Boys Without Dads: A Cruel and Volatile Calculus

By Ken Blackwell , CP Op-Ed Contributor – May 11, 2015

This column was co-authored by Rob Schwarzwalder.

The rioting in Baltimore is disturbing to all Americans, as the unresolved cause of Freddie Gray’s death while in police custody should be, as well.

It is right that political and religious leaders, community groups, business organizations, and law enforcement officials are commenting about all the causes and effects of the riots. But one thing seems missing from the discussion, a factor whose omission is unacceptable. It’s called fatherhood.

The rioting is inexcusable but should not be wholly surprising. It is likely that the great majority of it was been done by young black men – young black men without fathers.

Fatherhood is in crisis all across the country. In 2011, Pew Research evaluated data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) “National Survey of Family Growth” and found that “more than one-in-four fathers with children 18 or younger now live apart from their children —with 11 percent living apart from some of their children and 16 percent living apart from all of their children.”

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A Free Online Resource Connects People to the Message of Jesus

3/23/2015 Steve Strang

Imagine nearly everyone in the world holding a “gospel tract” that they check several times a day.

That’s what technology provides for believers who want to share their faith. With most of the modern world referring to their mobile devices, there’s an app that tells about Jesus in a fresh, winsome way—often using the testimonies of celebrities.

It’s a website and an app called “yesHeis,” the brainchild of a wealthy British businessman with a heart for ministry.

Lord Robert Edmiston has done charitable work since the late 1980s through an amazing ministry called Christian Vision, now called CV. To spread the gospel, CV utilizes many means, including shortwave radio, which was especially effective for many years in areas that have little to no religious freedom like that in Muslim-dominated countries.

I first heard about this at an international networking meeting of business and ministry leaders. I was so impressed that I downloaded the free app and later interviewed Lord Edmiston about it.

New content is posted daily on yesHEis.com. It’s easy to find videos from celebrities like Bono who give a very clear Christian witness. Material is arranged by topic for people who have a particular interest or who is grappling with a big problem.

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Jihad Watch: Among the most attacked sites on the Internet

May 11, 2015 – By Robert Spencer

Daniel Cid, the Chief Technical Officer of the web security firm Sucuri, has informed me that of the thousands of websites his company protects, including sites much bigger than this one, Jihad Watch is by far the most frequently attacked:

Here at Sucuri we protect thousands of websites through our enterprise Website Firewall. One of the most disruptive attacks we see are known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks. These attacks are designed to disrupt the service and take down a website by overloading it with fake requests and making it inaccessible to everyone else.

Jihad Watch is one of those thousands of websites we help protect, and by far the most attacked we have in our network. It is targeted daily, by massive and large scale DDoS attempts that exceed 100Gbps of traffic on most days.

What is interesting is that DDoS attacks usually last for a few hours, up to days and go away. However, Jihad Watch has been under multiple, daily attacks, for more than a year (ranging from distributed advanced SYN floods, HTTP GET Floods, DNS/SSDP/NTP amplification attacks and many others).

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More Reclaim Australia Rallies in July 2015 / Must watch transformation testimony of a former lesbian activist / Fred Nile MP speaking against same-sex marriage on ABC Q&A tomorrow Thursday night

Dear friends & family in Christ, 1) You may click the link above to watch a 6 minute video of Rise Up Australia National President Daniel Nalliah promoting Reclaim Australia…

Continue ReadingMore Reclaim Australia Rallies in July 2015 / Must watch transformation testimony of a former lesbian activist / Fred Nile MP speaking against same-sex marriage on ABC Q&A tomorrow Thursday night

Millions Watch Testimony of Jewish Believer in Yeshua

Sunday, June 07, 2015 |  Ryan Jones

An online evangelism effort by local Israeli Messianic Jews has become something of an Internet sensation over the past month after the video testimony of an Jewish man who came to faith in Yeshua (Jesus) went viral.

Mottel Baleston’s was just one of the latest in a series of video testimonies titled “I Met Messiah” produced by the Israeli Messianic group One For Israel in cooperation with Chosen People Ministries.

But Baleston’s testimony apparently touched a nerve, and by the first week of June well over five million people had viewed the brief video explanation of how he had many years earlier come to faith as a young man in Brooklyn.

Growing up, Baleeston was acquainted with a large number of Italian Catholics, leading him to believe that Jesus must be Italian. In the video he explains how “the understanding that [Yeshua is] actually Jewish was a shock. And then to hear that the New Testament was written by Jews, I couldn’t believe it. …when I open it, I’m reading a story written by Jews about Jewish people.”

What followed as a natural progression for a young man seeking spiritual truth. “As I came to faith that Yeshua – that Jesus was the Messiah, it was clear that that was the most Jewish thing I could do,” he recalled. “This is the One who was promised in our Bible.”

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“I am sorry” – says Ps Daniel – A prophetic dream of warning

Dear family & friends in Christ,Reconciliation

Earlier this year during the last weekend of April, I was ministering in Townsville, QLD.

One morning I woke up with a dream seeing Indigenous children crying out for help all around me.

This really broke my heart as I started reaching out to help them. Just then right behind me from the seabed there was a massive black cloud which appeared out of the water, like a big explosion. Out of the cloud came balls of fire which seemed like lava, like a volcano eruption.

By this time in the dream, I was going outside the building that I was in to help the people, but others in the building were trying to stop me from going outside, as it was too dangerous. However, I refused to stay inside and got outside of the building, asking God what to do to help the people.

Just then in the dream I felt strongly that the cloud was some kind of major disaster coming over the land and that we need to fight against it.

As I was wondering how to fight it in the dream, I had a prompting of 2 Chronicles 7:14, “if My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

At once I knew that the Lord wants us to humble ourselves as His people and to repent for any wrong we have done.

Just then I was reminded of Math 12:36-37, “But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”

At this point I realised that I needed to ask forgiveness for all the wrong words that I have spoken, also for all those that I have offended in any way, and for any anger, bitterness, un-forgiveness, hurt or offense that I may still be carrying in my heart. That I need to repent and put it right by starting at home with my family, then my ministry team, my church, the body of Christ and the nation.

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From Monnica to Susanna Wesley: Remembering Great Mothers In Church History

May 09, 2015 – Baptist Press – David Roach

Augustine of Hippo is known by Christians the world over for standing against heresy in the fifth century and laying a foundation for the Protestant Reformation a thousand years later.

Lesser known is the fact that Augustine might never have become a Christian if not for his mother Monnica, who prayed for his salvation for years before eventually sailing from North Africa to Italy to beg her son to attend church. He honored her wishes and was saved when he heard the Gospel under the preaching of Ambrose of Milan.

Monnica — as her name is spelled on her tomb despite commonly being rendered as “Monica” — is one of many noteworthy mothers in church history.

“Some of Christian history’s greatest preachers, theologians and missionaries owe the first fruits of their ministries not to their exegetical insights, homiletic abilities or spiritual zeal, but instead to the faithful prayers of their godly mothers,” Christian George, assistant professor of historical theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, told Baptist Press in written comments. “In the lives of countless Christians throughout the ages, God has often granted second births as a result of those who gave them their first.”

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Persecuted Christians in Middle East send Powerful Salvation Letter to ISIS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5O6Fyl_-Bc

Bethany Blankley : May 4, 2015 : Charisma News

“Love is coming after you! …An army comes, with no tanks or soldiers. But an army of martyrs faithful unto death.

The world is talking about you. Your apocalyptic dreams and spectacular sins are now awakening the Middle East. In your holy war, come to holy ground.

Come, children of Abraham, come. The people of the cross gather at your gates with a message:

Love is coming after you!
Like a rush of wind grazing over the Pacific,
From hills of the Mount of Olives to the desert winds of Jordan,
From the cedars of Lebanon to the silk roads of the East,
An army comes. With no tanks or soldiers,
But an army of martyrs faithful unto death,
Carrying a message of life.
The People of the Cross
Come to die at your gates.
If you won’t hear our message with words,
Then we will show you with our lives
Laid down.

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More & More Arab Youth Are Openly Blessing Israel

David Lazarus : May 4, 2015 : Israel Today

“As an Arab who lives in Israel, it is a great honor for me to live side by side with my brothers the Jews. I bless them and love them and it is a privilege to tell them about my faith in their book, the Bible. There is a real way that we can live together in love, unity and peace, Arabs and Jews—through our Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.”

Young people from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen and many other Arab countries are turning to social media to tell the world that they love Israel.

The trend began, according to Al-Monitor, a popular pan-Mideast media outlet, when an Israeli Arab Muslim who served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wanted to convince other Israeli Arabs that the (IDF) are not an “army of evil” and that its soldiers are not as bloodthirsty as they tend to be portrayed in Arab propaganda films.

But instead of messages from the Israeli Arab audience he was targeting, he began receiving messages of peace and love from young Arabs all across the region.

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Earthquakes of Faith

By Brian C Stiller , Global Ambassador, World Evangelical Alliance – April 28, 2015

A shaking is taking place in the Muslim world with tectonic rumblings. Signs are early and evidence is anecdotal, yet stories abound and are persuasive. The unsettling of entrenched Islamic faith is making its way into places and with people we assumed were closed to conversations about the Christian faith.

Returning from the Middle East, a journey I’ve made regularly in the past few years, I spoke with those engaged in Christian witness about some possibilities they would not have verbalized twelve months ago. I begin with a story from meeting with Syrian refugees on the Lebanese side of the border.

A worn, gnarled hand gently stroked the bruised face of her two-year-old granddaughter whose front teeth had been broken and face scraped by a serious fall. I sat next to them in their scrabbled together shack in a Syrian refugee camp in the Beqaa Valley, just over the mountains from Syria. The life of “Fadwa” had been shattered first by her husband having been taken prisoner in Syria. Then her daughter died in childbirth because Syrian soldiers at a checkpoint refused to let her go to the hospital in time. Then to stay alive Fadwa was forced to flee from her home in Lebanon and walk three days over the mountains. Today she cares for five adults and six children in a makeshift abode, the main room curtained off from the sleeping room.

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Homosexual activists speak out against same-sex marriage

"I'm gay and I'm voting No. Here's why." Keith Mills and Paddy Manning give powerful and compelling reasons for voting NO to redefining marriage on May 22. Use your vote.…

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Australian police disrupt jihad mass murder bomb plot In Melbourne

May 8, 2015 By Robert Spencer – Jihad Watch

How did this young adherent of the Religion of Peace get “provoked”? Is someone drawing Muhammad in Melbourne?

“Australian Police Say They Disrupted Bomb Plot In Melbourne, Associated Press, May 8, 2015 (thanks to Kenneth):

Police arrested a 17-year-old and accused him of plotting to detonate three homemade bombs in the Australian city of Melbourne, officials said on Saturday, in the latest terrorism scare blamed on a teenager.

The teen was arrested on Friday afternoon in a joint federal-state police counterterrorism operation at his home in the upmarket suburb of Greenvale where the explosive devices were found, Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Mike Phelan said. The bomb squad rendered the devices safe, he said.

Melbourne is Australia’s second largest city and is the capital of Victoria state.

Last month, five Australian teenagers were arrested on suspicion of plotting an Islamic State group-inspired terrorist attack at a Veterans’ Day ceremony also in Melbourne that included targeting police officers.

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Doing Church on the Streets of Baltimore

May 05, 2015 – The New York Times – Ron Nixon and Scott Shane

The Rev. Warren Savage, a former gang member, is trying to persuade members of several gangs to direct their energy away from violence. (Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times)

For the past few days, as a rare national media spotlight has shined on this city’s troubles, the Rev. Warren Savage has taken the opportunity to meet with self-described members of the gangs that many residents blame for some of those woes: the Crips, the Bloods and the Black Guerrilla Family.

He has found them on the streets, sat down with them in churches, and talked to them about their anger and their aspirations, urging them to redirect their energy from crime and violent feuding to more productive ends — including tamping down unrest that followed the death of a young black man, Freddie Gray, who suffered fatal injuries in police custody two weeks ago.

In Ferguson, Mo., community leaders seemed unable to come together to stem the violence after the police killing of Michael Brown in August. But in Baltimore, an array of pastors, politicians, community leaders and even gang members have repeatedly taken to the streets to calm crowds, effectively helping the police impose a curfew so far.

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