Serious tongue lashing. ‘You’re Spoiled. You’re Flat-Out Spoiled’: Bishop T.D. Jakes lashes out on Toni Braxton and her Sisters

Bishop T.D. Jakes, lead preacher at The Potter’s House in Dallas, Texas, delivered an excoriating lecture to famed singer Toni Braxton and her sisters, calling them “flat-out spoiled,” and accusing them of acting “disgraceful” toward the “millions of people of color” who idolize them.

Jakes, a popular megachurch pastor who appeared as part of an intervention and spiritual counseling session that aired on WEtv’s “Braxton Family Values” on Thursday night, held little back in rebuking the bickering sisters, who star together on the reality show.

JOSEPH AYODELE BABALOLA: A notable General in Nigeria's Church History.

It was Prof. Saburi Biobaku who said,

Great men appear now and again to help shape the course of human history. The history of their lives does not of itself amount to the totality of the history of man. It nevertheless serves to illuminate that history and unravel the course of human events [l].
The story of Apostle Joseph Ayodele Babalola, his life and work can be thus classified. His unprecedented Oke-Oye Revival gave birth to what is now known as the Christ Apostolic Church (C.A.C.), a Nigerian indigenous church. 

His Background 

Joseph Ayodele Babalola was born on April 25, 1904 to David Rotimi and Madam Marta Talabi who belonged to the Anglican Church. The family lived at Odo-Owa in Ilofa, a small town about ninety kilometres from Ilorin in Kwara State, Nigeria. His father was the Baba Ijo ("church father") of the C.M.S. Church at Odo-Owa. Pastor Medayese wrote in his book Itan Igbe dide Woli Ayo Babalola that mysterious circumstances surrounded the birth of Babalola. On that day, it was believed that a strange and mighty object exploded and shook the clouds [2]. 

On January 18, 1914, young Babalola was taken by his brother M. 0. Rotimi, a Sunday school teacher in the C.M.S. Church at Ilofa, to Osogbo. Babalola started school at Ilofa and got as far as standard five at All Saints' School, Osogbo. However, he quit school when he decided to learn a trade and became a motor mechanic apprentice. Again, he did not continue long in this vocation before joining the Public Works Department (PWD). He was among the road workers who constructed the road from Igbara-Oke to Ilesa, working as a steam roller driver. 

Babalola's Call to the Prophetic Ministry 

Just like the Old Testament prophets, Babalola was called by God into the prophetic office to stand before men [3]. His was a specific and personal call. 

Babalola's strange experience started on the night of September 25th, 1928 when he suddenly became restless and could not sleep. This went on for a week and he had no inkling of the causes of such a strange experience. The climax came one day when he was, as usual, working on the Ilesa-Igbara-Oke road. Suddenly the steam roller's engin stopped to his utter amazement. There was no visible mechanical problem, and Joseph became confused and perplexed. He was in this state of confusion when a great voice "like the sound of many waters" called him three times. The voice was loud and clear and it told him that he would die if he refused to heed the divine call to go into the world and preach. Babalola did not want to listen to this voice and he responded like many of the Biblical prophets, who, when they were called out by Yahweh as prophets, did not normally yield to the first call. Men like Moses and Jeremiah submitted to God only when it became inevitable. So, Babalola gave in only after he had received the assurance of divine guidance. 

Why are So Many Former Atheists Coming to Christ?

Usually, I only see them when we move. As I’m ripping open box after box of books and propping up worn and dog-eared volumes on the shelves, I come across them like some sort of sweaty prize. They don’t look like much on the outside—just scuffed up, spiral-bound notebooks in black and blue—and you might think they deserve a quick jog to the trash.

But I can’t throw them out. They weigh too much—not in mass, but in memory.

The inside isn’t much better than outside. The paper has more scribble marks and abandoned pages than finalized poems, but each one serves as a time capsule. Here you’ll see why life stinks; there you’ll see why Noah’s flood had to be mere fantasy; on that page you’ll find an ode to meaningless existence; the next contains a curse upon the billions of years of evolution that ruined humanity.

I read them now not to revel in such “lovely” themes, but to remind myself that the past is real. God answered the prayers of several Christians, and He dug an atheist like that out of the pit. He transformed a mind that had convinced itself that the Bible was completely false and “science” was right. How do I know? I know because that atheist was me.

So, you could say that I have a vested interest in seeing many other atheists follow the same trajectory. And when they do, I realize the truth that no one is so far beyond help that they cannot see the light of Christ.

Fear of God gone in the land!!! "Impastor", New Show Mocks Pastors

Buddy Dobbs is "a hard-core gambling addict who, in order to go on the run from a loan shark, ends up stealing the identity of a gay pastor in a local small-town community."  Such is the plot for Impastor, a new "comedy" that airs tomorrow night on TV Land.  This is the same network that brought us reruns of Bonanza, Gunsmoke, I Love Lucy, and The Andy Griffith Show.  I wonder what Andy would think of his network now.

According to OneMillionMoms, "This show not only depicts pastors in a negative light, but the entire program will also be based on lies about Christianity."  The website also notes that "TV Land is not ridiculing any other religion currently and wouldn't dream of mocking Mohammed or Muslims." 

Christians can respond in two ways.

First, we can ask the network to cancel the series.  The OneMillionMoms website lists ways you can contact network executives in this regard.  If television producers believe that programs mocking Christianity will cost them money, they are less likely to make such shows.  Using practical means to advance biblical morality is a strategy encouraged by the One who sent out his disciples to be "wise as serpents and innocent as doves" (Matthew 10:16).

Second, we can encourage our ministers.  Impastor depicts a pastor involved in illicit sex.  Tragically, 63 percent of pastors surveyed admitted that they struggle with compulsive sexual addictions or desires.  In addition, 70 percent of pastors struggle chronically with depression; 77 percent say they do not have a good marriage; 80 percent say pastoral ministry has negatively affected their families; and 70 percent do not have someone they consider a close friend.

Not surprisingly, 80 percent of those who enter the ministry leave it within five years; 1,500 pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, burnout, or divisiveness in their churches.  Only 23 percent of pastors say they feel happy and content on a regular basis with who they are in Christ, in their church, and in their home.

Clearly, the enemy is attacking the church by attacking pastors.  He knows that the best way to attack the sheep is to attack their shepherd.  And he knows that immorality and discouragement feed each other.  Private sin inevitably becomes public failure, and the cause of Christ is harmed as a result.

It's no wonder that Paul repeatedly asked Christians to pray that he would be delivered from his enemies (2 Thessalonians 3:1-2; Romans 15:30-31) and that he would be bold and effective in proclaiming the gospel (Ephesians 6:19-20; Colossians 4:3-4).  When Charles Spurgeon was asked the secret to his ministry, he always replied, "My people pray for me."


More and more churches today are wrestling with divisions and fears caused by same-sex marriage.  They are struggling with denominational conflicts, financial challenges, and growing cultural irrelevance.  And pastors are facing temptations and tests on every front.

But we can turn negative into positive by responding to attacks with intercession.  Erasmus noted that Satan hates nothing so much as for his evil to be used for good.  So let's expose the imposter behind Impastor.  And let's respond to his deception on our knees.

Paul asked believers to "strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf" (Romans 15:30).  Your pastor needs you to do the same today.


CHRISTIANHEADLINES

Myrtle Beach restaurant patron jailed after planning for ‘Jesus’ to pay tab

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WBTW) – A woman was arrested Sunday night after refusing to pay her dinner tab at a Myrtle Beach seafood restaurant because, as she explained to police, “Jesus” was going to cover the cost of her meal.

Myrtle Beach Police were called to Bennetts Calabash just after 9 p.m. Sunday night when, according to the incident report, 51-year-old April Lee Yates was asked to leave by management, but refused to do so. The report states that Yates was in the restaurant for nearly four hours before she started to cause a disturbance with other patrons. Management asked Yates to pay her dinner tab and leave, but she refused to pay the $26 bill.

When the officer asked Yates if she had any money to pay, Yates said she did not. The officer then asked Yates what she planned to do with the bill came, and Yates explained that “Jesus” was going to pay her tab.

Yates was arrested for defrauding a restaurant and booked into the Myrtle Beach jail.


WBTW

SAMUEL AJAYI CROWTHER: Foremost African Christian of the Nineteenth Century

Samuel Adjai [1] Crowther was probably the most widely known African Christian of the nineteenth century. His life spanned the greater part of it -- he was born in its first decade and died in the last. He lived through a transformation of relations between Africa and the rest of the world and a parallel transformation in the Christian situation in Africa. By the time of his death the bright confidence in an African church led by Africans, a reality that he seemed to embody in himself, had dimmed. Today things look very different. It seems a good time to consider the legacy of Crowther. 

Slavery and Liberation 

The story begins with the birth of a boy called Ajayi in the town of Osogun in Yorubaland in what is now Western Nigeria, in or about the year 1807. In later years the story was told that a diviner had indicated that Ajayi was not to enter any of the cults of the orisa, the divinities of the Yoruba pantheon, because he was to be a servant of Olorun [2], the God of heaven [3]. He grew up in dangerous times. Both the breakup of the old Yoruba empire of Oyo, and the effect of the great Islamic jihads, which were establishing a new Fulani empire to the north, meant chaos for the Yoruba states. Warfare and raiding became endemic. Besides all the trauma of divided families and transplantation that African slavery could bring, the raids fed a still worse evil: the European traders at the coast. These maintained a trade in slaves, illegal but still richly profitable, across the Atlantic. 

When Crowther was about thirteen, Osogun was raided, apparently by a combination of Fulani and Oyo Muslims. Crowther twice recorded his memories of the event, vividly recalling the desolation of burning houses, the horror of capture and roping by the neck, the slaughter of those unfit to travel, the distress of being torn from relatives. Ajayi changed hands six times, before being sold to Portuguese traders for the transatlantic market. 

The colony of Sierra Leone had been founded by a coalition of anti-slavery interests, mostly evangelical Christian in inspiration and belonging to the circle associated with William Wilberforce and the "Clapham Sect." It was intended from the beginning as a Christian settlement, free from slavery and the slave trade. The first permanent element in the population was a group of former slaves from the New World. Following the abolition of the slave trade by the British Parliament in 1807 and the subsequent treaties with other nations to outlaw the traffic, Sierra Leone achieved a new importance. It was a base for the naval squadron that searched vessels to find if they were carrying slaves. It was also the place where slaves were brought if any were found aboard. The Portuguese ship on which Ajayi was taken as a slave was intercepted by the British naval squadron in April 1822, and he, like thousands of other uprooted, disorientated people from inland Africa, was put ashore in Sierra Leone. 

By this time, Sierra Leone was becoming a Christian community. It was one of the few early successes of the missionary movement, though the Christian public at large was probably less conscious of the success than of the appalling mortality of missionaries in what became known as the White Man's Grave. To all appearances the whole way of life of Sierra Leone -- clothing, buildings, language, education, religion, even names -- closely followed Western models. These were people of diverse origins whose cohesion and original identity were now beyond recall. They accepted the combination of Christian faith and Western lifestyle that Sierra Leone offered, a combination already represented in the oldest inhabitants of the colony, the settled slaves from the New World. 

What a tremendous time at Upgrade 16!!!

The Christian Leadership Upgrade 16 took place today with lot of exciting sessions. The worship session was soul lifting while the messages were taken principally from the Book of Revelation. No wonder this year's upgrade programmes were titled "The Book of Revelation Series". This edition has the theme "The Manchild, The Mark and The New Song". 

Pastor Demola Akinyemi took the opening message, while Pastor Wole Olakunle, the programme host, took the main message on the theme. It was indeed insightful as the Lord granted the Ministers grace to easily open this great Book of Revelation. The Spirit of understanding was pervasive and the participants grateful to God for the great exposition. 

We shall bring the full details later. 

Here are scenes from the meeting after the cut.....

TESTIMONY: Bolatito Bez-Idakula shares her experience of coping with child loss after birth.

Bolatito Bez-Idakula, who is the Founder of My Lighthouse and married to the famous musician Emmanuel Bez Idakula (known as Bez) shared her experience on her website (MY LIGHTHOUSE) on how she was able to cope with the gravity and pain of losing her child hours after birth. 

"The reason I am sharing this is not because I want a pity party but because I want to share God’s love even in the midst of pain. I want to share His love NOW. A lot of times when we go through difficult moments as Christians, we seem to forget all about God and we just wait until times get good again before sharing our testimonies. We almost forget that it is God that holds us up when we could have broken down. It is God that sustains us and gives us the ability to move forward", she wrote.

Her testimony is indeed very inspiring and our prayer for Bolatito is that affliction will never arise again in Jesus name. She will carry the next pregnancy to full term, her baby will abide and there shall be no loss again in Jesus name. 

We salute the faith of Bolatito and Bez.

Read the what she shared after the cut....

The Story of Christian Pastor sentenced to prison for refusing to marry a gay couple is fake.

Some websites are confirming that the Story that broke few days ago about a “Christian Pastor in Vermont Pastor sentenced to one year in prison after refusing to marry gay couple” and which was reported on this news site is fake. You can read the story HERE

Perhaps you have seen in your social media feeds an article headlined, "Christian Pastor in Vermont Sentenced to One Year in Prison After Refusing to Marry Gay Couple." It received about 5,000 Facebook shares as well as interactions on other social media platforms.

Is it real? We decided to take a closer look.

The article was published at a site called NewsExaminer on July 10. It says that a pastor from Proctor, Vt., was sentenced to a year in federal prison after refusing to marry gay couples. It came just days after the Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that same-sex marriage would be allowed in all 50 states. (The ruling didn’t legalize same-sex marriage in Vermont, which approved it on its own in 2009.)

But the bottom line is that the NewsExaminer is a fake-news site, and has been classified as such by Snopes, the urban legends site. Through a posting to an NBC copycat website with the url www.nbc.com.co, the article gained traction through mistaken association with the genuine NBC News site.

The article cites several individuals involved in the case, but none seem to exist.

Christian Pastor In Vermont Sentenced To One Year In Prison After Refusing To Marry Gay Couple

A pastor at the Christian Proctor Church in Vermont, has been sentenced to one year in federal prison after refusing to marry gay couples. This comes shortly after the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision ruling that states must allow gay-marriage, according to NBC.
The Christian Pastor, 56-year-old Paul Horner, had his lawyer speak to reporters on his behalf.

“We are currently disputing the guilty verdict and I am confident my client will be a free man here shortly,” said attorney Tom Downey. “Horner was just using his best judgement according to his rights and religious freedom in this country.”

The Honorable Myron Danus handed down the harsh sentence.
“Religious freedom goes both ways, Mr. Horner,” Danus told a packed courtroom. “It is not your place to deny individuals the same rights that everyone else has, rights that were passed down and agreed upon in a court of law, the ultimate court, the Supreme Court. It is not your decision whether or not you agree with the law but more importantly that you follow it and enforce it.”

Religious faith keeps these soccer players going in their Career

Two fingers pointing up, a smile on their faces, and dancing or a quick run is how some soccer players are celebrating the wins that make…

Brazil’s David Luiz is known to express his Christian faith through the use of bumper stickers on his van.  (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Two fingers pointing up, a smile on their faces, and dancing or a quick run is how some soccer players are celebrating the wins that make them famous in the World Cup.
Still, for several of these players, athletic skills are not their main concern out on the field as much as giving credit to God, who they believe is responsible for their wins: It’s their faith that’s granting them stardom in the World Cup, now that their skills are indisputable.
It’s faith strong enough to be displayed on the field despite the recent ban by FIFA of any kind of messaging to be present on the players’ undershirts, similar to those worn by players like Ricardo Kaká.

Neymar’s religious faith

Players such as Neymar, who entered Brazil’s roster as a forward, are still giving faint-provoking wins to the hosting team. He’s often seen signaling up after scoring — a sign of the strong Catholic Faith he shares in common with his family.
David Luiz is also known boast about his faith in media interviews, and for driving a van with bumper stickers displaying Christian messages when he plays in Portugal.
Neymar and Luiz are part of an elite group in this World Cup comprised of exceptional players who stand out for their performance, but are even more vocal about their religious faith.

Brazilian players and their love for Christ.

Neymar celebrating the Champion League's Cup final win over Juventus. Barcelona, Neymar's team won 3-1 with Neymar getting the final goal. Neymar is a player who's never ashamed to declare his faith.

Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior born 5 February 1992), commonly known as Neymar or Neymar Jr., is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays for Spanish club FC Barcelona and the Brazil national team as a forward or winger. He serves as the captain of the Brazil national team.

Christian News Front is here!!!

Christian News Front has set sail. Please get ready for insightful news, human angle stories, Christians walking the faith, soul winning, music, Church news, entertainment, sports, business, politics, mission news, faith challenges, messages, audio, videos, events and many others, all from the Christian perspective. We will not loose sight of the challenges of our brothers on the gospel field and the persecution of christian believers in some hot centres of the planet. We also take into cognizance the fact that the areas which were the bastion of the Christian faith are fast turning to hostile zone for the Christian faith. 

Your contributions, news development relating to the faith, questions, testimonies, faith experience and feedback are welcome. You can also keep us abreast of news worthy development at your end.

We certainly desire your prayers in this challenging assignment.

You can send your email to christiannewsfront@gmail.com.

Thank you.