Tag Archives: Prayer

Clerk Adds “So Help Me God” To Oaths of Office

A recent Supreme Court ruling that Christian prayer was legal at government meetings is having a trickle-down effect in government operations.

Stanley Grot, clerk for Shelby Township, Michigan, has added the phrase “so help me God” to the end of all oaths of office for the township.  Grot said that while the phrase is officially included in the oath, an office holder can refuse to say the phrase if they wish to refuse.

“We are a nation built on Judeo-Christian values and political correctness should not play a role in invoking the Lord’s name,” Grot said.  “We should honor the nation’s traditions and never compromise on our principles.  America is, after all, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The Detroit News reported the first person sworn in after the oath was changed had no problem saying the phrase.

“My faith in Jesus Christ and God is very important to me,” Laura White said.  “And as a public servant, I have no problem adding that onto my oath.”

A Greater Day is Coming

This is a wonderful time to be alive – a time like none other when the signs of Jesus’ Second Coming are all around us and are screaming from the news headlines every day. These are great days we are living in… but an even Greater Day is coming.

We are definitely privileged to be living in these last days and we know that because we are, there’s a mission and a purpose that is only unto this generation. While the generations before us were charged with going unto all the world to spread the Gospel, our charge is not only spreading the Gospel but standing strong without wavering in the face of vicious attacks by an angry devil (because he knows his time is short). Continue reading →

Anti-Christianists Enraged Over Principal’s Graduation Speech

Anti-Christianists are outraged that a principal of a Missouri high school spoke about the history of God in public life during his address to graduates.

Kevin Lowery, principal of Lebanon High School, told the graduates during a May 23rd commencement to remember that “God is still important” after the students were prohibited from praying at the event.

“In one of the most famous sentences in American History, taken from our Declaration of Independence, reads, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,’” Lowery said in opening the gathering. “This passage has come to represent a moral standard to which the United States should always strive.  And even though God is reflected in the very fabric of our nation, we are told that it is inappropriate and even illegal to mention God at high school graduations, let alone say a prayer.”

Lowery then asked those in the room to hold a minute of silence.

“[J]ust in case you’re interested, during my moment of silence, I gave thanks to God for these great students, their parents, their teachers, and for this community,” he said after the moment of silence, causing the room to erupt in applause.

“Oh, I’m not finished,” he continued. “I asked God to protect these students as they go their separate ways into the world. I asked God to avail Himself in every possible way.  I asked God to watch over them, to protect them, and to bless them with self-fulfillment, with compassion, inner peace, and personal prosperity. Thank you for indulging the thoughts I had during my moment of silence. And yes, God is still important, and let us not ever forget it.”

The school district has reported that anti-Christianists have sent angry messages to the school after news reports of the principal’s comments reached the internet.  The complaints have come from people who do not live in the community and did not attend the ceremony.

Students Protest Making Prayer Optional At Graduation

A number of residents and students protested at the offices of the Ector County (Texas) Independent School District after officials said they would be making prayer in the graduation ceremony optional.

High school students in the district had voted to have prayer as part of the ceremony but the administrators completely ignored their wishes in scheduling an “opening” and “closing” delivered by students instead of an invocation and benediction.  The students would not be chosen by the graduating seniors or by academic achievement but entirely by random selection.

The move came because the anti-Christian group Americans United for the Separation of Church and State threatened to sue the school if they allowed the students to follow through on their vote to have a prayer included in the event.

Students held up signs saying “We are a democracy; we voted to pray” and “As Americans, we have the freedom to pray.”

School board member Doyle Woodall said that the board did not want to take the action they did but that it was forced upon them by anti-Christianists using the courts to force their will on the majority.

Pastor Mark Batterson Says The Power of Prayer Is Underestimated

The lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C. says that Christians have been losing sight of the power of a single prayer.

Mark Batterson was speaking at LiderVision, a Christian leadership conference for Hispanic pastors, when he shared with the pastors how his church exploded because of the power of God working through a consistent, single prayer.

Batterson said he and his wife started the church with 20 people during a 1996 blizzard that shut down the nation’s capital for days.  For the next five years, he preached every Sunday and the church’s faithful members prayed for one thing:  for God to provide the growth in whatever way He saw fit to do.

Then a reporter from the Washington Post came to attend a service and asked if she could do a quick interview with Pastor Batterson.  He expected it to be buried in the religion section but hoped a few people could see it and visit.  Instead, the article appeared on the front page of the Washington Post.

Immediately, the church’s attendance doubled.

“God can do more in one day than we can accomplish in a thousand lifetimes. One day, God is going to show up and He’s going to show off His power in our lives,” Batterson said.  “The more I pray, the more coincidences happen and I don’t believe they’re coincidences, they’re providences because there’s a God that orders my footsteps and when I pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on me, look out!”

Batterson says Christians need to remember the power of a single prayer and take steps of faith to allow God to answer those prayers.

“If you want God to do something, you’ve got to do something different; you’ve got to take that step of faith. Here’s the challenge, we want God to reveal the second step before we take the first step because that doesn’t require any faith. In fact, we wish the Lord ‘s Prayer said, ‘Give us this year, our yearly bread’ but He gives the one day and one step revelation.”

Legendary West Virginia Coach Banned From Graduation

A legendary West Virginia high school football coach has been banned from speaking at graduation because a few people objected to his references to God in last year’s speech.

Despite an overwhelming majority of students, parents and faculty wanting Leon McCoy to speak at the 2014 graduation of Winfield High School, he was told he would not be welcomed back because a few people didn’t want to be exposed to someone mentioning God.

“There were complaints on me allowing prayer and so forth. Unfortunately, the law says we can’t do that,” school principal Bruce McGrew told the Charleston Daily Mail. “I don’t like it and by no means agree with it. … It’s a difficult situation when I am forced to do something as part of my job.”

McCoy said he understands the decision.  He said that in the past Christians were allowed to speak in public with their views but now laws keep them from being able to share their beliefs.

Several students and parents plan to protest graduation, saying that a handful of anti-Christianists should not be able to dictate a ceremony for everyone else.

Arizona Students Refuse To Remove Prayer From Graduation

Despite an administrator’s attempt to get prayer removed from the Pima Unified School District’s graduation, students made sure that God was given praise during the event.

Superintendent Sean Rickert had ordered the removal of prayer from the graduation event because he wanted to make sure he wasn’t violating the rights of any student who didn’t want to participate in or hear a prayer at the event.  He said that he made the decision on his own without any threats of legal action against the school.

Community members and students were outraged at Rickert’s actions, and when the Superintendent and other school officials refused to change their mind on the matter, students took the matter into their own hands.

Not only did students present prayers as part of the ceremony, many graduates made a silent protest by handing a marble to the superintendent as they graduated, an indication they believed he had “lost his marbles” with his actions.

“My class wanted God in our graduation and we weren’t going to take no for an answer,” said Esperanza Gonzalez, one of the students who prayed at the event.  “The world keeps saying ‘no to God, no to God’ unless you’re in prison, so we said yes to God because He has helped us throughout our entire high school career.”

Church’s “Drive Thru Prayer Box” Stirs Community

An idea to reach people who were illegally cutting through a church’s parking lot to avoid an intersection is causing a stir in a Tennessee town.

Aldersgate United Methodist Church of Jackson, Tennessee set up a “drive thru prayer box” where drivers who were cutting through their parking lot could stop and write a prayer request on a 3 by 5 note card.  The church was hoping it could be a way to advertise the church to those in the area and also to pray for their community.

Now, the church is receiving attention from the entire community and churches around the country.

“Now that [an] article has been published in the local newspaper, the number [of prayer requests] has grown substantially,” Barry Matthews of the church told the Christian Post. “We’re seeing requests that just grab your heart.”

Matthews says the church has also been flooded with calls from other churches facing the same problem of drivers cutting through their parking lots wanting to know how to set up their own “drive thru prayer station” ministries.

“They’re telling us this is an answer to their prayers,” Matthews said.

Someone is Waiting Beyond Your “Yes!”

It’s amazing how the Kingdom of God works. Little seeds sown throughout your life have the ability to produce so much fruit – fruit in the form of souls won to the Lord! While the devil will tell you that the things you do for God don’t amount to much, or that what you’ve done has all been ‘undone’ by circumstances and events, remember that he is a liar and that’s what he does best!

There is no greater thing that you can do than to sow seeds into the fields where God has placed you because some of those seeds will land on fertile soil and can produce a harvest greater than you could ever imagine or hope for. It has been that way with me and all the ministry throughout my life, and especially at Heritage USA. Some of the seeds sown back then have produced such surprising results that I am amazed today!  Continue reading →

Supreme Court Approves Prayers At Town Meetings

In what’s being hailed as a victory in the battle to defend Americans’ religious freedom, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that it is Constitutional for government meetings to have a prayer spoken at the opening of the gathering.

The decision was specifically praised for the very clear response to the issue.

“Even if [the decision] did uphold prayer in public legislative sessions, I wasn’t sure how clear that would be. This is crystal clear,” Rev. Rob Schenck told the Christian Post. “I would say, from reading the opinion, this is going to give very clear guidance in the future and it’s going to frustrate a lot of people who will attempt to get prayer at legislative sessions or any kind of public gathering shut down.”

The court’s five conservative justices said the prayers at the opening of the meetings were for the participants in the meeting and not for the general public.

Those who have tried to eliminate Christianity from public life were expectedly upset with the court’s decision.  Rob Boston of the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State said the court’s ruling upholding religious freedom was “out of step with the realties of modern-day America.”

“The majority opinion makes it clear that legislative prayer often isn’t coercive because the adults being exposed to it have options, such as leaving the room,” Boston said before making a threat.  “So, if any misguided religious right activists out there is thinking this decision opens the door for a return of official school prayer, they can forget it.”