses among the lilies.” –Song of Songs 6:3

“Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are the pools of Heshbon by the gate of Bath Rabbim. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon looking toward Damascus.” –Song of Songs 7:4

“Your navel is a rounded goblet that never lacks blended wine. Your waist is a mound of wheat encircled by lilies.” –Song of Songs 7:2

Valentine’s Is a Good Day to Look at Our ‘Often Deficient Theology of Singleness,’ Says Pastor

By
Jessica Lea
-
thank you notes for children’s ministry volunteers

While many people enjoy Valentine’s Day, it is also a notoriously fraught holiday. It can be high pressure if you’re in a relationship and depressing if you’re not. And, says Pastor Rich Villodas, it can reveal the very unbiblical way some of us perceive singleness. 

“Valentine’s Day is always a good day to examine our often deficient theology of singleness,” tweeted Rich Villodas, pastor of New Life Fellowship church in New York City. “Jesus was single and lived the fullest human life imaginable.” 

Rich Villodas’ Tweet Resonates

Several people retweeted Pastor Rich Villodas’ statement, expressing their appreciation for the reminder that the Son of God was never married and the affirmation of the pain they had encountered from a poor theology of singleness. Said one, “The unfathomable pressure to couple up, and the pain of being widowed are both deeply exacerbated by a lot of deficient theology.” 

“I’ve been reading with an eye and ear to developing a more robust theology of singleness for myself,” said another. “I’ve grown weary of seeing a church that only has good news for folks in comfortable nuclear families (even though I’m part of one). The family of faith must be broader than that!”

User Scott Hunt wrote, “Being single until called into marriage at 37, there were many, many Valentine’s Days I would’ve benefited deeply from this message. Marriage is a dim picture of the incredible, vibrant, glorious love story all of us are welcomed into for all the ages to come in Christ Jesus.”

Dr. Christopher Yuan, author of “Holy Sexuality and the Gospel,” has voiced a similar point as Pastor Rich Villodas. In an interview with ChurchLeaders in December 2019, Yuan addressed the assumption that singless is a sign of immaturity, saying, “The church has treated marriage as better than singleness, and yet we forget that our perfect Savior, Jesus, was single, and he was not an immature man, he was not trying to shed responsibility…We shouldn’t think that marriage is what provides a person to be mature or whole.”

But even what was no doubt meant to be an encouraging statement from Villodas was difficult for one user, who said, “I really don’t want to be a hater…but I see this pop up every year around [Valentine’s Day] and…circulate among many in my circles and it’s just one of my least favorite quick takes on singleness.” The user explained, 

I would never want to say Jesus’s life wasn’t full. He was the Son of God after all. he had a community around him that today’s church would greatly benefit from modeling, for singles and everyone. But saying Jesus had “the fullest life imaginable” as a comfort for singles on a romantic holiday? From where I sit, Jesus’ life was marked by extreme loneliness. The Bible tells us he was mocked, scorned, despised, rejected, a stranger in his own hometown. And of course, tortured crucified and died at only age 33. So I think we miss the mark when we try to comfort singles on Valentine’s by pointing to the Man of Sorrows as an example of a flourishing single life. That’s my take. 

In an interview with ChurchLeaders in June 2021, Laurence Koo, who is the director of The Navigators’ iEdge program and who was born and raised in the Netherlands, shared his perspective on being a single person in the American church. 

One of the challenges Koo faced upon arriving in the U.S. was figuring out how to “fit into a community that’s so based on only families and married people…My first year in the U.S., I worked in a department [where people have] lived abroad too, but I was not invited to someone’s home, a married home or a family’s home, for dinner.” 

Super Bowl LVI MVP Cooper Kupp Shares Vision God Gave Him: ‘I Don’t Feel Deserving of This’

By
Jesse T. Jackson
-
Super Bowl
Screengrab via YouTube @Fanatics View

Much like the playoff games leading up to it, Super Bowl LVI didn’t disappoint—exciting and down to the game’s last seconds—resulting in the Los Angeles Rams beating the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20.

Cooper Kupp caught a 1-yard touchdown pass from Matthew Stafford in the 4th quarter with 1:25 left in the game, giving the Rams the go-ahead score and lead for good.

Kupp finished the game with 92 yards on eight catches and two touchdowns. Kupp also had one carry for seven yards on the Rams final drive of the game, which picked up a must-have first down on a fourth-and-1 at their own 30-yard line.

To his surprise, Kupp was named Super Bowl LVI’s Most Valuable Player (MVP), only the eighth wide receiver in the NFL to accomplish such a feat.

The fifth year wide receiver, who had no college offers coming out of high school and was a third round draft pick for the Rams in 2017, joins Hall of Fame wide receiver Jerry Rice as the only other receiver in NFL history to win the triple crown (145 receptions, 1,947 receiving yards, and 16 touchdowns [leading all NFL receivers]), Offensive Player of the Year, and the Super Bowl MVP. Rice accomplished those accolades over the course of his career; Kupp racked them up in a single season.

Kupp finished the post season with 33 receptions, 478 receiving yards, and 6 touchdowns.

RELATED: Lauded LA Rams Receiver Cooper Kupp Pursues ‘A Crown That Will Last Forever’

“I don’t feel deserving of this. God is just so good,” Kupp said while receiving the game’s coveted MVP award. After the game, Kupp posted on Instagram, saying, “Do it to get a crown that will last forever.“

Kupp was unable to suit up in 2019’s Super Bowl game when the Rams lost to Tom Brady’s New England Patriots because of an injury that forced him to watch from the sidelines. It was after that Super Bowl loss that the wide receiver said he was given a vision from God.

Kupp shared with reporters in his post game press conference, while holding his son, “I don’t know what it was. There was just this vision that God revealed to me that we were going to come back—we were going to be a part of a Super Bowl—we were going to win it. And somehow I was going to walk off the field as MVP of the game. And I shared that with my wife, because I couldn’t tell anyone else, obviously, what that was. But from the moment this postseason started, there was just a belief in every game. It was written already and I just got to play free, knowing that I got to play from victory not for victory.”

“I got to play in a place where I was validated not from anything that happened on the field,” Kupp said, concluding his story, “but because of my worth in God and my Father and I am just so incredibly thankful.”

Facing the Issue of Biblical Literacy

By
Ed Stetzer
-
thank you notes for children’s ministry volunteers

Preaching requires us to apply the timeless Word of God to the shifting sands of our present culture. We want to boldly preach the gospel with conviction and present the gospel with clarity, but it isn’t always easy, especially in this time of rapid change. So I want to share some of the ways I’ve adapted my preaching style for the world today.

Biblical Literacy Today

Regardless of your church style and the profile of your average attendee, you need to consider issues facing contemporary preaching today. Probably one of the most obvious—and the first issue I want to address—is biblical illiteracy. The American Bible Society has studied biblical literacy for years in collaboration with the Barna Group. Using an in-depth “Scripture Engagement Scale,” ABS rates levels of biblical literacy across a spectrum from more to less engaged: Bible Centered, Bible Engaged, Bible Friendly, Bible Neutral, Bible Disengaged. 

The 2021 ABS report found that 27% of American women and 24% of men consider themselves Bible Engaged, defined as interacting with the Bible frequently in a way that ultimately leads to some life transformation. The report notes that those considered Bible Disengaged has dropped from 54% in 2018 to 39% in 2021, indicating “hearts are being softened to the Bible.” It adds, “Those who once were disengaged have moved to what we are now calling the ‘Movable Middle’ [which] has jumped up since 2020, from one-quarter of the population (26%) to over one-third (37%).”

Even with that hopeful news, far too few people still read or understand the Bible. A 2016 Lifeway Research survey revealed that only 11% of Americans have read the whole Bible, and 12% read most or all of it. At the same time, 10% of Americans have read none of the Bible and 13% have read just a few sentences.  So on the one hand, biblical literacy statistics are not as high as we as pastors wish it would be, but on the other hand increasing numbers of Americans are open to exploring and learning about the Bible in some capacity. 

Preaching in Light of Biblical Illiteracy

What then does this mean for preaching? 

First, understand that the people we talk to do not necessarily understand the Bible. Almost every week, I preach somewhere different: for instance, recently I’ve been the interim teaching pastor at the more traditional Moody Church, and I have filled in a few times this year at the more contemporary Saddleback Church. 

When I preach at Moody Church, which is known for verse-by-verse exposition, I recognize that there are a lot of people who are familiar with or educated in Scripture in the room. At churches like Saddleback, which are known for intentionally engaging seekers, I tend to adopt a different approach, not assuming the same biblical awareness in the weekend attendees. We must become familiar with where our churches stand in biblical literacy and what it lacks. Even those with high familiarity with the Bible may not be able to tell you the overall story, draw meaning from the text, or identify important themes within its message. 

Second, recognize assumptions many make about the Bible. Too many people see the Bible as a book of morality, emphasizing behavior modification or showcasing heroes. This assumption ranges from seeing the Bible simply as self-help to seeing the Bible as a catalog of rules required for salvation. In order to combat this, I remind the congregations that the gospel is not “you do,” but “Jesus did.” Another assumption is that the Bible is a book of religious tradition to help undergird self-styled spiritual preferences. For some in the prosperous West, the Bible is a book of prosperity and it is treated like a magical book that brings prosperity or good health with enough faith. Understanding these assumptions helps us target and address where our congregations may go astray in their faith and explain how the gospel is greater.

The Bible is ultimately a book of reality: it reveals God’s character and purposes in the world to us. It tells us who we are and our greatest need. Good preaching helps people earn to understand the Bible this way. We should show that the Bible is not just a collection of a thousand stories; it’s a collection of stories about the story of redemption which began at the creation of the world and continues until the new creation. 

Third, explain how the Bible is a different kind of writing, which is inspired by God. A LifeWay survey concerning attitudes toward the Bible found that 37% of Americans see it as helpful for today and 35% see it as life changing. Also, 36% see it as true; that’s a minority, but it’s still a significant number. A much smaller percentage (14%) consider the Bible outdated, while 7% say it’s harmful, and 8% call it bigoted. These numbers are significant, considering views clearly taught in the Bible such as the uniqueness of Christ and views of morality and marriage could cause many people to see Christians as bigoted, outdated, and harmful. But most don’t see the Bible that way. The Bible has a better reputation than evangelicals, so we have an opportunity to champion God’s message in the Bible rather than toot our own horn as Christians.

Texas Pastor Has ‘Incredible’ Honor of Baptizing the Sister of His Heart Donor

By
Stephanie Martin
-
texas pastor
Screenshot from Facebook: @Jen Wickliffe

Every baptism is special to Marvin Baucom, pastor of Corinth Baptist Church in Cisco, Texas. But last month the Texas pastor had the “incredible” honor of baptizing what he calls his “heart sister.” The reason for that name? The heart of the girl’s deceased brother now beats inside the pastor’s chest.

Texas Pastor Has Heartfelt Bond With Donor’s Family

In 2014, Pastor Baucom had a major heart attack and was “failing medical therapy,” according to his doctor. Around the same time, Hunter Wickliffe died after a serious car accident, and his family honored his wishes to become an organ donor. Four people received “precious gifts” of life from Hunter, says his mother, Jen Wickliffe—including Baucom, who received Hunter’s healthy heart.

After the operation, Wickliffe had the opportunity to hear her son’s beating heart when she met Baucom at a restaurant. The pastor describes the emotional scene, saying, “We begin to listen, and the whole table is bawling. The waitress comes over to see what’s wrong, we tell her the story, she’s bawling. The manager comes over to see why everybody in the whole place is bawling.”

The heart-to-heart bond Baucom now has with Hunter’s family is “an incredible thing for the glory of God,” says the pastor, marveling at “what that donor heart has done for me and is continuing to do for others.” So when Hunter’s sister asked to be baptized by the Texas pastor, his joy overflowed. “Well, you know how [baptism] gets over a preacher anyway, but then you add on to it that it’s my heart sister, you might say, oh, it was an incredible thing.”

The Wickliffe family traveled to Cisco for the baptism, sharing photos and video on social media.

Organ Donation Changes Donor’s Family Too

Before her son’s death, Jen Wickliffe worked as a pediatric ICU nurse. But after going through the organ donation process, she decided to switch gears and become a Certified Procurement Transplant Coordinator. “It’s very rewarding because I feel like I can help the families when they are on their worst possible day of losing their loved one,” she says.

Satanic Temple Launches ‘After School Satan Club’ in Illinois Elementary School

By
Dale Chamberlain
-
Satanic Temple ASSC
Matt Anderson, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Satanic Temple has been making inroads on the campuses of American elementary schools with their After School Satan Club (ASSC) program, most recently at Jane Addams School in Moline, IL. 

The Satanic Temple, which is really more of a secular humanist organization that employs religious imagery than an actual occult enclave, says that it will not offer students any kind of religious teachings. Instead, the ASSC will provide self-guided activities such as science and craft projects, puzzles, and games, while offering lessons in benevolence, empathy, critical thinking, and creativity. 

Nevertheless, the Satanic Temple’s atheistic worldview and use of occult imagery is enough to raise serious alarm bells for many parents who have protested the presence of ASSC on the campus of Jane Addams School. Further cause of concern is the fact that the Satanic Temple has launched this campaign as a direct response to the presence of Christian Good News Clubs in the lineup of after school programmatic offerings. 

“If you’re going to open the public forum up to one religion, you open it up to all of them,” Lucien Greaves, Co-Founder of the Satanic Temple, told KWQC. “There have been decades, generations of people trying to encroach religion into public schools and we simply can’t allow the government to pick and choose which religions are worthy of expression.

RELATED: Catholic Bishop Criticizes Satanic Temple Holiday Display at Illinois Statehouse

Satanic Temple leadership has been explicit about the fact that the ASSC is a targeted campaign against other religious programs offered on elementary school campuses. 

“It’s only in schools that have a current religious club being offered,” said Julie Everett, director of the ASSC. Everett nevertheless expressed that the ASSC is a secular program rather than a religious one, saying, “We’re not a religious indoctrination program, nor do we teach indoctrination or offer religious opinions.”

Greaves said that the goal of the ASSC is “to help enrich the educational outcomes of the kids in the school district.” 

Child Evangelism, which operates Good News Clubs, casts a similar vision for its own program and has expressed that the Satanic Temple’s targeted campaign against them seems to betray nefarious intent. 

“I cannot tell you what’s in their hearts, but they certainly are doing work that would be contrary to the Good News of Jesus Christ,” said Reece Kauffman, president of Child Evangelism, to Fox News. “We’re not trying to be against anyone. We’re simply trying to take the biblical Good News of the Gospel to the children.”

RELATED: Fatal Tragedy at Travis Scott Concert Sparks Satanic Conspiracy Theory

Trump, Pence Speak at Global Forum Held in South Korea

By
AP News
-
Donald Trump
FILE - Then U.S. President Donald Trump, left, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the North Korean side of the border at the village of Panmunjom in Demilitarized Zone, on June 30, 2019. Former President Trump has criticized the Biden administration over its handling of North Korea, insisting that the country's spree of missile tests in recent weeks wouldn’t have happened if he was still in office. Trump spoke in a recorded video message that was screened on Sunday, Feb. 13, 2022, at a church forum. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Former U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized the Biden administration over its handling of North Korea, at an event in South Korea that included as a guest speaker former Vice-President Mike Pence.

Several former leaders and top officials participated virtually or in-person at the weekend event in Seoul jointly sponsored by the Cambodian government and the Universal Peace Federation, an organization linked to the South Korea-based Unification Church, a religious group known for its mass weddings and global business and media interests.

Pence, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon were among those who attended the event and spoke in person.

Trump appeared in a recorded video message that was screened on Sunday at the forum.

He alleged that a recent “return to escalation” that has seen North Korean leader Kim Jong Un launch missile tests would “never have happened if I were president.”

He also urged North Korea not to undertake any actions that could “endanger” what he described as the “unique opportunity that we worked so hard to create together over the past four years.”

The North resumed tests of shorter-range weapons threatening U.S. ally South Korea while Trump was in office in 2019. The year before, Kim had unilaterally suspended the testing of nuclear explosives and intercontinental-range ballistic missiles.

Trump met Kim three times during his presidency. Their diplomacy never recovered from the collapse of their second meeting in February 2019, when the Americans rejected North Korean demands for a major release of U.S.-led sanctions in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.

North Korea kicked off 2020 with ramped-up testing activity, conducting seven rounds of missile launches in January alone.

Experts say the North could increase weapons demonstrations after its ally China finishes hosting the Winter Olympics in Beijing, as it attempts to move the needle with the Biden administration, which has offered open-ended talks but shown no willingness to budge on sanctions.

During his speech at the weekend gathering, Pence said deepening relations between China and Russia are posing increasing threats to their democratic neighbors, according to the forum organizers. He also called for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the statement read.

While in Seoul, Pence met with South Korean conservative presidential candidate, Yoon Suk Yeol, as well as foreign policy advisers to the rival ruling party of Lee Jae-myung. The U.S. politician exchanged views on North Korea, according to campaign officials with from both camps.

This article originally appeared here. 

1...574575576...1,184Page 575 of 1,184
855,266FansLike

New Articles

New Podcasts

Joby Martin

Joby Martin: What Happens When Pastors Finally Understand Grace

Jessica Lea -
Joby Martin joins “The Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast” to discuss what happens when a church leader has truly been run over by the “grace train" and understands the profound love and grace of God.
Jennie Allen

Best of 2024—Jennie Allen: Why Church Leaders Need To Pay Attention...

Jon Acuff

Best of 2024: Jon Acuff—How To Pursue Success Without Destroying Your...

Libin Abraham

Libin Abraham on God’s Surprising Job Description for the Pastor

ChurchLeaders.com is dedicated to resourcing, informing, and connecting a community of church leaders for greater Kingdom impact worldwide.
Contact us: support@churchleaders.com

Company

Trending

Popular Categories

© ChurchLeaders