Experience Community Church Holds Worship Event On Murfreesboro Square

  MURFREESBORO, Tennessee–Christians flocked to Murfreesboro Square Friday evening to sing along with favorite contemporary Christian songs led by the worship team from Experience Community Church. With arms in the air in praise, concert-goers sang and swayed along with the music. The “No Other Name Worship Night” featured communion and even baptisms at the end of the evening in two pools set up by the stage. “I just wanted to be with like-minded people praising the Lord in the middle of our city,” said Jaymie Seay, who attends Experience and was at Friday’s event with other members of the Murfreesboro (35+) Christian Singles Meetup group. The Murfreesboro nondenominational church, started in 2009, has periodic worship nights, and to involve the community, aims to hold one a year at an outdoor location. Last year’s was held at a park. This year the church was excited to be able to hold the event on the Square. Church member Patty Carpenter, who was helping hand out free bottled water, said the church has been praying for the city and more opportunities to share the gospel. Friday’s event started with Mayor Shane McFarland giving an opening prayer. The crowd totaled around 4,000 people or…

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Tennessee Star Poll Summary: 86 Percent of GOP Primary Voters Support Trump, Corker Vulnerable, and Governor’s Race Wide Open

Tennessee Star

The Tennessee Star Poll released earlier this week revealed some important information about the current attitudes of likely Republican primary voters in Tennessee. Among the key results: 86 percent of likely Republican primary voters in Tennessee approve of President Trump’s job performance. No gubernatorial candidate has more than 10 percent support and the race is wide open. Senator Bob Corker’s re-election bid is in trouble. Rep. Marsha Blackburn is statistically tied in a one-on-one matchup with Senator Corker in a potential 2018 Republican U.S. Senate primary. Opposition to in-state tuition for illegal aliens is close to unanimous: 84 percent to 11 percent. A Republican gubernatorial candidate who promises to repeal the gas tax increase is more likely to receive the support of 48 percent of likely Republican primary voters and less likely to receive the support of 29 percent of likely Republican primary voters. 57 percent of likely Republican primary voters support constitutional carry. The Tennessee Star Poll will be conducted periodically between now and the August 2018 Republican primary to provide current insights into voter opinion among Tennessee’s likely Republican primary voters. The next poll is scheduled to be conducted and released in September of this year. The June 2017…

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Senator Bob Corker Continues to Undermine President Trump, This Time Over Qatar

Tenessee Star

Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) continued his recent history of publicly undermining President Trump this week, allowing himself on Tuesday to be portrayed as “speechless” over President Trump’s recent tweets about the country of Qatar. “President Trump set off a firestorm Tuesday when he conducted diplomacy-by-tweet, with key lawmakers stunned at the president’s flippant approach to a growing Middle East crisis and even the Pentagon saying it couldn’t explain the president’s comments,” the Hill reported: Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was left stunned and speechless when told by reporters of Trump’s tweets. Told by a reporter that Trump accused Qatar of being a state sponsor of terrorism, Corker responded, in a notably lower register, “The president?” Reporters caught Corker a few hours after Trump’s morning tweets, in which he took credit for the decision by Saudi Arabia and several other Arab countries to cut off ties with Qatar, an ally that is home to a large base with as many as 10,000 U.S. military personnel. “During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar – look!” Trump tweeted Tuesday. “So…

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City of Memphis To Help Pay Employees’ Student Loan Debt

Tennessee Star

  Memphis city officials announced this week that the city will start helping employees pay off their student loans. “We’re proud to announce today that we’re the first city in the country to add a student debt repayment assistance program to our employee benefits package!” read a post Thursday morning on the city government’s Facebook page. By Friday afternoon, the post had received around 100 reactions, with many giving the announcement hearts and thumbs-ups. One person commenting applauded the city for “evolving.” But not everyone was pleased “It’s always a great idea to some when the taxpayers [foot] the bill,” wrote one commenter. The city set aside $400,000 in the budget for the 2018 fiscal year to help pay off its employees’ student loan debt, according to the Memphis Business Journal. Memphis has a contract with Tuition.io., a student loan management company in Santa Monica, California. The company will direct the money from the city to student loan companies. The city will contribute $50 a month to participants’ student loan principal payments and an additional $7 per member monthly fee that will go to Tuition.io. A one-time set-up fee under the two-year agreement cost $50,000. “Individuals will still need to make monthly…

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Raul Lopez Commentary: Religious Freedom, Not Gay Marriage, Is the Civil Rights Issue of Our Time

  By Raul Lopez June 10, 2017 LGBT activists, radical feminists, and others love to claim their cause is “the civil rights issue of today”—invoking historical comparisons between their group and the persecution Black Americans faced during the height of Jim Crow America. In fact, many of these groups have gone a step further to claim that Dr. King and other prominent civil rights leaders would readily join their side in supporting same-sex marriage. But a more careful reading reveals that this issue is a lot more nuanced than progressives would have us believe. In fact, the truth is that Dr. King and other highly respected religious leaders in the movement held traditional views on marriage. Letters, speeches and sermons left behind reveal that the civil rights leaders who fought so valiantly for equality actually held conservative positions on many social issues. All of this leads one to believe that if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were still alive, it’s likely that he would be standing up for another cause – a cause that was truly near and dear to his heart: religious liberty. Religious liberty is a term that gets tossed around a lot these days, but it essentially…

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Nancy Unhinged: Pelosi Hurls Wild Accusations at Trump

Tennessee Star

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) ripped President Donald Trump on Friday with one wild accusation after another. Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Pelosi said she is worried about the president’s fitness for office, falsely claimed employment has declined and accused him without explanation of authoritarian behavior and undermining separation of powers. And, of course,…

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Donald Trump Vows to Speed up Permitting for Infrastructure Projects

Tennessee Star

President Trump said Friday he’s taking steps to speed up the permitting process for building new roads and bridges by creating a special council to cut through federal red tape. Speaking at the Department of Transportation in Washington, Mr. Trump demonstrated his contempt for what he called unnecessary regulations by lifting a heavy binder of environmental…

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Tennessee Star Poll: 57 Percent of GOP Primary Voters Support Constitutional Carry

Tennessee Star

A significant majority of likely Republican primary voters in Tennessee support constitutional carry, according to results of The Tennessee Star Poll released this week. When asked, “In 2018, the Tennessee General Assembly is also expected to reconsider a bill that would allow Tennesseans to carry firearms without obtaining a state issued permit, which is commonly known as ‘Constitutional Carry.’ Do you support or oppose Constitutional Carry in Tennessee? ” 57 percent of likely Republican primary voters said they favored it, while only 32 percent said they opposed it: 38.5% strongly support 19.1% somewhat support  11.9% somewhat oppose  20.8% strongly oppose  9.8% Don’t know/unsure The poll of 1,007 likely Republican primary voters was conducted by Triton Polling and Research in an automated (IVR) telephone survey between May 31 and June 5 and has a margin of error of 3.1 percent. “Based on my experience talking to people and explaining constitutional carry, I think 57 percent understates the support for constitutional carry in Tennessee,” John Harris, executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association, tells The Tennessee Star. “This is because people think constitutional carry will eliminate the possibility to get handgun permits for reciprocity purposes in other states,” he adds. “Even with…

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