After 35 years of leading a faith movement, Fred Price will step aside March 15 to install his son, Fred Price Jr., as senior pastor of Crenshaw Christian Center (CCC) in Los Angeles.  

Feb. 27, 2009 – Fred Price, founder of one of the nation’s first black megachurches and an icon of the faith movement, will step aside on March 15 to install his son, Fred Price Jr., as senior pastor of Crenshaw Christian Center (CCC) in Los Angeles.

“The formal succession of my son will take place on his 30th birthday, the same day Jesus began his ministry,” said the elder Price, who still plans to teach periodically. “This wasn’t planned, it just happened that way. I believe that it’s a sign from God that after six years of training as an assistant pastor, Freddie is ready to sit in the driver’s seat and I will be there to help him along his way.”

According to a statement released by the church, Price, 77, will not completely retire from ministry, but only from daily church duties and his weekly television and radio broadcast titled “Ever Increasing Faith.”

The younger Price is a gospel rap artist and accomplished musician whose appreciation for hip-hop culture inspired him years ago to create “Hip Hop Sunday,” later renamed “The Blue Print,” which were CCC services that mixed faith, music and “Krump” dancing.

“The Bible says a good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children,” said the younger Price. “My father left me a powerful inheritance to teach the word and to be a man of integrity. He’s been an awesome father and a great role model.  I look forward to continuing his legacy.”

Creflo Dollar of World Changers Church International will deliver the keynote address at the ceremony. The younger Price reportedly realized his ministry calling while attending a service Dollar led years ago.

The public can see the installation ceremony by watching it online Sunday, March 15, at 9:30 a.m. . 

An annual report released this week about church growth highlights two Pentecostal denominations as the only faith groups of traditional Christian orthodoxy that increased church membership.

Feb. 26, 2009 — While membership in the nation’s largest Christian communions declined last year, two Pentecostal denominations showed an increase.

The Assemblies of God (AG) of Springfield, Mo., and the Cleveland, Church of God were the only two denominations of traditional Christian orthodoxy among the 25 largest churches in the U.S. to report membership increases, according to the 2009 edition of the Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches, an annual chronicle of religious institutions edited by the National Council of Churches (NCC) and published by Abingdon.

The AG listed nearly 2.9 million members while the Church of God reported 1 million.

The ecumenical NCC reported the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Jehovah’s Witnesses as the only other church groups to show membership increases, even though most Pentecostals, and many mainline churches and orthodox Christians, would consider those two groups separate religions.

A slight membership decline among Catholic and Southern Baptist churches, according to the yearbook, raised eyebrows because both denominations have typically grown over the years. “Now they join virtually every mainline church in reporting a membership decline,” stated an NCC release.

In the bigger picture, the yearbook reported the small less-than-one-percent drop in membership in each denomination was not “earth-shattering” because there are still more than 67 million Roman Catholics in the U.S. and 16 million Southern Baptists.

Churches listed in the NCC yearbook as experiencing the highest rate of membership loss are the United Church of Christ, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The Rev. Eileen W. Lindner, the yearbook’s editor, said there are no clear-cut theological or sociological reasons for church growth or decline. “Many churches are feeling the impact of the lifestyles of younger generations of church-goers,” Lindner said, “the Gen X’ers or Millenials in their 20s and 30s who attend and support local congregations but resist joining them.”

As tens of thousands of teens prepare to fundraise through fasting this weekend, the results of a new study reveal most teens are charity-minded, and that the current U.S. recession is only helping to boost their awareness.

Feb. 26, 2009 — Countering perceptions that today’s youth are selfish and lazy, hundreds of thousands of teens from 7,000 youth groups will fast, pray, fundraise and serve neighbors in need this weekend to raise awareness about world hunger.

The 30-Hour Famine, an initiative of World Vision, comes days after the results of a new study show that more teens volunteer for charitable causes than their parents do. “The stereotype that teens are selfish and lazy is not an uncommon perception, but I’d say it’s probably not true,” said Pat Rhoads, national director of the 30-Hour Famine.

“Nearly half a million teenagers will participate in the 30-Hour Famine this year,” he said. “That goes a long way towards showing how, as a whole, teenagers may not be all that selfish and unmotivated.”

Rhoads said the teen-led fast, which raised $12 million last year, inspires kids ahead of each event to find sponsors to pay $1 for every hour fasted. He said a dollar cares for one child for one day; 12 sponsors would care for a child for one year. Most students begin their fast after lunch on Friday and end it Saturday evening.

Funds raised by teens will go to Uganda, Zambia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Haiti, North Korea and other nations hit by famine, conflict or other crises that make children vulnerable.

World Vision leaders said they have long known that teens want to make a difference in the world. “The survey surprised some but not a lot of folks here at World Vision,” said John Yeager, chief spokesman for World Vision. “Teens have helped raise more than $120 million [over the years] through 30-Hour Famine. Bottom line, I think adults sell teens short and the [survey] numbers bear that out.”

The secular study, which was conducted by Harris Interactive, revealed that three out of four adults view teens as “tech-savvy” while two out of three said they were “intelligent.” More than half of the parents surveyed said teens were “selfish” and “lazy.”

But rather than supporting negative stereotypes, the study found that since the current recession hit, seven in 10 teens have gained a stronger awareness of the needs of others. “I think the current economic climate has put a little bit of a squeeze on some of the families of these teenagers and made them that much more aware of other people who are in need,” Rhoads said.

He also speculated that the Internet and globalization has changed teens’ cultural values.

“I think students, in particular, are just a lot more aware of the world around them,” Rhoads said. “The ease with which people find out about things that are going on in different parts of the world is amazing compared to when I was a teenager [in the 1980s]. Students have just really decided that [charitable causes] are important to them and have led the charge on their own.”

The next 30-Hour Famine takes place in April. The events are decentralized, with each group planning its own activities. “The 30-Hour Famine is really meant to be owned by individual churches,” Rhoads said. “It’s more about them and their youth ministries, as much, if not more, than it is about what they raise for us.”   — Paul Steven Ghiringhelli

A pastor, who faces prison time for offering sidewalk counseling at an abortion clinic in Oakland, Calif., showed up on the same sidewalk yesterday, praying that women would change their minds.

Feb. 25, 2009 — A pro-life pastor facing prison time for offering sidewalk counseling at an abortion clinic in Oakland, Calif., returned to the same sidewalk on Tuesday, praying with a handful of others for God to change the hearts and minds of women seeking abortions.

“I am fully aware that this may be my last opportunity to do all I can to save my people,” said Walter B. Hoye, a minister from Berkley, Calif., who founded the Issues4Life Foundation.

Hoye was given 30 days in jail, a $1,130 fine and 3 years probation at his sentencing last Thursday, which included a “stay away order” from the abortion clinic he was convicted in January of unlawfully approaching.

Because Hoye refused to agree to the stay away order, a technical legality forced his sentencing to be re-scheduled for March 20 and he remains free until then.

Prior to his arrest and conviction, Hoye launched a federal civil lawsuit last year challenging the constitutionality of the Oakland city ordinance later used to arrest him. The law bars picketers from coming within eight feet of women entering an abortion clinic.

Hoye, whose organization is a member of the National Black Pro-Life Union, is known for standing outside the Oakland abortion clinic offering leaflets and counseling to women.

“This morning may be the last morning I will have a chance to stop the shedding of innocent blood in the African-American community,” Hoye said yesterday before heading out to the clinic near Jack London Square with his trademark sign that says, “God loves you and your baby.  Let us help you.”

“We are asking God,” he said, “to use us [today] to reach the men and women going into the abortion clinic with the love of Jesus Christ. This hour may be the last hour available to me to reach out to the men and women with child considering pre-natal murder.”

Hoye said late last night that after arriving at the abortion clinic, Oakland police showed up and indicated they would arrest him. He decided to leave peacefully.

In a speech to Congress last night, President Obama tried to instill confidence in the American public and also explain why Washington has had to bail out banks and investment companies.

Feb. 25, 2009 — Last night, in his first appearance before a joint session of Congress, President Obama delivered an optimistic speech, repeatedly telling the nation that though the economic climate may be dark, clearer days lie ahead.

“While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: we will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before,” Obama said.

“During the speech, which drew more than 33 million viewers according to Nielsen, the president repeatedly urged members of Congress to place energy, education and health care on top of their list of priorities. He also had tough words for bank owners and Wall Street executives who have been receiving federal bailout money during the current economic crisis.

Obama, in the wake of signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, an unprecedented $787 billion stimulus package that became law last Tuesday, said that bailouts of huge corporations are a sort of necessary evil.

“I know how unpopular it is to be seen as helping banks right now, especially when everyone is suffering in part from their bad decisions,” Obama said. “I promise you – I get it.

“But I also know that in a time of crisis, we cannot afford to govern out of anger, or yield to the politics of the moment.  My job – our job – is to solve the problem.  Our job is to govern with a sense of responsibility,” he said.

Obama said there would be no real recovery in the U.S. unless the credit crisis that has severely weakened financial systems is fixed. He said if the nation does not re-start lending, the economic recovery would be choked off before it even begins.

“You see, the flow of credit is the lifeblood of our economy,” he said in a teaching moment. “I want to speak plainly and candidly about this issue tonight, because every American should know that it directly affects you and your family’s well-being.”

Obama said it would be unacceptable to consign the nation to an “open-ended recession.”

To ensure that a crisis of the current magnitude never happens again, he said Congress must move quickly on legislation that will reform the outdated regulatory system. “It is time to put in place tough, new common-sense rules of the road so that our financial market rewards drive and innovation, and punishes short-cuts and abuse,” he said.

In the speech, Obama urged Congress and business leaders to do all they could to keep American jobs from going overseas, as the financial difficulties faced by the nation continually took center stage.

“The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation,” he said. “The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach.  They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest working people on earth.”

A Los Angeles-based university was awarded a $6.9 million grant this week to establish a Pentecostal and charismatic research center in the birthplace city of American Pentecostalism.

Feb. 24, 2009 – This week the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles received a $6.9 million grant to study Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity — one of the world’s fastest growing religious movements.

Awarded by the John Templeton Foundation, a natural and social sciences philanthropy, the grant is the largest amount ever given towards Pentecostal-charismatic research and will be used to establish the Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative (PCRI) at USC.

“The growth of global Pentecostalism is one of the most remarkable religious transformations of the last century,” said Kimon Sargeant, vice president of human sciences at the John Templeton Foundation.

“The goal of this project is to further a better understanding of its significance in the social sciences in areas ranging from social capital to economic development and more.”

With as many as 600 million Christians worldwide claiming to be Spirit-filled, observers say Pentecostalism’s profound effect on cultures has forced the academic community to take note.

“We are excited that with the continued growth of the charismatic-Pentecostal movement around the world, scholars and universities are continuing to try to understand this phenomenon,” said the Rev. Billy Wilson, executive director of the International Center for Spiritual Renewal and chairman of the Commission on Holy Spirit Empowerment in the 21^st Century, which is examining the future of the Pentecostal-charismatic movement in partnership with Oral Roberts University.

“Our prayer is that this research will not only help people understand the charismatic-Pentecostal movement, but will also help more believers around the world be engaged in the Spirit-filled life,” Wilson said.

USC officials said the initiative would foster social science research in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the former Soviet Union, while continuing to study Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity in Los Angeles.

“Our goal is to inspire research partnerships around the globe and fund projects that will shape the discussion for years to come,” said Donald Miller, executive director of USC’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture and author of Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement.

“We are interested in understanding why Pentecostalism is growing so rapidly, what impact it is having on society and how it is different in various cultural settings.”

With the largest charismatic populations in the “global South,” including nations such as Brazil, Guatemala, Kenya and the Philippines, scholars say the movement is making Christian converts ubiquitous, which in turn affects not just cultures but governments too.

The Pentecostal-charismatic movement “has far-reaching implications for international politics and interactions among religious groups,” said Brie Loskota, program officer at PCRI. “Studying Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity is critical to understanding the ways in which religion shapes our world.”

John Green, senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, agrees that the research initiative will allow for a more in-depth study of global Spirit-filled movements. “It will expand the boundaries of knowledge about these key religious developments that are central to the spread of Christianity in the 21st century,” Green said.   —Paul Steven Ghiringhelli

The FBI announced today that, along with local and state law enforcement, they’ve recovered nearly 50 children who were being prostituted domestically.

Feb. 23, 2009 — In a three-day sting operation involving 29 cities and all levels of law enforcement, the FBI reported today the recovery of 48 children nationwide who were trapped in the sex trade, some as young as 13.

“We continue to pursue those who exploit our nation’s children,” said FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III. “We may not be able to return their innocence but we can remove them from this cycle of abuse and violence.”

Nearly 600 people were arrested on state and federal charges for the domestic trafficking of children for prostitution and solicitation during Operation Cross Country, an action of the Innocence Lost National Initiative, which the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division formed in 2003 in partnership with the Child Exploitation-Obscenity Section of the Justice Department and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Task forces affiliated with the program have reportedly recovered 670 children to date and have helped secure convictions and lengthy sentences for criminals.

Lois Lee, founder of the child-rescue group Children of the Night, said Monday she believes local law enforcement deserve most of the credit. She also said the FBI should be accountable for where they place the recovered children.

“Those of us in the field know that many of these children are placed in detention on ‘material witness holds’ until they testify against the pimp,” Lee said. “Then [they’re] released to the social service systems or families that failed them in the first place.”

An FBI official said young victims forced into prostitution are usually abandoned children. “Unfortunately, the vast majority of these kids are what they term ‘throwaway kids,’ with no family support, no friends,” FBI Deputy Assistant Director Daniel Roberts told the Associated Press. “They’re kids that nobody wants, they’re loners. Many are runaways.”

Lee, who began rescuing children in the 1980s, said pimps often move from city to city looking for children who look to be alone, alienated.

“Children are recruited by pimps in arcades, malls, entertainment centers, at tourist attractions and concerts,” she said. “The pimp seduces a new recruit with the lure of wealth and the luxury of designer clothes, fancy cars, and exclusive nightclubs.”

Regrettably, thousands of children are victimized in the U.S. every year, she said. “Child prostitution is an immense and devastating problem that nobody wants to recognize, nobody wants to talk about, and everyone wants to cover up. Child prostitutes are not only abandoned by their parents, but by the social services system as well.”

As the nation’s largest Presbyterian denomination considers allowing non-celibate gay clergy, three conservative churches in Indiana amiably announced their departure.

Feb. 23, 2009 — Three Indiana churches belonging to the Presbyterian Church (USA) will break away from the national church on April 15.

The leadership from Covenant Presbyterian Church of West Lafayette, First Presbyterian Church of Frankfort and First Presbyterian Church of Nappanee requested the split based on theological differences regarding scriptural interpretation.

“There was also disagreement over what it meant to be faithful to Jesus’ teaching in certain areas of ethics, such as in the area of sexuality,” said David Henderson, senior pastor of Covenant Presbyterian. ‘[But] we’ve tried to figure out how to love those with whom we disagree.”

Another leader said when Christians don’t agree, Christ gave them principles to follow. “Honesty, humility, thinking more highly of others than of ourselves — these are some of our guiding principles, and abiding by them has allowed us to genuinely love one another through this process,” said Thomas Jameson, senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Frankfort.

All three congregations were granted dismissal last Tuesday and are now aligned with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), a denomination with less than 5 percent membership than PCUSA. The three churches will change their names and pay a total of $975,000 to the Wabash Valley Presbytery, which will then transfer ownership of each church’s property.

In the past two years, more than forty congregations have left the PC(USA) and affiliated with the EPC for reasons similar to those cited by the three congregations.

According to a statement on Covenant’s Web site, at the Wabash Valley Presbytery meeting 115 delegates approved the agreement of dismissal, while two delegates voted against it.

Meanwhile, a group of mainline Presbyterians from Arkansas have endorsed a PCUSA constitutional amendment allowing non-celibate homosexuals to serve as ordained ministers, elders and deacons. 

On Saturday, the Presbytery of Arkansas voted 116-64 for the amendment, which the national church’s General Assembly approved last June, reported the Associated Press (AP).

The measure allowing for gay clergy goes into effect if a majority of PCUSA’s 173 presbyteries approve it, according to the AP.

The amendment calls for eliminating language that asks clergy to “live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness” and replace it with a requirement for clergy to “pledge themselves to live lives obedient to Jesus Christ.”

In the Indiana schism, Henderson said he was pleased throughout the separation process to see Christ-likeness displayed and not bitterness. “Too many people have the idea that God is an angry God, and that Christians are angry people. We wanted to show otherwise,” he said. “Whenever God reveals His nature in the scriptures, He always uses words like gracious, merciful, loving, slow to anger. Well, those are the words we wanted to be used of us when we got done with this process. We want to reflect the One we follow.

“We were determined to let love have the last word, not disagreement or frustration or hurt,” he said. “And I think it has.”

Fasting and prayer icon Lou Engle is urging Christians to pray with him in a Los Angeles auditorium from Sunday night through Wednesday.

 Feb. 20, 2009 — Lou Engle, founder of TheCall, is imploring Christians to pray beginning this Sunday night for “reformation” to come to California’s government.

Engle, a strong supporter of Proposition 8, a measure on the California ballot passed by voters last November outlawing same-sex marriage, issued his urgent call for fasting and prayer partly as a response to the legal fight gay-rights activists are waging in California courts to overthrow the gay-marriage ban.

“I’m just burning inside for California,” Engle said in a video on TheCall Web site. “In a very crisis and critical moment of time, even with the Proposition 8 issue being raged over again, we are taking our stand and saying ‘no’ to the powers of darkness and ‘yes’ to the brilliant light of God.”

Engle is urging Christians across California to join him each night from Sunday through Ash Wednesday at the Mott Auditorium in Pasadena, Calif.

The raspy voiced leader known for routinely spearheading corporate fasts said he recently analyzed his long prophetic history in California, trying to determine what promises God had given him. “I can tell you it’s almost like those promises have become more real to me than ever before,” he said. “The circumstances, situations, the people getting elected, they don’t dictate the future of the promises of God.”

Other Christian leaders also sense the urgency in California, which is why Engle has asked the entire body of Christ to pray for God to “hold back the homosexual marriage thing that’s coming raging in again.”

Engle dubbed the four-day prayer rally The Elijah Revolution. “Every evening, we’re going to be holding a prophetic recall gathering,” he said. “We’re going to play and replay our prophetic history, the promises of God, for people all over California, young and old.”

On Wednesday, following the prayer rally, Engle will launch 40 days of prayer and fasting for the season of lent. He said years ago he participated in a 40-day prayer walk from San Diego to San Francisco during the season lent.

He also announced 40-day perpetual fasts through this summer, leading up to TheCall in Sacramento on Nov. 7.