Global Evangelist. Pastor. Entrepreneur. Mentor.

Freedom Sunday: Q&A with David Batstone by Brian Orme - ChurchLeaders.com - Christian Leadership Blogs, Articles, Videos, How To's, and Free Resources

I think one of the biggest myths is that it’s something that happens over in Africa or Asia or somewhere else outside the United States—when truth be told, it reaches to our own backyard. I discovered human trafficking in a local restaurant in the Bay area where I lived—hundreds of kids trafficked through a local restaurant that my wife and I used to attend—that was my wake-up call. So it was with that shock that I started investigating and I found that human trafficking reaches every community in the United States.

The majority of people who are trafficked are actually enslaved within ten miles of their home. So it’s not only moving people from say Romania to Italy or from Korea to the United States, but it’s also millions within China are enslaved right within their community.

And I suppose the other important part of trafficking is that half of those that are trafficked are children under eighteen and so it’s something that—when I read Psalm 10, it reminds me that the widow and the orphan are still the most vulnerable ones. The women and children, particularly women who don’t have access to justice, are the most vulnerable, and they’re exploited by traffickers.

via www.churchleaders.com

I like Chain Tea!!!!!What happens when your life is out of peace!!!!

This picture reminds me of moments of my life when I allow fear to rule my heart rather than the peace of God in my life. God in Christ has given me His peace.

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For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,
Grace and Peace
Pastor James Owolabi.
"You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality."

Parents Being Consistent - Parenting Todays Teens With Mark Gregston

Without consistency, a teen will feel like they are living on a seesaw, where certain behaviors are okay one day and not the next.  Not knowing which will happen next can be stressful, and that can lead to anxiety, anger, depression, frustration, and despair. In the other hand, consistent boundaries will bring peace and confidence.

via www.heartlightministries.org

A Letter from Kabwata: Nigerian Religious Junk!

Many of these churches have since been discovered to be nothing more than fund-raising outfits, with sole proprietorship maintained by the pastor and his wife. The pattern seems to be: start a church and then milk the congregation. The pastors basically prey on the vulnerable and gullible. They are crooks and conmen. In a number of the southern African countries represented at the consultation, governments have sent these pastors packing upon finding undeniable proof that large stashes of money were being milked out of their citizens and being shipped to West Africa. This has made these governments very suspicious of anyone coming from any other African country as a missionary into their country. They now think that all African missionaries are just mercenaries.

via www.conradmbewe.com

Wow...Very Sad but true......A Letter from Kabwata: Nigerian Religious Junk!

I feel very sad to write about this, but by “Nigerian religious junk” I mean the phenomenon of churches that are personal-to-holder. They exalt the personality of their founding father, who is still alive somewhere in Nigeria (or elsewhere) and is treated with the aura of a state president or paramount chief. It does not matter which country you go to, the bill boards of these churches do not have the faces of the local pastors of the congregations in those towns but of the founding father in Nigeria—or wherever he has since relocated. It is all about image and power. This “man of God” claims to hear the voice of God and proceeds to minister to you accordingly. If you do not obey him you are resisting the ministry of God into your life. So, the churches are often called “ministries” rather than churches. And to make them even more impressive, the term “international” is often added to their name.

The Africanisation of this religious junk is primarily in the way it has been made to appeal to African spirituality. The pastor is the modern witchdoctor calling all and sundry to come to him for “deliverance”. Just as the witchdoctor appealed to us by inviting us to see him for spiritual protection or when we were struggling with bad luck, childlessness, joblessness, illness, failure to attract a suitor for marriage or to rise in a job or get a contract, etc., these pastors do precisely the same thing. So-called prophetic utterances are made which explain why all this is happening, holy water or oil is prayed over and dispensed, and some money is extracted from the persons seeking help. Thus their churches attract thousands of people who are there for purely selfish reasons. The motivating factor is not reconciliation with God through Christ but rather “deliverance” from perceived evil and to be blessed through the supernatural powers that “the man of God” possesses. Let’s face it: this is our African traditional religions coming into the church through the back door.

via www.conradmbewe.com