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"...pray for our pastors and their families as well as for the members of our congregations in the country of Honduras."

We are calling on all of our prayer partners to pray for our pastors and their families as well as for the members of our congregations in the country of Honduras.  The recent military coup has left a serious situation in its wake due to riots in the streets, the lack of food and electricity.  The country is under martial law.  We need to intercede for the protection of our Honduran brothers and sisters and also pray that the crisis will not escalate to the level of an armed confrontation between Hondurans or even with neighboring countries that sympathize with the ousted President.
 
Missionary Brad Schreckhise has informed us that he has been in contact with the Vice-president of the work, Bro. Juan Carlos Garcia and with other leaders and pastors in the work who have informed him that for now all of our pastors and members are safe.  Bro. Brad Thompson, the Area Coordinator for Northern Central America, has also been in contact with some of the pastors in Honduras and is keeping us apprised of the situation. Let's join together in prayer for our Honduran brothers & sisters in their time of need!

 

From Lowell Snow (International Medical Missions):  We have a 15 year old niece in India, that is very sick. She has been in and out of the hospital for the past two months and seen by many doctors. At this point they are not sure what the problem is but say it is very serious. The doctor is wanting to do more blood work and send it to Delhi for test. All they say is that some people with these symptoms do not make it. Now we are told other people in the village and school are coming down with like symptoms.

 

From Stanley Scism (South Asia/United Kingdom): Please pray that violence threatened against a minister in Sambalpur City, Orissa, India, will be stopped. This time the violence is from traditional Christians against apostolic Christians. In this same state last year, the violence was from Hindus against all Christians.  We need to pray that the whole mindset that violence is the answer to everything will be changed.   

 

FROM - WNOP.org Staff

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"Southern Baptists (and Republicans): old, white and in decline?"

The evangelical Protestant revival has been one of the most dynamic religious and social movements in the United States in the last three decades. According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, one in four U.S. adults now count themselves as followers of this faith tradition.

So it may come as a surprise to some non-American readers of this blog that the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) – with 16 million members, America’s largest evangelical denomination and the country’s second largest after the Catholic Church — is ringing the alarm bells of decline.

Its research arm LifeWay Research released the following projections this week at the convention’s annual meeting in Kentucky: it said its numbers would fall nearly 50 percent by 2050 “unless the aging and predominantly white denomination reverses a 50-year trend and does more to strengthen evangelism, reach immigrants, and develop a broader ethnic base.”

“Using U.S. Census projected population figures, SBC membership could fall from a peak of 6 percent of the American population in the late 1980s to 2 percent in 2050,” said LifeWay director Ed Stetzer.

Read more at: blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2009/06/25/southern-baptists-and-republicans-old-white-and-in-decline/

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"Participation in census divides Latinos"

At a time when advocates of immigration reform would rather project a united front, a disagreement about participation in the 2010 U.S. Census is sending fault lines through the Latino community.


The National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, a network of 16,000 churches in 32 states, including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, is urging undocumented immigrants to boycott the decennial count as a tactic to pressure Congress into enacting immigration reform this year.

The group wants legislators to create paths to legal status for the estimated 12 million immigrants living illegally in the United States. Almost three-quarters of them are Latino.

The boycott has been driven by the Rev. Miguel Rivera, a Christian evangelical leader who promotes it on his daily Spanish radio show in 11 markets, including Southeastern Pennsylvania. The campaign's slogan is "Antes de contar, nos tienen que legalizar" - or, roughly translated, "Before counting, make us legal."

READ more at: philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/20090624_Participation_in_census_divides_Latinos.html
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They are saying more: "Thailand attacks raise threat of sectarian war"

Ten Muslim villagers killed by gunmen firing assault rifles into a mosque during evening prayers. A 53-year-old Buddhist rubber tapper shot, decapitated and limbs cut from his torso, his head impaled on a stick.

The circumstances and brutality of those attacks this month have revived fears that a long-running insurgency in Thailand's south could be evolving into a sectarian conflict pitting Buddhists against Muslims.

Islamic separatists ignited the insurgency in January 2004, sparking a cycle of army repression and rebellion that has left more than 3,500 people dead. Frustrated by their inability to curb the violence, Thai security forces have increasingly been arming civilian self-defense forces -- almost all Buddhist -- to protect villagers.

The proliferation of guns, many put in the poorly trained hands of parties with scores to settle, makes the situation extremely volatile.

The June 8 attack on the Al Furqan mosque in Narathiwat province's Joh-I-Rong district and its aftermath suggest such initiatives may have backfired.

With cold deliberation, five or six masked gunmen dressed in black poured fire into the mosque, which serves a community that had avoided the deadly tumult of recent years.

READ more about this at: 
nctimes.com/articles/2009/06/22/military/zec4ecdd8823a05bf882575dd006ff58d.txt
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Faith Issues: "National anti-abortion"

"National anti-abortion group sees little potential for finding the common ground that Obama has called for."

In a commencement speech at Notre Dame last month, President Obama appealed for common ground in the tense debate over abortion.

He won't find it among anti-abortion activists gathered in Charlotte this week.

“Either the baby is alive or dead – what's the common ground?” Carol Tobias, former political director for the National Right to Life Committee, said Friday.

The committee, America's largest anti-abortion group, winds up its national convention this weekend at uptown's Blake Hotel. Organizers said as many as 1,300 activists from around the country are taking part.
In April, Obama acknowledged the intensity on both sides of the debate.

“The most important thing we can do to tamp down some of the anger … is to focus on those areas that we can agree on,” he said.

That's not much, according to members of the anti-abortion group.

 DETAILS at: charlotteobserver.com/local/story/790441.html

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"Church attendance in recessions"

....Last year David Beckworth, an assistant professor of Economics at Texas State University, examined historic patterns in the size of evangelical congregations and found that, during each recession cycle between 1968 and 2004, membership of evangelical churches jumped by 50%. This report filled the newspapers and TV news-shows at the height of the depression panic just before Christmas; but the report’s findings focused on evangelicals, and do not apply to Americans at large.

According to Frank Newport, the editor-in-chief of Gallup Poll, which interviews 30,000 Americans every month, “to guess that attendance would increase [in recessions] is a common-sense assumption with no basis in data.” John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which recently published a study on the correlation between church attendance and economics, has found no link in the past 20 years.

READ more of this at: economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13875548
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