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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.
NY – Pro-God ads have begun to appear on some 1,000 subway cars throughout New York City since last week Friday (1/15/2010), announced the New York church sponsoring the campaign.
Times Square Church, located in the heart of Times Square in New York City, will launch its ad campaign in hundreds of subway cars and on 50 platform posters in Manhattan stations at the end of this week.
Ads will boldly feature the words “God is” in the center,surrounded by words describing God’s qualities in colorful fonts. Among the “God is” attributes are: with you, willing to help, able to protect, a father, a husband to the widow, your friend, aware of your struggle, a good listener, the one who loves you, power to change, incredible, ready to forgive, there when no one else is, looking at you, Jesus.
“We want to encourage people to seek God and prove that indeed He is,” explains Carter Conlon, senior pastor of Times Square Church. “The ads describe God in just a few of the infinite ways He proves His presence to us every day.”
Bringing God into the public square is nothing new to Times Square Church. In September, the church hosted “Prayer in the Square” that attracted as many as 60,000 people representing over 300 churches and 65 youth organizations for an hour of prayer in Times Square.
In its latest attempt to get people talking about God and religion, the church hopes to not just draw unbelievers, but also former believers.
“We are praying that people who don’t know God and would like to know Him, would be moved by these ads to visit Times Square Church or any Bible believing church in New York City and find God through the forgiveness freely offered through His Son, Jesus Christ,” Conlon said. “And to those who once knew God and need to get back to God, we want to say simply this: His arms are open wide always ready to welcome you home.”
Times Square Church is an inter-denominational,multinational congregation founded by best-selling author, the Rev. David Wilkerson, who wrote The Cross and the Switchblade. More than 8,000 people, representing more than 100 different nationalities, gather to worship each week at Times Square Church.
(Source: The Christian Port, New York Times)
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)
LIVERPOOL – A British couple facing criminal charges and the possible loss of their hotel business has been found not guilty of the allegations they faced of criticizing the Muslim faith in a religious discussion with an Islam convert.
After the court decision concerning Liverpool hoteliers Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang was reached, Sharon spoke to the press in a noisy area outside the courthouse where United Christian Broadcasters documented her comments.
“It has been a very difficult time [9 months],” she said. “We are looking forward to rebuilding our business and getting on with our lives.”
Steve Yates, the couple’s pastor, led a prayer rally prior to trial, commenting that “they’re a couple of good character, of integrity, and as a church, we were just shocked when the charge was made against them.”
Sharon’s brother, Ben Hutch, expressed similar sentiments. “It’s been an outrage,” he stated. “It’s been a tremendous shock that something as insignificant as this should go as far as it has done.”
The Christian Institute of Britain defended the couple, and spokesman Mike Judge says that the court’s decision marks a victory for free speech.
“It was so important that this case was won,” Judge explains. “It’s important for all our free speech and our freedom to share the gospel with people without having that liberty infringed.”
The Christian Institute spokesman concluded that the fact that someone is upset or offended is not a reason to criminalize the speech used by the other person.
(Source: OneNewsNow.com)
MI – Five years ago, Mike and Nancy Romanack visited missionary friends in Latvia to tell how God healed their marriage. The Latvian people responded warmly and the couple came home eager to participate in missions. He began to look for ways to get others in their church involved.
“I felt there was no better way than to take people on a mission trip,” Romanack said. This fall, he led a team of men and women to Ivory Coast, Africa, to build a church.
“This mission trip actually started two years ago,” he said. “I spent a lot of time working and in prayer to raise money for materials, food and housing costs so we would not be a burden while we were there.”
The church raised over $40,000, sending $5,000 ahead to pay for the footings and foundation in Kononfla, Ivory Coast. Larry and LeAnne Sellers, missionaries in Yomoussoukro, Ivory Coast, helped plan the trip and build the church.
A work crew of 10 men and women left Detroit on Oct. 18, carrying tools they planned to leave for future building projects. When they arrived, the site was ready, but plans had changed from a rectangular building to a larger T-shaped structure requiring more blocks.
Jeff Venaps, mission building coordinator for the Church of God, Anderson, guided them through the planning and building. This was his 19th African work mission. The crew included a mix of men and women, black and white, representative of New Creation Church, which is also a cultural mix. In addition to church members Dean and Cyndy Totten, Judy Perez, George Fowler, Mark Evans and Noreda Kirkpatrick, the crew included Mark Price and Pastor Michael Harris from Howell Church of God.
In Michigan, people can order materials and a supplier will deliver them, but it does not work that way overseas, Romanack said.
“In Africa, you buy the cement and take it to the site. A dumptruck delivers gravel and you mix the cement right on the ground. To make blocks, you put cement in a wooden form. When it sets up, you dump out the block. There were 3,000 cement blocks made when we got there, every one built by hand.”
Venaps hoped to put up at least five rows of cement blocks on this trip. They were able to put up 13 rows, completing all the side walls. In April, Venaps will bring another team in to put on the roof.
On one wall, they turned a series of blocks to form a cross, identifying the building as a church. Headers, window and door frames were cement, not wood, due to termites. Ventilated blocks formed the windows to allow heat to flow in and out of the building.
Knowing American women would be part of the crew, the African church built an outhouse to provide them privacy. Very few people have outhouses; they just find a bush or a tree. Public places have a 4-inch hole in the ground with no walls around it and people squat over it.
“It’s not impolite to go to the bathroom where someone can see you, but it is impolite to stand and watch,” Romanack said.
On days when the women were not working, they visited a hospital and school. Cyndy Totten helped distribute 250 toothbrushes and pencils and told how excited the children were to receive them. They have no toys, which surprised her, but they are happy.
“I now realize that things I thought were important are not important,” she remarked. “Now I just go to the store to buy what I need. There is so much that we just take for granted.”
She introduced the women to Apples of Gold, a women’s mentoring program she leads at New Beginnings. She obtained permission from the author, Betty Huizenga, and the publisher so the African church can translate the lessons into French, the national language.
The work days started at 5 a.m. with the temperature about 75 degrees. By noon, it reached 101 degrees and 98 percent humidity. One gentleman prayed daily for cloud cover to make it easier for them to work in the heat. When the walls were high enough for scaffolding, he also prayed for safety.
“About the second week, the wall was up seven or eight blocks with wet cement,” Romanack recalled. “We could see black clouds starting to form. As Mark was praying, the clouds got closer, the wind picked up and the temperature dropped 20 degrees. We could taste and smell the dust in front of the storm.
“We stood there and watched the storm go to the right and to the left of us, but it never rained on the job site. I couldn’t do anything but just cry. I knew it was God, saying, ‘I want my church built.’”
The biggest surprise for him was the friendliness of the people and how hard they worked. They had nothing but they were happy. The work team helped the local people build their church, instead of doing it for them so they would take ownership of it.
On Sunday, they worshiped in the old church, a mud barn with banana leaves for a roof. Pastor Harris spoke, and Kirkpatrick said a prayer in French. The team returned to Michigan on Nov. 2, pleased the people now will have a concrete church and plank benches.
“Everything that was done was orchestrated by God,” Romanack stated. “Whether it was the money, the people, the actual size of the building, I believe it was all ordained by God.”
(Source: Flint Journal)
FAITH COMES BY HEARING — Half the world lives on less than $2 a day. Right now, that’s more than three billion people, but new research suggests the population will hit the seven billion mark within two years.
The Population Reference Bureau’s (PRB) also found that the least developed regions, like Africa, are projected to double in population by 2050. PRB recently released these statistics in their 2009 World Population Data Sheet.
Morgan Jackson, Faith Comes By Hearing’s international director, said these new figures are troubling because billions of people may never hear the message of hope and truth in God’s Word.
“The world’s poorest of the poor are cut off from the Bible,” said Jackson. “Half of the world’s people are illiterate and too poor to afford a Bible. Five of six African believers will never own a Bible. And when people don’t have Scripture in a format they can use and understand the results can be devastating to villages and whole countries.”
Jackson, referring to a recent article in Christianity Today, explained how children in Africa are abandoned and abused after being labeled as witches.
“In Africa, witchcraft is a huge problem,” said Jackson. “When people [or children] are labeled as witches, they are beaten, thrown out, hunted down, sometimes killed and left with nothing. And it stems from some believers not being established in the Word of God.”
“This situation is symptomatic of what happens in cultures where the Word of God has not penetrated hearts. People will hear and memorize one story or passage and build whole doctrines (or even denominations) on it, and leaders can mislead the people.” said Jackson.
“Small bits of Scripture may be the only truth they have. They just don’t know any different,” he said.
“But modern technology is helping overcome centuries-old barriers of poverty, distance, language, illiteracy and culture. For the first time in history, we have the tools to reach every person in the world with the Word of God–no matter where they are.” said Jackson.
(Source: Christian Newswire)
HAITI ― It all depends on who you know–or in this case, who knows you.
Recently, a contributor to For Haiti With Love heard about the Faith Comes By Hearing project known as “Every Church, Every Village.” This project provides audio Bible Proclaimers for churches to take on missions trips.
“Churches who do this project can contact us and get free Proclaimers; these are solar-powered, hand-crank audio Bibles that have the whole New Testament on them,” says Jon Wilke of Faith Comes By Hearing. “They can get these Proclaimers and take them on their short-term missions trips.”
With this in mind, the For Haiti With Love contributor connected the two groups, providing For Haiti with Proclaimers to share the Gospel.
The Proclaimers can be plugged in, battery operated, solar powered or hand cranked, so they are fairly easy to maintain. For Haiti’s Eva DeHart says they’ve been running on solar power in Haiti, and they’ve been working beautifully.
“Our security guys at the front gate absolutely love them, so it plays all of the time,” says DeHart, “which means that everyone coming for the food program is listening to Scripture, everyone who’s coming in waiting for the clinic is listening to Scripture, and I think the security guys are memorizing Scripture by now.” The Proclaimers are also being used in an orphanage Bible study on a regular basis.
The audio Bibles have been particularly helpful in Haiti because many of the people For Haiti With Love serves struggle with illiteracy.
“A lot of the people that are coming to the clinic particularly do not know how to read,” says DeHart. “So even if they had a Bible, they couldn’t read the Scriptures themselves. So this is a special gift to them.”
About Haiti
- Population: 10,003,000
- Unreached: 200
- People Groups: 9
- Unreached Groups: 1
- Primary Language: French
- Primary Religion: Christianity
- Evangelical: 22.2%
(Source: Mission News Network)
BOONE, NC—School will be back in session soon, but many U.S. kids already have homework-as they learn a lesson in giving. Through Operation Christmas Child, the world’s largest Christmas project, kids kick-off the school year learning about the impact of giving to children in need. By adding a few extra items to their back-to-school shopping lists and saving the boxes from their newly purchased shoes, kids are joining the effort to help some 8 million hurting children in more than 100 countries worldwide.
Operation Christmas Child, a project of international relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, headed by Franklin Graham, encourages volunteers to fill simple shoe box gifts with toys, necessity items, school supplies, candy and often hand-written notes of encouragement. The gifts are then hand-delivered to children worldwide who are suffering because of natural disaster, disease, war, terrorism, famine and poverty.
”I can’t help but think how many children dread going back to school, because their parents can’t afford the school supplies they need.” said Lejla Allison, who received an Operation Christmas Child shoe box as a child in war-torn Bosnia. Now a 27-year-old, married mother of two residing in Williamsburg, Pa., Allison packs shoe box gifts with her family. ”Back-to-school sales are the perfect opportunity to fill our shoe box gifts with critical school supplies and show love to a hurting child in need.”
For many of these children, the shoe box gift will be the first gift they have ever received, letting them know they are loved and not forgotten.
Why now, months before the holiday season? Operation Christmas Child is not limited to just a few weeks a year. It is a year-round project, requiring months of organization and preparation to reach millions of kids around the world. Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child has distributed shoe box gifts to more than 69 million hurting children in some 130 countries.
For more information on how to participate in Operation Christmas Child, call (828) 262-1980 or visit www.samaritanspurse.org. National Collection Week is Nov. 16-23, 2009; however, shoe box gifts are collected all year. Milwaukee’s relay center for box distribution and collections in 2009 will again be ProBuColls Bookstore, located at 1933 W Wisconsin Avenue Milwaukee, 414-344-7300.
GLOBAL — Ramadan begin tomorrow (August 22, 2009) . It officially begins with the sight of the crescent moon. It’s Islam’s holiest month. One ministry believes this could be a strategic time to reach out to Muslims in your neighborhood.
Crescent Project’sFouad Masri says describes that basics of the celebration. “Islam chose the month of Ramadan as a time to celebrate the giving of the Quran. It’s a lunar month. So, it’s basically 28 days. They are not allowed to eat or drink during day light.”
The Crescent Project is a ministry that’s helping the west reach out to Muslims at home and around the world.
Masri says there appears to be two different ways Muslims observe Ramadan. “In the west Ramadan is introduced as a month of fasting. But, in the Middle East Ramadan is introduced as a time of feasting, because you’re supposed to be celebrating the coming of the Quran.”
While Christians go to God in prayer any time and He hears them, Muslims believe there are only certain times they can be heard. Masri says, “Ramadan is one of those good times when you can ask God [for blessings]. If you practice Salaat, which is the ritual prayer, if you go to the mosque, if you finish the Quran, all these will bring you baraka, [or] will bring you blessing.”
Ramadan is a time of trying to win the favor of Allah, says Masri.
Masri is asking Christians to begin praying for Muslims during the 28 days of Ramadan. Why? “Because they’re thinking of God, let’s pray that God will use that time to help them seek Jesus the Messiah. Then pray that these Muslims will meet Christians who will tell them about Christ.”
He’s also asking Christians to fast for Muslims around world and reach out to them. Since Muslims break their fast each day at sundown, Christians can use this time to invite Muslims over for a meal and use the Injil, or the New Testament to teach them what Jesus taught about fasting. Masri says, “I don’t want to be offending them, but at the same time I want them to hear the truth of Jesus, so I will just say, ‘did you know Christ said something about fasting.’ Then I’d say, ‘read it — the most beautiful chapter in the Injil, the New Testament talks about fasting.’”
This could encourage other discussions about the difference between Islamic and Christian faith. He says, “The truth of Christianity is that we are set free by Jesus, not our works. The works that we do are a result of our faith. In Islam, it is the other way. You’re doing work so that you can obtain salvation.” If they can get Allah to listen.
Crescent Project has a program called Bridges, a small group Bible study that will help you learn how to reach out to your Muslim neighbors. Click here to get connected.
(Source: Mission News Network)
