According to a report by Katie Wang/Associated Press, the Rev. Ron Christian of the Christian Love Baptist Church in South Jersey, received a call on his cell while ministering to his church from 18 year-old Nicole Guyette. She confessed that she had just killed Sujeiti Ocasio hours after Sujeiti graduated from Barringer High School.

Guyette was distressed and was one of Newark’s most wanted when she called the pastor. Rev. Christian met with Guyette for an hour in his office. They talked about remorse, forgiveness and God’s spirit. Then he called the cops who came and took her away in handcuffs.

The report states that the 43 year-old minister has done the same over and over again in the last two years.

In September James Madison, the “Hat Bandit,” had initially rejected an offer to plead guilty to robbing banks. He changed his mind after speaking with Rev. Christian, his pastor, about closure and responsibility.

“I encouraged him to do what was right,” Christian simply said.

Bernard Hoover, a man wanted for murdering his father, contacted Christian through a relative. The 21 year-old wanted to attend his father’s funeral at Christian Love Baptist Church and wanted to see his mother before the police took him into custody. He was arrested at the church.

Parishioners say it is not surprising that those in trouble with the law seek out Christian. A sign is posted at his churches’ front door stating, “All sinners are welcome,” that embodies the pastor’s reputation as a nonjudgmental leader who cares about the community, not just the church.

Original Report:

Suspect in shooting death of Newark grad surrenders
by Julie O'Conner and Bev McCarron/The Star-Ledger

The Newark teen arrested in the shooting death of another teen who 

had just graduated from high school was transferred to the Essex County Detention Center shortly before 2 a.m. this morning, according to the Newark police.

Authorities had issued a murder warrant for the arrest of Nicole Guyette, 18, who lived across the street from the victim, Sujeiti Ocasio, also 18. Guyette turned herself in Saturday night to an Irvington minister, police said.

Saturday night, Guyette, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, showed up at the Christran Love Baptist Church in Irvington and said she wanted to turn herself in, according to Rev. Ron Christian.

"She was crying and expressed a great sense of remorse," Christian said.

Irvington Chief Michael Chase said Guyette was in Christian's office with her attorney. He spoke to her and handcuffed her without incident. She was taken to Irvington headquarters and contacted Newark police, he said.

The mother of the victim, who had just graduated from Barringer High School a few hours before the shooting, had earlier publicly asked for Guyette to surrender to police.

"I just want her to give herself up," Ocasio's mother, Maritza Velazquez, 33, said Saturday. "I just want it to be over with. She took a good child out of this world — a perfect child, to me."

Velazquez said she felt "relieved" upon news of the arrest, and "very happy to hear this."

The arrest warrant issued for Guyette charges her with murder, aggravated assault, and gun charges. Bail was set before her arrest at $500,000.

Ocasio was shot and killed early Friday outside her Lincoln Avenue home, just hours after graduating from Barringer High School.

According to police, Guyette argued with Ocasio moments before shooting her in the neck. A friend of Ocasio's, Jasmine Perez, 15, was hit in the chest by the same bullet, but she survived.

"She got shot for no reason," Perez told WABC news. "So the bullet went through her and hit me."

"I was trying to tell them to stop arguing, but the girl just shot her out of nowhere," Perez told the television station. "They was just (arguing) over nothing. Name calling, over nothing. She got shot for no reason."

A friend of the Ocasio family said Guyette went to her boyfriend's home, also on Lincoln Avenue, and returned with the gun.

Guyette's grandmother called the Ocasio family Friday night, but Velazquez said she was too distraught to talk.

"I couldn't speak," she said. Instead, the victim's uncle took the call. He said the family wants justice, not vengeance.

"Justice, that's all we want," he said, according to Velazquez. She spoke as relatives and friends lit candles and placed photos outside her home.

Perez, injured in the shooting, was among those who paid respects, friends said.

"She can't lift anything heavy, but she's all right. She can walk," said Angeliz Velazquez, the victim's cousin. "She's devastated also."

A wake for Ocasio will be held Monday at Alvarez Funeral Home on Mount Prospect Avenue. Visiting hours for the public will be from 2 to 4 p.m. and from 7 to 9 p.m.

Guyette was a Barringer High School dropout, according to school officials. Ocasio was the first in her family to graduate from high school, her friends said.

 
Interface Recording artist Micah Stampley will record live his third CD, “Ransomed,” at The Greater Travelers Rest Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia on Friday, August 15th at 7:00 p.m.

     Stampley is a minister, husband, father of five, a musician, businessman and community philanthropist who has a multi-octave voice of literally staggering power and sensitivity.

     Micah’s CD/DVD will be produced by Multiple Grammy and Stellar Award winning Kevin Bond who also serves as the Director of Worship and Arts over the music department at the church under the pastorate of E. Dewey Smith, Jr. Bond is CEO of his music production company Bonded Music and has produced some of Gospel music’s most recognizable artists including Kirk Franklin, Donnie McClurkin, Yolanda Adams, Bishop T.D. Jakes and The Potter’s House mass Choir, and Marvin Sapp.

     Stampley’s debut CD, “The Songbook of Micah,” (Dexterity Sounds/EMI Gospel) hit the music charts as the second highest debut for a Male Gospel Artist in Billboard history and that garnered him success including a Billboard magazine critic’s pick as “one of Top 10 Gospel Music Artists of 2005 and received the online giant, AOL Black Voices’, stamp as one of The Top 11 Gospel Geniuses of 2005. Micah received two 2006 Stellar Award nominations for Male Vocalist of the Year and New Artist of the Year.

     In 2006 Stampley’s sophomore CD, “A Fresh Wind: The Second Sound,” was released independently through Interface Records, a venture he started with his wife Heidi.

     For more information Micah Stampley, please visit www.myspace.com/micahkstampley or www.micahstampley.org.

 
Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama will make their first joint appearance as the presumptive Republican and Democratic presidential nominee, respectively, at Saddleback Church on Aug. 16 for a leadership and compassion forum.

In the two-hour event, each candidate will take the stage separately for about an hour to respond to Pastor Rick Warren’s questions about faith and moral issues such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate change and human rights.

“We’re honored that the candidates chose The Saddleback Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion for their first joint appearance, an unprecedented opportunity for America to hear both men back-to-back on the same platform,” said Warren, who founded the 22,000-member Lake Forest, Calif., megachurch.

“This is a critical time for our nation and the American people deserve to hear both candidates speak from the heart – without interruption – in a civil and thoughtful format absent the partisan ‘gotcha’ questions that typically produce heat instead of light.”

Both presidential candidates have recently increased their outreach to the evangelical community, and an appearance at the popular evangelical church could help the candidates’ appeal to this key voting block.

Warren will be the only one to pose questions to the candidates, as requested by both senators, although the event will be open to the media.

“While debates typically focus primarily on the candidates’ positions and only secondarily on how they’d lead and make decisions, this Saddleback Civil Forum will reverse that ratio,” Warren said. “Since the oath of the President is a commitment to protect the Constitution, it’s critical to know how each candidate interprets the nature of its principles. Leadership involves far more than promoting programs and making speeches, and since no one can predict what crises will happen over the next four years, it is vital to know the decision capacity and process of each man.”

This forum will be the only joint campaign event prior to each party’s national convention.

Pastor Rick Warren, who wrote best-seller The Purpose Driven Life, said he has known both candidates before they ran for national office and had called each man personally to invite him to the event.

McCain and Obama, along with other political leaders, have endorsed Warren’s P.E.A.C.E. Plan – a 50-year strategy to mobilize millions of local churches around the world to address the five global problems: spiritual emptiness, corrupt leadership, poverty, disease and illiteracy.

Moreover, Obama had spoken at Saddleback Church’s annual HIV/AIDS conference in 2006, and sent a video message last year about his commitment towards polices that would tackle the disease. Similarly, McCain also sent a recorded video message to the audience at the Global Summit on AIDS and The Church in November.

In conjunction with the Civil Forum event, Warren will convene an interfaith meeting with about 30 Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders to discuss joint projects that can benefit all Americans.

Following the civil forum, Warren will deliver on Aug. 17 a special sermon entitled “Making Up Your Mind: Questions to Consider before the Election.”

Faith in Public Life, which hosted a Compassion Forum earlier this year, featuring Obama and former Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton, will co-sponsor the Saddleback Civil Forum event. There are about 6,500 tickets for the event.

The Saddleback Civil Forum was established to promote civil discourse and the common good of all. The first forum, held during Passover week this year, featured five Jewish World War II Holocaust survivors sharing their stories. The next Saddleback Civil Forum in September will feature former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"We have always been committed to serving the whole person through our ministries at The Potter's House. We extend that commitment to MegaFest, where we have offered financial planning seminars, built homes in partnership with Habitat for Humanity, and delivered other vital services that met the physical needs of people," said Bishop T.D. Jakes, visionary for MegaFest.

Sponsored by Terra Cotta International (TCI) and The Potter's House of Counseling and Behavioral Health (OCBH), MegaCARE is partnering with governmental and faith-based organizations in South Africa and Swaziland to provide free-on-site health services. TCI and OCBH volunteers and staff will greet families and individuals as they arrive at MegaFest and direct them to triage, general health screening, HIV counseling and testing, dental care, ophthalmic care and referral services where materials and resources on malaria, tuberculosis, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS and more will be disseminated.

A partner of United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Society for Family Health/New Start will provide HIV testing and counseling while Pro-Health International will provide the physicians, lab techs and pharmacist who will deliver expert care and counseling. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is another partner in this initiative.

You can visit www.Mega-Fest.com or www.ThePottersHouse.org for more information.

The Texas State Board of Education on Friday gave final approval to establishing a Bible elective for high schools but left specific class guidelines up to local school districts.

Board members voted 10-5 to adopt broad standards for the Bible class. In March, they had already approved current TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills) guidelines for the Bible class but Friday's vote follows the opinion handed down last week by Attorney General Greg Abbott that affirmed the constitutionality of the proposed standards.

“We have met the requirements of the legislation. We don’t want to stifle what they (school districts) are doing in classrooms," said board member Cynthia Dunbar, according to The Dallas Morning News.

Texas high schools can start offering the Bible class for the 2008-09 school year now that the rule has been approved by over two-thirds of the board.

“Elective Bible courses now have the final green light from the Texas State Board of Education and Texas has now gained an academic advantage," said Jonathan Saenz, director of legislative affairs for Free Market Foundation, who testified before the board in support of the class on Thursday.

Some critics, however, said that the without specific guidelines, school districts offering the course could run into legal issues later if a neutral viewpoint of religion is not maintained in the class.

But supporters of the rule say that such concerns are already addressed in the TEKS guidelines, which call for "religious neutrality" and the accommodation of diverse religious views in the classroom.

Furthermore, they argue, the Bible class examines the impact of the Bible on history and literature and is not about religion.

The author of the original bill, Rep. Warren Chisum, had previously affirmed that the class would not "preach the Bible" but examine it as a "document that has historical value." State lawmakers passed legislation on the Bible course in May.

"As we stated and the Attorney General has now confirmed, the current [standards] are sufficient and we are ready to move forward on the new Bible course laws," added Kelly Shackelford, president of Free Market Foundation, a group that helped passed legislation for the class.

Texas now joins other states like Georgia that offer Bible electives in high schools.

 
Bishop Charles Craig passed away of a massive heart attack on the morning of Saturday, July 5, 2008 at a Detroit Hospital near his home.

Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 10am
Home going Service Second Ebenezer Church 4601 Dequindre Road Detroit, Michigan 48212-1503
(I-75 at East McNichols)

According to Pastor Timothy Wright's personal assistant, (Phillip Culver), in a live interview on radio station WLIB out of New York around 3 p.m. July 5th, the life of Pastor Timothy Wright, has been spared in a tragic auto accident that claimed the life of his wife, Mrs. Betty Wright; and ultimately his grandson, D.J. Wright.

Pastor Wright is coherent and in stable condition, in the Intensive Care Unit, of a Pennsylvania hospital.

The Church of God in Christ mourns the loss of Co-Pastor Betty J. Wright, First Lady of Grace Tabernacle Christian Center COGIC, and the grandson of Pastor Timothy Wright, D.J. Wright, who was called to Glory on Sunday morning, July 6, 2008.

We solicit your prayers for the Wright family, and the Grace Tabernacle Church family.

Stephanie L. Jones spends the first half of the book telling her interesting, but yet painful story. The other half of the book educates us on the mindset, and manipulative strategies of unlikely candidates who commit this kind of abuse. She also demonstrates to her readers how innocent ‘situations’, can be the loss of innocence period. Jones’ book is gutsy and preventive, urging readers to read, “Before you let your child “spend the night” anywhere else.” – – Or “Before you say my husband will never touch my child.”

Written with biblical solutions, I highly recommend this book to your library. Not only for those who are victims of child abuse, but for those hoping to prevent or learn the patterns of it.

-Kris “KP” Patrick
of Path MEGAzine

BUY NOW
http://www.stephanieljones.com

The album Crossover features Dr. Bobby Jones, Ted Winn, Nikita Clegg-Fox, Shawn McLemore, Nikki Ross, Zacardi Cortez and more.

Pastor Gregg Patrick & The Bridge Project featuring the Bridge Mass Choir is an exceptional blend of traditional Gospel, Contemporary Christian, and Praise & Worship songs. This premiere project is sure to be one of the most incredible musical offerings this year.

The project is released under the newly formed joint venture between Tyscot Records & Crossover Entertainment. The album was released last week on CD and DVD, and is in stores/online everywhere.