I have a friend who is a gifted worship leader, a loving husband and an affectionate father. He’s funny, smart, passionate about his faith and wholeheartedly committed to his church. People who know him say he’s a model Christian.

Cleveland, Tenn.–During the first day in session of the Church of God International Executive Council, the body elected Rev. Barry A. Clardy to serve as the 18th member of the Council of Eighteen.

The industry — the world — needs films that transcend the human experience and writers that are filled with truth, goodness and beauty. Act One is searching for a screenwriter who’s work meets those criteria. It is the reason they started the competition.

In less than six weeks, the faithful will have a chance to discuss some of the same issues that have made headlines for months. Along with hundreds of others, they will gather in Charlotte, N.C., for the 23rd annual National Conference on Christian Apologetics from Southern Evangelical Seminary (SES, www.ses.edu).

The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) has announced it will move the ACC championship football game to Orlando, Florida. The game was originally scheduled to be hosted in Charlotte, North Carolina, but the ACC moved the game out of Charlotte in protest over passage of North Carolina’s House Bill 2. The law says that while businesses can do what they want, the government cannot punish businesses for having showers, locker rooms, and bathrooms designated for men only and women only.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, St. Thomas started a church in Erbil which is in modern day Iraq. Erbil is located about 55 miles east of Mosul and has a permanent population of about 1.5 million. Erbil is also the capital and largest city of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, a city that dates back to 6000 BC.

Leadership Network, in conjunction with Vanderbloemen Search Group, has just released the 2016 edition of its widely popular large-church salary report. Titled “12 Salary Trends Every Church Leader Should Know: 2016 Large Church Salary Study” authored by Warren Bird, Ph.D., the report offers the most comprehensive, cross-denominational financial perspective ever amassed about large churches in North America. Available at leadnet.org/salary.

A seasoned minister offers guidance on dealing with a common fact among church leaders.

The modern university campus is no place for a believer. Far from the watchful eye of faithful parents, lost among a million to-do’s, surrounded by dormmates and classmates of different faiths or no faith at all, college students are pretty much set-up to become a statistic of those who “have left the church in college.” But it doesn’t have to be this way. Harvard graduate, Rhodes Scholar and now author Aurora Griffin shares forty practical tips on how prospective and current college students can keep their faith in college in her debut book, “How I Stayed Catholic at Harvard.”