by | Apr 9, 2024 | Uncategorized
On an island where Buddhist disaster relief is prominent, Christians work with churches to care for children and families.
When a 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit the east coast of Taiwan Wednesday morning, Carissa Wang, branding communication director of World Vision Taiwan, was on the Taipei subway on her way to work. She felt the carriage sway more than usual, and then it stopped at the next station as an announcement alerted passengers that service had ended due to an earthquake.
Wang and her World Vision colleagues immediately began putting disaster relief protocols into action, assembling their emergency team and reaching out to local government officials to coordinate relief at evacuation centers. World Vision social workers also began to contact the 3,000 sponsored children and their families in the epicenter of Hualien to make sure they were safe and find out if they needed help.
Wednesday’s quake was the worst to hit Taiwan in 25 years, damaging buildings and causing landslides. Images from Hualien, a city on the country’s east coast, showed a red brick building leaning at a 45-degree angle after its first floor collapsed. Large rocks tumbled down the side of mountains and blocked roads into the tourist destination of Taroko Gorge, trapping people at a hotel.
Yet Hualien sustained surprisingly little damage for an earthquake of such magnitude. As of Monday, 13 people had died, and only one of them was killed due to building damage. Most of the others were hit by falling rocks. Ten people are still missing and more than 1,000 were injured.
The low loss of life is attributed to Taiwan’s earthquake preparedness, as the government improved and reinforced building codes after a deadly earthquake in 1999 killed 2,400 people. Public education on earthquakes is widespread, and disaster relief groups are well-trained and respond quickly. …
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by | Apr 8, 2024 | Uncategorized
I served on the RZIM board. Christians in many leadership roles can learn from my failures.
The room was hot, and I stared at the pristine white table in front of me, being careful not to lift my eyes, my muscles tense. To my left were members of the International Board of Directors of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM), seated at the table and joining on video. To my right were lawyers. One of them was preparing to read to us the 12-page report of a months-long investigation into sexual assault allegations regarding the ministry’s founder, Ravi Zacharias.
The tension was palpable. The boardroom seemed too dim, although that suited the mood; some of us weren’t ready for bright lights.
My experience as an RZIM board member would completely change the way I view ministry today. I believe many ministry boards are broken—or at least deeply unprepared for the challenges they may face—and my aim is to start a conversation on how that can be remedied.
When I speak of “boards,” I’m using the term broadly. You and people you know may not serve on the board of an internationally known nonprofit, like RZIM at its peak. But you may serve on your congregation’s elder board, as a deacon, or as a member of the vestry or the pastoral search committee. You may advise your children’s Christian school or informally help steer a local food bank or the Sunday School planning committee at church.
The hard lessons I learned will be applicable to almost any kind of group leadership arrangement, especially in ministry contexts but also more broadly. That said, specific needs and circumstances will vary, so I’m sharing my lessons as questions that Christians in board leadership should seriously ask themselves and their colleagues.
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by | Apr 5, 2024 | Uncategorized
His Pentecostalism put him at odds with many but the Deliverance Church founder stood firm in his convictions “to bring back the glory of God back to the Church in these last days.”
Joe Kayo, known by many as the father of the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement in East Africa, died on November 2, 2023. He was 86.
Kayo founded churches in four countries: Deliverance Church Kenya, Deliverance Church Uganda, Juba Pentecostal Church in South Sudan, and Family of God Churches of Zimbabwe. At the time of his death, he was leading the Christian Family Church in Nairobi.
Kayo described his ministry as a place “where the power of God is seen working with tangible manifestations, to bring back the glory of God back to the Church in these last days.”
Kayo embraced his spiritual calling as African nations were gaining independence from their European colonizers. His vision of creating churches, led and financed by Africans, that contextualized the Christian faith within African culture caught fire throughout East Africa. It also was at odds with many of the churches that traced their roots back to Western missions and with which he tangled frequently over worship styles and the presence of the Holy Spirit.
“This is the man God used to break barriers and rocks that stood in front of the charismatic movement and Pentecostalism in East Africa,” said J. B. Masinde, a bishop at a Nairobi congregation Kayo had founded, in 2019. “He paid a price … this man carries scars that some of you will never understand in your life.”
The eldest of six children, Joseph Kayo Nyakango was born in Nyamira County, western Kenya on May 5, 1937. When he was 12, his mother died, and he dropped out of school prematurely due to lack of school fees. In despair, Kayo sank into drug abuse and petty crime. Later in life, he would narrate how he attempted to take his own life three times without success.
More …
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by | Apr 5, 2024 | Uncategorized
Pastors and religious liberty advocates worry the government’s effort to manage religion will bring tighter control.
Operating a church in Vietnam just became even more difficult thanks to new government regulations that went into effect over the weekend. Under Decree 95, the government will now require religious groups to submit financial records and allow local government officials to suspend religious activities for unspecified “serious violations.”
Nguyen Ti Dinh of Vietnam’s religious affairs committee said the guidelines will improve how the government manages religion by implementing uniform measures for the 2018 Law on Belief and Religion, which requires religious groups to register with the government. Observers believe the decree is Vietnam’s attempt to demonstrate to the international community that it is trying to increase religious liberty and to get off the US State Department’s Special Watch List for countries engaged in religious freedom violations.
Yet religious liberty advocates and local church leaders believe the new rules will do the opposite. Instead of making it easier to register churches, the government is requiring more oversight and control. If the Vietnamese government is trying to show the international community that it is serious about religious freedom, noted Hien Vu, Vietnam program manager of the Institute for Global Engagement (IGE), it needs to explain how the new policy would achieve that.
“With this decree, it’s like Vietnam shot themselves in the foot,” Vu said.
The Southeast Asian country, where Christians make up 8 percent of the population, is ranked No. 35 in the Open Doors’ list of most difficult countries to be a Christian. While Christians can worship freely in bigger cities, believers among ethnic minority groups and in rural areas still face …
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by | Apr 5, 2024 | Uncategorized
The writer of the best-selling children’s book series The Wingfeather Saga hopes season 2 of the television adaptation “will be taken as a story first.”
Can a fantasy epic introduce the gospel to kids? That’s the hope behind The Wingfeather Saga, the children’s book series turned television show that’s just premiered its second season. (Episode 1 is available for viewing starting today, April 5, on www.angel.com; the remaining six episodes will be released weekly this spring.) The series tells the story of the three Igiby siblings—Janner, “Tink,” and Leeli—who live with their mother and grandfather in a world called Aerwiar. When the children learn that their family is at the center of a great mystery, their lives change forever.
Wingfeather came from the mind of award-winning author and musician Andrew Peterson. He recently spoke with J. D. Peabody, author of the children’s fantasy series The Inkwell Chronicles, about art, storytelling, and “making known the deeds of the Lord.” Their conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
What can Wingfeather fans expect in season 2?
There’s a lot of world-building that took place in season 1. With season 2, you’re off to the races. It comes out of the gate fast!
That said, season 2 is also the first time that the kids in the story are separated from their parents. It’s where character development begins—they’re having to solve problems on their own.
We’re not making a cartoon; we’re trying to tell an epic story and using animation to do it. Hopefully the result is something that feels like a real world. The stakes are high, though. The problems that this family faces are earthy, gritty, and painful.
Part of the reason we chose the art style that we did [known as “paint motion,” which blends traditional 2D animation …
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