A group of African-American pro-life activists and organizations are planning to protest the 44th Annual NAACP Image Awards in California.

Groups and individuals including Life Education And Resource Network (LEARN), Black Autonomy Network Community Organization (BANCO), Dr. Alveda King, and others will protest the televised event on Friday. The coalition argues that the NAACP supports abortion, which is the leading cause of death in the African-American community.

Dr. Johnny Hunter, national director of LEARN, said in a statement that the NAACP's strong ties to Planned Parenthood have made it an organization harmful to the black community. "Racist elitists no longer need the Ku Klux Klan to control blacks; they have Planned Parenthood. And Planned Parenthood has the NAACP on a leash," said Hunter. "The NAACP must quit endorsing destructive and unfruitful behavior." more >>

Participants in this year's March for Life, marking the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, seemed less bothered by the mainstream media's lack of coverage of the estimated half-million people descending on Washington, D.C. to demonstrate against abortion on Friday. That's because they relied heavily on social media to help shine the spotlight on the movement.

Outside the march, supporters of the pro-life movement were not deterred either. Pope Benedict XVI gave a shout-out on Twitter in nine languages. "I join all those marching for life from afar, and pray that political leaders will protect the unborn and promote a culture of life," Benedict tweeted. The Pope has 2.5 million followers on Twitter in just six-week time since he began using the social media heavyweight.

"We have the biggest social media movement online for the pro-life movement educating almost a million people a week with the truth about human life and abortion," Lila Rose of Action Network, a pro-life investigative journalism group, told Fox News. "Our Facebook at over 430,000 is bigger than Planned Parenthood's Facebook and they're a billion dollar abortion chain." more >>

In remarks given at Liberty University, the Rev. Franklin Graham explained to students gathered that there are "costs" to following Jesus.

Graham, who is president and CEO of Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, focused his remarks at a Liberty University's regular event Convocation about "what it means to give your life to Christ."

"What does that mean? To say 'God here is my life, take it and use it'? Because there are some costs associated with this," said Graham, who read from Luke 14 to illustrate his point. "You have to be willing to give up everything…If you are going to follow me, if you are going to be my disciple you have got to understand the cost. You have to put me first." more >>

Planetshakers, one of the most influential church movements in Australia is making its United States conference debut at Rock Church in San Diego, Calif., during a three-day event that began Thursday. A live webcast on Friday will feature the founders of Planetshakers City Church in Melbourne and the Planetshakers worship band.

"At Planetshakers Limitless Conference San Diego, it's our desire to see people empowered, so they can increasingly impact their world in a way that points people to Christ and encourages them to live life to the full," founder and senior pastor Russell Evans told The Christian Post via email Thursday.

"We will have passionate praise and worship and teaching from some great pastors from various parts of the world," Evans said. Every continent will be represented during the webcast. "We are pretty excited to have the honor of bringing our conference to the USA for the first time. We are expecting those in attendance to be touched by God in a powerful way," he stated. more >>

Seattle-based Mars Hill Church is taking its record label that features an eclectic brand of worship music to the next level by partnering with two renowned record label and recording studio companies that have featured such Christian favorites as Jeremy Camp, KJ-52, Kutless, and Falling Up.

Mars Hill Music announced on Tuesday that it will be partnering with Tooth & Nail Records and BEC Recordings to share the variety of worship bands coming from Mars Hill Church. Both companies work closely with EMI Records, one of the largest music distribution companies in the world.

"We have already been incredibly blessed with the number of people we've been able to reach with our music so far," Mars Hill communications director Justin Dean told The Christian Post. "For Mars Hill Music this partnership with Tooth & Nail means taking our record label from previously being able to reach thousands to possibly reaching millions through Tooth & Nails' distribution channels." more >>

ST. LOUIS – How do you make sure 16,000 students attending a five-day missions conference have the best opportunity to engage in what God has planned for them? You "overlay" the event with social media, more specifically with Twitter, says Adam Jeske, who is leading a 14-member social media team during Urbana '12.

While perhaps breaking new ground with the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's triennial Student Missions Conference held through New Year's Eve, Jeske and his "squad," as they like to be called, do more than tweet announcements or post photos on Facebook or Instagram. They engage in real-time dialogue about matters of faith. Additionally, groups of similar interest and focus can connect with each other by simply following specific Twitter feeds. The conference hashtag (#u12) is just the beginning.

"We want to be a conduit for participants to connect with one another, with the program content, and with exhibitors more than they've ever been able to before," said Jeske, who is InterVarsity's director of New Media. "Social media overlays all of the conference programming. For example, if I'm interested in church planting in India, they can tweet to that affect hashtag U12 conference (#u12), hashtag India (#India), and hashtag church planting (#churchplanting) and you can connect with people around areas of interest and areas of calling at a much more focused level than has ever been possible before." more >>