Faith News Network

Cleveland, TN—Leaders with Church of God Youth & Discipleship have announced alterations to their popular Smoky Mountain Winterfest.

Award-winning and bestselling author Max Lucado, who has over 140 million products in print, is inviting people internationally to start 2021 afresh, abandoning fear, worry, and hopelessness from the crises of 2020 and looking forward to personal restoration and renewal in the new year.

The Begin Again Reading Club runs January 25–March 7, 2021, sponsored by Bible Gateway, the most visited Christian website in the world. Free registration for the event is at BibleGateway.com/Begin.

Participants in the Begin Again Reading Club will read and discuss Lucado’s just-released book Begin Again: Your Hope and Renewal Start Today (Thomas Nelson, 2021).

Over the course of the five-week interactive guided reading club, readers will learn how to B.E.G.I.N.:
• Believe in Your Trustworthy God
• Enjoy God’s Good Gifts
• Ground Yourself in His Promises
• Influence Your World
• Nurture an Eternal Perspective
They will also receive the following free downloads and online access to enhance their experience:
• Chapters 1–3 of Lucado’s book Begin Again.

• Instructions to Start Your Own Begin Again Reading Club.

• Scripture printable of Isaiah 40:31.

• Access to five devotional videos with Lucado. These videos will release week-by-week, no additional registration required.

• Access to Lucado’s online community.
“The oh-so-welcome news of Scripture is this: God is a God of fresh starts and the architect of a new design,” says Lucado. “Together, in this reading club, we’ll explore how God restores and renews every aspect of our lives.”

The devotional videos will be available online for free January 25–March 7, 2021.

Bible Gateway ranks number one on global search engines, and is home to more than 200 Bible versions in more than 70 languages.

(SOURCE: Bible Gateway via Christian Newswire)

National Harbor, on the Potomac River, with views of Mount Vernon and the District of Columbia will be the setting for the eighth Presidential Inaugural Prayer Breakfast.

Pathway Publishing have announced that Pastor David Cooper and his wife, Barbie, have released a new devotional book, Every Day With God. The Coopers serve as lead pastors of Mount Paran Church of God in Atlanta, Georgia.

One gift of getting older is knowing how good God is, after relying on him to carry us through joys and sorrows. Debut author JoAnn Vicknair longed to give that gift to two of her grandchildren so she started telling them stories about what God has done.

Aiming to collaborate, mobilize and provide next steps to combat an alarming rise in antisemitism, the American Christian Leaders for Israel (ACLI) network recently convened with pastors and Christian leaders from across the nation for a series of webinars, discussing the explosive growth of antisemitism in the United States. According to ICEJ USA Director Dr. Susan M. Michael, they won’t be the last.

The Winter 2021 issue of Church of God Engage will be released on Friday, January 15, 2021 and available digitally at www.cogengage.org.

At the beginning of every New Year I always reassess my goals and pray for God’s direction. I ask myself: What do I want God to accomplish in my life this year? Then I seek the Lord to hear what He is saying to me about the next 12 months.

Levels of Christian persecution are at a record high globally, according to watchdog organization Open Doors, who announced the 2021 World Watch List today via press conference. A comprehensive research-based report, the annual World Watch List ranks the top 50 countries where it is most dangerous to be Christian – and exposes startling shifts in the landscape of global religious persecution.