Charisma Staff

In the next 20 days a ruling is expected in the case against an Iranian Full Gospel pastor facing the … Read More

On Friday the International Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s upgraded Israel’s credit score from an A to A+ citing … Read More

On Thursday more than 100 Palestinian officials submitted statehood plans to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at a ceremony in … Read More

A car blast outside a Syrian Catholic church in Kirkuk, Iraq, Tuesday morning left 13 wounded as police located and disarmed two more car bombs targeting churches in the city, according to area sources.

Online video images of the attack against the Holy Family Church showed one of its walls blasted open and all its surfaces covered with broken glass, rubble and dust from the entrance where the explosion took place to the sanctuary on the far end of the building. The explosion occurred on the second day of the month-long Muslim fasting period of Ramadan.

Nearby houses in one of Kirkuk’s oldest quarters, where Muslims and Christians had lived together peacefully, were seriously damaged, and cars on the street were left in twisted piles of metal. Shattered glass wounded 13 residents as they slept, area sources said.

An alliance of global Christians, churches and faith-based poverty-fighting organizations are uniting to eradicate global poverty. The Christ-centered global initiative known as 58: was founded on Isaiah 58 where God calls on the church to to end global poverty.

Ten organizations have collectively worked through the 58: initiative to simplify the steps necessary to achieve what some may see as an impossible feat. But for Dr. Scott Todd, senior advisor at Compassion International and one of the architects of 58:, doesn’t question the possibility itself. Instead he says, “The question is, ‘How fast?’” At 58: partners are convinced it can happen within the next two decades. In fact, they have set 2035 as the end date.

Statistics prove the percentage of people living in extreme poverty continues to decline. In 24 years alone, the percentage of those living in extreme poverty has dropped from 52 percent to 26 percent. Child mortality rates and the rates of disease infection has declined as well. And now those behind 58: ask, “What will it take to finish the job?”

New guidance for GPs on praying for patients has been released by the Medical Defence Union (MDU) – with backing from the General Medical Council (GMC) and one of the country’s leading doctors.

The guidance quotes an official from the GMC suggesting that a ‘tactful’ offer to pray for patients could be appropriate:

“Nothing in the GMC’s guidance Personal Beliefs and Medical Practice precludes doctors from praying with their patients. … It must be tactful, so that the patient can decline without embarrassment—because while some may welcome the suggestion, others may regard it as inappropriate,” says Jane O’Brien, assistant director for standards and fitness to practice.

It’s another hot and dusty Sunday morning, and service is about to begin at the Camp Kunduz Chapel.

No, this place of worship isn’t nestled in a small town in the heart of the Bible belt. It’s about as far away from there as one can get. Furthermore, the small plywood structure is nothing reminiscent of a massive cathedral capable of housing a huge congregation of worshippers.

Still, for soldiers of faith stationed in the heart of northern Afghanistan, the place serves its purpose quite well.

While almost 13 million people are on the brink of starvation in the Horn of Africa, relief agencies are frustrated that they may be unable to help those most desperate. It’s not because they don’t have the food. It’s because terrorist groups linked to al-Qaida are preventing the aid from getting there.

Todd Nettleton with Voice of the Martyrs says Somalia is the biggest challenge. “The al-Shabaab militant terrorist group has made it a stated goal to completely rid the country of Christians. They literally are hunting down Christians, and anyone who is thought to be Christian or rumored to be a Christian is a potential target.”

Well-known Christian aid groups have been forced out of the country in areas where al-Shabaab cell groups are in power. Nettleton says: “There’s so much lawlessness. And in the midst of that, you have so many people who are starving to death. But the reality for someone who identifies themselves as a Christian to go in: they really paint a target on their back just to go into the country.”