LAKE FOREST, Calif. – Pastor Rick Warren highlighted parts of his sermon on how the resurrection of Jesus Christ "changed everything" with scenes from the popular docudrama series "The Bible" during a lunchtime worship service at Saddleback Church on Good Friday. The message will be given again several more times before the weekend ends.

"How did 12 peasant fishermen, tax collectors, farmers – how in the world did they multiply – 12 followers of Jesus to one out of every three people on the planet [identifying as Christian]? The answer is the Resurrection," said Warren to about 2,000 people in attendance and an online viewing audience. "The resurrection of Jesus changed everything. It split our calendar to the A.D. and the B.C.

"No other event has impacted the world so much as the resurrection of Jesus Christ," he said. more >>

A Texas megachurch will soon be opening up a new 500,000 square-foot campus for its congregation to worship.

First Baptist Church of Dallas, which is headed by Dr. Robert Jeffress, will open the campus located in Downtown Dallas on Sunday.

In a statement released back in February, Jeffress explained that the main purpose of the new campus was to reach out to areas usually untouched by the megachurch movement. more >>

A new Saginaw, Mich., church targeting the under 40 demographic will be hosting a massive drop of 50,000 plastic Easter Eggs filled with candy and miniature toys on Saturday.

Founding Pastor of Life Church Michigan Jonathan Herron told The Christian Post the drop will be hosted on the campus of the Saginaw Valley State University where his new church has been meeting for services since March 17.

"Things are going fantastic. The whole idea was we are a new church and we love children, we love families, so we are throwing a free party because Jesus loved to connect with people at parties," said Herron. more >>

When teens from Florida megachurch Bethel Baptist Institutional talk to their secular peers about God these days, instead of pulling out a familiar tract, they profess their faith through videos of the church's youth group rapping about Jesus or their exuberant interpretation of the popular Harlem Shake.

It's a novel idea that Anthony O'Neal, the youth pastor of Bethel's One Way Youth Ministries, was initially hesitant about. Once he realized the idea was resonating with his young charges, however, the entire church, including Senior Pastor Bishop Rudolph W. McKissick, Jr. gave them their blessings.

When O'Neal joined Bethel's team as youth pastor last summer, one of the first things he did was ask them, "What can we do to make the church more attractive?" more >>

Author and Pastor David Platt encouraged those attending the Advance13 Christian leadership conference on Thursday to fully saturate their weekly sermons with the word of God, rather than their personal stories, so that the Good News may be proclaimed "in the church, and through the church."

Platt, who leads The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala., began Thursday's talk at the Advance13 leadership conference in Raleigh, N.C., by recalling a pastor who once showed up to deliver a sermon and told the crowd that he couldn't think of anything to say, and therefore failed to deliver God's Word.

"Effective preaching is not dependent on an innovative personality, effective preaching is dependent on a faithful preacher," Platt said, noting that the most effective way to saturate one's congregation with God's Word is to pull directly from the Gospel. more >>

While speaking at the Advance13 conference in Raleigh, N.C., on Thursday, California megachurch pastor Larry Osborne spoke on the dangers of disciples of Christ becoming "accidental Pharisees" through a prideful, "holier than thou" attitude toward those struggling with their faith.

"Becoming a Pharisee is like having dinner at Denny's. No one ever plans to go there; you just end up there," Osborne told the crowd of Christian leaders attending the Advance13 conference which ended Thursday.

"I'm afraid that a lot of us today who are passionate about God's glory and God's work are going to end up at a spiritual Denny's." more >>