BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) _ The Palestinian government is planning an ambitious restoration project for the ancient church that marks the traditional spot where Jesus was born. Ziad Bandak, an official working on the restoration, says renovation of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity is expected to take several years and cost millions of dollars. Bandak [...]

LINEVILLE, Alabama (AP) _ In a rural nook of eastern Alabama, missionaries and community leaders from foreign lands are learning to save lives in the world’s poorest countries with mud, sand and leaves. The training is offered by Servants in Faith and Technology, a Christian organization with ties to the United Methodist Church. On a [...]

Fort Smith, Ark. (AP) _ A math instructor who spent 17 years translating the Old and New Testaments into Vietnamese is working to get it distributed in Vietnam. Tam Pham teaches math at Union Christian Academy in Fort Smith, Ark. His translation, being distributed by the World Bible Translation Center, has proven popular with Vietnamese-language [...]

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA (FR) – More than 1000 motorcyclists from North Carolina, South Carolina and as far away as Florida will arrive at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina this Saturday bringing shoe box gifts for children around the world. The “Bikers With Boxes” will donate their giftboxes to Operation Christmas Child. The [...]

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP)_ Organizers of a major gathering of evangelists in Cape Town, South Africa, say their internet communication has been hacked. Officials of the Lausanne Congress for Global Evangelization say their sophisticated computer network was compromised by “malicious attacks by millions of external hits coming from several locations.” And its believed a [...]

JERUSALEM (AP) _ Now accessible only to experts, Google will put the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls online. The project will grant free access to the 2,000-year-old text which are considered one of the greatest archaeological finds of the last century. The scrolls, which consist of thousands of fragments, will be uploaded as high-resolution images. The [...]

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) _ The more than 4,000 thousand delegates from 198 countries attending the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization have been receiving Bible instruction. A Christian leader from Sri Lanka, Hajith Fernando, lectured on Ephesians. Delegates also have had the chance to hear the song “Lord’s Love for China.” It was [...]

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) _ About 4,000 evangelists from around the world have gathered in Cape Town, South Africa, for the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization. The first Congress was convened in the Swiss city of Lausanne in 1974 by Billy Graham and other leaders. It produced the Lausanne Covenant, which called for [...]

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) _ One of the estimated 400 U.S. invitees attending a global evangelization conference under way in South Africa says African-American churches have major potential to spread the Gospel worldwide. But Richard Coleman, director of candidacy and mobilization for The Mission Society, says the churches “need to confront long-standing lack of [...]

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. (AP) _ After trying for months to climb out of mounting debt, the Crystal Cathedral has filed for bankruptcy. It’s the birthplace of the “Hour of Power” televangelist broadcast and was founded in the mid-1950s by the Rev. Robert Schuller. The church has debt totaling in the millions. Earlier this year it [...]