Tag Archive | "ministry"

Megadeth star David Ellefson takes thrash metal—and seminary—on tour

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As new students wandered onto the campus of Concordia Seminary last September, they were joined by another group of theological rookies — mostly midcareer types — joining the school’s program that allows students to train for the ministry online.

As the consultants, electricians, farmers and entrepreneurs in the Specific Ministry Pastor Program met up before reconnecting online from hundreds or thousands of miles away in the coming weeks, one student’s story truly rocked.

David Ellefson was an honest-to-God founding member of the legendary thrash metal band Megadeth.

Ellefson’s studies at Concordia illustrate why distance-learning seminary programs are increasingly popular nationwide as the convenience of online education brings new candidates to divinity schools who don’t have to uproot their lives to attend.

But for Ellefson, his new quest for the ministry is also about a peculiar foray through the apparent contradictions of rock and religion that began in his childhood.

Ellefson grew up in the church. Each Sunday, his family drove from their farm in southwest Minnesota to Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, where David attended Sunday school and was confirmed at age 16. His mother sang in the choir; his father was active on the building committee.

Just a few years after his confirmation in the summer of 1983, Ellefson moved to Los Angeles. Within a week, he had formed a band and named it Megadeth for the unit of measurement equal to the death of 1 million people by nuclear explosion.

Soon, he was playing bass on stage in front of thousands of heavy metal fans in New York with other bands like Metallica and Slayer. In 1985, Megadeth released its first album, “Killing Is My Business … And Business Is Good!”

In the 1980s and 1990s, Megadeth gained a reputation for an intelligent take on heavy metal, earning several Grammy Award nominations, and was known for its album covers, many of which depicted a character named Vic Rattlehead, a skeleton whose eyes, ears and mouth were fused closed with metal.

But by the time Ellefson was 25, the rock star lifestyle had caught up to him. In a 12-step recovery program, he was reintroduced to his faith and embraced it. He moved to Arizona, married and had children. He eventually landed at Shepherd of the Desert Lutheran Church, a Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod congregation in Scottsdale.

“I came from a good family, not a broken home,” said Ellefson, 47. “That became a model for me, and I saw church at (the) center of it.”

The Rev. Jon Bjorgaard, pastor of Shepherd of the Desert, asked Ellefson to start a contemporary worship service. Ellefson began to use lyrics from the Old Testament as a springboard for song writing, penning praise music and worship songs with a soft-rock hook.

“For a Christmas service, I remixed some classics, not quite in a Megadeth fashion, but in a pretty heavy rock fashion,” Ellefson said.

Combining his musical abilities and his faith led Ellefson to a deeper exploration of Christianity, he said. And it led him to start a new music ministry within the walls of Shepherd of the Desert.

He called it MEGA Life, partially a play on Megadeth. But it’s also a reference to a verse from the Gospel of John: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

MEGA Life became so popular that Shepherd of the Desert bought a new space for the ministry. Last year, Bjorgaard asked Ellefson and MEGA Life director Jeremy DaPena to enroll in Concordia’s Specific Ministry Pastor Program.

“Most people want to become a rock star,” Bjorgaard said. “David’s a rock star who wants to become a pastor.”

After two years at Concordia, Ellefson will be eligible for ordination, something he hopes will happen. “People take you more seriously when you’ve gone through the proper training to be able to help them,” he said.

David Wollenburg, director of Concordia’s distance learning, said more than 100 students are enrolled in the program, which is limited to students who have been sponsored by someone already working in the ministry. Classes include “Lutheran Distinctions,” “Preaching I & II,” “Introduction to Worship” and “Scripture and Faith.”

Wollenburg said students are as young as 35 and as old as late 60s, and their interests are just as varied — from church planting to inner-city ministries. Students return to campus every so often for “residential retreats.”

The trend of distance learning at divinity schools “is definitely growing,” said Eliza Brown of the Association of Theological Schools, the accreditation body for U.S. seminaries. But there is some debate about its merits, she said.

“Some feel you can’t be adequately formed as a church leader unless you’re engaged in a residential program that has serious face-to-face formation components,” she said. Despite that concern, 124 seminaries accredited by the organization offer some form of distance education.

As Megadeth kicks off a new tour with Motorhead, Ellefson plans to tackle his studies during down time on the Megadeth tour bus with his laptop and some books. He’s under no illusion about how difficult it will be.

“This is going to be the acid test,” he said.

Classes begin each Monday, and on Tuesday nights, Ellefson and eight other students wired in from around the country sit in on a two-hour live session with a professor teaching from a Concordia classroom. Once a week, he meets with Bjorgaard to discuss that week’s work. Finally, late in the week, he uploads his homework for the professor to grade.

“It makes higher education possible for me,” he said. “As a guy my age, to be involved in any kind of higher learning is a great thing. And so far, it’s worked.”

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Sudan Threatens to Arrest Church Leaders

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Sudan’s Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments has threatened to arrest church leaders if they carry out evangelistic activities and do not comply with an order for churches to provide their names and contact information, Christian sources said.

The warning in a Jan. 3 letter to church leaders of the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC) arrived a few days after Sudan President Omar al-Bashir told cheering crowds on Jan. 3 that, following the secession of largely non-Islamic south Sudan last July, the country’s constitution will be more deeply entrenched in sharia (Islamic law).

“We will take legal procedures against pastors who are involved in preaching or evangelistic activities,” Hamid Yousif Adam, undersecretary of the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowment, wrote to the church leaders. “We have all legal rights to take them to court.”

Sources said the order was aimed at oppressing Christians amid growing hostilities toward Christianity.

“This is a critical situation faced by our church in Sudan,” said the Rev. Yousif Matar, secretary general of the SPEC.

Another church leader said the order was another in a series of measures by the government to control churches.

“They do not want pastors from South Sudan to carry on any church activities or mission work in Sudan,” he said.

Sudanese law prohibits missionaries from evangelizing, and converting from Islam to another religion is punishable by imprisonment or death in Sudan, though previously such laws were not strictly enforced. The government has never carried out a death sentence for apostasy, according to the U.S. State Department’s latest International Religious Freedom Report.

Christians are facing growing threats from both Muslim communities and Islamist government officials who have long wanted to rid Sudan of Christianity, Christian leaders told Compass. They said Christianity is now regarded as a foreign religion following the departure of 350,000 people, most of them Christians, to South Sudan following the July 9, 2011 secession.

Sudan’s Interim National Constitution (INC) holds up sharia as a source of legislation, and the laws and policies of the government favor Islam, according to the state department report. Christian leaders said they fear the government is tightening controls on churches in Sudan and planning to force compliance with Islamic law as part of a strategy to eliminate Christianity.

As he has several times in the past year, Al-Bashir on Jan. 3 once again warned that Sudan’s constitution will be more firmly entrenched in sharia.

“We are an Islamic nation with sharia as the basis of our constitution,” he told crowds in Kosti, south of Khartoum. “We will base our constitution on Islamic laws.”

His government subsequently issued the decree ordering church leaders to provide names and contact information of church leaders in Sudan, sources said. Christian leaders said the government is retaliating for churches’ perceived pro-West position.

Muslim scholars have urged heavy-handed measures against Christians to Al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Hostilities

Christians in (north) Sudan celebrated last Christmas amid several threats from officials in Khartoum, and some followers of Christ were arrested for their faith, sources said.

Yasir Musa of the Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) was arrested along with two other church members by national security agents in Khartoum on Dec. 23; they were detained because they were Christians and therefore suspected supporters of southern military forces. Released shortly afterward, they said authorities threatened to arrest them again if they did not comply with orders not to carry out Christian activities in the Islamic nation.

SCOC leaders said they have complained to the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments and were told that the three were arrested for security reasons.

In another case, sources said that Islamic militias loyal to the government in civilian uniform abducted a church leader and two church members as they were returning from a worship service and demanded $1,000 in ransom. They were released after two days, according to Christian sources in Khartoum.

Christians in Khartoum increasingly fear arrests by militias loyal to the Islamic government, the sources said.

Security agencies in Khartoum have also ordered local Christians not to organize Bible exhibitions, as some churches have done annually, the sources said.

The pressures on Christians come as war in Sudan’s South Kordofan state has led leaders there and in North Kordofan to incite hatred against Christians, with officials in both states calling for holy war against the predominantly Christian Nuba people.

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Crystal Cathedral is cautionary tale for pastors

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The cash-strapped Crystal Cathedral’s pending transformation from a Protestant megachurch to a Roman Catholic cathedral should teach pastors not to spend millions on ornate buildings, a megachurch scholar says.

A bankruptcy judge on Thursday (Nov. 17) approved of the sale of the iconic cathedral to the Catholic Diocese of Orange, Calif., for $57.5 million.

“They don’t want to sink countless millions into building larger and more elaborate buildings,” said Scott Thumma, a sociologist of religion at Hartford Seminary.

Thumma said the huge debt that led officials of the Southern California ministry to accept the sale of their 35-acre campus reflects what happens when a prominent pastor, a television ministry, or an iconic structure becomes the focal point. Leaders retire and die; television gives the congregation an unrealistic larger-than-life image; and buildings become a drag on finances.

After a bidding war between nearby Chapman University and the Diocese of Orange, the judge agreed with the cathedral board’s choice to take the diocese’s offer—even though it was $2 million less—to ensure that the campus continues to have a religious purpose.

The diocesan deal permits worship to continue on-site for another three years and other religious activities for 18 months. Senior Pastor Sheila Schuller Coleman said the decision “breaks my heart.”

“If it’s God’s will for us to move, we believe it will be where he needs us most. It does not mean that our ministry will be diminished,” the daughter of founder Robert H. Schuller said in a statement. “Crystal Cathedral church is not a building.”

Bishop Tod Brown of the Orange diocese acknowledged the “difficult circumstances” facing the ministry founded by the elder Schuller in 1955.

“Those challenges have now enabled the Diocese of Orange to protect this wonderful structure as a place of worship and will soon provide our Catholic community with a new cathedral, pastoral center, parish school and more,” Brown said in a statement.

Known for its “Hour of Power” television broadcasts and elaborate holiday pageants, the glass-walled Crystal Cathedral has been mired in family, leadership and financial turmoil in recent years.

Thumma said the trend of large churches using multiple satellite sites instead of one large edifice is validated by the outcome of the bankruptcy deal.

“To fill this space and maintain this space takes over the effort to spread the gospel and to live out the Christian mission,” he said.

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Circus ministry is a high-wire act of faith for chaplain

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With a stairwell for a confessional and a folding table for an altar, the lobby of the DCU Center arena here, about 40 miles west of Boston, doesn’t look especially holy ― until a band of circus workers gathers for Mass.

That’s when the Rev. Jerry Hogan dons a colorful chasuble festooned with images of big tops, lions and zebras. As he administers the Eucharist, off-duty performers help sanctify the space by kneeling on the marble floor, praying and breaking spontaneously into Portuguese song. The event is no act, even if it is associated with a three-ring circus.

After months of living together on a train and performing hundreds of shows a year, these 50 Catholic circus workers and their children are a beaming bunch as they hug the priest and nuns who’ve prepared them for this day. “This gives me a way to know Jesus and to be protected,” said trapeze artist Ingrid Silva as she prepared for the sacrament.

The Circus and Traveling Show Ministries of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops provides the spiritual lifeblood for about 4,500 Catholics who work in North America’s 41 traveling circuses, as well as thousands more who work in carnivals, rodeos and auto racing.

Since the workers’ lives are too transient to allow many of them to get to church, the church instead comes to them. Now the ministry is being reformed to depend less on religious professionals and more on laypeople.

For years, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus employed nuns as teachers for circus workers’ children; they led religious programs for adults on their own time. Circus employment has now ended for Sisters Dorothy Fabritze and Bernard Overkamp, who are leaving to travel with other circuses, staying a few weeks to train workers to serve as religious educators and relying on donations to sustain their ministry.

“We’ve had others come forward, in this circus and other circuses by the grace of God, and say, ‘We want to do what the sisters are doing,’” Fabritze said. “We’ll help them organize classes and find out what people are asking for.”

As the ministry gets revamped, circus workers are pausing to give thanks and consider the importance of church outreach. Call it the high-wire effect: something bad could happen any night, and they want to be right with God if it does.

Consider Paulo Cesar, a 27-year-old Brazilian dwarf who rides a motorcycle in a death-defying loop-de-loop. A few hours before showtime, he availed himself of four sacraments ― confession, baptism, confirmation and first Communion ― as he grinned widely. “Anything can happen on the motorcycle or the trampoline,” he said. “But my job is good because I have Jesus in my heart.”

For some, the ministry also helps build much-needed virtues. Hungarian national Sandor Eke, 35, has been on the road as a fire-juggling clown for 14 years. He’s needed to develop patience, he said, for living out of a 6-by-10-foot room in a train car. He married a fellow circus performer, but after they divorced, he had to work every night with his ex-wife until she left the circus two years later.

“Here, in a train, you have to work with (your ex-wife), you have to dance with her,” Eke said. “It’s a lot more difficult than in any other relationship … The sisters teach us to read the Bible, to analyze it, to ask what would Jesus do. It just helps me to calm down.”

The Circus and Traveling Show Ministries have evolved with the industry since taking root in 1928, when a monsignor started blessing the train. Soon after, Boston priest Ed Sullivan began officiating at weddings for circus workers. Hogan, who’s been fascinated with the circus ever since he went backstage as a child, has been president and chaplain since 1993.

Today’s circus is an international display of talent, with many performers hailing from Latin America and Eastern Europe. “I smile in a lot of languages,” Hogan said. But behind the smile is admiration for the sacrifices circus workers make in order to give audiences a couple of hours of enjoyment.

“When they’re performing, the arena is a sacred place,” Hogan said. “It’s their temple. It’s where people come to be entertained and forget about what’s going on in their life … My job is to help enhance their skills with a support system.”

As part of his traveling ministry, Hogan takes brief breaks from his full-time priestly duties at St. Michael parish in North Andover, MA. He travels on a shoestring budget, often staying with priests or monks. When the circus comes to the Northeast, he invites workers to his parish, where some park their circus vehicles for several days. If they need a mechanic, a dentist or new eyeglasses, he steers them to merchants who won’t take advantage.

“If their car breaks down, a guy could be shady and say, ‘Oh, you’re with the circus?’ and charge them an extra $200,” Hogan says. “You’re always dealing with these subtle prejudices. So they say, ‘Father Jerry, can you get me a mechanic?’ And I do.”

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Church Faces Increasing Hostility in Sudan

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Emboldened by government calls for a Sudan based on Islamic law since the secession of South Sudan, Muslims long opposed to a church near Khartoum have attacked Christians trying to finish constructing their building, sources said.
The Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) congregation in Omdurman West, across the Nile River from Khartoum, has continued to meet for Sunday worship in a building without a roof in spite of opposition from area Muslims and local authorities, the sources told Compass. Claiming that Christianity was no longer an accepted religion in the country, Muslims in the Hay al Sawra, Block 29 area of Omdurman West on Aug. 5 attacked SCOC members who were constructing the church building, the sources said.
“We do not want any presence of churches in our area,” shouted members of the mob as they threw stones at the Christians, the sources said.
Muslims in the north, where an estimated 1 million Christians still live following the secession of South Sudan on July 9, fear the potential influence of the church, they said.
“They want to reduce or restrict the number of churches, so that they can put more pressure on believers,” said a church leader on condition of anonymity.
The SCOC has been trying to erect a church building on the site since it obtained the land in 1997, but both government officials and area Muslim residents have used delay tactics to prevent it, according to a Christian who lives in the area. The SCOC in that area of Omdurman is still trying to get permission from the Islamic government in Khartoum to construct the new church building, Christian sources in Khartoum said.
Muslims and local “popular committees” – responsible for issuing residence certificates necessary for obtaining citizenship or an ID card, with authority to strike down proposals for erecting church buildings – assert that no church is necessary because there are no Christians there. But there are many Christians living in the area, sources said.
The government-appointed members of the popular committees tend to consist of radical Muslims who monitor Christian activities in neighborhoods so they can report them to security authorities, Christian sources told Compass. Previously, area Christians were upset to learn that the popular committees had divided another piece of land they hoped to obtain into two lots – one designated for a mosque, and the other for a Muslim school, sources said.
“We have already raised our objection over the way we are being treated in regards to obtaining permission to build this church,” said a church leader who wished to remain unnamed.
The church had filed a complaint with the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments, which last month informed the SCOC that officials will investigate the matter, though they gave no time frame.
 
Meantime, the congregation finds that rain or whirling dust makes worship difficult, members said.
“I think we have much experience in how difficult it is to obtain permission for new church buildings in this country,” said a Christian leader who requested anonymity.
All religious groups must obtain permits from the Ministry of Guidance and Social Endowments, the state ministry of construction and planning and the local planning office before constructing new houses of worship, according to the U.S. Department of State’s 2010 International Religious Freedom Report.
 
Earlier this month, Sudan President Omar al-Bashir again asserted that the government has decided that Sudan will have a strictly Islamic identity. Al-Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in Darfur, made the statement to leaders of his party in Khartoum on Oct. 12.
Last December, one month before South Sudan’s vote for independence, Al-Bashir declared that if the south seceded as expected, Sudan would amend its constitution to make sharia (Islamic law) the only source of law and Arabic the official language.
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Crystal Cathedral frontrunner bidders are university, Catholic diocese

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The leading bidders for the Crystal Cathedral in Orange County appear to be a University and a Roman Catholic diocese, but a new buyer (unnamed in court documents) appears to be coming into the picture, among other bidders.

Meanwhile, Crystal Cathedral Ministry is still hoping to keep the cathedral and is trying to raise the funds through pledges and donations. It also announced that the campus is not for sale, putting it directly against its creditors committee.

The creditors committee allowed the cathedral to choose a buyer at a minimum purchase price of $50 million. However, failure of the church to cooperate may mean losing out on buyback options, and perhaps, having to leave the cathedral sooner that it was expecting to.

Front-runner bidders

Chapman University and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange are in stiff competition for the bankrupt Crystal Cathedral. Court documents that were filed last Tuesday also state that a third, unnamed buyer has emerged.

Bids have also been lodged by Hobby Lobby, a nationwide retailer of arts and crafts which is controlled by David Green, an evangelical Christian; and My Father’s House Church International, which is Norco-based. The documents did not mention who the new potential bidder is.

Crystal Cathedral, a 31-year-old church with 10,000 panels of glass, became known internationally through its Hour of Power television program. In October last year the ministry filed for bankruptcy after accumulating a $50 million debt.

The church, which lies in Garden Grove city, 30 miles from Los Angeles, was founded in 1955 by Rev. Robert Schuller and wife Arvella. They started out by renting a drive-in theater for services, and continued to grow and prosper until Robert Schuller retired in 2006. (See http://theundergroundsite.com/index.php/2011/07/crystal-cathedral-mulls-50-million-offer-from-roman-catholic-church-16749/ and http://theundergroundsite.com/index.php/2011/05/crystal-cathedral-sold-to-pay-off-creditors-16086/).

Diocese of Orange

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange upped its original bid of $50 million to $53.6 million. Crystal Cathedral’s ministry may also rent space temporarily, but would have to vacate after three years.

Stephen Bohannon, diocese spokesman, said the original plan of the diocese was to build a new cathedral which would have cost $100 million. However, they realized that they could cut expenses in half by simply purchasing the Crystal Cathedral.

Bohannon told Reuters that the slash in costs is part of the reason why Bishop Tod Brown and diocese officials made the offer. Also, “[Bishop Brown] feels very strongly that Crystal Cathedral should remain a place of worship.”

Chapman University

Chapman University, a rival bidder, upped its original bid of $46 million to $50 million, the minimum bid required by the creditors’ committee. The University is an affiliate of Disciples of Christ, a Protestant denomination.

The University is also offering the services of two individuals with “extensive experience in business, financial and operational strategy,” at no charge, a service valued at $500,000 annually.

Chapman also said it may lower the repurchase price from $23.5 million to $21 million if Crystal Cathedral is able to repurchase the property, and may consider a longer lease term to Crystal Cathedral than its original proposal of 15 years, but this would be subject to approval.

Church ministry wants to stay put

Crystal Cathedral ministry said less recently that they will try to raise $50 million so that they will not have to sell the cathedral. Sheila Coleman, director of the ministry and daughter of Robert Schuller made this announcement during service less than two weeks before.

Coleman said, “I believe with every fiber of my being that God turned the eyes of the world on Crystal Cathedral because God wants to make a big bold statement,” Reuters reported. “He wants the world to know that he is a God who still does miracles.”

The creditors committee, however, issued a warning that it would proceed with a sale even if the ministry is against it, court documents said. It is also possible that the final deal might not include provisions for repurchase or lease-back.

 

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Christian leaders in Alabama file lawsuit against state immigration law

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Christian leaders filed recently a lawsuit challenging Alabama’s new law on immigration, which they fear may affect their freedom to exercise their religion by being Good Samaritans.

Rev. Mitchell Williams,First United Methodist Church (Cullman, Ala.), Roman Catholic Archbishop Thomas Rodi of Mobile, and Andy Heis, pastor of Desperation Church (a new, nondenominational church) in Cullman, filed a lawsuit against HB-56, Alabama’s new anti-immigration law, saying it is mean spirited and inconsistent with Christian ministry values.

“The law,” Archbishop Thomas Rodi of Mobile told the New York Times, “attacks our core understanding of what it means to be a church.”

Andy Heis, pastor of the nondenominational Desperation Church told New York Times, “I understand legally where they’re coming from. But spiritually, I have to do what God calls me to do.”

The law has gathered much ire. The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit earlier in the month challenging the Alabama law and stating that it is in conflict with federal immigration policy.

Education groups, civil rights groups and women’s rights groups have also challenged the law through an amicus brief in support of the federal lawsuit challenging the state’s anti-immigrant law which was passed in June.

The measure was signed into law by Republican Gov. Robert Bentley. It is the most recent among a number of anti-immigrant laws passed in other states that were patterned after Arizona’s SB 1070.

The other states with similar laws are Georgia, Utah, Indiana and South Carolina. However, it is only in Alabama where organized opposition was raised against the state by high ranking church leaders.

Harshest in the nation

The Alabama law, deemed by many to be the harshest in the nation, empowers local police officers to investigate non-criminals for their immigration status, including people they have pulled aside for traffic violations.

School officials are required under the law to gather information on the citizenship of students. The law further deems illegal the transport, harboring and rental of property to people who are known to be illegal immigrants. Any contracts with such will be rendered null under the new law.

Church leaders say this will put them at risk if they offer rides to people, invite them to church or perform baptisms and marriages. In this way, it criminalizes basic facets of a Christian ministry’s practice.

Rev. Andrew Dawkins, Montgomery Improvement Association, told People’s World, “We’re totally against this bill because it’s an abuse of political power. It’s even more dehumanizing than the segregation laws under the Jim Crow era. It’s a hateful law and doesn’t respect people. In fact, it’s a ploy to undermine the Obama administration.”

Defenders of the new law say that the provisions apply more to human traffickers and employers trying to get around the law, rather than to churches.

“It’s not as explicit as the churches would obviously like,” state Sen. Bryan Taylor, a Republican, told New York Times. “But I do not think that any church or any clergyman is subject to prosecution for doing their Christian mission.”

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Christian pastor writes book on church planting in the U.S., using principles he culled from working with Christians in North Korea

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A Christian pastor released recently a book on how to plant churches and spread the gospel in the free world, by using tips he culled from his personal experience working with underground Christian churches in North Korea.

Rev. Eric Foley, pastor of  W Evangelical Church of Colorado Springs and Seoul, Korea, released the book, Church is for Amateurs: A Guide for “Fourth Order” Christians like You on How to Plant and Lead a Lay Church.

Foley got the idea for his book by working with underground Christian churches in North Korea. He notes that while church buildings and full time, salaried pastors are the basic disciple tools in the U.S.,  in North Korea, these are illegal and unavailable.

“When you’re ministering to North Korean Christians, you realize quickly that the tools that are fundamental to Christian discipleship in the West just aren’t available to help you. Church buildings are illegal in North Korea. Paid, full-time pastors become ‘instant inmates’ in North Korea’s concentration camps,” Foley said.

“When more than two or three gather together — even in somebody’s home in the middle of the night — the police show up. Bibles are confiscated instantly, and the people who possess them end up dead,” Foley said.

Foley said this has been common in church history as well. He told The Christian Post, “Throughout history churches have had to do discipleship with far more restrictions and this has caused them to be much more focused on growing individual believers into the fullness of Christ.”

Foley, who is co-founder  and CEO of Seoul USA, has, for more than 20 years, trained some 1,300 Christian NGOs and churches. Through their ministry Voice of the Martyrs/Korea, the Foleys also support North Korea’s underground churches and assist North Korean Christians who have managed to migrate to the South.

“Our modern western way of making disciples and being church is the historical oddity,” Foley said. “The North Korean situation of empty-handed discipleship in the face of intense persecution is the norm.”

Foley lists down 12 principles in church growth in his book. He notes, for example, that there is more depth of faith in a persecuted environment, because the situation requires it.

Because church buildings are illegal, faith revolves more around families and homes. Church members must be multitasked and be able to do all ministry functions in a persecuted environment, unlike churches in the U.S. where staff performs specific jobs.

Foley also notes in his book that prosperity can make a church weak, while a persecuted environment can purify a church. Furthermore, there is a difference between freedom of religion and freedom in Christ.

For example, in the U.S. there is freedom of religion. However, in persecuted environments such as North Korea, there is a keen understanding of the meaning of freedom in Christ.

Freedom and affluence are not bad things, Foley says, but they can hinder church growth, as opposed to the blood of martyrs which, through time, has been shown to become the seed of the church.

Foley contends in his book that if Christians in the U.S. come to understand these distinctions, and integrate the 12 principles outlined in his book, the church in the U.S. can grow and become stronger.

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Kidnapped Christian girl in Sudan escapes, traumatized

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KHARTOUM, Sudan, August 3 (Compass Direct News) – Hiba Abdelfadil Anglo, 16, has escaped from a gang of Muslims who kidnapped her last year, but it may be a long time before she recovers from the trauma.

As she told Compass how the kidnappers beat, raped and tried to force her to convert from Christianity to Islam, she broke into tears for nearly half an hour.
“They did many bad things to me,” she said, tears streaming down her eyes.
Abducted on June 17, 2010, she was reunited with her family on July 10.
“Several times I was warned that if I do not convert to Islam, then I risk losing my life,” she said. “The man who put me in his house on several occasions tortured me and threatened to kill me. He did not allow me to pray Christian prayers. He even insulted my family as a family of infidels.”
Hiba said that after a year of captivity, she had given the unidentified man who housed her enough of an impression that she had converted to Islam and accepted her fate that he left her unguarded. She was able to leave the house in the Soba Al Aradi area south of Khartoum and beg a motorist to take her to her home two hours away, she said.
“I had tried to escape three times before, but they captured me every time and beat me a lot,” she said, sobbing.
Her widowed mother, Ikhlas Omer Anglo, told Compass the kidnappers targeted them because they are Christians, members of Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church in Khartoum. The girl’s mother said that when she went to a police station to open a case, officers told her she must first leave Christianity for Islam.
“Right after my daughter was kidnapped, one officer told me, ‘If you want back your daughter, you should become a Muslim,’” she said. “I thank God for enabling my daughter to escape before the start of Ramadan, though she is now traumatized.”
 
Hiba said the kidnappers moved her to various locations in Khartoum over the initial eight months, threatening to kill her if she tried to escape.
“Even if you call the government, they will not do anything to us,’’ her abductors warned her, she said.
She was initially locked in a room and beaten until she was unconscious. The leader of the group raped her, and she is still suffering pain in her right eye from a blow he recently dealt her, she said.
“Apart from abusing me sexually, he tried to force me to change my faith and kept reminding me to prepare for Ramadan,” she said. “I cannot forget this bad incident, and whenever I try to pray, I find it difficult to forget. I ask believers to pray for me for inner healing.’
 
At the same time, Hiba said prayer was the only effective option while in captivity.
 
“I was praying to God to keep me and my family safe,” she said.
Last year the then-15-year-old Hiba was kidnapped while going to the Ministry of Education in Khartoum to obtain her transcripts for entry into secondary school.
“One of the kidnappers was monitoring me as I was going to the Ministry of Education,” she said. “He pretended to have been working in the Ministry of Education.”
Two days after she was abducted, the family received threatening telephone calls and SMS (text) messages from the kidnappers telling them to pay 1,500 Sudanese pounds (US$560) in order to secure her return.
 
“Don’t you want to have this slave back?” one of the kidnappers told her mother from an unknown location by cell phone, Anglo said. She lost her job after taking time off to search for her missing daughter last year, she said, as her employer initially gave her time off in order to seek her daughter but later used the absence as a pretext for firing her.
“It is good that those who prayed for us to know that their prayers were answered, and that my daughter is back at home with me,” Anglo said. “I also need prayers because I am jobless since the time my daughter was kidnapped.”
 
Hoping to study to be an accountant after missing an academic year, Hiba said her future is unknown as her family is unable to afford school. She also fears the Muslim criminals might still be trailing her.
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South Korean court allows refugee status to three Iranian converts

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A court in Seoul, Korea granted recently refugee status to three Iranians who had converted from Islam to Christianity while they were living in the country.

The Seoul Administrative Court determined in its ruling that the three Iranians would face strong persecution if they returned to their home country.

For this reason, the SAC made an unprecedented move by reversing a previous decision of the Justice Ministry to deny asylum to the three Iranians, who filed their lawsuits individually in protest of the Justice Ministry decision.

Many nationals of Islamic countries have sought—and received—refugee status after fleeing their nations to escape harsh persecution for apostasy, or changing religions in their home countries.

Expatriates, under the United Nations convention, are allowed to get refugee status in another country if the person fears persecution in his own country because of his religion, race, or political view.

However, the case of the three Iranians is precedent setting because the Muslims converted to Christianity after they had arrived in South Korea.

Included among the complainants is R (pseudonym), a 40-year-old man, who arrived in South Korea in 2000. He began to attend a Christian church, and two years after, in 2008, was baptized.

That year, he applied for refugee status on the grounds that he would be oppressed if he returned to his home country. His request was declined two years later.

The SAC determined that there was strong evidence that R would be persecuted severely in his home country, “given that R’s family and friends are expressing strong reluctance to accept his religious conversion,” Yonhap News reported.

The SAC said in its decision, “For the past years, persecution against Christians has worsened in Iran and the criminal law was revised in 2008 to allow capital punishment on those who convert to Christianity from Islam,” according to Yonhap News.

Sources:

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2011/07/27/41/0302000000AEN20110727005700315F.HTML

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