Pennsylvania

The United Methodist Church is testing out a mobile ad campaign this month that will incorporate a two-fold strategy of text messaging along with outdoor advertising.

“Open hearts. Open minds. Open Doors” campaign was launched in the Pittsburgh area last week and will run until Christmas Eve with the aim of reaching thousands of commuters and pedestrians with more than 40 billboards and transit shelter ads.

Ads simply stating messages of hope will prompt the public to text a keyword such as “believe” to a designated number. Those who text will receive a longer message inviting them to attend a United Methodist church for Christmas and offering them the opportunity to reply with their zip code to find a nearby church or to get more information at the denomination’s Web site. more >>

Environmentally conscious students from more than a dozen campuses across the country recently met for the first national conference organized by a student-led, Christ-centered environmental network.

Student from 16 schools – including Moody Bible Institute in Chicago; Point Loma Nazarene in San Diego; Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill.; and Duke University in Durham, NC – gathered on the campus of Eastern University in Pennsylvania from Oct. 16 to 19 with the hope of being inspired and equipped to lead their communities in becoming good stewards of God’s creation.

“[This conference] shows that there is a strong Christian community who cares about a variety of issues that certainly includes climate change,” said Anna Jane Joyner, coordinator of the organizing group Renewal, to The Christian Post on Wednesday. more >>

Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin went on the attack Saturday at a Pennsylvania rally against Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama for what she calls his radical views on abortion rights.

"In times like these with wars and financial crisis, I know that it may be easy to forget even as deep and abiding a concern as the right to life, and it seems that our opponent kind of hopes you will forget that," Palin told a crowd in Johnstown, according to CNN. "He hopes that you won't notice how radical, absolutely radical his idea is on this, and his record is, until it's too late."

Pro-life activists and social conservatives have long hammered Obama on his extreme pro-choice views. more >>

Although assured of his son's place in heaven, evangelist Greg Laurie told thousands in Philadelphia that he will never be at peace with his son's death.

At the same time, he will never be at peace with his own death or anybody else's, he said, because "death is the enemy."

Laurie spoke to some 45,500 people at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, where he conducted his second three-day Harvest Crusade since the death of his oldest son, Christopher. more >>

MONROEVILLE, Pa. - Clergy and lay members of the theologically conservative Pittsburgh diocese voted overwhelmingly Saturday to break from the liberal Episcopal Church, with which it differs on issues ranging from homosexuality to biblical teachings on salvation.

Assistant Bishop Henry Scriven said the vote means the Pittsburgh diocese is now more firmly aligned with the majority of the 77 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion, which is more conservative than the communion's 2.2 million-member U.S. church.

"I am delighted," Scriven said, "that what we have done today is bringing the Diocese of Pittsburgh back into the mainstream of worldwide Anglicanism." more >>

PHILADELPHIA - Episcopal leaders gathered in Philadelphia expect to formally apologize Saturday for their ancestors' slave ownership — and to discuss the "white privilege" they say endures.

In a solemn repentance service, Episcopalians plan to acknowledge that slavery "was and is a sin and a fundamental betrayal of the humanity of all persons" in which church members took part.

The Episcopal church joins other denominations, including the Southern Baptists, that have apologized for their past support of slavery or racism. more >>