What’s a living nativity scene without a little real-life drama to go along with it — that’s what local church officials and members are saying in hindsight. The Eagle River Presbyterian Church in Avon, Colorado was gearing up for its Wednesday night live nativity scene, an annual tradition, when two of the scene’s players went... Continue Reading

Two organizations with a combined 109 years of ministry experience have joined forces to plant churches among the unreached peoples of the Americas. A merger between Ameritribes and Pioneers was finalized in the fall of 2009. Ameritribes’ mission to plant churches among Native peoples without access to the Gospel fits with Pioneers’ church-planting movement. The... Continue Reading

Running back Herb Lush of the Philadlephia Eagles is the first player recorded as praying in the end zone after scoring a touchdown. Today as a result of successful evangelical ministries in every major sport, including the NASCAR circuit, it has become commonplace for athletes to visible show adoration of God and speak openly of... Continue Reading

A Kentucky Baptist children’s home is being sued by a public taxpayer group who want to stop state funding because the home is a ‘faith based agency’. After a series of back and forth decisions, the U.S. 6th Circuit voted to allow the lawsuit to continue and the home says it will appeal to the... Continue Reading

Pew Research Center Says: Mississippi First, Vermont/New Hampshire Last According to the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, there are many ways to define “religious.” But to give a sense of how the states stack up, they used polling data to rank them on four measures: the importance of religion in people’s... Continue Reading

Stars and angels may return to Christmas trees in Sonoma County government buildings in downtown Santa Rosa. Their reappearance, however, will be brief and moot. Most county offices are closing Thursday until Jan. 4. On Wednesday Acting Sonoma County Administrator Chris Thomas rescinded his directive on Monday to remove stars and angels from the trees.... Continue Reading

On the day before Christmas, Ralph Benson walked 5.2 miles, gave directions to countless lost souls, prayed spontaneously with a few dozen others and helped some guy find his connecting flight to Tokyo. In other words, a pretty typical workday, if you happen to work as the senior chaplain at Dulles International Airport on one... Continue Reading

Not long ago at a meeting of the nation’s religion writers in Minneapolis, reporters were seething about a particular no-show. President Obama’s point man on religion, Joshua DuBois, had been slated for months to address journalists about “Faith and Politics in the Obama White House.” Then, with less than two weeks to go before his... Continue Reading

Church membership is no longer a given. Many churches are weighing whether to redefine or even do away with church membership as a way to refocus the congregation’s values. Ken Neevel, Western Theological Seminary’s vice president of advancement and communication, says he’s seeing a shift, especially in independent churches. “Especially with the emphasis in recent... Continue Reading

Excavators for the first time have found the remains of a home from the time of Jesus in Nazareth, Israel’s Antiquities Authority announced Monday. Up until now, archaeologists only found tombs but not remains of homes from the time of Jesus in Nazareth, where he spent most of his life. Archaeologists, however, did not draw... Continue Reading