God is moving at the Shakopee Women’s Prison in powerful ways. Prison Ministry volunteers can attest to it: "I believe God is creating a revival inside the Shakopee Women’s Prison." "He is opening doors, minds and hearts; and He’s restoring hope and purpose." Estimates are that over 350 women have been baptized inside the prison since baptism services started being offered a few years back. But it’s not a one-time event. Volunteers from churches and evangelical ministries are a constant presence inside the prison walls, church attendance has sky-rocketed, and the Shakopee Women’s Prison is one of the first prisons in the world to allow a weekly Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) class inside for meetings. Evangelical prison ministry groups believe God has big plans for these inmates after they're released.

On March 11, 2017 a leadership conference for rural and small town churches called Grow! was held at Cornerstone Church in Litchfield, MN. Over 300 pastors and ministry leaders from across the Midwest attended the inaugural conference designed to provide church leaders information on how to minister effectively, encourage them to see their unique role in God's plan, and help them take the steps that can impact their world for all of eternity. Included is a Q & A with some Grow Conference participants engaged in rural ministry in the Midwest.

Nearly 50 years after Dr. King’s assassination, 30 Twin Cities pastors kept Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream alive through Sankofa: Journey to Harmony. Sankofa is a Ghanaian phrase that translates as “go back and get it.” Our Journey to Harmony encouraged participants to go back and face our country’s roots in order to move forward. Following our inaugural Sankofa: Journey to Harmony, we are inspired, filled with hope and continuing to look forward. It has become all too clear that it is the Gospel that reconciles people. So as we look ahead, we continue to dream of God’s multi-tribal Kingdom revealed in Revelation 7.

As we seek to understand how Christians are called to welcome the alien in our midst, be confident in our country’s screening process, knowing that refugees are subject to the highest level of security checks of anybody who travels to the United States. But also put your confidence in God’s calling on our lives to remember our ancestors who were once foreigners (found as the Hebrew word GER in the Old Testament), and to show hospitality to the stranger (hospitality is a Greek compound word of phileo and xenia, meaning love of stranger found in the New Testament). Included are links to resources from the March 2 Standing with Refugees event.

Nik and Ruth Ripken wowed 165 attendees at Transform Minnesota’s February Insanity of God conference. The sold-out 2-day conference at Celebration Church, Lakeville equipped those in cross-cultural ministry, by emphasizing the call of suffering on the mission field, whether in a participants’ own community or overseas in a persecuted region. Through their extensive travels, the Ripkens have absorbed invaluable lessons from over 600 believers in persecuted situations. Much of what they shared at the conference was communicated from the lessons the Ripkens gleaned from their work with the persecuted church. Read what some participants said about the powerful, practical, Biblical and affirming lessons taught by the Ripkens.