"This is such a dark place."

The irony stopped me in my tracks. The speaker was Jonas Kouassi-Zessia, an African émigré to Europe who had planted a church there.

In the 19th and 20th centuries Europe – and America – was sending missionaries to Africa. Europeans and Americans referred to Africa as the "Dark Continent." Now, in the eyes of an African Christian leader, it was Europe shrouded in darkness. more >>

SANTA ANA, Calif. – Pastors from Seattle-based Mars Hill Church are struggling to understand why conducting worship services by way of rotating into the weekly schedule of an active rock concert venue in Orange County on Sundays is a problem with city officials.

Irrespective of their thinking, Santa Ana's building and planning department says the church is operating in a no-church zone and has served an eviction notice. Mars Hill Orange County may become homeless at any moment, say church leaders.

The church has been holding services at The Observatory (formerly known as The Galaxy) for little more than half a year under a special contract with its owners that allows them to use the facility to setup, conduct, and breakdown church every Sunday. The rest of the week, the venue, which seats several hundred people, is used for nightly concerts, mostly from the rock genre. more >>

While some church planters struggle to get their ministries up and running, others have seen their church plants grow from nothing more than a vision to megachurches that are attended by thousands of people every weekend.

But just because a church is large doesn't mean it hasn't seen its fair share of trouble, as Mark Driscoll, founding pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Wash., shared with The Christian Post via email this week. Mars Hill began in Driscoll's living room in 1996 when he was just 25 years old, and today is regularly attended by 19,000 people across four different states each weekend.

Driscoll has wondered at times whether or not his church could overcome the obstacles it was faced with, but when doubt begins to set in, he turns to Jesus, he shared. "My identity is not in my performance, but in Jesus ... My goal is to honor Jesus and do the best I can. If we fail, we fail. If we die, we die. I'm only a kite, He's the hurricane. If the wind don't blow there's not a thing I can do to keep our kite up," said Driscoll. more >>

While constructing churches has been known to take years, decades, or even centuries, one Iowa sanctuary was raised in a little more than 30 hours.

The Calvary Tabernacle Church of Perry was completed last weekend by an army of some 300 volunteers, who were part of the "Church in a Day" building program.

Rex Deckard, pastor of Cavalry Apostolic Church of Des Moines, the church for which Cavalry Tabernacle came from, told The Christian Post that the effort "took a tremendous amount of advance preparation and coordination." more >>

The offices of the Sudan Council of Churches (SCC) and the offices of relief organization Sudan Aid, both in the Darfur region, have reportedly been closed down by the Sudanese government without warning. Observers suspect Sudan's reported war on religious minorities, specifically Christians, may have been motivation for the closures.

Given the context of the Muslim government's reported animosity toward non-Islamic groups, the news coming from the SCC has attracted widespread criticism from the Christian community.

The Sudan Council of Churches' offices are located in Nyala, the main city of Southern Darfur state. The SCC officials told the press last week that on April 22, just as they came to work like on any other day, agents from the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) showed up, ordering the staff to hand over keys to the premisses as well as company vehicles. Then, the authorities ordered SCC staff to leave immediately, without providing explanation, the organization said. more >>

With summer fashions seemingly getting skimpier every season, some men may be finding it increasingly challenging to control wandering eyes and lustful thoughts -- at least that's what one minister has confessed.

Ohio church planter Charles Hill addresses the issue in an article titled "Butts and Boobs" published on his personal blog, "Chazz Daddy."

"Warm weather has broken out and my eyes are already tired. I am tired of seeing so many butts and boobs. From age 11 up…it is the trend. As a man…this is not good," the Christian minister writes in his post. more >>