American Evangelist Arrested and Jailed in U.K. for Preaching ‘Homosexuality is a Sin’
(Christian Post) — 
After facing arrest and detention for preaching that homosexuality is a sin, an American evangelist is warning that “things are getting very bad” in the United Kingdom and other Western countries, suggesting that the situation has deteriorated to the point where they are “becoming communist.”
Ryan Schiavo, who describes himself as an “evangelist and missionary,” was arrested in London on July 22 for preaching that homosexuality is a sin. While Schiavo is an American, he spends a considerable amount of time in London and frequently ministers to British youth and others gathered in the public square.
In an interview with The Christian Post, Schiavo recounted the events leading up to his arrest and warned about its implications for free speech and freedom of religion in the U.K. and Western civilization as a whole.
“I was preaching the Gospel on the streets as I frequently do, but it was about a 30-minute message, and in the course of a long message I can touch on many topics that I believe are pertinent,” he said. “At one point, I talked about the issue of homosexuality and transgenderism. I said that homosexuality is a sin; I talk about how it’s destructive, and the damage the transgender agenda is doing to children right now in the schools because it’s being pushed on children at a very young age here.”
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71-Year-Old Pastor Arrested for Causing ‘Alarm and Distress’ for ‘Homophobic’ Message on Marriage
(Christian Concern) — John Sherwood, a UK pastor, was arrested in North West London this past Friday on April 23, and detained overnight – all for speaking about what the Bible says about marriage.
John, in his early 70s, is minister of a north London church, and was preaching with a colleague in the centre of Uxbridge on Friday, as he regularly does. After speaking on the final verses in Genesis 1, where it says that God created mankind in his own image, creating them male and female, a number of police officers appeared on the scene. Reportedly, three complaints had been received about the pastor’s teaching, and the police accused him of causing “alarm and distress” to the public.
After speaking to the police, John resumed his preaching, speaking on freedom of speech. However, a couple of bystanders in the crowd apparently shouted that John’s preaching was “homophobic” and “hate speech”. John spoke to the police once more.
What quickly followed was a brutal arrest, where an officer took away the pastor’s Bible and pulled him from the steps where he had been preaching. Three officers gathered around him to handcuff him and take him away.
You can read more about the case from Pastor John Sherwood’s colleague, Peter Simpson, on The Conservative Woman blog.
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U.K. Judge Says Street Preachers Accused of ‘Islamaphobic’ and ‘Homophobic’ Speech ‘Lawfully Arrested’
BRISTOL, UK — A U.K. judge ruled that four street preachers, two from America and two from the United Kingdom, who sued police over what they considered a “sustained campaign of harassment” as they have faced criminal charges and were jailed — and some were prosecuted for their gospel preaching, were “lawfully arrested” by police.
Mike Overd, one the “Bristol Four,” who was a plaintiff in the recent case that challenged police for a series of incidents, sought to hold law enforcement accountable for their constant interference with their street ministry activities. Most notably, the 2016 case in which he, along with fellow street preachers Mike Stockwell, Don Karns and Adrian Clark, were charged with violating the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998. As previously reported, the men had taken turns preaching outside of the Bristol City Centre while the others held signs or engaged in one-on-one conversation.
“The last decade has been crazy, really. [It has been] steadily getting worse from authorities and certainly an element of the general public,” plaintiff Mike Overd said in a video released by Christian Concern. “There are windows of grace and quietness from the police and the authorities, and then it all kicks off again.”
Following a two-week hearing at Bristol County Court, Judge Alexander Ralton dismissed the claims in full, ruling the actions taken by officers were lawful.
According to the Somerset County Gazette in the U.K., a further hearing at the Bristol County Court on Friday resulted in a denial of the street preachers’ “application for leave to appeal the ruling,” and Judge Ralton ordered the claimants to pay costs to Avon and Somerset Police.
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US Ministry Helping Poor Worldwide Grateful for Partnership of Churches
(Mission Network News) — FARMS International is grateful for the ministry they were able to engage in this past year as they make plans for growth in 2021.
FARMS’ interest-free loans create a dependency-free way for families to establish agriculture and small businesses, breaking the cycle of poverty. The pandemic was especially hard on impoverished people and day laborers around the world, making these programs more important than ever. Through the difficulty, Scott Clifton says the churches FARMS partners with have stepped up.
“Churches have really come together. People have given their own resources to help their neighbors. Churches have coordinated with other churches to band together and help in light of natural disasters. In the Philippines, there was a big typhoon, and one person used a t-shirt print shop and sold t-shirts as a fundraiser to raise money [for] typhoon victims,” he says.
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Dear Reader, has ChristianNews.net been of benefit and a blessing to you? For many years now, the Lord has seen fit to use this small news outlet as a strong influential resource in keeping Christians informed on current events from a Biblical worldview. With much compromise and many falsehoods in modern-day Christianity, we strive to bring you the news by keeping Christ and His word in focus. If you have benefited from our news coverage, would you please prayerfully consider becoming a Christian News supporter by clicking here to make a one-time or monthly donation to help keep the truth of God's word widely and freely published and distributed? May Christ continue to be exalted through this work!Two Families Come to Christ in Laos Despite Opposition From Neighbor
Photo Credit: Chris Hilbert/Pixabay
(Voice of the Martyrs) — Tensions have deepened in a Khmu village where two families have come to Christ and one lives next door to a high-ranking solider, who despises Christians.
Recently, a Christian from another village came to speak with the two families, who had asked him to show them how to accept Christ. When the Christian leader arrived, the neighbor interrupted them, asking the Christian leader why he was there.
The Christian calmly explained he had been invited to show the families how to accept Christ. When the neighbor protested that it was against the law to convert, the Christian leader corrected him, telling him it was legal to convert to Christianity in Laos.
The neighbor made no reply and he left, and the Christian leader led the families to Christ that day.
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Dear Reader, has ChristianNews.net been of benefit and a blessing to you? For many years now, the Lord has seen fit to use this small news outlet as a strong influential resource in keeping Christians informed on current events from a Biblical worldview. With much compromise and many falsehoods in modern-day Christianity, we strive to bring you the news by keeping Christ and His word in focus. If you have benefited from our news coverage, would you please prayerfully consider becoming a Christian News supporter by clicking here to make a one-time or monthly donation to help keep the truth of God's word widely and freely published and distributed? May Christ continue to be exalted through this work!Gospel Advanced in Iraq Amid 2019 Tahrir Square Protests
(Christian Aid Mission) — When throngs of Iraqis began converging on Baghdad’s main square in peaceful protest more than a year ago, a highly educated businessman made sure he was there on the first day, Oct. 1, 2019. …
The leader of a ministry based in Iraq also set up a tent in Tahrir Square — eager to show solidarity with the protestors’ desire for basic rights and seeing a unique opportunity to reach a broad cross-section of the population with the gospel. …
Intrigued by the Christians’ tent, one day Jawad Samer* happened by and found a wide variety of Christian books, the scope of which he had never imagined.
“Samer is an educated and rational person who always faces any argument using logic,” the ministry leader said. “He got a copy of the gospel after he expressed a strong desire to read it. He said, ‘Throughout my entire life, I had hoped to get the Bible, but I had no opportunity.’ He had many questions about the Christian faith during the months of protests and visits to our tent.”
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Dear Reader, has ChristianNews.net been of benefit and a blessing to you? For many years now, the Lord has seen fit to use this small news outlet as a strong influential resource in keeping Christians informed on current events from a Biblical worldview. With much compromise and many falsehoods in modern-day Christianity, we strive to bring you the news by keeping Christ and His word in focus. If you have benefited from our news coverage, would you please prayerfully consider becoming a Christian News supporter by clicking here to make a one-time or monthly donation to help keep the truth of God's word widely and freely published and distributed? May Christ continue to be exalted through this work!Gospel Association: Many Central Asian Missionaries Came to Faith While in Prison
Photo Credit: Rodnae Productions/Pexels
Kazakhstan (Mission Network News) — Eric Mock of the Slavic Gospel Association says Kazakhstan has been tinkering with its penal code ever since becoming an independent country when the Soviet Union fell. …
Some estimate as many as one in four pastors in Kazakhstan had been in prison before being called into ministry, Mock says.
“Very often you’ll meet missionaries who came to faith in prison and are now zealously reaching others with the gospel. Not only in Kazakhstan, but in Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. There seems to be a constant theme where people that feel that they were at the point of losing everything, are the primary ones who have given everything for the sake of the gospel.”
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Dear Reader, has ChristianNews.net been of benefit and a blessing to you? For many years now, the Lord has seen fit to use this small news outlet as a strong influential resource in keeping Christians informed on current events from a Biblical worldview. With much compromise and many falsehoods in modern-day Christianity, we strive to bring you the news by keeping Christ and His word in focus. If you have benefited from our news coverage, would you please prayerfully consider becoming a Christian News supporter by clicking here to make a one-time or monthly donation to help keep the truth of God's word widely and freely published and distributed? May Christ continue to be exalted through this work!Buddhist in Burma Jailed for Drugs Comes to Jesus as Result of Missionary Outreach
(Christian Aid Mission) — Amid death and despair in a country wracked by COVID-19, local missionaries in Burma (Myanmar) are going to streets, parks and prisons, daring to offer help and hope.
With 1,400 new coronavirus cases reported each day and a daily toll of 25 deaths, the pandemic has kept workers in the majority-Buddhist country from organizing evangelistic camps and other large gatherings. Instead, they are sharing rice and gospel tracts in public places while taking the appropriate precautions, the leader of a local ministry said. …
Local missionaries recently distributed rice to more than 300 people and gospel tracts to at least 500.
They also made visits to a prison with 500 inmates, providing noodles, rice and coffee. They are allowed to visit prisoners individually in their cells.
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Dear Reader, has ChristianNews.net been of benefit and a blessing to you? For many years now, the Lord has seen fit to use this small news outlet as a strong influential resource in keeping Christians informed on current events from a Biblical worldview. With much compromise and many falsehoods in modern-day Christianity, we strive to bring you the news by keeping Christ and His word in focus. If you have benefited from our news coverage, would you please prayerfully consider becoming a Christian News supporter by clicking here to make a one-time or monthly donation to help keep the truth of God's word widely and freely published and distributed? May Christ continue to be exalted through this work!Motorbikes Provide Means for Vietnamese Church Planters to Visit Remote House Churches
(Voice of the Martyrs Korea) — Christianity is growing even amidst persecution in Communist Vietnam, but according to pastors in the places where the church is growing the fastest, the growth is not due to an increase in church buildings but to an increase in the number of motorbikes available for church planters.
“New religious laws enacted in 2018 have reinforced religious restrictions for Vietnamese Christians,” says Voice of the Martyrs Korea Representative Dr. Hyun Sook Foley. “Persecution of Christians is very strong in the north of Vietnam, especially in church planting among the 34 ethnic minority groups which are still mostly unreached.”
“But despite the strong persecution, the difficult hills, the narrow roads, and the extreme remoteness, that is where the church is growing the fastest.”
Representative Foley notes that pastors working in the area often pastor literally hundreds of tiny house churches, and they rely on motorbikes to take them from congregation to congregation.
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Dear Reader, has ChristianNews.net been of benefit and a blessing to you? For many years now, the Lord has seen fit to use this small news outlet as a strong influential resource in keeping Christians informed on current events from a Biblical worldview. With much compromise and many falsehoods in modern-day Christianity, we strive to bring you the news by keeping Christ and His word in focus. If you have benefited from our news coverage, would you please prayerfully consider becoming a Christian News supporter by clicking here to make a one-time or monthly donation to help keep the truth of God's word widely and freely published and distributed? May Christ continue to be exalted through this work!Chinese Street Evangelist Detained on New Year’s Day
Photo Credit: Ferdinand Feng/Pixabay
China (International Christian Concern) – On Dec. 31, a Christian street evangelist in China’s Hunan province was again sentenced by the authorities to ten days in administrative detention for “disturbing public order.”
Last August, Chen Wensheng, who is a member of the Xiaoqun Church in Hengyang, underwent the same punishment for “illegal evangelism.” Despite his repeated detention, he continues to share the Gospel with strangers on the streets.
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Dear Reader, has ChristianNews.net been of benefit and a blessing to you? For many years now, the Lord has seen fit to use this small news outlet as a strong influential resource in keeping Christians informed on current events from a Biblical worldview. With much compromise and many falsehoods in modern-day Christianity, we strive to bring you the news by keeping Christ and His word in focus. If you have benefited from our news coverage, would you please prayerfully consider becoming a Christian News supporter by clicking here to make a one-time or monthly donation to help keep the truth of God's word widely and freely published and distributed? May Christ continue to be exalted through this work!