Articles by semperverus

The Reality of God is Plain Enough

“The basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is!
 
“By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse.
 
“What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives.
 
“They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.”
Romans 1:19-21 (MSG)

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Too Little Faith to Be an Atheist ]

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Mitigating Attacks on Houses of Worship Security Guide

Terrorists, criminals, anarchists, and disrupters are attacking houses of worship (HoW). They assume HoW are soft targets; gun-free zones where media coverage and notoriety can be easily achieved through defenseless active killing.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, A List of Active Killer Incidents at Houses of Worship and Religious Schools ]

In response, more HoW are establishing and training their own armed volunteer security teams.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Enroll in the Sheepdog Church Security Academy Safety Member Certification Program ]

One resource for these teams is the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)‘s 116-page PDF, Mitigating Attacks on Houses of Worship Security Guide.

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Spiritual First Aid: Youth Mental Health Fact Sheets

It’s not always easy to recognize when a young person is experiencing mental health challenges. Some signs, like changes in sleep, focus, behavior, or school performance, can be easy to miss or misinterpret.

[ Read SemperVerus articles on the topic of MENTAL HEALTH ]

The ministry Spiritual First Aid™ offers the free downloadable PDF resource, Common Youth Mental Health Challenges Fact Sheets, a packet of 5 quick-reference pages to help you identify common challenges children and teens face—so you can better understand, support, and respond with care to their acting-out behavior.

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100 Million Christians Lack Access to the Bible

Somalia ranks #1 on the Bible Access List (BAL) of 88 countries where access to the Bible is blocked by law, actions of religious extremists, or acts by other nonstate actors.

[ Read SemperVerus articles on the topic of the BIBLE ]

The BAL, a new annual assessment, uncovers the stark reality of the lack of Bible access for an estimated 100 million Christians around the globe. The report combines data-driven analysis with contextual understanding and shows where access to the Bible is most restricted and where the shortage among believers is greatest.

[ Read SemperVerus articles on the topic of CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION ]

In Somalia—where 99.7% of the population is Muslim and 0.3% is Christian, according to Operation World—multiple forces of persecution operate simultaneously to restrict Bible access, including Islamic oppression, clan oppression, organized corruption and crime, and dictatorial paranoia, according to BAL’s profile of that country.

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