The former Destiny's Child singer always gets mobbed by fans when she attends religious services, so has made the difficult decision not to go anymore.

She said: "I can't really go to church anymore, which is a shame. People have come up to me in church during the sermon and, of course, people watch everything I do. They come up and take pictures on their mobile phones too.

"They are very nice, but I think God understands if I miss Sunday service!"

Beyonce also revealed she will never officially confirm that she has married rapper Jay-Z.

She added to Britain's Look magazine: "I don't deny it. I just don't talk about it. We have never talked about us and it has kind of protected our relationship.

"A lot of actresses that have had successful relationships don't talk about them, so neither do I. I just want to protect my private life."

 
Gospel artist Darwin Hobbs' fifth CD project is titled “Free” and will be released on Tyscot/Liaison Records on August 26. Hobbs is hailed as one of Gospel’s foremost praise and worship leaders.

     “Free” is the first album release on Hobbs' newly formed production company Liaison Records, done in partnership with Tyscot Records and his wife Traci.

     It is a 12-track album which Hobbs uses to address finally coming to terms with the sexual abuse he experienced as a child. At the age of 40, he decided to share publicly his past of childhood sexual abuse and his new-found sense of freedom. 

     This is also Hobbs' debut as a songwriter and producer. He wrote three songs on the CD which includes the first single, “Free,” “Heal The Land,” “The Name of the Lord," and he co-wrote “In This Place” with co-producer and songwriter Aaron Pearce.

     The single and title track, “Free,” was written on the eve of Hobbs breaking his silence to his mother about a 30 year secret of sexual abuse. The perpetrator was her now deceased husband.

     Darwin Hobbs is well respected by many in the Gospel/Christian community having performed with CeCe Winans, Michael W. Smith, Michael McDonald and Donnie McClurkin.

     Hobbs and his wife Traci moved to Nashville from Cincinnati in 1996 and he soon after signed to EMI Gospel where he released four albums. For more information on Darwin Hobbs, please visit www.myspace.com/darwinhobbs

Nashville, TN –The Bridgeport, CT-based choir and charismatic director James “JJ” Hairston along with Youthful Praise, are back at it again with the CD/DVD combo release of “Exalted… Live in Baltimore” (Evidence/Light Records). Set to release May 13, 2008, the 35 member aggregation recorded their live performance at Baltimore’s Church of the Redeemed of the Lord. The project is packed with cameos by Judith McAllister, Ted Winn (Ted & Sheri), Jordan Martin, Timiney Figueroa Caton & Steve Lawrence, and Hairston’s mother-in-law, Gloria White, and is guaranteed to have viewers dancing and singing praises.

With 20 years and five albums under their belt it was only natural for YP to finally release their first DVD. Much like the album, there is something on the DVD that will impact everyone. “We try to bring the church service to the listeners and viewers,” says Hairston. So much like a church service, YP fashions their album accordingly: praise and worship which leads to worship ballads in preparation of the word, the message, and closing praise.

All with YP flair there are worship anthems such “He is Exalted/Give You Praise” and “Glory and Honor” featuring Judith Christie McAllister, up-tempo pop-rock tracks, “Everything is Changed” and “You Are” featuring Jordan Martin, congregational tunes such as “Sincerity” and “Jesus Reigns”, street rhythms such as “Freedom” and the rousing modern disco vibe of “Spirit of God.” Consistent with YP’s praise mantra there is the call and response tune, “I Will Give You Praise” (featuring Timiney Figueroa Caton & Steve Lawrence) that stylistically lends a resemblance to “Incredible God, Incredible Praise.” Led by Hairston’s mother-in law, Evangelist Gloria White, “Satisfied” will remind YP enthusiasts of the traditional Pentecostal feet stomping and fast piano playing. To close out the taping is the soulful groove of “Wonderful God” which was written and led by Ted Winn of the Stellar award winning duo, Ted & Sheri.

While YP has stayed true to glorifying God, YP has certainly grown over the last two decades they have been performing together. There sound has matured, there praise has impacted lives, and their experiences have changed their outlook. But even with the changes Hairston exclaims, “We worship, we praise, we dance, and we shout! And we try to present all of that in our music as well.”

“I hope and pray that believers will truly be encouraged to praise God after listening to this record. I want them to believe every word He says without doubt. In a day like today, our faith has to be stronger than ever before,” Hairston shares.

For more information please visit www.youthfulpraise.org or www.myspace.com/youthfulpraise.

Evidence Records partners with the Light Records family that is based in Nashville, TN and is a division of the Sheridan Square Entertainment. Light Records serves as a full service independent music company and is committed to releasing and offering quality Gospel music. Light Records is home to a diverse group of Gospel artists including Shirley Caesar, Bishop Paul S. Morton, Youthful Praise, Bishop Albert Jamison, and Zie'l, among others. You can also visit www.light-street.com for more information.

 
CD/DVD In stores Tuesday, June 17th

Also featuring Dr. Bobby Jones, Ted Winn, Nikita Clegg-Fox, Shawn McLemore, Nikki Ross, Rhonda McLemore, Zacardi Cortez and more…

Atlanta, GA — Pastor Gregg Patrick enters into the Gospel musical forefront in his debut recording with his church choir and friends. 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 will be released on the newly formed joint venture Tyscot Records – Crossover Entertainment and in stores Tuesday, June 17th on CD and DVD. The album features the latest hit single “I Am A Witness” featuring Rhonda McLemore is already blazing up the charts and moving into massive radio airplay across the nation.

It was some 17 years ago when Pastor Gregg Patrick founded “The Bridge, Southwest Community Christian Center” (SWCCC) in Houston, Texas with 19 members and a vision to meet the growing spiritual needs of its surrounding community. Since 1991, SWCCC has grown into a mega-church of more than 8,000 members. The ministry and its leader have become renowned for awesome leadership, special events, concerts and community outreach including the Stellar Awards Star Search, which yielded Micah Stampley; and Patrick continues to produce the world wide annual broadcast of Take It To The Bridge Gospel gathering, which each year, features the greatest in gospel music.. It was inevitable that this phenomenal ministry would rise up one of the finest choirs in the country with over 100 members. Patrick is in the planning stages of bringing this major production to many cities across the nation. He will take his ministry abroad in June, but will return to the states in time to celebrate the release on June 17th.

Known for being an awesome leader and executive, Pastor Patrick is a lover of great music and Christian entertainment. On November 14th 2006, in front of a standing room only audience at SWCCC, the Bridge Choir recorded its first album entitled "Gregg Patrick, the Bridge Project featuring the Bridge Mass Choir”. This diverse project also features Dr. Bobby Jones, Shawn McClemore, Ted Winn, Alvanetta Nelson, Nakita Clegg-Fox, Brian Hurst, Nikki Ross, Gregg Patrick and more.

Pastor Patrick joined forces with celebrated composer and producer Elvin Ross, who with extensive experience in composition, Gospel and pop music was able to capture the true essence of worship the live worship experience at SWCCC.

In 2007, Pastor Patrick established his new record label, Crossover Entertainment LLC, to produce and distribute musical works, including the Bridge Project, in partnership with Tyscot Records.

The 12-track CD/DVD features outstanding production, masterful vocals and lyrics penned by Gospel music icons as V. Michael McKay, Darius Brooks, Ted Winn, Myron Butler, Shawn McLemore, Maurice Rogers and Joel Britton. From the beginning of the first song until the very end of the last song, the project delivers powerful inspirational, contemporary and traditional messages that are fitting radio formats. The video will make its debut on most national programs in the next few weeks.

“Every song is a virtual hit; every choir will want to sing every song,” says Charles Hudson, KTSU Radio in Houston.

Alvanetta Nelson reached back and gave a soul-stirring performance on the hand clapping, foot stumping traditional gospel single, “Just Like That.”

Shawn McClemore delivers riveting performances on “Holy,” and “El Shaddai” and the tightly woven neo-soul remake of “Saved” is already getting major nods from radio program directors.

“Lord I Love You” is a moving song of love to the Lord full of musical brilliance and vocal strength by Nakita Clegg-Fox of the Kurt Carr Singers.

Television legend Dr. Bobby Jones, stopped by to stamp his seal of approval by extending and ovation for Pastor Patrick in his introduction of the project. To quote Dr. Jones, “I’ve never stayed for an entire recording session before….I enjoyed every moment of every song! The CD is sure to be a classic”

V. Michael McKay’s “I Am A Witness” is a song of encouragement and affirmation to stand on God’s promises. Pastor Patrick narrates this powerful song while Rhonda McLemore takes the lead. McKay came nightly to teach the song to the choir to ensure a successful recording.

Ted Winn celebrates with high praise on the smash, “Celebration” penned by Winn and Myron Butler.

Plans are under way for promotional tours, in-store signing and release parties in select cities. Stay tuned to www.crossover-entertainment.net

 
Reports from the Associated Press say that Bishop Thomas Weeks, estranged husband of Evangelist Juanita Bynum, wrote in his new book that she has tried to use their highly publicized physical altercation to revive her own flagging ministry. Weeks made the same admission to EUR last December

The self-published book includes chapters with titles such as “I Would Rather Push You Now Than Punch You Later” and “She Wanted to Be Oprah at Any Cost” and says it was him who suffered physical and emotional abuse in the relationship.

In the 153-page book, “What Love Taught Me,” Weeks says the August 21, 2007 dispute was nothing more than a continuation of the “heated fellowship” the two ministers engaged in during their marriage. The scuffle between the two in a hotel parking lot landed Weeks in jail on charges he pushed, choked and beat Bynum, and he ultimately pleaded guilty to assaulting her. He is serving three years of probation.

Bishop Weeks claims his wife instigated the parking lot incident and used it to paint herself as a poster girl for domestic violence and to boost her ministry.

“Ultimately, she had to have …a plan to destroy my credibility, to leak issues that were in the process of being resolved…so that she could get out of the marriage almost blameless,” he wrote.

Weeks said he wrote the book in the wake of his arrest. Within days, Bynum announced her intentions to become “the new face of domestic violence” and last week, she appeared in a two-part episode of “Divorce Court” offering advice to a couple dealing with alleged abuse in their marriage – moves Weeks said were indicative of her desire for more secular fame.

The Bishop said he is telling his story to help others heal, to clear his name and to ring balance to the story that has unraveled over the past eight months. He said in the book that they both had strong personalities and that there were times when their arguments turned violent.

Weeks also claims in the book that on that night, August 21st, the couple had just finished arguing at the Renaissance Hotel when Weeks left and headed for his vehicle. Bynum followed, according to him, blocking the driver’s side door and began to cause a scene. Weeks said Bynum then swung at him with a cell phone in her hand.

He claims, to avoid her blow to the head he pushed her away with great force causing her to hit the ground pretty hard. By the morning, he writes, reports of the confrontation were circulating on the Internet and in the media. Two days later Weeks turned himself in to face charges of aggravated assault and making terrorist threats.

Bynum is a former hairdresser and flight attendant who became a Pentecostal evangelist, televangelist, author, and Gospel singer. Among her books are “No More Sheets: The Truth About Sex” and “Matters of the Heart.”

Weeks is a Bishop and is pastor and co-founder of Global Destiny Ministries in Duluth, Georgia. He co-wrote “Teach Me How To Love You: The Beginnings,” with Bynum.

Nearly two-dozen conservative Christian leaders have signed a letter to the Senate Finance Committee questioning an investigation into six large ministries that preach a gospel of prosperity.

The letter argues that the 6-month-old inquiry sets a dangerous precedent. It also suggests that the ministries were targeted for sharing "the same branch of evangelicalism" and promoting "socially conservative public policy positions such as support for the traditional definition of marriage."

Although the ministries under scrutiny are conservative theologically, they are not at the forefront of the culture wars issues championed by the leaders who are now rallying to their side.

The most prominent figures who signed the letter are Moral Majority co-founder Paul Weyrich, American Family Association chairman Don Wildmon and former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

"The ministries have been asked to produce financial records and internal documents in what appears to be an exercise in disproving their alleged guilt," the letter states.

The group repeats an argument by some of the targeted ministries – that the investigation falls short of the high bar the Internal Revenue Service has for justifying a church investigation.

Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, sent letters to the six ministries in November seeking answers about spending on private planes, oceanside mansions and board oversight. The committee's Democratic chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, joined Grassley in asking for answers.

The six ministries in question – led respectively by Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Eddie Long, Joyce Meyer and Paula and Randy White – have denied wrongdoing. Some have pledged full cooperation and others have either refused or provided limited information.

Jill Kozeny, a spokeswoman for Grassley, said the investigation is not concerned with church doctrine but with the adequacy of tax-exempt laws that have not been substantially changed since 1968.

While sitting in with the ladies of the "Today" show's fourth hour Monday, Rosie O'Donnell said many people have mistaken her "passion for rage" – much in the same way some Americans have misunderstood Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

"This man is following a tradition of black preachers and there is a righteous indignation about people who were only considered three-fourths a person until fairly recently in our history," said the former talk show host of Barack Obama's former pastor. "And that his anger, which annoys some and forces some to look at issues that America is not really ready to face, is the actual issue. That racism does exist in this country and it's still thriving."

"Here's what I think," she continued. "There is a place in the world, an inspirational, liberational kind of preaching that Rev. Wright does that when you read something that's sort of – I was not as offended as the people in the polls that I read. I listen to him, and frankly, it made sense to me. I totally understood what he was saying."

"That we introduced AIDS into the black community?" asked "Today" co-anchor Kathy Lee Gifford.

O'Donnell responded: "But Kathy, you know what it's like for someone to pull one quote out of context for you. He was comparing it to when the government did give syphilis to black Americans for 40 years. What he was saying is in his history, in his genetic memory, he knows what it's like for the government to infect his own people because he lived through those Tuskegee experiments. And that's what he was talking about.

"You can't sort of pull the quote. He didn't just say, you know, 'the government made AIDS.'" It's the same [as] when I said, you know, you can support the [troops] and not the man who sent them there. You can support every single Marine and Army man and Navy man in this war."

 
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor to Barack Obama, said that publicizing sound bites of sermons in which he condemned U.S. policies was "unfair" and "devious," and done by people who know nothing about his church, according to excerpts of a PBS interview released Thursday.

Wright said that, as an activist, he is accustomed to being "at odds with the establishment," but the response to the sermons has been "very, very unsettling."

The interview, scheduled for broadcast Friday night, is the first the pastor has given since video of his preaching gained national attention in March, putting Democratic presidential hopeful Obama on the defensive.

Among the most remarked upon sound bites was Wright proclaiming from the pulpit "God damn America" for its racism. He accused the government of flooding black neighborhoods with drugs.

The controversy forced Obama to explain his 20-year association with the minister, who is stepping down from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

"The blowing up of sermons preached 15, seven, six years ago and now becoming a media event, not the full sermon, but the snippets from the sermon … having made me the target of hatred, yes, that is something very new," Wright told "Bill Moyers' Journal."

"I felt it was unfair. I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt — for those who were doing that — were doing it for some very devious reasons," he said.

In a March 18 speech in Philadelphia, Obama described the history of injustice that fueled Wright's comments, while also condemning his pastor's statements and acknowledging white resentment of African-Americans.

Asked his response to the senator's speech, Wright said, "He's a politician, I'm a pastor."

"I do what I do. He does what politicians do," Wright said. "What happened in Philadelphia, where he had to respond to the sound bites, he responded as a politician."

Wright said he has never heard Obama repeat any of the pastor's controversial statements as his own opinion. "No, no, no. Absolutely not," Wright said.

Wright gave the interview as presumptive Republican nominee John McCain and the North Carolina GOP argue over a TV ad with Obama and the pastor scheduled to run Monday, ahead of the state's crucial May 6 primary. A narrator in the spot says, "He's just too extreme for North Carolina." McCain has asked local officials not to run the ad, but the state GOP said no.

Wright is scheduled to speak Monday at the National Press Club in Washington.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

 
Verizon Wireless, which boasts the largest wireless network, has teamed up with Unity In Values, a main distributor in Christian mobile content, and created the first ever Christian-oriented V CAST channel.

A YouTube video which features talk show host Oprah Winfrey denying Jesus as the only way to God and promoting New Age ideas has received over 5 million views and is still climbing.

Copy and Paste to Watch Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=JW4LLwkgmqA