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Today’s News Headlines:

CHRISTIANS IN INDIA BEGIN LEGAL BATTLE TO CURB GRAVEYARD ATTACKS FOLLOWING BIBLICAL PATTERN BOOSTS CHURCH-PLANTING EFFORTS IN INDIA SLOVENIA REGISTERS FIRST MINORITY FAITHS IN 11 YEARS MEMBERS DECRY AUSTRALIAN CHURCH’S DECISION TO ALLOW GAY PASTORS U.S. PASTOR LAUNCHES ‘AMERICA SAY JESUS’ CAMPAIGN EYE CARE MINISTRY OPENS UP WITNESSING OPPORTUNITIES IN AFGHANISTAN

Today’s News Stories:

CHRISTIANS IN INDIA BEGIN LEGAL BATTLE TO CURB GRAVEYARD ATTACKS The All India Christian Council (AICC) has launched a legal battle to stop graveyard atrocities that have affected Christian graveyards in the western Indian state of Gujarat. AICC spokesman Rev. Samson Christian pointed to at least six incidents in recent years affecting graveyards of the Methodist Church in Gujarat. Graves have been raided, dead bodies burned and graveyards vandalized. In a recent incident, residents in the village of Khuntaj joined with Hindu hard-liners and “used a tractor to raid this graveyard and destroy all the graves and remove all the trees,” Christian says. Local believers filed a complaint with the police, and all the troublemakers were arrested. “The AICC has now joined in the legal battle in all of these incidents and has been successful in stopping hard-liners from spreading more destruction,” he said. (Assist News Service)

* HCJB World Radio-Australia’s new shortwave site Kununurra airs 61/2 hours of daily English programming across South Asia, including India. Two half-hour programs in Urdu, airing Monday through Saturday, were added in July, and plans are being made to start Hindi programs. In partnership with FEBA Radio, HCJB World Radio also airs weekly Christian programs to eastern India via shortwave in three languages: Bhojpuri, Chattisgarhi and Mundari.

FOLLOWING BIBLICAL PATTERN BOOSTS CHURCH-PLANTING EFFORTS IN INDIA A ministry in northern India has seen the Lord move mightily through its church planting program, which is modeled after the methods of the New Testament apostles. The ministry has 199 church planters who travel to every district of its state to raise up and disciple new believers. More specific information on their growing number and locations cannot be published for security reasons. Following the New Testament pattern, Christian workers visit villages, searching for believers. If they find none, they look for a “man of peace” who might be receptive to the gospel. His home becomes the staging area for a potential house church. Often they discover isolated Christian families with no leadership or means of going deeper in their relationships with Christ.

The church planters bring these families together, discipling and teaching them biblical truth. A small cell group is formed, and leaders emerge. As the cell begins to attract new believers from the village, a substantial house church eventually is formed. The church planters then move away but keep in touch with the new congregation. The believers then select a man from the congregation to serve as pastor, and he takes a nine-month training program run by the church-planting ministry. This method has proved extremely effective. In May and June alone, one district saw 100 people come to Christ with 32 dedicating their lives to the Lord’s service. In another district, 33 believers joined together to construct a church building. In another district where there are only a few hundred known believers, seven Christians underwent training to do outreach in their communities. In one town, a new house church was started in June with seven members. (Missions Insider)

SLOVENIA REGISTERS FIRST MINORITY FAITHS IN 11 YEARS Fifteen months after applying for registration, the U.S.-based Calvary Chapel in Celje has become the first new religious community to be granted registration in Slovenia since 1999. The decision came on Aug. 7. Two weeks later the Tibetan Buddhist Dharmaling association gained registration. Drago Cepar, head of the government’s Office for Religious Communities, who until this month had refused to register any new communities, also promised Hindu leader Natasa Sivic that her group would achieve the same status this month. Cepar had long insisted that he was unable to register any religious communities as the law did not spell out criteria to determine which groups constituted religious communities. There was an “unofficial moratorium” on registering new religious groups since Cepar took office in 2000. A June letter from Mirko Bandelj, general secretary of the government, instructing Cepar to register all waiting communities reportedly prompted him to make the change. (Forum 18 News Service)

MEMBERS DECRY AUSTRALIAN CHURCH’S DECISION TO ALLOW GAY PASTORS More than 24,000 members from 500 congregations of Australia’s Uniting Church have rebuffed the denomination’s ruling body regarding the issue of ordaining homosexual ministers. The Uniting Church Assembly, comprising some 280 employees who serve mainly in bureaucratic roles, has been soundly rebuffed by the membership, said Rev. Gordon Moyes. Last month the assembly granted Presbyteries the right to approve ministers for ordination in spite of homosexual behavior. Congregations across Australia were shocked and dismayed at this decision. Thousands of church members subsequently met in protest nationwide. A petition demanding the rescinding of the assembly’s motion was presented to the group’s standing committee. “Scores of letters and notes expressed the deep spiritual and emotional dismay and concern of Uniting Church members and adherents following the Assembly’s decision,” Moyes said. “They believe that the concept of, ‘It is OK if you happen to live in right relationships instead of being celibate if you are single and faithful if you are married’ was not acceptable Christian practice in the light of clear biblical teaching. . . . Even the public at large acknowledges this. All of the opinion polls taken by newspapers and television stations concerning the ordination of [practicing] homosexuals . . have strongly affirmed the Christian position that Church leaders should obey the scriptural injunction about holiness of living and freedom from all sexual relationships except for marriage.” (Assist News Service)

U.S. PASTOR LAUNCHES ‘AMERICA SAY JESUS’ CAMPAIGN A Florida pastor has started a grassroots campaign to get every Christian in the U.S. to say the name of Jesus three to five times more daily. David Allbritton said God told him in a vision to launch the “America Say Jesus” effort which includes sending a petition to President George W. Bush and Congress. “From the beginning of the church, the devil tried to keep Christians from preaching or teaching or even speaking in His name,” said Allbritton, who pastors America’s Church in Largo, a charismatic congregation he started earlier this year. “Just think what a revival would break loose if Christians all across America started saying the name of Jesus to their friends, family and neighbors.” Allbritton, who plans publish a book titled America Say Jesus, noted that God is “popular” again since the 9/11 attacks, but the name of Jesus is shunned, even ridiculed. “I believe God would honor him and our nation and send us a spiritual awakening and millions of Americans would be saved,” he said. “Hopefully, and prayerfully, the Lord will use it to touch our country.” (Religion Today/Charisma News Service)

EYE CARE MINISTRY OPENS UP WITNESSING OPPORTUNITIES IN AFGHANISTAN As post-war Afghanistan struggles to recover, one critical need is medical care, including eye care, says Tom Little of a ministry called Interserve. Without a restored infrastructure, the burden falls to groups such as Interserve that works in partnership with the Noor Eye Clinic in Kabul. Together the two groups meet nearly 90 percent of the eye care needs in Afghanistan, prompting the need for additional funding. Little adds that the outreach opens up many evangelistic opportunities even though the government restricts proselytizing. “They make no restrictions on us answering questions, and we spend a lot of time just answering questions,” he said. “We have freedom to answer and our lives hopefully reflect what we say.” (Mission Network News)

* HCJB World Radio is bringing words of hope and encouragement to people across Afghanistan via radio. Together with partners, Christian broadcasts go out via AM in four of the country’s major languages, Dari, Hazaragi, Turkmen and Uzbek.

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* * * * * * * * * * * * * James A. Ferrier HCJB World Radio U.S. Ministries Communications Director E-mail: Phone: 1-719-590-9800 Fax: 1-719-590-9801 Web: http://www.hcjb.org http://www.beyondthecall.org * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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