Imagine not taking in food or drink during daylight hours for twenty-eight days straight. Envision what it would be like for that practice to be directly linked to your standing in society or your stature with God. This is the reality for Muslims during the month of Ramadan, a time when every follower of Islam is encouraged (and in some cases required) to spend the month exercising many forms of self-restraint, seeking to be aware of God, and thinking about how they should best worship him.

If you were to visit an observant Muslim country during this time, you would find restaurants closed during daylight hours. Refrigerated boxes of soft drinks found on the sidewalk on most streets are padlocked. Cigarette venders are missing from the daily street traffic. Until sunset approaches and dinner preparations can finally be made, many normal patterns of life are completely halted. [Read more…]

By Diana Chandler
Baptist Press

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It’s not often an evangelist with the following of Billy Graham’s son Franklin hosts gospel events in communities as small as Jackson, home to about 68,000 people.

Fresh from the success of the 2016 Decision America Tour that drew a total of 230,000 people to prayer rallies in all 50 states, Franklin Graham is focusing on small and medium-sized towns in Tennessee in May as he continues his national call to prayer. [Read more…]

Baptist Press

PHOENIX — The goal of this year’s Crossover is to “Engage Phoenix with the Gospel” through a partnership with Harvest America.

North American Mission Board and Arizona Southern Baptist Convention leaders are praying for more than 5,000 salvation decisions through this summer’s Crossover activities prior to the 2017 SBC annual meeting in Phoenix.

But for that to happen, they need the help of Southern Baptists to come and serve as volunteers, according to Eddy Pearson, evangelism director for the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention. [Read more…]

Baptist Press

A group of kids in South Asia watch a version of the “JESUS” film adapted for children. Since the film was first released in 1979, it has been reworked and adapted many times for different audiences in addition to being translated into 1,500 languages.

ORLANDO — The “Jesus” film will be translated into its 1,500th language this month.

Josh Newell, the Jesus Film Project’s director of marketing and communications, told Baptist Press that the latest translation — into Daasanach, a language spoken by an ethnic group inhabiting parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Sudan — is part of the project’s initiative to reach the world’s remaining 865 language groups that have 50,000 or more speakers.

It’s a “big milestone,” Newell said — “a celebration of a partnership from Bible translators to church planters to individuals who use it throughout the world to reach people from far-flung corners to city high rises.” [Read more…]