Conservative Presbyterians launched a new denomination on Thursday (Jan. 19), saying that the Presbyterian Church (USA) is too consumed by internal conflicts and bureaucracy to nurture healthy congregations.

“This ‘new Reformed body’ is intended to foster a new way of being the church, just as traditional, mainline denominations rose to serve in their day,” wrote leaders of the new Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians.

More than 2,000 people attended the ECO’s meeting in Orlando, Fla., this week, but a straw poll indicated that most have not yet decided whether to leave the PC(USA), according to the Presbyterian Outlook, an independent magazine.

The creation of the ECO follows the PC(USA)’s churchwide vote last year to lift its longtime ban on gay clergy. Though homosexuality is not mentioned in the ECO’s founding documents, its stated commitment to conservative theology and the inerrancy of the Bible indicates that gay clergy will not be tolerated.

The ECO also hopes to distinguish itself by creating peer review systems for churches, promoting leadership training, and instituting a less hierarchical form of government than the PC(USA), according to a statement.

Incoming congregations will be given the option of pursuing joint membership in both the PC(USA) and the ECO, or joining the ECO as full members, which would require dismissal from the PC(USA).

Several dozen congregations have already started to leave the PC(USA) to join another conservative denomination, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Unlike that denomination, the ECO says it is “fully committed” to allowing female clergy.

Though still the largest Presbyterian denomination in the U.S., the PC(USA) lost more than 500,000 members between 1998 and 2009, according to church statistics, and now has about 2 million members.

In a joint statement, eight PC(USA) elders pleaded with conservatives not to leave the denomination, even as they acknowledged tensions over the gay clergy decision.

“Do not allow one-sided presentations to be all you consider as you seek to discern God’s call to you and your congregation,” the elders wrote.

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The Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD – the German federation of Protestant churches) marked Reformation Day on 31 October with a soaring, whimsical approach to spreading Martin Luther’s message that the grace of God is available to all.

Across the country, schools, student organizations and church groups organized “flashmobs” that launched “blessings from above” — paper airplanes with inspirational messages. Most flew their gliders from windows or other high vantage points simultaneously at 15:17 (3:17 pm) in recognition of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation on 31 October, 1517.

At Humboldt University in Berlin, a flock of white paper airplanes glided from a high window and landed at the feet of students in the courtyard below. Each carried a message inside — “Wishing you good travel through the new semester” — or a verse from the Bible: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

“Many students in Berlin are not very conscious of their religious heritage and I think it’s a good idea to remind them,” said Julian Titze of the Evangelical Student Community (ESC) in Berlin, who took part in the flashmob.

Reformation Day is a holiday in some German states, though not in Berlin. “It is a very important historical date, but its messages are also very important today,” said Pastor Christoph Roemhild of the EKD in an interview before the event. “Reformation Day reminds us that we are not self-made men. A lot of people don’t feel blessed. They strive for recognition to make themselves bigger. But we want to tell them God already recognizes them.”

The date is also seen as an opportunity to maintain a commitment to keeping the Reformed churches in touch with the modern world. “The work of renewal did not finish in the 16th century,” the Rev. Setri Nyomi, general secretary of the World Communion of Reformed Churches, said in a statement. “We do not simply belong to a tradition. As Reformed, we believe the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ is a movement that continues to be renewed — always reforming.”

For the EKD, activities like the Reformation Day flashmobs are a way to keep the message fresh and communicate with a younger audience. “We have to develop new ways to reach people … to surprise people that the church is different from what they would expect,” said Holger Dannenmann, a pastor for ESC, in an interview in Humboldt’s 18th century courtyard.

Dorothee Lütz, studying for a master’s degree in philosophy, hurried to class at the end of her lunch break with a crumpled paper airplane in hand. “I saw it on the ground,” she explained. “It says, ‘Jesus loves you,’ and I thought that’s nice. It’s nice to be reminded of that.”

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A new study of Evangelical Christians in the United Kingdom showed recently that more than half of total respondents support the Allied intercession in Libya, but three-fourths were against the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The study, Does Belief Touch Society? was conducted by the Evangelical Alliance and Christian Research, to help provide a more comprehensive profile of U.K. Evangelical Christians in the 21^st century.

The survey was conducted online with over 1,000 Christian respondents hailing from various denominations including Charismatics, Methodists, Anglicans, Free Evangelicals, Pentecostals and the Church of Scotland.

The study follows up the breakthrough 21^st Century Evangelicals Survey conducted last year with some 17,000 respondents. Both studies are designed to look into Evangelicals’ behavior, habits, practices and beliefs.

Steve Clifford, general director of Evangelical Alliance said in the study’s introduction, “We hope that this report, by holding up a mirror, will inspire us to seek — and be certain of — God’s truth in our lives and our communities.”

Demographics

The respondents to the study are a balanced representation gender-wise and come from a wide range of churches. However, limitations to the study are the under-representation of ethnic minorities and youth. Most respondents are highly educated. Because of the study’s limitations, only raw figures were presented.

The study’s validity lies in its contribution to the unfolding of a full census of U.K. evangelicals that may, in due time, provide a more nationally-representative demographic.

Findings revealed the following:

Faith

Most evangelicals overwhelmingly prescribe to the central Christian belief of Jesus’ death for the sins of all men and his resurrection. Furthermore:

• 99 percent believe the message of the cross changed their lives.
• 91 percent believe Jesus rose with a physical body from the dead.
• 85 percent strongly believe that Christians have eternal life.
• 82 percent strongly believe the resurrection shapes how they live now.
• 78 percent strongly believe that they will have eternal life after they die.

Practice:

•  95 percent went to church on Easter Sunday, but only 65% went to church on Good Friday.
• 57 percent go to churches that participated in inter-church activities during Easter.
• 41 percent participated in an evangelical activity over Easter.
• 23 percent visited friends, family, or went on holiday during Easter.

Public life

The study showed that most respondents are active participants in public life, with one-fourth of the total being trustees in a registered charity, nine percent serving as school governors, and four in 100 being with a political party. Nine out of 10 respondents voted in the AV referendum (compared to the national turnout of 42 percent).

Clifford said, of the findings, “There is much to celebrate in this report. Evangelical Christians are not bystanders. We are actively involved in our communities. But yet we must also rise to the challenge presented to us by some of these figures.”

To download the complete study, go to http://www.eauk.org/snapshot/does-belief-touch-society.cfm.

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A Christian family that was expelled from their home village in Mexico—because of their evangelical faith–continues to stand firm in their beliefs.

The family of Sebastian Hernandez, which total 11 people (including children and grandchildren), lost their home, a tiny farm and its produce in Chilil, Huixtan because they refused to renounce their evangelical Christian beliefs.

A Christian family that was expelled from their home village in Mexico—because of their evangelical faith--continues to stand firm in their beliefs.

Hernandez, in sharing his experience, told Voice of the Martyrs,Canada, “There was a meeting of the local authorities, and they had finally had us come in and talk to them. [They] told us that we had to renounce our faith if we were to stay there, and people who did not practice the majority religion were not welcome there. But we said no, we were following the word of God.”

Experiences like that of the Hernandez family have been growing in numbers, with 21 expelled from Chilil, another 45 from the village of San Gregorio and 31 from Los Llanos. There have also been incidents of attacks upon evangelicals in Zapatista zones in Ocosingo, Las Margaritas and the Chiapas Highlands.

In the case of the Hernandez family, they and other Christian families were asked by local leaders to renounce their evangelical faith or they would be expelled. Two families recanted and were allowed to stay in the community. Three families, including the Hernandezes, refused.

Julia Maria Hernandez, Sebastian’s wife, had been dragged bodily the distance of 15 meters into the meeting. Her 20-year-old daughter, also named Julia, tried to defend her. Mother and daughter were threatened and manhandled.

The elder Julia Maria Hernandez told VOM Canada, “The police were pushing and shoving me, grabbed my arm and pulled it around and shouted at me and told me to get my things and get out.”

Evangelical Christians face great persecution in these villages, which can include vandalizing buildings where they meet, disconnecting water supply to evangelical Christian homes, beatings and death.

Last year, Mexico’s Commission of Human Rights denounced the violence in Chiapas state and issued recommendations to local authorities urging them to coexist with evangelicals in peace, and to respect their human rights.

Although the recommendations are not mandatory, it did set a precedent for other areas within the country where similar situations may arise.

The younger Julia Hernandez, 20, a single parent to two young children aged three and one, told VOM Canada, “I was physically threatened by the political representative here. He said that if he saw my face in San Cristobal that I would be sorry. I felt very bad because we met all of the obligations that were asked of us. The community service, we paid the fees and we did nothing wrong. We are hoping for justice from the community, and from the state authorities.”

Still, Julia echoes the stance of the rest of the family. She told VOM Canada, “I am very firm in my faith and I know Jesus saved me. And that is what I will continue with. Our God is great and I’m peaceful in trusting him.”

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A mural of the biblical story of Christ healing Bartimaeus is being taken down from a church wall in Philadelphia after 16 years, despite its being the work of a distinguished artist–and is now up for grabs.

The mural, entitled The Healing of Bartimaeus, is the handiwork of Lothar Speer, a German-born artist whose roster of clients including leading U.S. universities, sports teams, McDonald’s Corporation, The Museum of Modern Art, and Hyatt Corporations, among others.

Now his 13-by-28 foot canvas mural, which for some was “too edgy” and for others was “wonderful” will have to be taken down because Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bustleton, PA has been sold, and the new owners plan to break the wall to give more space for pews, according to the AP.

Rev. John Stabb, former pastor of Calvary Evangelical, who commissioned the work in 1993 told the AP, “I loved [the mural], and I love it, because I was so involved in its creation.”

Stabb, now based in Alaska, admitted to the AP that for others it was “Too edgy.” Some wondered why only the body of Jesus was seen, and not his face. But Stabb, 67, would tell them to see Jesus “in the faces of the people.”

Description

The mural only shows the body of Jesus, hovering over a panorama of various types of people including a bishop, thugs, Hasidic Jews, prostitutes, saints, etc. Also seen is Bartimaeus, swathed, like Jesus, in golden light. Further down, a city burns.

It is an ethereal interpretation of the biblical story in Mark 10: 46-52. For many, this makes it all the more compelling.

The painting took one year to complete, and was done first on canvas, and then glued to the drywall. Hundreds of screws were also used to attach it. At the time, Speer was pursuing an MFA at Pennsylvania Academy. The church paid him $15,000 for his work, the AP said.

Now, the new owners of the building, First Ukranian Evangelical Baptist Church, have told Speer that he is free to get his painting back. The artist asked if he could be given time. He told AP, “This is not like scraping off wallpaper.” He was given until Aug. 1 to take it down.

Taking it down could mean either steaming the canvas to detach it from the drywall, or removing both together. Portions of the canvas over every drywall screw will need to be repainted.

“It’s a wonderful piece of art,” Anton Michels of the German Society of Pennsylvania told the AP. He is helping Speer to remove the painting, and has contacted professionals to assist them in doing the job.

Speer told the AP that he is willing to donate the painting to any building in Philadelphia who would like to have it, whether it is a public building or another church. He would only charge for labor and touch ups that may be needed on remounting it.

It is quite an offer, from an artist whose bio includes the prestigious Johannes Fuger Medal from the National Academy of the Fine Arts inVienna, and who was a four-time art grant recipient in Chicago.

Speer’s work has also been exhibited in the Capitol Bldg. of Washington D.C., and in Basel, Salzburg and Vienna among others. His pieces form part of numerous private and public collections.

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The National Association of Evangelicals said in a statement that the move is detrimental to religious liberties and violates the country’s First Amendment.

Leith Anderson, president of NAE said, “Jews, Muslims, and Christians all trace our spiritual heritage back to Abraham. Biblical circumcision begins with Abraham. No American government should restrict this historic tradition. Essential religious liberties are at stake,” CNN reported.

Anderson also said, “The proposed ban violates the First Amendment’s guarantee to exercise one’s religious beliefs,” according to CNN.

While the Jewish and Islamic faiths necessitate circumcision of all believers, not all Christians are required to do so.

The originator of the measure promoting the ban is Matt Hess, who lives in San Diego and is the creator of a comic called Foreskin Man, which has been slammed by critics as being anti-Semitic.

Foreskin Man is a blond superhero who saves a baby boy from the evil, knife-wielding Monster Mohel, a character who wears a traditional Jewish prayer shawl and hat.

In the Jewish faith a mohel performs circumcisions.

Hess has denied that Foreskin Man is anti-Semitic, and claims that the comic is told from the point of view of a baby.

Hess tweeted, “People who forcefully cut the genitals of children are not reasonable. If they were reasonable, they would have stopped doing it by now.”

Hess, through his organization MGMbill, managed to gather 12,000 signatures of support, the number that is required for it to qualify being voted upon in the pending November ballot.

Under the proposed bill it will be “unlawful to circumcise, excise, cut, or mutilate the whole or any part of the foreskin, testicles, or penis,” of any person who is 17 years old or younger.

Anyone violating the law may face a penalty of one year in jail, or be fined a maximum of $1,000.

Sponsors of the bill claim that circumcision wreaks damaging psychological and physical effects on men, not unlike genital mutilation on women.

Many doctors disagree with this, however. Health benefits have been linked to circumcision and complications rarely occur. If ever, they are only temporary and usually minor.

By contrast, World Health Organization has said that there are no health benefits that are linked to female genital circumcision, and in fact there are long-term consequences including higher mortality rates of mothers and newborns, higher incidence of infection, difficulty urinating and fistulas.

Circumcision is widespread in the U.S., with 65 percent of male American infants being circumcised in the hospitals where they were born as of 1999, statistics from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate.

However, while the percentage of circumcisions nationwide remains steady, there has been a strong drop in the West by 64 percent in 1974, and then a 37 percent drop in 1999.

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Christian evangelical leaders of hundreds of organizations agreed recently in a conference in Hungary to strengthen cooperation among them to better address the economic and moral decline of Europe.

Some 500 participants in the HOPE•II congress, organized by Hope For Europe, met in Budapest to plan cooperative strategies to offset “deep poverty” and a “culture of death” in Europe, Jeff Fountain, congress director, told BosNewsLife.

Fountain told BosNewsLife, “Some 500 leaders returned home from the HOPE•II congress in Budapest a few days ago, buoyed with fresh perspectives” to lend “hope for Europe against a background of crisis and scandal embroiling European institutions.”

The participants in the four-day event came from some 40 European nations, and included artists, theologians, politicians, evangelists and pastors, according to BosNewsLife.

Some 20 talks were given by renowned Christian leaders, including world famous book authors such as Thomas Schirrmacher, Philip Jenkins, Os Guiness and Vishal Magalwadi, according to the congress website.

This is the second time Hope for Europe held its congress in Budapest (the first time was in 2002). The organization, which has  ties with the European Evangelical Alliance, seeks to network Christians of different professions across Europe, the website said.

The congress opened on May 9, which marks “Europe’s forgotten birthday,” Fountain said during the congress, adding, “Few Europeans are aware that on 9 May 1950 the first move was made towards the creation of what is now known as the European Union,” BosNewsLife reported.

Fountain said this was the day when “French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman surprised the world…by announcing a plan for France, Germany and other European countries to pool together their coal and steel production as ‘the first concrete foundation of a European federation,’” according to BosNewsLife.

However Fountain said Schuman “would be appalled by the false ethic of greed in the financial sector, and the ‘culture of death’ expressed in youth suicides, abortions, euthanasia, low birth rates, rising murder rates, [and] signs of deep spiritual poverty,” BosNewsLife reported.

Noting that Schuman envisioned “a community of peoples deeply rooted in Christian values,” the Penn State University historian said Europe’s roots are strongly linked to Christianity, BosNewsLife said.

The keynote speaker of the event, Philip Jenkins urged Evangelicals to remind Europeans of their Christian roots. “Look around you…at street names, religious holidays, flags, monuments, and you can’t avoid seeing how much Europe is rooted in a deeply Christian past,” BosNewsLife reported.

Jenkins also debunked as “myth” the belief that Europe would one day be filled with Muslim migrants, noting that birth rates of Muslims in Europe, and across the world, have fallen from six to 1.6 within the last quarter century, according to the website.

Jenkins blamed the fall in birthrate, which is the steepest ever recorded, to Europe’s secular lifestyle which makes it difficult to maintain sustainability, the website said.

Failed humanistic vision

Other speakers at the event cited the failure of the “humanistic vision of society and economy,” and noted the need to bring back to Europe biblical truths, according to the website.

During the congress, five HOPE awards were also given to ministries for their contribution in promoting hope, the website said. The recipients of the awards are: TopCretien.com (a Paris-based website), the Santa Clara Church in Stockholm (for inner city work), Sergey and Mariana Glushko (Teen Challenge, Kyiv), Patricia Green (Berlin-based work against trafficking) and Shirinai Dossova (for witnessing to communists and Muslims).

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New churches are booming in New York City today, but they do not cater so much to the unsaved, as to the un-churched, a study said.

The New York City Leadership Center, a nonprofit organization that studies developing Christian ministries, noted that in 1975 only 10 evangelical churches existed in Manhattan. By 2000, four out of every 10 was an Evangelical Christian church, and today there are more than 200.

People going to these churches

Thousands are drawn to these churches on Sundays, catering primarily to Christians who have left their home towns to go to bigger cities like New York, Christianity Today said.

According to the NYCLC website, there are vastly under-churched areas in Greater New York, and millions of people are drawn to the new Evangelical churches to fill their spiritual gaps and rediscover the faith they already have in them. However, there are still many more churches that need to be built to address migration.

David Fitch, associate professor of evangelical theology, Northern Baptist Seminary, agrees with NYCLC. He told Christianity Today that most churches, like the megachurch of Tim Keller, is reaching out to Christians who are pre–churched, but who are new to New York and who need a new place to worship.

Fitch told Christianity Today, “The attractional dynamics that often typif[y] these kinds of church planting depend largely on existing Christianized populations,” he wrote in a blog post in January.”

The changing trend in church goers is unmistakeable. In 2008 sociologist Scott Thumma of Hartford Seminary studied 400 megachurches and asked where their members came from. One out of five said they had either been un-churched for a long time, or had dropped out of church for several years then came back, Christianity Today said.

Keller, in a comment that he put in Thumma’s blog, noted that the first attendees in his church were indeed largely un-churched people, because there were so few evangelicals in Manhattan at that time (1980s).

Things changed in the 1990s and Keller said, “for every one New Yorker/secular person who came to Christ, we saw 2-3 others join who were coming from other churches. Without that, we would be a quarter to a third the size we are now,” Christianity Today reported.

Churches today in New York start and grow simply by bringing in Christians who are looking for a place where they can worship, rather than by evangelizing. Thumma told Christianity Today, “[A]lmost no one going to megachurches is truly from the ranks of the unsaved, or entirely unchurched.”

Intensify faith

This new trend does not mean that evangelical churches have a diminished purpose nor can it imply that the churches do not exert effort in ministering to unbelievers, Christianity today said.

By drawing in people who are already Christians, there is often the experience of having an intensified faith, a greater love of God. There is a feeling of conversion and a decision made, oftentimes, to become more serious in one’s faith.

Thumma, a co-author of The Other 80 Percent: Turning Your Church’s Spectators into Active Participants, sees this as a good thing and a good purpose for both older churches and newly-planted churches, Christianity Today said.

NYCLC views this as an opportunity to evangelize. Its web site said, “Our research among Christian financial industry leaders in Manhattan indicates that 2/3 of those surveyed are not actively integrating their faith with their vocation. The NYCLC seeks to gather Christ’s followers for fellowship, encouragement and engagement in exercising their faith and influence in every sector of society.”

Social networks

Many people in churches today are marginal, but they can be used by God to reach out to the un-churched, Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research in Nashville told Christianity Today.

Rodney Stark, co-director, Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, says a church needs strong members to grow, as these are the kinds who will invite friends and neighbors to church. He told Christianity Today, “Churches really are social networks.”

The need for leadership training of church members is also noted. NYCLC provides training and resources for ministry leaders who would not have the finances to pay for such training, Christianity Today said.

The circumstance lends room for the opportunity. Reaching the un-churched and empowering them through leadership training to reach non-Christians is an opportunity that is well presented in the current setting of migration.

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The powerful biography of a World War II Christian pastor from Germany who plotted to assassinate Hitler was named, recently, the Christian Book of the Year.

The book, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, authored by Eric Metaxas was awarded Christian Book of the Year by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, Charisma News said.

The book was published by Thomas Nelson Publishers in Mar. 2010, and marks the third consecutive time that this Nashville-based publishing firm landed the Christian Book of the Year Award, according to Christian Newswire.

The German theologian was executed by Hitler in April, 1945, because he was part of a plot to assassinate the Fuhrer.

Vice President Joel Miller of Nelson’s Acquisitions and Editorial for Nonfiction Trade Group told Christian Newswire, “Eric Metaxas presents a figure who speaks both to our times and to our spirits. It’s been an honor to work with him and a joy to see such a wide and eager reception of his important work.”

The book, which has been described as a “biography of uncommon power,” is a bestseller on several lists including the New York Times (on six separate occasions), and ECPA Top 50, according to Christian Newswire.

The biography was also featured in leading publications and television programs including the Wall St. Journal, Harpers, C-SPAN, the Washington Post, Christianity Today, NPR, Publishers Weekly, FoxNews and others, Christian Newswire said.

The book, which will be available in paperback form in the fall, also made six “Best of 2010” lists, among them Kirkus Reviews, Relevant, Barnes & Noble and Christianbook.com, according to Christian Newswire.

Mark Kuyper, ECPA president, said the award was given because of the quality of the biography and its popularity and achievements. “This is a great book that connects well with people [and] touched people’s hearts and minds,” Charisma news reported.

Other ECPA winners

Other ECPA winners are You Changed My Life (inspiration) by Max Lucado and published by Thomas Nelson; Almost Heaven (fiction) by Chris Fabry and published by Tyndale House Publishers; and The Action Bible Illustrated (children) edited by Doug Mauss and published by David C. Cook, Charisma News said.

Other ECPA awardees are Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Old Testament (bible reference) with John H. Walton as general editor and published by Zondervan; and HCSB Study Bible (bibles) with Jeremy Royal Howard and Edwin A. Blum as general editors and published by Holman Bible Publishers/B&H Publishing Group, Charisma News reported.

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Even as thousands of refugees from Tunisia have fled to a tiny island in Italy, causing dispute among some EU nations, Evangelicals are helping to minister to them by distributing aid and Bibles.

Some 26,000 illegal immigrants from Tunisia crossed the Mediterranean in tiny boats in the last few weeks, causing what some officials in Italy call a “human tsunami,” the AP reported.

Italy has said it will grant six-month permits for residency to the migrants, providing a chance for them to try to settle in neighboring countries through Europe’s visa-free Schengen zone, the AP said.

Not everyone is happy about this. France, in an unprecedented move, set up guards along the Italian border and Germany said it may follow suit, the AP reported. France is only willing to honor permits of those migrants who have evidence of financial resources.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the Tunisians should be repatriated adding, “There is no rule that says that illegal economic migrants should be welcomed here and allowed to travel freely in Europe,” the AP reported.

In response, Italy’s interior minister Roberto Maroni said it seemed pointless to be a part of the EU if the nations within it could not collaborate on this and other issues, the AP said.

Tunisia has undergone great destabilization recently, due to an uprising that culminated last January in deposing its longtime
president, according to the AP.

Meanwhile, the Evangelical Alliance Italy is collaborating with the island’s local authorities in assisting the migrants and helping them in fostering good relations with the local community, Christian Today said.

According to Christian Today, Lampedusa, which is only 75 miles away from the coast of Tunisia, has long been a point of arrival for North African illegal immigrants who are seeking a better life in Europe.

With the unrest that is prevailing in North Africa, some 50,000 migrants are expected to try to enter the island, according to Christian Today. In a statement, the Evangelical Alliance in Italy said this is a great opportunity to share the gospel.

The migrants are willing to risk grave danger to leave their countries. The AP said that last Thursday two women drowned when their boat, loaded with 250 migrants, went off course then landed on Italy’s Pantelleria island.

In another incident, a boat with some 300 illegal immigrants capsized, the AP said, and only 50 of them survived. EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso is urging Tunisia to take their citizens back.

Christian volunteers are doing what they can for migrants in both Lampedusa and a migrant center in Mineo, Sicily, by providing aid and distributing bibles and Christian literature, Christian Today said.

They are also counseling the migrants and sharing the love of Jesus in suitable ways, Christian Today reported. The alliance is seeking prayer and joint cooperation in cultural mediation and humanitarian assistance, “in the hope that God will open further
Gospel opportunities,” according to Christian Today.

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