Category Archives: Church

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Your Sinners & Saints Christian News Roundup…The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly…

Hello World, pastors.jpg

Have you missed me? I hope so…I haven’t been posting as much. I usually post on Sundays and Wednesdays but due to a pending deadline this month, I will only be posting on Sundays…So I hope my Sunday posts are worth waiting for :)…

Just because I’ve been focused on meeting my deadline doesn’t mean I’m unaware of all of the shocking news stories that have been unearthed in the Christian world…These stories are ugly…And I’ve come across some new stories that may not cause shock waves in the Christian community but are bad nevertheless…And thankfully, I’ve come across some good news that take a bit of the sting way from the ugly and bad stories that tarnish the testimony of the Christian faith…

So let’s get the ugly out of the way…

THE UGLY…

  1. Montgomery Pastor Admits to Having AIDS, Sleeping With Church Members...This, by far, has got to the be the ugliest news story in the Christian world that I have seen in 2014….Apparently, he had sex with several of the female congregants knowing he has AIDS, was using drugs and mismanaged church funds…I really don’t know how no one in the church confronted him about any of these three sins (Whatever happened to female intuition or the prompting of the Holy Spirit?) and likely way before he confessed all that mess to his church and removed from his post…
  2. Enugu Pastor Impregnates His Church Member, Forces Her to Abort Pregnancy…But former Pastor Juan Demetrius McFarland ain’t the only pastor acting up…Instead of a praying for a young girl in his church, allegedly Pastor Friday Onuh of Nigeria preyed on the young girl church, got her pregnant and “took her to a patent medicine dealer” (Are they talking about a witch doctor?) in order for their child to be aborted…Whew…I cannot imagine….
  3. Faith Under Fire: A Westlake Church Rallies Around Its Pastor After Charges That He Sexually Abused His Adopted Daughter…Allegedly Pastor Paul, as he is known to the congregants at Church on the Rise, is “awaiting trial on six felony charges of allegedly sexually abusing his adopted daughter,” But at least one congregant is pointing a finger at the adopted daughter rather than Pastor Paul…In fact, members are still packing the pews… (Whom do you believe?)
  4. 7th Heaven’s Stephen Collins Reportedly Admits to Molesting Underage Girl, Fallout Reaches Hollywood…As ugly as this story is, at least this story is about a fake pastor…Collins portrayed Rev. Camden, pastor of the Glen Oak Community Church on the TV series “7th Heaven,” is “longest-running series on The WB.” Although I am shocked and saddened by this story, Collins only portrayed a pastor on TV (If your pastor is a fake pastor on television, you need more than Jesus) …that point needs to be emphasized….

THE BAD…

  1. Boko Haram Destroys 185 Churches, Beheads Seven People in Borno…While this story is ugly, I put in the bad category because this isn’t the first time this Islamist terrorist group has committed crimes against humanity (Lord, please intervene…)…On April 14, more than 200 Christian and Muslim Nigerian girls were stolen in the middle of the night from their boarding school in Chibok town by this group…
  2. Jersey City Sunday School Teacher Stabbed to Death By Ex-Fiance, Police Say…As a former Sunday School teacher, this story is particularly troubling…Reportedly, Patricia Santana’s former fiance was a “nice guy” and went to church with her…(Just because a man comes to church with you, doesn’t mean he is saved, and even if he saved…well, see above…

 THE GOOD…(finally, right?)

  1. ‘Homeless’ Pastor Rick Cole Goes Home to Capital Christian Church…In spite of the shenanigans and crimes committed by a few “pastors,” I do believe the overwhelming majority of pastors have good intentions and are committed to serving God and their people…This pastor left his home, “living on Sacramento streets for two weeks to raise money for the area’s winter shelter program.” (Praise God for this pastor…)
  2. Columbus Churches Come Together for Prayer Walk…Under the leadership of Pastor Christopher Smith, Word of Truth Ministries partnered with other churches in the community to walk through its neighborhoods and pray for the people that live there…(Prayer is so powerful…)
  3. The Beauty of Small Church…Don’t get me wrong, megachurches are great, but bigger is not always better (#smallchurchestandup) and Rev. Hope Lee, lead pastor of Kirkwood Presbyterian Church, agrees with me…She wrote a sweet tribute to the small church in which she was raised…As a daughter of a pastor who leads a small church, I’ve had similar experiences…
  4. Christian Brothers Automotive & Lake Pointe Church Offer Free Oil Changes for Single Moms…Again, although the church and its leaders should be open to criticism when warranted, I believe that most churches and its leaders want to do good…(What about free or discounted oil changes for newlyweds? :))

Any thoughts?

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Pastor Praises Till The Cops Come Knockin’…

Hello World,

Pastor Johnnie Clark and First Lady Harriet Clark...

Pastor Johnnie Clark and First Lady Harriet Clark…

This morning when you go to church, I want you to lift up Pastor Johnnie Clark of Rehoboth United Assemblies Church in Columbia, South Carolina in prayer as he finds himself in jail this Sunday morning…What did the PASTOR do to find himself in jail you are probably asking? Did he steal something? No. Did he have a bunch of traffic tickets? No. Was he a public menace? You’re getting closer…

Pastor Clark is in jail this morning because the church’s praise and worship has violated the city’s noise ordinance as reported by the church’s neighbors…According to the article “Pastor Gets Jail Time for Noisy Church” by Steven Dial, wltx.com, Columbia police officers have been dispatched more than 50 times to the church for violating the ordinance and now Pastor Clark is in jail for TWO WEEKS!!! He was found guilty in a jury trial…

Pastor Clark and his wife, First Lady Harriet Clark, were quoted as saying, “I can’t believe it, jail time, for serving God, what’s next.”

To read the entire story, go to wltx.com.

So quite honestly, a part of me wants to laugh because it so outrageous that a pastor has been put in jail for his church’s praise and worship, another part of me admires that their praise and worship was so on fire that the church’s neighbors had no choice but to listen, and another part of me wonders if Christians have become unfair targets…What say you?

I don’t know where this question originated or who initially asked the question, but this question is an awesome question to ask ourselves every once in a while…

If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

Obviously there would be enough evidence for Pastor Clark and his church…at least as far as praise and worship is concerned…

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

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A New Book Honors Church Mothers…

Hello World,

I hope this Sunday morning finds you well and you’re on your way to church to give Him praise morning…If you have been in church for a while, particularly a black church, you’ve heard of the term church mother…A church mother is a matriarch, whether formally or informally, of a congregation…An older woman whose wisdom, earned through years and years and years of living this life, is one of the church’s most valuable possessions…Though the beauty of youth has long departed, another beauty only acquired by watching God work things out time and time and time again, has descended upon her countenance…She is a jewel…a rare gem…

Photojournalist Alysia Burton Steele is capturing the rare brilliance of church mothers in her book in progress ““Jewels in the Delta.” From her Facebook page, below are descriptions of a few of the 50 Mississippi women that Steele photographed and interviewed for her book…

Mrs. Leola, 102, was thrown off a plantation in Yazoo City because she refused to have her little girls pick cotton. She wanted them to go to school. The overseer told her she had to leave if she wouldn’t let them work because she would “ruin his other blacks” because they would want an education too. She left and said it was the best decision she ever made. All of her girls have masters degrees and one has a Ph.D.

Mrs. Rebecca, 99, talked about how thankful she was for the woman she worked for as a cook. The woman taught her how to save $2 every week for a year and make a payment on her home. She paid her house off in 15 years. It’s not much, she said, but it’s hers and she has the original deed.

 
Ms. Velma, 78, dragged a woman out of church after she heard the woman talking about how fine her husband was. Punched the woman between the eyes and went back in and “sat quite comfortably” in church. Never saw the woman again. Husband had no clue she did this.

Read more about Steele’s book and see some of the photographs of the women in the The New York Times article “Chronicling Mississippi’s ‘Church Mothers,’ and Getting to Know a Grandmother” by Samuel G. Freedman…

And below is a video about the book…

So when you see one of the elderly ladies at your church today, maybe you shouldn’t just speak and keep on going…maybe you should get her talking and learn from the wisdom only she can share…

Any thoughts?