by | Jul 22, 2024 | Uncategorized
In a country known for loving Western praise music—Hillsong’s second-biggest market—a grassroots movement is singing new tunes.
Arnel Cadeliña, a pastor and worship leader in Manila, remembers when his parents called their only “born again” relative for help. It was 1983, Cadeliña was 12, and his family was convinced that his teenage sister was possessed by a demon.
“He showed up with two guitars and two singers,” Cadeliña recalled. “Then he said, ‘Let’s not mind her, let’s mind the name above all names,’ and they led us in worship songs.”
Cadeliña remembers singing simple praise choruses like “This Is the Day” and praying. He says he witnessed two miracles that day: the deliverance of his sister and the conversion of his family.
“We didn’t know the Bible, we didn’t understand God, but he showed up in the power of our music, in the power of our worship.”
Contemporary praise and worship music from the United States, Australia, and the UK has been a part of Cadeliña’s faith journey since its beginning.
Like many Protestant Christians in the Philippines, he grew as a believer while singing songs from direct-to-consumer cassette tapes by Integrity’s Hosanna! Music in the ’80s and ’90s, passed along by missionaries and within grassroots networks of churches. (“This is the Day,” the song Cadeliña remembers singing, was administered and distributed by Integrity.)
With the influence of Western worship music, Filipino leaders like Cadeliña are trying to balance local music with popular hits coming from the US-dominated worship music industry.
Cadeliña now leads FIJ (Faith in Jesus) City Church in Manila with his wife, Jessica, the church’s worship leader. The church is an …
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by | Jul 22, 2024 | Uncategorized
International undergraduates were part of many schools’ plans for sustainability. A new government rule changes that.
It seemed like a door had opened.
Providence University College and Theological Seminary in Manitoba started an associate’s degree program that could be marketed to international students. To president Kenton Anderson’s delight, the two-year degree attracted a significant number of applicants eager to study in Canada. Several hundred students enrolled.
For the private evangelical school, that generated significant revenue and helped further fulfill the mission of spreading the gospel around the world.
Providence made plans to grow the program—could they attract 500 international students? 600? 700?—and bought an apartment building in nearby Winnipeg to provide increased student housing.
Then, a single government decision closed that door.
Canada’s federal government announced new restrictions on undergraduate international students in January 2024. When the rules take effect this fall, the total number will be reduced by about 35 percent.
Providence was anticipating several hundred new international students. Now, when the semester starts the first week of September, the school will only greet about 20.
“It’s many millions of dollars of revenue just gone,” Anderson told CT. “And, of course, as a private tuition-funded Christian school, it’s not like we have a lot of that money lying around.”
According to the Canadian government, there are several reasons to reduce the number of international students at Canadian colleges and universities. Officials said they were concerned that lax admissions were diminishing the quality of the country’s education.
“We want to ensure that international students are successful and to tackle the issues that make students …
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by | Jul 20, 2024 | Uncategorized
The 134-year-old landmark, now a nearby secondary meeting space for the church, went up in flames in downtown Dallas.
The historic sanctuary at First Baptist Church Dallas burned Friday evening, July 19. The cause of the blaze is not yet known. The Victorian-style, red brick sanctuary building was erected 1890 and is a recognized Texas Historic Landmark.
According to media reports, Dallas Fire and Rescue received a call at 6:05 p.m., Friday evening regarding a building on fire in downtown Dallas.
Firefighters responded and within 15 minutes of the first call, a second alarm was requested. Then around 7:30 p.m., the scene was upgraded to a three-alarm fire. A fourth alarm was called in around 8:15 p.m. The Dallas Morning News reported that “more than 60 units were dispatched to respond to the structure fire.”
The church released a statement on X at 9:34 p.m. saying the primary fire was extinguished but firefighters were still working at the scene.
First Baptist Church Dallas has an indelible history within the Southern Baptist Convention having been pastored by former SBC presidents George W. Truett and W. A. Criswell. Currently led by Robert Jeffress, First Baptist Dallas reported a membership of nearly 16,000 in 2023.
The church currently worships in a state-of-the-art facility, which opened in 2013, adjacent to the historic sanctuary.
Jeffress posted on X Friday night asking for prayers for the church, saying, “We have experienced a fire in the Historic Sanctuary. To our knowledge, no one is hurt or injured, and we thank God for His protection. He is sovereign even in the most difficult times.”
The historic sanctuary was home to First Baptist Dallas’s contemporary service each week, called the Band-Led Service. There was a special VBS service scheduled for this Sunday, June 21. The church hosted its annual Vacation …
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by | Jul 19, 2024 | Uncategorized
Communities surrounding Trump’s rally site feel the shock of the tragic shooting.
Corey Comperatore loved reading Romans.
His pastor at Cabot Methodist Church, Jonathan Fehl, recalled how much Comperatore drew strength from the book. It was the first thing he’d recommend to new believers.
But it may be that Comperatore is remembered by another portion of Scripture, John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
Comperatore was the kind of church member who showed up every Sunday, took part in small groups, became a member of the congregation’s board of trustees, and helped with building projects. He was an Army veteran, volunteer firefighter, and proud “girl dad”—a guy who did everything with “a heart of service to the Lord,” Fehl wrote.
His final act of love and sacrifice came on Saturday, when he yelled, “Get down!” before diving in front of his wife and daughters to protect them from a bullet intended for former president Donald Trump.
The 50-year-old died on the scene from a gunshot wound to the head.
Comperatore was thrust into national news, the single fatality of a shooting that has left his community in Western Pennsylvania in grief, shock, and trauma.
“There’s just a lot of sadness,” Brandon Lenhart, senior pastor at North Main Street Church of God in Butler, told CT. “That somebody lost their life in the event, that that happened in the small town of Butler. It’s not a way we wanted to be put on the map, quite frankly.”
His church is on the other side of town from the Butler Farm Show, where Trump’s rally was held. It’s a conservative area—“you see pro-Trump signs everywhere,” Lenhart said—and …
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by | Jul 19, 2024 | Uncategorized
After 60 years of division, leaders hope that coming together will strengthen the church’s witness.
On March 25 of this year, a group of Pakistani Presbyterian church leaders gathered in one of their homes. There, the 20 or so people decided to bring their factions together after years of contentious division. Later, they gathered for tea and seviyan, a sweet vermicelli dessert cooked in sugar and milk or oil, at Gujranwala Theological Seminary.
There were no contracts or legal documents to mark this momentous decision. “We just talked and trusted each other,” said Reuben Qamar, the leader, or moderator, of one faction.
The Presbyterian Church of Pakistan (PCP) has a long history in the country, where Christians comprise less than 2 percent of the population. The Presbyterian mission was founded in the 1860s, and its missionaries led mass conversion movements and set up schools and hospitals in the region. In 1961, it was declared an autonomous body and local leadership began stewarding it.
This was when the divisions started: first between the ’60s and ’70s, then in the ’90s, and more recently in 2018 and 2021, says Qamar, noting that the splits mainly occurred not because of doctrinal differences but because of power and corruption.
One major conflict arose when there was a dispute on whether a moderator could extend their term from three to five years. Some supported this change, while others did not.
By the end of 2023, the church was split into three factions: One led by Qamar, and two others by moderators Arif Siraj and Javed Gill, respectively. Each claimed to be the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan.
The root of the problem was discipline, says Majeed Abel, the executive secretary in Siraj’s former faction. Whenever conflicts arose, people took “refuge” in splitting and creating …
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