Recently, I began communicating with a student at Fuller Seminary on the track for ordination. He has a new kind of church plant stirring in his heart. The Rev. Jamal Scarlett along with The Rev. Cameron Lemons are working together to plant The Grove Church of Lake Elsinore (CA). “Cameron and I started meeting together two years ago as we believed God was stirring our hearts toward multicultural ministry. I am Afro/Latino-American (Black Hispanic) and he is an Irish-American,” shared Rev. Scarlett.

When they met, they were both Southern Baptists. Cameron was a Youth Pastor at a local church and Jamal was a Worship Leader and Youth Pastor at another church. Over many coffee hours, they began a conversation about what it might look like to be a church that is multicultural. That is, a church that is not just multicolored, but sees diversity of culture as a ministry asset versus a liability. The desire was to be a church that reflected Revelation 7:9 where people of every nation, tongue and tribe worshiped and glorified the Lord together. Ultimately, this led to the call of planting The Grove Church with a missional imperative set on acts of kindness (feeding the hungry, caring for the lonely and the outcast) as well as seeking the restoration of all things, including reconciliation.

As these two pastors were praying for a vision for their church plant, they were led on a journey to Anglicanism.

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In September 2011, the General Synod of the Church of Nigeria passed a resolution supporting the formation of the Missionary Diocese of the Trinity (MDT), under the oversight of the Rt. Rev’d Amos Fagbamiye. The MDT is currently comprised of congregations and clergy in both the United States and Canada. Bishop Fagbamiye leads the Anglican Cathedral Church of the Resurrection in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Plans are underway for the inauguration of the MDT on August 19, in Indianapolis with the Most Rev’d Nicholas Okoh, Primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) officiating. Everyone is welcome to attend the celebration….

Read it all and there is more information there.

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A suicide bombing in the north-eastern Nigerian city of Damaturu has killed several soldiers, reports say.

According to an eyewitness, the suicide bomber rammed a car into a military vehicle that was part of a convoy.

The attacker’s vehicle was being chased by troops when the bomb went off, a police spokesman said. No group has said it carried out the bombing.

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Myra Walz comes off as shy and quiet. Not much of an activist. But in late June came the phone call that forced her out of her shell.

Hundreds of miles away, on a barren strip of Wyoming highway, her niece had crossed the center line, slamming into an oncoming truck.

Sabrina “Bree” Wilson, 31, a mother of two daughters, died on the scene in a horrific crash.

“As soon as we found out that she was texting while driving, I said ”˜no more, never again,’?” Walz said.

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At least seven people were killed, including one shooter, just after 10 a.m. Sunday at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, police said.

Four of the dead were inside the temple at 7512 S. Howell Ave. and three of the dead, including a shooter, were outside the temple.

A police SWAT team entered the building before noon and brought uninjured people out of the building at 7512 S. Howell Ave.

They started removing injured people from the temple’s prayer room.

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Truth is, in Southern California, “Presbyterian” can describe everything from evangelical megachurches to old-line Protestant congregations on the religious left.

So was the [James] Holmes family active in the liberal Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) or the conservative Presbyterian Church in America? How about the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the Bible Presbyterian Synod, the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America or the American Presbyterian Church?

Then again, journalists were soon reporting that this family has been active ”” for nearly a decade ”” in some kind of Lutheran congregation.

The problem, explained [Amy] Colon, is that journalists assigned to cover these media storms in the digital age are trying to report as much information as they can, as fast as they can, as easily as they can, while competing against legions of websites, Twitter feeds, 24-hour cable news and, often, smartphone videos uploaded to YouTube by eyewitnesses. Reporters are tempted to use as many easy labels and stereotypes as possible, simply to save time and space.

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Yet again the grim title of “world’s greatest humanitarian crisis” goes to Sudan ”“ this time for developments in the border regions between Sudan and the newly independent country of South Sudan. The crisis is exploding as the rainy season descends fully upon this area, and humanitarian resources are overwhelmed.

Khartoum’s denial of all humanitarian access to rebel-controlled areas within its border, along with a relentless campaign of aerial bombardment, is generating a continuous flow of tens of thousands of refugees ”“ up to 4,000 per day according to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). But even that June figure is being quickly overtaken, according to reports.

And no wonder. The regime faces no significant international condemnation or consequences for its role in creating this crisis. That must change.

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To the white majority, who even now think of this country as a placid place, it will seem extraordinary that the author of this dramatic memoir was born in Southend. Maajid Nawaz is still only in his mid-thirties. He was brought up in a prosperous, middle-class, anglophile household of Pakistani origin. In his teens, he became an Essex ”b-boy’’, and got into fights with Paki-bashing skinheads. In college in London, and later at its renowned School of Oriental and African Studies, he was an extreme Islamist activist. He was present when one of his fellow extremists stabbed an African student to death. He married at 21, and had a son.

Nawaz was a leading firebrand in Hizb al-Tahrir (HT), the militant organisation that wishes to overthrow all infidel regimes and establish a new Muslim Caliphate. Although it is not itself a terror organisation, its ideology legitimises violence. The author traces what he calls its ”snail’s trail’’ all the way to al-Qaeda….

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O God, who art faithful to thy people and dost not permit them to be tempted above that they are able, but with the temptation also makest a way of escape that they may be able to bear it: We humbly entreat thee to strengthen us thy servants with thy heavenly aid and keep us with thy continual protection; that we may evermore wait on thee, and never by any temptation be drawn away from thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882)

The point is this: he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that you may always have enough of everything and may provide in abundance for every good work. As it is written, “He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures for ever.” He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your resources and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for great generosity, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God; for the rendering of this service not only supplies the wants of the saints but also overflows in many thanksgivings to God. Under the test of this service, you will glorify God by your obedience in acknowledging the gospel of Christ, and by the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others; while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God in you. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!

–2 Corinthians 9:6-15

The US has confirmed it would resist efforts to put the internet under the control of the United Nations.

At present several non-profit US bodies oversee the net’s technical specifications and domain name system.

They operate at arms-length from the US government but officially under the remit of its Department of Commerce….

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Pope Benedict XVI has concluded the third and final volume of Jesus of Nazareth dedicated to the Gospels relating to Jesus’s childhood, and a new encyclical may follow it, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, said last night.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a Mass he celebrated in the parish of Introd, a village in the Valle d’Aosta region of the northern Italian Alps, where he is on vacation, the cardinal said the book would be “a great gift for the Year of Faith,” which begins in October.

“We will read the third book by Benedict XVI avidly and with great relish,” he predicted, according to a report by Vatican Radio.

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What a wild first half between Great Britain and South Korea.

Update–Ugh, they lost in a penalty shoot out so South Korea goes through.

When computerized stock trading runs amok, as it did this week on Wall Street, the firm responsible typically can jump in and hit a kill switch.

But as a torrent of faulty trades spewed Wednesday morning from a Knight Capital Group trading program, no one at the firm managed to stop it for more than a half-hour….

Several market insiders said that they were bewildered, because in a market where trading losses can pile up in seconds, executives typically have a simple command that can immediately halt trading.

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