Across the Nation, January 2016

FLORIDA
HOMESTEAD — Redland Christian Academy, an outreach ministry of the Homestead Church of Christ, faces a $40,000 operating deficit, missionary Mike Hoots said.

The K-12 school serves an increasingly impoverished student population, many of whom receive state-funded, income-based scholarships, Hoots said. 

Total enrollment is about 200.

“We are in the process of readjusting our spending habits accordingly and have devised a workable budget for operating the school,” Hoots said. “Our intentions were for the congregation itself to bail out this ministry, but we were faced with some very large and unexpected expenses.”

For more information, see www.homesteadcoc.com.
MICHIGAN
ESCANABA — Young and old alike are doing World Bible School correspondence courses at the Escanaba Church of Christ.

Members are familiarizing themselves with the course before the church begins offering it through the “Let the Bible Speak” television ministry, said Dave Grant, the congregation’s preacher.
NEW MEXICO
MORA — Twenty-seven men and teenage boys met at the Sierra Bonita Cabins recently for the first Northern New Mexico Men’s Leadership Retreat.

The retreat, organized by the University Church of Christ in Canyon, Texas, addressed issues of leadership in the home and the church. Jerry Lawlis, David Lough, Bob Shepard and Warren Baldwin spoke.

“Everyone present enjoyed good lessons, fellowship and encouragement,” said Baldwin, minister for the Ulysses Church of Christ in Kansas.
TENNESSEE
NASHVILLE — The Brentwood Hills Church of Christ recently hosted a Christmas party for a bunch of VIPs.

Church members held welcome signs and rushed forward with smiles and handshakes, WTVF News Channels 5 reported.

What made these party guests extra special? Many are homeless.

“We want them to sit down (and) have food brought to them as if they are royalty,” executive minister Jonathan Seamon told the television station. “Christ, in a parable, told someone if you’re gonna do a banquet, do one for those who are less fortunate, who would never be invited to one.”
TEXAS
CHILDRESS — Minister Trey Morgan calls it “grocery sack evangelism.”

On “Fill-A-Sack Sunday,” Childress Church of Christ members bring bags full of groceries to the worship assembly. Then the congregation delivers the sacks of food and necessities to needy families.

“I asked one of our new families that were recently baptized, ‘What brought you guys to our church?’” Morgan said. “They said, ‘We’ve been wanting to go somewhere, and one night out of the blue, someone from your church delivered a sack of groceries to our house.’ God is good.”