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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Baylor University Scholars Say Reports About Imminent Death of Religion Have Been Greatly Exaggerated; Faith Is Growing, Not Dying, In America and Around the World

May 11, 2015 – Baptist News Global – Ken Camp

Conference speakers highlight statistics and trends showing that in the U.S. and around the world, faith is on the rise.

Reports about the imminent death of religion, the rise of secularization and the growth of atheism largely ignore facts or rely on faulty research, scholars from Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion said during a recent conference.

Reports emphasizing the rise of “nones” and the massive flight of Millennials from organized religion greatly exaggerate — and sometimes misinterpret — hard data, said Byron Johnson, distinguished professor of the social sciences at Baylor and founding director of the Institute for Studies of Religion.

“There’s a story some people want to report — that religion is on life support — but it’s just not true,” he asserted.

Surveys that report Millennials have left the faith of their parents often really mean they have stopped attending church for a few years or identify with a nondenominational church rather than a Mainline denomination — not that they have abandoned Christianity, he said, pointing to findings from the Baylor Religion Survey.

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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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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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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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After Devastation and Death, Nepali Church Returns to Worship

May 06, 2015 – Baptist Press – Susie Rain

Members of a small Kathmandu church gather at an alternate place of worship one week after their building was damaged in the 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Nepal on April 25. IMB Photo

The small Nepali congregation started worship Saturday (May 2) right where they left off the previous week — singing.

Two dozen voices gained momentum, clapping hands, dancing and raising their faces to heaven in song: “Still I will love You and spread Your love to the people.”

The congregation breaks into prayer, for this is the moment when the song was interrupted by Nepal’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake a week earlier, on April 25.

They shed tears and cry in reliving the moment together: … The congregation grabbed hands and crouched against an inner wall of their fourth-floor room. Someone prayed aloud and others joined. The pastor, Rajaan Tamang*, looked up and saw the outer wall shaking. He looked over his shoulder and saw a crack form across the wall where they had sought shelter. He knew that if they didn’t get off the fourth floor, they all might die. They lurched down the stairs and gathered in the field outside. A few moments later, a building across the street crumbled and killed seven people. They were safe and together….

A lone voice gently leads the Kathmandu congregation back to the present by finishing the song: “Heaven has seen me. The cloud of testimony is surrounding me. Soak me with Your anointing power.”

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Ex-Muslim: Qur’an revealed a religion I did not like

May 1, 2015 – By Robert Spencer – Jihad Watch

Mona Walter grew up a Muslim in Somalia. When she moved to Sweden, she started studying Islam, and found that she did not like what she was learning. Now she has left Islam and is called an “Islamophobe” and worse.

What should she have done? Stayed in a religion she disliked and believed to be false so as to avoid threats and opprobrium? What should she do now? Stay silent for fear of charges of “Islamophobia” that inevitably come to everyone who dares utter a critical word about Islam and jihad?

In the West today one must like Islam, or is considered to have some kind of moral defect. One need not like Christianity or Judaism, or socialism or capitalism or democracy or communism, but one must like and respect Islam, or you will be considered to be “hateful,” “bigoted,” and “racist,” as well as “Islamophobic.”

This is one reason why AFDI and Jihad Watch are co-sponsoring the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest in the Dallas area Sunday. The point is not mockery of Islam. The point is not poking religious people in the eye. The point is defending the principles of free speech and free inquiry, without which society and human beings are not free, but are slaves to the people in power. Those who wield the real power are not necessarily those who hold office. Those who wield the real power are those whom one dares not criticize, to say nothing of mocking, on pain of violent reprisal: if they’re allowed to frighten people into silence, then essentially they can do whatever they wish, knowing that no one will dare to cross them.

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Reinhard Bonnke, Evangelist Who Clashed With Muslims in Africa to Win Millions of Converts for Christ to Get Lifetime Award for Global Ministry

The Christian Post – 4 May 2015

Reinhard Bonnke, a longtime and once hardline global evangelist who clashed with Muslims in Africa to win millions of converts for Christ on the continent, is set to get a Lifetime Global Impact award at the Global Congress of Empowered21 in Jerusalem for his trailblazing ministry next month.

Bonnke will be honored alongside other veteran evangelists Morris Cerullo, Jack Hayford, Marilyn Hickey, David Manise, and Vinson Synan at the 2015 Global Congress to be held May 20-25. Empowered21 seeks to push a “Global Spirit-empowered movement throughout the world by focusing on crucial issues facing the movement and connecting generations for intergenerational blessing and impartation,” according to the organization’s website. This is the first time the organization will hand out lifetime awards.

All have served the Lord in various avenues and were chosen because they are “Spirit-empowered ministry leaders who have made a huge impact in the world. They have also shown a desire to invest in the next generation or implement a ministry succession plan,” Jeremy Burton of Empowered21 told The Christian Post.

“Reinhard Bonnke has totally dedicated himself to soul-winning for 50 years now. He has a laser-sharp focus on winning souls. Through his ministry, Christ for All Nations, over 73 million people have made registered decisions to follow Jesus Christ. To be recognized and honored by the Christian community for this service is an honor for which we give the glory to God,” a Christ for All Nations spokeswoman told CP.

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Deep Repentance & Healing as Holy Spirit touches hearts / Pastor’s healing testimony

Dear family and friends in Christ,

1) This past weekend Pastor Daniel and a team from CTFM ministered in Bendigo, VIC where there was much prayer and preparing for these meetings by the local church.  We praise God He did not let them down as the Holy Spirit moved most wonderfully touching many hearts.

Ps Daniel spoke on “Standing in the gap in Intercession” on Saturday night and “Who holds your Legal Right” on Sunday morning. At both meetings many people were healed from hurts, offences, anger and un-forgiveness, etc. as people responded to the word of God by coming to the altar, asking forgiveness and repenting publicly. Then people started going to each other and saying “I am sorry if I have offended you”. This was absolutely amazing as many were in tears hugging each other.

The first to come forward was the Pastor and his wife. We take our hats off to them both as they had the guts to stand up and say “I am sorry”. By the end of the day the Pastor of the church said, “several people in my congregation have told me that they feel so free and as if a big weight had been lifted off their shoulder.” Glory to God.

The Pastor testified, “I was having severe back pains, but praise God over night the pain has just disappeared. I thank God for my healing.”

Two weekends ago Ps Daniel ministered in Townsville & Ingham, QLD. Here too the Lord Jesus powerfully touched many lives.

2) Pr Daniel will be speaking at CTFM in Hallam at the 9:30am & 6:30pm services this Sunday 17th May.

Please note that this service will be live webcast at www.reformationharvestfire.com beginning at 10.30am (AEDT).

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The Real Reason the Pentecostal Movement Keeps Growing

Charisma News – 2/4/2015 Ed Stetzer

There are parts of the globe where the greatest church growth is happening through the Pentecostal movement. One of the most frequently asked questions is: “In a world where the church seems to be declining in many areas, how they are bucking the trend?”

There is never one reason why a movement succeeds. But some factors rise to the surface. Pentecostals will say they are growing because the Spirit is moving in a powerful way. I get that, and actually would affirm that as part of the reason, but from a sociological perspective, other things are happening and worth exploring.

I was recently asked (by Pentecostal leaders) what some sociological reasons might be. So following that meeting, and in this brief post, I want to explore how the beliefs of Pentecostals actually promote and produce growth compared to other more “mainstream” groups.

Pentecostals Value Their Shared Experience

From a statistical perspective, Pentecostals tend to be less “nominal” than other believers. The reason is often obvious—the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.

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Guest Speaker Pastor Wally from USA at CTFM this Mother’s Day

Dear friends & family in Christ, Pastor Wally Magnangal from Christians in Crisis, based in the USA, will be ministering God’s prophetic Word and praying for people at CTFM in…

Continue ReadingGuest Speaker Pastor Wally from USA at CTFM this Mother’s Day

In 35 Years, Majority of Christians will be in Africa & South America

4, April 2015 – DAVID MASCI  – Pew Research Center, FactTank

The global Christian population has been shifting southward for at least a century and is expected to continue to do so over the next four decades, according to new demographic projections from the Pew Research Center. Overall, the share of Christians in the world is expected to remain flat. But Europe’s share of the the world’s Christians will continue to decline while sub-Saharan Africa’s will increase dramatically.

Nearly half of the world’s Christians already reside in Africa and the Latin America-Caribbean region. By 2050, according to the Pew Research study, those two regions will be home to more than six-in-ten of the world’s followers of Jesus, with just a quarter of Christians living in Europe and North America.

This was not always the case. In 1910, for instance, Europe was home to roughly two-thirds (66%) of the world’s Christians, with North America a distant second with 15%.

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Can This Be True? 2 Million Indonesian Muslims Find Jesus Per Year

4/3/2015 Steve Strang

Amid all the news about Islam’s gains around the world, here is some startling news you’ve probably never heard: In Indonesia—the most populous Muslim nation—2 million Muslims are converting to Christianity per year. That’s right. That’s one new convert every 15 seconds. At this rate, Indonesia will be mostly Christian by 2035.

Some Muslims are so alarmed they’ve created a video on YouTube to alert other Muslims to this menace and are trying to raise $2 million to start a TV station aimed at Muslim youth to keep them in Islam.

Called “Save Maryam,” it depicts a young teen named Maryam representative of all disillusioned Muslim youth who have responded to invitations to gospel events or someone handing them a tract that says “Jesus Loves You.” Watch the 4-minute, 45-second video yourself if you don’t believe me. It’s from Muslims in their own words, alarmed at the rate of conversions to Christianity.

It ends by urging Muslims to stop this trend (thereby “Saving Maryam”) by alerting other Muslims to the threat by forwarding the video on social media.

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Videos of Christians forgiving Islamic State spread through Middle East

Stories of forgiveness from people affected by Islamist extremism have now been watched by more than a million people, according to the SAT-7 satellite broadcasting organisation.

Most of those who have watched the videos of a 10-year-old Iraqi girl displaced by Islamic State and of the brother of two Egyptian labourers beheaded in Libya live in the Middle East.

SAT-7’s Egypt director Farid Samir said that the massive interest in the clips shows the impact of “resisting violence through forgiveness”.

The video of 10-year-old Myriam saying she “will ask God to forgive IS” was watched by more than 200,000 people within 42 hours of appearing on the SAT-7 ARABIC Facebook page.

An earlier clip in which an Egyptian Christian called in to a SAT-7 worship programme within days of his two brothers’ deaths at the hands of IS was watched by at least half a million people in the first week and shared on news sites around the world. The videos have also been uploaded by other sites not linked to SAT-7 pages, so that the total viewership is higher still.

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