Across the Nation
FLORIDA
PALMETTO
Faith-basedorganizations could soon provide places for Manatee Countystudents to receive free tutoring. Kenneth Jackson, minister of the 11th Street church,is among religious leaders supporting the proposal.
Funds to pay theteachers would come out of money budgeted for after-school tutoring programs,The Bradenton Herald reported Sept. 30.
Jackson told the newspaper that helping raise academic scores amongminority and low-income students is important to the entire community.
MARYLAND
HYATTSVILLE
The University Park church provides breakfast for the Northwestern High Schoolfootball team each Saturday during the season.
Church membersprepare and serve food for the team as an outreach effort, secretary LydiaHolby said.
Deacon Hamil Harris,a reporter for The Washington Post, is one of the team’s coaches.
“Many of thesefootball players come from broken homes,” Holby said. “Each Saturday morningbefore the breakfast, the boys are led in a devotional by brother Harris.”
The 10 weekly breakfastsstarted Sept. 17 and continue through Nov. 12.
MISSOURI
PARK HILLS
The Flat Riverchurch celebrated its 100th anniversary Sept. 24-25, elder and minister BernieCrum said.
The church began with16 charter members in 1905. It has met in its present facility since 1957. Itenlarged its fellowship room and kitchen this year.
The congregation hasfive elders and five deacons and supports a number of benevolent and missionfunds, Crum said.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
NASHUA
Nashua church member Heidi Critz has a dream: to provide ahomemade quilt to every child at a local children’s home.
That’s 50 quilts inall.
About 10 women at thecongregation are helping Critz fulfill her dream, with a goal of finishing thequilts in time for Christmas, member Amy Smith said.
“The quilts are about4-by-4 feet and are in a variety of colors to meet the needs of children of allages,” Smith said.
After the initialgifts, the church plans to keep giving quilts when new children arrive at thehome.
OREGON
SALEM
Eighty peopleattended a “Launch Sunday” service Oct. 2 at the Cascade Hills church.
The grand openingfollowed a year of work by the church-plant team to make contacts in the Salem community,associate minister Dwayne Hilty said.
“From the verybeginning, our mission at Cascade Hills has been to become a place for theunchurched and dechurched to explore the historical claims of Christianity inan atmosphere that is friendly, welcome and always pointing to the cross,”Hilty said.
PENNSYLVANIA
SCOTTDALE
Ed Werner, anevangelist from Coos Bay, Ore.,presented a recent three-day “Noah’s Ark:Fact or Fiction” seminar at the Scottdale church.
Werner and his wife,Sharon, have visited about 100 churches since they started giving thepresentation in 1985, the Pittsburgh Daily Courier reported Oct. 7.
In the seminar,Werner addresses the concept of a universal flood and evidence supporting theflood. The final message attempts to answer and squelch objections to thefeasibility of the ark itself, with Werner displaying a scale model of the arkwith 370 animals.
ZELIENOPLE
Teaching creationismbefore lessons on evolution sounds like progress to Reid Moon, minister of theZelienople church.
Moon, chairman of thePittsburgh-based Creation Science Fellowship, founded in 1980, is among thosedefending a Pennsylvania school district’s requirement that teachers introducethe theory of intelligent design — that all living things were uniquely createdby a higher power.
“I think allscientifically credible theories of origin of the universe ought to be taughtin the public school setting,” Moon told the Pittsburgh Tribune Review in earlyOctober.
TEXAS
DALLAS
More than 1,000people from 130 congregations in nine states attended the “Where Are We Now?”seminar at the White Rock church Sept. 17.
Organizers said manyof the 23 speakers dealt with current issues in the church. Jay Lockhart, JeffJenkins and Harold Taylor gave keynote addresses.
Class topics includedbaptism, hermeneutics, post-modernism, unity, church growth, preaching,elderships, worship, instrumental music and inerrancy.
The presentations maybe ordered on a form available at www.wherearewenow.org.
WASHINGTON
VANCOUVER
The Vancouverchurch sponsored its first fund-raising pumpkin patch, with all proceeds goingto build houses for church members in Baja, Mexico. “Forseveral years, we have taken a large group — 98 this year — to Baja and builtfour houses during the five days we were there,” church office manager BonnieMiller said.
Church membersplanned to keep the pumpkin patch open through Oct. 31, culminating with acar-to-car “trunk-or-treat” event.
