This web site serves as an archive of posts from the years 2005-2007. It is no longer maintained. You may find current NE events at uniteboston.com and at churchline.com.
While Christians in the United States don’t face torture and death because of our faith, we do face very real threats to our religious liberty, and we would be fools to ignore them. Take for example just one headline issue this election season: same-sex “marriage.” As Anthony Picarello of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has said, same-sex “marriage” in this country is “an engine for religious conflict.”
He explains that rewriting the definition of marriage does not just change one law, it changes everything.
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Roberto Miranda: Liberty Sunday Presentation October 15, 2006
Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen please welcome senior pastor of Lion of Judah church in Boston, Massachusetts, Dr Roberto Miranda.
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Family Research Council: Gov. Romney to speak at Liberty Sunday Family Research Council announced today (Oct. 13, 2006) that Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney will be speaking in person at the Liberty Sunday simulcast which will air this Sunday from Boston's Tremont Temple Baptist Church to a nationwide audience on Sky Angel satellite system, Christian television and radio, as well as via web-cast on www.libertysunday.com.
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Family Research Council: Liberty Sunday Speakers Ann Romney, the wife of Governor Mitt Romney, is scheduled to speak Sunday, Oct. 15, 2006 at 7pm in Tremont Temple as part of 'Liberty Sunday'. According to Family Research Center's website, other speakers will include: Tony Perkins, Family Research Council president; Dr. Ray Pendleton, Tremont Temple's pastor and Dr. Roberto Miranda, the initiator of 'Covenant for New England'. Here the speakers' roster as of Oct. 10:
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A survey of Pentecostal and charismatic Christians in 10 countries in Asia, Africa and the Americas shows they are gaining converts and are more politically engaged than experts had thought. Only 100 years since the birth of Pentecostalism in a street revival in Los Angeles, the movement has grown to include one in four Christians worldwide — or about half a billion people, according to the study. It was released Thursday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a research group in Washington.
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Family Research Council: Boston to host national "Religious Freedom" simulcast The expansion of non-discrimination laws to include homosexuality inevitably constricts our right to express and act on our religious beliefs. Recently, there has been a string of incidents involving government intolerance against those who live out their faith in the public square. To respond to this growing threat, Family Research Council (FRC) has announced that on October 15, 2006, they will host a nationwide simulcast from Boston, Massachusetts called "Liberty Sunday: Defending Our First Freedom."
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Associate Press: Freedom of religious expression under attack? The subject of religious expression will be the main theme of an Oct. 15 gathering in Boston of conservative religious and political leaders that will be broadcast to churches nationally.
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Washington Post: President Bush Tells Group He Sees a 'Third Awakening' Washington DC (September 13, 2006) President Bush said yesterday that he senses a "Third Awakening" of religious devotion in the United States that has coincided with the nation's struggle with international terrorists, a war that he depicted as "a confrontation between good and evil."
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Focus on the Family: Luncheon to introduce Truth Project
Date:
Thursday, 17th of August
Time:
10:30 - 12:00
Kris Mineau writes: I wanted to pass along to you the following message from Focus on the Family about a complimentary luncheon next week about Focus on the Family's The Truth Project. The introductory luncheon is next Thursday, August 17 from 11:30 to 1:00 and Massachusetts ministry leaders are invited to attend this preview of The Truth Project.
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Christianity Today: It is hard to believe someone who speaks of love through clenched teeth Andy Crouch, the editor of Christianity Today's 'Vision Project', worries that the culture war's biggest casualties may be Christian joy and hope. To make his point he describes a Christian strategy session: 'Speeches were given. Brows were furrowed. Resolutions were made. All [participants] were earnestly committed to the cause. And most, to be blunt, were not having a very good time.'
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Dr. Paul Jehle: Why true Revival may be expected in New England in 2006 and beyond… There is a rising tide of revival in New England. More and more believers are praying for revival; pastors are gathering in geographic areas in greater unity; and an expectation appears to be rising. Years of intercessory prayer together with the Sovereign move of God may be bringing together the necessary ingredients for true revival. But what is true revival? Do we have any reason, based on God’s faithfulness in history, to have great expectations for the early part of the 21st century?
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Dr. Roberto Miranda: A vision for revival in New England Presentation given at 'Biblical Worldview Conference' in Boston April 7,2006: I have been assigned the task of presenting a vision for revival in New England. I will begin with a disclaimer. What I have to present is admittedly a very personal view, one that reflects my own theological, cultural and perhaps temperamental inclinations. My presentation is therefore very partial and relative in its content. I do not pretend to be giving a “Thus saith the Lord,” or to be declaring absolute, incontestable truth.
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For the culture to change, Christians need to change first - in all 3 areas: mind, soul and spirit. This is the opinion of Paul Jehle who recently gave a presentation at Lion of Judah. Says Jehle: Through our church history we have seen movements that have emphasized one of these 3 areas. There are some that have emphasized the external and they believe if we change the culture, then we’ll change the heart. And so we clean up areas socially hoping that the heart will change. But if we only focus on the external we miss most of revival. Because the Bible tells us your are changed from the internal to the external.
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Christianity Today: We have got more important things to do than to change the culture? Christians worry about "the culture." Christians talk about sex and violence in popular entertainment. They talk about bias in news reporting. They talk about how their views are ignored or misrepresented. "The culture" appears to be an aggressive challenger to "the church," and Christians keep worrying what to do about it. You soon get the impression that Church Inc. and Culture Amalgamated are like two corporations confronting each other at a negotiating table.
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The Worldview conference took place in Boston at Lion of Judah (April 7-8, 2006) and was sponsored by the Covenant for New England Initiative (formerly known as 'Master Plan Initiative'). The presenter list included key Christian leaders from the greater Boston area. Furthermore, Deninis Peacocke came from California and John Rankin from Connecticut. Below you can listen to the main presentations (Windows Media Player format).
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Christianity Today: The ingredients of a revival Christian colleges provide the tight-knit community that many revivals require, says Timothy Larsen, associate professor of theology at Wheaton College. For revival to happen, you have to have a sufficient cross-pollination within the community. It has to be a community where people are in one another's lives very thoroughly.
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Dr. Roberto Miranda: Master Plan Presentation Feb. 9, 2006 Over the course of the past twelve months, as we have presented the Master Plan Initiative in various places, and have undertaken initial efforts to implement it, it has become necessary to present the original vision in a more focused fashion, and to express the basic purpose of the Plan in very concrete, specific, concise terms. What follows is an attempt to do this.
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At this point, after almost a year of intense dialogue around the Master Plan, it seems appropriate and even necessary to try to give greater specificity to some of the concepts and aspirations expressed in that first document. Much greater clarity has been gained regarding the promise and potential obstacles offered by the Plan as it has been presented and discussed before various leadership groups in the Commonwealth. The following comments, written somewhat hurriedly, may perhaps seem a bit rambling and asystematic at first, but I hope that what they might lack in logical progression they will make up for in spontaneity and organic coherence.
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Dr. Roberto Miranda: Update January 22, 2006 Dear Friend: The large attendance at the Tremont Temple celebration on Friday, January 20th, but especially the palpable presence of the Spirit in our midst, the evident spiritual hunger evidenced by everyone, warmed our hearts and filled us all with fresh hope that revival is indeed on the way in New England.
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CBN News: Joyous Revival Predicted to Shake New England Something is shaking New England. Something's turning people to prayer. Something is making them dance for joy. It feels like the rumbles of revival.
Rev. Roberto Miranda of the Congregación León de Judá remarked, “Staid, intellectual, overly-rational New England is, I think, experiencing a visitation of the Holy Spirit." Alex Canavan, who manages three Christian radio stations, commented, "And we think something greater than the charismatic renewal is about to happen." [COMMENTS]
Roberto Miranda Book Review: Total Truth - Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity Roberto Miranda writes: I would like to highly recommend Nancy Pearcey's book, Total Truth. It is one of the most penetrating analyses I have read on how imperceptibly the secular understanding of reality can penetrate the mind of the Christian, creating a dual outlook. Many Christians have compartmentalized their faith, relegating spiritual values to the "spiritual' realm, and processing all other aspects of their lives--work, marriage, relationships, finances, politics-- through an essentially secular lens.
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Master Plan: Purpose - A Strategic Plan for the Church in Massachusetts What follows is a broad outline of what could some day become a Master Plan to reclaim the state of Massachusetts for Jesus Christ. Dr. Miranda hopes that the strategic plan will serve to stimulate collective reflection, to stir the imagination and to provide some concrete thoughts that might serve as a point of departure for sustained discussion in the near future. Feel free to leave your comments on this page.
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Dr. Roberto Miranda: A Call to the Church in New England Presented at the Vision New England 2004 Annual Meeting.
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The third edition of the Emmanuel Research Review was published June 7, 2004 by Jay Broadnax, director of Applied Research, EGC. It asks one challenging but immensely important question: "How can the culturally diverse churches in Boston build a healthy, respectful sense of unity, despite their differences?" This question is important because it is so close to God's heart. Jesus prays that his followers may "be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me…" (John 17:23). Historically, few churches have had significant relationships with those outside their own ethnic group. Sunday morning at eleven o'clock has been called "America's most segregated hour." Today in some Boston neighborhoods, this is changing.
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"Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all." -Colossians 3:11 NIV
There is a great mystery in the unity of God's people that requires the understanding that one's religious experience is mediated through one's cultural reality. Unity among the brethren of different ethnic and cultural groups requires the affirmation of our diversity in God's kaleidoscope of the races. Unity in the household of faith does not mean uniformity.
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EGC Research: How To Make Our 'Love In Action' Effective
Support for the first century urban church, specifically the "poor saints of Jerusalem," came from many sectors of the Christian world. It was a concern alluded to in Romans, First and Second Corinthians and Acts. Christian churches outside cities also struggle, and these needs, we trust, will also receive support from the larger Kingdom. Two millennia later, there are still those in the Kingdom of God who need help, in our cities, our neighborhoods and around the globe.
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Chuck Colson
Boston Globe 'Housing first,' a radical new approach to ending chronic homelessness, is gaining ground in Boston
