Easter and Christmas. Both of these holidays tend to draw even casual Christians to a local church. But one pastor says that church is the wrong place to celebrate Resurrection Day.

That one pastor is Eric Foley. Foley is pastor of the Doers of The Word Evangelical Church, which meets simultaneously in Colorado Springs and in Seoul, Korea. As Foley sees it, the Bible clearly shows that the proper place to celebrate Easter is on the road.

“Lock the front door of the church on Easter morning and post a sign there that says, ‘He is not here—He is risen,'” says Foley. “That’s the message the angel shares when the women come to anoint Jesus’ body on Easter morning: ‘Go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ Whether it’s the disciples who meet Jesus on the road to Emmaus or the apostles who are called out of the Upper Room and on to Galilee, the Easter message is clear: If you want to meet Jesus, hit the road!”

In his new book, The Whole Life Offering: Christianity as Philanthropy, Foley details a one year plan for growing in Christian maturity through seven spiritual disciplines of loving God and 10 outreach disciplines of loving neighbor. Easter Sunday, he says, is the perfect day to practice both through acts of service in one’s community.

“In the early church, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ meant more than dressing up and going to church before a family dinner,” Foley says. “It was the starting line for discipleship. New believers joined Christ in his death and resurrection—and in hitting the road to share the love of God. Whether at a soup kitchen, a park, or a mall, Easter is a day best spent looking for —and sharing—Jesus in the community.”

Do you agree with Pastor Foley? Should believers hit the road or unite together in church—or both?

The new Director of Israel for e3 Partners really knows what it means to “kick things into high gear.”

Prior to joining e3, Jason Elam was the Denver Broncos kicker. Along with five others, he has been inducted into Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, Class of 2011.

Elam was a member of the Broncos from 1993-2007 and won two Super Bowl
titles with the club. He retired with the fifth-most field goals (436)
and points scored (1,983) in NFL history. A member of the Denver Broncos
50th Anniversary Team, his 236 games played for Denver are a club
record, and his 15 seasons with the Broncos are tied with center Tom
Nalen for the second-most seasons with the team in franchise history
behind Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway.

Elam recently joined e3 Partners in an official capacity after several years of assisting Middle East Region Director Tom Doyle on many e3 expeditions. He will continue to focus his efforts on leading the strategy in Israel.

The “e” in e3 stands for Equip, Evangelize and Establish. In the context of evangelism, they’re working to equip 10 million Christians with the tools and training to evangelize one billion people and establish four million multiplying churches.

E3 is trying to encourage people to participate in a larger Kingdom effort to see simple churches started in every community among every language and people group in the world. Their goal: to raise up 1,000 prayer warriors for each country where they are working in the Middle East and Central Asia.

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President Barack Obama called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss conflict in the Middle East—and to offer his best wishes before the Passover starts on Monday evening.

Passover is a weeklong Jewish holiday that celebrates how God helped Israel escape from Egypt by pouring out 10  plagues on the nation. Passover begins with a traditional Seder meal. During the Seder meal, people retell the redemptive story of Exodus.

Obama also extended his warmest wishes to all those celebrating the sacred festival of Passover in the U.S. and around the world. He noted that the Seder, with its rich traditions and rituals, instructs each generation to remember its past, while appreciating the beauty of freedom and the responsibility it entails.

“This year, that ancient tradition is reflected in the daily headlines as we see modern stories of social transformation and liberation unfolding in the Middle East and North Africa,” Obama said. “Against the backdrop of change, we continue to pray for peace between Israel and her neighbors, while reaffirming our enduring commitment to Israel’s security.”

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It’s quite a day when a multi-artist event that promotes Christian bands drives a bigger audience than secular rock stars like Bon Jovi, U2, Justin Bieber and, yes, Lady Gaga. That’s just what the Winter Jam Tour Spectacular has done. It was the number one tour in the world for the first quarter of 2011, according to Pollstar.

The Winter Jam 2011 Tour Spectacular saw 524,239 fans come out on its 46-market tour. Headliners included the Newsboys, David Crowder Band, Kutless, Francesca Battistelli, RED, KJ-52, and guest speaker Tony Nolan, along with a Pre-Jam party presented by the American Bible Society with Sidewalk Prophets, Chris August, Chris Sligh and Jason Castro.

“We are grateful and humbled by the response to this year’s Winter Jam that only God Himself could have orchestrated,” says NewSong’s Eddie Carswell, tour founder. “It is amazing to think that nearly 100,000 people made meaningful, life-changing decisions to follow Christ and that over 13,000 made a commitment to assist orphans through our partnership with Holt. To truly impact lives is the reason that Winter Jam was created 16 years ago.”

Since its formation by NewSong in 1995, Winter Jam has featured many of the top names in Christian music, including TobyMac, Third Day, Newsboys, Steven Curtis Chapman, Skillet and Jeremy Camp, among many others. This year’s tour featured the most artists and performances in the event’s history.

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Why were Sheila Martin’s children burned alive? She actually thinks it’s because God wanted it that way.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” she told CNN. Martin was a member of a cult called the Branch Davidians. Seventy-six people died in an FBI raid on the Waco, Texas area compound 18 years ago.

CNN reports that Martin and a handful of other surviving Branch Davidians will gather at a Central Texas hotel to hold a memorial for David Koresh.

“For more than a decade on every Saturday, the Branch Davidian Sabbath, Sheila Martin and Clive Doyle have gotten together to pray and discuss the Bible,” CNN reports.”They affirm to each other that David Koresh was God in the flesh. Then, they usually go to lunch or run errands.”

Check out this CNN live coverage from 1993 of the raid.

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In a shocking sign of the times, The City of Brotherly Love is offering free mail-order condoms for kids in middle school. Yes, free mail order condoms.

Kids as young as 11 can order free condoms online at TakeControlPhilly.org.

One page on the TakeControlPhilly.org Web site says, “Let’s face it, sex is more fun when you’re not worried about getting pregnant or getting a sexually transmitted disease.”

The campaign hopes to reverse a negative trend in Philadelphia—the city has the largest rate of sexually active teens in the country and the fifth-largest HIV/AIDS rate in the 11 to 19 age group.

“We hear from teachers and school counselors and sometimes the principals that kids are cutting school in the afternoon and leaving early to go have orgies—and that’s in middle school,” Gary Bell, executive director of Bebashi-Transition to Hope, a local nonprofit that works with teens on prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, told ABC News.

Check out this video on the program, but be warned that the content may be offensive.

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There’s plenty of talk about how technology aids evangelism, but 21st century technology also opens the door to a myriad of creative ways to judge, criticize and condemn people.

You can jot judgmental remarks on a blog. You can e-mail critical comments. You can compose condemning words on Twitter (so long as you don’t use more than 140 characters). You can relay your rebuke via text message. Or you can put them on blast by way of Facebook.

Of course, most of us are too sophisticated to launch outright public attacks against our brothers and sisters in Christ, even behind the cloak of technological tools that guarantee anonymity. More likely, we keep our disapproval of a friend’s choice, the disparaging analysis of our pastor’s message, or the dislike of our daughter’s wardrobe in our thought life—or maybe we share it in confidence with our prayer partner so they can “touch and agree” on the thing with us.

Whether we judge, criticize and condemn publicly or keep the matter in our own hearts, God sees and hears it all. And every drop of scorn we pour on another is collecting in a bucket of belittlement that will one day tip over and drench us with detraction. In other words, as the Message Bible says, that critical spirit has a way of boomeranging.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus put it this way: “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye (Matt. 7:1-5 NASB).

Some years ago, I believe the Lord gave me a revelation of what that “log” is. It’s a log of judgment. Here’s the deal: Jesus didn’t say we shouldn’t try to get the speck out of our brother’s eye. He just wants us to go about it with the right spirit. He wants us to get that log of judgment out of our eye so we can see clearly—through the eyes of love—to take the speck out of our brother’s eye.

When we attempt to remove the speck out of our brother’s eye with judgmental glasses on, we do more harm than good—both to our brother and to ourselves. We hurt our brother because instead of showing the kindness of God that will lead him to repentance, we come at him with a spirit of condemnation that causes him to put up his defenses and justify the ungodly behavior. And we hurt ourselves because our religious pride is setting us up for a fall.

Get this. Jesus said we don’t even “notice” the log that is our own eye. We don’t notice it because we’re not examining ourselves. We’re too busy examining others. As the Message translation puts it, it’s easy to see the smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, “Let me wash your face for you” when your own face is distorted by contempt? Selah.

Jesus went on to call these contemptuous critics hypocrites. Now, we’re not hypocrites because we are failing to fully live up to the true heart intention that comes out of our mouths. We’re hypocrites when we are not trying wholeheartedly to live up to what comes out of our mouths. See the difference? It’s an important one.

We all fall short of the glory of God. None of us are completely obedient. Not one. And we’re not hypocrites if we are striving for maturity, make a mistake, receive God’s forgiveness, and run back to the battle line with more determination to conquer by His sufficient grace. Religious pride causes us not to notice the log in our eye, but to notice every little itsy bitsy teeny tiny speck in everyone else’s eyes—and judge them harshly for it.

Paul offered the appropriate response. If we follow this advice, we won’t beat a brother down with the telephone pole that’s sticking out of our eye and unwittingly set ourselves up for the same treatment: “Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived” (Gal. 6:1-3, The Message).

Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s look at the other side of the coin: how to respond when we are judged. The knee-jerk reaction is to put your defenses up, fight back, and make excuses. It’s quite possible that the person who is judging you is so far off base that the game would be over by the time he walked back to the field. But one of my spiritual mentors taught me a valuable lesson: Even if someone is railing on you out of a completely wrong spirit, use it as an opportunity to glean any nugget of truth you can find—and grow.

In other words, stay humble, pray about what they said, examine your own heart, and use it as a tool to refine your character. When you do, you’ll usually find an area where you can come up higher, whether that’s merely in how you respond to the criticism when it first smacks you upside the head, or something deeper.

Remember the two men who went into the temple to pray? (Luke 18:10-14 NLT). One was a respected Pharisee and the other a despised tax collector. The Pharisee prayed a self-righteous prayer, going so far as condemning the tax collector standing nearby. The tax collector, by contrast, wouldn’t even lift his eyes when he prayed. He beat his chest in sorrow and asked God for mercy. God saw it all, and Jesus said, “I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Jennifer is news editor at Charisma. She is also the author of several books, including the Heart of the Prophetic. You can e-mail Jennifer at [email protected] or visit her web site at www.jenniferleclaire.org.

If you only had about a month left on this earth, how would you spend your days?

Project Caravan is traveling around the country offering people this grim message. Backed by Family Radio, Project Caravan launched its first-of-a-kind RV national tract distribution mission last year to proclaim that Judgment Day begins on May 21, 2011.

This week, the doomsday evangelists emerged in Columbus, Ohio. Despite scripture that declares not even Jesus knows the day or the hour of His return, Project Caravan points to Scriptures and offers a mathematical formula that marks May 21 as the end of the age.

“This comes up every so many years,” the Rev. Gary DeLashmutt, a pastor of Xenos Christian Fellowship, an evangelical church based in Westerville, told the Columbus Dispatch. He pointed to “88 Reasons Why Jesus Is Coming Back in 1988” as another time in modern church history when someone tried to predict the Second Coming.

Like fathers like son? Not so in the case of a same-sex couple from New York who wanted to list each man’s name as “father” on their adopted child’s birth certificate.

The unmarried same-sex partners sued to change the Louisiana boy’s birth certificate to state that he had two dads. But the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the men could not force Louisiana to make the change.

Here’s the back story: Mickey Smith and Oren Adar, an unmarried same-sex male couple, adopted a baby in New York in 2006. The couple wanted to have the baby’s birth certificate reissued in Louisiana, replacing the names of his biological parents with their own. However, in Louisiana only married couples can jointly adopt a child. So the registrar refused the request.

Adar and Smith sued the registrar, claiming her decision denies full faith and credit to the NY adoption decree and violates their equal protection guarantees. After some legal wrangling, the court decided that “the full faith and credit clause does not oblige Louisiana to confer particular benefits on unmarried parents contrary to its law.”  

 This ruling affirms the distinction between “recognizing” the existence of an out-of-state order versus “enforcing” the out-of-state order on a state in which it conflicts with the state’s law. In other words, one state that allows same-sex marriage or same-sex adoption cannot force another state to enforce such an out-of-state law or order against its own law.

 “This decision is an incredible victory against the relentless efforts of activists to export their same-sex relationships to states that affirm the mother-father paradigm for family,” says Mathew Staver, founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University School of Law. “The Full Faith and Credit Clause can no longer be used as a club to beat states into submission to the activist homosexual agenda.”

When the January floods along Australia’s Brisbane River swamped nearly 12,000 homes and tourist precincts, it also destroyed a sanctuary of hope, help and healing.

The Hope Home in Rocklea was home to “Nat,” a woman who’s life, like others the Hope Foundation serves, had hit rock bottom. The Hope Foundation’s mission is to bring liberty to women wanting a life change from addiction and the sex industry through consistent Christ-centered care.

Nat was in recovery when the floods struck. The Hope Foundation—and Nat, who was recently reunited with her three children—saw a set back when the floodwaters rose over the roof. Everything Nat owned was ruined. But God is faithful.

Bronwen Healy, founder of the Hope Foundation, who herself escaped from a life of drug addiction in the sex industry, went into prayer, fasting—and fundraising. “We have seen God do amazing and over and above any blessing we’ve ever known!” she says.

Within two weeks, donors made it possible for the Hope Foundation to sign a new lease—giving Nat and her children a new home while she continues her recovery. Says Healy, “Believing this new season of ‘all things new’ will blow Nat away, Ephesians 3:20 style!”