The July Christian Courier can now be downloaded!

Click to download the latest edition of the Christian Courier. The special July issue is now available to download on this site.

Calling All Sr. Pastors and Christian Workers

   A special meeting will be held on June 10th at the Italian Conference Center, 631 E. Chicago St., Milwaukee from 10-11:30 a.m. This will be an informative meeting to examine the feasibility and the possibility of Franklin Graham, son of Dr. Billy Graham, coming to Milwaukee for an event called, “Rock the Lake” at Veteran’s Park on Milwaukee’s lakefront.  This will be a two or three day event including the top Christian musicians in the country performing with messages by Franklin Graham and others. This event promises to be life changing.

  It has been 30 years since Dr. Billy Graham held a crusade in the Milwaukee area at the old County stadium. Are we ready for another great event? Come out on June 10th to hear the prospects and voice your support if you think Milwaukee and Southeast Wisconsin is ready for another such evangelistic experience, with this one especially geared to the youth of our community. 

A similar event was held last summer called “Rock the River” when a number of major cities were set for a one day event and thousands upon thousands came out at each city and many responded to the Gospel message. A lasting impact was made on each city.

   That was Rock the River, now let’s Rock the Lake in 2011. Your input and support is needed. Get more information at info@rockthelakeswisconsin.com or call 414.344.7300.

Facebook and Google Under Fire

“New Level of Anger” Among Users – Expert

Mark Scheerer

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Facebook is making its latest in a string of efforts to regain the trust of members concerned about the security of personal information on the site. The social media giant will reportedly simplify privacy control settings. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center is watching the drama unfold.

“But I think that strategy may not work this time. I think there’s a new level of anger and concern about Facebook.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has admitted his company made, in his words, “a bunch of mistakes.” However, Rotenberg believes Facebook has emerged as a powerful tool for social change, and to shun it because of concerns over privacy would be foolish.

“I think it’s a mistake for people to think that somehow they should boycott or turn off these services. They should be actively engaged, expressing their views and talking about how to make them better.”

With Facebook closing in on 500 million users worldwide, it has only a handful of competitors with meager resources. Google, in only 12 years, has become an Internet behemoth, so Rotenberg says his group and other watchdogs must remain vigilant.

“If we reach a situation, for example, where Facebook really is the only social network service or Google really does dominate all the essential services on the internet, there just won’t be much choice.”

On Tuesday, Rotenberg’s group called for a Federal Communications Commission investigation into Google’s Street View camera cars which gathered data about private citizens’ Wi-Fi hot spots.

For His Glory Bible College Class on Intercession

For His Glory Bible College at 17770 W. Cleveland Ave., New Berlin is offering a Spring Intensive Class on Intercession and Spiritual Warfare, taught by Rev. Donna Olson, on Thur. May 6th and, May 20th and, Saturday May 8th and, May 22nd. Thursdays at 6: 30pm and Saturdays at 8:30am. This class can be taken for credit 0r audited. For a registration form; call 262-754-9244 or go to www.fhglory.org.

Download the May issue of the Christian Courier!

You can now download the May 2010  issue of the Christian Courier! Read the Mother’s Day articles, check out the calendar of events, National and Global news stories, and don’t forget our fun Family page. Just click latest issue button – download times will vary depending on your internet connection.

No Court Can Keep Us From Praying

April 22 UPDATE, 12:40 p.m.— The Justice Department announced today it will appeal last week’s ruling that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. The appeal would go to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in Chicago to review the Wisconsin judge’s ruling

April 16, 2010—When a federal judge in Wisconsin ruled that our National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional, it immediately generated widespread anger, heated debate and new rounds of legal maneuvering. According to Franklin Graham, the honorary chairman of this year’s National Day of Prayer, it also shows just how much our country needs God’s help.

“At a time when our country is waging two wars, approval ratings for Congress are at historic lows, unemployment is at a 70-year high and financial institutions have collapsed around us, I can’t imagine anyone seriously opposing a National Day of Prayer,” said Graham, who is president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and international Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse.

Graham said he was puzzled by the judge’s logic. In her ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb wrote, “the nature of prayer is so personal and can have such a powerful effect on a community that the government may not use its authority to try to influence an individual’s decision whether and when to pray.”

“It sounds to me like even the judge in this case understands the power of prayer. But it’s voluntary. There’s no requirement that people pray,” said Graham. “To act like a National Day of Prayer is a bad thing or somehow subversive is ridiculous. Surely our country needs prayer now more than ever.”

Graham also points out that God commands us to pray for our leaders. “The Bible is clear on this. 1 Timothy says, ‘I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.’”

Prayer is nothing new to Americans, added Graham. “Our country has a long history of recognizing a national day of prayer. It’s something that dates back to the Continental Congress when it recommended that states set aside a day for prayer and thanksgiving. This is a significant part of our country’s heritage.”

“For me, the bottom line is this,” said Graham. “No judge can stop us from praying for our country and I pray that on May 6, millions of Americans will join me in praying for our President, all of our elected leaders, and even for this unjust judge and all those who rule from the bench—that God would guide them and give them wisdom.”

This year’s National Day of Prayer takes place May 6. For more information, visit NationalDayofPrayer.org.

Morning Star Drama: Damascus, Ohio

Federal Judge Finds National Prayer Day Unconstitutional

MILWAUKEE — A Wisconsin federal judge on Thursday found the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional, saying it violates the First Amendment prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Barbara B. Crabb of the Western District of Wisconsin was a victory for the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation.

The group had sued the Bush and later Obama administrations in an effort to block the presidents from making their annual proclamations inviting Americans to set aside a day for prayer or meditation.

Anne Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the foundation and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, heralded Crabb’s decision as courageous.

“It’s an invasion of the freedom of conscience of Americans to have their president direct their prayer, or tell them to pray,” said Gaylor, whose organization claims a membership of nearly 15,000 freethinkers, agnostics and atheists across North America.

Jordan Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice, which filed an amicus brief in the case on behalf of 31 members of Congress, said he was confident the decision would be overturned on appeal.

“This is one district court judge,” said Sekulow, an attorney with the public interest law firm founded by evangelist Pat Robertson. “It’s not like it’s happening all over the country. In no way do we think this is the mainstream of judicial thinking in the United States.”

The decision is not expected to affect this year’s presidential proclamation, scheduled for May 6, because Crabb postponed enforcement of the decision until all appeals are exhausted.

The U.S. Department of Justice said it was reviewing Crabb’s ruling before deciding on a next step. The White House said President Barack Obama would make his 2010 proclamation as planned.

“We have reviewed the court’s decision and it does not prevent the president from issuing a proclamation,” spokesman Matthew Lehrich said in an e-mail to the Journal Sentinel.

In her ruling, Crabb acknowledged the deep divide over the role of religion in America, and the complex and often contradictory jurisprudence on the separation of church and state. She said the federal statute ordering the president to make the annual proclamation serves no secular purpose, casts non-believers as outsiders, and goes beyond the mere acknowledgment of religion to encouraging a practice best left to individual conscience.

Cobb said her ruling was not an attack on prayer but an effort to ensure religious liberty.

“The same law that prohibits the government from declaring a National Day of Prayer also prohibits it from declaring a National Day of Blasphemy,” she said in the decision.

Tuesday’s decision traces the history of the day to a 1952 rally in Washington by the Rev. Billy Graham, in which he called for a national day of prayer and envisioned a “great spiritual awakening” for the capital with “thousands coming to Jesus Christ.”

It was introduced in the House the next day, then later in the Senate as a measure against the “corrosive forces of communism which seek simultaneously to destroy our democratic way of life and the faith in an Almighty God on which it is based.”

In 1988, at the urging of Campus Crusade for Christ and the National Day of Prayer committee, Congress enacted legislation requiring the president to issue an annual proclamation declaring the first Thursday in May as National Prayer Day.

The role of evangelical Christians in the creation of the law and the shaping the annual proclamations, has raised concern among many non-Christians, according to a litany of cases cited in Crabb’s ruling.

Crabb’s decision drew a mixed response from Milwaukee faith leaders. Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki, who has spoken out against what he calls the “religion of secularism,” called it a “missed opportunity to acknowledge our nation’s identity, which was founded on our dependence on God.”

But others said they supported the ruling as a protection of the separation of church and state.

“I find it both troubling and dangerous that so many zealous believers in any religion want to legislate their particular understanding of faith and God for everyone else,” said the Rev. Dr. Janis J. Kinens of Advent Lutheran Church in Cedarburg.

“We don’t need to look far to see the horrific and devastating results of a theocracy form of government,” he said.

Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible Lecture Series at Milwaukee Public Museum

MILWAUKEE – The Milwaukee Public Museum has announced a series of educational lectures on the Dead Sea Scrolls which will run from now through June 3, 2010.

 Feb 18 5:30 & 7:30 PM Shalom Paul, PhD

Chair of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation and Professor Emeritus/Bible Dept at Hebrew University – Birth of Christianity

Mar 4 7:30 PM Lawrence H Schiffman, PhD

Edelman Professor of Hebrew 7 Judaic Studies at New York University – Israel at the Time of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Mar 18 7:30 PM Jodi Magness, PhD

Kenan Distinguished Professor in the Dept of Religious Studies at University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill – Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Mar 25 7:30 PM Martin G Abegg, PhD

Co director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute and Ben Zion Professor of Dead Sea Scrolls Studies at Trinity Western University – The Stories of the Milwaukee Public Museum Dead Sea Scrolls

Apr 15 7:30 PM Wesley Williams, PhD of the Michigan State University – God among the gods: Divine Plurality in the Quran and in the Light of Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Mythic Tradition

Apr 29 7:30 PM Brent Sandy, PhD

Chair & Professor of Biblical Studies at Grace College – In Search of the Holy Grail: How much difference would it make if we found the original handwritten copies of the New Testament?

May 6 7:30 PM Andrew Teeter, PhD

Asst Professor of Hebrew/Old Testament at Harvard Divinity School – The Scriptures and their interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls

May 27 5:30 & 7:30 PM Emanual Tov, PhD

Mahnes Professor of Bible at Hebrew University – The Scribes of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Jun 3 7:30 PM Deirdre A Dempsey, PhD

Assoc Professor in the Theology Dept at Marquette University

For tickets or more information contact the Milwaukee Public Museum at 414.278.2728.

DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE BIBLE EXHIBITION TEACHER GUIDE

Teachers of archeology, history, language, religion, art, anthropology and other various subjects will find Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible an excellent supplement to their curriculum. The link is http://www.mpm.edu

POETRY COMPETITION

The Museum is hosting the American Institute for Archaeology(AIA)-Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) Archaeology Fair on March 5 and 6, 2010 MPM and is sponsoring a poetry competition for Wisconsin elementary and high school students from grades 3 through 12. This program will encourage creative expression and the development of written language skills while providing teachers with a context within which to meet the WMAS for English Language Arts. (B4.1, 4.2, B8.1, 8.2; B12.1, 12.2.)

Theme: Archaeology: the study of past human life and culture through the things—pottery, tools, mummies, buildings and tombs, among others—that people leave behind.

 Deadline: February 16, 2010 (see http://www.mpm.edu/education/special/poetry-competition for more submission details)

 Who is eligible: The competition is open to all Wisconsin students in the following three grade categories: Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, and Grades 9-12.

 Criteria: Entries will be judged on creativity, originality, imagery, artistic quality, and sense of poetic expression.

 Poetry reading at the Museum: The winners will be invited to read their poems at the Museum during the AIA fair on Saturday, March 6, 2010.

MILWAUKEE TO HAITI (Update Jan 25, 2010) – FINAL BLOG

Nearly 50 children are housed daily in the hospital tent with 135 adults receiving pre- and port-operative care for wounds and fractures.

PORT-AU-PRINCE/FORT LAUDERDALE – The team arrived at the Ramada Inn near the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport shortly after midnight last night. It had been a long day beginning with breakfast at 6AM, patient rounds at 7AM, and new woun ded and rescued arriving on a non-stop basis. Not a single member of the team was without opportunities to serve intensely throughout the morning, and as we gathered to mark the mid-afternoon departure for the State, all gave thanks to God for His many blessings and innumerable miracles each had seen.

The medical staff worked among two large tents, one containing the operating room and about 60 beds, the other supporting about 125 beds with a makeshift x-ray area and open-air surgical bed for conscious procedures. The latter unit contained room for about 50 children; adults filled the rest.

Coloring books provide ample distraction and a sense of normality for this child who had been rescued from rubble just days before.

Everyone lent both hands to every task – doctors carrying bed pans, nurses changing sheets…there was no heirarchy of privilege or status found among those who were working side-by-side from all over the world. The cumulative effect of thousands, even millions of ordinary acts, is an extraordinary effort only an all-knowing God could orchestrate.

Final Rounds

Our prayer the day before was that our relief team would come early enough to overlap, and thus permit some on-the-job “training” of procedures and protocols as they had evolved up to today. Fortunately, this did happen…yet another divine appointment among the litany which Basil and I could number from the start.

New Beginnings for some

As word of  Basil’s work with the traumatized children spread throughout camp, media interest was piqued. A team was on-hand from NBC Nightly News to interview him and follow his rounds in the morning. According to later reports from our friends, the piece made it on air. We both have prayed that the Lord’s hand be recognized in the actions of so many in Haiti, and that hearts be stirred to help – in this television coverage, we believe that these prays have been answered. The mental trauma so apparent among the Haitians and Basil’s presence as the only psychiatrist at camp is yet another reflection of the need for psychiatric care in disaster response, as important as surgery and wound care for healing.

A news team from NBC followed Basil and Hill on final rounds...

As I made rounds with more than 80 of the patients to perform debreeding, disinfecting, dressing changes, burn injury treatment, and confirming post-surgery cleanliness (non-infections) of amputees, I realized that our short stay was not untypical. According to the medical team coordinators from University of Miami Hospital, the medical staff only work for 5-7 days at a time and rotate out. What is not definitive is the timeframe for the rotations to continue. Most have assumed that the field hospital will be needed at the airport for at least 2 years, as rehabilitation, post-operative infections, and spread of disease from the decaying corpses which remain under the rubble, not to mention the growing problems due to the lack of sanitation in the streets and temporary shelters.

A cross necklace and a prayer for stength become this little girl's only material possession in the world thanks to a friend of Hill's in Milwaukee who asked that it be given to someone.

Before I left Milwaukee, a friend gave me a small cross on a simple necklace with a short prayer for strength in difficult times. She requested me to give this to a little girl, and one in particular had come to mind as I prayed last night. As we prepared to depart the camp for our flight, I returned to see the little girl who had lost both her legs in amputation. Her brother was always by her side, and he had sustained far fewer injuries. He spoke and read English and was able to read the prayer to his little sister. I handed it to her, asking him to explain the gift, and she looked at it with surprise. She was happy to be given her first new possession after losing so much.

NASCAR owner/driver Joe Gibbs donated his team plane like this one for teams to shuttle to and from Haiti for this week.

Our flight was ready, graciously donated by Joe Gibb’s Racing Team (another surprise blessing from God allowing us to work a bit longer and avoid the cross-country return trip via Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic). Working with Missionary Flights International and Missionary Aviation Fellowship, private and commercial planes aer shuttling medical, pastoral, logistical and rescue personnel to and from Haiti’s principle airport. The SAAB 2000 sat our entire team, a family of refugees and 4 Singaporian workers from City Harvest Church.

Most of our team openly expressed mixed feelings about leaving, knowing that so much needs to be done. But we were all comforted by our first-hand witness that God had done extraordinary things with our team of ordinary people and simple skills, and that He will continue to do so…for no one more than He loves Haiti’s children, and Jackson, me and 19 others from across the country who answered the call are humbly and joyfully glad to report the same affection for the people here. 

Thank you for your prayers over the past 10 days and for our safe return.

DH/EBJ

This couple is returning with 2 adopted orphans to Indiana..They worked for 2 years to adopt from among 380,000 orphans (2007). This figure has mushroomed over the past 2 weeks since the earthquake.