Launched last month by The Christian Post Company, The Shepherd Post allows Christian leaders to share experiences from their ministry fields – both positive and negative – to steer others from the pitfalls they’ve encountered and to ultimately encourage quick developments in ministry tactics and strategies.

The website’s motto: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” from Proverbs 27:17.

“Today we’re living in a time where society is speeding up and forcing us to adapt to changes much more quickly than we’re used to. This in turn is having a big effect on the Church,” says Joseph La Fleur, CEO of The Christian Post Company. “The Shepherd Post is great in that it brings the greatest minds in the Church all to one place to share their thoughts on our changing world.”

For visitors to the site, The Shepherd Post features a wide range of key topics – including Missions, Leadership, Finance, Technology, Family and Theology – on a simple, easy to navigate interface.

Also included on the home page is a tag cloud that directs users to the subjects they’re searching for.

For pastors and ministers who don’t yet have a blog, The Shepherd Post allows them to create their own easily customizable blog for free and also allows them to purchase their own domain to make the blog a customized extension of their ministry.

Meanwhile, for Christian leaders who are already blogging, The Shepherd Post allows them to deliver their messages to a broader audience and also provides them a new way to earn money for themselves or their ministries.

“Posting content on the web is the easy part, getting people to read it is the challenge,” La Fleur says. “We decided to bring everything together to one place because it increases the chances of important information being found by the people that need it most.”

Currently, The Shepherd Post features articles written by Christian leaders such as Greg Atkinson, who writes for a number of different Christian magazines; Kent Shaffer, founder of ChurchRelevance.com; and H.L. Hussmann, author of God’s Greatest Passion.

The site has been in development since November 2008. A beta version was launched in February 2009.

source: Christian Post

Yes, it’s historical. As Augusta County schools began the school year, the first private school opened by a predominantly black church — Oak Grove Baptist Church in Waynesboro — also opened with 16 students.

“This is history in the making,” said Pastor T.E. Payne Sr, of the faith-based school’s start. “This is a first.”

Yes, it’s an interesting style of teaching — a throwback to the days when religion could be taught in public schools. But more than religion merely being part of the lesson plan, it is the objective. The idea is to combine religion, the missing component in education, King’s Academy teachers say.

“Every class starts each day with a Bible study because it is the most important,” said Linda Lassiter, one of three teachers at the school. “It doesn’t separate their worlds. So they don’t have their faith over here and school over there. Hopefully they are learning the same thing at church, the same thing at school and the same thing at home. We are taking a very holistic approach.”

Children learn numbers in Tammy Martin’s kindergarten class at King’s Academy on Tuesday. King’s Academy in Waynesboro opened its doors for the first day of school on Tuesday. (Pat Jarrett/The News Leader)

Classes are small — very small — allowing for more one-on-one instruction.

The curriculum is taught using Abeka Home School, which is done mostly through DVD instruction.

“It’s fun,” said eighth-grader Kaylin Smith, 13, of Staunton. “I like it a lot because it’s video and I can pause it when I am taking notes. I can keep up with it faster.”

Payne said one of the reasons Abeka was chosen was to allow students to work at their own pace.

The thing that really stands out about King’s Academy is the people.

Isaiah Lassiter, 5, leads prayer before lunch next to his grandmother, founder Linda Lassiter, during the first day on Tuesday at King’s Academy. (Pat Jarrett/The News Leader)

Lassiter is a one-woman dynamo. With fast, deliberate steps she shuffled around King’s Academy handing out Bibles, setting up laptops and searching for equipment. No matter what, she never stopped moving.

Lassiter, 59, of Staunton was a part of the Staunton City School District for 30 years, teaching special education at Thomas Dixon and Bessie Weller elementary schools. She also taught for seven years in Harrisonburg. Lassiter has a bachelor’s degree in special education, a master’s of education from James Madison University and a master’s of divinity from Virginia Union University.

Source: Heather Kays (hkays@newsleader.com), The News Leader

Teenager Allen Wright of Fair Oaks, Calif., thought up an application for the Apple iPhone called “A Note to God.”

It lets iPhone users send prayers into cyberspace and allows them to read the prayers of others. The messages are stored in a database, and users remain anonymous.

Wright, 17, submitted his proposal to Medl Mobile, a Los Angeles startup that is developing apps for Apple to sell on its Web site. It selected “A Note to God” from 20,000 proposals.

“It’s so simple, it’s brilliant,” said Andrew Maltin, one of the co-founders of Medl Mobile. “We think it’s going to be extremely successful.”

Wright, a junior at Del Campo High School and regular churchgoer, said he came up with the idea while lying in bed and feeling lonesome.

“If you want to send a message, and you don’t have anybody to talk to, you could send a little prayer,” he said.

Apps, which iPhone users download from Apple, range from free to $5 or more. Users can play games, find restaurants or transform their iPhones into remote controls. There are hundreds of applications.

Successful apps can generate thousands or even millions of dollars for developers. Any proceeds from “A Note to God” would be shared among Apple, Medl and Wright.

If his app becomes a big seller, Wright said he’d like to use his share of the profits to go to college.

The application is not a joke, but a sincere way for people to reach out to the divine and to each other, Maltin said.

Users can read each others’ prayers and be supportive by clicking on a “thumbs up” sign, he said. Otherwise, they can’t leave feedback, he said.

Religious scholars welcomed the concept, although one offered a note of caution.

The Rev. James Murphy, vicar general of the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, agreed the iPhone app “could be a high-tech form of prayer and an authentic way to express our desires to God.”

“There is in each one of us the need to communicate with the divine and to reach the transcendent,” he said.

But he cautioned users to question their motivations.

“Prayer is direct to God, and God should be the primary motive,” he said. “If the motive is to be seen by others, be careful. There’s a sense in which prayer is private.”

He said whatever the form, prayers are heard. “God will hear it,” he said. “You don’t have to have his e-mail address.”

Darleen Pryds, an expert in medieval religious practices at the Franciscan School of Theology – part of the Graduate Theological Union, in Berkeley – called the app a brilliant use of technology that brings to mind the 13th-century bells summoning people to pray.

“This application sounds to me like a call to prayer,” she said. “It creates a community of prayer, and by seeing other people’s prayers, it is a reminder to pray yourself.”

Family struggles

Wright said he prays regularly and attends the New Life Community Church in Fair Oaks.

His favorite iPhone app is one that calls up quotes from Scripture.

In his suburban home on a cul-de-sac, Wright demonstrated “A Note to God.”

He said the need to write a message focuses his prayer. The messages can be as long as you want, he said.

Wright’s father, Tod Wright, said he was badly hurt in a bulldozer accident two years ago and has struggled to raise his children as an out-of-work single dad.

He said his family has been through a lot in the past five years. Cancer, divorce and the death of a baby grandchild have taken their toll, he said.

Prayer outlet

The 44-year-old Wright said people need a way to reach out when they are grappling with heartache, trouble and tragedy. His son’s app might provide an outlet for their prayers.

“It’s going to do something for a lot of people to help them through,” he said. “Having a place you can send a message to your lost and loved ones – people you believe are your guardian angels.

“All of us could use some place to reach out,” he said. “I think Allen’s is perfect.”

source: Charlotte Observer

The monitor also found Randolph Christian Church paid pastor Eric Simons advances totaling more than $43,000 for his income taxes between 2007 and 2009, according to the report.

Simons and his wife, senior pastor Marianne Simons, submitted expenses with little documentation, some without receipts, and were reimbursed by the church, according to the report.

In April, Simons was reimbursed more than $1,400 by the church for a $600 Kenmore washer from Sears and more than $700 worth of items from Costco, according to the report.

The findings come as part of a series of reports conducted by fiscal monitor Donald Conway, a certified public accountant at the Princeton-based Mercadien Group, who has been examining the pastors’ finances and investments, including $1.6 million mansion in Randolph, a $450,000 schooner that associate pastor Philip DuPlessis lives on with his family in Jersey City and life-coaching classes.

The state Department of Consumer Affairs accused the religious leaders April 1 of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of church funds for their own personal use.

“It appears that RCC funds have been used to pay for personal expenses of Simons and DuPlessis,” Conway said.

The mansion, which the pastors had said is being used as a parsonage, has been listed with Weichert Realtors for $1.6 million, and the Simonses will continue living in the home until it is sold, state officials and Conway said. The mansion has been shown three times, but no offers have been made.

The furnishings in the mansion are owned by the church, also known as Church Alive. Conway said those items also must also be sold to reimburse the church.

Simons and DuPlessis also used $22,000 in church funds to enter a business venture with a Nevada law firm, which Conway believes should be paid back to the church, the report showed.

“I do not see how RCC has benefited from the services,” he said.

Conway also determined Marianne Simons must return the 2005 Honda Odyssey she drives. The car was bought with church funds, the report showed. It also said she has to reimburse the church for the use of her cell phone.

To cut expenditures, the church board is eliminating the congregation’s outreach program, advertising and promotion ventures, its dance and children’s ministry, some administrative expenses and miscellaneous support, according to the report.

In addition, the board is challenging Conway’s suggested $55,100 salary for Simons, insisting their pastor should receive a base salary of $85,400 plus benefits, the report showed.

Conway said that suggested salary does not reflect the current financial state of the church. In 2000, the church brought in nearly $400,000 in contributions. The projected 2009 contribution income is significantly lower at $72,024, according to the report.

The pastors are conducting worship services every Sunday in the Bible Church International building on Route 10. Randolph Christian Church last year sold the building to Bible Church International for $5 million.

The Simonses did not return calls for comment today. A cell phone number for DuPlessis rang but was not answered.

Former congregants and state officials have said the church members thought they were donating money toward a building fund.

“It just outrages me,” Maria Palumbo, a former congregant who lives in Jefferson, said today. “That money could have helped so many people in need, and he used it for his own selfish personal pleasure.”

But current church members are standing by their pastor.

“I am not happy that all of this is going on. But it has brought us all closer together,” church member Paul Bouscaren of Budd Lake said. “The first thing we need to do as a church is get things squared away so we don’t need a fiscal monitor anymore.”

source: New Jersey Real Time News

Private airplanes and boats. A motorcycle sent by an anonymous supporter. Vacations in Hawaii and cruises in Alaska. Designer handbags. A ring of emeralds and diamonds.

“God knows where the money is, and he knows how to get the money to you,” preached Mrs. Copeland, dressed in a crisp pants ensemble like those worn by C.E.O.’s.

Even in an economic downturn, preachers in the “prosperity gospel” movement are drawing sizable, adoring audiences. Their message — that if you have sufficient faith in God and the Bible and donate generously, God will multiply your offerings a hundredfold — is reassuring to many in hard times.

The preachers barely acknowledged the recession, though they did say it was no excuse to curtail giving. “Fear will make you stingy,” Mr. Copeland said.

But the offering buckets came up emptier than in some previous years, said those who have attended before.

Many in this flock do not trust banks, the news media or Washington, where the Senate Finance Committee is investigating whether the Copelands and other prosperity evangelists used donations to enrich themselves and abused their tax-exempt status. But they trust the Copelands, the movement’s current patriarch and matriarch, who seem to embody prosperity with their robust health and abundance of children and grandchildren who have followed them into the ministry.

“If God did it for them, he will do it for us,” said Edwige Ndoudi, who traveled with her husband and three children from Canada for the Southwest Believers’ Convention this month, where the Copelands and three of their friends took turns preaching for five days, 10 hours a day at the Fort Worth Convention Center.

The crowd of more than 9,000 was multiracial, from 48 states and 27 countries. There was no fee to attend. There were bikers in leather vests, pastors, blue-collar workers, professionals and plenty of families with children.

A large contingent came in wheelchairs, hoping for miraculous healings. The audience sat with Bibles open, flipping to passages cited by the preachers, taking notes on pads and laptop computers.

“The folks who are coming aren’t poor,” said Jonathan L. Walton, a professor of religion at the University of California, Riverside, who has written about the movement and was there doing research. “They reside in that nebulous category between the working and the middle class.”

Sitting in Section 316, eight rows up, making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on a Bible at lunch time, was a family who could explain the enduring loyalty the prosperity preachers inspire.

Stephen Biellier, a long-distance trucker from Mount Vernon, Mo., said he and his wife, Millie, came to the convention praying that this would be “the overcoming year.” They are $102,000 in debt, and the bank has cut off their credit line, Mrs. Biellier said.

They say the Copelands rescued them from financial failure 23 years ago, when they bought their first truck at 22 percent interest and had to rebuild the engine twice in a year.

Around that time, Mrs. Biellier first saw Mr. Copeland on television and began sending him 50 cents a week.

Others who bought trucks from the same dealer in Joplin that year went under, the Bielliers said, but they did not.

“We would have failed if Copeland hadn’t been praying for us every day,” Mrs. Biellier said.

The Bielliers are now among 386,000 people worldwide whom the Copelands call their “partners,” most of whom send regular contributions and merit special prayers from the Copelands.

A call center at the ministry’s 481-employee headquarters in Newark, Tex., takes in 60,000 prayer requests a month, a publicist said.

The Copelands’ broadcast reaches 134 countries, and the ministry’s income is about $100 million annually.

The Bielliers were at the convention a few years ago when a supporter made a pitch for people to join an “Elite CX Team” to raise money to buy the ministry a Citation X airplane. (Mr. Copeland is an airplane aficionado who got his start in ministry as a pilot for Oral Roberts.) At that moment, Mrs. Biellier said she heard the voice of the Holy Spirit telling her, “You were born to support this man.”

She gave $2,000 for the plane, and recently sent $1,800 for the team’s latest project: buying high-definition television equipment to upgrade the ministry’s international broadcasts.

Mrs. Biellier said some friends and relatives would say the preacher just wanted their money. She explained that the Copelands did not need the money for themselves; it is for their ministry. And besides, even “trashy people like Hugh Hefner” have private airplanes.

“I remember Copeland had to once fly halfway around the world to talk to one person,” she said. “Because we’re partners with Kenneth Copeland, for every soul that gets saved, we get credit for that in heaven.”

But while a band primed the crowd, Professor Walton called the prosperity preachers “spiritual pickpockets.”

“To dismiss and ignore the harsh realities of this economic crisis,” he said. “is beyond irresponsible, to the point of reprehensible.”

The Copelands refused an interview request, but one of their daughters, Kellie Copeland Swisher, and her husband, Steve Swisher, who both work in the ministry, spoke for them.

Mrs. Swisher said the ministry gave away “a minimum of 10 percent of what comes in” to other charities. Her father’s current favorite, she said, is a Roman Catholic orphanage in Mexico.

The ministry has resisted providing the Senate investigation with all the documents requested, she said, because the Copelands did not want to publicly reveal the names of the “partners.” The investigation, which could result in new laws, is continuing, a committee spokeswoman said. Among those being investigated is Creflo Dollar, one of the ministers at the Copelands’ convention.

Mr. Swisher said that even in the economic downturn, the ministry’s income going into the convention was up 3 percent over last year. Asked if they had adjusted the message for the economy, Mrs. Swisher patted the worn Bible in her lap and said: “The message they preach is the Word of God. The Word doesn’t change.”

At the convention, the preachers — who also included Jesse Duplantis and Jerry Savelle — sprinkled their sermons with put-downs of the government, an overhaul of health care, public schools, the news media and other churches, many of which condemn prosperity preaching.

But mostly the preachers were working mightily to remind the crowd that they are God’s elect. “While everybody else is having a famine,” said Mr. Savelle, a Texas televangelist, “his covenant people will be having the best of times.”

“Any time a worried thought about money pops up in your mind,” Mr. Savelle continued, “the next thing you do is sow”: drop money, like seeds, in “good ground” like the preachers’ ministries. “Stop worrying, start sowing,” he added, his voice rising. “That’s God’s stimulus package for you.”

At that, hundreds streamed down the aisles to the stage, laying envelopes, cash and coins on the carpeted steps.

source: New York Post

Every member of the unemployment support group meeting has their own story to share and encouragement to give. In twice monthly gatherings, they exchange tips on writing resumes, developing new contacts and making ends meet.

They also pray.

“Father, we pray you would strengthen our faith and help us to wait on you,” Castro says as heads bow around her. “It can be so hard sometimes to be patient.”

Castro’s group is one of several church-related unemployment support groups that have formed around the country as the jobless rate reaches heights not seen for decades. On Thursday, the government reported a 9.5 percent unemployment rate for June, the worst in 26 years.

Job seekers can’t use God as a reference, and studying Scripture might seem unrelated to grabbing a prospective employer’s attention. But church support group members say the meetings aren’t just about helping people find the next job; they’re also about refining and strengthening their faith along the way.

“The help available and the assistance on a spiritual level is amazing,” said Walter Baker, a retired human resources executive who leads a four-month-old group at Grace Community Church in Auburn, Wash.

Baker and Castro welcome the nonreligious to their groups, though very few people without faith have attended.

Baker offers group members resume reviews and mock interviews. He asks them to craft an “elevator speech” — a pitch of their qualifications they can deliver quickly. And he urges them to “draw close to God.”

Faith communities have particular relevance to the unemployed, said Doug Hicks, author of “Religion and the Workplace” and a professor of religion and leadership studies at the University of Richmond.

“When a person loses his or her job it’s not just the income that’s lost, but it’s a kind of sense of meaning, sense of fitting in, a sense of contribution,” Hicks said. “And many of those things have spiritual dimensions.”

sandra-friedrich.jpgSandra Friedrich prays during an unemployed support group meeting in Beverly, Mass. The group is one of several church-related unemployment support groups that have formed around the country.

The Rev. Duane Jesse of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Cortland, Ohio, said the group he started six weeks ago is almost entirely about job seekers’ spiritual needs. He started the group after a man, devastated by unemployment, confessed he thought suicide might be easier.

“At the end of the day we’ve got to keep families together, marriages together. We’ve got to keep people sane, we’ve got to keep people from losing faith,” Jesse said.

Still, the practical benefits of such groups can’t be overlooked, said Rick Lytle, dean of the College of Business at Abilene Christian University in Texas. Faith-based groups provide rich networking opportunities because members may trust each other more, and go the extra mile for them, because they share a church or a faith, he said.

Sandy Friedrich, a member of Castro’s group who worked at a hospice care facility in Boston, said the people in the group are important for who they are, not what she thinks they can do for her. “Of course, in the back of our minds it’s fine that we think any of us may be a lead to the next thing for us,” she said. “But that’s not the primary purpose for us.”

At a recent meeting at Castro’s house, not everyone in the seven-person gathering was friends, but they quickly shared their personal angst and advice on everything from unemployment law to how to respond when a prospective employer asks how much you expect to be paid. Debbie Trainor, a hospitality industry worker, talked about the nerve-racking preparation for job interviews and said she sees God as a partner.

“He’s with me during this time,” she said. “We’re doing this together.”

Connie Durgin, a customer service worker, was baffled that a third job interview didn’t lead to an offer, though she was sanguine about her prospects.

“(God) knows what direction you’re going to go. Eventually, you’ll find it,” she said.

After lunch, the group moved to the living room, where Friedrich shared a Bible lesson and the group discussed the employment strategy book, “Ground of Your Own Choosing.” The conversation turned to some unexpected benefits of being laid off, such as more time with family.

Jack Melvin, an architect who was laid off in September, said he had new time to pursue standing as a Third Order Franciscan, whose members can be married and live in society at large, but also pledge to lead lives of prayer, simplicity and service to Jesus Christ.

Melvin said he welcomes the chance to start on the lengthy journey, though he’d prefer not to have so much time for it. The opportunity comes as his faith is being stretched in painful ways.

“I think what we’ve got to learn is that our employer doesn’t feed us, he’s an instrument for God to feed us,” Melvin tells the group.

With a laugh, he adds, “I guess I had to repeat that to myself four months straight.”

Source: AP

The group, Fund for Theological Education, said at a meeting Friday at Vanderbilt University that minority teachers at theological schools have increased in recent years but they are still underrepresented. Figures show that most of the teachers are white men.

More than a third of the some 250 U.S. and Canadian theological schools accredited by the Association of Theological Schools say they do not have a minority on their faculty.

The Atlanta-based advocacy group says minorities need more financial support and mentoring to help them become teachers.

Today’s Christian Woman was founded in 1978 to reach evangelical Christian women who wanted a publication that reflected their values. They didn’t want the crass sex talk of Cosmopolitan. They didn’t want the mainstream relationship advice of Redbook. They wanted inspirational stories of faith and Bible-based help in managing their children, friendships and marriages. Anita Bryant graced the first issue’s cover. “It was as close to what people were looking for as anything,” remembers its founding editor, Dale Hanson Bourke. Last week, TCW’s parent company, Christianity Today International (CTI), announced that the magazine’s September/October issue would be its last. “I feel like a dinosaur,” Bourke moaned in an e-mail.

The death of TCW is important for two reasons. First, it shows that Christian magazine publishing is in the toilet along with almost every other kind of print publishing. In its announcement, CTI also said that Ignite Your Faith–formerly the historic Campus Life–would close, and that 22 percent of the CTI staff would be laid off. (Christianity Today, CTI’s flagship publication, founded by Billy Graham in 1956, will remain in business.) Other Christian magazines–Discipleship Journal, Pray and CCM, the Christian community’s version of Rolling Stone–have also been shuttered in the past 18 months. New Man and SpiritLed Woman, published by the Charisma group, have abandoned print and are now available only online. “The perfect publishing storm that’s hitting everyone is hitting us,” says Harold Smith, CTI’s CEO and editor in chief. “It has hammered us.”

The real interest here, though, is more than merely economic. TCW’s death signals something much bigger: an end in America to the perceived separation between the secular and the evangelical worlds. Not 10 years ago, the conventional wisdom as reflected in much of the mass media held that evangelical Christians led completely separate lives from everyone else. They went to separate colleges, they married each other–and they shopped at Christian bookstores, where they could purchase books, records, magazines and tea napkins produced and distributed by Christian-owned companies. Only secular people shopped at Barnes & Noble. So separate were the two worlds that Christian bestsellers rarely showed up on the New York Times bestseller list–and when they did (as with Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’s Left Behind books), the secular media treated the authors and consumers as oddities. In December 1985 the hip, Andy Warhol-founded Interview magazine did a piece on Bourke and TCW. “It was very much a look-who-we-discovered approach,” says Bourke.

Now, though, Christian and inspirational stories are widely available in secular places. O, Redbook and Good Housekeeping regularly run the kinds of articles that TCW once considered its bread and butter. On her Web site, Oprah currently features an interview with Queen Noor of Jordan, in which the queen says that she and her husband strive to raise their children “like any other family.” “The most important thing,” she says, “is to instill [in your children] the right values.” Barnes & Noble and Borders–not to mention Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart–carry a wide variety of Christian and inspirational books, magazines and music. Even the most committed Christians no longer have to shop only at Christian stores or buy only Christian media. “I don’t shop at a Christian bookstore,” admits Ginger Kolbaba, the current editor of TCW. “Not when I can go online.”

Even more important, evangelical Christians are less willing to identify themselves as a coherent group embodying one set of values. As a result, it seems Christians are more willing to take their parenting and relationship advice from secular sources. “This next generation, they can read a marriage magazine or a parenting magazine and filter it through their Christian world view without saying, ‘I need Today’s Christian Marriage or Today’s Christian Woman’,” says Don Pape, publisher of trade books for David C. Cook, a Christian publishing firm. “I can pick up a music magazine and I don’t need a writer to say, ‘You will like this because it’s a Christian artist.’ I can do that myself. I think that’s one of the issues.” In the old days, efforts by Christian or secular companies to “cross over” into foreign turf were considered quixotic. But the popularity of the book The Shack and the music of Carrie Underwood, not to mention The Passion of the Christ and the selection of Kris Allen as America’s newest Idol, demonstrate how defunct the conventional wisdom has become.

In the world of Christian publishing, as elsewhere, the successful brands are those that have found small but profitable niches. Relevant magazine, with about 100,000 subscribers, talks to young, mostly male evangelical Christians with a strong interest in social-justice issues. Its ad sales have remained steady through the downturn, as has its subscriber base, says editor Cameron Strang. Now TCW is in the process of reinventing itself as what Kolbaba calls “a digizine”: an online magazine for Christian women in their 30s interested in social justice and community action. The price of the new product–which doesn’t yet have a name–will be much lower than that of the print version. But since the layoffs at CTI, Kolbaba is doing this relaunch very much on her own. Who else from the TCW staff is working with her on this project? “Actually, just me. I’m it, yeah.”

You’ve got to love her for trying.

Source: NewsWeek

Single Christian Network members will now be part of the larger ChristianCafe.com singles community, providing more matches and a more feature-rich experience.

Clark Sloan, President of Single Christian Network, described the combined service as a “very exciting move,” adding “this merger will create hundreds of thousands of more contacts for everyone.” He also noted that the two services have been friendly competitors for over ten years.

“Bringing more Christian singles under one roof will benefit all Christian singles, enhancing our already vibrant online singles community” stated Sam Moorcroft, President and CEO of ChristianCafe.com.

ChristianCafe.com remains one of the largest online singles services for Christians, and is the largest Christian-owned dating service on the Web.

About Single Christian Network
Single Christian Network was one of the first online dating services. The service started in 1991, sending matches to members by postal mail. In 1995, the service moved online and has been matching Christian singles ever since.

About ChristianCafe.com
ChristianCafe.com is a leader in connecting Christian singles online. The service has been successfully matching singles of Christian faith since 1999. ChristianCafe.com is Christian-owned and operated, unlike all other major players in the Christian online dating industry. Unique to the online dating industry, ChristianCafe.com offers a free trial so Christian singles can try out the service before committing to a paid membership. Signing up for the free trial is available at christiancafe.com

NEW YORK, June 4, 2009—Kirk Franklin, the biggest selling contemporary Christian artist in Soundscan history with more than 20 No. 1 singles and host of BET’s Sunday Best is teaming up with the American Bible Society to share the real inspiration behind his music. He is using both music and technology to encourage fans to connect with the Bible through “The Bible is My Guide,” a national program to motivate young people to engage with God’s Word.

Franklin, who Miley Cyrus calls her “favorite person to listen to in the shower” (Access Hollywood), will invite fans to send him text messages during his upcoming summer concerts. Through his partnership with the American Bible Society’s “The Bible is My Guide” project, fans who text message Franklin will receive daily Bible verses sent directly to their mobile phone free of charge. From the stage, Franklin will also encourage fans to read the book that provides the inspiration behind his greatest hits—the Bible.

“I’ve found the process of reading the Bible and writing a song is life-changing, and I’m always eager to share the inspiration behind my music. Being a part of the American Bible Society’s ‘Bible is My Guide’ project is a huge statement about the man I am trying to become,” said Franklin.

Thanks to technology, fans do not have to be present at Franklin’s concert to receive Bible verses. The American Bible Society also provides Bible verses via email, voicemail, text message, podcast and RSS feed free of charge to anyone who subscribes at Kirk.AmericanBible.org.

“Kirk’s music is inspiring a generation of music fans with the life changing message of the Bible,” said Lamar Vest, president and CEO of the American Bible Society.

Franklin is the third music artist to sign on for the “The Bible is My Guide” project. Kicked off in April 2007 by New York Yankee Mariano Rivera, the Spanish “La Biblia es mi Guia” project has also tapped celebrities such as the rock band Rojo, 10-time Grammy winner Juan Luis Guerra and New York Yankee Bernie Williams.

Franklin is not the only one sharing how the Bible’s message has changed his life. He has asked hundreds of youth ministers around the country to join him in encouraging youth to follow the principals of the Bible. Also, hundreds of personal videos can be found at ShareYourStoryNow.org—a site where people can post personal stories and see how others are exploring, engaging and experiencing the Bible’s message. The site also contains videos of other popular music artists who have shared their favorite verse or what the Bible means to them, including Grammy winners Steven Curtis Chapman, TobyMac, Rebecca St. James and former American Idol Mandisa.