The investigation of a shooting at Lakewood Church last year ahead of a Sunday worship service involving a mother who opened fire inside the megachurch while she was with her 7-year-old son before being killed by off-duty officers will be reviewed by a grand jury.

Courtney Fischer, a Houston District Attorney's Office spokesperson, told Houston Public Media Thursday that the case will be presented to a grand jury on an undisclosed date.

"Grand juries meet every so often," Fischer said. "We never publicize exactly what cases go when. We don't want it to taint a grand jury pool."

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Lesbian pastor blasphemes Jesus as 'drag queen,' trans activists issue threats at city council meeting​

Among those who spoke out in favor of the resolution was Julie Payne-Britton, a pastor at the Hadwen Park Congregational Church, which is affiliated with the progressive United Church of Christ. Payne-Britton, who identifies as a disabled, cisgender lesbian, sported a clerical collar as she told council members that if Jesus were at the meeting, He would be “dressed in full drag.”

“The Jesus I know would be dressed in full drag and serving face, or handsome as a trans man, or wrapped in the garb of a non-binary person who knows one gender is way too small to capture their gloriousness,” Payne-Britton claimed. “The Jesus I know would be at this mic with a trembling voice and a shaking body and tears that will not be held back crying, ‘make this city safe for my child.’”

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Is logic part of creation?

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The word "logic" means "of words". The words of God are good, and He is the only one, who is good. When everyone walking around Jesus tried to use so-called "logical reasoning", He delivered very differently than they.

So. Enough freedom to use words in ways that are not good, is part of Creation.

A church in North Yorkshire is planning a bid to the National Lottery Heritage Fund in an effort to preserve incredibly rare wall paintings dating back over 500 years.

St Peter and St Paul's church in Pickering features wall paintings which depict the passion of Jesus Christ and scenes from the lives of the saints.

It is believed they were first painted around 1470. They are believed to be one of only five surviving examples of medieval church wall painting in England.

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Michie said:

Increasing numbers of young adults in the United States are reporting a lack of sexual activity — dubbed “sexlessness” — a trend experts say presents “a huge opportunity for evangelization” for advocates of marriage.

The most recent data from the National Survey of Family Growth, which has been periodically administered since 1973 by the National Center for Health Statistics, shows that, between 2013 and 2023, “all measures of sexlessness rose for both young adult males and females,” according to an analysis from the Institute for Family Studies (IFS).

For young adult males, “sexlessness has roughly doubled across all measures over the last 10 years or so,” while for young adult females, “it has risen by roughly 50%.”

Though the data could in theory be construed as encouraging, at least for those who oppose extramarital sex, IFS fellow Lyman Stone noted that one of the biggest drivers in the collapse of sex is “the decline in marriage.”

“Married people have more sex, and for most young adults, marriage is occurring later or not at all,” he wrote. “As a result, sex is declining.”

Society is ‘starved’ for real relationships​

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‘Sexlessness’ is on the rise. Can the Church use this moment to promote marriage?

Pope Francis blesses a newly married couple during his general audience on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2024, in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media CNA Staff, Feb 13, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA). Increasing numbers of young adul...

www.catholicworldreport.com

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This is sad.

One reason sex is fun is to replicate the species. Modern culture has severed that link, but it is real. We can be sex-positive and baby-positive and marriage-positive like nobody else. It's what most of us, almost all of us, were made for.

River Jordan said:

I guess that's a key difference between us.

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Yeah, I'm more of a reader and a student than an observer and student of the senses

We can make a religion out of saying Christianity is not a religion.

Ones can say Christianity is a relationship. But are we relat-*ing* submissively with Jesus?

durangodawood said:

....and Center Of MASS.

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Now, for some reason, I am curious, what did Delaware?

He could be talking a lot about what is possible with misuse of technology, instead of pointing to how God is able to have us using it well.

You might be able to use his reasoning to ban the use of money by churches > money can be addictive and distracting; therefore do not have or use money in church activities.

"But we can learn how to use money without abusing it."

We can learn how to use technology.

God is able to guide our attention . . . while we have technology, attractive women, and money present during worship.

Mt 12:

38 Some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”

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They demanded a miracle.

39 He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

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They had already witnessed numerous signs and miracles performed by Jesus, such as healing the sick and casting out demons (Mt 8:16). Despite this, they demanded yet another sign, revealing their hardened hearts and refusal to believe.

They had ulterior motives. Mk 8:

11 The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. 12 He sighed deeply and said, “Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it.”

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He warned them against seeking signs for the wrong reasons and a call to genuine faith and repentance. Faith does not rely on constant miraculous proofs but trusts in God's word and his promises. J 20:

29 Jesus said to [Thomas], “Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

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That's true faith.

Why was Jesus upset with the Pharisees who were asking for a sign?

Jesus was upset with the Pharisees because their request for a sign was not a sincere inquiry but a manipulative attempt to undermine him. It revealed their lack of faith, their hypocrisy, and their hardened hearts. Jesus' refusal to grant their request served as a testament to their spiritual condition and their rejection of the truth.

CNN settled on punitive damages after the jury found Navy veteran Zachary Young was defamed​

The foreman of the jury that found that CNN committed defamation against U.S. Navy veteran Zachary Young doesn’t believe the network did itself any favors during the high-stakes trial.

"I think it may change the way a lot of people look at CNN and maybe not take their news 100% to be correct," Katy Svitenko told Fox News Digital in her first interview.

Last month, Svitenko and five other jurors sided with Young, who had accused CNN of defaming him in a November 2021 report led by correspondent Alex Marquardt. The report implied Young illegally profited when helping people evacuate Afghanistan on the "black market" during the Biden administration's military withdrawal from the Taliban-run country that year.

After the jury reached its defamation verdict and ruled Young could seek punitive damages, Young and CNN reached a settlement.

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Praying for you!

A grandmother's couscous recipe inspired two brothers to create 'Make It Like Mama,' an app for anyone​

A new way to preserve family recipes began with a grandmother and her dish of couscous.


Brothers Zach Mashaal and Matthew Mashaal, ages 16 and 17 respectively, of Roslyn, New York, loved their family's traditional holiday foods.

But with no idea how to make them – and a large family of about 80 people who always come over for the holidays – they realized there was a need to create a central depository that would retain the recipes and techniques.

"I decided to record my grandmother cooking her famous couscous that we all love, and I'm going to put it into our group chat," Zach Mashaal told Fox News Digital. (See the video at the top of this article.)

After a positive reaction, the family members asked for additional videos for the chat.

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Jona 1:

17 The LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

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Strong's Hebrew: 1709. דָּאג (dag) — 19 Occurrences

LXX used G2486 (ἰχθύς, ichthys).

The very next verse, Jon 2:

1 Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish,

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Strong's Hebrew: 1710. דָּגָה (dagah) — 15 Occurrences

Again, LXX used G2486.

The shift from masculine dag (Jonah 1:17) to feminine dagah (Jonah 2:1) served a literary purpose. It was a linguistic change in gender, not in biological sex. A big (masculine) fish swallowed Jonah. From the belly of the (feminine) fish, Jonah prayed to God. The semantics were the same; it was a stylistic variation. There was no theological difference. In LXX, they were the same Greek lemma G2486. In both verses, the word for 'belly' was masculine.

Jonah proceeded to pronounce his poem in 2:

2 “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress,
and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
and you heard my voice.

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Wiki:

In the book of Jonah chapter 1 verse 17, the Hebrew bible refers to the fish as dag gadol, "great fish", in the masculine. However, in chapter 2 verse 1, the word which refers to fish is written as dagah, meaning female fish. The verses therefore read: "And the lord provided a great fish (dag gadol, דָּג גּדוֹל, masculine) for Jonah, and it swallowed him, and Jonah sat in the belly of the fish (still male) for three days and nights; then, from the belly of the (dagah, דָּגָה, female) fish, Jonah began to pray."[14]

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The shift from דָּג (dag) to דָּגָה (dagah) served as a deliberate stylistic choice in the narrative. In biblical Hebrew, nouns had grammatical gender (masculine or feminine), but this did not imply a real-world distinction in sex or biology. Instead, the alternation between masculine and feminine words enhanced the literary quality of the text by emphasizing different aspects of the same entity.

Jo555 said:

Godly Sorrow and Repentance
(A look into relational change over change focused on self)

Godly sorrow focuses on God. Worldly sorrow says what's going to happen to me. You understand? I couldn't get free from that sin because I was afraid I would be judged for that sin. But a year later I said, "God, I've hurt your heart, I've hurt you. I want this gone. It breaks our fellowship." That was Godly sorrow. It produced repentance. -John Bevere　

So much of what is communicated to us is a message of "What's in it for me?" and keeps us on a vicious cycle of self-centeredness. Wanting a rewarding life for ourselves is not of itself wrong. Yet, if our love is to mature, it is to move beyond ourselves.

In covering this topic I feel the need to review some previous material. Let us begin.

1. Self, the law, and fear are interwoven. Where you see one, the other two are present. It is based on self-effort and self-preservation.

2. Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the fruits of the Spirit are interwoven. Where you see one the other two are present. It is based on the power of the Holy Spirit and is self-sacrificing.

3. The law was created for the carnal life, not the new man in Christ. It was created to serve us, we were not created to serve it.

4. The Holy Spirit lives in the new man in Christ and guides him. We were created for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To be joined to Him in holy matrimony and be carriers of his Light.

5. By the law we are condemned. In Christ we are justified and healed. Jesus was not sent to condemn us, but to liberate us from the law and heal us.

6. The law is good, it doesn't die. Our old carnal life is bad and in entering in through Christ it is crucified / dies so that his Spirit can give us new life. This is how we are liberated from the law. It is detrimental that we understand who the guilty party is.

Now that our review is complete, let's continue to the body of this exploration:

When we are driven by the fear of losing out on something, or gaining that thing, it is self-serving. God can use that for what He is looking to do, yet the fullest expression of God's love is self-sacrificing. That is love matured and manifests in the fruits of his Spirit (love, joy, peace, long-suffering, etc).

Additionally, we were never created to be self-aware, but to live in the awareness of God and his great love for us . . . to lose self inside his love where we will find our heart's home. As we get to know Him and grow in our intimate relationship with Him, getting shamelessly naked with the One that covers our nakedness (unreservedly opening our hearts to Him), our love for Him grows. In effect, we will love the things He loves and hate the things He hates. Change at the deepest level is based on a love relationship with God first, and then others. It moves beyond itself.

This is why just telling someone to change isn't enough. We are not engaging their hearts. If we can capture their hearts in love, change will come as they love beyond themselves.

Just remember, we don't earn our salvation. Godly Sorrow (or any other Godly trait) is the manifestation of the salvation that has already been worked in. We work out what has been worked in.

So, the next time you are wanting to change, ask yourself why? Is it due to fear of losing out on something, or is it driven by the love of God?

Fear can be a powerful motivator, but our hearts will be won over by love . . . and there is no greater love than God's Love.


Romans 2:4
Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?

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This song reminds me of some of these things. Replace sun with Son.

And we know God's firm hand is also filtered through his love for He is intent on destroying anything that keeps us from Him. Just saying, perfect love casts out fear and his love is perfection. It's is the driving force that moved us forward, not fear. Fear makes us captive slaves. Love makes us willing slaves due to being captured by his love.

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seeking.IAM said:

He had no interest in the race. It was a giant photo op at taxpayer's expense pandered to by Fox's race coverage. It had been announced that he planned to stay only through 1 of 3 stages. All that time could have been spent on lowering the price of eggs. Or, planning to take over Canada.

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You have proof that this was Trump's motivation for showing up at the Daytona 500?

Please post proof, not just an opinion piece.

The home of the Legionaries of Christ’s community on Woodsong Trail in Cumming, Georgia, sustained a direct hit by a lightning strike during severe storms this morning at about 4:45am. The house was quickly engulfed in flames and burned down completely. Most of the community’s 12 priests and RC Mission Corps missionaries were away working apostolically in different locations and not home when the fire broke out. The four priests who were home escaped safely and were quickly aided by nearby neighbors.

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This annual gathering of 200 clerics from across Europe speaks to how ‘football, like the gospel, is for everyone…’

Kisvárda, HUNGARY — The small, peaceful town of Kisvárda, in eastern Hungary, has just been the scene of an international sporting event that its inhabitants won’t soon forget.

Nearly 200 Catholic priests from all over Europe competed in national teams in a great soccer tournament, Feb.10-14, attracting large crowds of supporters. The games were more precisely futsal, an indoor variation of soccer played with five players per side.

Fifteen countries were represented at this annual European championship event now in its 17th year, which was won hands down by the Polish team in an atmosphere of fraternity and friendly rivalry.

The participants saw it as a privileged opportunity to consolidate the bonds of solidarity that unite them in these difficult times for priests on the de-Christianized Old Continent and to more easily touch the hearts of young people thirsting for meaning and role models.

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The title quote is from David Stove, coming in a 1985 essay entitled “Jobs for Girls“. That date is as good as any to celebrate as the birth of Woke, especially given the occasion, which was a Western university demanding, well, jobs for girls. It is well to review this essay as we now cheer on the death of Woke.

Woke is rampant unbridled egalitarianism, the seeking and enforcing of Equality (or Equity) where it could not exist on it is own, where Equality means extra privileges given to Official Victims, with punishments doled out to Official Oppressors.

We all know who the Official Oppressors were: those who had what the Official Victims wanted. Not just in material terms, but in essential, too, like possessing certain forms of beauty or intelligence.

The original Official Victims were women—recall we’re not only thinking of the United States, and not only the 1960s. Hence feminism was the first form, or proto-form, of Woke.

Stove was writing of Sydney University “Equal Employment Opportunity Statements”, which Stove recognized as quota mandates:

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The U.K. government is “choosing criminalization over compassion and protection” with its new asylum and immigration bill, according to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.

The Border Security, Asylum, and Immigration Bill is currently making its way through the U.K. Parliament and passed its second reading on Feb. 10. It comes as asylum and immigration have been highlighted as key priorities by both the current Labor government, elected in July 2024, and the previous Conservative government.

Government statistics showed that, in 2024, 36,816 migrants arrived in the U.K. on 695 small boats, compared with 2018 when 300 people arrived on boats. Both Labor and Conservative administrations have advocated stringent measures to counter immigration.

The new bill stipulates automatic refusal of U.K. citizenship to illegal immigrants to the U.K., no matter how much time has elapsed.

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I just learned listening to Joe Rogan, that the "AID," in USAID didn't mean "aid," when it was created
by JFK. AID stood for "Agency for International Development." It became "aid," is it became corrupted
and an avenue for politicians to launder taxpayer money.

Good, they don't allow people with mental issues to serve in the military.

Billboard Chris | ADF International
Australia will hear a free speech case involving Elon Musk’s social media platform X and a Canadian father known as “Billboard” Chris after his online post led to a government-ordered content removal. The case, scheduled in Melbourne next month, tests the limits of free speech in the country.

Chris Elston, who's known by many as "Billboard" Chris, is a father of two who's pursuing legal action with the support of the advocacy group ADF International and the Australian Human Rights Law Alliance, claiming that his right to communicate his personal views peacefully has been infringed upon by the removal order.

The case will evaluate whether the government’s decision to enforce content removal restricts lawful expression on social media platforms, said ADF International.

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Sterilization in a culture of fear: The deepening crisis of anti-family ideals​

Earlier this year, a Michigan state representative admitted to having surgery in order to prevent herself from conceiving children. Fearing the fate of her “reproductive freedom” under the Trump Administration, she chose to have the sterilization surgery. She claims to worry about things such as insurance coverage and access to contraceptives, but the main issue is that she is part of a culture that doesn’t want children and idolizes self. Why would our culture take such drastic measures to avoid having children?

This is a chilling example of how fear and extreme political ideologies shape personal decisions and views on family and children when a more significant issue is at the heart of the matter. Birth rates are declining worldwide, and pro-natalist policies designed to produce more children are failing. Although governments are attempting to reverse these trends with policies, the core issue isn’t a lack of policy but the rejection of the family unit as the foundation of a strong society.

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A Florida man has been arrested and accused of assaulting an older woman over a church parking spot, according to authorities.

John Phillips, 65, was arrested last week for allegedly assaulting a woman during an incident that occurred in September at the parking lot of St. John Vianney Catholic Church of Orlando.

Phillips was booked last week in Orange County and faces charges including that of “aggravated battery (great bodily harm)” and abuse of an elderly or disabled adult.

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