The Pentecostals of Kentwood is currently looking for a solid ministry couple (or individual) that is talented, self-motivated and creative to lead our Outreach and evangelism ministry. This is currently a volunteer position, and responsibilities would include the following:

• Directly responsible for Outreach and evangelism for POK in the Kentwood, MI and surrounding area
• Develop outreach programs that are effective in winning souls in today’s generation
• Recruit and train new people to assist with the outreach ministry of our church
• Develop a group of people who are willing to teach Bible studies
• Implement a course to train people in Bible study teaching and evangelism
• Oversee all community evangelism campaigns
• Plan and execute new outreach programs and ministries

The Pentecostals of Kentwood is an exciting, growing church founded nearly 8 years ago with a heart and focus on reaching the Lost with the saving message of Jesus Christ. We are deeply passionate about personal, lifestyle evangelism, and tremendously hungry for unprecedented endtime revival in our city of nearly 50,000 souls.

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1. Social Networking — As a cohesive community, religious conservatives are positioned to take advantage of the rise of social networking, in an era when a single tweet or Facebook post can monopolize a political agenda.
2. Political Ecumenism — Religious conservatives, facing a culture that appears indifferent or hostile to their values, are more willing to set their theological differences aside to defend common interests.
3. Rise of Nondenominational Churches — The Baylor Survey on Religion reports that nondenominational congregations represent the fastest-growing segment of Protestant churches in America.
4. Spreading Secularism — The percentage of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled in the past two decades (from 8 to 15%), according to the American Religious Identification Survey.
5. Rise of Mixed-Faith Families — Growing research indicates that families identify increasingly with more than one faith. The Pew Forum found that 44 percent of U.S. adults have left the faith or denomination they grew up in.
6. “Bliss” of U.S. Religious Ignorance — Religious leaders are rethinking their teaching methods following the latest Pew Forum poll, which revealed a startling degree of religious illiteracy.
7. Strong Christian Tea Party Identity — Nearly half of tea party members are also part of the Christian conservative movement, according to a Public Religion Research Institute poll last fall.

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That’s the upshot of a new informal survey of evangelical leaders finding that less than half believe that the Bible requires church members to tithe, the practice of giving at least 10 percent of one’s income to the church.

The survey, conducted by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) among its 100-member board of directors, found that 42% of evangelical leaders believe the Bible requires tithing, while 58% do not.

“The Old Testament called for multiple tithes, sort of combining government taxes with religious stewardship,” NAE President Leith Anderson said, reacting to the survey.

“Since there is such a strong evangelical tradition of tithing, I was a little surprised that a majority of our evangelical leaders say the tithe system of the Old Testament does not carry over to the New Testament or to us,” Anderson said in a statement.

The National Association of Evangelicals, the nation’s biggest evangelical umbrella organization, would not say how many of its 100 board members responded to the survey, which was conducted in February.

The board includes such influential figures as the heads of the Salvation Army, the Assemblies of God – a major Pentecostal denomination – and the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

The injunction to tithe comes from the Old Testament, or what Jews call the Hebrew Bible, which tells of Abraham and others giving ten percent of war spoils, a harvest or other goods as offerings to God or religious leaders.

Dan Olson, a Purdue University sociology professor who has studied tithing, says the new survey doesn’t mean Christian leaders think those in the pews shouldn’t give.

“Most of those leaders would probably say, ‘you really ought to tithe, but the term ‘requires’ gets at a theological point,” he said.

“Most Christians would say the laws of the Old Testament are not what save you – you’re supposed to be giving out of a spirit of freedom, not because you’re bound to laws,” he said.

The National Association of Evangelicals’ survey found that 95% of evangelical leaders say they give at least 10% of their salaries to church.

A recent study by group that tracks church giving, called Empty Tomb, Inc., found that evangelicals on a whole give an average of 4% of their income to their church, though Olson suspects the average is much lower, around 1% or 2%.

From CNN Belief Section

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A few of the changes you’ll want to find out more about are:

• Beginning in 2010, the new Healthcare Reform Legislation will grant small employers, including nonprofits, a refundable tax credit as inducement to obtain health insurance for their employees. After 2012, legislation changes will put a limitation on employee health flex spending arrangements.
• Congress passed the Creating Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, which, among other things, removes cell phones from the definition of listed property, and imposes penalties of up to $50 per return for not issuing forms W-2 or 1099-MISC on time with the IRS. This legislation also increases the maximum amount a taxpayer may expense under section 179 to $500,000.
• In 2010, Congress enacted the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act. The act provides two new tax benefits to employers that hire workers who were previously unemployed or only working part-time. Churches and most other tax-exempt organizations all qualify to claim the payroll tax benefit for eligible newly-hired employees.

For comprehensive details on these and other late-breaking 2010 changes, see the 2011 Church & Clergy Tax Guide, by Richard Hammar.

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Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani was detained in June along with wife Fatemeh Pasandideh in the city of Rasht in northwestern Iran because of their Christian activities, Iranian Christians said.

A senior pastor of the Church of Iran movement, which includes house churches across the country, told Worthy News that judges had “already signed” an Islamic order that would potentially allow a death sentence for Nadarkhani, pending further investigations. The pastor usually speaks on condition of anonymity to BosNewsLife amid security concerns.

News of the execution overshadowed joy over the release of two Church of Iran Christians, a man and a woman, and the expected release this week on bail of two other members, who the movement only identified as “brothers Mehdi and Afshin.”

MORE DETENTIONS

They were part of a group of eight Church of Iran members detained June 18, the senior pastor said. One of them, a pastor’s wife identified as Fatemeh Kojouri Tork, remained in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison Tuesday, July 13, while her husband, Behrouz Sadegh Khanjani, was kept in isolation in a security prison in the southwestern city of Shiraz,  the Christian leader said.

“We still do not hear from Reverend Behrouz Khanjani…” Iranian Christians have also expressed concerns about reports of other detentions, including last month’s capture of Pastor Behnam Irani in the city of Karaj, 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) west of Tehran.

Several believers have allegedly been mistreated. “We have learned that information that [security forces] have been using substances to extract confessions from Christians,” the senior pastor said.

Iranian officials have not commented on the cases.

AUTHORITIES CONCERNED

Rights groups have linked the crackdown to concern among authorities about growing churches and the spread of Christianity among Muslims in the country.

Church sources say the number of Christians in Iran has grown from 500 known believers in 1979 to at least 100,000 today.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reportedly said the government needed to halt the growing movement of house churches across Iran.

Under Iran’s strict interpretation of Islam, “apostasy” — or the formal renunciation of religion– is punishable by death.

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