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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.

Butte grad claims rights violated when forced to remove “God” and “Christ” from speech

MT -  A Yellowstone County District Court judge has been asked to decide whether a Butte High School student’s civil rights were violated when she was banned from speaking at graduation ceremonies last year because she refused to remove religious references from her speech.

Judge Gregory Todd heard arguments Monday in the case of Renee Griffith, who filed a lawsuit against Butte School District No. 1 alleging that Superintendent Charles Uggetti and Principal John Metz refused to let her speak at the 2008 graduation ceremony. Uggetti and Metz are also named as defendants in the case, which was filed April 16 in Yellowstone County.

According to the lawsuit, Griffith was one of 10 valedictorians in her class who were offered an opportunity to speak at graduation. But after reviewing her proposed speech, school officials said Griffith could not address the crowd unless she removed references to “God” and “Christ” in her speech.

Specifically, the officials said, Griffith had to change a sentence that read, “I didn’t let fear keep me from sharing Christ and His joy with those around me.”

School officials said he had to replace the words “Christ and His joy” with the words “my faith.”

In another disputed section of her proposed speech, Griffith wrote, “I learned not to be known for my grades or for what I did during school, but for being committed to my faith and morals and being someone who lived with a purpose from God with a passionate love for Him.”

School officials said Griffith had to replace the last eight words of the sentence with the words “derived from my faith and based on a love of mankind.”

(Source: Billings Gazette)

Griffith refused to rewrite her speech and was not allowed to speak at the ceremony, according to her lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges six violations of Griffith’s state and federal constitutional rights, including her right to free speech, and violations of the state Human Rights Act and the state Government Code of Fair Practices.

Oral Roberts passes at 91 in California

TULSA - Many in the world are mourning the passing of pastor, healer, innovator and religious icon Oral Roberts, who died Tuesday (December 15, 2009) in Newport Beach, California at the age of 91 from complications of pneumonia a day after he was hospitalized following a fall at his home in California.

“Oral Roberts was the greatest man of God I’ve ever known,” said Oral’s son, Richard Roberts. “A modern-day apostle of the healing ministry, an author, educator, evangelist, prophet, and innovator, he was the only man of his generation to build a worldwide ministry, an accredited university, and a medical school.”

Evangelist Billy Graham issued a statement stating,  “Oral Roberts was a man of God, and a great friend in ministry.  I loved him as a brother.  We had many quiet conversations over the years.  I invited Oral to speak at one of our early international conferences on evangelism held in Berlin in the 1960’s.  Oral was preceded in death by his wonderful wife Evelyn, who I also knew and loved.  She was a woman of God, and a powerful prayer warrior.  Just three weeks ago, I was privileged to talk to Oral over the telephone.  During the short conversation, he said to me that he was near the end of his life’s journey.  I look forward to the day that I will see Oral and Evelyn Roberts again in Heaven–our eternal home.”

Roberts established Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association (OREA), a Pentecostal ministry, which in turn founded Oral Roberts University in 1963 which Roberts served as the school’s president until 1993 and trustee until his death.  GuideStar reports OREA “produces 52 weekly television and radio programs, and 260 daily television programs to help spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the United States and throughout the world. These programs reach an estimated 800,000 people per week.”

In May 2009, the Oklahoma Legislature honored Roberts with a resolution honoring his life. He spoke to lawmakers of his mission and his legacy.  “I’ll soon be going home to my heavenly father,” Roberts said on this occasion. “I look forward to that with great peace and joy. Leaving behind my legacy to bless people.”

Born on January 24, 1918, the fifth and youngest child of Reverend Ellis Melvin Roberts and Claudia Priscilla Irwin, Roberts grew up in southern Oklahoma. After finishing high school, Roberts studied for two years each at Oklahoma Baptist University and Phillips University. In 1938 he married a preacher’s daughter, Evelyn Lutman Fahnestock.  Leaving college before completing his degree, Roberts became an itinerant preacher, taking over his father’s ministry and expanding it to millions of people in tent revivals, healing the sick and saving troubled lives.  Eventually, the tents gave way to airwaves — broadcasting on radio and television.

In the early 60s, he broke even more ground, building Oral Roberts University in South Tulsa and later built the City of Faith Medical and Research Cente, intended to merge prayer and medicine in the healing process.

Two Roberts children are still living — son Richard, a well-known evangelist and former president of Oral Roberts University (ORU), and daughter Roberta Potts, an attorney.  Oral Roberts was preceded in death by his wife of 66 years, Evelyn, on May 4, 2005, ,and two of his children, Rebecca in 1977 and Ronald in 1982.

Memorial Service will be held at the ORU Mabee Center, in Tulsa Oklahoma on Monday, December 21, 2009 at 2:00PM.

(Sources:  Oral Roberts Evangelistic Assn, Oral Roberts University, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Oral Roberts Minstries, Oklahoma news outlets, Wikipedia)

Kindergartner fights for Jesus poster for 10 years

School project of kindergartner at center of legal battle

A former kindergarten student has been fighting a legal battle for 10 years after his teacher and principal censored his art project because it included a figure of Jesus.

Last week,  a federal appeals court revisited the case for a third time in a decade.

According to the complaint, Antonio Peck’s kindergarten teacher, Susan Weichert, instructed the class to create a poster with cutout pictures illustrating the children’s understanding of the environment and asking them to show ways to take care of the earth.

Peck, former student of Catherine McNamera elementary school during the 1999-2000 school year, drew a picture with featuring religious figures and the words, “The only way to save the world.”

“Antonio was expressing his belief that God was the only way to save the environment,” Liberty Counsel, the nonprofit legal advocacy group representing the boy, wrote in a statement.

But Peck’s poster was rejected because of its religious content, according to the report. The young boy was forced to draw a second poster.

Peck’s next poster featured cutouts of people picking up garbage and children holding hands around a globe. He also included a cutout of a bearded man wearing a robe with his hands stretched toward the sky.

“To Antonio, this figure was Jesus, although the figure was not identified,” the report states.

(Source: WorldNetDaily)

How to evangelize 40,000 students?

Congo-Kinshasa — Churches in the Democratic Republic of the Congo run 145 grade schools serving 40,000 students.  Only about 10-20 percent of the students come from Christian homes, and the government actually requires that schools provide religious instruction.

“This is just a great harvest field,” said Sam Vinton of Grace Ministries International. “We feel that our focus is going to continue in this area for quite a while with the number of students we have.”

GMI is sending out teams trained by OneHope to help evangelize students and communities. The teams do outreach in the schools, distribute tracts with teams of local Christians, and show The GodMan film in the evenings. So far, 700 students have made professions of faith, 847 people have professed faith in response to the tract distribution, and 1,683 have professed faith in response to The GodMan.

“Of course, the biggest prayer now in my mind is, what kind of follow-up materials need to be prepared, and training individuals who will follow up with all these students, along with the pastors and people in our churches,” Vinton said.

Logistically, the outreach is challenging. Many villages cannot be reached on bicycles or motorcycles. It’s not easy to obtain literature that clearly communicates biblical truth for 40,000 students in the Congo.

“We don’t have enough booklets to carry on that program, so that’s what we’re trying to develop,” Vinton said. They need ” literature that can be put into the hands of the new converts, regarding prayer and Bible study and their Christian life. Those type of teachings are very foundational. I would say that’s what we really have to make sure we’re providing, and so it just opens up a great responsibility to us…and a great challenge, but I think an exciting challenge.”

Many of the teachers at the Christian schools are currently unpaid and live on the support of parents in the community.  Since people are the most receptive the Gospel between the ages of 4 and 14 years old, Vinton says it’s crucial for Christian ministries to reach that age group.

“Pray that the Lord will make this a reality that results in many, many of these young people coming to the Lord. They are the future of our ministries.”

(Source: Mission Network News)