LONGWOOD, Fla. /PRNewswire/ — This weekend, Northland, A Church Distributed will host a backpack drive to collect school supplies for families in need in Central Florida, as well as those affected by the oil spill in Houma, La.

Northland’s connection to Houma is a virtual one. The church is partnering with one of its online congregants, [...]]]> LONGWOOD, Fla. /PRNewswire/ — This weekend, Northland, A Church Distributed will host a backpack drive to collect school supplies for families in need in Central Florida, as well as those affected by the oil spill in Houma, La.

Northland’s connection to Houma is a virtual one. The church is partnering with one of its online congregants, Terri Goulette, who worships with 2,000 others from around the world each weekend via interactive webstream.

Goulette, who lives in an area that has been severely affected by the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, wanted to do something to help the families who lost their livelihood as a result of the spill. One morning she awoke with an idea: backpack drive. Remembering Northland’s annual school drive, she invited her church family in Florida to join her in gathering 1,000 backpacks and school supplies for the children of commercial fishermen, shrimpers, oystermen, truck drivers, ice factory workers and others.

“They were expecting a plentiful season this year, but just two weeks before the fishing season opened, the oil spill happened,” Goulette explains. “It has been very hard riding down the bayous and seeing all the shrimp boats and oyster boats just lined up when they should be harvesting seafood.”

While there is a great need for back-to-school supplies in Houma, there are thousands of homeless children in Central Florida who cannot afford back-to-school supplies. To help meet this need, Northland’s backpack drive will also benefit several local organizations:

– A Gift for Teaching, an organization that works within Seminole County
Public Schools to provide kids and teachers with supplies throughout
the entire year
– Christian HELP, which provides for the vocational, material and
spiritual needs of those who are unemployed
– Harvest Time, a hunger and disaster relief organization meeting the
needs of families

Backpacks are needed for grade school, middle school and high school students. Individuals may choose to fill a backpack with supplies, or just donate supplies or backpacks. Donations can be dropped off at Northland’s Welcome Center in Longwood through Aug. 2.

ABOUT NORTHLAND

Northland, A Church Distributed (http://www.northlandchurch.net/) is a pioneering congregation of 12,000 led by senior pastor Dr. Joel C. Hunter. Focused on building an international community of worshipers, the church connects thousands of believers worldwide, using live, interactive weekly worship streaming through the Web, Facebook, iPhone and other environments. Northland has several sites throughout Central Florida, as well many house churches and partner ministries around the globe.

Faith Comes By Hearing, a non-profit Audio Bible organization, recently released this free Bible app to the App Store.

The Bible.is for iPhone app’s major features include: – Listening and reading together – Dramatized audio with [...]]]> ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Read, listen to and share the Bible with your friends and family through the Bible.is iPhone app.

Faith Comes By Hearing, a non-profit Audio Bible organization, recently released this free Bible app to the App Store.

The Bible.is for iPhone app’s major features include:
– Listening and reading together
– Dramatized audio with 180 characters, music and sound effects
– Audio New Testaments with full text in 37 languages and 63 versions
– Simple verse sharing on Facebook
– Complete Bible in English (Old and New Testaments)

“There are many free Bible apps out there, but this is the first that allows you to read and listen to your favorite Scripture together,” said Troy Carl, Faith Comes By Hearing’s national director. “You can also bookmark, highlight, and add notes to verses just like in a print Bible.”

“This app was designed to provide a quality Bible experience,” added Carl. “The Scripture is crisp and clear for easy reading with simple audio controls. There’s also a 40-day listening program that guides you through the entire New Testament in just 28 minutes a day.”

Future updates to these mobile apps will deliver the Bible in audio and text in hundreds of languages. Faith Comes By Hearing currently has the audio New Testament in more than 450 languages with a goal of recording the Bible in 2,000 languages.

The Bible.is suite of applications puts the Bible at your fingertips, anytime, anywhere in the world in audio, text and multiple languages. This free iPhone app is the first in a series of app releases designed through the Digital Bible Project, the world’s largest active collection of digital Scripture made freely available to individuals, organizations, developers and programmers. Free Bible.is apps for Android, Blackberry and iPad are also being developed and tested for future release.

The Bible.is app is available for free from the App Store or at www.itunes.com/appstore. Learn more about the Bible.is suite of applications at www.Bible.is.

About Faith Comes By Hearing

For more than 35 years, Faith Comes By Hearing has been standing with poor and illiterate people of the world to provide them with Audio Scripture in their own language. From mobile and online technologies to solar-powered Audio Bibles, Faith Comes By Hearing continues to innovate and invite people to hear God’s Word for themselves.

Nearly 1,000 citizens from all 50 states signed the free petition on [...]]]> RALEIGH, N.C. /Christian Newswire/ — The Pray In Jesus Name Project is faxing more than 140,000 petitions to the North Carolina State-House, demanding legislators reverse Speaker Joe Hackney’s ban against the forbidden word “Jesus” during public prayers spoken by volunteer pastors giving the invocation.

Nearly 1,000 citizens from all 50 states signed the free petition on the first day, which was then faxed to each of 120 North Carolina State Representatives and all 50 Senators.

On May 31, Speaker Hackney verbally banned Jesus’ name as “illegal speech” by disinviting Pastor Ron Baity from praying before the legislature after pre-screening the prayer content and objecting to his closing words, “in Jesus name.” No written policy exists banning prayer content, but the Speaker is now writing one.

“I got fired,” said Ron Baity, pastor of Berean Baptist Church in Winston-Salem. He had been invited to lead prayer for an entire week but his tenure was cut short when he refused to remove the name Jesus from his invocation.

“Our petition campaigns have helped reverse Jesus-bans in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Oklahoma, Oregon, California and Virginia, and now we fight for free religious speech in North Carolina,” said former Navy Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt, leader of The Pray in Jesus Name Project. Klingenschmitt himself was punished for praying “in Jesus name” in uniform in 2006, but was later vindicated by the U.S. Congress. “Pastor Baity is a hero for refusing to water-down his prayers,” he said.

Despite deceptive claims by the ACLU’s easily-offended atheist complainers, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals specifically authorized legislatures to allow Jesus-prayers in Turner v. Fredericksburg, when Justice O’Connor wrote: “the Establishment Clause does not absolutely dictate the form of legislative prayer. In March, the legislature employed a single chaplain…the legislature in Simpson allowed a diverse group of church leaders from around the community to give prayers at open meetings. Both varieties of legislative prayer were found constitutional.”

Concerned citizens are encouraged to sign the free petition at prayinjesusname.org and tweet these words on Facebook and Twitter:

Speaker of the House Bans “Jesus” as illegal speech during prayers, fires Pastor. Sign free petition! http://tinyurl.com/illegaljesus

“I recently discovered that over 500,000 of the population of my home town use the networking website Facebook,” writes a surprised computer user. Remarkably, 1.5 billion people now access the Web for a wide range of activities. A new internet service called ‘Twitter’ recently enabled eyewitnesses to pass on to thousands of other people their [...]]]>

“I recently discovered that over 500,000 of the population of my home town use the networking website Facebook,” writes a surprised computer user. Remarkably, 1.5 billion people now access the Web for a wide range of activities. A new internet service called ‘Twitter’ recently enabled eyewitnesses to pass on to thousands of other people their firsthand accounts (with pictures) of the jet that ditched in the Hudson River, well before TV and radio could tell the story. The digital world seems to change every time we blink!

How can Christians use this bewildering mix of technologies to share the good news? One place to find answers is Internet Evangelism Day’s website. It provides detailed resources, ideas and strategies to help Christians use what many leaders have called a ‘God-given medium’. These include a self-assessment tool for church websites, enabling them to better reach out into their communities.

Internet Evangelism Day as the name suggests is also an annual web-awareness focus day. Churches and other Christian groups can build a short focus spot into their meetings on 26 April, to explain to their members more about the potential for online evangelism, and how anyone can be involved in this rewarding ministry. A customized presentation (anything from 5 minutes to 50) can be easily created using free downloads from IE Day’s website: video clips, Powerpoint, handouts, music and drama.

One surprising fact is that online evangelism is for anyone, not just the technically gifted. “There are many ways to share your faith online, without any technical knowledge at all,” says IE Day Coordinator Tony Whittaker.

Church leaders who have already used these materials are excited. “This is a huge help for small churches such as ours,” writes a minister from California. “I am glad to commend Internet Evangelism Day,” says elder statesman John Stott.

IE Day’s website is at InternetEvangelismDay.com.