Christian leaders and writers in America have spent the better part of the past decade laboring over this question: “How do we get millennials to attend church?” While there are debates over the interpretation of the data on millennial church attendance, there’s no denying that overall church attendance for American millennials (born after 1981) has dropped with no sign of abating. In the midst of this seeming crisis, we can’t blame anyone for asking how to reverse a negative trend. However, it’s likely that these leaders and writers are asking the wrong question. A Simple Place to Begin with Young
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There you are in your living room with your family in search of some wholesome, inspirational entertainment. Maybe you’ve got hundreds of TV channels to choose from, yet it seems like there’s nothing suitable to watch. Been there? It’s time to meet ChristianCinema.com – the largest database of faith films to download for rent or purchase.…
Have you ever stretched a rubber band as far as it will go? To just about to the breaking point? That’s kind of how I felt one day awhile back. It had been an unusual amount of stress for my family, and I was done. Past my last good nerve. Over it. I felt like I was ready to snap. I had a long list of errands on this day. I was so tired that it felt like I was running a marathon. I went to the grocery store, the department store and finally to the post office to mail a
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I’ve been stressing a bit lately. Maybe more than a bit. Since the beginning of the year, it seems like we’ve had an unending merry-go-round of things to deal with—and it’s felt like someone keeps making the ride go faster. My husband and I have both been dealing with health issues, and we’ve had many weeks with two and three medical appointments. (I told Paul we need a new kind of social life!) Our family business has been extra busy, and there was that fun mountain of tax stuff to conquer. Add in being on faculty at several conferences,
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There has never been a successful and long-lasting atheistic civilization — and there never will be — is the opinion of many astute observers. And it’s also apparently the belief of radio giant Michael Savage, as he issued a dire warning on his Wednesday show. “Unless Christianity receives a new enthusiasm that sweeps the Western world, and Christianity itself rises up against the forces against it,” he said, “the entire West will collapse in your lifetime.” Savage, author of numerous best-selling books and host of the award-winning Savage Nation radio program, has long warned that the West is imperiled by
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Thousands of churches in the US have been asked to set aside time in their services April 17 in order to pray for persecuted Christians around the world. The Voice of the Martyrs is one of the ministries behind this effort, called “Stand With the Persecuted Sunday.” The first request of persecuted Christians, when VOM staff meet with them around the world, is that American Christians will pray for them. What is challenging to us is that they are not asking us to pray that they will be released from their suffering or that persecution will end; instead they ask
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On this date in 1945, German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hung by order of Adolf Hitler in a Nazi concentration camp. The following is excerpted from a letter Bonhoeffer had written which was circulated to a hundred or so of his former students during World War II …To be sure, God shall call you, and us, only at the hour that God has chosen. Until that hour, which lies in God’s hand alone, we shall all be protected even in greatest danger, and from our gratitude for such protection ever new readiness surely arises for the final call.
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“Sister Amber” spent more than a decade in Tibet, providing vocational training to the people and sharing the gospel message of Christ’s love. She felt God’s call especially to work among Tibet’s nomadic tribal people, who jokingly call themselves “the roof on the roof of the world.” Amber watched as God brought about a great ministry breakthrough: people who’d been totally closed to her message were now asking to learn more about Jesus. But just days after the breakthrough Amber experienced persecution as police came pounding on her door. Listen to VOM Radio this week as she tells the story.
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Rev. Franklin Graham and a recently retired Army vet have teamed up to bring God’s word to active duty military service members. Matt Cassady, an Army chaplain who retired last November after serving two tours of duty in Afghanistan, has joined Faith Comes By Hearing as its new director of chaplaincy ministries for its Military BibleStick outreach ministry, the Christian Post reported. The organization distributes digital audio devices called Military BibleSticks. They are about the size of a pack of gum and the device allows military service members and veterans to listen to dramatized recordings of the New Testament and
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The cultural conflict over sexual morality is waxing hot in America. Now is not the time for Christians to run and duck for cover. Our own state of North Carolina has now become a central battleground in this conflict. Every day it intensifies as more mayors ban travel to North Carolina, corporations put pressure on legislators,…
At the age of 13, Booth was sent to apprentice as a pawnbroker. His job made him aware of poverty, and the humiliation and degradation poor people suffered. Becoming a Christian as a teenager, Booth studied American preacher Charles G. Finney’s writings on revival and witnessed his faith to others. At age 26, William married Catherine Mumford and together they founded the Christian Mission to minister to the poor, drunk, outcast and wretched on the dirty and dangerous streets of London’s East End slums. They fought to end sex-trafficking and teenage prostitution in England. Catherine Booth said: “I felt as
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In an article by ABC News, Russia is being proclaimed as one of the biggest threats to the United State’s cyber security. So it’s hard to believe that in a country like Russia, with the power to hack others’ private information, there are still people who have never heard the Word of God. Working through Slavic Gospel Association, God is revealing Himself to those who’ve never heard His name. Eric Mock with SGA recently traveled to Yakutsk, Russia, as part of a new program taking root. “Yakutsk is a city that is known as the coldest city on the planet.
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A new poll finds that, in just two years, the number of Americans who think Christians are facing growing intolerance in the United States has drastically increased. Sixty-three percent of respondents in the LifeWay Research survey said they agree or strongly agree that Christians are facing growing levels of persecution, up from 50 percent in 2013.…
America has been weighed on the scales and found wanting. And the days of the Republic may be at an end. This from Franklin Graham, who has a biblical warning for the United States, that Americans could share the fate of the Babylonian empire. In a recent post on his Facebook page, the son of the…
“What looked like a problem turned into a blessing that saved lives.” Admin Bold Believers in Syria VOM’s Kids of Courage resources help parents and educators teach children ages 5 to 13 about persecuted Christians. The resources provide opportunities for children to serve and pray for their suffering brothers and sisters around the world. The following story for children comes from the Bold Believers in Syria activity book, available free from the Downloads section of www.kidsofcourage.com Bold Believers in Syria includes stories, activities, crafts, recipes, and history and culture facts that help children understand the daily lives of their brothers
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Seeing news images of President Obama doing “the wave” at a baseball game in Cuba, it would be easy to think that this small communist country is now completely free and open to the gospel of Christ. But while President Obama was watching baseball, Pastor Mario Felix Lleonart Barroso was sitting in a police station. Barroso, a Baptist pastor, blogger and friend of VOM, was thrown to the ground, handcuffed and detained at his home (which also serves as his church) just hours before Air Force One landed in Havana. Read More: Persecution Blog: Pastor Held During Obama Visit to
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Recently Dr. Jason Peters, VOM’s Associate Vice President for Connection and one of the executive editors for VOM’s new book, I Am N, sat down with Billy Hallowell of The Blaze to talk about the book, about the examples of our persecuted brothers and sisters, and about how God is at work even in places with the most intense opposition to the church. Click below to listen to their interview, which aired on The Church Boys podcast. Listen: Persecution Blog: “Supernatural Interventions”
Not even half of the British people who identify themselves as Christians say they believe in a Creator while 18 percent say they do not have such a belief, according to a new survey. YouGov spoke with nearly 12,000 British “Christians” and a control group of 39,000 people representative of the whole population and found that only 41 percent of them say they definitely believe in a Creator. Eighteen percent do not. The same survey also indicated that self-identified Christians are more likely to believe in aliens than the devil, and more likely to believe in fate than in heaven.
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Tens of thousands of people from around the world are giving up everything they own to fight for their religion. They turn their backs on prosperity and ease. They sacrifice their wishes, even their lives. They explain they have seen life in the wealthy West, and they find it unsatisfying and meaningless. But what they are…
These days, many Christians, especially college-age students, face having their faith in God and the Bible questioned if not downright assaulted. Dr. Jonathan Morrow teaches Christian students how to defend their faith at the Impact 360 Institute in Pine Mountain, Georgia. He knows how tough it is for Christians at secular institutions. “Sometimes they’re going to have a professor that’s going to outright challenge why they believe what they believe and say, ‘Look, what you believe is actually a fairytale,'” Morrow said. But Morrow and two more of the world’s top biblical experts told CBN News there’s good reason for
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On a special edition of Breitbart News Daily entitled “The Global War on Christianity,” Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon interviewed legal editor Ken Klukowski, who is also senior counsel and director of strategic affairs for First Liberty Institute, the largest law firm in the United States dedicated exclusively to protecting religious liberty for Americans. Asked how widespread attacks on Christianity are, Klukowski said the attacks are “proliferating,” adding, “If people go to my law firm’s website, firstliberty.org, they can download a new book from us, called Undeniable, which documents over 1,200 separate instances of hostility to Christians in the United
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Jesus rose from the dead. That is certainly the principal belief that propelled the spread of the Christian faith across the Roman Empire, inspiring thousands who persisted in that belief in the face of either a martyr’s death or loss of fortune or even family. Had these early Christians not believed in the resurrection of Jesus, it is almost certain that Christianity would not exist today, because it would never have existed at all. So, why did the early disciples of Jesus Christ believe in His resurrection? Is the resurrection of Jesus historical? When historians attempt to determine what happened
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America’s entitlement society has now reached its zenith. For over a half-century, the United States government and its 501c3 corporate churches have indoctrinated several generations of Americans in welfarism–or more commonly known as socialism. When I was a boy growing up, my dad had another name for it: something-for-nothing. And in his lexicon, that term was more than an oxymoron: it represented something that didn’t even exist. To him, there was no such thing as something-for-nothing, even if people acted as if there were–and to desire such a thing was the height of dishonesty and villainy. Oh, and Dad was
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“Sadly, this is indeed one of the biggest untold stories going on in the world today. Includes audio interview with Mr. Allen.” Admin On Breitbart News Daily, John L. Allen painted a gruesome picture of the ordeal of millions of Christians throughout the world, and the scandalous ignorance and indifference to their plight in the West. One of the world’s leading experts on Christian persecution and the author of the 2013 bestseller The Global War on Christians, Allen spoke with Breitbart News Executive Chairman and SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon on Thursday, recounting the rising tide of violence targeting Christians
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On a summit overlooking Kerrville in the beautiful hill country of west Texas, a 77-foot cross towers over the landscape. Max Greiner shares, “The empty cross is the main sculpture, contemporary sculpture made of CorTen steel. It’s 77 feet tall, and it weighs approximately 70 tons. At the foot of the cross, lies the “Coming King Sculpture Prayer Garden.” It’s a collection of donated art and sculptures depicting Jesus’s life. Artist and sculptor Max Greiner is the founder and president of the foundation. Max says, “We’ve built this garden as a place where people can connect with God without having
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A stunning verdict on America has been declared: The nation has rejected its Judeo-Christian roots and is given over to a spirit of sin and rebellion. Millions of Americans sense the change and rightly fear for the future of their country. But few recognize that what is happening is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy in our…
War, genocide and chaos are constants throughout human history. Millions of Christians over the centuries have believed, wrongly, they are living in the end times. So why should Christians think today is any different? Pastor and author Carl Gallups addressed this challenge in a recent appearance on the television program “Jewish Voice with Jonathan Bernis.” Gallups…