Church of God Women’s Discipleship announces the completion of its most recent Bible study, “Pots, Pans and Prophecies.”

Want to be happier and live longer? Who doesn’t? According to a recent article in the Washington Times, having an active spiritual life is one of the best ways to accomplish this. The Times article reported that those who attend church regularly tend to live an average of 35% longer than those who do not.

The 24th annual U.S. Capitol Bible Reading Marathon began at 6:00 PM Sunday evening. For 90 continuous hours, beginning with the reading of Genesis 1:1, every word of the Bible will be read aloud and without commentary, culminating at 1:00 PM on Thursday, May 2, with the reading of the final chapters of the book of Revelation. During these five days, hundreds of Bible believers will gather on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol to read a portion of the Bible, to listen and to pray.

ORA NET LLC introduces its disruptive technology to promote the oldest form of recognized religious expression — prayer.

The ORA system delivers a personal mobile experience for the individual and an enterprise-quality community management platform for any organization to invite, connect, share, respond and interact with one another in intercessory prayer.

“That’s a lot of words to describe it, but ORA’s technology gives us the ability to do so much more to leverage existing social networks and mobile devices to connect individuals in the most meaningful relationship they can have with others and more importantly with God,” said Jeff Bone, Chief Marketing Officer for ORA.

The Bellingham, WA, company has introduced what many are calling one of the most revolutionary developments for the faith community to be released in decades.

“ORA collects, organizes, tracks, reminds, connects and securely shares prayer requests and answers with anyone you choose. ORA does this at a personal and intimate level with your friends and family through the mobile ‘app’ on your smartphone. And ORA does this at the organizational level through the ORA Community software that a church, mission agency, ministry, foundation or any number of other organizations can use with their existing infrastructure. It’s both personal and organizational. We all maintain a number of social and spiritual connections within a broad community that includes our favorite people and our favorite places of worship and ministry,” stated Dusty Gulleson, ORA Chief Executive Officer.

“We’re looking forward to integrating ORA into the life of both our physical and online church congregations. What an incredible tool to engage communities of believers around the power of prayer!” said Nils Smith, Web Pastor, Community Bible Church of San Antonio, Texas.

Social networks can be inappropriate “high noise” areas that are not private enough for many sensitive postings like prayer requests. ORA offers a safe, secure environment where prayer is the most important thing. ORA not only makes prayer available on your smartphone, but it makes comments, reminders and prayer partners always available too. The system offers immediate feedback to requests, questions and comments from prayer partners and helps to track and remind the user of how prayers are answered immediately or over time. ORA helps you get a glimpse of the eternal that can be missed when one is caught up in the stress of everyday life.

ORA is a free download for iPhone, AppStore.com/ora (and is coming soon for Android). The ORA smartphone app integrates into the ORA Community system. The ORA Community system is a software as a service (SaaS) solution designed with many more management features that allows an organization to administer community-wide prayer communication and easily integrate with existing email, church management or relationship management software from leading providers. For a limited time, ORA is offering a no-cost trial of the ORA Community system for an organization. Visit the ORA website for more information: ora.net.

ORA NET LLC is a Bellingham, WA-based company whose mission is to grow the community of prayer, digitally. Founded in 2012, the company remains privately held by its founders and a gracious investment group who shares the goal of the founders to fully develop and deliver The New Way to Pray™.

(Source: Christian Newswire)

In a history-making move, Tim Hill, director of Church of God World Missions, speaking to 1,500 church leaders in a Guatemala City convention, called upon the Latin American church to reach out in missions action to the United States and to Latinos scattered around the world.

A Catholic monastery and convent in a secluded valley outside Bethlehem lost a seven-year legal battle against the building of Israel’s separation wall on its land on Friday, according to its lawyers.

This September, around 20,000 churches will reach out to 10 million unchurched Americans for National Back to Church Sunday.

Iraq’s Christian heritage can be compared to its wetland marshes. Christ-followers in Iraq date back to the first century, making it one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. But today, Christianity in Iraq is under serious threat. Similarly, the wetland marshes—once teeming with flora and fauna—were drained to desert over a decade ago.

Christians in many nations are being encouraged to set aside time with the Lord in their homes or local churches during a 72 hour window, April 30-May 2, to repent, to fast, to pray, individually and for the United States to return to its earlier dependence on God.

This international prayer event will begin with a National Day of Repentance on April 30 www.dayofrepentance.org and conclude with the National Day of Prayer on May 2 www.nationaldayofprayer.org.

This unique call has been encouraged by Australia’s national day of prayer team, who are spreading the event to other national prayer teams www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNe0hJvLSr0.

The International House of Prayer ihopkc.org will help focus this 72 hour world prayer event through its live website which draws up to 75,000 “hits” in 130 nations each day.

April 30 is an appropriate day for repentance. The legislature in Pennsylvania has designated April 30 as its day of fasting and prayer. And April 30 marks the 224th anniversary of President Washington’s inaugural remarks thanking God for His miracles in founding America. April 30 also is the 150th anniversary of President Lincoln’s “National Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer” in the midst of the despair of the Civil War. Issuing the proclamation, Lincoln said in part: “we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for…forgiveness.”

The international call to repent, fast, and pray for America will conclude on May 2 with the 62nd annual National Day of Prayer. The theme verse this year is Matthew 12:21: “In His name the nations will put their hope.”

National Day of Repentance is a nonprofit grass roots coalition of more than one hundred fifty Christian ministries across denominations now in forty states and twelve nations. Following II Chronicles 7:14 participants in their local churches set aside days of repentance to seek God’s purity in their lives and His mercy to forgive sins and heal nations. www.dayofrepentance.org

(Source: Christian Newswire)