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When Silence Disqualifies Faith Leadership

This is where the line must be drawn clearly.

Faith leaders who refuse to confront truth because they fear how their congregations will react are not exercising faith.

They are managing risk.

Scripture defines faith plainly. Hebrews 11:1 tells us faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

Faith has never required safety.

It has always required courage.

If you cannot speak God’s truth when it threatens attendance, donations, reputation, or comfort, you may be a leader of people, but you cannot claim to be a leader of faith.

Jesus did not soften His message to keep followers.

He told the truth and watched people walk away.

Comfort is not a fruit of the Spirit.

Rooted in Christ but Relevant for Our Changing World
by Richard Pratt

1 Corinthians 9:19–23
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All Christian leaders, and especially those who minister the Word of God, must be sure that they remain firmly rooted in Christ. This is especially true when the world around us challenges the Christian faith in new ways. As Third Millennium Ministries’ Richard Pratt explains, the apostle Paul experienced this in his own life—and in 1 Corinthians, he wrote how he was able to stay firmly rooted but also relevant in his changing world.

Our Basic Conduct as a Disciple
by Hershael York

Selected Scriptures
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God bestows great blessings, but He also takes away gifts—including ministry opportunities such as that lost by preaching professor Hershael York’s missionary father. Yet while the apostle Paul lamented the “thorn in the flesh” given him by God, he also found comfort in His all-sufficient grace. York reminds us that while some church leaders may try to rely on world-pleasing strength and wealth, God may use our unwanted suffering to help us rely on Him.

So, Naturally, We Proclaim Christ!
by Tony Merida

Colossians 1:24–29
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The devil is untroubled by moral improvement plans or people becoming more religious. What Satan does not want is Christ being preached. Tony Merida reminds us of the importance of proclaiming Jesus by unpacking the priority, purpose, and power of Christ-centered preaching, which was exemplified by Paul’s ministry to the Colossians. Jesus, Merida reminds us, is fully sufficient. He must be the focus of every sermon we preach, as He is the focus of whole of God’s Word.

To the Praise of His Glory (Part 1)
Ephesians 1:1-6
Why Ephesians Big Deal?
Gospel Doctrine, Gospel Culture
The Importance of the Church
Spiritual Warfare
Practical Answers for Basic Christianity

This is the story of how Billy Graham—a man used by God to reach millions of people for Jesus Christ—was himself born again. Quotes are taken from his autobiography, Just As I Am.

Dr. Bob Fu of ChinaAid called it what it is. State-sponsored religious persecution. When a government mobilizes riot police and heavy equipment against a peaceful congregation, it is not enforcing laws. It is enforcing ideology.

And that ideology has a name.

President Xi Jinping calls it Sinicisation. It sounds academic. It sounds harmless. In practice, it means every expression of faith must bow to the Chinese Communist Party. Sermons must align with party doctrine. Churches must register under state control. Pastors must preach only through government-approved platforms. Scripture itself must be filtered, reframed, and neutered.

There are two kinds of churches in China. The Three Self churches, which operate with government permission and government supervision, and the underground or house churches, which operate under the conviction that Christ, not the Party, is Lord. The latter have been targeted for decades, but the crackdown has intensified. The internet is now tightly regulated. Clergy are warned not to attract attention. Evangelism is treated like a contagion. //

What stands out in this latest wave of arrests is not just the brutality, but the clarity. The CCP is no longer pretending to tolerate independent faith. It is openly moving to crush it.

And where is the international outcry?

Muted. Careful. Managed.

We issue statements. We express concern. We keep trade flowing. We schedule summits. We talk about cooperation. Meanwhile, Chinese believers are dragged from their homes, churches are dismantled piece by piece, and crosses are wrapped in scaffolding like crime scenes. //

The question is not whether Chinese Christians will endure. They will.

The question is whether the free world will have the courage to stand with them, or whether we will keep pretending that bulldozers and prison cells are just part of doing business with Beijing.

Mike Woodruff has been a pastor for over 40 years. During that time, an increasing number of people have been captured by conspiracy theories, overwhelmed with anxiety or seething in anger. 5 years ago, Mike embarked on a journey to understand what was happening.

He discovered the primary forces reshaping the news and the necessary practices for staying sane in a 24/7 news cycle. On The News will explain what’s happened since the Cronkite era and then offer a pathway for you to navigate this strange new world.

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Shootings at houses of worship and religious schools are happening at an alarming rate. I’m not just talking about Christian churches either; assailants have hit synagogues and Mormon congregations as well. As I write this, news of a stabbing attack at a synagogue in the UK on Yom Kippur is fresh on my mind as well.

What are churches to do? I’ve never been one to call for gun control and never will be — besides, the UK’s gun-grabbing fanaticism has only made stabbings more of a threat, as the Yom Kippur attack demonstrates. //

“Reverend, if you’re going to reprimand me, at least let me indulge my habit of quoting scripture and dead philosphers, after all somebody has to keep Augustine from rolling in his grave. Our Lord said ‘But now, if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.’

Also, Thomas Aquinas wrote in his Summa Theologica: 'one who defends his life is not guilty of murder, even if he is forced to deal a fatal blow, for it is preferable to defend oneself than to submit to the will of evildoers."

And as Edmund Burke—famously reminded us: ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’

But, Reverend, I want to be clear: I’m not standing guard. I’m just sitting in the pews like everyone else—albeit with a little extra peace of mind in under my jacket in case trouble finds us.” And I patted my hip holster.

‘For this really to stick, it is not emotion that’s going to win the day. It’s the message of the gospel, which will not change.’ //

“What has to change is our response to the gospel. We have to bow the knee to God as our Creator, and we have to bow the knee to God as our Redeemer. We have to say, ‘I want lasting change in my life. I’m no longer autonomous. Jesus is the Lord of my life. He’s my Savior.’ That will change culture.” //

“If this generation is going to come to understand Jesus Christ as proclaimed in Scripture, a lot of questions are going to have to be answered, and they need to have a safe place to ask those questions,” Rasmussen told The Federalist. “It takes a while to get through those questions, but that’s what discipleship is.”

anon-9s7n
19 hours ago
God has given her everything she needs for today. And by the time tomorrow is here, she’ll have everything she needs for tomorrow. And when she’s able to look ahead more than one day at a time, he’ll have prepared the way with everything she needs for then.

We are seeing a significant transition begin. Not just in the US, but around the world. Charlie talked a lot about how young men should follow Jesus, get married, become fathers, and lead their families. God couldn’t start with young women. He needed the young men to have an opportunity to get squared away.

But what if His plan is that now He will use Erika to reach the young women in a way Charlie couldn’t? They really need it. They are being deceived by feminism and so many other voices.

And if that is His plan, then she’s got this, because He’s got her.

Even without the influence of groups like 764, sowing chaos appears to be occurring on a daily basis through the insidious influence of actors manipulating bytes and bots — all to destroy our children. How do you bring down a society? You destroy its young: mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The transgender cult has been in collusion for years to destroy them through mutilating their bodies and minds. Now, we have all forms of nefarious individuals undermining them through screens. The destruction of identity and purpose is the main goal. //

Shortly before his murder, Charlie Kirk had an apt response on why a foundation of religion is a major factor in saving Western civilization.

You have to try to point them toward ultimate purposes and toward getting back to the church, getting back to faith, getting married, having children. That is the type of conservatism that I represent, and I'm trying to paint a picture of virtue, of lifting people up, not just staying angry.

Charlie Kirk ably represented this, and it is part of the reason why he was murdered. So, we must rise and be like Charlie. Wise people are recognizing this and acting accordingly. With groups like 764 and adversarial threats seemingly on every side, we need God's hand and God's help more than ever before.

On 12 September,1983, the Rev. William Still, Gilcomston South Church, Aberdeen, universally recognized as the senior parish minister, both in years and influence, among evangelicals in the Church of Scotland, gave the following address to some fifty ministers at an In-Service course of his denomination, convened at St Andrews. The address was published in The Banner of Truth magazine in 1984, and was drawn to the attention of the men at the 2010 US Ministers’ Conference in Grantham, PA, by Craig Troxel, one of the speakers, who comments:

When I first read this article it helped to forge in my mind an all-important distinction. When it comes to the stewardship of the Gospel, there are two basic choices before the Church of Christ. Either the Church will be content to apply itself to God’s ordinary means and trust him for their extraordinary ends; or, the Church will pursue extraordinary means and content itself with ordinary ends. In his reflection of four decades of ministry William Still describes the extraordinary fruit that God brought about through one congregation’s simple devotion to God’s appointed means of grace: Word, sacrament and prayer. In a day when there are so many voices calling for the church to do ‘something more,’ here is a plea for the church to pursue ‘its own native activity’ in the power of the Spirit. One need not claim membership in the Stillite clan to feel a deep kinship with our brother and his (still) timely word. //

He says that he found, that apart from the Early Fathers and the Reformers, any such systematic teaching and preaching of the Scriptures was short-lived, and even the Puritans, who certainly covered the Scriptures in depth, used textual rather than systematic expository preaching. One is not saying that our practice has not been done by preachers throughout history and even today, but I think you will agree that it is far from the accepted form.

However, the abundant fruit of this form of ministry, which I have documented in a book called The Work of the Pastor, is such that only a lunatic would have abandoned it despite all that was said against it. //

Now, I wonder if any are saying, ‘How incredibly narrow this is as an example of congregational life! Such intense spirituality!’ Perhaps you think you could not stand it, let alone your congregation! Well, all I can say is that from that fount of praise, prayer and Bible Study every conceivable kind of outreach goes on into the wider church and the community. //

I take the opposite view, having seen the dissipation and dilution of effort by such all-inclusive activities on the part of the different denominations I have been in. I felt that my time as Pastor could best be employed by concentrating almost wholly on feeding the sheep and tending the lambs in their spiritual growth through a corporate life of prayer and the ministry of the Word. Then let the congregation go out – and encourage them to do so – with an absolutely free commission to be leaven throughout the community and to live their life out there amongst the people as the good Lord guided. //

You see, you could get crowds to come to pie suppers You see, you could get crowds to come to pie suppers and dances in the hall, but precious few to church on Sunday, until things were so bad that old J. T. Cox – the compiler of our Church Law Book, who was Presbytery Clerk back then – twice tried to close our congregation down because it could not pay its way. Serve it right, too!

I hope you see what I am saying: let the church be the church, and let it not incorporate into its fundamental constitution anything but its own native activity, and let all the rest be as much in the nature of an unofficial activity and outreach as possible. //

I was saying that in our experience the whole future of young folk attending church – to put it no higher than mere attendance, although I can put it higher – right up to early adulthood, has hung on getting them to attend regularly, preferably in the family pew, during childhood. To say that we cannot do this in our modern age is surely the most pathetic admission of failure in our elementary responsibility as Christian parents. //

But instead of arguing with people that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God and presenting a wealth of apologetics, as many conservatives have spent their time doing, one has felt that the way to press people into the kingdom, especially thinking young people, is to preach the Word and teach it, and let it do its own work by the Holy Spirit in their consciences, ‘precept upon precept, line upon line’ (although I know that these phrases were perhaps first used by Isaiah for a different purpose). I mean preaching in a dogmatic way, not in the aggressive sense of the word but in the positive sense of it. And it is axiomatic and essential that we must present the truth with that backing of prayer and that dependence upon the Holy Spirit (in both the study of the Word and in the declaration of it) which releases the latent power of the Word to reach not only the minds, but the consciences, hearts and wills of the hearers. Our purpose must be nothing less than life transformation and, consequently, the calling of many into the Lord’s service. //

William Still (1911-1997) was the Minister of Gilcomston South Church of Scotland, Aberdeen, from 1945 until his death. This article was previously published in The Banner of Truth magazine, No. 244 (January 1984),

You could say that the prohibition of religious freedom for anyone would be a real knock to the health and vibrancy of the United States, but this applies to Christianity more than any other religion in the world. Without Christianity, it all falls apart. Christianity is the cornerstone from which all other religions enjoy their existence within its borders.

Historically, other religions are not so accommodating to others, especially when they become nationalistic, and that surprisingly includes Buddhism. The only other religions aside from Christianity that allow for other religions to be practiced freely are Judaism and Sikhism, but since the United States has been a Christian nation from the beginning, the freedom to practice your beliefs relies on Christian foundations.

And before someone says, "Atheism would allow it," I've already given you a few examples of atheist governments above that treat Christianity as a danger. Atheist-based states don't like it when the people hold something higher in authority than it. However, atheists also appreciate their free speech rights, and many of these rights are a thing because Christianity made it so.

Moreover, it's these Christian foundations that allow for the greatest of our God-given rights, free speech, which goes hand-in-hand with the freedom to practice religion. The freedom to voice your faith cannot be restricted, as the profession of faith requires speech. There's a reason why the left often tries to tie hate speech to Christian beliefs. //

Moreover, the entirety of our rights as citizens of the United States are the end result of Christian philosophy. No matter your belief, Christianity's moral teachings and societal influence are what keep the United States free and healthy.

If Democrats were allowed to restrict it or terminate it, the bottom would fall out of this nation. Your God-given rights would mean nothing because the people in charge wouldn't recognize any god but themselves. //

Retired Professor
6 hours ago
The first stage of this is to restrict the exercise of religion to churches and other such contained venues. That's what Obama clearly wanted to do. Street corner evangelism? Disrupts traffic and "public safety." Voluntary prayer groups in public schools? Violates the (so-called) "wall of separation." Prayer before a city council meeting? Same.

I could go on, but this has been the tactic of the Left ever since the days of Earl Warren. We won't win that battle until Jesus comes back, but meanwhile we still have to fight. //

Platypus
3 hours ago
I recommend the book, The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee... a Chinese believer that was
educated in the west but also spent decades in a Chinese prison. He also wrote several other books
all of them worth reading.

As first reported by the BBC, a sharp uptick of men have been attending a Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (or ROCOR) in Georgetown, Texas, led by Father Moses McPherson. //

After watching McPherson's YouTube channel for a bit, I can see why many people would gravitate toward him, especially men. McPherson seems to reject modernist takes on gender roles and encourages young people to get married, settle down, and have children. In one short, he holds up a pregnancy test and encourages couples to get a positive one. He also calls masturbation "pathetic and unmanly".

A lot of McPherson's positions seem to be blunt, unwavering, and unapologetic, and I think that's what is attracting a lot of men right now. They feel like they can be proud of their masculinity in the way that God sees it, and this ROCOR growth seems to show that men aren't just seeking that kind of welcome; they want to foster it and find fellowship in that kind of scene.

Modern society makes it clear that masculinity is unwelcome and distasteful, and men are often made out to be the bad guy no matter what the scenario entails, yet at this faith, men are held in higher esteem. They're obviously still held highly accountable for their actions, but this accountability comes with love and encouragement, not blame and derision.

I asked my small group a follow-up question: “If 10 minutes of watching porn per day has shaped your brain, what do you think 10 minutes in the Bible could do?” While it wasn’t the mic-drop moment I imagined, a flicker of hope shone on their faces as they began to consider the surprising reality.

Porn shaped us. But the Bible can shape us even more forcefully. //

Gen Z was raised on instant gratification. Everything we want—entertainment, information, food, clothing, and even social validation—is available with a click. We’ve grown up on dopamine media and all its fabricated highs, cheap thrills, and immediate results.

So when a young man opens his Bible, reads a chapter, and walks away with no dopamine burst or goose bumps, it’s easy to think, What’s the point? When the Bible’s formative power takes years to accomplish what algorithms do in moments, it’s easy to think, This isn’t doing anything. He’s left with a simmering frustration toward God, reminiscent of a spoiled child: “It’s my spiritual growth, and I want it now!”

Ironically, it’s his struggle with pornography that reveals the truth he doubts: Small habits shape you in profound ways. Ten minutes of daily porn forms thought patterns, shifted desires, altered speech, and changed relationships. It turns people into objects, intimacy into performance, and satisfaction into orgasm.

What if, in the same way, 10 minutes a day in God’s Word—replacing 10 minutes of porn—could reverse that? Not instantly. Not overnight. But slowly, surely, powerfully. What if every time you thought about clicking on porn you opened the Bible instead? What if 10 minutes of Scripture each day began to reshape you—making holiness the default instead of lust? What if, day by day, your thoughts started to align more with Christ’s? Your desires shifted toward purity? Your hopes restored?

The good news is that this is precisely how God designed us. This is how spiritual growth works. //

And you’re right—reading the Bible alone isn’t enough. But it’s a solid foundation. And it arms you with the truth, habits, and hope you need to fight back.

The Bible teaches you to surround yourself with a community that holds you accountable (Heb. 10:24–25). It teaches you to confess your sins (James 5:16). It teaches you to approach the throne of grace with confidence (Heb. 4:16). It teaches you to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17). It teaches you to fix your mind on things above (Col. 3:2). It teaches you God’s unbreakable love (Rom. 8:38–39). Scripture doesn’t just inform us once; it reminds us daily.

Breaking free from sin isn’t about a single life-changing moment. It’s about the daily decision to keep fighting. //

Porn teaches your neural pathways to escape into fantasy whenever you feel stressed, anxious, or bored. The Bible teaches your neural pathways to take refuge in God, your salvation and strength (Ps. 46:1).

Porn cultivates your neural pathways to default to lust. To take rather than give. The Bible cultivates your neural pathways to default to chaste self-control. To love rather than consume (Gal. 5:22–23). //

What if the battle against porn isn’t just about breaking a bad habit but about building a better one? Because here’s the truth: If you commit to daily Scripture, the Holy Spirit will forge new neural pathways. Slowly but surely, you’ll begin to see the difference. The escape you once sought in porn will start to pale in comparison to the rest you find in God. Sinful desires won’t just be resisted—they’ll be replaced. Over time, dark desires will be expelled by holy longing.

Scripture becomes the anchor steadying you when temptation hits, grounding you when shame creeps in, and holding you fast when everything else tries to pull you under. It’s not the whole fight, but it’s where the fight begins.

Historian teams up with Chris Tomlin and Hillsong’s Ben Fielding to adapt rare music dating back to the third century. //

Early conversations between Dickson and Fielding eventually led to a collaboration with Grammy-winning worship artist Chris Tomlin, culminating in the production of a new worship song, “The First Hymn,” and a documentary about the discovery and study of the papyrus fragment containing the hymn.