Just read this article on CNN website, “Online churches draw believers, critics.” I thought you might like to read the article and express your thoughts.

For what it’s worth this is not a problem in Kampala, Uganda, or DR Congo where IMFC works. Here’s the article from the CNN. Click here to read on their site. I have copied it below for those who do not click though links!

(CNN) — Hjalti á Lava was searching his iPhone for a Bible app when he stumbled across Church Online, a service of Web site LifeChurch.tv. Soon he was regularly logging into the Oklahoma-based cyber-church — some 4,100 miles away from á Lava’s home in the Faroe Islands, west of Norway.

“It allows me to connect with others and have conversations about the message,” says á Lava, who shares his faith with other believers in the site’s live chat room. “Technology allows us today to have fellowship across borders and cultures.”

In doing so, á Lava joined growing numbers of Christians worldwide who are migrating from the chapel to the computer. A map on the Church Online site showed users from 22 countries logged into a recent service.

Online religious services offer convenience to those who are too isolated or infirm to attend a real-world church. But can worshipping via a computer offer true spiritual fulfillment?

Internet pastors and parishioners cite their 24-hour access to interactive tools and social-networking platforms to show their online experiences are as meaningful as those that take place with face-to-face congregations.

“We were blown away at how people could actually worship along [online],” says Craig Groeschel, senior pastor at LifeChurch.tv. “The whole family will gather around the computer, and they’ll sing and they’ll worship together. Instead of trying to get people to come to a church, we feel like we can take a church to them.”

But critics believe virtual worship separates followers from a trinity of spiritual essentials found in brick-and-mortar Christian churches: community, Communion and connection with Christ.

“Online church is close enough to the real thing to be dangerous,” says Bob Hyatt, a pastor who leads the brick-and-mortar Evergreen Community Church in Portland, Oregon. In a blog post for ChristianityToday.com, he writes that calling it virtual church “gives people the idea that everything they need is available here.”

The debate is an extension of a wider argument over social interaction in virtual environments versus the physical world. But because practices of faith are involved, both sides are deeply invested in the outcome, seeing it as a statement on the nature of the Christian person’s relationship with God.

Supporters of online churches have a common response to their skeptics: Try before you criticize. The virtual experience goes far beyond using live chat rooms to exchange emoticons instead of hugs and handshakes, they say.

Links allow congregants to “raise their hand” and publicly commit to Christ, while prayer requests and one-on-one guidance are a click way. Sermon notes can be shared and discussed. And many online churches are aided by volunteers, allowing them to hold services several times each day.

The Internet campus of the Flamingo Road Church in Cooper City, Florida, pulls in more than 2,000 congregants from around the world during its Sunday services. Pastor Doug Gramling said his three children are part of the Internet generation that will eventually decide the future of worship. They use Web tools to stay in constant connection with friends over vast distances, which Gramling says “gives me confidence that it can happen in online church.”

But the disconnect from physical closeness is what Hyatt said he’s “fighting hardest against.” His own church offers online extensions such as podcasts and forums. But he believes “the computer screen is a supplement, not a replacement.”

Hyatt and other critics are particularly distressed by the online offering of traditional sacraments, such as Communion and baptism. He believes it is “ridiculous” that someone can grab grape juice and a cracker from the fridge and watch a computer screen, thinking they are truly participating in a gathering of the faithful.

“Something about the physical presence, breaking the same bread, is what Communion is meant to be,” he says.

But Church Online participant Donna Cole disagrees.
“Knowing that others are also celebrating Communion, regardless of location, makes it an especially wonderful time,” says Cole, who believes real-world Communion can ring hollow. “When I’ve taken Communion in live surroundings, I often got the sense that it was ritualistic and without meaning.”

Matthew Bailey, a parishioner in the Franktown United Methodist Church in Virginia, believes that the meaning of the ritual is what matters.

“If people are willing to go to the trouble of giving their own Communion, then it is quite probably ‘real’ for them,” he says. While Bailey chooses to remain at his face-to-face church, he believes any person “faithfully attending an online church service, is being more proactive, and thus probably more attentive, than many longtime churchgoers.”

Douglas Estes, lead pastor of Berryessa Valley Church in San Jose, California, and author of “SimChurch,” a book about Internet church services, would like to see this debate go away.

“The Bible sees church not as a man-made building but as a people gathered to glorify God with their lives,” he says. Estes believes the quality of a community should be judged by the spiritual fellowship it offers.

“There is only one substantive difference between an online church and a brick-and-mortar church: The place where they meet.”

So, what do you think? Online Church. Church? Or, NOT Church? Leave your comments. It will be interesting to hear what you think.

NO pants to be warn on Sunday! Oh. This is not for women but for men! Men are not to wear pants on Sunday. Here is the story as it appeared in the Fiji Times on August 18,2009. What do you think?

THE strict observance of Sunday worship has resulted in men on a Bua island not being allowed to wear pants on Sunday.

The Sunday ban also forbids travel and the hanging of clothes on lines.

Galoa Village headman Josefa Baleinasiga said the ban was enforced so that the islanders could learn to respect the significance of Sunday as a holy day.

Mr Baleinasiga said the Methodist Church and the vanua also decided to impose the ban as a means of bringing good fortune to the people.

“The ban is meant to bring good luck to the island as we respect the day of the Lord,” he said.

“You can see that often misfortune befalls us because we don’t respect His commandments that there be no work performed on Sunday except worship.

“Before our islanders used to go diving on Sunday, and there was a lot of travelling and it was difficult to separate the days all the days were the same.

“Now on Saturdays the clothes line in the village is full as the villagers know they can’t hang anything out on Sunday.”

As a mark of respect, men can only wear a sulu or sulu vakataga on the day; travelling by outboard from the island is forbidden.

“But we make exceptions during emergencies for the sick so it’s not a ban that hasn’t been well thought out.”

A villager who requested anonymity said the ban was too restrictive because it limited movement.

“We can’t understand how wearing a sulu vakataga on Sunday will help us forge closer relations with the divine,” he said. “At times too for the school children who come home for the weekend, the best time to return to their hostel in Labasa or Savusavu is on Sunday – so that is getting in the way.”

Mr Baleinasiga said anybody who breached the ban would be chastised by the vanua.

A principal and an athletic director are facing criminal charges for a lunch-time prayer.

Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against Pace High School in Santa Rosa County, Florida. The ACLU claimed some teachers and administrators were endorsing religion, but the school chose to give in to the ACLU’s demands rather than fight them in court.
 
According to the settlement, all school employees are banned from engaging in prayer or religious activities before, during, or after school hours. Now two school officials are facing criminal charges for offering meal-time prayers at an appreciation dinner for adults who had helped with a school field house project. Principal Frank Lay and athletic director Robert Freeman are scheduled to go on trial next month on criminal contempt charges. If convicted, both are subject to fines and imprisonment. – Pete Chagnon, One News Now

Read the full story here.

See a Fox 10 TV news story concerning this episode here.

This is happening in sunny Florida. Home to Disney World and sandy white beaches!

When I first read this story, I thought, “This can’t be real. This must be some nut case, conspiracy story. Not so. This battle has been brewing for a while in Florida. I was just unaware of it. The Fox 10 TV news story and video is well worth you time watching, and at least gives hope that many are beginning to rally around the school principal and athletic director.

Contrast this with the fact that IMFC has Bible Way Clubs working in 13 High Schools in Kampala, Uganda. Three of these High Schools are Muslim schools! They read the Bible, pray and share the good news of Jesus Christ. And, no one is being charge with criminal activity. Amazing!

I have posted several stories of God’s grace from IMFC’s ministry in Kampala, Uganda and DR Congo. I think it is time to post a remarkable story of God’s grace from here in the US.

I found this story from 1993 in America, The National Catholic Weekly. I think you will enjoy reading this.

Editors’ note: On October 20 36-year-old Republican Bobby Jindal was elected governor of Louisiana. In the early 1990s, Mr. Jindal wrote two articles for America recounting his conversion from the Hindu faith of his parents to Catholicism. The following excerpt is taken from “Has Ecumenism Made Evangelism Irrelevant?” which was published on July 31, 1993:

I was born in the United States immediately after my parents arrived here from India. I was raised in a strong Hindu culture, attended weekly pujas, or ceremonial rites, and read the Vedic scriptures. Though my prayers were a child’s constant stream of requests and broken promises, Hinduism provided me with moral guidance and spiritual comfort. It never occurred to me that I should consider any other religion; to be a Hindu was an aspect of my Indian identity. A childhood friend, a Southern Baptist intent on converting the world, first introduced me to Christianity by telling me “you and your parents are going to hell.” I was hardly convinced.

My friend’s exhortations did, however, prompt me to investigate my Hindu faith and motivated me to read the Bhagavad-Gita. Although I found the stories fascinating and the writing magnificent, I was uncomfortable when Krishna convinced a reluctant Arjuna to secure his rightful inheritance by making war against his cousins. Though I did not like seeing a deity advocate violence, this feeling was not enough to reject an entire faith. I wanted to examine Hinduism on its own merits and doctrines.

The main tenets of the Hindu faith involve two basic beliefs. The first is that all souls earn their way into nirvana, a state of blessedness, through good deeds. Since this takes many lifetimes, souls are reincarnated until they succeed. One’s material circumstances are based on the past life’s choices; the very worst souls are incorporated into animal bodies…

The second tenet is that all religions are equally valid paths to the same God. This strips one of the right to criticize any set of religious beliefs, including those of cults and other extreme groups. Thus, God is not concerned with having His followers believe in truth. It is sincerity, and not content, that matters. Yet I had had for years a sincere prayer life and still felt a void in my religious faith. Though I was searching for an objectively true faith that would lead me to God, I was beginning to doubt this existed and was ready to accept the “philosophies,” if not the religious beliefs, associated with Hinduism.

My journey from Hinduism to Christianity was a gradual and painful one. I was touched by the love and simplicity of a Christian girl who dreamt of becoming a Supreme Court justice so she could stop her country from “killing unborn babies.” I was also angered by the arrogance of my Southern Baptist friend who claimed his faith was the one true path to God. He seemed to deny the experiences of billions of people who have never seen a copy of the Bible.

I began reading the Bible to disprove the Christian faith I was learning both to admire and despise. I cannot begin to describe my feelings when I first read the New Testament texts. I saw myself in many of the parables and felt as if the Bible had been written especially for me. After reading every book I could find on the historical accuracy of the Bible and Christianity, I was convinced that the Bible had remained unaltered throughout the centuries and that circumstances surrounding Christ’s death led to the conversions of thousands. However, my perspective remained intellectual and not spiritual.

My investigation of Christianity might have remained at this theoretical level had it not been for a short black-and-white film. Though its depiction of the crucifixion was harsher than that of many similar movies, something about this film hit me very hard. For the first time, I actually imagined what it meant for the Son of God to be humiliated and even killed for my sake. Although the movie did not convince me that anything was true, it did force me to wonder if Christians were right. I realized that if the Gospel stories were true, if Christ really was the Son of God, it was arrogant of me to reject Him and question the gift of salvation.

It would require many hours of discussion with a pastor before I was ready to take that leap of faith and accept Christ into my life. It would take another two years for me to be baptized into the Catholic Church. My parents were infuriated by my conversion and have yet fully to forgive me. I tried to prepare myself for the worst; though I was ready when they ended their financial support, I was not as prepared for the emotional battles. My parents went through different phases of anger and disappointment. They blamed themselves for being bad parents, blamed me for being a bad son and blamed evangelists for spreading dissension. There were heated discussions, many of them invoking family loyalty and national identity. My parents have never truly accepted my conversion and still see my faith as a negative that overshadows my accomplishments. They were hurt and felt I was rejecting them by accepting Christianity. I long for the day when my parents understand, respect and possibly accept my faith. For now, I am satisfied that they accept me…

The motivation behind my conversion, however, was my belief in one, objectively true faith. If Christianity is merely one of many equally valid religions, then the sacrifices I made, including the loss of my family’s peace, were senseless. I was comfortable in my Hindu faith and enjoyed an active prayer life; I only gradually felt a void and stubbornly resisted God’s call from within the church. It was Truth and Love that finally forced me to accept Christ as Lord. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life: No one comes to the Father except through me’” (In. 14:6). Christ’s redemptive sacrifice proved that God loved me and was lifting me up to Him.

As we near the Thanksgiving season, one thing I am very grateful for is the access we have to the truth of the gospel and the freedom to share it. We take this freedom for granted but millions of people around the world live without this blessing. Check out this story from the WorldNetDaily to see to what extend some will go to get the good news of Jesus Christ to family and friends who do not have the privilege of freedom we have. Then be sure to thank the Lord for our freedom and pray that it continue.

North Korea officials are infuriated by leaflets that have been floated over the communist nation’s secured borders and dropped from plastic bags attached to gas-filled balloons, and one organization behind the effort says there’s good reason the atheists in power are upset – the pamphlets are carrying a Gospel message directly to the people.

Hundreds of thousands of leaflets have reportedly been distributed in just the past few months, and may have been the reason the North recently announced it would shut its border with the South. The North also has threatened to cut other communications, such as telephone lines, over the issue.

The leaflets have been attributed to “political” groups, but a spokesman for one organization sponsoring the effort said there’s nothing political about it, and the tracts carry a message of hope directly to the North Korean people.

The spokesman and his organization, which spreads the Gospel around the world, couldn’t be identified because of the potential for danger to affiliated activists who are dispatching the balloons.

But he told WND those who have fled government crackdowns on their faith inside North Korea are desperate to get the message of hope to their family, friends and communities behind the wall of communist information censorship.

“Each balloon carried 10,000 Gospel tracts, in three separate bags at the bottom that have a time release mechanism so that they drop at different times to spread the leaflets over a wider area,” he described.

Click here to read the rest of the story…

China is now the Bible-printing capital of the world.

Amity Press, owned by the communist government, has now printed more than 50 million Bibles in 75 languages from Slovak to Swahili to Braille, exporting them to more than 60 countries. The company is now gearing to produce downloadable audio Bibles for computers and mp3 players.

A new, hangar-sized state-of-the-art printing facility in Nanjing is able to print 12 million copies annually. Are the Bibles sold in China itself? Yes, anyone can buy a Bible—but only through one of the state-authorized Three-Self Patriotic Movement churches.

This summer, Amity is providing free special Olympic edition Bibles to any participants in the Beijing Olympics.
—Los Angeles Times & Mission Network News

You need to read this story. It will make you glad that you live in a country where we can still worship God freely.

The Christian community of Chhattisgarh state is rattled after a gruesome mob attack and torture in Surguja district.

At midnight on Oct. 3 in Dumarbhavna village, 110 kilometers (68 miles) from Premnagar, three jeeps full of Hindu nationalists broke open the door of a house where a three-day prayer meeting was taking place and attacked participants as they slept – ultimately forcing two Christians to beat one of their own prayer partners unconscious under threat of death.

The mob from the Hindu extremist Dharma Sena (Religious Army) beat the participants in the prayer meeting, including women, and dragged three of them from the house of Parmeshwar Beik, dumping them into the jeeps.

“We thought that they were taken to the police station, but instead they were taken to a secluded place where they were beaten all night,” Yahoshu Kujur, pastor of Blessing Church of God, told Compass.

Muneshwar Ekka and Beik were beaten first, and then the Hindu nationalists ordered them to beat the third captured Christian, Ravi Devangan.

“They threatened to kill us if we did not beat Ravi,” Beik told Pastor Kujur. “We were so scared and left with no option, so we beat Ravi until he dropped unconscious.”

After failing to find the three Christians at the local police station the next morning, the pastor found them at the Srinagar Government Hospital, where Devangan was admitted with internal injuries and injuries to his chest, legs and other parts of the body.

“Ravi, who is a driver by profession, was just visiting Parmeshwar from Mehagai village,” Pastor Kujur said. “He was the worst hit, at home and outside during the attack.”

He added that Devangan’s wife witnessed the attack on the house.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

These are the modern day persecuted saints of Hebrews 11:35-38. Pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ. Pray for India where there seems to be a tidal wave of persecution breaking out against Christians, especially in the state of Orissa.

I found this story at FoxNews.com. I think Romans 1:18-23 would apply here. What do you think?

Wrapped in red silk and adorned with red flowers in her hair, Matani Shakya received approval from the priests and President Ram Baran Yadav in a centuries-old tradition with deep ties to Nepal’s monarchy, which was abolished in May.

The new “kumari” or living goddess, was carried from her parents’ home to an ancient palatial temple in the heart of the Nepali capital, Katmandu, where she will live until she reaches puberty and loses her divine status.

She will be worshipped by Hindus and Buddhists as an incarnation of the powerful Hindu deity Taleju.

A panel of judges conducted a series of ancient ceremonies to select the goddess from several 2- to 4-year-old girls who are all members of the impoverished Shakya goldsmith caste.

The judges read the candidates’ horoscopes and check each one for physical imperfections. The living goddess must have perfect hair, eyes, teeth and skin with no scars, and should not be afraid of the dark.

As a final test, the living goddess must spend a night alone in a room among the heads of ritually slaughtered goats and buffaloes without showing fear.

Having passed all the tests, the child will stay in almost complete isolation at the temple, and will be allowed to return to her family only at the onset of menstruation when a new goddess will be named to replace her…

During their time as a goddesses, they always wear red, pin up their hair in topknots, and have a “third eye” painted on their foreheads.

Devotees touch the girls’ feet with their foreheads, the highest sign of respect among Hindus in Nepal. During religious festivals the goddesses are wheeled around on a chariot pulled by devotees.

Critics say the tradition violates both international and Nepalese laws on child rights. The girls often struggle to readjust to normal lives after they return home.

Nepalese folklore holds that men who marry a former kumari will die young, and so many girls remain unmarried and face a life of hardship.

For the rest of the story go here.

Here is an excerpt from Next Generation Global Leaders: Our Pursuits, Priorities, and Passons by Michael Oh in the May, 2005 edition of Momentum Magazine that has captured my mind.

“In my limited exposure to the global church, I’ve sensed a subtle but undeniable growing cynicism towards America and the West. Though we in the West often think of ourselves as the leaders of the global church, the disciplers of the nations, and the teachers of the world, we must recognize that our ability to train leaders around the world is threatened by a perception that we in the West have lost our first love. We disqualify ourselves from training up the nations when those nations see our lifestyle!

“The 2/3rds (Majority) world Christians see churches in the West filled with Christians whose primary instinct is the seeking of comfort; physical, emotional, spiritual and economic comfort—a Christian life of affluent capitalism with a dash of spirituality and beneficence.

“Christian brothers and sisters around the world are sacrificing not just finances, comfort, and personal advancement but their very lives. In a world where tens of thousands of Christians are martyred each year and more than two billion people live in nations where there is little or no access to the Gospel what should the American Christian and the American Church look like? Be involved sacrificially with your whole life for the Kingdom. Be involved!

After reading this article, I keep asking myself, “Are they right? Is this the true state of the American Church? Do they see us better than we see ourselves? Am I so close to the American Church that I cannot see her as she really is? Is this true about me?”

I hope not. I pray not. But it is something to think about. Even pray about.

To read more of this article and the May Edition of Momentum click here.

Here is an email I received that sums up the great need in Zimbabwe. I have not been to Zimbabwe in the past six years, but when I was there it was beautiful country. It is heartbreaking to read what is happening there. Please pray for them.

Dear Colleagues

I trust that this mail finds you well.

I’m sending a letter, with a plea from one of the Zimbabwean citizens as a result of the crisis they experience at the moment. Do any of you gentlemen have an idea of how the international community may be awakened to react to the dire circumstances these people experience? Please take a minute or two to read the letter.

With best personal regards

FRIK POTGIETER

South Africa

_____________________

Letter from Zimbabwe sent in by John Winter

I reckon that these are the last days of TKM and ZPF(political parties).The darkest hour is always before dawn.

We are all terrified at what they are going to destroy next……..I mean they are actually ploughing down brick and mortar houses and one white family with twin boys of 10 had no chance of salvaging anything when100 riot police came in with AK47’s and bulldozers and demolished their beautiful house – 5 bedrooms and pine ceilings – because it was “too close to the airport”, so we are feeling extremely insecure right now.

You know – I am aware that this does not help you sleep at night, but if you do not know – how can you help? Even if you put us in your own mental ring of light and send your guardian angels to be with us – that is a help – but I feel so cut off from you all knowing I cannot tell you what’s going on here simply because you will feel uncomfortable. There is no ways we can leave here so that is not an option.

I ask that you all pray for us in the way that you know how, and let me know that you are thinking of us and sending out positive vibes… that’s all. You can’t just be in denial and pretend/believe it’s not going on.

To be frank with you, it’s genocide in the making and if you do not believe me, read the Genocide Report by Amnesty International which says we are – IN level 7 – (level 8 is after it’s happened and everyone is in denial).

If you don’t want me to tell you these things-how bad it is-then it means you have not dealt with your own fear, but it does not help me to think you are turning your back on our situation. We need you, please, to get the news OUT that we are all in a fearfully dangerous situation here. Too many people turn their backs and say – oh well, that’s what happens in Africa. This Government has GONE MAD and you need to help us publicize our plight— or how can we be rescued? It’s a reality! The petrol queues are a reality, the pall of smoke all around our city is a reality, the thousands of homeless people sleeping outside in 0 Celsius with no food, water, shelter and bedding are a reality. Today a family approached me, brother of the gardener’s wife with two small children. Their home was trashed and they will have to sleep

outside. We already support 8 adult people and a child on this property, and electricity is going up next month by 250% as is water.

How can I take on another family of 4 —–and yet how can I turn them away to sleep out in the open?

I am not asking you for money or a ticket out of here – I am asking you to FACE the fact that we are in deep and terrible danger and want you please to pass on our news and pictures. So PLEASE don’t just press the delete button! Help best in the way that you know how.

Do face the reality of what is going on here and help us SEND OUT THE WORD.. The more people who know about it, the more chance we have of the United Nations coming to our aid. Please don’t ignore or deny what’s happening. Some would like to be protected from the truth BUT then, if we are eliminated, how would you feel? “If only we knew how bad it really was we could have helped in some way”.

[I know we chose to stay here and that some feel we deserve what's coming to us]

For now,— we ourselves have food, shelter, a little fuel and a bit of money for the next meal – but what is going to happen next? Will they start on our houses? All property is going to belong to the State now. I want to send out my Title Deeds to one of you because if they get a hold of those, I can’t fight for my rights.

Censorship!—-We no longer have SW radio [which told us everything that was happening] because the Government jammed it out of existence – we don’t have any reporters, and no one is allowed to photograph. If we had reporters here, they would have an absolute field day. Even the pro-Government Herald has written that people are shocked, stunned, bewildered and blown mindless by the wanton destruction of many folks homes, which are supposed to be ‘illegal’ but for which a huge percentage actually do have licenses.

Please! – do have some compassion and HELP by sending out the articles and personal reports so that something can/may be done. “I am one. I cannot do everything, —but I can do something.. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. What I can do, I should do. And what I should do, by the grace of God, I will do.” – Edward Everett Hale