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The weakening value of the U.S. dollar and the rising global costs of food and oil are creating a money crisis for many on the mission field. Missionaries typically do not have big budgets. And as the dollar weakens, some are faced with the difficult decision of cutting something effective for survival’s sake.

If you had a 10% pay cut, that would be significant. Basically, that’s what those people are feeling right now.
George Salloum :: CFO :: Serving In Mission

Prayer and financial support for missionaries is always important but particularly so during times like these.

[via The Charlotte Observer]

The Center for Church Communications (CFCC) has had great success with their Flickr Church Marketing Lab. And now members are hoping to capture the synergy of the online lab and bring it to their communities by creating local labs. There are already seventeen regions across the United States that are creating local church marketing labs, and the list is growing.

One of those regions is my community - Tulsa, Oklahoma. We are already networking on Flickr and Facebook, and we plan to have our first meeting at 6:00 PM on Monday, April 7th at the Panera Bread at 71st and Garnett.

If you are in the Tulsa area and want to talk church communications, I would love to see you at the meeting. We will be meeting on the first Monday of every month. Meeting locations may vary from month to month. For the latest details, visit the Tulsa Church Communications Lab’s Facebook page.

For those of you outside of Tulsa, you can join an existing local church marketing lab or create a new one. Visit CFCC’s website for more information.

LifeChurch.tv (Edmond, OK) is doing a sermon series this upcoming June called One Prayer. But they are not the only church doing it. In fact, over 25 other churches have already signed up to preach the sermon series, as well.

What’s it all about?

Well, Craig Groeschel does a good job summing it up in this video:

Each pastor will preach one week from his church about what one prayer he would pray if God would answer one prayer for the Church at large. And then the participating churches will share video teaching from other participating churches in the following weeks. For example, Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv (Edmond, OK) will be preaching “Make Us One.” And Ed Young of Fellowship Church (Grapevine, TX) will be preaching “Make Us Creative.”

But that is not all. Aside from the sermon series, each church is encouraged to participate by:

• Receiving an offering and combining it with hundreds of other churches to help people in need.
• Mobilizing your church to do something ministry-related in your local community and with other local churches if possible.
• Promoting the unified website (to be announced) that will encourage your people to fast and pray with other believers.
• Using the free promotional resources online (including graphics, mailer templates, video promos, banners and other promotional tools).

Some participating churches include:

• Celebration Church (Jacksonville, FL)
• Champions Centre (Tacoma, WA)
• Church of the Highlands (Birmingham, AL)
• Elevation Church (Indian Trail, NC)
• Fellowship Church (Grapevine, TX)
• Free Chapel (Gainesville, GA)
• Genesis Church (Tallahassee, FL)
• Granger Community Church (Granger, IN)
• Healing Place Church (Baton Rouge, LA)
• Journey Church (Norman, OK)
• Lake Hills Church (Austin, TX)
• National Community Church (Washington, DC)
• New Hope Christian Fellowship (Honolulu, HI)
• New Life Church (Conway, AR)
• NewSong Church (Irvine, CA)
• NewSpring Church (Anderson, SC)
• North Coast Church (Vista, CA)
• NorthwayChurch.tv (Malta, NY)
• Seacoast Church (Mt. Pleasant, SC)
• The Church at South Las Vegas (Henderson, NV)
• VictoryChurch.tv (Oklahoma City, OK)

For more information about One Prayer, visit www.lifechurch.tv/one-prayer.

Sacha Baron Cohen, the creator of the infamous movie Borat, is filming another movie called Bruno. It is about Bruno, a gay Austrian fashion reporter, who is one of Baron Cohen’s many comic personalities. Because Christians are stereotyped as antihomosexual and homophobic, Bruno has already interviewed a pastor, a Christian musician, and an event sponsor from a Christian Rock festival. His goal is controversy, and he usually gets it.

Earlier this month, Bruno and his film crew crashed the Easter play at Central Community Church (Wichita, KS). Bruno’s crew told the church they were working on a documentary for German TV One, and they asked the congregation to sign waivers and provide their Social Security Numbers. But church staff discovered their real intentions when -

One of our pastors (Clint Dunn) came around in the back hallway, and they were surrounding a biblically dressed person in chains on a cart.
Greg Smith :: Executive Pastor :: Central Community Church

Pastor Clint Dunn locked the doors to prevent Bruno from interrupting the end of the Easter play, and he told the audience to go home. Bruno’s film crew even went as far as preparing to cover security cameras for the prank. It is a reminder that, in the pursuit of laughs, some are willing to disrupt the Church’s mission of saving lives.

On his blog, Greg Smith offers the lessons his church has learned from almost being pranked by Bruno.

For Discussion:
- What are some best practices for ushers, staff, and church security for preventing disruptions or harm during a church service?

[ via KAKE-TV & Family News in Focus]

If you are a fan of Ed Young and Fellowship Church (Grapevine, TX), you will be thrilled to know that Ed Young recently started blogging. Readers get an up close and personal look at Ed’s life and ministry (bathrobe and all). To check out the new blog, visit EdYoungBlog.com.

For the past two Super Bowls, churches cannot host Super Bowl parties that show the game on a screen larger than 55 inches. Unfortunately, some churches found out the hard way.

But times have changed. As of Tuesday this week, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell stated the NFL would not object to “live showings - regardless of screen size - of the Super Bowl.”

So start planning 2009’s Super Bowl church party where you will watch the Cincinnati Bengals make their long-awaited comeback (wishful thinking).

[via The Christian Post]

If you enjoy reading Church Relevance, you may be interested in a new blog I am starting called KentShaffer.com.

I will still be blogging here at Church Relevance, but KentShaffer.com will be a place where I can blog about similar topics but on a broader scope.

If interested, please subscribe to my posts at KentShaffer.com via the RSS feed or via an email subscription.

The Guttmacher Institute has published findings from a study that discovered that the U.S. abortion rate is at its lowest level since 1974. In fact, the 1.2 million abortions of 2005 were 25% fewer than the all-time high of 1.6 million abortions in 1990. Unfortunately, despite the decrease, roughly 1 in 5 pregnancies still ended in abortion in 2005.

Why the decrease?

1. Fewer Clinics Available
   The proportion of counties without an abortion provider increased from 77% in 1978 to 87% in 2000.
2. Unaccounted for Medication Abortions
   In September 2000, when the Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone for use for early medication abortion. As knowledge about and comfort with mifepristone has increased, it likely has been introduced into settings where surgical abortions were previously not provided (e.g., family planning clinics and the practices of family doctors), possibly increasing access to abortion and reversing the trend of services’ being concentrated in clinics and larger providers.
3. Laws
   Between 2000 and 2004, five states enacted laws that impose burdens on abortion providers.
4. Better Birth Control Usage
   Numbers and rates of adolescent pregnancies continued to decline between 1995 and 2002, largely because of improved contraceptive use among adolescents, and fewer adolescents have needed to access abortion services.

The full report goes into extensive details about abortion usage, including geographic distribution.
[via The Washington Post & The Dallas Morning News]