Mike Pence encourages Americans to pray, keep tithing to church
Thank you Vice President Pence. Faith based charities will remain at the forefront of the relief efforts during this crisis. Tithes and offerings are essential to providing those services. Pence is correct. It was also good of Pence to remind Americans to pray in addition to all the precautions being taken.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
As churches have made the hard choice of suspending services, churchgoing Americans should continue to send their tithes as ministries are playing a vital role in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, Vice President Mike Pence said at a White House press briefing Saturday.
Americans are responding to the novel coronavirus pandemic with “common sense, compassion and generosity,” Pence said and praised religious leaders and faith communities for their continued service.
“Making the hard choice to suspend services, to have online services, even while those ministries are continuing to support food banks and come alongside of the most vulnerable,” he said.
“And of course the chorus of prayers that is coming up from communities of faith around the country is making the difference that it always has in the life of this nation.”
He and President Donald Trump had promised to “remind people that on the weekends that you’re not in the pews, it’s still a good idea, if you can, to go ahead and make that donation.” He explained that “all the ministries are continuing to play a vital role in our communities and we encourage your continued support.”
Also on Saturday, Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, tested negative for coronavirus, according to a statement tweeted by his press secretary, Katie Miller, The Hill reported . A member of the vice president’s staff had recently tested positive for COVID 19.
As of early Sunday, there were over 300,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in 184 countries, areas or territories, with a death toll of over 13,000, according to Johns Hopkins University .
In the United States, the number of confirmed cases jumped to more than 26,000 with more than 340 deaths.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Saturday issued a stay-at-home order for nearly all of the state’s 9 million residents, according to NBC News .
“We must flatten the curve and ensure residents are practicing social distancing,” Murphy said. “Even with this order in effect, life in New Jersey does not have to come to a complete standstill.”
California, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania are among the states that have taken such desperate measures.
However, amid the coronavirus scare, stories of hope and resilience are emerging.
Last week, a 90 year-old Seattle woman, Geneva Wood, who contracted coronavirus at a senior care facility, recovered, according to CBS News . A CDC investigation found that 62 percent of the roughly 130 elderly residents had become infected at Life Care Center and more than a quarter of them have died.
Wood has five kids, 11 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren, and 3 great great grandchildren.
Her grand daughter in law, Kate Neidigh, said, “The love of her family had been a driving force in everything she did pre-coronavirus. No way was this going to change after-the-fact.”
Meanwhile, a recent video clip of a 6-year-old girl teaching a Bible verse, 2 Timothy 1:7, from memory to her 7-year-old brother to calm his fears over the novel coronavirus pandemic is going viral on social media .
“My son Brandon has crippling fear cause of his #autism. His sister taught him a scripture she learned at @FellowshipMiss2 Church to help,” tweeted Sheletta Brundidge , a mother of four and children’s author, with the video. “Stop letting your fear of #Coronavirus be bigger than your faith in God. Plead The Blood, pray and wash your hands. Amen!”
Governments around the world are scrambling to limit the spread of the coronavirus and are facing criticism of anxious citizens and journalists.
At the press briefing Saturday, President Trump defended his administration’s response in the initial days of the coronavirus crisis.
“I get a lot of credit for having closed our country very early to a very heavily infected country, China,” he said. “Unfortunately, China … I wish China would have told us more about what was going on in China long prior to us reading about it.”
President Trump was responding to a report in The Washington Post claiming that U.S. intelligence agencies issued ominous, classified warnings in January and February about the global danger posed by the coronavirus but Trump and lawmakers played down the threat.
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However, amid the coronavirus scare, stories of hope and resilience are emerging.
Last week, a 90 year-old Seattle woman, Geneva Wood, who contracted coronavirus at a senior care facility, recovered, according to CBS News . A CDC investigation found that 62 percent of the roughly 130 elderly residents had become infected at Life Care Center and more than a quarter of them have died.
Wood has five kids, 11 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren, and 3 great great grandchildren.
Her grand daughter in law, Kate Neidigh, said, “The love of her family had been a driving force in everything she did pre-coronavirus. No way was this going to change after-the-fact.”
Meanwhile, a recent video clip of a 6-year-old girl teaching a Bible verse, 2 Timothy 1:7, from memory to her 7-year-old brother to calm his fears over the novel coronavirus pandemic is going viral on social media .
“My son Brandon has crippling fear cause of his #autism. His sister taught him a scripture she learned at @FellowshipMiss2 Church to help,” tweeted Sheletta Brundidge , a mother of four and children’s author, with the video. “Stop letting your fear of #Coronavirus be bigger than your faith in God. Plead The Blood, pray and wash your hands. Amen!”
Rules of civility apply. Also stay on topic. The topic is Americans responses to the crisis based on words and actions of our national leaders. It is not a place to question religion in general or any one version of it.
prove it
Well it seems that those tithings are needed to pay off the preacher's Learjet.
If prayer is all you need for your God to spare your life, why are Christians, worldwide, afraid of the Coronavirus? Don't they have faith in their God to protect them? If he won't protect them, why are they praying to him?
Is the President’s spiritual advisor’s church also included?
Trump’s Spiritual Adviser Paula White Is Using the Coronavirus Crisis to Bankroll Her Church
I’d like to thank our Vice President for his very good advice on the matter of the seeded article and thank our President for all he’s done so far including the related national day of prayer.
You eat
their crap like you are seated at the last supper table.
Right on!!!!
Like you do the Chinese propaganda coming our way to counter what our elected leaders say?
We will be praying for both of you along with all the rest of America during these times of crisis
Forget the hypocrisy. If I want/need someone to pray for me, it will be someone who actually give a damn about me, and I have many of those, not someone who likes to think he is God.
Who is this we you speak of? Do you now pretend to hold a position enabling you to know the thoughts of all the religious in America?
Cause from what I can see here the only one that agrees with you is you.
throwing some change in the decorative wishing well in a neighbors front yard will do as much good for the USA as a bunch of bible thumpers jabbering like brainless ninnies.
Indeed. I attended an charismatic church a few times when I was young to see what kind of religion they taught. And what really turned me off was the time when the congregation, after having the money tray passed around about 4 times already, were told that the Preacher needed a new car and that the doors were locked and they could not leave the church until there was enough money raised to buy his new car.
What was really heart breaking is that the congregation was made up of the poorest section of town, many of which could not even buy enough food for their family, yet, they were told it was their duty to pay for the Preachers new car. I thought then and there that if that is the kind of God they believe in I wanted no part of it, as those who ran the church were no better than the money changers to scam the poor and then tell them their God loves them.
Being a member of a church that is part of a denomination generally prevents abuses like that.
BS. I found that such things happen pretty regularly in a lot of churches of no particular religion. Money is the only thing matters to any church. When they look out over the congregation all they see is dollar signs. And they care less if any of them gets 'saved' or not, just so long as they keep the money coming in.
What’s a church of no particular religion? Wouldn’t it have to be Christian to be a church in the 1st place.
Oh please. I know you aren't that dense. By no particular religion means that they were of various religions. Not all the same religion.They were all of different religions. Any other way I can present it that you will better understand?
Well I know that XX and one other person here is not really praying for any of us heathens
She means denominations. You know that's what RW means.
Christianity is one religion , like Judaism and Islam there are multiple versions or denominations within. The kind of thing that might happen in an independent stand alone church is different than a denominational church that is part of a culture and has structure and accountability built into it.
You have no idea who or what I pray for.
by your comments on here, I have a pretty good idea
it's just another golden opportunity to shakedown the gullible victim wannabes.
Why is it legal for you to put a link to your own seed in my seed in post 2 and yet when I did it to others on a political topic it was against the rules?
[Because you can't both respond to a comment AND declare it off topic. It's one or the other. Pick one.]
As churches have made the hard choice of suspending services, churchgoing Americans should continue to send their tithes as ministries are playing a vital role in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, Vice President Mike Pence said at a White House press briefing Saturday.
Americans are responding to the novel coronavirus pandemic with “common sense, compassion and generosity,” Pence said and praised religious leaders and faith communities for their continued service.
“Making the hard choice to suspend services, to have online services, even while those ministries are continuing to support food banks and come alongside of the most vulnerable,” he said.
“And of course the chorus of prayers that is coming up from communities of faith around the country is making the difference that it always has in the life of this nation.”
He and President Donald Trump had promised to “remind people that on the weekends that you’re not in the pews, it’s still a good idea, if you can, to go ahead and make that donation.” He explained that “all the ministries are continuing to play a vital role in our communities and we encourage your continued support.”
This what the seed is about.
What exactly are the churches doing ?
Maybe you should send extra in case some aren't tithing.
They are all doing what they can. I’ll contin to tithe my income.
LOS ANGELES (RNS) — It’s been a week since the Pentecostal megachurch Angelus Temple in Los Angeles chose to cancel its public church services and decided to instead focus on feeding families in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic that has caused job layoffs and shut down schools and restaurants.
The Dream Center, the church’s nonprofit in Echo Park, has been open from 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. to provide free hot and boxed meals all week — not just to families with children from the Los Angeles Unified School District, but to anyone who stops by for its drive-thru or pick-up service.
The center will also be distributing meals this weekend.
Angelus Temple pastor Matthew Barnett said food distributions have gone smoothly.
The church is averaging 5,000 meals a day as well as 150 daily visits to the elderly to provide them with food. Chick-fil-A and Pink’s Hot Dogs have donated food, he said.
The center is also asking for monetary contributions to be able to continue serving residents. Los Angeles Dodgers teammates Justin Turner and Clayton Kershaw are among those who have donated money and have even called businesses to supply food.
Barnett said the church plans to provide meals as long as necessary.
The center has also distributed free diapers to those in need and has taken in some 16 people without a home. On Thursday (March 19) Barnett said the center ordered $20,000 of mass food from vendors it normally works with. That money came from the church, he said.
Church members have had to tweak the way they provide meals since social distancing measures continued to shift throughout the week.
“We’re just listening to the news cycle on one hand and we’re just adjusting on the fly as people just keep showing up,” Barnett said earlier this week.
Barnett said some people thought the church’s decision to cancel its public services last week was abrupt and drastic, “but we knew that something was about to happen that was to become major.”
“So we just put our emphasis on other areas,” Barnett said.
In Los Angeles, “that’s going to be food scarcity as the shelves are going to be empty and families have been displaced,” Barnett said.
While some churches have resisted the idea of canceling public gatherings, Barnett said that by following the social distancing guidelines and canceling those public services “you can alleviate some fears and make that community a little bit safer or feel more protected."
That resistance, he said, “is not productive in bringing about healing and possibilities of what we can do during this time.”
READ THIS STORY AT RELIGIONNEWS.COM
Article originally published by Religion News Service
Why did they cancel services? Do they need to pray harder for protection??
Maybe because we take precautions in addition to prayer....
You don't believe your God can protect you? Where's your faith?
Helping families is what they should be doing with the donations and tithes instead of building a brand new rectory or buying the preacher a Lear jet.
I say good for this church. At least they're doing something right
Haven’t you wondered why major church denominations have built education systems K-post graduate to educate the young and state of the art hospitals using the latest technology in this country and around the world? And yes they pray in those schools and have chapels and ministries in those hospitals. Satan’s second temptation of Jesus was presumption of Gods protection. Casting himself down from great height so that Angels would rescue Him.
Educate? No. Brain wash, indoctrinate, yes. Any education they get is a byproduct.
Good for them, but they really do not believe any prayers will be acted upon.
You truly come up with some bizarre shit!
If your god turns a deaf ear to your prayers, and will not protect you when it is needed, what is the point of worshiping him? Abject fear and threats???
Instead of tithing, take that money and buy food for someone who is struggling. IMO God would be more impressed with that than the money going to support the lavish lifestyles some of these phony baloney use donations for.
sorry, but all that money is sinful until the millionaire preachers "lay their hands" on it.
I can get a strict accounting of where general donations go and can self direct donations to multiple specific causes with the donations given within my denomination so I have no fear of anything going to support wealthy life styles.
Prove it. Post the numbers if it is public info as you claim.
I knew I would eventually find something to like about you.
Exactly. That is what I'm doing. I don't need a church to be a middleman for me.
The church isn’t a middleman in this case as many denominations directly operate their own faith based charities. When I give to mine or another denominations charity such as The Salvation Army I know the money is being put to a good cause and wisely spent.
Give more, give deep, give 'till it hurts and then give 'em your all! God will smile on you and give it back 3 fold! Can I get an AMEN! This is fun. Do you think I could start a church of the evilgenius? Will I get a private jet? A fancy house and a wife with fake tits?
Sure I don't see why not, it's not like there's any qualifications, faith, belief required all ya need is an utter contempt for the well being of your fellow man.
Though you may want to work on the name a bit.