The real estate value of a church’s land is usually irrelevant. There’s no property tax, and unless a church is ready to sell its land, the fluctuations in value over the years don’t matter much. Until the property becomes too…
Pastors ponder pandemic preaching problems — and how they’ve survived
Preaching has been radically different and difficult for Pastor Cheryl Adamson since March 2020, and not only because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The parallel scourges of police brutality, political subjugation and racial oppression faced by African Americans, and exacerbated by…
New devotional book asks what it means to follow God in a time of global pandemic
Greg Funderburk’s first book followed the survivors of the Great Storm that killed 8,000 people in Galveston, Texas, in 1900. His second book, released this month, is a devotional born from the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed nearly 3 million…
In Kenya, Sodzo International keeps children off the streets
Across Africa, a particular modern-day challenge confronting several countries and governments is what to do about the growing number of street children in major cities. Whether in the south, east, central, west or north part of Africa, the problem stares…
Award-winning TV journalist returns to thank Houston church for its friendship
When broadcast journalist Deanna Dewberry gave her testimony to a Bible study class at Houston’s South Main Baptist Church, it was the continuation of an ongoing story of friendship and faith that spans the years and the miles. Dewberry, a…
Pandemic opens the door to a far-flung notion of church membership
There’s nothing new about people attending church in their living rooms and kitchens. Since the earliest days of television, there has been a symbiotic relationship between preachers and viewers. But what once was a sometimes-dubious bond — with televangelists offering…
White churches must repent for racism, minister says, and worship services are a good place to start
White churches must use worship services to repent for the sin of racism in part by acknowledging complicity – active or passive, said Natasha Nedrick, associate minister at Greenforest Community Baptist Church in Atlanta.
White minister tells George Floyd family, mourners: white Christians must fight racism
“Racism is the reversal of the revelation of God. Racism is not perfect love casting out fear, it is perfect fear casting out love.”
Couple shares of dicey exit from Peru as COVID-19 shuts borders | #intimeslikethese
A medical mission turned “Mission Impossible” when a Baptist couple from Houston tried to leave Peru as it closed its borders to combat COVID-19. “It was absolute, utter chaos,” Ruth Campos, 74, said of the scenes around Lima and its…