- 45% say family is the most important

- 20% say health/leisure/balanced lifestyle is the most important

- 17% say wealth/profession/making money/success/finances

- Only 12% say faith is the most important

David Kinnaman says, “People are not turning to God in the face of economic stress…but instead, they are focusing more on themselves. They are simply working harder and trying to make more money”. This is in contrast to nearly 90% of Americans who say they believe in God and 3 out of 4 who describe themselves as Christians. Kinnaman says, “So much of American religion seems only skin-deep. And economic trials have revealed Americans’ fixation with individualism and their illusions of being self-made”.

In a House floor speech, Republican Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia cited apparent U.S. indifference to violations of human rights in Sudan, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Egypt and Morocco.

He said Iraq’s ancient Christian community faces extinction unless the government protects churches and prevents attacks that have driven hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians into exile.

Wolf said the U.S. also should demand that Egypt protect its Coptic Christians from growing persecution, and that Morocco stop deporting American Christians for alleged proselytizing.

He said oppressed believers need the Obama administration to “find its voice” for human rights.

Warren spokeswoman Kristin Cole says the sap of a firestick plant got into Warren’s eyes when he wiped his brow while gardening at home on Monday. The sap can cause temporary blindness, but Cole says Warren can see and is expected to make a full recovery.

The 56-year-old pastor was treated overnight and released Tuesday from a hospital in Mission Viejo.

On Thursday, he sent a message to his Twitter followers asking for their prayers. Warren wrote that his “eyes were severely burned” and he was suffering “excruciating pain.” He later wrote, “May God use this pain for His glory.”

Warren is the author of “The Purpose Driven Life” and the founder of California’s Saddleback Church.

Unlike church buildings where congregations sit through sermons, house churches consist of 12 to 15 people who share what’s going on in their lives, often turning to Scriptures for guidance. They rely on the Holy Spirit or spontaneity to guide their weekly gatherings.

House church proponents claim they’re sort of a throwback to the early Christian church in that they have no clergy and everyone is expected to contribute to the teaching, singing and praying.

The Barna Group, a firm specializing in surveys on religion, estimates that 6 million to 12 million Americans attend house churches. A survey last year by the Pew Forum found that 9 percent of American Protestants worship only at home services.

Father Larry Snyder speculates that could be because Americans blame BP and expect it to pay for all the damage. He said a nationwide appeal by Catholic Charities raised only $37,000.

Snyder told a congressional hearing that BP gave $1 million to Catholic Charities of New Orleans, but all of that money has been disbursed. He said needy families continue to line up before dawn, and many have to be turned away.

Snyder contrasted the lack of private donations with the outpouring of support following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and said demands on charities will continue long after the leak is stopped.

The men were chained together when the attack took place in the eastern city of Faisalabad as they were being taken back into custody after their court appearance.

Pakistan’s minister for minority affairs, Shahbaz Bhatti, says the brothers were arrested a month ago after leaflets allegedly bearing their names and featuring derogatory remarks against Muhammad were found. He says mosques in Faisalabad had called for the men to be attacked.

Bhatti says he suspects the men were falsely accused of blasphemy by people with a grudge against them, and adds that their families maintained their innocence.

Smoke lingered in the breeze Sunday as 18-year-old Amber Coop and the Grandview Apostolic Church’s 45 other parishioners gave thanks for blessings they said no fire could destroy.

Coop said the church is much more just a building — it’s the congregation.

She joined the church five months ago and was baptized there July 11, three days before the fire. Last Wednesday’s fire gutted the white, wood-frame church and caused its roof and steeple to collapse, leaving only some of the exterior walls standing.

The congregation hopes to rebuild the church, which was formed in 1892.

Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Nate Kellum says the small group from a Christian school in Arizona had bowed their heads and begun praying for the justices when police stopped them.

Supreme Court spokeswoman Patricia Estrada says federal law allows traditional tourist activity on the court’s grounds, but prohibits standing in an “assemblage” that could attract onlookers.

Kellum says that appears to mean people can talk among themselves, but not to God. In a letter to court officials, the ADF threatens to sue unless quiet prayers are allowed in the future.

Estrada says the Marshal of the Court will “look into the events as described in the letter.”

They also prayed for an end to the oil crisis. The participants said God, not BP or the government, holds the key to resolving the disaster.

The president of the Evangelical Environmental Network, Mitch Hescox, said it was God that gave engineers the wisdom to finally cap the spewing oil.

The chairman of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, said it wasn’t a coincidence that BP announced the cap was working shortly after Congress called for a national day of prayer for the Gulf.

Black Hawk County Young Life is in need of adult volunteers willing and eager to work with teens and show God’s love to them.  If you’d like to be a part of Young Life, you can call area director Andy Walser at (319) 290-8845, or visit their website.