Charisma Staff

World

ISIS Threatens ‘Rivers of Blood’ for Coptic Christians

Charisma Staff

As bombings and other attacks continue against Christians in Iraq, Christians in Egypt have gathered to pray and plan for their own safety.

When a group of Islamic extremists on Oct. 31 burst into Our Lady of Salvation church in Baghdad during evening mass and began spraying the sanctuary with gunfire, the militant organization that took responsibility said Christians in Egypt also would be targeted if its demands were not met. Taking more than 100 congregants hostage, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) called a television station and stated that the assault came in response to the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt allegedly holding two Coptic women against their will who, the ISI and some others believe, converted to Islam. 

The group issued a 48-hour deadline for the release of the women, and when the deadline passed it issued a statement that, “All Christian centers, organizations and institutions, leaders and followers are legitimate targets for the muhajedeen [Muslim fighters] wherever they can reach them.” The statement later added ominously, “We will open upon them the doors of destruction and rivers of blood.”

World

Booming International Ministry Fuels Church Growth

Charisma Staff

A Spokane, Wash.-based ministry is spawning healing rooms globally

Prayer for healing is hardly new, but in recent years healing rooms have been spreading worldwide in a ministry trend that isn’t expected to slow. 

Launched in 1999, the International Association of Healing Rooms (IAHR) now oversees some 1,900 rooms in 52 nations, with roughly 1,000 in India alone. In healing rooms across the U.S., Europe, Asia and Africa, people have been healed of blindness, brain tumors and even HIV, says IAHR founder Cal Pierce.

“What is so powerful is this work is done by ordinary people doing an extraordinary work through the power of the Holy Spirit,” Pierce says.


Culture

Pentecostal Sunday School Teacher Endures Brutality Just Walking to Work

Charisma Staff

Bill Wilson has spent the last 30 years taking Sunday school to inner-city kids

Bill Wilson has been thrown off a building, mugged and shot in the face. But none of that has stopped him from leading sidewalk Sunday school every week in New York’s inner city. 

As he marks 30 years of ministry this year, he says the thing that has kept him going is simply commitment. “It’s like anything else; it’s a decision,” Wilson says. 

World

Franklin Graham: ‘There’s a Lot of Potential for Violence’

Charisma Staff

Sudanese Christians face tough choices over whether to secede

The future remains uncertain for Sudan, which is still plagued by unrest as it faces a January referendum. 

There are positive signs, particularly in the south, where for the first time banks are moving in–a sign that cash is gaining more value than livestock. World Vision and other aid organizations also have facilitated peace conferences and border-clan meetings, encouraging conversations between ethnic groups.


U.S.

Millions Connect to God in This Unique Way

Charisma Staff

LifeChurch.tv never set out to be a leader in the app world – it simply wanted more young people reading the Bible. Yet Tuesday the Edmond, Okla.-based church celebrated reaching an astounding 10 million-plus users with a smartphone application that remains one of the world’s most popular.

YouVersion, the free online and mobile Bible LifeChurch.tv launched as an app in April 2008, includes 41 different translations in 22 languages. According to Bobby Gruenewald, LifeChurch.tv’s innovation leader and the app’s developer, someone new installs YouVersion every 2.8 seconds, while in the same time span 12 people open the Bible app.

“When we set out to find a way to help people engage with God’s Word and to have a deeper relationship with Christ, we never realized that God would use one idea in such a way that could change so many lives and draw people closer to each other and closer to Him,” Gruenewald said during a webcast on Tuesday.

World

Pakistani Mother Condemned for ‘Blasphemy’ Stunned, Shattered

Charisma Staff

First woman sentenced to die for speaking ill of Muhammad says she never got to defend herself.

Ashiq Masih, with his stooped posture, frail body and dull yellow eyes, stands in a small compartment in the Sheikhupura District Jail with his three daughters  — Sidra, Eesha and Eeshum. The girls are weeping silently.
 
On the other side of a metal grille is Asia Noreen, the birth mother of two of the girls and the first woman in Pakistan to receive the death sentence on charges of blaspheming Islam’s prophet. Eeshum, 12-years-old and mentally disabled, whines like a baby for her mother, asking her when she will be back.

U.S.

Charismatic Church Leaders Commit to Integrity at Orlando Summit

Charisma Staff

Larry Stockstill has seen enough fellow ministers fall. At a “Summit on Integrity” Tuesday in Orlando, Fla., the Louisiana pastor and a roomful of influential Christian leaders took a stand against the American church’s ongoing leadership crisis by pledging to walk with integrity in every area of life.

Amid the latest ministry scandals, Stockstill, senior pastor of Bethany World Prayer Center in Baton Rouge, La., charged pastors and church leaders with specific ways to not only avoid moral failure, but also leave a Billy Graham-like legacy of integrity.

“We’re now seeing many of the largest churches in America pastored by people who are living a double lifestyle,” Stockstill said at the all-day gathering. “This is a crisis. This isn’t something I’m dreaming up–this is the reality of where pastors are right now.”

With ministry scandals reported almost weekly and studies indicating that up to 40 percent of American pastors view pornography every day, the need for integrity among church leaders is obvious. Yet Stockstill and the assembly, which included the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and Bishop Harry Jackson of Hope Christian Church in Washington, D.C., discussed how leadership integrity isn’t simply staying away from sexually explicit websites, but includes everything from keeping a commitment to managing church budgets to honoring a spouse.

U.S.

Pastor Who Threatened to Burn QuranLoses Members

Charisma Staff

Terry Jones–the Pentecostal pastor who caused an international stir after he threatened to burn the  Quran on Sept. 11–recently said that members of his church had left because of his stance against Muslims.

 Interviewed near Ground Zero this week, he said that his Gainesville, Fla. congregation was not interested in the “truth†about radical Islam.

“People come to church and want to hear, ‘God loves you, you’re a good person,'”  the NY Daily News quoted Jones as saying. “That’s true. God does love you. But there’s more we need to tell people, and they don’t want to hear it.”

U.S.

‘Significant’ Church Tax Battle

Charisma Staff

A church bookstore in Nashville is at the center of a legal battle being viewed as a major test case for religious freedom.

Authorities have ruled that For His Glory Bookstore at Christ Church is not eligible for property tax exemption and owes a portion of $350,000 in dues dating back to 2004.

Leaders have warned that if the ruling—under appeal—is upheld, it could set a significant precedent for church bookstores and other church ministries not only in Tennessee, but also in other parts of the country.

U.S.

Kentucky Ministry Takes Church Outside

Charisma Staff

Servant’s Heart in Louisville, Ky., doesn’t hold a traditional Sunday service and doesn’t consider itself a church. Instead, the Assemblies of God mission is taking ministry to residents in a low-income community known as Portland.

Teams witness during weekly prayer walks, regularly visit a liquor store to share Scripture with customers and hold home Bible studies. The mission has held clothing and food giveaways and helped sponsor free medical clinics.

U.S.

Federal Court Defends Phrase ‘Under God’

Charisma Staff

A U.S. Court of Appeals recently upheld a New Hampshire law that requires teachers to schedule a voluntary recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

The unanimous three-panel decision was decided Nov. 12 after an agnostic and atheist couple — with children in the New Hampshire public school system — filed a suit claiming the pledge was an infringement on their children’s rights because it said the United States was a nation “under God.”

In the opinion brief, Chief Judge Sandra Lea Lynch stated that the Pledge of Allegiance was an act of teaching history rather than a religious exercise.

World

Christian Jailed in Afghanistan to Face Judge on Sunday

Charisma Staff
Imprisoned since May, father of six has yet to learn charges against him.
 

An Afghani amputee in prison for his Christian faith since May will face a judge this Sunday (Nov. 21) without legal representation or knowledge of the charges against him, according to local sources.

 
Authorities arrested Said Musa, 45, on May 31, days after the local Noorin TV station broadcast images of Afghan Christians being baptized and worshiping. Though there were other arrests in May and June during the ensuing man-hunt against Christians, Musa is the only known Christian facing a court case.
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