Faith News Network

Yesterday was Sri Lanka’s day of mourning over the terrorist’s bomb blasts at churches and hotels on Easter morning.

When the movie The Passion of the Christ was released 15 years ago, snobbish Hollywood critics mocked it because it offered a realistic depiction of Jesus’ torture and death. I know people who couldn’t watch the R-rated violence in Mel Gibson’s movie because it was such an accurate portrayal of a brutal, first-century Roman execution.

I’m grateful for my friend Quentin Beard, who pastors one of the fastest growing churches in South Dakota—Sioux Falls First Assembly. Because Quentin wants his congregation to experience the Holy Spirit, he scheduled a special weekend of meetings so that people could be baptized in the Holy Spirit, get healing prayer and receive personal prophetic ministry.

If you could go back in time and visit the tabernacle of Moses, one thing would immediately catch your attention. You would smell the strong fragrance of anointing oil. Everything inside the tent would have been dripping with this sweet-smelling compound, which was made of crushed cinnamon, myrrh and other spices mixed with olive oil.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) gave an R rating to the pro-life movie Unplanned the true story which hits theaters across the nation this week, on Friday, March 29, about former Planned Parenthood clinic director, Abby Johnson. “Hollywood places a PG-13 rating on many films filled with serious violent and sexual content, with the hope that children and teens will fill the seats.

This past weekend I preached at the historic Belmont Church in Nashville, Tennessee, a congregation that God used powerfully to spread charismatic renewal across the world in the 1970s. This was the church that gave us actor Pat Boone, Christian singers Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith, and many anointed songwriters and outreach ministries.