Wheeler, a technical writer for a software company and part-time preacher for a Church of Christ in Provo, Utah, quickly checked Google, which ran his inquiry through its artificial intelligence engine and claimed that the story was false.

“Turns out, it was just too soon for Google to pick up on it,” Wheeler said, “and the rest of that day was a stream of tragic revelations.”

 

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The initial confusion seems pertinent, given the questions raised about technology’s limitations, the role of social media and the use of artificial intelligence in the wake of Kirk’s Sept. 10 death. Security analysts warn that foreign actors, including Russian, Chinese and pro-Iranian groups are spreading misinformation about Kirk’s death in an effort to polarize debate about Kirk’s legacy.

Kirk, a conservative activist, longtime supporter of President Trump and founder of Turning Point USA was speaking to students at an open-air venue on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem when a shooter perched on a rooftop fired a bolt-action hunting rifle, striking Kirk in the neck, according to police.

The murder of the 31-year-old husband and father set off a wave of social media posts, many filled with angry rhetoric. Supporters pointed to Kirk’s Christian faith and his belief in debate — exemplified by his many trips to university campuses, where he often would sit under a tent reading “PROVE ME WRONG” and allow students to ask him questions. 

Others pointed to clips of Kirk’s statements about civil rights, transgender people and the Second Amendment as evidence that his views were extremist and deliberately provocative. Police arrested 22-year-old Tyler James Robinson and charged him with Kirk’s murder. Robinson was in a romantic relationship with a transgender individual, prosecutors said.

A Turning Point on campus 

Across the nation, groups of Americans gathered on college campuses and in front of city halls and courthouses to show support for Kirk and to pray for his family. 

“Today is not the day Charlie Kirk died,” said Jeremiah Delcour, vice president of Oklahoma Christian University’s chapter of Turning Point USA, in a Sept. 10 Instagram post. “Today is the day that Charlie Kirk LIVES with our Father in Heaven.” 

 

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About 375 miles east of the university’s Oklahoma City campus, students from Harding University joined mourners at the Arkansas Capitol in Little Rock for a prayer vigil. Meanwhile, on the West Coast, about 100 students and community members gathered on the campus of Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., for a vigil. All three universities are associated with Churches of Christ.

Pepperdine and Harding also have chapters of Turning Point USA, a nonprofit founded by Kirk in 2012 to advocate for conservative politics on high school and university campuses. The nonprofit has chapters on more than 800 campuses across the nation.

In the past week, more than 400 students filled out an interest survey on the Harding chapter’s Instagram page, faculty adviser David Kee said. Josh Cobb, a Harding student and member of the university’s football team, is the student leader of the chapter. 

At Oklahoma Christian University, students write tributes to Charlie Kirk on a whiteboard next to an information table about the university’s chapter of Turning Point USA.

Harding students plan to join other community groups for another prayer vigil at 7 p.m. Sept. 18 on the lawn of the White County Courthouse in Searcy, Ark. 

“We will gather to worship, reflect and pray for spiritual healing in our nation,” Cobb wrote. 

The group plans to host an event on Harding’s Searcy campus Sept. 25. “It won’t be a typical Turning Point USA ‘Prove me Wrong’ event,” Kee said, “but rather a rally to build the community in support of Charlie Kirk’s legacy.” 

 

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Pepperdine president Jim Gash and chancellor Sara Young Jackson were among the attendees at the Malibu vigil. Tim Spivey, vice president for Spiritual Life at Pepperdine, led a prayer.

“He was a courageous and relentless advocate for freedom and free thinking,” said Bethany Kronlund, a Pepperdine senior and president of the university’s Turning Point chapter. “His calm and respectful demeanor and his unwavering commitment to dialogue without violence continues to serve as an inspiration to us all.”

At Abilene Christian University in Texas, nearly 1,200 students, staff and community members gathered at Beauchamp Amphitheatre on campus Sept. 17 for a prayer vigil, KTAB/KRBC reported. Students organized the event, said Madelyne Arrowood, a senior at the university, which is associated with Churches of Christ. 

“Tonight is a time just to stand together as Christians and mourn the sad divisions that we have in this country and pray to God to bless this nation and bring us a little closer together and end violence,” Arrowood told the TV station.

The university’s president, Phil Schubert, spoke during the vigil.

Abilene Christian University President Phil Schubert speaks during a prayer vigil on campus.

“You may feel anger. You have sadness, grief and sorrow, uncertainty, anxiety,” Schubert told the mourners. “I mean, any time we are watching events unfold around us that create those kinds of feelings in ourselves, the best thing we can do as a community is come together and try to process through that.”

For ACU students, Kirk’s death was “a shock that none of us has really felt before,” said Jacob Rose, a freshman from Naperville, Ill., in an interview with The Optimist, a student publication of ACU. “There’s never been a huge assassination that people have seen videos of in our age.”

 

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Rose and his friends led a worship night outside of ACU’s Wessel Hall after finding out about Kirk’s death.

“I’ve seen all over social media, ‘oh, it’s Left versus Right’ and all this stuff, but I think it’s good versus evil,” Rose said. “Honestly, I think it’s the devil trying to attack us. The devil wants us to go against each other. So I think what we have to do is … unite and have conversations.”

A student sings during a prayer vigil on ACU’s campus following the death of Charlie Kirk.

Fiery tongues 

Kirk’s death resonated from pulpits four days after the shooting. Neal Pollard changed his Sunday sermon at the last minute — something he’s done only two other times in the past 25 years, he said. His topic: “When Faith is Targeted”  

“I promise you that I did not do it for political reasons, never have. You know me,” Pollard told his congregation, the Cumberland Trace Church of Christ in Bowling Green, Ky. “But I don’t know that you realize what an impact (Kirk) makes on so many young people in our nation.” 

Thousands — including many in Generation Z, now in their teens to mid-20s —  listen to Kirk’s podcast and watch his YouTube videos, Pollard said, and recent studies show a trend toward conservatism and in favor of marriage among Gen Zers. 

Now, many young people are unsettled by the death of “one who would stand up for the rights of the unborn,” Pollard said, “one who would stand up for the biblical definition of gender … one who would preach against the sin of pornography and so often quote the Bible as the authority for the position that he took.”

In his sermon, Pollard explored biblical truths revealed in Kirk’s assassination — there’s power in a voice, truth is absolute. And “our response to this act will make an eternal difference.”

Rick Atchley made the decision to address the shooting before his sermon for The Hills Church of Christ, which meets on multiple campuses throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. He acknowledged that he did not address the attempted assassination of President Trump nor the June 14 deaths of Democratic politician Melissa Hortman, her husband, Mark, and their dog at the hands of a gunman. Atchley also noted that the Sept. 3 mass shooting at a Catholic school in Minneapolis, which resulted in the deaths of two children and injuries to 21 people, went unmentioned from his pulpit.

He noted two of Kirk’s convictions — “that you deal with disagreement through debate, not through violence, and that every single person, including those you disagree with, is an image-bearer of God.” 

Atchley cited Bible verses including James 3:6, “The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.” He urged Christians to refrain from responding to the tragedy with toxicity. 

Orpheus Heyward

Or, as Orpheus Heyward put it, “Disagreement is inevitable, but dehumanization is inexcusable.”

Heyward, minister for the Renaissance Church of Christ in Atlanta, shared his thoughts on Kirk’s death in a Sept. 11 social media post. 

“Truth must be tethered to love,” Heyward wrote. “Clarity without charity may satisfy the intellect, but it wounds the soul. Conviction that is not clothed in compassion can be perceived as cruelty masquerading as courage. Our task is not only to declare what we believe to be true but also to embody the love of Christ in how we declare it, ensuring that our words bring light rather than darkness.”

Christians should have no part in a culture that “yells and screams and demonizes each other,” Atchley said. “We will not post, we will not re-send these diatribes and rants that demonize people and radicalize the unstable. I do not think that is a political position. I think it is an ‘I follow Jesus’ position. And I remind us all that someday we will all stand before King Jesus. And none of us on that day wants to hear him say, ‘What part of “Love your enemies” did you not understand?’”

 

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Until that day of judgement, Christians grieve for the families of the Hortmans, the children killed in Minneapolis and Kirk’s widow, Erika, Atchley said.

“And I hope her two children will grow up in a world that’s better than this one,” he added. “We’re going to start modeling what it looks like to hold convictions without harboring hate.”

A Christian martyr? 

Like many of her fellow Christians, Christina Littlefield mourns for Kirk’s family and for the nation.

Christina Littlefield

“But this is my fear — that I’m already seeing among some Christian friends — that they are making him a martyr for Christianity to further co-opt the faith toward partisan ends,” said Littlefield, associate professor of communication and religion at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., which is associated with Churches of Christ.

Littlefield watched 60 hours of Kirk’s Freedom Nights for research articles that spun off the book she co-authored with Richard Hughes, “Christian America and the Kingdom of God: White Christian Nationalism from the Puritans to January 6, 2021.” Freedom Nights were part of TPUSA Faith, an initiative of Turning Point directed toward ministers and evangelical Christians.

“He was sincere in his faith,” Littlefield said, “but he presented a limited Gospel; his political project hybridized Christian identity with themes of conservatism, neoliberalism, ethnic-nationalism and fascist storytelling. … He believed that all people were made in the image of God. But he attacked efforts to address racial injustice as socialism … He repeatedly dismissed the contributions of Black people, never believing that they could succeed without help from affirmative action. He supported mass deportations. …

 

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“He did not promote care for the marginalized, the orphan, the widow or the foreigner. His vision for a godly society was limited to Genesis and Numbers, shaped by Prager U, not Christ.”

While the First Amendment protected Kirk’s speech, Littlefield and her fellow academics fear for that right in the wake of the shooting. The American Association of University Professors, a Washington-based organization dedicated to promoting academic freedom, issued a statement condemning the killing of Kirk and all acts of violence on college campuses. 

Students on the campus of Abilene Christian University in Texas participate in a prayer vigil after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

The organization also “notes with great alarm the rash of recent administrative actions to discipline faculty, staff and student speech in the aftermath of the murder of Charlie Kirk,” the statement reads. “We write to remind leaders of colleges and universities of their fundamental duty to protect academic freedom and the absolute necessity to ensure that the freedom to discuss topics of public import without constraint is not curtailed under political pressure.”

At the prayer vigil, other members of the Pepperdine community praised Kirk’s activisms and made remarks that contrasted with Littlefield’s description of the young conservative’s views.

Katie Zecharia compared Kirk’s assassination to the 1945 execution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German preacher who defied the Nazi regime, the Pepperdine Graphic reported. Zecharia, a Pepperdine grad who once worked for the university and now serves as an attorney, political analyst and Fox News contributor, challenged those who call Kirk’s rhetoric hateful as she held up a copy of his book, “Right Wing Revolution: How to Beat the Woke and Save the West.”

“This entire book is predicated on taking courage when no one else will, to not be silent in the face of evil, to with great, great consequence and potential for loss of life as we saw him experience, to go and courageously fight the good fight at any cost,” Zacharia said. “As Bonhoeffer said, ‘Silence in the face of evil is evil itself.’”

What do we do (or don’t we do) now? 

“What side are we on? Who do you support? Is this about race or culture?”

These questions emerged in the wake of Kirk’s murder, said leaders of the North Colony Church of Christ in a social media post.

The congregation, which meets in the north Dallas suburb of The Colony, Texas, will host a candid, online discussion among ministers for Churches of Christ at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19.

“In spite of critics, the church is not silent when it comes to political and social controversy that impacts our world,” church leaders said.

Back in Utah, minister Andrew Wheeler is also asking questions.

“What do we do now? How should we respond?” he asked. “It seems a lot of folks are getting the wrong impression of what we should do next. This isn’t the dismal bell-toll warning us of impending civil war. It is not cause for the left and the right to move even further apart. It is a clarion call for unity in the country Charlie Kirk spent his adult life working to bring together.” 

Rather than risk “drifting into the divisive negativity that haunts the aftermath of the assassination,” Wheeler recommended that believers take time to learn more about Charlie Kirk and his beliefs, look at relevant Scriptures that discuss loving your enemies (including Matthew 5:43-48) and force themselves to say something nice when tempted to lash out.

This Sunday, Wheeler plans to preach for a small congregation in Delta, Utah. His topic: “The things Jesus didn’t do.”

Featured image (above): Graduates celebrate during commencement at Lubbock Christian University in Texas, which recently earned classification as a Hispanic-serving institution.

HERITAGE CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY

Kirk Brothers

FLORENCE, ALA. — After eight years as president of Heritage Christian University, Kirk Brothers will step down at the end of the 2025-2026 academic year, the university announced.

Under Brothers’ guidance, HCU has expanded its academic offerings, increased student enrollment, invested in campus development and gained additional accreditation for its graduate programs.

Brothers plans to remain with the university as a faculty member.

“My feelings about the mission of HCU have only grown stronger,” he said.

LUBBOCK CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY 

LUBBOCK, TEXAS — The U.S. Department of Education has classified Lubbock Christian University as a Hispanic-serving institution.

The federal designation recognizes higher education institutions where at least 25 percent of the total undergraduate enrollment is Hispanic.

LCU’s Hispanic population hit 28.6 percent this past academic year.

Graduates celebrate during commencement at Lubbock Christian University in Texas.

The university’s president, Scott McDowell, noted that Hispanic students make up more than 60 percent of the Lubbock public school system.

“We look forward to walking with this significant cohort of students and continuing to grow in ways that reflect our strong commitment to the Lubbock community,” McDowell said.

PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY

WASHINGTON — The Religious Freedom Institute has relocated its D.C.-based headquarters to Pepperdine University’s branch campus in the nation’s capital.

While RFI remains on Pennsylvania Avenue, the move to Pepperdine’s campus “further solidifies our growing partnership, which is based on our shared commitment to defend religious freedom for everyone and our shared conviction that education must lead the way in bringing about needed change in this area,” said David Trimble, the institute’s president.

Danny DeWalt, Pepperdine’s senior vice president for global impact, said: “RFI has demonstrated transformative impact on shaping religious freedom policy and influence in the U.S. and across the globe. Pepperdine is honored to partner with RFI and to punctuate that partnership by integrating our offices for heightened effectiveness.”

Lead minister Donny Dillon and his wife, Julie, along with their daughters, Mackenzie and Addilyn, established the SonLife Church of Christ in September 2023. The 23-person congregation started in the Dillons’ living room and quickly outgrew two locations. 

SonLife moved to the Alachua County Sports Complex in August 2024. The church now has 87 members and averages 70 to 100 attendees on Sunday mornings. 

SonLife lead minister Donny Dillon poses for a photo with his wife, Julie, and daughters, Addilyn and Mackenzie.

SonLife’s story began at the 2022 New Day Conference at the North Boulevard Church of Christ in Murfreesboro, Tenn. North Boulevard administrative minister Glenn Robb met Dillon at that conference.

“We started talking to him about his new church at that time and were inspired by his vision for reaching out,” Robb said. 

North Boulevard pointed Dillon toward The Crossings Church in Wentzville, Mo. — which has roots in Churches of Christ — as a model to train him. 

The reason: The Crossings heavily emphasizes campus ministry and integrating it into the full congregation. 

The Crossings senior minister, Robert Cox, and campus minister Kerry Cox, Robert’s son, knew  Dillon from campus ministry conferences and agreed to work with him. 

Dillon previously spent eight years as a youth minister and 23 years as a campus minister. 

He saw planting SonLife as a way to do more in the community. 

SonLife members attend a church singing night at the University of Florida football stadium, known as “The Swamp.”

“It’s got to really be centered around the Great Commission and going and being the people God intended us to be and being the hands and feet of Jesus in the community,” Dillon said. 

SonLife aims to reach out to the unchurched and meet needs in the college town of Gainesville. Students at the University of Florida and Santa Fe College make up nearly half of the city’s roughly 150,000 residents.

SonLife has 15 active college students, and Dillon said students are one of the church’s target audiences. The congregation also reaches out to students through SonLife’s weekly mentorship program with children in Section 8 housing. SonLife hosted its recent Vacation Bible School at the community center to continue connecting with these kids. Teens from The Crossings traveled from Missouri to lead the VBS, Robert Cox said.

With 30 baptisms in under two years, SonLife’s growth is rapid compared to other U.S. congregations. Robb said SonLife’s growth rate is like what he saw on mission trips to plant churches in Africa. 

“The biggest challenge within the community is avoiding the distractions that we are able to avoid on a mission trip,” Dillon said. “When we get into our everyday routine of life here in our community … that’s when it seems to go off the rails.”

SonLife’s community outreach is an example of evangelism for the global Christian community. Robb would like to see SonLife’s intense outward focus on newcomers — and its evangelistic emphasis to bring new people to Jesus — reproduced in every church. 

“Focus outward, not inward,” Robb said. “Make plans, strategies and programs that will touch the hearts of people that are not yet in church because they’re the ones we need to be reaching.”

SonLife Church of Christ members gather at the edge of a pool to celebrate a baptism.

KENZIE JAMES, a senior multimedia journalism major at Harding University in Searcy, Ark., is a Christian Chronicle intern working in the main office in Oklahoma City. James grew up in Tallahassee, Fla., where she attended the Timberlane Church of Christ.

I’ve heard that argument more than once. Sometimes I agree. My life would be much easier without any mention of Republicans or Democrats — in the pews or in these pages.

But avoidance isn’t a solution, especially when your city has some 30,000 migrants bused in from border states, said Patrick Odum, one of the ministers for the Northwest Church of Christ in Chicago. I visited the congregation a few months ago and got to see its members in action as they used their food pantry to meet the growing demand. I also helped members of Chicago’s Lakeview Church of Christ unload a shipment of groceries for their food program.

During the Northwest church’s giveaway, I met immigrants and refugees from all over — Poland, Mexico, Venezuela, Ukraine — and listened to their stories. As politicians debate the rising tide of illegal immigration in our country, our brothers and sisters are washing immigrants’ feet.

Brother Odum joined us at Harding University as part of our first-ever Norton Colloquium. Four of us from the Chronicle traveled to Searcy to present classes on topics that were close to the heart of our former editor Howard Norton.

Lectureship participants pray before a session.

At least a hundred different topics swirl in my brain as I think about our experience at Inspire: the 101st Harding Lectureship. We loved interacting with readers. We heard thought-provoking messages from Orpheus J. Heyward, Rubel Shelly and many more.

With the U.S. presidential election less than a month away, I’m compelled to focus on our second session, “How Should We Talk About Politics? Or Should We?” moderated by our editor-in-chief, Bobby Ross Jr. In addition to Odum, panelists were Jeremie Beller, dean of the College of Bible at Oklahoma Christian University and the Chronicle’s opinions editor; and Nathan Guy, preaching minister for the West Side Church of Christ in Searcy.

You can’t “just tell Bible stories and ignore politics” when facing the problems in your community, Odum said. “So, what do you do? You minister. You find people. You get in their lives and try to help them with this huge problem that they’re facing.”

The church should be consistent in its witness, Beller added, and “should be preaching against the abuse of migrants and immigrants before it’s the latest issue to come out of Washington.”

Jeremie Beller, opinions editor for The Christian Chronicle, speaks on faith and politics during a Norton Colloquium panel discussion at Harding University in Searcy, Ark.

He balked at the political upheaval in Springfield, Ohio, sparked by rumors that immigrants there were eating cats and dogs. Amid all of the outrage on both sides of the political aisle, “Why is no Christian saying, ‘My goodness! Our neighbors are so desperate and hungry, we need to feed them’? Jesus says, ‘If there really are people eating (pets), my people need to go feed them.’

“Why is no Christian saying, ‘My goodness! Our neighbors are so desperate and hungry, we need to feed them’? Jesus says, ‘If there really are people eating (pets), my people need to go feed them.’”

“I don’t care where the power ends up, and I don’t care who wins the issue. If the church would stand up and do that, we’d make a difference,” Beller said, “But if we keep parroting Fox News and MSNBC and CNN, we’re no different.”

Beller, who preaches for the Wilshire Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, has heard people tell him, “I knew you were a Democrat!” and “I knew you were a Republican!” — sometimes in response to the same sermon.

“We need to be equal opportunity offenders,” he said. “Neither party represents the Kingdom of God.”

Guy, who serves as executive director of the David E. Smith Healthcare Ethics and Human Dignity Initiative at Harding in addition to his ministry duties, gave an example from Greek mythology — something I didn’t expect from a preacher.

In “The Odyssey,” as Ulysses travels home from the Trojan War, he must pass by the island of the sirens — beautiful women whose song lures sailors to their demise. He and his crew plug their ears with wax, but as Ulysses witnesses the sirens’ beauty, he desires to hear their song, so he unplugs his ears. In another ancient Greek story, the legendary musician Orpheus overcomes the sirens’ song by playing something even more beautiful on his harp.

“Every election season is ugly,” Guy said, “and I think we can offer something different if we say something beautiful.”

Carl Royster speaks about the Church Research Council initiative.

Our first Norton Colloquium class was “The Present and Future of Churches of Christ.” I moderated a discussion with Carl Royster of 21st Century Christian and Stan Granberg of Heritage21 about the new collaboration of our three ministries — the Church Research Council. In the months to come we’ll be surveying congregations in the U.S. on a number of metrics that we prayerfully hope will give us an accurate picture of our fellowship in the post-pandemic world. We want to hear from every U.S. congregation, even house churches. Please visit crc-coc.org to learn more about the survey.

In our final session, “Modern-day Josephs (and Josephines)” I shared my favorite “what you intended for evil God intended for good” stories from more than two decades of reporting on Ukraine. Bobby Ross and Audrey Jackson, our managing editor, shared the stories that inspired them.

Sawmi Sektak speaks about her journey from India to The Christian Chronicle.

We also heard from our special projects manager, Sawmi Sektak, who is in her second year with the Chronicle. She shared about her childhood growing up in Angels’ Place, a children’s home in northeast India, and the long journey of faith that led her to Ohio Valley University, Oklahoma Christian University (where she earned a master’s in business administration) and to our Chronicle family.

I’m so thankful to Harding President Mike Williams and the lectureship team of Monte Cox, David Swindle and Meagan Justus for allowing us to be a part of Inspire. We’re planning to return to Harding next year to do another session of the Norton Colloquium.

Participants including Laurie Diles, Harding professor and daughter of Howard Norton, listen and take notes during the Norton Colloquium.

We’re also developing plans to present the colloquium at Pepperdine and Abilene Christian universities next year. I’m hoping to do a condensed version of the program for congregations in our fellowship. If your church is interested in hosting a session to help us honor the legacy of Howard Norton, please let me know.

ERIK TRYGGESTAD is President and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact erik@christianchronicle.org. Follow him on X @eriktryggestad.

For more than 25 years, the psychology professor has served in various roles at the 1,250-student university, which is associated with Churches of Christ.

Stogner’s resignation will take effect Dec. 31, after which he will become president of the Michigan School of Psychology in Farmington Hills.

“I love this community and our mission to prepare students for service in God’s world,” Stogner said in a letter to alumni. “This decision was difficult for me, but I believe it is time for new leadership to take the institution to the next level.

“I strongly believe RCU has great potential, perhaps more now than ever in its history. I intend to continue supporting RCU financially and to provide any advice and counsel related to strategic planning, new programs, and other matters that will be helpful for the institution.”

Students at Rochester Christian University walk around the campus in Rochester Hills, Mich.

During Stogner’s time as president since 2016, Rochester Christian developed its nursing school; established new majors, degrees and athletic teams; built a new gym, the Garth Pleasant Arena; and acquired the nearby Rochester Church of Christ building.

“His vision and unwavering commitment have guided the institution through a number of significant challenges over the years,” Joe Alexander, Rochester Christian’s board chair, said of Stogner.

Among those challenges, the university recently changed its name from Rochester University after a legal dispute brought by the University of Rochester in New York state.

Rochester Christian says it will soon share plans for an interim and long-term replacement for the outgoing president.

Another university associated with Churches of Christ — York University in Nebraska — is also going through a presidential transition after four-year president Sam Smith left in July to head Mount Dora Christian Academy in Florida.

There wasn’t a single question about the location where the Israelites stopped just before they crossed the Red Sea. But our kids knew it. Some of them even turned it into a team chant: “One, two, three — PI HAHIROTH!”

@christianchronicle DALLAS — Bible Bowlers from the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Oklahoma City got their team chant from an obscure locale in Exodus 14. #pihahiroth #ntltc #leadershiptrainingforchrist #biblebowl ♬ original sound – The Christian Chronicle

My wife, Jeanie, and I coordinate Bible Bowl for our congregation, the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Oklahoma City. This year our team of dedicated adults had more than 50 kids to coach for the North Texas Leadership Training for Christ convention. The subject —  the life of Moses, taken from Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy — was tough! There were so many names to remember, including my favorite, Og king of Bashan.

(Do you know the names of Moses’ parents? There’s a genealogy in Exodus 6 that lists them — Amram and Jochebed. Evidently, Jachebed was Amram’s aunt. So … yeah.)

Bible Bowlers answer questions during the 2023 North Texas Leadership Training for Christ convention.

This was my eighth LTC. I started helping when our daughter Maggie was in third grade. Jeanie did LTC in high school. 

The massive ballroom in the Hilton Anatole never fails to amaze me. Hundreds of kids filled the tables and stayed up late on Good Friday to answer four rounds of 25 questions each. I was a scorekeeper, seated between fellow scorekeepers from the Greenville Avenue Church of Christ in Richardson, Texas, and the Faith Village Church of Christ in Wichita Falls, Texas.

These days, I’m amazed that kids are able to show up at all for LTC conventions — or for Lads to Leaders, the program of my youth. But thousands do, packing hotels and spending their Easter weekend doing puppet shows, Scripture reading, song leading and signing for the deaf. On Easter Sunday, we gather in large banquet rooms to worship alongside our brothers and sisters from across the nation.

Students from the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Oklahoma City do some last-minute prep before Bible Bowl at the 2024 North Texas Leadership Training for Christ conference.

Why Easter? It traditionally hasn’t been a big travel holiday, so it’s easy to get group discounts on hotel rooms. And Churches of Christ, at least in the past, haven’t made as big a deal of Easter as other faith groups. We recognize the death, burial and resurrection of Christ every Sunday.

All of that is changing. More of our congregations are scheduling special activities on Easter. A couple of ministers have grumbled to me about having their most devout members out of town on a weekend when we should be doing our best to impress visitors. Several of our folks forsook the Easter assembly at our hotel and hurried home Saturday night so they could be with the rest of our church for Sunday worship.

Church members sing during an Easter morning worship service at the 2022 North Texas Leadership Training for Christ convention in Dallas.

But the bigger threat, in my opinion, is that Easter is becoming less sacred. This year LTC happened during March Madness. At the same time our kids were deeply immersed in God’s Word, just a few blocks away the University of Houston’s men’s team was battling Duke — that’s right, the Blue Devils. Last year, LTC coincided with a massive volleyball tournament in Dallas.

As more and more stuff happens on Easter weekend, hotel discounts disappear. Sporting events tend to be more lucrative as well, with patrons more likely to frequent hotel bars and restaurants while our church groups prefer to be sustained by the Gospel of John’s — Jimmy and Papa.

Blake McAnally, an elder of the Beltline Church of Christ in Decatur, Ala., directs the Lads to Leaders convention in Nashville, Tenn.

Bobby Ross Jr., our editor-in-chief, spent Easter weekend in Nashville, Tenn., at the big Lads to Leaders convention. He talked to Blake McAnally, convention director and elder of the Beltline Church of Christ in Decatur, Ala.

Parents and grandparents get so excited when they see their kids excel at sports, McAnnally said, and they spend so much money on travel teams to help their kids excel. That’s why it’s so gratifying for him to watch kids walk across the Opryland Hotel stage to get their Lads to Leaders awards, “to be excited because they’re doing something spiritual.”

Travel teams — youth leagues that take kids long distances to compete at a high level — are a growing competitor for Lads to Leaders.

“If they’re playing baseball, they’re probably on a travel team right now,” McAnnally said, “and they’re, unfortunately, playing somewhere on Easter weekend, which to me is just dumbfounding.”

A chorus practices in the atrium of the Hilton Anatole during the 2024 North Texas Leadership Training for Christ convention.

He understands that Christians on travel teams can influence non-Christians on those teams. But the games also take them away from Sunday worship.

It’s a problem in my family. Both of my girls are in a dance company. The competitions require them to perform as early as 8 a.m. Sunday. My wife and I try to trade off so at least one of us can be at worship.

I was glad to see Shelton Gibbs IV at LTC. He’s a district judge in Kaufman County, Texas, and a minister for the Greenville Avenue church. His son, Shelton V, gave a speech on this year’s theme, “Sanctuary,” and the conference organizers selected him to deliver it during the Easter morning service.

I heard the elder Gibbs speak last September at the EQUIP Workshop at the Brown Street Church of Christ in Waxahachie, Texas. As a judge, he’s presided over cases involving murder and all sorts of horrific deeds.

But the thing that keeps him up at night is youth soccer. His daughter plays, and that means a lot of weekend trips to tournaments, some of which include early Sunday matches.

Shelton Gibbs IV speaks on “Parents Saving the Family” during the 2023 EQUIP workshop at the sponsored by the Brown Street Church of Christ in Waxahachie, Texas.

“How can we sacrifice to soccer before we sacrifice to God?” he said. “What kind of message am I sending to my kids?”

During a recent tournament, he asked the staff of his hotel to let him use a conference room. He put together a worship service that included songs, a sermon and the Lord’s Supper — all at 6 a.m. so they would be on time for warmups.

In his speech at LTC, the younger Gibbs talked about how the devil tries to deceive us into thinking that sin is not sin, and that we can overcome sin only through the sanctuary that God provides. 

@christianchronicle DALLAS — Shelton Gibbs V gives a speech during Sunday morning worship at the conclusion of the Nort Texas Leadership Training for Christ convention in Dallas as Victoria Myers interprets for the deaf. Both worship with the Greenville Avenue Church of Christ in Richardson, Texas. #ntltc #leadershiptrainingforchrist #sundaysermon #youthsermon #churchofchrist ♬ original sound – The Christian Chronicle

I think that his father is sending the right kind of message.

The Gibbs family inspired me to do better for my kids. We try to at least have communion devotionals before Sunday dance events. I hope that my girls see that faith matters more than sports.

And I pray that all of the kids we train for Bible Bowl understand how memorizing seemingly trivial facts about Moses helps them in the long run.

Earlier this year we interviewed some of our kids for a video promoting LTC to our church. One of our Bible Bowlers, Wesley LaRue, said something that really got to me: Prepping for the event forced him to dig deep into Scripture and helped “get into the rhythms of reading the Bible” on a regular basis.

Wow. Maybe all that time I spent on Pi Hahiroth wasn’t for naught. 

ERIK TRYGGESTAD is president and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact erik@christianchronicle.org, and follow him on X @eriktryggestad.

That’s what Rick Burgess and Bill “Bubba” Bussey do on their nationally syndicated radio comedy show.

Evoke that same laughter as bulbous, fabric-headed Bible teachers in a puppet skit by Christian teens?

Now, that’s a new one.

“I didn’t see this coming,” Rick quipped on a recent episode of the “Rick & Bubba Show,” produced at WZZK-FM in Birmingham, Ala., and aired on more than 60 radio stations, mostly in the Southeast.

Rick Burgess reads an email on the air that he received from 16-year-old Sawyer Blankenship of the Tuscumbia Church of Christ in northwest Alabama. The show’s discussion of the Lads to Leaders puppet skit starts about the 2-hour, 43-minute mark on this video.

Enter six young men from the Tuscumbia Church of Christ in northwest Alabama.

The high school puppeteers mixed the radio show’s good ole boy humor with Romans 1:16’s bold testimony (“I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ”) to deliver an award-winning performance at the annual Lads to Leaders convention in Nashville.

A spinning Wheel of Meat and a U.S. flag decorated the set — just like normal — as Rick, Bubba and popular cast members Calvin “Speedy” Wilburn and “The Real” Greg Burgess appeared (the puppet versions of them anyway).

“What a busy show we have today for all of our listeners out there,” the bearded Rick puppet told the crowd. “We’ve got some special guests today on the ‘Rick & Bubba Show,’ and we want all of the audience members to know that if you’ve got any questions for our guests, feel free to call in at any time at 866-WE-BE-BIG.”

Developing Christian leaders

Welcome to the creativity of the annual Christian leadership training event, which drew more than 10,000 young people, parents, coaches and judges to the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center this past Friday through Sunday. 

Music City hosts the largest of about a dozen Lads to Leaders and Leadership Training for Christ conventions across the nation that rally members of Churches of Christ — young and old alike — each Easter weekend.

Sawyer Blankenship, 16, provided the voice for the Rick puppet.

“I’ve been doing Lads since I could walk, I guess, probably since I was 4 years old,” Sawyer said. “I’ve been doing it for a long time.”

Besides the puppet team, he competed this year in songleading, speech, photography, podcasting and the Bible Bowl.

Asked what keeps him returning year after year, Sawyer replied, “It’s a great environment, and it’s taught me how to be a leader in the church.”

It’s fun, too, as Rick and Bubba (the puppet versions) can attest.

“I’ve been listening to the ‘Rick & Bubba Show’ for a long time,” Sawyer said. “My dad got me started on it. They cut up a lot from 5 to 10 every morning.”

From left, puppet team members Bogdan Ryaboshapka, Eli Warren, Porter Johnson, Braden Hall, Caleb Lenz and Sawyer Blankenship pose for a photo at the Lads to Leaders convention in Nashville, Tenn.

Special guests, straight from the Bible

While the radio show entertains listeners for five hours each day, the puppet version lasted just 10 minutes.

It featured two biblical guests — Paul and Daniel — and came complete with a State Farm Insurance commercial and jingle.

Like Sawyer, 17-year-old Caleb Lenz, voice of the Bubba puppet, has participated in Lads to Leaders most of his life. In addition to the puppet skit, he signed up for songleading and Scripture reading this year.

“I absolutely enjoy it — just being here with people I know and competing in the name of the Lord,” Caleb said. “For me, competing is the way to get better at something. So it’s challenging me to be a better leader.”

He grew up listening to the “Rick & Bubba Show” on the drive to school with his father.

“I always had that song in my head,” he said of the theme music.

Clint Blankenship, Sawyer’s dad, and Johnny Hall, father of Braden Hall, 17, coached the puppet team. 

“It was kind of my idea to do ‘Rick & Bubba,’” Clint said. “I’ve listened to the show for a long time. I love the show. I think they’re real funny, so I thought, ‘Let’s have some fun.’”

Braden served as the voice of Paul. Porter Johnson, 15, played Speedy. And Eli Warren, 16, did double duty as Garry “The Bulldozer Man” Vines and Jake from State Farm.

Speedy introduced special guest Paul as “a recovering Christian hater who now lets them live and serves their God. He preaches all over the Roman Empire spreading the message of hope that Jesus came to the Earth to die for everyone.”

“I’ve listened to the show for a long time. I love the show. I think they’re real funny, so I thought, ‘Let’s have some fun.’”

A puppeteer from Ukraine

The sixth member of the puppet team — Bogdan Ryaboshapka, 18 — is a relative newcomer to Lads to Leaders.

“It’s amazing stuff.”

The Ukrainian refugee’s family relocated to Alabama after the Russian invasion in 2022. 

Jeff Abrams, Tuscumbia’s pulpit minister, is active in mission work in Ukraine. About 20 refugees — including Bogdan’s family — attend the church.

Bogdan traveled to the Lads to Leaders convention for the second time, doing a Bible speech in addition to performing with the puppet team.

“It’s amazing stuff,” he said of the event, voicing awe at the sheer size of the Nashville crowd.

Tuscumbia Church of Christ members pose for a group photo during the Lads to Leaders convention in Nashville, Tenn.

In all, the Tuscumbia church sent about 200 members — half its total of 400 — to the Nashville convention, about 140 miles away. 

While the radio show skit — one of eight puppet teams from the church — earned a third-place honor, leaders emphasized that the competition is secondary.

“It’s something we like to push. It develops the kids,” Johnny Hall said. “We involve them year-round in leading singing and doing speeches at church. They lead in class on Sunday and Wednesday nights.”

Jake from State Farm Insurance, left, appears during a commercial break in the “Rick & Bubba Show” puppet skit.

‘Were those lions not hungry?’

In the puppet skit, Bogdan handled dual roles as the biblical Daniel and the radio Greg, Rick’s brother.

“It’s better to be here than in that lion’s den where you came from,” the puppet Rick said as he welcomed Daniel to the pretend show.

“Yes,” Daniel replied, “but I was not worried when I was in the den.” 

“How come?” Rick asked with a heavy Alabama twang. “Were those lions not hungry?”

“Yes, they were,” Daniel said with his strong Ukrainian accent. “But I knew my God would protect me. He always has, and he always will.”

The other teens have welcomed Bogdan as one of their own, said Hannah Bradford, a church member who teaches high school chorus and drama and wrote the puppet script.

Bodgan “has had to learn English and really perfect his diction so that he could be able to do this,” she said. “And there are still probably some things that he can’t understand. But this group of boys has really taken him in.”

Asked if he listens to the “Rick & Bubba Show,” Bogdan deadpanned, “No.”

As his friends laughed with delight, he added, “I don’t even know who they are.”

The “Rick & Bubba Show” puppet team from the Tuscumbia Church of Christ in northwest Alabama stands on stage during a Lads to Leaders award assembly in Nashville, Tenn.

From radio stars to puppets

But a lot of people — particularly in Alabama and neighboring states — are familiar with the “Rick & Bubba Show.”

Its YouTube channel boasts 111,000 subscribers. 

Which is why the Tuscumbia teens and Lads to Leaders organizers were so excited when news of the puppet skit made it on the “Rick & Bubba Show” — the real one.

“My phone started blowing up, and I had 37 text messages. I thought someone had died.”

“My phone started blowing up, and I had 37 text messages,” said Rhonda Zorn Fernandez, a Lads to Leaders board member and daughter of the late Jack Zorn, the organization’s founder. “I thought someone had died.”

Here’s how the unexpected publicity transpired: Sawyer emailed to ask for permission to use the show’s sound effects at Lads to Leaders.

Next thing Sawyer knew, he was sitting in his high school’s parking lot listening to Rick read his note on the air.

Then the cast spent several minutes talking about the request — and the idea of “Rick & Bubba Show”-themed puppets sharing the Gospel.

Brothers Rick and Greg recalled playing with puppets as children.

“We had Grover from ‘Sesame Street,’” Greg said. “We had Ernie.”

“We didn’t have Bert,” Rick remembered. “We had Cookie Monster. … I did do some pretty good puppet shows.”

As word spread that the “Rick & Bubba Show” had mentioned Lads to Leaders, Bradford, a mother of two, couldn’t help but smile. (The show’s two main stars both profess a strong Christian faith.)

Trying to explain Lads to Leaders to people unfamiliar with it — and how young people use puppets to try to spread a biblical message — can be a challenge, Bradford said.

Lads to Leaders presents awards for various events — from songleading to Bible speeches to puppet skits — during its annual conventions across the nation.

“People don’t understand it, and ‘Rick & Bubba’ kind of did the same thing,” she said. “When they talked about it, it was like, ‘Let me get this straight: ‘Somebody’s doing ‘Rick & Bubba’ with Jesus applications,’ and they all started laughing about it.”

The Tuscumbia teens enjoyed every minute of it.

“We were parked right next to each other,” Caleb said of Sawyer, “and he told me to turn my radio on. Yeah, it was really cool.”

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. He traveled to Nashville to report this story. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

They defeated the Langston University Lions of Oklahoma 71-67 for the championship victory.

Utilizing phrases such as “elite is earned,” “today is the day” and “committed to the culture,” head coach Drew Stutts said his team lived up to his expectations: “They have just showed so much resilience and so much toughness tonight. The last thing we talked about before we went out of the locker room was ‘the tougher team wins’ and I think we have proven that throughout the course of this year.”

The championship game lived up to the name, with neither team leading by more than two possessions.

FHU’s Ryley McClaran scored the game’s first points with a 3-pointer at 17:57 before Peyton Law and Hunter Scurlock teamed up to score six unanswered points.

FHU’s Ryley McClaran scored the game’s first points with a 3-pointer

Langston (35-2) would begin to hit late jumpers before ending the first half on a 8-1 run to end the first half of the championship game leading 40-31.

Langston stormed out of the locker room to enter the second half with four unanswered points and jump out to their largest lead of the game at 46-33.

Quan Lax took advantage of a Langston turnover with a fast break layup to spark a 6-0 run for FHU. Lax bucketed a jumper before Law’s layup at 10:16 pulled FHU within three points.

At 9:09, Geraldo Lane drove into the paint on a fast break where he scored the bucket and then drew a foul. J.J. Wheat’s jumper at 8:04 completed the comeback and knotted the game 50-50 with 8:04 remaining in regulation.

J.J. Wheat’s jumper at 8:04 completed the comeback and knotted the game 50-50 with 8:04 remaining in regulation.

Of the next 19 points, 15 came from the teams trading trips to the free-throw line until Langston bucketed a 3-pointer with 3:42 remaining to begin a seven-point run that put LU on top 66-60 with 1:55 left.

Trailing by six points with one minute in regulation, Lax coolly sank a set of free throws before Geraldo Lane stole the ball from Langston and was fouled while making a layup.

Down by one point with 40 ticks on the clock, Peyton Law flew through the air to disrupt a deep inbound pass, giving it to Wheat, who was then fouled with the chance to tie or potentially take a lead.

Wheat made the first free throw to knot the game before hitting the second to give FHU a 68-67 lead with 35 seconds. An attempt to tie the game fell short, and after a foul on the rebound attempt, Law’s free throw completed the Lion’s quest for the national title with the 71-67 championship win.

Down by one point with 40 ticks on the clock, Peyton Law flew through the air to disrupt a deep inbound pass.

Derek Wiesemann, an FHU alumnus from 2011 and Kansas City native, makes as many trips as possible to watch the Lions in his hometown.

“This means so much to the school,” he said. “It’s been a long time coming as there have been some really good teams in the past. This makes a lot of people proud — not just the ones who have worn the jersey but for everybody.”

“We are extremely proud,” beamed Freed-Hardeman University president David R. Shannon. “Any team that wins the national championship there has to be a lot of grit, a lot of skill, and great coaching. And we get to see that at Freed-Hardeman.”

“This is a huge accomplishment for Coach Stutts and the team and a great day for Freed-Hardeman athletics and the Freed-Hardeman family,” said FHU athletic director Jonathan Estes. “The mission is to utilize your God-given abilities to His glory, and I think these guys did that.”

The FHU Lions pose for a victory photo after winning the NAIA Men’s Basketball National Championship.

Making the All-Tournament team were FHU starts Quan Lax, Hunter Scurlock and JJ Wheat. Wheat was honored with the Charles Stevenson Hustle Award while Hunter Scurlock ended his illustrious FHU career being named as the Chuck Taylor Most Valuable Player of the tournament.

“It’s a good way to end and it’s been worth every bit of the ride,” said Scurlock after thinking over his five-year career.

Read the full story on the FHU Lions website.

DUSTIN SEMORE is the sports information director for Freed-Hardeman University.

By the time the criminal case fell apart, the educators were unemployed. Their reputations were shattered. And they were left alone to rebuild their lives.

This special report marks the first in-depth attempt to tell their story.

Story by Bobby Ross Jr. and Kenneth Pybus

UNTIL LIFE AS as they knew it disintegrated — until their jobs disappeared — Midland Christian School meant everything to Jared Lee and Dana Ellis.

Both grew up in the K-12 Christian school and devoted their educational careers to the West Texas campus — Lee serving as superintendent and Ellis as secondary school principal.

“That’s where I went to school all through junior high and high school, and my sisters all went there,” said Ellis, 44, a 1998 graduate. “And I have four kids, and all four of my kids went to Midland Christian.

“So Midland Christian was way more than a job for us,” she added. “For my family, it was our home.”

Explainer: Q&A on the ‘Midland Christian Five’ federal lawsuit

Lee’s roots with the 1,200-student school, which is associated with Churches of Christ, ran even deeper. 

Midland, a city of about 130,000, is an oil industry hub in the Permian Basin.

“My history with the school started when I was in my mom’s womb,” said Lee, 43, a 1999 graduate. “My dad was the high school principal at Midland Christian whenever I was born. Five years later, he became the superintendent of Midland Christian and served as superintendent for 33 years.”

When Eddie Lee retired in 2018, his son succeeded him as the school’s top administrator.

“Midland Christian … was not only a job, it was my life. It was my ministry.”

“So Midland Christian, as Dana said, was not only a job, it was my life,” Jared Lee said. “It was my ministry.”

But that all changed on Feb. 15, 2022, when Jared Lee, Ellis and three other school employees were arrested and accused — wrongly and maliciously, they contend — of trying to conceal a student’s alleged sexual assault from police.

Three months later — in May 2022 — a Texas grand jury found insufficient evidence to indict Lee, Ellis or the others.

Still working to restore their reputations two years later, Lee, Ellis and former head baseball coach Barry Russell talked to The Christian Chronicle about the ongoing federal lawsuit they filed over their arrests and the motivations behind it. 

The other two plaintiffs, former assistant principal Matthew Counts and former athletic director Gregory McClendon, were unavailable for interviews. 

“Indeed, this lawsuit is about five lives … which were irreparably harmed, but it’s also about these individuals’ constitutional rights,” said Jennifer Brevorka, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, along with prominent Houston lawyer Rusty Hardin.

“Indeed, this lawsuit is about five lives … which were irreparably harmed, but it’s also about these individuals’ constitutional rights.”

Defendants include the City of Midland and three Midland police officers: Jennie Alonzo, Rosemary Sharp and Camilo Fonseca. Their attorney, Norman Ray Giles, declined to comment for this story.

“For obvious reasons, my clients and I are not making any statements to the media during the litigation,” Giles said in an email.

“For obvious reasons, my clients and I are not making any statements to the media during the litigation.”

Four of the “Midland Christian Five,” as the plaintiffs refer to themselves in legal filings, never returned to work at the school, while Counts was demoted from his assistant principal position, according to the lawsuit.

“The wrong can never be righted, but the truth will come out,” Ellis said in the Chronicle interview. “This is the first opportunity we’ve had — it’s the first time anybody’s ever asked our side.”

Plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit are, from left, Gregory McClendon, Dana Ellis, Matthew Counts, Jared Lee and Barry Russell.

Disputed locker room incident

“SHOCK, HEARTBREAK and disappointment” — that’s how Ellis describes her experience the day of the arrests.

“From the moment that police got involved, we were very open and transparent and more than willing to work with the police,” the former principal said. “And we did everything very ethically and very sound and very much in line with our morals, our beliefs and the school’s policies and procedures. 

“So to say that we were shocked,” she said of the arrests, “would be an understatement, a colossal understatement.”

“From the moment that police got involved, we were very open and transparent and more than willing to work with the police.”

The Midland Christian Five allege they were charged with felony crimes based on lies and omissions by the Midland Police Department. 

And once the case was dismissed, and the educators notified the city they planned to file a civil rights lawsuit, they say Midland police retaliated by arresting three of them — Lee, Ellis and Counts — a second time on separate but equally baseless charges that also were ultimately dropped.

The arrests and subsequent lawsuit arose from a locker room incident in early 2022 involving members of Midland Christian’s baseball team.

Brevorka advised her clients not to answer the Chronicle’s questions about their specific roles looking into that incident.

“Only because they will eventually be deposed on this, and they’ll be questioned undoubtedly about prior statements,” the attorney said. “I think the (lawsuit) complaint adequately describes what they did.”

According to the lawsuit, Ellis heard about the incident two days after it happened, and school officials immediately began investigating.

The plaintiffs maintain that interviews with team members revealed the incident amounted to “locker room horseplay” or “roughhousing” in which a sophomore poked a freshman’s buttocks — over his clothes — with a baseball bat. It was not something, they say they quickly discovered, that qualified as sexual assault of a child under state law, and as such, it did not require police notification.

But Midland police learned of the incident several days later from the parent of a student and launched their own investigation, interviewing the educators and students. In their lawsuit, the Midland Christian Five describe themselves as the victims of a “bizarre and unfortunate game of ‘telephone’” in which the incident was mischaracterized and fictionalized, with police acting on rumors claiming fellow players had sodomized the student.

The five say, based on that “unreliable hearsay from a perpetually disgruntled parent whose child was neither a victim nor a witness to the incident,” Midland police officers quickly launched a “tunnel-visioned and biased investigation.” 

And they say Alonzo, a police detective, grew angry when Lee, in an effort to comply with federal educational privacy laws, asked for a warrant before allowing police to search the school.

At the heart of the lawsuit, filed in August 2022, is the claim that Alonzo and other Midland police lied and omitted important facts when seeking arrest warrants, creating the false impression that the Midland Christian educators knew a student had been sexually assaulted and tried to cover it up. And the educators allege Midland police concocted the concealment element to bump the case from a misdemeanor to a felony and justify the public nature of their arrests.

Responses filed by the city to the lawsuit and the initial arrest warrants paint a different picture. 

Responses filed by the city to the lawsuit and the initial arrest warrants paint a different picture. 

The assault, Midland says, was more than just “horseplay” but instead part of a “freshman initiation day” in which the student was held down in the darkened locker room and told he was not allowed to fight back as he was assaulted with the baseball bat.

Despite the fact the student was clothed during the incident, the city says, it still met the legal definitions of assault and sexual assault. The educators should have reported it, the defendants argue, especially when prompted to do so by a concerned parent.

And the failure of the county district attorney to secure an indictment from the grand jury, the city asserts, does not negate the fact that police had probable cause to arrest the educators based on the investigators’ evidence and interviews. A judge independently decided enough probable cause existed for the arrests, the defendants note.

Finally, the city argues the law sets a bar for malicious prosecution that is much higher than the plaintiffs have proven.

Read the full lawsuit.

An international news story

ALL ALONG, the Midland Christian Five maintained their innocence.

Despite that, police handcuffed them and paraded them out of the school — in front of students and cameras that spread the story around the world.

“There were children out front — my personal children and children at the school — that saw us,” Ellis told the Chronicle. “And we asked for that not to happen.”

Jared Lee is the former superintendent of Midland Christian School in West Texas.

Said Lee: “When we were taken out, the police officers asked us to stand up and put our hands behind our backs. I was the one that said, ‘Can we not turn ourselves in?’ Not because we believed we had done anything wrong — please make sure that you understand us clearly — but instead, we wanted … to protect the children from seeing this.”

Russell, 64, said he was out sick with COVID-19 during the locker room incident, and police never interviewed him before his arrest.

Unlike Lee and Ellis, Russell did not have a long history at Midland Christian. Inducted into the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame last year, he previously coached at Midland High School for 22 seasons. 

“I was devastated,” Russell said of his arrest.

The Midland Christian Five spent hours in jail before their release that day.

Even behind bars, they took advantage of opportunities to share their faith, they said.

“To speak to what a man of God that Jared is,” Ellis said, “we’re sitting there waiting (for processing at the jail), and there was another man being booked for something, going through a really hard time. And in our own really awful place, Jared stopped and prayed for that young man to have the strength to make it through that day.

“And we just had faith,” she added through tears, “that God was going to see us through this. We believed we did nothing wrong. We still believe we did nothing wrong.”

Russell said he, too, remembers Lee praying with the fellow inmate.

“I believe he was there on a drug charge or something,” the coach said of the other inmate. “The whole thing — having to go strip down and put on an orange jumpsuit, put on orange flip-flops, and the bathroom was nasty — I remember all of that as if it was yesterday.”

Ellis said she talked to a female inmate and encouraged her to finish college “and not let this moment define her.”

“There were definitely God moments in that moment,” Ellis said. “It was just really hard to see at the time.”

Midland, with a population of about 130,000, is an oil industry hub in West Texas.

‘They turned their backs on us’

MIDLAND CHRISTIAN SCHOOL put the five arrested employees on paid administrative leave at the time of their arrests.

The school tapped Kelly Moore, a former president of both the National Christian School Association and Fort Worth Christian School, to serve as interim superintendent. 

Moore, who filled that role for eight months, recalls the aftermath of the arrests as a difficult time that challenged everyone associated with Midland Christian.

“The people on that school board made decisions that they felt were in the best interests of the school,” Moore said. “Midland Christian is a bellwether school in our Church of Christ community. It was, is and continues to be an outstanding school.”

“Midland Christian is a bellwether school in our Church of Christ community. It was, is and continues to be an outstanding school.”

After the grand jury declined to indict the Midland Christian Five, the school board issued statements of support and praised the five for handling “themselves gracefully in the face of these extremely difficult circumstances, all while holding firm to their faith.”

But to their surprise, the five did not get their old jobs back, they said.

“They allowed me to resign,” Lee said.

The former superintendent pointed to a quote attributed to Napoleon: “The world suffers a lot. Not because the violence of bad people. But because of the silence of the good people.”

“What we five saw more than anything,” Lee said, “was men of faith, women of faith … who laid their hands on us in weeks prior to this arrest, who loved us, who cared for us. They turned their backs on us when times got hard, when fear entered their hearts.

“They did not support us in the way that I believe God calls us to do as Christians,” added the father of two school-age daughters. “And it was just devastating for me.”

“They did not support us in the way that I believe God calls us to do as Christians. And it was just devastating for me.”

Asked why the five were not returned to their former positions, Midland Christian’s board issued this statement: “Midland Christian School does not comment on personnel matters. That said, MCS appreciates the service each rendered to the school and its students and desire for them the best in their future endeavors for the Kingdom.”

Ellis said her children — now 18, 15, 14 and 11 — suffered immensely as the result of her high-profile arrest.

“My children received death threats from people all over the world,” she said, her voice choking with emotion. “My children were told people were going to come to their house and rape them. … And they were told they should be taken away from me because I’m not an adequate mom. 

“My children’s lives being threatened and their safety being threatened was truly the lowest of the low,” she continued. “I would literally sit in jail for 1,000 more years to prevent my children from ever receiving the text messages and the calls that they received. Because they’re just babies.”

Russell said he was old enough to retire, so the ordeal did not harm his livelihood as much as the others.

“My career was done, basically,” he said. “But it ruined four people’s lives and their families. And it’s ridiculous. It’s absolutely ridiculous. It shouldn’t have happened.”

The arrests of five Christian school educators in Midland, Texas, sparked a federal lawsuit.

Seeking an apology

BOTH LEE AND ELLIS and their families eventually moved away from Midland.

Now living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area — roughly 300 miles away — the two former colleagues said they hope to start fresh by launching a new business together. They did not share specific details on those plans.

Ellis said she appreciates the support of her loved ones since her arrest, but the Midland Christian Five enjoy a special connection with each other.

Dana Ellis is the former secondary school principal of Midland Christian School in West Texas.

“There are only four other people in this world that truly feel the trauma that I’ve been through,” Ellis said, “and I rely heavily on those four people because they walked our walk.

“We’re a little bruised, and we’re a little broken, and we’re a lot hurt and a lot disappointed,” she said of the ordeal, “but it didn’t take us out.”

While the Midland Christian Five have not put a specific dollar amount on their damages, they say they have suffered “the deprivation of liberty, reputational harm, public humiliation, distress, pain, and suffering.” 

And they say because the police acted with malice and with intentional disregard for their constitutional rights, they are entitled to punitive damages.

Their legal complaint, amended in December, includes 10 counts against the city and the police officers related to the original arrest and the second arrests, including false arrest, filing criminal charges without probable cause, failure by the city to properly supervise its police and retaliation for the civil suit, a violation of the plaintiffs’ First, Fourth and 14th Amendment rights.

“At the very core of this, not only are these people of faith, but these are true patriots,” Brevorka said. “These are individuals who have decided to exercise the rights that we as Americans all have under the Bill of Rights.”

“At the very core of this, not only are these people of faith, but these are true patriots.”

Ultimately, the Midland Christian Five pray the lawsuit shines a light on what happened, brings accountability to the public officials involved and results in an apology, Lee told the Chronicle.

“That’s not going to change anything necessarily,” he said of a possible apology. “But we hope … we’ll regain some of our reputation. We know that that’s a longshot, but we hope that that does happen.”

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

KENNETH PYBUS is a professor of journalism and mass communication at Abilene Christian University and a First Amendment attorney. Reach him at kenneth.pybus@acu.edu.

See the main story.

Story by Kenneth Pybus and Bobby Ross Jr.

A SECOND ROUND of arrests? A pattern of charges not sticking? A West Texas case assigned to a judge in … Dallas?

These are pertinent details concerning the federal lawsuit filed by the “Midland Christian Five” against the City of Midland, Texas, and three police officers:

What specific claims does the federal lawsuit make against the police?

The lawsuit asserts more than a dozen knowing or reckless falsehoods or omissions in the arrest affidavit submitted by the police, including these inaccuracies:

• that secondary school Principal Dana Ellis knew one of the baseball players “had a baseball bat shoved into his anus”;
• that Superintendent Jared Lee refused to cooperate with the investigation when requesting a search warrant;
• that the Midland Christian Five “have continually attempted to conceal the incident of abuse from authorities”;
• that emails between the complaining parent and the school officials made it clear a sexual assault had occurred.

Read the full lawsuit.

Why were three of the Midland Christian Five — Ellis, Lee and assistant principal Matthew Counts — arrested a second time?

During the summer of 2022, the Midland Christian Five notified the City of Midland that they planned to file their civil rights complaint. And within weeks, the plaintiffs say, Midland police responded by arresting three of the five once again on charges related to a separate incident — seeking a “do-over.” 

Midland police claimed in the new charges that Lee, Ellis and Counts failed to report a different incident from November 2021 in which a sophomore student was hit in the head with a baseball bat by another student and suffered a concussion. But those three say while they weren’t present when the injury took place, everyone involved agreed it was an accident, so reporting the injury as abuse would not have been appropriate or required under state law.

The fact that police detective Jennie Alonzo and the Midland police chose to charge three of the Midland Christian Five and none of the adults who were actually present for the injury is more evidence that it was in retaliation for their plans to sue, they claim. According to a recently amended filing in their case against Midland and the three police officers involved, the five say Midland police were able to secure a grand jury indictment in late 2022 against the three only because they provided grand jurors an improper definition of “accident.”

The police and prosecutors “maliciously conspired to present the legally insufficient and retaliatory charges to the grand jury and in doing so, tainted the grand jury process to ensure they obtained indictments of Plaintiffs Lee Ellis, and Counts,” the lawsuit states. And they did so with the approval of the city’s mayor, city manager and chief of police.

Regardless, the Midland County District Attorney’s Office eventually recused itself from pursuing these second round of charges against the three and passed the case off to the district attorney in next-door Ector County. 

Within weeks of taking over the second case, the Ector County District Attorney’s Office moved to drop the indictments, saying that the evidence did not support the charges.

Within weeks of taking over the second case, the Ector County District Attorney’s Office moved to drop the indictments, saying that the evidence did not support the charges.

Have the defendants responded to the lawsuit’s claims about the second round of arrests?

The City of Midland has responded by saying its police acted properly in bringing its second round of charges and that the former Midland Christian educators have not shown that the prosecution was in any way related to the first charges. In legal documents, the city says the Midland Christian Five have no evidence Alonzo or the other officers misled the grand jury to obtain the indictment. 

Why do the plaintiffs allege their arrests were part of a pattern by Midland authorities?

As evidence of a pattern of misconduct by local police, the Midland Christian Five point to a strikingly similar incident initiated by the same police detective in the weeks after their initial arrest. Four members of the staff of the Trinity School of Midland, another private Christian school in the city, were arrested in spring of 2022 by Alonzo on the exact same charge and were paraded in handcuffs through the school in much the same way, as well. 

Those educators, referred to as the “Trinity Four,” have filed a separate federal civil rights suit and say their arrests were orchestrated much like those of the Midland Christian educators — through lies and material omissions in police affidavits. Detective Alonzo presented false and misleading evidence to a grand jury that a 15-year-old girl was sexually assaulted at the school and that the administrators failed to report it and concealed it, that lawsuit claims.

Plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit are, from left, Gregory McClendon, Dana Ellis, Matthew Counts, Jared Lee and Barry Russell.

The charges against the Trinity Four were dismissed eight days into that trial, in April 2023, after Alonzo claimed she received “marching orders” from the district attorney and arrested the four at her direction.

That abortive trial of the Trinity Four last year apparently opened a rift in Midland between the county district attorney and the city police department. In dismissing the case last year, Midland District Attorney Laura Nodolf said Alonzo “testified falsely” about getting direction from the DA to arrest the Trinity Four and the Midland Christian Five and that Alonzo “is no longer a credible or reliable witness.” The City of Midland and the Midland District Attorney’s Office then issued competing press releases contradicting one another.

The Trinity Four are asking for $1 million in actual damages, plus even more in punitive damages.

What is the status of the Midland Christian Five’s lawsuit? When will it go to trial?

The case has been assigned to a senior federal court judge in Dallas rather than being heard by any of the judges in the Western District of Texas because Matthew Counts, one of the five plaintiffs, is the son of U.S. District Judge David Counts in Midland.

Senior U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn is still hearing motions in the case, which already has spanned 18 months and involved a flurry of court filings. 

An attempt at mediation earlier this year failed to reach a settlement. Lynn next is set to hear arguments April 12 on Midland’s most recent motion to dismiss the case. She has not set a trial date, which potentially could be months, if not more than a year, away.

The arrests of five Christian school educators in Midland, Texas, sparked a federal lawsuit.

KENNETH PYBUS is a professor of journalism and mass communication at Abilene Christian University and a First Amendment attorney. Reach him at kenneth.pybus@acu.edu.

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

The forlorn little town looks like many others across the Southwest — a string of long-forsaken storefronts that leave anyone passing through to wonder where the 700 or so residents shop or do business.

Just north of town, the campus of Tipton Children’s Home and the half-mile circle encompassing its facilities seem pleasantly out of place. Imposing white columns on the once-grand, classical-style structure glisten against the dusty red brick of the 100-year-old building that once housed children but now holds administrative offices.

Since it opened in June 1924, the home about 135 miles southwest of Oklahoma City has served more than 5,000 children. Executive director Joe Waugh expects at least a couple hundred of them — more he hopes — will gather here March 30 to reconnect, remember and celebrate.

Former residents and friends will gather March 30 at Tipton Children’s Home to celebrate its 100th anniversary.

Reunions happen every Easter weekend, but a centennial will be special.

Waugh grew up at the home where his mom and dad were houseparents from 1966 to 1979. In the home’s museum, mostly a collection of photographs and framed clippings, he points to a small boy on the front row of a large black-and-white group picture.

“That’s me, and that’s me the next year in the same clothes –– I didn’t grow much,” he said, laughing as he gestured to the photo beside it.

Today, a group picture would be much smaller. Just 32 kids live at Tipton, eight in each of four residential cottages.

Tipton is the oldest west of the Mississippi among the three dozen or so children’s homes associated with Churches of Christ nationwide. Boles Children’s Home in Quinlan, Texas — now known as Arms of Hope — opened in November of the same year.

Children and staff from a predecessor home in Canadian, Texas, moved to Tipton in June 1924 when Tipton Church of Christ elders took on responsibility for what was then called an orphanage. The Tipton elders still serve as the home’s board of directors, but in recent decades, the children who live here are seldom orphans.

‘No fault of their own’

“One thing that makes us unique among Churches of Christ,” Waugh said, “is we are still 100 percent funded by donations.”

About 200 congregations regularly support the home that receives no federal or state aid. The Department of Human Services in Oklahoma licenses the home, but every child at Tipton arrives through a private placement.

“Our kids don’t need bars on the windows or that sort of thing,” Waugh said of the children who arrive “through no fault of their own.”

“There’s not a child here — not one — whose mom and dad are at home. It comes back to the home, broken families.”

“There’s not a child here — not one — whose mom and dad are at home,” he said. “It comes back to the home, broken families.”

Joy Gbolokai, 15, came to Tipton three years ago from North Dakota. Her dad had friends whose daughter used to be at Tipton.

“Her grandma let my dad know about this place,” she said. “He asked me in 2020 if I’d like to come. I said, ‘Yeah, sure.’”

Joy Gbolokai has excelled in sports, academics and FFA while at Tipton.

She came with two cousins and said at first it was “really scary” because “I’m a family girl.” But with five kids at home, she decided, “If there was less in the house, it would be easier to take care of the kids.”

Two of her siblings went to live with an aunt, and the two youngest brothers remain at home. The petite high school freshman came to Tipton and found a place to thrive.

She’s involved in volleyball, basketball and track –– she’s “really fast,” her friends say –– as well as the Tipton High School gifted and talented program. And like almost all the kids at Tipton, she shows pigs through Future Farmers of America.

Tipton residents are encouraged to be involved.

Bethany Mefford, 17, is a high school junior who came to Tipton from Duncan, Okla., at 13.

“Middle school gets kind of hard with girls,” Bethany said softly. “My parents thought if I went somewhere smaller and school-based, I’d be a better fit. It was hard at first, but I knew it was needed.”

Bethany also is active in sports, as a cheerleader and in FFA, showing two pigs in area competitions.

Showing pigs is a big deal at Tipton.

’Stepping up to lead’

Ernest Wdah, 15, shows pigs, too, “a cross barrow, a Hamp gilt and a Berk gilt,” he said. And the sophomore has already made an impact at Tipton High School, where principal Travis White is also the head football coach, and Joe Waugh’s nephew.

“We won state again in football, and Ernie has been a very significant part of our success in FFA and back-to-back state football championships,” White said. But the coach was most impressed with Ernie at a community Thanksgiving dinner last year when he saw the young man leading a prayer at his table.

“There he was, stepping up to lead,” White said.

Tipton Children’s Home resident Bethany Mefford shows a pig in an FFA competition.

Ernie’s parents decided to bring him to Tipton after a school shooting at his Iowa middle school.

“They didn’t feel I was safe there,” Ernie said. Three other siblings have already graduated from high school, and he was the only one still at home.

White said the home kids are among the very best students in the tiny school district that has only about 75 in the high school and where FFA attracts as much attention to the Tipton Tigers as football.

“So many of the home kids are FFA officers, and so they’re taking on leadership roles,” the principal said. “Last year we had an FFA quiz bowl team and I think three home kids were on that, and they were second in state, just a phenomenal run.”

The team they lost to, Owasso, is a Tulsa area high school with almost 3,000 students.

“That was a really big highlight that definitely shined a good light on our school,” White said.

Tipton once was a town of about 3,000, but with only 700 or so remaining, the school is its lifeline. And the home is a lifeline for the school, socially and financially.

“If we were out 30 kids from the district, K-12, that would be a very significant chunk of our yearly budget,” White explained, because state funding is allocated based on headcount.

‘A bond and trust’

Most of the kids leave Tipton when they graduate, but Waugh said the home’s job is not done then.

“We try to help them through college,” he said. “Their senior year we try to get them a car. They have bank accounts and cell phones, which we monitor, and help them with whatever they need now.”

In Oklahoma, kids can check themselves out at age 18, but Tipton staff tries to stay connected, and can even provide an apartment on the campus for those going to college nearby.

“Kids from 18 to 22 make life changing decisions. They need more care than they’ve ever needed.”

“Kids from 18 to 22 make life changing decisions,” the director said. “They need more care than they’ve ever needed.”

Some go to junior college in Altus. Others have gone to Oklahoma Christian University, the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University. Some started their own businesses. Some just leave and lose touch, and the staff doesn’t know what happens until they show up for the reunion one year.

Waugh would like to have 750 for the centennial, which would be a big jump, but whoever comes will be welcome. They’ll no doubt see changes as well as things frozen in time, he said.

Tipton’s executive director, Joe Waugh, gives a visitor a tour of the home’s museum.

Speakers representing several different eras of Tipton kids will speak before lunch. Inflatables for the kids, an evening hot dog roast and lots of just visiting are planned. Most former residents the staff knows about are in Texas and Oklahoma, but alums have gone many places, joined the military, moved far away.

“God has blessed us, and he continues to bless this work and sustains it. Churches see it as a Bible mission and that’s why it’s important that we keep going,” Waugh said.

Wherever the Tipton kids come from and wherever they go, Waugh said the home’s main goal is “to get kids to Christ, be baptized believers and faithful members of the church.”

That requires building relationships that last.

Ernie understands that: “There’s a bond and trust. Even after we leave, we’re still representing the home — they want you to be happy in what you do in life.”

CHERYL MANN BACON is a Christian Chronicle contributing editor who served for 20 years as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University. Contact cheryl@christianchronicle.org.

About 130 Christians from 13 states and Canada sang hymns such as “There’s Not a Friend Like the Lowly Jesus,” “It Is Well With My Soul” and “Our God, He Is Alive.”

The little white building with a tall steeple was born as a Lutheran church in the late 1800s. More than a century later, it sat vacant and decaying about seven miles north of the York campus. 

The prayer chapel at York University in Nebraska.

The university, which is associated with Churches of Christ, moved the old structure in 1999 and restored it as a beacon of spiritual life.

This week, the chapel provided a fitting backdrop for the Equip Conference, a two-day event focused on the theme “Hope for Churches.”

“York is in a unique position to be a real resource for churches in this area of the country,” said Garrett Best, Equip’s organizer and chair of the 425-student university’s Department of Bible and Ministry. “There’s a real hunger.”

Ministers and church leaders traveled to this Nebraska farming town to pray, fellowship and brainstorm ideas for revival at a time of declining numbers, post-pandemic challenges and political polarization.

“There are people here that drove from Montana, from North Dakota, from Minnesota, from Wisconsin — they drove hours and hours,” Best said.

Garrett Best, chair of York University’s Department of Bible and Ministry, speaks during an Equip Conference dinner at a York, Neb., restaurant.

Churches few and far between 

Growing up in Texas, Equip attendee Rick Janelle took opportunities such as areawide singings for granted.

Not anymore.

“Here, your areawide church is the same church you go to on Sunday,” said Janelle, minister for the Bellevue Church of Christ, one of about 50 congregations in all of Nebraska.

Jared Sanchez works at a Baker Boy factory and preaches for the Dickinson Church of Christ in North Dakota — a 30-member congregation about 620 miles northwest of York.

He made the long drive to hear Carlus Gupton, director of the Doctor of Ministry program at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., talk about hope for small churches.

“It’s always been challenging,” Sanchez said. “Reaching out to people is just the hardest, especially in North Dakota, because there are only five Churches of Christ. It’s a total mission field.”

Jared Sanchez, left, from Dickinson, N.D., visits with Marvin Bryant from San Antonio during the Equip Conference.

A national directory published by 21st Century Christian lists seven Churches of Christ in North Dakota, the fewest in any state. However, two of those congregations — Fargo and Mandan — have closed.

The closest sister congregation to Dickinson is 90 miles away, Sanchez said.

“Our furthest member drives about 80 miles to come to church,” he said.

Equip gave him encouragement, Sanchez said, “that you’re not alone and to keep moving forward.”

Like Sanchez, minister Ethan Bilbrey found the emphasis on hope appealing.

Bilbrey serves the Richfield Church of Christ in Minnesota, about 475 miles northeast of York. 

“We’re like a lot of Churches of Christ,” he said, “who have had better years in the past, who’ve experienced decline over the decades and want to see new life and hope and the Gospel continuing to spread and new disciples being made.”

Ethan Bilbrey, left, from Richfield, Minn.; Scott Laird, center, from Great Falls, Mont.; and Randy Schow from Longmont, Colo., catch up during the Equip Conference.

A resource for small churches

With a population of about 8,000, the town of York sits at the intersection of Interstate 80 and U.S. Highway 81.

Miles and miles of corn and soybean farms surround the agricultural hub, about 50 miles west of Lincoln.

The university, started in 1890, has roots in Churches of Christ dating back to the 1950s. It launched the Equip Conference last year as a one-day event, drawing 85 attendees from seven states.

The inaugural interest prompted Equip’s expansion to two days this year.

“We try to design this for these churches, and the vast majority of them are small churches,” said Best, who preached for 12 years in Kentucky and Tennessee before coming to York in 2022. “All the topics, all the class sections, everything we do is focused on: How can we bless these churches? They’re on the front lines.”

At one time, York served students primarily from its own faith heritage. But today, athletic scholarships and other nonreligious reasons attract most students, who are exposed to the university’s Christian mission after arriving.

Sean Algaier, campus minister at York University in Nebraska, leads worship during the Equip Conference.

Still, York maintains a strong commitment to Churches of Christ, said Roni Miller, the university’s former softball coach and now its vice president of enrollment.

Just this month, the university publicized the creation of the Founders Scholarship, which will offer a 50 percent tuition discount to students active in Churches of Christ and the Christian Church. (Oklahoma Christian University announced a similar effort, called the Heritage Scholarship, this past summer.)

“It’s really going to help those students who want to come get that great education,” Miller said of York’s scholarship.

Moderator Garrett Best, left, leads a panel discussion on “Hope for Churches.” The panel features Carlus Gupton, second from left, Justin Coppinger, Kendall Fike and Scott Lambert.

Reasons for hope

Equip kicked off with a panel discussion on “Hope for Churches,” featuring two veteran ministry experts: Gupton and Scott Lambert, co-founder of The Conversation Group and a board member for the Heritage 21 Foundation. 

Two younger panelists offered their perspectives as well: Justin Coppinger, worship minister for the Heartlands Church in Lincoln; and Kendall Fike, director of children’s ministry and community outreach for The Springs Church of Christ in Edmond, Okla.

Gupton pointed to a move toward “genuine discipleship and an effort to be followers of Jesus, not just church worship” as a reason for hope.

Coppinger said he sees churches casting a wider net to share the Gospel with a more diverse, wider group of people.

“Piggybacking off of that,” Fike said, “I think the next generation and younger people are excited to have genuine connection with other people.”

Jesus can fill the gap of disconnection and depression that many feel in a digital age, she said.

Equip Conference attendees listen to a panel discussion in the prayer chapel at York University.

Lambert cited survey findings indicating many unchurched people would welcome an invitation to worship, if only someone would ask.

The probability of acceptance, he said, “is even higher if you went and picked them up and maybe had coffee before.”

“Where there is pain, there is hunger.”

Gupton agreed with his fellow panelists and added, “Where there is pain, there is hunger.”

Cultural stresses such as the 2024 election season — likely to inflame division and hate — present a remarkable challenge for Christians, he said.

“With so much polarization and so much animosity … the church has an opportunity to demonstrate the power of genuine, unconditional love,” Gupton said. 

“One of the things that happens during times of high anxiety, relative to our fellowship and our human fears, is we become hypercritical,” he added. “And the antidote to that is, as Peter says, to love one another deeply from the heart because love covers a multitude of sins.”

Josh Ross, minister for the Sycamore View Church of Christ in Memphis, Tenn., prays during chapel at York University.

Hope and love

Students welcomed Equip attendees to York’s gymnasium for their daily chapel assemblies Monday and Tuesday. 

Guest preachers Josh Ross from the Sycamore View Church of Christ in Memphis, Tenn., and Darrel Sears from the Oakdale Church of Christ in Edmond spoke.

In a time of gloom and doom, Sears said, the church can’t just tell people it loves them.

Darrel Sears, minister for the Oakdale Church of Christ in Edmond, Okla., speaks during chapel at York University.

It must show them, he said, and that includes how Christians treat the wait staff at post-worship Sunday lunch.

“If there is to be hope for the church,” Sears emphasized, “there must be love from the church.”

“Preach!” someone in the crowd responded.

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. He traveled to Nebraska to report this story. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

More photos

Michael Case, longtime Bible professor at York University, displays the Minister’s Heart Award. Case was the inaugural recipient of the honor presented at the Equip Conference.

Walter Clark hugs a friend during the Equip Conference. Clark, minister for the Bismarck Church of Christ in North Dakota, traveled to Nebraska with his wife, Cindy.

Old friends and new gather for chapel at York University during the Equip Conference.

Students and Equip Conference attendees stand to sing during chapel at York University.

It’s shaped like a Bible.

The Bible belonged to his father, who died from cancer when Morgan was young.

It’s full of notes and highlights from his father’s journey to faith. Morgan’s mother sent it with his cousin, Stan, when he served in Vietnam. Then she gave it to Morgan as he went to study ministry at Sunset International Bible Institute. Morgan sent it with one of his sons who served in Afghanistan. 

“Every time I see this when I walk in my office, I am reminded that God is faithful,” said Morgan, newly named minister for the Sunset Church of Christ, during the institute’s annual Vision Workshop. About 550 Christians from around the world attended.

During a “Generation U” lecture, students listen to minister Billy McGuiggan speak on God’s sovereignty during the era of the Israelite kings.

Morgan shared the story of God’s victory over the Amalekites in Exodus 17. The Israelites prevailed only as Moses kept his arms raised, so Aaron and Hur held up his arms when Moses got tired. After the victory, Moses built an altar and called it Jehovah Nissi, “The Lord is my Banner.”

“We need to celebrate God’s victories with banners,” Morgan said, adding that the Amalekite story shows that God never intended for his children to be “a bunch of Lone Rangers” but to work as a team.

Anya Aaron, 13, signs “How Great is Our God” during the workshop. Her American Sign Language teacher is Rebecca Shelt of the Sunset church.

Banners were easy to find during the three-day event. During a Friday morning ceremony, students in the institute’s Adventures in Missions program carried flags from around the world, many representing nations where Sunset has sent church-planting teams and established satellite campuses.

In the U.S., Democrats and Republicans are ready to go to war, said keynoter Willie Williams, minister for the North Colony Church of Christ in the Dallas suburbs. Christians should have that same, fiery intensity, he said, but directed in a way that changes communities for good and lets the world know whose banner they carry.

“We’ve got work to do,” Williams said. “And the devil will try to get you to be quiet. But I don’t want to go to another funeral, and I don’t want to see another family, and I’m tired of coming into contact with people who don’t know how great our God is.”

Zane Perkins, right, of Sunset prays for minister Dan Winkler before Winkler speaks on “Living Transformed Lives” at the Sunset Vision Workshop.

See more videos of keynotes and classes from the 2024 Sunset Vision Workshop at workshop.sunset.bible.

Dan Chambers, pulpit minister for the Concord Road Church of Christ in Brentwood, Tenn., teaches on myths about Churches of Christ.

But her mother, Sarah, also had big news. “It’s not menopause,” she proclaimed. “I’m pregnant!”

Frances didn’t expect to get a husband and a baby brother at the same time. Neither did she realize how important all three of them would become in the spiritual development of tens of thousands of Christian men and women.

Participants receive certificates at the Lads for Leaders convention at the North Las Vegas Church of Christ in 2022.

“Only God knew,” said Rhonda Fernandez, the daughter of Jack and Frances Zorn, as she addressed a room full of dinner guests — several of them in red blazers — in the Hope Barber Shull Center at Freed-Hardeman University. Later that evening, her uncle and Frances Zorn’s baby brother, Roy Johnson, received an honorary doctorate of humanities for outstanding citizenship and service to the church.

Johnson, a preacher for more than 50 years, has served since 2003 as executive director of the ministry his brother-in-law founded, Lads to Leaders. Jack Zorn was minister for a Church of Christ in Warner Robins, Ga., and started a preaching class for eight boys in 1968. Frances Zorn helped train young women.

Now more than 500 Churches of Christ participate in the program, and some 20,000 youths take part in Lads to Leaders conventions on Easter weekend at 10 sites in the U.S. and five in other countries.

Children line up for food during a Lads to Leaders event in the jungles of Chintapalli, India. “This is our convention for L2L,” said minister Ricky Gootam, who coordinates Lads to Leaders in India. “We had 2,000 come to this from over 60 village churches where we work with in the brethren.”

V.P. Black, a preacher for Churches of Christ for 70 years and a longtime fundraiser for Christian universities, once described Lads to Leaders as “the Little League of Christian education.”

Roy Johnson’s involvement in the program predates his role as executive director, Fernandez said. Almost from the time he could walk, he accompanied his sister and brother-in-law, known for his iconic red coat, across the nation on trips promoting Lads to Leaders. As the couple’s health declined, Johnson took on leadership of the nonprofit. Frances Zorn died in 2017, and Jack Zorn followed in 2021.

Johnson also worked for 23 years as an executive with Boy Scouts of America. Lads to Leaders’ highest honor, the Red Coat Award, is reminiscent of BSA’s Eagle Scout rank.

At Freed-Hardeman, Roy Johnson stands with Lads to Leaders graduates (from left) Sarah Pollock, Catherine Grisham, Caroline Grisham, Zaquan Kemp, MacKenzie Scarborough and Jack Hamilton.

‘Lead better’

Among the attendees at a dinner honoring Johnson were six students who earned the Red Coat Award. Each completed a rigorous set of requirements, participating in Lads to Leaders for at least four years, earning honors in disciplines from Scripture memorization to public speaking and demonstrating Christian leadership. Each also completed a service project approved by a Red Coat Committee.

Jack Hamilton

Jack Hamilton’s project was a speech tournament he organized for his home congregation, the Castle Rock Church of Christ in Colorado. Participants gave sermon illustrations following the example of the apostle Paul’s speech to the people of Athens in Acts 17. Each speaker took an everyday item or concept from modern life and used it to point listeners to Jesus, as Paul did with the Athenians’ statue “To an Unknown God.”

Lads to Leaders “prepared me by giving me a lot of Bible knowledge,” said Hamilton, now a freshman at Freed-Hardeman. “It also encouraged me to study more on my own.”

Sarah Pollock

Sarah Pollock has participated in Lads to Leaders since she was in kindergarten. The Florence, Ala., native earned her Red Coat in 2022.

“It definitely helped me with public speaking,” said Pollock, a sophomore at Freed-Hardeman who recently was chosen to serve as a coordinator for Interface, the university’s freshman and transfer orientation program.

Zaquan Kemp said that the program “helped me speak well, prepare well and helped me lead better.”

Kemp, who earned a Red Coat in 2019, is a sophomore at Heritage Christian University in Florence, an institution he learned about by visiting a booth at a Lads to Leaders event in Orlando, Fla.

Zaquan Kemp

Kirk Brothers, president of Heritage, attended the dinner for Johnson. He said that Kemp has excelled in his ministry studies and served as an intern for the Conyers Church of Christ in Georgia.

“From a local preacher perspective, it does so much,” Brothers said of Lads to Leaders. At Heritage, “when they go into homiletics class, they’re a step ahead.

“But it’s not just teaching or putting a lesson together. It’s helping kids use their gifts — even if that’s art or puppets.”

Truth in an upside-down world

Before the Wednesday night keynote at the Freed-Hardeman Bible Lectureship, president David Shannon and board chair Scott Latham gave Johnson a maroon hood, conferring the honorary rank of Ph.D.

Roy Johnson speaks to attendees at the 88th Freed-Hardeman University Bible Lectures.

Johnson thanked his wife, Brenda, who put aside her medical career to help him in his ministry role. The couple has three sons and 10 grandchildren.

Johnson also stressed the need for Christian education — in homes, churches and universities — in an ever-changing society.

“We live in a world where everything is turning upside down,” he said. “Right is wrong. Wrong is right.”

Surrounded by family members and Freed-Hardeman administrators, Roy Johnson accepts the honorary doctorate.

He saluted Freed-Hardeman for maintaining a firm stance for the truth of the Gospel.

Justin Rogers, dean of Freed-Hardeman’s College of Biblical Studies, said that Johnson “has tirelessly poured himself into the nonprofit world of training young people for leadership.

“The untold thousands of lives he has influenced will be revealed only in eternity.”

Freed-Hardeman University president David Shannon, left, takes a selfie with Sarah Pollock, Catherine Grisham, Caroline Grisham, Lads to Leaders executive director Roy Johnson, Heritage Christian University student Zaquan Kemp and Freed-Hardeman University students MacKenzie Scarborough and Jack Hamilton.

And Churches of Christ are not alone in disagreements over interpretation of Scripture regarding women in ministry. Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and Baptists, among others, all have some associations or organizing bodies that ordain women and some that don’t.

Nor are Churches of Christ alone in coping with dwindling numbers of young people entering ministry. Seminaries nationwide and across theological boundaries face declining enrollments.

Sacred Calling: Read all the stories in the series

Should women preach? If they did, it could help address the preacher shortage. But most in Churches of Christ would say no, citing historical views of Scripture supporting that doctrine. Most, but not all. 

Dozens of Churches of Christ in the U.S. and Canada welcome women to their pulpits — on occasion, in a regular rotation or, in a few cases, on a full-time basis.

Though that’s still a tiny percentage of the roughly 12,000 congregations nationwide, it includes congregations in 19 states and two provinces, ranging from small rural communities to several of the nation’s largest cities.

Neither regional nor predictable

Disputes over the appropriate role of women in public worship in Churches of Christ are as old as the Restoration Movement itself. Leaders in the 19th century alternately appointed women to preach and prevented women from speaking at all except to sing. Some appointed women deacons while others opposed them. Some even justified their opposition to women’s suffrage on the grounds that women should learn silently from their husbands at home.

Trends varied between the Stone and Campbell sides of the movement and by region. But in the early 1800s, women within the movement, including Nancy Cram and Abigail Roberts, preached, conducted revivals, baptized hundreds and planted churches. 

The protracted debate continues.

“A lot of folks are under the impression it mostly happens in the Northeast or California, but it is all over, all sizes.”

Today, congregational autonomy makes hard numbers hard to come by. But when The Christian Chronicle compared and compiled the work of scholars, an online directory of egalitarian congregations and the personal knowledge of 16 members of the Community of Women Ministers, the list grew to about 70. And the trend is neither regional nor predictable.

Steve Gardner, who recently finished a doctoral dissertation on a related topic at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., said the 100 or so inclusive congregations he is aware of are geographically diverse.

“A lot of folks are under the impression it mostly happens in the Northeast or California, but it is all over, all sizes,” said Gardner, who preaches for the Christian congregation on North Carolina’s death row.

Karen Cooke serves as the children and family minister for the Minter Lane Church of Christ in Abilene, Texas. She previously completed a preaching internship at the Los Alamos Church of Christ in New Mexico and is a doctoral student at Abilene Christian University.

Cooke is in the earliest stages of research concerning churches where women serve as elders. In the process, she also came across about three dozen congregations where women may preach, and she believes there are more.

Wiley Clarkson of Groom, Texas, maintains an online directory of “gender inclusive and egalitarian congregations in the Church of Christ heritage.” It lists 41 churches that “welcome women into their pulpit” and 61 others that have other speaking or leadership roles for women. And some of those churches are also identified by members of the Community of Women Ministers as pulpits where women have preached or are preaching.  

In a 2020 file photo, Rachel Halbert prays at the Culver Palms Church of Christ, a gender-inclusive congregation on the west side of Los Angeles.

Culture or calling 

Brenda Turner, professor of graduate research in Faulkner University’s College of Biblical Studies in Montgomery, Ala., agrees with the traditional stance that women are to be silent in the church.

Turner is a theological librarian whose research focuses on women in the biblical text. She said she relies on 1 Timothy 2:11-12, “where it says women should keep silent in the church — that’s been the mainstay Scripture that’s been pointed to when the position is taken that women should not preach or teach men.”

Turner, who attends the Perryhill Road Church of Christ in Montgomery, said most people who align with that view see the issue as a salvation matter. 

Brenda Turner teaches at Faulkner University in Montgomery, Ala.

“I’ve heard arguments that 1 Timothy 2 is possibly about cultural scenarios that may be quite different in contemporary time,“ Turner said, “but I’m not comfortable with them myself because I can’t read Paul’s mind to know if he was writing from a cultural perspective.”

Conversely, Sara Barton, university chaplain at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., embraces that perspective.

Barton is the author of “A Woman Called: Piecing Together the Ministry Puzzle” about her own calling to preach. She said she wrote the book with her grandmothers from rural Arkansas in mind: “How would I tell them that I’m preaching?”

Barton graduated from Harding University in Searcy, Ark., and later earned a doctor of ministry degree from the Hazelip School of Theology at Lipscomb. She grew up in congregations where she “was taught to read Scripture in a way that would find guidance in very clear commands. But that often didn’t take into account the context of those commands.”

Barton is on the preaching team for the Camarillo Church of Christ, about 30 miles northwest of Malibu. She previously served as the campus minister at Rochester University in Michigan and as a missionary in Uganda.

“I started to read that guidance from Scripture in the context of what was going on in the time, place and culture to which a letter was written,” Barton said. “When we take in context Corinth, Ephesus or other congregations of the Lord being addressed, we start to see that commands are not always exactly the same to every time and place, even in Scripture. So we have to ask, ‘What is the essential heart of this for our time and place and culture?’ which might be very different.”

Sara Barton is the university chaplain at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.

Finding welcome

Turner and Barton represent two poles on the issue — one predominant and the other small but growing.

Barton cites two catalysts for that growth: welcome and scholarships for women at universities associated with Churches of Christ and male colleagues who have become “increasingly outspoken and welcoming about women in ministry.”

Reciting a list of women currently engaged in preaching, Barton said they all “have done higher ed, an M.Div. or D.Min. (master of divinity or doctor of ministry degree) or something and have an experience of having been welcomed, empowered and given opportunity — at ACU and Lipscomb and Pepperdine and somewhat in other settings.”

Among them are Candace Nicolds, who preaches for the Brookline Church of Christ in the Boston area, and Tiffany Mangan Dahlman, minister for the Courtyard Church of Christ in Fayetteville, N.C.

Nicolds, a Spokane, Wash., native, completed a Master of Arts in Christian ministry degree at ACU. Dahlman graduated from York University in Nebraska, then earned a Master of Divinity degree at Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky and a Doctor ofMinistry degree at ACU.

“There are not enough positions available for all the women who are equipped for preaching in Churches of Christ,” Dahlman said, “so it’s inevitable the vast majority will have to leave.”

But she has seen signs of change and periodically is contacted by churches seeking counsel about hiring a woman.

Tiffany Mangan Dahlman serves as the minister for the Courtyard Church of Christ in Fayetteville, N.C.

Nicolds has also been invited to apply elsewhere or offer advice. “There’s a church in western Massachusetts that really hoped to hire a woman and asked me to point them in directions on that,” she said.

Other congregations in Connecticut and New Mexico have recently opened minister searches to women.

As the Chronicle reported last year, the number of students preparing for ministry at colleges and universities associated with Churches of Christ has decreased. Yet women occupy many seats in majors that may lead to ministry.

Eight universities responded to an informal survey in fall 2023, and seven provided data regarding the number of women in various ministry majors at the graduate and/or undergraduate level. Among them, 237 women were enrolled. Like their male colleagues, not all intend to preach, and not all come from Churches of Christ.

The largest numbers of women were at Harding, ACU and Lipscomb.

Harding had 137 female undergraduate Bible majors, 43 percent of its total. Monte Cox, dean of the College of Bible and Ministry, said he had no way to know their specific ministry objectives at this point nor did he have a breakdown of church affiliations. But, over the past 10 years, about 20-25 percent of Harding Bible majors have been women.

ACU had 42 undergrad and 49 graduate women enrolled. Twenty of the graduate students were pursuing an M.Div., “which is a typical degree if students are choosing to preach,” according to Carson Reed, dean of the Graduate School of Theology.

Over the past 10 years, 560 women have completed undergrad or graduate degrees at ACU in ministry fields, though that number likely includes some who earned both.

Lipscomb had 39 female students across all graduate theology programs. Leonard Allen, dean of the College of Bible and Ministry, provided graduate numbers only. He said 74 women have graduated from the Hazelip School of Theology over the past 10 years. A slight majority were from Churches of Christ. “Some are looking for opportunities to preach or to be equipped to do so,” he said.

Everything else

As is often the case, discussions on matters of disagreement tend to create two camps, whether the issue is women, worship or world events. Renee Sproles, director of cultural engagement for Renew.org, a multifaceted resource ministry for Restoration Movement churches, doesn’t see it that way.

Sproles’ emphasis at Renew for the past several years has been on gender because, she said, “things in our culture keep getting more and more confused instead of clearer.”

Sproles writes and speaks from the viewpoint of a complementarian. 

Renee Sproles serves as the director of cultural engagement for Renew.org.

“The egalitarian considers men and women interchangeable,” she said. “The complementarian tends to think that while there is overlap, that there are particular roles that men and women play that are not interchangeable.”

Specifically, she believes Paul’s writing in the New Testament excludes women from serving as an elder or senior minister.

“Everything else,” she says, is open to both.

“In 1 Corinthians we see women praying and prophesying — Paul doesn’t forbid that. We see Priscilla and Aquila teaching Apollos. … There’s lots of evidence that women were deacons. There are lots of things women can do. The shorthand we’ve used for so long, where men lead and women submit, is not really a good shorthand for what you see unfolding in Scripture. Men are head of women. Women are a strong help.”

Using the same word, she said, God was a help to Israel. 

“I think we’ve gotten it really wrong,” she added, when denying so many roles to women. “We clearly see women pray and prophesy,” and yet, she acknowledged she rarely sees a woman pray in church. “And we’re poorer for it.”

Finding unity of spirit

Despite doctrinal differences, Barton and Turner both long for less animosity on the issue among Christians and congregations.

Turner said that Churches of Christ, as a whole, “probably have not done ourselves any favors by showing so much division. Unity of spirit is ranked highest of anything in Scripture — charity and love are the only things above that.”

Churches of Christ, as a whole, “probably have not done ourselves any favors by showing so much division. Unity of spirit is ranked highest of anything in Scripture — charity and love are the only things above that.”

She said she’d like to see churches “be more communicative among each other, respectful of each other’s positions and just not condemn. We have to be careful of taking on God’s role.”

Barton hopes the Restoration principle of autonomy can support greater unity.

“I hope churches will remain true to those roots, respecting local autonomy,” she said. “And if churches desire, through study of Scripture and discernment, that women will use gifts for preaching and being elders, that other congregations who have discerned something else will respect that. I hope that can happen — that we can remain brothers and sisters in Christ and find unity with one another even if we disagree on disputed matters.”

CHERYL MANN BACON is a Christian Chronicle contributing editor who served for 20 years as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University. Contact cheryl@christianchronicle.org.

The blond bundle of energy was riding in her family’s minivan with her mother, Macy, and baby sister, Lainey Mae, when she posed it.

“We were just driving, running errands,” Macy recalled in an interview with The Christian Chronicle. “Out of the blue, Hattie asked me if there were magnolia trees around.”

Before her death, Hattie Jo Collins asked her mother about magnolia trees.

The fragrant trees with creamy white petals abound in the South, so Macy promised to show Hattie the next one she saw.

The young mother never got that chance — but Hattie’s question helps explain the Magnolia Foundation, the new ministry started by Matt and Macy Collins to honor their daughter’s memory and support other parents who lose a child.

Hattie was one of five children and 14 adults killed March 3, 2020, when an EF4 twister battered this community 80 miles east of Nashville.

Her death made national headlines when her father, then the youth minister for the Collegeside Church of Christ in Cookeville, shared details on Facebook about his family’s experience.

After the tornado, burial plots for Hattie and her family were donated at Crest Lawn Memorial Cemetery. Still recovering from their own injuries, Matt and Macy did not see their daughter’s final resting place until the day of her funeral.

Podcast: Hear ‘The Hattie Jo Collins Story’ in her parents’ own words

At the graveside service, four magnolia trees shaded the burial plots.

“That was the first thing I noticed,” Macy said. “And I remembered that she had asked me that. … So that’s been something that we’ve hung on to. It’s just a symbol for her.”

Support in a dark time

That symbol can be seen in the magnolia tree planted at the couple’s new house a few miles from the one that was destroyed.

It can be seen in the framed portraits of magnolia trees inside the family’s home.

It can be seen in the middle name of Matt and Macy’s third daughter, a red-headed surprise — and a blessing from God — who arrived in fall 2021.

Davie Magnolia, whose name commemorates the sister she never met, is 2 years old. Lainey, who turned 1 the week of Hattie’s passing, will celebrate her fifth birthday in March.

And the symbol can be seen in the Magnolia Foundation, formed to help parents with funeral expenses, offer access to counseling and remember deceased children at milestones such as birthdays and holidays.

“After the loss of a child, it is incredibly easy for families to fall apart,” Matt said. “It’s our hope that by walking through that with somebody who can help them grieve — and grieve well — it will be helpful.”

Said Macy: “We really hope that it will help families feel loved and help them know that their child is not forgotten, even though they are not physically here any longer. … We hope that they can feel supported even through a really dark time.”

Matt and Macy Collins with daughters Lainey May and Davie Magnolia at the Collegeside Church of Christ in Cookeville, Tenn.

‘Who helps those people?’

Matt and Macy, both 33, grew up in the Mt. Juliet Church of Christ in the Nashville area. 

They began dating as students at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn., and married nearly 11 years ago. 

Matt served in youth ministry for the Rivergate Church of Christ in Madison, Tenn., and later the Jefferson Avenue Church of Christ in Cookeville before moving across town to Collegeside a few months before the tornado. Macy has worked as a schoolteacher.

In this 2020 file photo, memorial crosses near the tornado path in Cookeville, Tenn., pay tribute to 18 people killed, including Hattie Jo Collins. A 19th Cookeville-area victim later died.

The couple’s extensive network of friends and fellow Christians provided support after Hattie’s death. One of them — Mt. Juliet minister Craig Evans — showed up with a truckful of baby formula for Lainey during the COVID-19 supply shortages.

But that’s not the case for every grieving parent.

“You can lose a kid in silence, and nobody ever knows,” Matt said. “So our thought was: Who helps those people?”

Launched just a few months ago, the Magnolia Foundation already responds to multiple contacts per week concerning child deaths, the couple said. Causes of death range from accidents and natural disasters to illnesses and stillborn births.

“This is a poor example in terms of importance, but it makes sense: It’s like when you buy a new car, and you get on the road and realize everybody is driving the same car you just bought,” Matt said. “And you never knew it existed.”

Matt Collins talks about the motivation behind the Magnolia Foundation during an interview at the ministry’s office in Cookeville, Tenn.

‘The Lord is going to do good’

At the beginning of 2024, Matt stepped aside from youth ministry to work full time with the faith-based nonprofit. 

Macy helps on a part-time basis while her girls participate in Collegeside’s Mother’s Day Out program on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Collegeside’s elders gave their encouragement — and free office space in a counseling building next door to the church. The couple plan to remain active members of the congregation.

“The Hebrews writer speaks to the endurance of Jesus on the cross,” said John Nichols, Collegeside’s teaching minister and a founding member of the Magnolia Foundation’s board of directors. “I think there’s something very faithful about Matt and Macy’s endurance, just on a daily basis. You never escape it.”

“The Hebrews writer speaks to the endurance of Jesus on the cross. I think there’s something very faithful about Matt and Macy’s endurance, just on a daily basis.”

To take their personal grief and use their experience to benefit others, Nichols suggested, exemplifies the life described in Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

“We don’t believe the Lord did this,” Nichols said of Hattie’s death. “But we certainly believe the Lord is going to do good through it. And Matt and Macy are the conduits of it.”

Tornado debris in Cookeville, Tenn., after the 2020 storm.

Remembering Hattie

In their first interview since losing Hattie nearly four years ago, Matt and Macy talked to the Chronicle about their tornado experience, their faith journey and their daughter’s amazing words the night before the storm.

“She was, like, perfect,” Matt said of Hattie.

“Yeah,” agreed Macy, her voice soft and reflective.

Matt and Macy with their late daughter Hattie Jo and her sister Lainey Mae.

“And of course, we’ve got two other kids that we love dearly,” Matt emphasized. “But she was uniquely good.”

“I know that people will talk highly of their children, and we would talk highly of our other two as well,” Macy stressed. “But she was incredibly smart. And she was just good.”

“She wouldn’t go to just anybody. She was reserved. But at home, she was silly and funny.”

“Really good,” Matt agreed.

“She was silly and so funny and loved to entertain and loved her family so much,” Macy added.

“In public, she was quiet,” Matt said. “She wouldn’t go to just anybody. She was reserved. But at home, she was silly and funny.”

Hattie was known for wearing colorful headbands adorned with flowers, rainbows and unicorns.

Despite her shyness, she developed a special friendship with Izzy Stevens, who was a 17-year-old high school senior at the time of the tornado. Days after the storm in 2020, Stevens shared her memories of Hattie in a front-page Chronicle story.

The Collins family’s tornado experience inspired Izzy Stevens to pursue a nursing career.

To honor their daughter, Matt and Macy started the Hattie Jo Collins Memorial Scholarship in 2020. The endowed scholarship at Tennessee Tech University, across the street from the Collegeside church, benefits nursing students.

Seeing how grateful Matt and Macy were for the medical professionals who helped their family, Stevens, now 21, chose to become a nurse.

She expects to graduate from Tennessee Tech in May. And she’s engaged to Brooks Burr, a fellow member of the Jefferson Avenue church. Matt plans to perform the wedding ceremony, scheduled for October.

“They have just blown me away,” Stevens said of Matt and Macy. “They’ve taken something so tragic and heartbreaking, and they’ve made it this big thing to help other people, which is amazing to me.

“They’ve not been in search of pity or anything,” she added. “They’ve just given it to God … and used this whole situation to glorify him.”

Collins family photos are displayed on the Magnolia Foundation office shelves.

Jesus wearing white

The night before the tornado, Macy read Hattie a bedtime story and sang a few songs with her — their routine.

A lamp shone as Macy lay down beside Hattie to wait for her to fall asleep.

“She was just looking up at the ceiling,” Macy said. “We were not talking about anything. We were just being quiet until she fell asleep. And she was just looking up, and she said, ‘Momma, I can see Jesus.’”

“Momma, I can see Jesus.”

Macy paused to regain her composure before finishing the story.

“It startled me because we were not having a conversation about Jesus, you know? So I looked at her, and I said, ‘You can?’ She shook her head yes. And she said, ‘And he’s wearing all white.’”

Stunned, Macy did not ask any more questions.

“It was so strange,” the mother recalled through tears. “I mean, really, that’s the best word for it.”

Macy Collins reflects on her late daughter Hattie Jo Collins during an interview in Cookeville, Tenn.

The grim news

Most nights, Hattie woke up at some point and asked her mother or father to take her to their bed.

By 1:30 a.m. that Tuesday, when Macy’s phone buzzed with a tornado warning, Hattie was already sleeping between them.

Matt turned on the TV as the meteorologist urged anyone near Upperman High School to take cover. He grabbed Hattie, and Macy ran to retrieve Lainey from her crib.

With the girls in their arms, the couple made it to the hallway before a funnel cloud with winds up to 175 mph flattened their home. 

“It was right there,” Matt said of the twister. “I mean, we had nowhere else to go.”

At some point, the couple handed the girls to helpers on the scene. Most of the family’s experience remains a blur, although Matt’s Facebook post the week of the storm pieced together the numerous neighbors and fellow Christians who rushed to help.

Matt ended up in surgery for a deep cut on his right tricep, and Macy required a number of staples and stitches all over her body. Lainey suffered a knot on her head and was flown to a Nashville children’s hospital for treatment, but she survived with barely a scratch.

Matt Collins discusses his family’s tornado experience.

But an eerie silence greeted any questions about Hattie’s condition.

A report circulated that she was missing, but she never really was. She died at the scene. That Tuesday night, Hattie’s grandfathers identified her body for authorities and then returned to the Cookeville hospital to deliver the grim news to the family.

Someone pushed Matt in a wheelchair to Macy’s room, where she was unable to get out of bed. Close relatives joined them.

“They just said, ‘She didn’t make it,’” Matt recalled. “And it was everything you’d imagine it would be, you know? I mean, we just wept in every sense of the word. It was awful. It was awful.”

“They just said, ‘She didn’t make it.’ And it was everything you’d imagine it would be, you know? I mean, we just wept in every sense of the word. It was awful. It was awful.”

A way to honor Hattie

Despite Hattie’s death, Matt and Macy’s faith remained strong.

“For me, there was never really a time where I was mad at God or didn’t believe in God,” Matt said. “I certainly wasn’t happy, you know. But I really was just sad, just really sad. And I still am.

“The thing that Hattie told Macy before she went to sleep, we’ve hung on to that,” he added. “Who’s to say how I would feel had she not said that?”

Macy echoed her husband.

“I never felt angry at God,” she said. “Was I angry at the situation? Yes.”

At times the grief felt overwhelming. And sometimes it still does.

If Hattie had to go, they wonder why God didn’t go ahead and take the entire family.

“We wish we could have gone with her,” said Macy, her voice choking with emotion.

But they hold on to Hattie’s words. Her description of Jesus wearing white. Her question about magnolia trees.

Despite their agonizing loss, they believe God has a purpose for them.

Matt and Macy Collins did not lose faith after Hattie Jo’s death. Instead, they seek to honor her memory.

“When you lose a child, there are so many things that you are not able to do with them anymore,” Matt said. “And so we sought after something that we could do that would bear her mark.”

As a result, the Magnolia Foundation was born.

“Serving families that have lost kids — for us, that bears the mark of Hattie,” Matt said. “So every day and every time that we are working on that, we are representing her and her life. And by doing that, we are honoring her.”

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. He covered the 2020 tornado and returned to Cookeville to interview Matt and Macy Collins. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

“Serving families that have lost kids — for us, that bears the mark of Hattie. So every day and every time that we are working on that, we are representing her and her life. And by doing that, we are honoring her.”

More photos

Matt and Macy Collins catch up with Lainey Mae and Davie Magnolia after a Mother’s Day Out program at the Collegeside church.

Matt Collins holds Davie Magnolia after a Mother’s Day Out program at the Collegeside church.

Macy Collins fixes Lainey Mae’s hair after a Mother’s Day Out program at the Collegeside church.

But within the apostle John’s visions of lions, lambs, dragons and beasts are valuable lessons about worship, sexual sin and ever personal finance.

Freed-Hardeman University students and lectureship participants sing during a Wednesday morning chapel service in Loyd Auditorium.

That’s what I’m learning at the 88^th annual Bible Lectureship at Freed-Hardeman University. I’m also getting the chance to catch up with some friends I haven’t seen in years and to follow up on some stories we’ve run in The Christian Chronicle.

The lectureship continues through Thursday night. Here’s a sampling of what I’ve experienced so far:

• Does Heavenly Music Dictate Earthly Worship? That’s the question Hiram Kemp, a minister for the Lehman Avenue Church of Christ in Bowling Green, Ky., tackled during his class. A lot of us in Churches of Christ have preconceived notions about this, Kemp said, but he encouraged us to “put those away and let John speak for himself.”

Hiram Kemp speaks during an afternoon class in Loyd Auditorium at Freed-Hardeman University.

John filled Revelation with allusions to history, Kemp said, noting that there are some 280 references to the Old Testament in the book, though no direct quotes. It’s almost like “God is playing his greatest hits” from books including Daniel, Zechariah and Ezekiel, he said.

One example of this type of imagery, Kemp said, is Revelation 14:2: “And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps.” If we introduce harps into worship because of this passage, should we also then introduce incense bowls? And should we start eating scrolls? Both of those are mentioned in Revelation as well. Kemp encouraged Christians to “leave the harps in heaven.”

The message of Revelation is that “the distance that stands between you and heaven, it won’t always be there. This is a dress rehearsal for eternity.”

Regardless where we stand on the use of instruments in worship, focusing on the harps misses the point John is trying to communicate about heavenly music, Kemp said. Throughout the book are references to singing. Songs stick with people, he said, adding that the Song of Moses and the Lamb sung by the redeemed is “not just an earworm, it’s a soul worm!”

With open Bibles, participants in the Freed-Hardeman Bible Lectureship listen to Hiram Kemp speak on “Does Heavenly Music Dictate Earthly Worship?”

“We must never apologize for worshiping the way the New Testament says we should,” Kemp said. Neither should we think of a cappella worship as “just singing,” he added. “It’s singing from someone who’s been redeemed, longing for (God’s) presence.” Is that how we worship?

Earthly worship is “a kind of spiritual FaceTime,” he said, referencing the popular cellphone app. The message of Revelation is that “the distance that stands between you and heaven, it won’t always be there. This is a dress rehearsal for eternity.”

@christianchronicle HENDERSON, Tenn. — “There is, beyond the azure blue …” Partiricpants in the 88th annual Bible Lectureship at Freed-Hardeman University sing “Our God He is Alive” (formerly No. 728b in church hymnals), jokingly refered to as the “national anthem of Churches of Christ.” The weeklong event’s theme is “Triumph of the Lamb: The Battle with Evil in Revelation.” #freedhardemanuniversity #freedhardeman #biblelectures #ourgodheisalive #728b ♬ original sound – The Christian Chronicle

• Revelation and global missions was the topic of Mark Reynolds’ talk. The minister for the Towne Acres Church of Christ in Muncie, Ind., went four verses down from Kemp, citing Revelation 14:6: “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.”

I never saw this verse as a call to global evangelism. I’ve always equated it with end-times prophecy. But Reynolds showed how it applies to the here and now. He also traced the Lord’s love for all peoples throughout the Old Testament. He chose to work through the children of Israel, but in Exodus 19:5-6 God said, “Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” The children of Israel were to be God’s witnesses to everyone they encountered — a “light for the Gentiles,” as recorded in Isaiah 49:6.

The Freed-Hardeman University Chorale sings as Kate Fitzgerald signs “The Prayer of the Children” during a performance after the Tuesday night keynote.

God’s children find a lot to bicker about and fight over these days, Reynolds said. He cited Acts 11:18, when the Jewish Christians realized that “even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

“This is huge!” Reynolds said. If Jewish and Gentile believers could cooperate in the early days of the church, “then we ought to be able to get together.”

In addition to preaching, Reynolds serves as assistant director for international schools at Bear Valley Bible Institute, which has 63 international schools that train church leaders around the globe.

• I missed Brandon Lanciloti’s presentation on “Why Churches Need Really Good Internal Controls” but Doug Peters heard it. Peters, executive director of Heritage 21 foundation, treated me and Lanciloti, assistant dean and assistant professor of accounting at Freed-Hardeman, to dinner at the Blacksmith Restaurant in nearby Jackson.

From left, Brandon Lanciloti, Doug Peters and Erik Tryggestad enjoy dinner at the Blacksmith Restaurant in Jackson, Tenn.

I got to learn about Lanciloti’s ministry to preachers — he helps them with contracts, money management and taxes — and churches. We talked about how congregations, regardless of size, can become victims of fraud and con artists. I’m hoping to follow up with him to get some best financial practices for churches.

Having studied Revelation, I realize how much the book has to say about the dangers of economic powers that can distract and even enslave us, turning us away from God.

@christianchronicle HENDERSON, Tenn. — The Freed-Hardeman University chorale sings “Triumph of the Lamb,” a song composed by associate professor of music Alan Kinningham for the university’s 88th annual Bible Lecturship, which continues through Thursday. #revelation #fhu #freedhardemanuniversity #biblelectures #triumphofthelamb ♬ original sound – The Christian Chronicle

• Andrew Phillips, pulpit minister for the Graymere Church of Christ in Columbia, Tenn., spoke on “The Church’s Struggle with Evil — The Church That Tolerates Wrong,” focusing on the messages to the churches in Pergamum and Thyatira in Revelation 2. The Lord doesn’t mince words in that chapter, referring to “the sword of my mouth” and “that woman Jezebel” — both of which the book’s readers would immediately understand, Phillips said.

When dealing with sin, we’re tempted to “deny the concept,” he said, defaulting to an “I’m OK, you’re OK” mentality. Or we focus too much on the conflict. We sometimes highlight the criticisms that the apostle Paul makes of the early church, but in his own analysis Phillips found that only in a very small percentage of Paul’s admonishments does he name individual people. And his compliments far outnumber his criticisms.

We should “recognize the reality of false teaching,” Phillips said, but we also should “allow God to guide the response,” recognizing that “the goal is repentance.”

Julie and Mike Aldrich

• Between sessions I got to meet Mike and Julie Aldrich, a couple from Florida who turned a car wreck into an opportunity for evangelism.

Last year the couple, members of the West Broward Church of Christ in Plantation, Fla., got into an accident with Craig Washington and his fianceé, Anna, who were on their way to get married. Mike Aldrich prayed with the couple and offered to drive them to the courthouse.

The couple got married — and, eventually, baptized. Meanwhile, Mike Aldrich retired after working as a chief plant operator for Naples, Fla., and as a volunteer firefighter. He and his wife wanted to be a part of the Freed-Hardeman community, so they stepped out in faith and moved to Henderson, not knowing for sure what they’d do. Now the empty nesters serve as residency supervisors in FHU’s Benson Hall, which means they basically have 144 kids.

But they love it, Mike Aldrich said. Several of the young men from the dorm have led prayers or read Scripture during the lectureship, and he feels like a proud parent. Julie Aldrich added that she’s been amazed at how she’s seen God’s hand at work, opening doors for them.

And speaking of doors, the Washingtons remain active in the West Broward church, attending “every time the doors are open,” she said.

• Teaching our kids about God’s design for sex isn’t easy, said Colt Mahana. But too often we’re sending the message that “sex is bad” and we’re robbing creation of its beauty.

Colt Mahana speaks on “Running from Sexual Temptation and Running to God” during a Wednesday morning lectureship class at Freed-Hardeman.

Mahana, assistant dean for spiritual life at Faulkner University, spoke on “Running from Sexual Temptation and Running to God.” He cited 2 Timothy 2:22, in which Paul tells the young minister to “flee the evil desires of youth.” But “aimless running is not helpful,” he said.

We live in a “hookup culture” that saturates us with potential triggers that point us toward sexual sin, Mahana said. We need to talk with our kids about those triggers.

We also need to be forgiving, he added. Sexual sin can lead some to believe that they are unworthy of a spouse and might as well just keep on sinning. “There is hope,” Mahana said. “They can heal. Give them a path forward.”

But it was pigs’ feet that adorned the folding tables on a recent Saturday morning. Under the watchful eyes of skilled physicians, students practiced suturing during the International Health Care Foundation (IHCF)’s annual Medical Missions Seminar. 

@christianchronicle PLANO, Texas — Dr. Bryan Pruitt supervises Jaiden Branstrom, a senior nursing student at Oklahoma Christian University, as she practices sutures on a pig’s foot in the fellowship hall of the McDermott Road Church of Christ at the annual medical missions seminar sponsored by IHCF/African Christian Hospitals. #medicalmissions #medicalmission #sutures #pigfeet #pigsfeet #suturepigfeet #suture #churchofchrist #mcdermottroad ♬ original sound – The Christian Chronicle

Some, especially those pursuing nursing degrees, caught on quickly. Others didn’t, including one who said the experience affirmed his decision to go into physical therapy.

Skill development was just a small part of the seminar, themed “To the Least of These: Faithful witness in a lost and broken world.” Presenters talked about how their medical skills are a tool to lead the lost to Christ.

Kevin Linderman of IHCF playfully presents Jordan Yarbrough with the Boyd Award for International Christian Service. Yarbrough, a nurse in Angola, joined via Zoom from Africa.

Micah Gill and his uncle, Dr. James Gill, talk about spiritual mentoring during their session, “Seeking First to Understand: A relational approach to discipleship.”

“Yours is not the call to the World Health Organization. Yours is not the call to the CDC,” said Dr. Robert Lawrence, chief medical officer for the State of Alaska Department of Corrections. “You go because you hear the voice of the Lord.”

And Christians don’t need to go far to serve, Dr. Shannon DeShazo said. Though she has participated in missions to Uganda and Mexico, her work as a family medicine specialist focuses on the underserved populations of McKinney, Texas.  

Dr. Shannon DeShazo and her husband, Jon, at the Medical Missions Conference in 2020.

DeShazo, a member of the McDermott Road church, shared her struggles with perfectionism and self-worth during her childhood, which “convinced me to spend my life telling others they are not trash,” she said. 

Many people in medicine strive to become a great doctor, a great nurse or a great pharmacist, DeShazo said. She urged students to “strive to become the person, not the thing.” 

“When you focus on submitting to God’s will, you will want to become the person he wants you to become.” 

“When you focus on submitting to God’s will, you will want to become the person he wants you to become.”

Bertin Victor

“There were many roadblocks along the coast before Port-au-Prince, so I had to take a boat to bypass these,” said Victor, a Church of Christ minister and a student at the Center for Biblical Training in Cap Haitien. “I spent about three hours on the sea.

“I could not find a boat with a motor, so the one I was in could not go fast. You want to choose a boat run by a strong young man, because groups of men sometimes attack the boats on the sea.

“There was shooting between some of these bandits and the Haitian coast guard. Because of this, our boats had to go out on the deep part of the sea.”

At least seven people died in gun battles at sea near Victor’s path, Haitian media reported. Bandits also kidnapped several boat passengers.

Why risk the dangerous journey? “I was obliged to get to Port-au-Prince today so Monday I could leave for Cap Haitien to make it to the preaching school in time for classes Tuesday.”

Bertin Victor, center, studies at the Center for Biblical Training near Cap Haitien, Haiti.

Gang violence — always a threat in Haiti — has escalated across the impoverished nation since the still-unsolved assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. The United Nations notes a significant increase in killings, kidnappings and rapes, the Associated Press reports.

Victor sent a young man from the Marigot Church of Christ to Cap Haitien to study at the Center for Biblical Training last year. The student, Sobert, “grew so much in his Bible knowledge that Bertin was determined to come in this class,” said Sarah Dirrim of the Haitian Christian Foundation, which supports the training school “Sobert is preaching in his place while he is gone.

The Marigot Church of Christ worships in southern Haiti.

“My favorite quote of his is: ‘I want to know as much as I sound like I know,’” Dirrim said of Victor. “He has a magnetic personality and is an excellent speaker. However, he wanted to have the depth of Bible knowledge. His congregation on the southern coast of Haiti is definitely a mission area that’s unreached. The church building is a frame with curtains on all sides.

“I want to know as much as I sound like I know.”

“He left a wife and four daughters (he lost a son in an accident) to come to the CBT, so it’s quite a sacrifice for them all to realize this dream.”

Bertin Victor’s wife and daughters in Haiti.

The Haitian Christian Foundation asked for prayers for Victor and his fellow students — and also for the nation of Haiti.

Victor asked for prayers, too.

“Pray for us,” he said. “We will continue to pray for you. Pray for the nation. God bless you, my friends.”

It’s personal.

Whether they support the university’s sexual stewardship policy, which calls for chastity outside of marriage between a man and a woman, or question it, students on the West Texas campus all know someone who identifies with the LGBTQ+ community.

Emma Jaax is a senior at Abilene Christian University.

“When you’re on campus talking about these issues, they’re deeply personal because you’re talking about people that you know,” said Emma Jaax, 23, a senior accounting and finance major from San Antonio. “It’s not, ‘Oh, those people.’ It’s my roommate or my classmate.”

Despite an alumni-led petition drive urging a more progressive stance on LGBTQ+ issues, ACU this week reaffirmed its existing policy — developed after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage.

In a closed-door meeting over the weekend, ACU’s 31-member board of trustees spent roughly three hours reviewing the policy, President Phil Schubert told The Christian Chronicle. 

“We’ve had a host of folks who would like to see the university take a more affirming position,” Schubert said. “And, of course, we have a whole host of folks who would like the university to take a maybe even more conservative position. 

“So we’ve tried to be open and listen to perspectives and engage in thoughtful conversation,” he added.

In a statement to faculty and staff, April Anthony, chair of ACU’s board, said trustees unanimously backed the present policy.

That policy, she noted, “states that God intends for sexual relations to be reserved for marriage between a man and a woman and affirms the full humanity and dignity of all human beings, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

“God intends for sexual relations to be reserved for marriage between a man and a woman.”

Anthony said trustees reiterated their “desire for the ACU community to continue engaging in thoughtful conversation about relationships and sexuality, equipping students with an understanding of God’s design.

“Recognizing that Christians inside and outside the ACU community have different interpretations of scripture on same-sex relationships and gender identity,” she said, “the board reinforced ACU’s commitment to engage this issue with Christian care and compassion, condemning language and behaviors that communicate disrespect toward any member of the ACU community.”

Chris Seidman, an Abilene Christian University alumnus and lead minister for The Branch Church of Christ in Farmers Branch, Texas, speaks during Holy Sexuality Week at ACU.

A national issue

ACU is just the latest university associated with Churches of Christ to grapple with such questions.

Harding University in Searcy, Ark., recently clarified and expanded its policy language in a document titled “Expectations for Sexual Morality,” said Jean-Noel Thompson, the university’s executive vice president.

The Harding policy defines marriage “as a covenant relationship between one man and one woman.” According to the policy, the Arkansas university “holds firmly to God’s creation of male and female” and rejects “any attempts to change one’s birth sex.”

“This document was carefully created and fully supported by the Harding University board of trustees,” Thompson said in a written statement. “The spirit of our intent here is to provide clarity, support, protection and accountability for our behaviors — all through biblical truths, grace and genuine respect for one another.”

“The spirit of our intent here is to provide clarity, support, protection and accountability for our behaviors — all through biblical truths, grace and genuine respect for one another.”

On a national level, an Oregon federal judge dismissed a class-action lawsuit last year that challenged some Christian universities’ religious exemptions under Title IX. A group of 44 current and former students — including one from Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., and one from York University in Nebraska — argued that the exemptions expose LGBTQ+ students to “unsafe conditions.” The plaintiffs have filed an appeal in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. 

Even though ACU has not sought a Title IX exemption, it has every right to enforce a sexual stewardship policy in keeping with its religious beliefs, said Shirley Hoogstra, president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, based in Washington, D.C. That association represents 150 faith-based colleges in the U.S. and Canada, including ACU and seven others associated with Churches of Christ.

“That’s what the Constitution is all about — it’s freedom of religion,” said Hoogstra, who spent a decade practicing law. “They are firmly, firmly within their rights to create theological positions that align with their beliefs.”

Sexuality and Scriptures

Debate over ACU’s sexual stewardship policy has raged since November when the 6,219-student university hosted what it dubbed Holy Sexuality Week. 

ACU, which has 919 full-time faculty and staff members, touted the weeklong series of chapel messages as “an intentional focus on what the Bible teaches about human sexuality, marriage and relationships.”

In one presentation in Moody Coliseum, guest speaker Christopher Yuan, author of the book “Holy Sexuality and the Gospel,” reflected on his past life as a sexually active gay man.

“The opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality,” Yuan told the audience. “That is not the right goal. But the opposite of homosexuality is holiness. As a matter of fact, the opposite of every sin struggle is holiness.”

Micaiah Scott, 22, a senior liberal studies major from Denton, Texas, voiced disappointment in the message.

“We’re living in a world where more things are being accepted. God loves all.”

“We’re living in a world where more things are being accepted,” said Scott, who identifies as bisexual. “God loves all. Why should it be limited to just those who are straight, those who are Christians? 

“It’s not a curse,” she said of her sexual orientation. “I’m not a curse.”

In his presentation, Yuan said, “Before I knew Christ, I could not hate my sin without hating myself. Now that I know Christ, I can hate my sin without hating myself. That’s the distinction.”

Holy Sexuality Week drew mixed reactions from other students.

“When I first came to ACU, I was very aware of their policies and where they stood, and I appreciated their stances,” said Jaax, a nondenominational Christian who serves as president of ACU’s College Republicans. “We’ve had a bit of a pushback on it (the sexual stewardship policy) the last two years.”

Moody Coliseum, where chapel assemblies are conducted at Abilene Christian University.

The Student Government Association passed a resolution, 19-17, in October 2022 recommending the removal of the phrase “between a man and a woman” from the policy. The administration rejected the resolution, the student newspaper The Optimist reported. That same fall, ACU crowned an “openly queer” homecoming queen, according to the paper.

Given the questions on campus, Jaax said she appreciated Holy Sexuality Week’s emphasis on sexual purity.

“I regret the fallout of some of it,” she said, “because I do feel like there wasn’t cross-conversation happening. I think people went and listened to things and then retreated to their bubbles — their echo chambers — to talk about it there, so no one was actually changing any minds.”

Tessa Holderman, 21, a junior pre-physical therapy major from Albuquerque, N.M., said she felt sad for LGBTQ+ friends while listening to the presentations.

“I just imagined being in someone else’s shoes and looking at it from their point of view — just feeling judgment and not, like, a very positive or loving atmosphere,” Holderman said.

Collin McClellan, 18, a freshman biology and Spanish major from McKinney, Texas, said: “I believe that God called us to love first and to never judge. And the most important thing we can do as Christians is to speak out for the marginalized and the voiceless.”

A petition for inclusion

On a YouTube video of Yuan’s talk, cheers and applause can be heard at the end of his 45-minute message.

“This is how I summarize it,” he said before offering a closing prayer. “I once was blind, and now I see. I was lost, and now I’m found. I once did not believe, and now I believe in the Son of God, and his name is Jesus. That is my testimony.”

But Holy Sexuality Week — and Yuan’s message in particular — upset alumni who formed a group called Wildcats for Inclusion. 

Paul Anthony is an ACU alumnus and organizer of Wildcats for Inclusion.

That group voiced concerns “about the safety and welfare of LGBTQ+ students and the academic freedoms of faculty and staff regarding sexuality and identity.”

Wildcats for Inclusion collected nearly 2,700 signatures from alumni, parents, students and current and former faculty members, said Paul A. Anthony, an ACU graduate and a doctoral candidate in American religious history at Florida State University.

“My friends and I created Wildcats for Inclusion in part to advocate for queer students, to make sure they knew that ACU alumni cared for them and that a large number of us disagreed not only with the sentiments expressed from ACU’s chapel stage but with university leadership’s decision to exclude affirming Christian voices from the program,” Anthony wrote in an op-ed in the Chronicle.

Anthony’s piece came in response to Kenneth Pybus, an ACU journalism professor who defended the university’s position in an earlier column.

“Abilene Christian University has always held faculty, staff and students to a particular code of conduct,” Pybus wrote in the Chronicle. “And it has done so because we are a Christian community — one that strives to create an environment where we honor God with our lives — our minds, our bodies and our spirits. We often fail. But when we do, we do not redefine God’s will and reinterpret his Word to suit our own desires.”

“Abilene Christian University has always held faculty, staff and students to a particular code of conduct.”

‘A two-front war’

On the opposite side of Wildcats for Inclusion, ACU Open Forum — a Facebook group not affiliated with the university — has pushed for Schubert and the board to take a stronger stand in characterizing same-sex behavior as a sin. 

An administrator of the group — followed by about 1,100 alumni and parents — spoke to the Chronicle but asked not to be identified, citing recent threats and harassment against his family.

“We’re trying to push for what we believe is a more strict adherence to biblical principles and values on campus,” said the administrator, an ACU graduate who knew Schubert during their student days.

ACU Open Forum believes its advocacy led to Holy Sexuality Week, which Wildcats for Inclusion has criticized as “a one-sided affair” but that the forum administrator praises as “Bible-sided.”

While highly critical of leaving the sexual stewardship policy in place, Wildcats for Inclusion said the board “made the right decision and affirmed the importance of academic freedom.”

But ACU Open Forum maintains that the university has hedged its message by indicating that “reasonable Christian minds can differ” — as the forum puts it — on the Bible’s teachings on same-sex behavior and gender identity. Also, the group opposes providing “academic freedom” to allow professors to teach both sides as valid.

The Jacob’s Dream sculpture at Abilene Christian University. The Williams Performing Arts Center can be seen in the distance.

“They’re trying to please God and the world, and Scripture says that is impossible,” the administrator said. “As a result, they are fighting a two-front war.”

The administrator said he feels called — as a Christian and a father whose children will consider ACU one day — to seek a better path for his alma mater.

“Phil is my friend,” he added, referring to the ACU president. “That won’t change. We just see things differently.”

A history of dialogue

ACU’s discussion of LGBTQ+ issues goes back at least two decades.

Sally Gary, then a communications professor, shared her personal story of experiencing same-sex attraction in a 2003 chapel presentation. At the time, Gary did not challenge traditional Christian beliefs on marriage. She expressed her commitment to celibacy.

Sally Gary is the founder of CenterPeace.

In 2006, ACU students, faculty and staff members engaged in peaceful conversations with the Soulforce Equality Riders, a group of about 35 gay-rights demonstrators who visited the campus on a national tour. That same year, Gary started a ministry called CenterPeace to provide support and resources for gay and lesbian students.

Gary, who taught at ACU from 2001 to 2011, later wrote a memoir titled “Loves God, Likes Girls.” In 2020, she revealed that her understanding of the Bible had changed. She married her girlfriend, Karen Keen, in 2021.

Langley Smith is a junior at Abilene Christian University.

“There really has been openness and dialogue at my alma mater,” Gary said this week. “I was so proud of what we were able to do while I was there — and the safe spaces we were creating for students who truly wanted to live out their Christian faith and be free to be themselves at the same time.”

In interviews with the Chronicle, current students expressed a willingness — even a desire — to go beyond talking points and hear diverse perspectives.

“I guess my No. 1 thing would be that you don’t necessarily have to agree or approve of either side,” said Langley Smith, 20, a junior political science and history major from Murrieta, Calif. “But at least listen. If you don’t listen, then you are choosing to be ignorant of the hurt that is around you on both sides.”

Brandon Reynolds, 22, a graduate Bible student from Ruidoso, N.M., said he welcomes respectful dialogue.

“People disagreeing with you is not creating an unsafe environment,” said Reynolds, a preaching ministry intern with the Hillcrest Church of Christ in Abilene.

Phil Schubert is president of Abilene Christian University.

Messy middle

If ACU has failed to satisfy critics on the left or the right, Schubert indicated he’s fine with the university’s place “in the middle of the mess.”

“We know that every human being is created in God’s image, and that’s a part of what we are committed to each and every day,” Schubert said. “And so that means, even when we have these hard conversations, we do so in a way that starts out by looking at the other person as a child of God.

“I’m firmly convinced that God’s greatest work in us is done in the middle of the mess.”

“And what an amazing honor and joy and responsibility it is to be on a journey to help each of our students see themselves that way and live into the calling he has for their lives,” he added. 

“Is that messy sometimes? Yeah. Hard? You bet. But I’m firmly convinced that God’s greatest work in us is done in the middle of the mess.”

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. He traveled to Abilene to report this story. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

Since 1980, the international ministry has sent Christians around the world to help non-native speakers improve their English skills by reading the Bible.

The sudden halt to global travel put a temporary stop to those in-person connections, but the emergence of videoconferencing platforms created a new opportunity.

Almost overnight, LST Connect — the ministry’s online version — was born.

“Actually, pre-COVID, we had talked about this … and we just couldn’t find the right technology,” said Leslee Altrock, Let’s Start Talking’s program director. “But when COVID happened and everybody needed that kind of platform, then it really opened the door for us.”

Four years later, the traditional programs have resumed, including Let’s Start Talking’s international trips and its domestic ministry FriendSpeak, hosted by churches across the U.S.

Still, demand remains high for LST Connect volunteers.

“We have readers that are just sitting on a waiting list,” Altrock said in an interview at the ministry’s office — a former house provided by the Legacy Church of Christ in North Richland Hills, northeast of Fort Worth. 

By donating one hour per week, a Christian can make a big difference in the life of an international friend, Altrock said. Volunteering requires internet access and a one-time registration fee of $55, which helps pay for training, she said.

Leslee Altrock, program director for Let’s Start Talking, laughs during an interview at the ministry’s Texas office as volunteer John Royce listens.

Karolina Šlamaitė, 29, who lives in Lithuania, heard about LST Connect during the coronavirus lockdown.

The ministry matched her with Lana Heaton, 65, a Kansas church member who had traveled on four Let’s Start Talking trips to Italy.

Via Skype, the two women of different generations and nationalities developed a close friendship as they read the Bible.

“Honestly, I was thinking at first only about how to improve my English skills,” Šlamaitė said in an online interview. “But with life lessons and events — how to say — I learned not only how to speak well in English but also how to react to the events of life.”

In all, Let’s Start Talking programs involved 1,257 workers last year — 934 with FriendSpeak, 193 with LST Connect and 130 with in-person international projects.

Through those workers, 1,737 readers from 47 countries engaged in faith-filled conversations, according to the ministry.

“There’s just one LST approach, and now there are three ways that we’re doing it,” said Ben Woodward, who directs FriendSpeak. “When we train churches, and we give it over to them and let them grow it and mold it into what they need it to be, we call it FriendSpeak.

Ben Woodward, director of FriendSpeak, at the Let’s Start Talking office in Texas.

“LST international is when we send people overseas to work with our church partners,” he added. “And LST Connect, we feel like, is really the best-kept secret because it’s newer and started during COVID.”

The results are the same with LST Connect, Woodward said.

“We’re just having a harder time getting the word out about it,” he said.

Šlamaitė thanks God she discovered LST Connect.

For the Lithuanian woman, Heaton has become a trusted mentor, despite the 5,000 miles that separate the two.

“So she is not only my teacher, she’s my friend, and I like the LST group and Lana,” said Šlamaitė, who has a Catholic background. “I’m very happy that I found them.”

Heaton, a 1980 graduate of Abilene Christian University in Texas, attends the Salina Heights Christian Church in Salina, Kan.

“I would encourage people to get involved with LST Connect,” Heaton said. “It is absolutely something that any person can do if they can read and speak English. You will find the readers extremely grateful, and remarkably, you can develop a deep relationship with someone online.”

Karolina Šlamaitė, top, a reader from Lithuania, connects with Lana Heaton, a volunteer in Kansas, during a Zoom interview with The Christian Chronicle.

“How often do you have an opportunity to speak to someone of Jesus that willingly and knowingly comes to you expecting to hear and use the Bible?” the volunteer added in a Facebook message. “Additionally, it is a convenient way to reach the world with the Gospel as it can be done from home or anywhere you have an internet connection — from your home, iPad, laptop or desktop.

“It’s the simplest way I can think of,” she concluded, “to share Jesus and give the world the most desired commodity: the ability to speak English.”

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

How to help

For details on how to volunteer with LST Connect, see lst.org/connect.

The Christian teen would like to serve as prime minister of Australia.

“That’s my goal,” said Black, who attends Redlands College, a K-12 school associated with Churches of Christ. “I want to study law and justice. I want to be a lawyer. But ultimately, I really want to be a politician.”

Jada Black reviews her test results during a class at Redlands College.

Mike Shepherd, one of the school’s top administrators, praises the 16-year-old aspiring world leader as “a symbol of resilience and service.”

He predicts a bright future for her, regardless of whether she ever lives at The Lodge in Canberra or the Kirribilli House in Sydney — the two official residences for the nation’s prime minister.

Despite losing her 40-year-old mother, Alicia, to cancer in 2021, Black has stayed active in spiritual life activities and community service projects.

“Known for her empathetic nature, she has become a beloved and influential figure, especially following the personal adversity of losing her mother,” Shepherd wrote in nominating Black for the 2024 Redlands Coast Australia Day Awards. “This experience has profoundly shaped her commitment to positively impacting those around her.”

Nikki Coker, who teaches biology at the 1,440-student school, echoes Shepherd’s assessment.

“When you meet students, sometimes straight off the bat you just see something special,” said Coker, a member of The Point Church of Christ in the Brisbane area. “When she came into the class, she was always very aware of others. And she is very kind and thoughtful.”

“When you meet students, sometimes straight off the bat you just see something special. When she came into the class, she was always very aware of others. And she is very kind and thoughtful.”

‘Humble and focused’

Brisbane, the capital of the state of Queensland, ranks as Australia’s third-largest city, behind Sydney and Melbourne. It has a population of 2.5 million and will host the 2032 Summer Olympics.

The Redlands Coast Australia Day Awards celebrate outstanding citizens in a suburban area of Brisbane. Australia Day on Jan. 26 marks the Oceania nation’s history and achievements.

Jada Black displays the certificate she received as a finalist for Redlands Coast Young Citizen of the Year.

At a ceremony Thursday night, Black was honored as one of three finalists for Redlands Coast Young Citizen of the Year. 

Shepherd, who served as the school’s director of formation and mission before a recent promotion to special assistant to the principal, does not expect the recognition to change Black’s outlook.

“Despite her numerous achievements, Jada remains humble and focused on serving others,” he told the selection committee. “This service-oriented mindset has been a cornerstone of her work, from local community initiatives to international service projects.”

Black, who has attended Redlands College since age 4, recalls her mother as a devoted Christian who taught her God has a plan for her life. 

That lesson inspires Black as she and her family — including her father, Stuart, and 13-year-old sister, Sophie — process lingering grief. 

“My faith is just like an everyday thing,” Black told The Christian Chronicle in an interview between classes. “I mean, God got me through with what I dealt with, with my mom. So I’ve got a lot of trust in him, and I carry that trust everywhere. Before I do anything, I’ll just quickly pray about it.”

Honest talk about faith

At Redlands College, Black has served as a spiritual life captain.

For her senior year, she was chosen along with a male counterpart for her school’s overall top student leadership position.

She enjoys promoting faith-based opportunities on campus but avoids forcing her beliefs on anyone. 

In Australia — as in the United States — identification with Christianity has declined sharply in recent decades. Many of Black’s classmates eschew religion, despite attending a school with mandatory Bible classes and chapel assemblies.

Jada Black, right, talks during a meeting about Redlands College’s 2024 student mission trip to the U.S. Black was baptized at Lipscomb University during a 2023 mission trip.

Scandals, including highly publicized misdeeds involving the global megachurch Hillsong, based in Australia, have intensified the “church hurt” some feel, Black said.

Marching through the hallways declaring “Jesus loves you” would not be the best approach, in her view.

“I usually wait for my friends to, like, ask me questions and stuff about it,” Black said of her faith. “That’s usually how I approach it. And I just try to be honest because people have seen the dark side of Christianity, and you can’t ignore that.

“And so people often come to me, almost in a confrontational way, like saying, ‘How can you be a Christian?’” she added. “It’s that sort of thing. And I try just not to put it in people’s faces, but also, I try to be really open to talking about it.”

A passion to serve

Among her accolades, Black has excelled at sports, winning state and national judo championships.

At the same time, she devotes her energies to causes close to her heart, such as fighting cancer. She and her maternal grandmother, Charmaine Brown, have worked alongside each other to help patients and their families.

Just a few months ago, Black traveled on a Redlands College medical mission trip to the South Pacific island of Fiji. While there, she and her friend Imogen Meyers distributed Bibles and prayed with patients after their dental work or medical procedures.

Jada Black, right, listens to a classmate receive feedback on an exam.

“She’s amazing,” Meyers said. “We’ve both helped each other to grow our faith.”

Both teens traveled with a Redlands group to the United States last year. They stopped and helped at various charities along the way, from a soup kitchen in New York to a food bank in Los Angeles. 

And they attended the faith-based Impact camp at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn. At a nightly worship gathering, Black and Meyers both came forward to be baptized.

“I’m really passionate about politics and stuff. I appreciate how multicultural Australia is, but I feel like there’s a lot more work to go. … I feel like there’s a need in a lot of areas where I could represent people.”

Until the Impact experience, Black said, “I didn’t really understand the importance of being baptized. Just being there, there were some verses that stuck out to me. And it just felt like the right time.”

Her future goal?

She wants to make life better for this diverse nation of 26 million people.

“I’m really passionate about politics and stuff,” she said. “I appreciate how multicultural Australia is, but I feel like there’s a lot more work to go. … I feel like there’s a need in a lot of areas where I could represent people.”

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. He traveled to Australia to report this story. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

Braiden Jackson, the K-12 Christian school’s 24-year-old chaplain, listened intently.

Such interruptions are a fundamental part of her job, and she tries to take advantage of those moments to connect with students on a spiritual level.

Braiden Jackson, reflected in the mirror at left, listens to a student rant to the Redlands College well-being staff during their lunch break.

“Usually the students will be the ones approaching you,” said Jackson, who serves on the well-being team with 12 colleagues and a therapy dog. “I gauge if they’re comfortable with me praying over them — if they’re comfortable with me talking more about the biblical wisdom — and helping them in the situation that they’re in.”

Despite Redlands’ association with Churches of Christ, the majority of its 1,440 students lack a personal faith. About one-third have no religious affiliation, while another third only attend religious services on major holidays, according to school leaders. 

Chaplains in an educational setting are uniquely positioned to introduce religion to students who may never step foot inside a church. 

A Redlands College student sings in chapel.

Redlands College students watch an end-of-year awards ceremony. The school’s calendar runs from February through December.

Yet some students are dismissive of Redlands’ faith aspects. 

Imogen Meyers, an 11th grader at Redlands, recalled her attitude about the school’s Christian values before being baptized in 2023. 

“Before I became a Christian, it didn’t matter to me,” Meyers said. “I would tune it all out. Chapels, I would just sit there. … Bible studies, I would just not do anything. Christianity, I just didn’t care for it.”

“Before I became a Christian, it didn’t matter to me. I would tune it all out. Chapels, I would just sit there. … Bible studies, I would just not do anything. Christianity, I just didn’t care for it.”

Fresh blood for a declining faith

Meyers wasn’t alone in that perspective.

Though still Australia’s largest religious population, Christianity is on a steady decline, according to the national census. At the same time, the second-largest demographic, “no religion,” continues to increase.

Mike Shepherd, a dual U.S.-Australian citizen and Redlands’ special assistant to the principal, has navigated the evolving religious demographic since 2003.  

Mike Shepherd, center, and Braiden Jackson, left, meet with students about a 2024 mission trip to the U.S.

Shepherd — who also serves on the board for Lipscomb University’s faith-based Impact camp in Nashville, Tenn. — takes yearly mission trips to the U.S. with the Australian students.

But in 2022, he had a new idea: Why not bring Americans to work at Redlands College? 

“We need fresh eyes and fresh blood in our faith heritage here,” Shepherd said. “Young people have this sense of adventure. … And this is a chance for them to have a good experience, to help build up that Christian faith, to be challenged. And also to serve — really globally serve.”

Yet in order to do so legally, the school needed government approval for a 408 visa, which allows recipients to do full-time religious work for an institution in Australia. 

Leadership at Redlands College set specific parameters.

Applicants must be between 18 and 35 years old; have majors in education, missions, ministry or a similar field; be a graduate or current university student; and be recommended by a church leader or school representative associated with Churches of Christ. 

Andrew Johnson, principal of Redlands College, hopes the visa program will connect the Australian school to Christian institutions in the U.S.

“We are really seeking out relationships with other schools and universities, primarily those that draw from the Restoration/Stone-Campbell heritage movement,” Johnson said. “We are very, very interested in staff exchange programs, student exchange programs.”

Andrew Johnson, principal of Redlands College, waits for students to gather in the school’s sports center for a Christmas performance.

A global church community 

To the surprise of Redlands leaders, the government seemed equally eager, granting approval for three visas in a matter of months. 

Shepherd credits the expedited process to the Australian government’s desire to bolster the economy and travel post-COVID. 

 “What’s appealing to the government here is even though Americans and Australians are very similar, they’re also very different,” Shepherd said. “We’re saying, ‘Hey, look, you’re going to have some young Americans in the community — not just working, but also going to the shops, going out for coffee.’ And Australia is keen for that cross-cultural exchange.”

Braiden Jackson, chaplain at Redlands College, speaks to students about Jesus’ birth during a Christmas assembly.

Jackson was the perfect fit for the 408 visa. 

Shepherd had known her since she was a child when both attended the Cross Point Church of Christ in Florence, Ala., and later when she was a teen volunteering at Impact. 

“​​Her faith is resolute, but it is very real and authentic, and I’m going to add organic, even though I know that probably doesn’t fit,” Shepherd said. “But the reason I think that’s important is because Australians, if it is not authentic and organic … people see it as being fake. And so part of Braiden’s appeal and her ministry style is just to be herself, true to her faith.”

Redlands College students watch an end-of-year presentation during a Christmas assembly.

Jackson, who has a degree in secondary education, previously interned with the Otter Creek Church of Christ in Brentwood, Tenn. 

While her family worried about her move to another hemisphere, the Alabama native was confident. 

“I think once you find — obviously — a church community, it’s global,” Jackson said. “That’s what’s really helped me ease into my position, but also ease into friendships and getting comfortable being here and fitting in: We’re all after the same thing. We’re all here to disciple others and to spread the Gospel.”

“I think once you find — obviously — a church community, it’s global. That’s what’s really helped me ease into my position, but also ease into friendships and getting comfortable being here and fitting in: We’re all after the same thing. We’re all here to disciple others and to spread the Gospel.”

Planting seeds daily

Chaplaincy remains common in both private and state schools in Australia despite the decreasing Christian demographic. 

Often included on schools’ well-being teams, chaplains offer spiritual guidance alongside counselors and social workers.

“A lot of it deals with just obviously outside and inside school stressors,” Jackson said. “Big ones are obviously exams, assessments, feeling not good enough. I’ll usually try and be like, ‘You are good enough. This is what the Lord has said about us. This is what you are: You are unique. You are loved. You are created for a purpose.’”

Purpose is what Meyers found in June 2023 during a Redlands student mission trip to the U.S. with Shepherd and Jackson. 

“I was going because I like helping people,” Meyers said. “I knew that we were going to go to homeless shelters, so that’s why I wanted to go. I didn’t go for the faith and the Christian side of it.”

Yet by the end of the trip, Meyers returned with something more valuable than souvenirs — faith. 

Jackson and Shepherd baptized her on the Lipscomb campus before the group’s return to Australia.

“Now I pay attention, and what’s being said actually helps me,” Meyers said of the school’s Christian emphasis. “I can apply it to my life.” 

Imogen Meyers, third from left, attends a meeting for the Redlands College 2024 student mission trip to the U.S.

She turns to mentors such as Jackson and Shepherd for biblical guidance.

“These kids are growing up in a post-Christian landscape,” Shepherd said. “For them to learn about the Gospel primarily from a school setting? That’s pretty unique.”

Jackson’s role as chaplain has led to five baptisms, according to Shepherd.

Yet she occasionally wonders if her efforts make a difference.

Braiden Jackson stands at the back of a Redlands School assembly in the sports center.

“It’s quite hard to see that seed,” Jackson said. “Even just through conversation, if I know maybe a seed is planted, hopefully the Lord will interact with the rest.”

As for Meyers, that seed is already sprouting.

“I want to go back next year on the missionary trip, but now that’s based on my faith,” Meyers said. “I want to grow my faith. I want to help others to grow their faith. And I still want to help people.”

AUDREY JACKSON is Associate Editor of The Christian Chronicle. She traveled to Australia to report this story. Reach him at audrey@christianchronicle.org.

Ninth graders at an affluent Christian school in Australia leave their smartphones at home and fly to this developing island nation in the South Pacific.

Students cram in the back of Kia K2700 trucks and gaze at houses with thatched roofs as they head to Narpow Point Education Centre, about 12 miles southeast of Port Vila’s airport.

Ni-Vanuatu women trek down a dirt road near Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu.

The MV Betsy Ross FS 313, a decommissioned World War II ship, rusts on the Teouma Bay beach in Port Vila, Vanuatu.

A dirt road filled with twists and bumps leads to the international satellite campus of Redlands College, a K-12 school. The remote acreage overlooks Teouma Bay — known to locals as Shark Bay — and brims with banana, coconut and papaya trees. 

“Really, what hit me is to be grateful because I am so privileged for everything I have,” said Daniel Berry, one of about 150 Redlands students who completed the mandatory, two-week program this past year. 

“Even people in the lower class of Australia have it so much better than the people of Vanuatu,” the 14-year-old added, “yet they are 10 times happier than anyone in Australia.”

Indeed, Vanuatu — an archipelago of 83 islands that served as a base of operations for U.S. forces during World War II — consistently ranks among the top five countries internationally in the Happy Planet Index.

“It’s crazy,” Berry said. “The way that they look at life is completely different. And it’s definitely a great opportunity to see this with my own eyes and really understand what else is happening in the world.”

The Aussie teens sleep in bunk beds in dormitories, swim in the ocean and prepare meals such as laplap — a national dish of Vanuatu made with grated root vegetables, bananas and coconut milk.

Daniel Berry, a ninth grade student leader, speaks during a Redlands College awards ceremony in Brisbane, Australia.

Joel Erkkila and his son-in-law, Josh Pitman, inspect the fire pit where students make laplap, a traditional Vanuatu dish, on Redlands College’s international satellite campus.

Students chop elephant grass with machetes and help teach native children who speak Bislama. The English-based Creole tongue is one of Vanuatu’s three official languages, along with English and French.

“I actually really enjoyed it,” Eloise Window, 15, said of the immersive learning experience. 

“It was hard not having devices, but it was still pretty good,” she added. “Like, our days were pretty packed, and it was nice meeting the children there. The little they had, they were so happy and so cheerful. I just couldn’t imagine myself in that situation being that happy.”

A teacher at a school operated by Youth for a Mission watches Ni-Vanuatu students collect their assignments.

Leah Bridges, 15, said she appreciated the trust placed in students.

“I hit someone with the machete while I was there — thankfully the blunt end,” she said with a chuckle. “No blood. No injuries.

“But the fact that they gave us these massive machetes and were like, ‘All right, we’re going to show you how to use them’ … you felt really grown up. You felt really independent.”

On a deeper level, the experience motivated Bridges — who attends the Holland Park Church of Christ — to be baptized not long after returning home.

“I had already thought about it, but I really got time there to think about it,” she said of the spiritual decision.

Leah Bridges, left, and Lucinda Gabb, right, perform at Redlands College’s annual awards assembly in Brisbane, Australia.

Outsized influence in the Outback

In 1988, members of Churches of Christ opened Redlands College in a leafy bayside suburb of Brisbane, Australia — a city of 2.5 million that will host the 2032 Summer Olympics.

As the name indicates, people in the Land Down Under refer to private primary and secondary schools as “colleges.”

The Brisbane skyline alongside the Brisbane River, which runs through the Australian city of about 2.5 million people.

Redlands’ founders “had the vision for a Christian school deeply rooted in the Restoration heritage — in the Church of Christ heritage — serving not only children from Christian homes but other families who wanted a Christian education,” Principal Andrew Johnson said.

From its humble beginning 36 years ago, the school in the Australian state of Queensland has grown to 1,440 pupils in kindergarten through 12th grade, said Johnson, the son and grandson of preachers and a member of the Holland Park church.

“The school is both owned and governed by members of the Churches of Christ,” the 51-year-old father of three explained. “But the school has a very clear perspective of providing a Christian education from a broad evangelical Protestant perspective.”

With an estimated 45 congregations and 2,000 total members in all of Australia — a nation of 26 million people — Churches of Christ comprise a tiny fraction of the population.

“Redlands College is an anomaly in terms of the size and the influence that it has. It goes well beyond the faith-based community that supports it.”

“Redlands College is an anomaly in terms of the size and the influence that it has,” Johnson said. “It goes well beyond the faith-based community that supports it.”

While Redlands employs only believers among its 216 permanent teachers and staff, the student body reflects Christianity’s decreasing sway in Australia — as in the United States. 

In the past 50 years, the proportion of Australians reporting a Christian affiliation has declined to 44 percent — down from 86 percent in 1971, according to the national census. 

The number of “nones,” those reporting no religion, has climbed to 39 percent — up from 7 percent a half-century ago.

Redlands draws children whose families appreciate its academic quality and Christian values, even if they don’t actually attend church themselves, school leaders said.

“About a third of our students would have a practicing, acting faith,” Johnson said. “About a third would have a nostalgic connection to faith through grandparents. And for about a third, faith would be entirely foreign to them.”

Andrew Johnson, principal of Redlands College, addresses students and parents at an annual awards assembly in Brisbane, Australia.

Global experience promotes faith formation

Despite the challenges, Redlands exposes every student to Christianity through its Bible classes and chapel assemblies.

Developing faith is a goal, too, of Project Vila — as the Vanuatu global learning program is dubbed.

“Every student, during their two weeks in Vanuatu, has a deep, authentic conversation about faith,” Johnson said, citing the training teachers receive to engage such discussions. “And for us, that’s one of the most significant reasons for doing it.”

The required capstone experience for ninth graders has a threefold goal of promoting global citizenship, Christian formation and personal reflection.

Joel Erkkila describes the landscape and biodiversity at Narpow Point Education Centre in Port Vila, Vanuatu.

Joel Erkkila, a longtime Redlands teacher who was born into a missionary family in Papua New Guinea and served as a missionary in India and West Africa, helped develop Project Vila. 

“For me, working with young people in an intense situation like a camp … is really, really important to challenge them and to certainly move them along in their faith,” Erkkila said. “So we discussed maybe getting a campsite in Australia. I suggested that it was cheaper to do it overseas.

“And Andrew, the principal, said, ‘Well, I don’t want it to be too far away. And I want it to be safe. And I want it to be reasonably priced.’ So Vanuatu ticked them all.”

Redlands incorporates the trip into the school’s normal tuition structure, so students do not pay extra for the experience.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a pilot project took Redlands students to Vanuatu to work alongside Youth With A Mission. That interdenominational training organization operates schools on the island of Efate, where Port Vila is located.

Mike Shepherd, a former youth minister for the Cross Point Church of Christ in Florence, Ala., served as Redlands’ director of formation and mission before a recent promotion to special assistant to the principal.

Besides his work with the school, Shepherd — a dual U.S.-Australian citizen — leads a ministry called the Shepherd Fund. The nonprofit organizes short-term missions and disaster relief projects on South Pacific islands such as Fiji.

Shepherd’s connections led to Redlands buying the Narpow Point Education Centre site from missionaries Eric and Shawnda Brandell, who served in Vanuatu from 2005 to 2020.

Mike Shepherd and Braiden Jackson talk in the Redlands College sports center in Brisbane, Australia.

The international campus is situated in an agricultural area where French plantation owners once routinely dumped butchered cattle parts into the ocean. The discarded meat attracted sharks, inspiring the bay’s nickname.

The Brandells used the property to host youth and adult camps for Christians from more than a dozen Churches of Christ on five islands.

Flexon Robbie, a 43-year-old mechanic, maintains a Port Vila church property where about 18 Christians worship each Sunday. 

Eric Brandell taught Robbie the Gospel.

Flexon Robbie, a 43-year-old mechanic, leads a Church of Christ in Port Vila, Vanuatu.

A rooster wanders the property of a Church of Christ in Port Vila, Vanuatu.

“At first, I knew nothing about the truth,” Robbie said. “Then we started going through a lot of studies. And now I have a hope that I did not have before.”

Eric Brandell thanks God that his family’s former home will maintain its missional focus.

“Frankly, it was a blessing selling property in a country that was shut down due to COVID — no international travel whatsoever,” said Eric Brandell, now a program manager for the Westview Boys Home in Hollis, Okla., and an associate minister for the Perkins Church of Christ. 

“Hopefully, it’s a blessing to Redlands that they were able to acquire a property that will suit their needs,” he added. “So it really was kind of a match made in heaven.”

Faith conversations — in and out of church

Because of the pandemic, the full implementation of Project Vila did not happen until this past year.

Six groups of ninth graders came to Vanuatu in the warmer months, accompanied by teachers and adult volunteers. Because the South Pacific is in the Southern Hemisphere, its seasons are reversed from those in the Northern Hemisphere, including the United States. Summer in Australia starts in December.

During each two-week cycle, Redlands students visit churches in and around Port Vila, the nation’s capital.

“One church that we went to, they had a recent cyclone, and the church was pretty destroyed,” said Montana Slatter, 15, who attends a Baptist church at home. “So I just thought that it was awesome that they were still willing to meet to worship in ruins.

A Church of Christ in central Port Vila, Vanuatu, is beside the city’s airport.

“Sometimes,” the ninth grader added, “it’s nice to go where people have little because they do really rely on God.”

Another ninth grader, Lucinda Gabb, 15, said it was “literally an eye-opening experience to see a church take the whole day” to worship.

“Like on Sunday, I go to church, but then I go, go, go,” said Gabb, who is Catholic. “But these people, they have nowhere else they need to be — the most important thing to them is their community. So that was really transformative.”

But some of the most formative faith conversations occur outside of formal worship settings, students stressed.

“The people I haven’t seen show much interest actually spoke up about ‘What is Christianity?’ and questioned stuff that was happening,” said Berry, the teen who praised Vanuatu’s happiness. “Especially in the mornings, when everything’s quiet, people just want to talk, and questions come up. And I definitely saw seeds being planted in some people.”

Still, Christianity remains a touchy subject.

“The teachers are Christian, and they’re teaching the Christian ethos, and you can definitely see the impact it’s having on just how the school works,” said ninth grader Joshua Ingram, 15, who is Presbyterian. “But I can definitely say that the majority of our grade specifically is not, like, Christian.”

“The teachers are Christian, and they’re teaching the Christian ethos, and you can definitely see the impact it’s having on just how the school works. But I can definitely say that the majority of our grade specifically is not, like, Christian.”

The possibility of identifying as a person of faith scares many students, suggested Berry, who has a Pentecostal background.

“A lot of people are fearful of being judged by others,” he said. “Or they wonder, ‘If I’m a Christian, do I have to cut all these things out of my life that I actually enjoy?’ … They feel like being a Christian is all rules and no bad things.”

Another ninth grader, Kirra McIlroy, 15, said she sometimes prays and asks God to fix a problem.

“But I’m not ‘Christian’ Christian,” McIlroy emphasized. “I don’t go to church every day.”

A girl talks with her friends before chapel at Redlands College in Brisbane, Australia.

Window, the teen who missed her devices while in Vanuatu, echoed her friend: “I feel like I haven’t read the whole Bible. Like, I’ve read some passages in it. But I don’t know all the stories.”

She doesn’t necessarily have a problem with Christianity, she said.

But to her, the faith choice just feels forced.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Window said. “I just haven’t had time to go down that path and really think about it.”

From rebellious teen to grown-up mentor

Josh and Tiahney Pitman, program founder Erkkila’s son-in-law and daughter, recently joined Redlands as co-directors of the Narpow Point Education Centre. They have a 5-month-old son, Isaiah. 

The facility is open for Christian universities, mission groups and medical teams to rent. Those outside guests can run their own programs or enlist the Redlands staff. 

Josh Pitman, 28, grew up in a Christian household but said he resisted giving his life to Jesus until age 17.

Joel Erkkila and his son-in-law, Josh Pitman, walk along the reef that borders Redlands College’s campus in Vanuatu.

His own rebellious teen years inform his desire to connect spiritually with Redlands students.

“They may know about God but not know him,” Pitman said. “So not necessarily with words, but maybe we show students Christ in how we act and how our family operates. Now, we’ve only got about two weeks to do it, but that’s what I’m excited about.”

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. He traveled to Vanuatu and Australia to report this story. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

Clark had served in that role for four years before stepping down in November.

“Our long-term vision is to raise up a worldwide church planting movement out of the heart and fellowship of Churches of Christ,” Bates told The Christian Chronicle. “Going forward, kind of our three-year vision is that we see church planting happen through regional church planting hubs around the United States.”

Bates also serves on the board of directors for Love Lights the Way, a humanitarian ministry associated with Churches of Christ that works in Liberia, and shepherds The Feast Church in Providence, R.I., one of Kairos’ church plants.

Bruce Bates

He previously preached for the Blackstone Valley Church of Christ in Cumberland, R.I.

With Bates at the helm, Kairos hopes to develop 100 new “ministry partners” this year — which could be churches, nonprofits, camps and other local church affiliates — including five “flagship” churches, Bates said.

“This year is going to be a theme of radical partnership for us,” he added. “And for us it just comes out of that Philippians 1:5-6, when Paul talks about his joy in having partnerships in the Gospel.

“We all love the joy that comes from bringing in the harvest, but sometimes there’s that gap between harvest periods. And I think it’s the people that we do ministry with and serve with faithfully that can be our joy during those periods between harvest times.”

Bates believes those kinds of partnerships will help bring about another “great harvest.”

Kairos also hopes to do more with its National Church Planting Sunday in 2024, using it as another tool to develop ministry partners. Around 20 congregations participated in the day of awareness for church planting last year.

“We think that it’s really good for our fellowship to think about, to put church planting back on the map and just have a weekend, a year, to think about that and realize that’s something all churches should be doing,” Bates said. “No one’s going to plant the church but the church.”

His undefeated Harding University Bisons were in the NCAA Division II national championship, which coincided with Harding’s fall semester graduation. The senior football players would have to miss the pomp and circumstance at the Searcy, Ark., university, which is associated with Churches of Christ, as they faced the Colorado School of Mines at McKinney ISD Stadium in North Texas.

“It was kinda my idea to have a reunion-slash-pep rally that turned into a graduation at our hotel last night,” Simmons told reporters in his postgame conference Dec. 16. “And I went to bed really regretting it because we ended up having over a thousand people, and it was absolutely jam-packed.

“The love in the room was unbelievable. We had graduation. We sang the alma mater. There was not a dry eye in the house. You could just feel the spirit in the room was so powerful.”

The emotional crescendo would have marked a fitting end to the Bisons’ record-breaking football season.

But the season wasn’t over.

“I went to bed scared to death that I had created too much chaos for our young men and that it would impact today’s game,” Simmons said. “But I think it was the opposite. I think the guys just felt the power, the spirit of the brotherhood extended behind them today.”

The 14-0 School of Mines, favored to win the game, jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the first quarter. But the Orediggers wouldn’t score again. With its run-intensive “flexbone” offense, the Bisons dominated time of possession and scored 38 unanswered points, winning Harding’s first-ever Division II national title in front of more than 12,000 fans.

Running back Braden Jay carries the ball during Harding University’s 38-7 win over Colorado School of Mines.

A dreamed-of day for Harding’s ‘old warriors’

Simmons borrowed imagery from Hebrews 12:1 in his pregame speech.

“Guys, you have to understand this great cloud of witnesses that is with you, that is pulling for you, that believes in you, that loves you,” the coach told his players. “The scoreboard doesn’t matter. They just want to see you be excellent and do things in a way that really does honor God.

“There were just so many old warriors that were here today … guys that never had a chance to play in a meaningful game, guys that never had any facilities but just poured their heart out and helped build a foundation so we could be here today.”

One of those “old warriors” was Kevin Redd, a 2004 Harding graduate who played wide receiver for the Bisons and has since served as a minister for Churches of Christ.

“It was one of the most surreal events I’ve ever experienced,” said Redd, who attended the championship game. “The current Bisons did what so many of us old Bisons and coaches dreamt season after season. I was so proud. So many of the players repeated, ‘You older guys laid the foundation because they have a leader who got them to buy in to playing for others.’

“The brotherhood taught me something this weekend. The brotherhood was and is in full effect. I cannot verbalize the love, the camaraderie, the hugs, the brotherhood that I experienced.”

Redd’s Harding teammate and roommate, Nick McNabb, said he “struggled mightily” to come up with words to describe the championship experience.

Nick McNabb, left, and Kevin Redd reunite at the NCAA Division II national championship game in north Texas.

“Harding University is special,” said McNabb, a former offensive lineman. “This institution anchors the bonds that tie so many together. It’s not perfect, but neither are we!”

Harding’s national title nearly coincides with the university’s 100th birthday celebration, slated for September 2024. The school’s football program began at its founding, though it folded in 1931 in the midst of the Great Depression. Harding reinstated intercollegiate football in 1959.

Harding moved from the dwindling NAIA to NCAA Division II in 1997 — two years before McNabb’s freshman season. During his senior year, the Bisons went 9-2 and missed the playoffs by one spot, said McNabb, who now serves as administrator for the College Church of Christ. The Searcy congregation serves Harding students and the campus community.

Harding University players celebrate with fans during a timeout in the final seconds of their 38-7 national championship win.

“I’m so thankful I could attend Harding, play football for the Bisons, live in the dorms, earn a degree and make lifelong friendships,” McNabb said. “It’s fun to know you can honor God and win championships!” 

Championship on Saturday, church on Sunday

After victories, athletes and coaches often invoke the divine. The phrase, “first of all, I give thanks to God” is a common refrain on postgame sidelines.

But Simmons, the son of missionaries to Africa, quoted two full verses of Ephesians 3 from memory when asked to describe his feelings.

“My faith is so little,” he told an ESPN reporter, “but ‘now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, now to him be glory in the church and Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever, Amen!’ Go Bisons! Let’s go! Let’s go!”

What Simmons did next was even more unsportsmanlike.

After celebrating with his players and fans on the field in McKinney, he and his wife, Kimberly, rounded up their three kids and piled into their minivan. They made the five-and-a-half-hour drive to Searcy so they could worship with their home congregation, the Downtown Church of Christ, on Sunday.

Simmons was born in Zambia. His parents, Don and Roberta, served at Namwianga Mission, a ministry supported by Churches of Christ that provides primary, secondary and college-level education as well as health care for people in southern Africa.

At age 4, Simmons and his family moved to the small town of Ashdown, Ark., where he grew up along with his brother, Shawn, and his sister, Jill. Paul Simmons played football and was offered scholarships from schools including the University of Arkansas, but he chose Harding.

Paul Simmons talks to players during his tenure as defensive coordinator for the Bisons. In 2016, Simmons was one of five NCAA Division II coordinators selected by the website FootballScoop.com as finalists for Coordinator of the Year. The next season he became the Bisons’ head coach.

He was an All-American defensive end and linebacker for the Bisons from 1992 to 1994 and was inducted into the Harding Athletics Hall of Fame in 1999. He signed on as an assistant coach with the team in 2007 and became defensive coordinator three seasons later.

At the end of the 2016 season, head coach Ronnie Huckeba retired after 31 years on Harding’s staff. That year the Bisons reached the Division II quarterfinals and graduated 24 seniors. The 2017 season would be a challenge for Simmons, the newly named head coach.

Coach Ronnie Huckeba high fives players before the Bison’s last game of the regular season in 2016. The team would go on to win 42-7 over Arkansas Tech.

“I never worried about being in Coach Huck’s shadow,” Simmons said in a 2018 interview with Ann Robertson of Only in Arkansas. “He included all of us as coaches and players, so our season’s accomplishments were what we achieved together.”

But after the Bisons lost their first three games, Simmons questioned his ability to lead the program.

“Let’s just say I wasn’t getting much sleep,” he told Robertson, “and I was doing a lot of praying.”

In a team meeting after the third loss, Simmons went to Scripture, sharing the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from Daniel 3. The three Hebrews, living in captivity in Babylon, refused to bow down to a gold image of King Nebuchadnezzar and were thrown into a fiery furnace. 

“How are we, as Christian men, supposed to respond in the face of adversity?” Simmons asked his players.

The team responded, posting 11 straight victories and reaching the semifinal game before losing to Texas A&M-Commerce.

Coach Paul Simmons and his Harding University Bisons celebrate their Division II football national championship in McKinney, Texas, on Dec. 16.

Six seasons later, Simmons led his team to a perfect 15-0 season and a national championship.

But more important to him than the wins are his players — their souls, their character and their grades. Players are instructed to sit on the first two rows in all of their classes, and they do, said Monte Cox, dean of Harding’s College of Bible and Ministry.

As for Coach Simmons, “he is unpretentious,” said Cox, who also is an elder of the Downtown church. “I’ve been so proud of the team, the way they have conducted themselves on and off the field.

“That culture starts with the coaches, and as head coach Paul is the chief culture-maker.”

Using a run-intensive “flexbone” offense, Harding flexed mightily against the Colorado School of Mines in the championship game at McKinney ISD Stadium in North Texas Saturday. The Bisons scored 38 unanswered points after the School of Mines jumped to a 7-0 lead at the 9 minute mark in the first quarter.

It would be the Orediggers’ only score of the game as Harding’s defense made big stops on multiple fourth downs and recorded multiple sacks against quarterback John Matocha.

When asked what it feels like to lead his team to its first ever national championship, Harding head coach Paul Simmons let Scripture do the talking.

“It’s unbelievable,” Simmons said, before launching into Ephesians 3:20-21. “My faith is so little, but ‘to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!’ Go Bisons!”

Harding University players celebrate during a timeout in the final seconds of the national championship game.

In the course of its 15-0 season, Harding racked up more than 6,000 yards on offense — most of it on the ground using a variation of the wishbone offense called “flexbone.” The offensive style relies heavily on the run game, using triple option plays and misdirection to gain yardage. When executed successfully, the flexbone results in consistent, modest gains toward the end zone.

The style results in few of the explosive plays that make highlight reels, but it keeps the opposing team’s offense off the field. During the second quarter, one drive by Harding ran 11 minutes off the clock before ending in a Bisons touchdown.

Playing in a flexbone offense requires players to function well as a team, realizing that standout players may not have the big plays that impress professional football scouts. Simmons said that his players on both sides of the ball played selflessly all season.

Harding University players celebrate with fans during a timeout in the final seconds of their 38-7 national championship win.

“One-hundred percent, guys that love each other, that believe in each other,” he said when asked about his team’s philosophy, adding that his players follow the mantra “let’s honor God with how we love one another. … That was really evident today.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

“You gave a public platform to people who denied the lived reality of LGBTQ+ Christians, claimed inaccurately that homosexuality lacks a genetic basis, and made the ludicrous and hateful statement that ‘the opposite of homosexuality is holiness,’” said a letter written by Wildcats for Inclusion, a new alumni group formed after Holy Sexuality Week.

In an email to the group, ACU President Phil Schubert said the board of trustees plans to review the university’s sexual stewardship policy in January. But in an interview with Religion News Service, Schubert said that while he can’t speak for the board, he doesn’t expect the policy to change, largely because the board dedicated extensive time to researching, praying over and developing its policy in 2017.

That policy calls for “chastity outside of marriage between a man and a woman” and for the university “to create an inclusive environment for all students — even those who disagree with ACU’s beliefs — so long as they refrain from sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and woman.”

“Jacob’s Dream” statue and artwork on the campus of Abilene Christian University.

“We don’t have a neutral position on this,” Schubert said in response to concerns about one-sided messaging at the event. “We’re a faith-based institution of higher learning that is governed by a board of trustees that is deeply faith committed. And so they’ve chosen to provide some guidance on this.

“So I understand that some would like there to be equal representation of affirming and traditional views of marriage, but that’s not where the university sits today. And it’s not what we feel is the responsibility we have to teach and mentor students according to what we believe the Bible instructs.”

“We’re a faith-based institution of higher learning. … So I understand that some would like there to be equal representation of affirming and traditional views of marriage, but that’s not where the university sits today.”

From Nov. 6-9, the university, which is associated with Churches of Christ, hosted a handful of speakers who addressed topics related to sex and sexuality. Ninety percent of those speaking events, Schubert said, were not focused on same-sex relationships. One speaker was Christopher Yuan, an author who has taught at Moody Bible Institute and used to identify as gay. In his chapel session, Yuan emphasized God’s unconditional love but said that love doesn’t include unconditional approval of a person’s behavior.

“The opposite of homosexuality is holiness,” Yuan said. “In fact, the opposite of every sin struggle is holiness.”

Yuan also said that just as people who struggle with depression shouldn’t make their identity about being depressed, people shouldn’t make being gay their identity. He compared identifying as gay to identifying with watching pornography or committing adultery. “None of us should put our identity in our sin struggle,” he said.

Wildcats for Inclusion said in a Dec. 5 letter posted online: “By our count, Christopher Yuan alone compared homosexuality to two mental illnesses, a horrific disease, and a majority of the so-called ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ from Proverbs. Even as he rightly and admirably condemned the bullying of queer people, he perpetuated the conditions that allow bullying to occur.”

In response to a request for comment, Yuan directed RNS toward Luke 9:23, which says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” He also pointed to the conclusion of his chapel lecture, where he said that rather than summarizing his story by saying he is no longer gay, his story is really about finding Christ. “I once was lost, and now I’m found. I once did not believe, and now I believe in the Son of God, and his name is Jesus.”

Phil Schubert

Schubert said each of Holy Sexuality Week’s sessions, including Yuan’s, effectively balanced truth and love and was pervaded with a “spirit of kindness and compassion.” Schubert said he would not characterize any of the speakers’ remarks as “hateful.” While society often interprets disagreement as hateful, he said, Abilene Christian strives to have effective conversation about a host of relevant topics, “and even in our disagreement, reflect love and compassion that is from God.”

Some students, including more than 100 LGBTQ students who signed the Nov. 16 Wildcats for Inclusion letter, said they felt the series didn’t allow room for complexity or discussion. In addition, the Dec. 5 letter from Wildcats for Inclusion included testimonials from students who said that in the wake of Holy Sexuality Week, they were “harassed online,” experienced panic attacks and heard a student joke that “all gay people deserve to die.”

“The topic was presented as if it were to be discussed as a conversation with multiple viewpoints. Instead, there was only one viewpoint: Don’t be gay, and if you choose to be so, you have to stay celibate,” Brinkley Zielinski, a first-year ACU student, told RNS. “I was also appalled to hear homosexuality be compared to depression but also an eating disorder,” Zielinski said, noting that one of the other speakers had argued that supporting homosexuality is the same as someone supporting an anorexic friend starving themself.

Zielinski said since Holy Sexuality Week, she has also been more concerned about her safety as an openly queer student. “I feel in the establishment’s eyes, I’m a sinner, but to a larger degree than the rest of the population,” she said.

In response to Holy Sexuality Week, Wildcats for Inclusion has made three requests: Reopen discussion about ACU’s sexual stewardship policy. Incorporate human sexuality in the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’s efforts. And revise the university’s approach to future series on human sexuality to include diverse Christian perspectives.

Paul Anthony, one of the 15 alumni organizing Wildcats for Inclusion, said the support for the group’s letter shows a large cross section of the ACU community agrees that what happened at Holy Sexuality Week was a significant problem the university needs to address.

“We’re obviously not going to stop pushing, because we think it’s important that queer students be given the safe and welcoming atmosphere they were promised when they enrolled at ACU.”

“We’re obviously grateful that the board is going to discuss again the sexual stewardship policy in January, but then the president has been on local television this past week saying he doesn’t expect the policy to change. So we’ll see what happens,” Anthony said. “We’re obviously not going to stop pushing, because we think it’s important that queer students be given the safe and welcoming atmosphere they were promised when they enrolled at ACU.”

Schubert confirmed the board is planning to revisit the policy in the new year, describing the move as a “routine activity” that was “somewhat influenced by Holy Sexuality Week and responses to it.” Wildcats for Inclusion has also requested to meet with him, and while the details are still being sorted, Schubert told RNS he is “very open” to the meeting.

“I don’t think the university is going to change its policy, but would we be willing to host thoughtful conversations that might include varying perspectives? I think that’s something worth considering,” Schubert said. As far as bullying, Schubert said the university has a clear zero-tolerance policy.

As the board anticipates revisiting the sexuality policy and the university considers whether to make Holy Sexuality Week a regular event, Zielinski called on the ACU administration to take time to reflect on how Holy Sexuality Week impacted students like her.

“Your queer students took a leap of faith coming to this school, I took a leap of faith choosing to study here,” Zielinski wrote in an email to RNS. “Many queer students including myself were told by you that ‘we belong here.’ After Holy Sexuality Week, I can assure very few of us feel that that is still the case.”

KATHRYN POST is a national reporter for Religion News Service, where this news story first appeared. The article is reprinted here with permission.

For the first time in its history Harding University’s Bisons football team earned a spot in the NCAA Division II national championship.

The Searcy, Ark., university, which is associated with Churches of Christ, posted a 14-0 record — also a first — as it defeated Lenoir-Rhyne University of Hickory, N.C., in the semifinal game at Harding’s First Security Stadium.

In the 55-14 victory, the Bisons racked up 500 total yards, including 431 yards rushing. The university reached 5,659 rushing yards for the season — a Division II record.

“I am crazy proud of the way that these young men have battled this fall and how much they have sacrificed to be in the position that they are in,” said Paul Simmons, head football coach. “Their success this fall is an awesome testament to what can happen when a group of men truly love each other and are willing to commit on a really deep level.”

The win put Harding in contention for a national title against the Colorado School of Mines, which will make its second consecutive appearance in the championship game in McKinney, Texas, on Saturday.

Harding Academy claims state title

Meanwhile, the Harding Academy Wildcats football team also claimed a title of its own, winning Arkansas’ state championship for class 4A.

Harding Academy, a K-12 school associated with Churches of Christ whose campus adjoins the university, finished a perfect 15-0 season with a win over Rivercrest in Little Rock’s War Memorial Stadium.

After a practice session at the stadium, the Wildcats stopped on their way back to Searcy at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock to show their support for coach Kyle Evans and his wife as their baby daughter, Rubye, underwent heart surgery.

Harding plans pre-game festivities

On Friday, Dec. 15, Harding University hosts a pep rally and reunion reception from 7-10 p.m. at the Sheraton McKinney, located at 1900 Gateway Blvd., McKinney, Texas, 75070. A tailgate begins at 9 a.m. Dec. 16 at the McKinney ISD Stadium & Community Event Center,  4201 S. Hardin Blvd., McKinney, Texas, 75070.

To purchase $20 general admission tickets for the national championship game or find information about how to watch the game via livestream, visit HardingSports.com.

Its members — wrapped in hoodies, jackets and faded Michigan Wolverines gear — huddle in a line outside the meeting place of the Brighton Church of Christ, about 45 miles west of Detroit. One woman sits in her car smoking a cigarette.

Patiently, they wait for the doors to open.

Guests line up on a rainy Tuesday afternoon for the 2 p.m. giveaway at the Brighton Church of Christ near Detroit.

Inside the fellowship room, volunteers heave armfuls of clothing onto folding tables, organizing them as gospel music plays from the Bible class DVD player. Hymnals are stacked in the corner to make room for tables of children’s clothes. Shoes go in a side room, next to belts and ties. At the back are bins of Christmas decorations.

It’s an organized, efficient process. They do this every week.

“We don’t have much today,” Ken Simmons says as he holds a hand over a deep pile of leggings, sweatpants and jeans. “It’s usually double, double the height.”

The reason this week’s piles are “smaller,” he says, is that the church just filled 2,000 shoeboxes with toys and clothes and sent them to Nashville, Tenn., where Healing Hands International will ship them to children around the globe.

The Brighton Church of Christ’s giveaway features tables of donated dishes, clothes, jackets and Christmas decorations.

Simmons has coordinated the giveaway ministry for 14 years. At age 88, he moves quickly through the room, saying hello to each volunteer. He knows everyone’s name.

Looking at the clock, he says, “I need to let ‘em in.” The volunteers stand aside.

“You know how it is on Black Friday? It’s about to get like that here,” one volunteer says as Simmons opens the doors. The cold souls pour into the room, leafing through the piles of clothing with speed and efficiency that mirror those of the volunteers.

But it’s hardly chaotic. There’s a politeness, even a sense of reverence, among the congregants as they fill sacks with the donated clothes.

Everything will be gone in less than two hours, Simmons says. What’s not taken by the shoppers, as everyone here calls them, gets boxed up and sent to another giveaway on the other side of town. Eventually, unclaimed items will go to Goodwill or another nonprofit.

“We’re going to turn this (back) into a church in about an hour and a half,” Simmons says.

But it feels like a church now, especially when Simmons asks the shoppers to stop so he can lead them in a chorus of “Amazing Grace.” They join in, some singing quietly, a few mumbling the lyrics they know.

@christianchronicle BRIGHTON, Mich. — Ken Simmons leads “Amazing Grace” for shoppers during the Brighton Church of Christ’s weekly giveaway. Hundreds of people have visited rhe congregation in the suburbs of Detroit to shop for donated clothes, dishes and baked goods. The church also gibes Bibles to those who request them. #brightonmichigan #churchgiveaway #churchofchrist #detroit ♬ original sound – The Christian Chronicle

“I once was lost but now am found. Was blind but now I see.”

For Simmons, the sound resembles the voices of angels.

“You all sound so great this week!” he gushes.

Shopping and sharing

Simmons asks if there are any first-timers. Ali, a delivery driver from Detroit wearing a large headset, steps forward. His family originally came here from Senegal, a predominantly Muslim nation in West Africa. He’s brought a large group of his relatives. A group of refugees from Somalia, some of the women wearing headscarves, are among the returning guests.

A child rests as her family looks over the donated items at the Brighton Church of Christ’s weekly giveaway.

Kim, a mother of two, has been coming here for five years. She works three jobs to make ends meet and isn’t able to go to church on Sundays. Her husband works, too. He gets up at 4 a.m. and doesn’t make it home until after 6 p.m.

Kim’s mother-in-law is here, too, in a wheelchair. The volunteers let them come in early so she doesn’t get stuck in the crowd, Kim says.

They’re not shopping for themselves today. Kim is gathering clothes for her sister-in-law, who can’t make it on Tuesday afternoons. Her 9-year-old daughter, Savannah, looks through a box of toys on the floor and pulls out a plush bulldog wearing a bow tie. Her cousin might like this, she says.

The volunteers don’t stand idly by. They scan the tables with specific people in mind. If a pair of size 14 sneakers comes in, they know a very tall lad who could use them.

“Grandma Kathy,” as she’s known here, is a shopper and a volunteer. She comes early to help set up and always is on the lookout for things her extended family could use. But she also brings clothes and shoes that she doesn’t need anymore. Kim and some of the other shoppers do likewise.

Judy Brown and Scott Walker are volunteers but not members of the Brighton Church of Christ. They worship with a Baptist church down the road.

“I was driving past here one day and … well, the Lord sent me, actually,” Brown says. “I met the pastor (preacher) here. I told him I was doing a Christmas play at my church. Could I come in early and look for props? They met me, and they got to know me. They approached me, like, maybe the third week and said, ‘We’ve been watching you. Would you like to serve here?’”

“I was driving past here one day and … well, the Lord sent me, actually.”

Baked goods and Good News

One of the shoppers asks for a Bible. Minister A.J. Snively is happy to oblige. He opens God’s Word and points to a few specific verses.

Brighton Church of Christ minister A.J. Snively points out verses in a Bible requested by a shopper during the church’s weekly giveaway.

The church, like so many across the nation, suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Attendance is about 100 on a good Sunday, Snively says. This room, the fellowship hall, has served as its meeting place since a fire in March damaged the auditorium.

That hasn’t slowed the giveaways or the church’s Magi gift box efforts.

Baptisms have resulted through the church’s community outreach, Snively says, but the church still struggles to grow numerically.

But maybe it’s not about numbers, he adds. Maybe it’s about answering Jesus’ call to “give to anyone who (has) need” as the church described in Acts 2 did. Maybe it’s about modeling generosity for the church’s children, including his own boys, who often spend their Tuesday afternoons running around the fellowship hall, helping out.

As the shoppers shop in the fellowship hall, Brighton church member Jeanenne Buchanan reupholsters a church pew in the auditorium, which was damaged by fire in March 2023. Buchanan also volunteers with the giveaway ministry, helping to collect donated items as they’re dropped off.

Despite its attendance, the church is well known in Brighton. Everyone seems to be aware of “the church that does the giveaways,” Snively said. That’s why they can clear the building of untaken items and still have stacks and stacks to offer next week. People bring their donations to the building constantly. A nearby Panera donates baked goods so that the shoppers can break bread together and take some home for their families.

During the brief devotional, Simmons takes prayer requests from the shoppers. One woman asks for healing for her legs. Another says that her daughter, who lost her job during the pandemic, has found a new one. The congregation applauds. A third says that her best friend just lost her mom.

Simmons prays for them all, asking God for healing and for blessings upon all who have gathered on this wet Tuesday afternoon. 

“We know, Father, that without you in our lives, that our lives would be void. They’d be empty. They’d be dry.”

“We know, Father, that without you in our lives, that our lives would be void. They’d be empty. They’d be dry.”

A gift for a princess

As the shoppers collect their bags and return to the cold, the volunteers gather the unclaimed clothing for shipment to its next destination. Among them is Simmons’ 67-year-old daughter, Sandy. She lives in a small town near Harrison, Mich., about 150 miles north of Brighton, but she makes the drive whenever she can to help with the giveaways.

As the temperature drops, she expects to see more homeless visitors here. The volunteers have a procedure for that, too.

“I’ll say, ‘Follow me,’ and I’ll hook them up with boots and shoes and socks and underwear,” Sandy Simmons says. “Then we’ll go to the bedding, get them a pillow if we have one or sleeping bags, hopefully a suitcase with wheels or some backpacks. …

Sandy Simmons hands a Christmas snow globe to a shopper’s child. The world map behind them details the church’s global mission efforts.

“Hang on,” she says, interrupting herself. She pulls a blue Cinderella snow globe from the box of Christmas decorations before it’s carted outside. She presses a button, and snow flurries spin around the plastic princess as music plays.

“I’ve gotta find someone to give this to,” she says, walking across the room as the globe continues its twinkly tune: “Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let Earth receive her King.”

She hands it to a young Somali girl sitting on a church pew. The girl stares at the gift, confused, and looks up at her mother, who smiles and leans close.

“Christmas,” her mother whispers.

Twenty-six 11th- and 12th-grade students from 13 states participated in the contest on the Thursday of the lectureship, all previous speech contest winners at one of the 10 Lads to Leaders conventions sites across the U.S.

Lads to Leaders speakers pose with civil rights lawyer Fred Gray, Faulkner President Mitch Henry and Rhonda Zorn Fernandez, daughter of late L2L founder Jack Zorn.

Two winners, one boy and one girl, were chosen to receive full scholarships to Faulkner: Levi Cullum, a member of the Concord Road Church of Christ in Brentwood, Tenn., won for his speech on rebuilding American evangelism. Anna Grace King, a member of the Huntingdon Church of Christ in Tennessee, won for her speech on being strong in faith.

The speakers also got to meet renowned civil rights lawyer and Church of Christ elder Fred Gray, who spoke on “Love One Another” at the lectureship.

The Oklahoma City university’s closure of its Graduate School of Theology is part of a broader set of budget cuts announced this week to faculty by Provost Brian Starr.

Previously, Harding University in August announced the closing of its Memphis, Tenn., campus of the Harding School of Theology and plans to move the program to its main campus in Searcy, Ark.

In December 2022, Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., announced the closing of its Austin Center, a Texas branch campus previously called the Austin Graduate School of Theology. Lipscomb still has its Hazelip School of Theology in Nashville.

In a written statement, Starr blamed the cuts at Oklahoma Christian on overall enrollment decline leading to “restructuring some areas of Academics, including sunsetting the Graduate School of Theology program.”

In an email to Bible faculty, Jeremie Beller, dean of the College of Bible, said, “The gravity of ending OC’s first graduate program is keenly felt by the leadership team.” 

The graduate program was begun in 1988, and the first class of M.Div. students graduated in 2007, a group of which Beller was a part.

The university has offered two other graduate degrees in theology in addition to the M.Div.: a Master of Christianity and Culture and a Master of Biblical and Theological Studies.

Beller told faculty “the move to sunset the program is based on continued enrollment decline, market outlook, and limited resources.”

Graduate enrollment in fall 2023 was 22, down from 39 a year ago.

Jeremie Beller

“Our commitment to serve the church by providing quality academic and practical ministry training will continue through our undergraduate program,” Beller said. “We are also engaged in promising conversations exploring opportunities for our College of Bible to continue contributing to theological education in other ways. I will update you on those conversations as I am able.”

In a separate email, Oklahoma Christian leaders told current graduate students that “the university is committed to helping each of you complete the remainder of your degree. All of the remaining courses in your degree plan will be taught as scheduled over the next 1-4 years, depending on the needs of your program.” That email was sent by Jim Baird, chair of the Graduate School of Theology, and Josh Bailey, Oklahoma Christian’s director of graduate program effectiveness.

The Association of Theological Schools has reported a significant decline in the number of schools and number of students enrolled over the past decade, across denominational boundaries. 

A survey by The Christian Chronicle in May 2023 revealed that the largest graduate programs among universities associated with Churches of Christ are at Abilene Christian University in Texas with 165 students and Freed-Hardeman University in Tennessee with 70. Harding did not respond to the survey but had reported 110 graduate students a year earlier. However, significant declines in enrollment were among the reasons for Harding’s restructuring, according to Jim Martin, vice president of the Harding School of Theology.

In his statement to Chronicle, Starr said, “Though we must make difficult decisions at times to balance our budget, we are confident in OC’s bright future. We are exploring opportunities to partner with sister schools and to continue contributing to graduate theological education in new ways.”

Carson Reed, dean of the Graduate School of Theology at ACU, confirmed that his university is still offering “a wide array of programs and (is) actively engaged in conversations with how we can help sister institutions either continue to offer graduate education or provide entry points for students to come into our programs or in some other way continue training for ministry.”

The entrance to Oklahoma Christian University campus.

CHERYL MANN BACON is a Christian Chronicle contributing editor who served for 20 years as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University. Contact cheryl@christianchronicle.org.

The country music legend grasped a large pair of scissors alongside Lipscomb University President Candice McQueen. They struggled just a bit to slice through the pink and gold sash, bedecked with butterflies.

“That was thick!” Parton exclaimed as she and McQueen finally made the cut, officially opening “Dolly Parton and the Makers: My Life in Rhinestones” in the university’s Beaman Library. The exhibit features dresses, shoes and accessories that Parton has worn on stage and on camera throughout her 50-year career, plus the stories of the designers who created them.

“I have a lot of friends that have gone to Lipscomb, but I never thought that I was going to wind up having my display here,” said Dolly Parton as she and Lipscomb President Candice McQueen opened the library exhibit.

The exhibit had its genesis at Camp Wyldewood in Searcy, Ark. That’s where Rocky Horton Jr., director of Lipscomb’s school for art and design, spent his summers. Among the teens he met at camp was Iisha Lemming.

“For me, it was the highlight of my year.” Lemming said of Wyldewood, “as it was a chance to get out of my tiny hometown, make new friends, sleep in screened cabins with no A/C and make art, ride horses, hike and do regular devotionals with singing.”

Lemming continued to pursue art in college, earning a master’s in fashion. Eventually, she became Parton’s pattern maker, or draper.

Iisha Lemming stands next to one of her creations. See a profile of Lemming by Herd Media’sBrandon Bigsby.

Horton, who earned his bachelor’s from Harding University in Searcy, contacted Lemming about procuring “a piece or two to frame an exhibit around” at Lipscomb, said Charlotte Poling, chair of Lipscomb’s fashion and design department.

Parton’s archivist, Rebecca Seaver, had a better idea — an exhibit of fashion to coincide with the forthcoming book “Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones.”

@christianchronicle NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Gallery director Jamie Reschke gives The Christian Chronicle a sneak peek at “Dolly Parton and the Makers,” an exhibit of Dolly Parton’s fashion that coincides with the release of her book, “Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones.” Parton, a former member of Churches of Christ with deep roots in Christian faith, chose the university, which is associated with Churches of Christ, for the exhibit, which opens in Lipscomb’s library tomorrow (Oct. 31). #dollyparton #mylifeinrhinestones #behindtheseams #countrymusic #lipscombuniversity #nashvilletn ♬ original sound – The Christian Chronicle

Lipscomb had the perfect place for the exhibit, Poling said: “Here we are in the library, where (Parton) is so passionate about education and literacy.” Parton’s Imagination Library initiative has gifted more than 221 million books to children around the world.

A portrait of Carl Dean and his wife, Dolly Parton, from a 1966 church directory.

Lipscomb also has a connection to Parton through its association with Churches of Christ. Parton and her husband of 57 years, Carl Dean, worshiped with the Radnor Church of Christ in Nashville for a brief time in the mid-1960s. A display of old hymnals and Bibles in the library’s lobby details Parton’s career-long emphasis on faith and gospel music.

Lemming, who is serving a stint as artist in residence at Lipscomb, worked with fashion and design students to create the exhibit.

Charlotte Poling

When asked to describe Parton’s style from a fashion designer’s perspective, Poling laughed and said, “Very sparkly, from our perspective!

“She, of course, is one of a kind,” Poling added. While Parton’s look is unique, the techniques used to produce her styles — rhinestoning, tambour beading and “building a couture bodice that is framed to someone’s body” — have broad application for students seeking careers in fashion for the masses.

The exhibit includes detailed descriptions and diagrams that show how the dresses came to life.

There’s also recreation of Parton’s makeup mirror, plus bright lights, backgrounds and a Dolly Parton cutout for visitors to use in selfies.

The exhibit continues through Dec. 9. Tickets are $25. Click here for tickets and more information.

Instead, the two speakers — Kyle Butt, a Christian apologist, and Michael Shermer, an atheist, or skeptic — treated each other with remarkable respect as they argued the existence of God.

A crowd of several hundred from around the world gathered in the Faulkner University gym for a debate on the existence of God.

So did the audience of several hundred packed into Faulkner University’s Tine Davis Gym in late October — an ostensibly hostile crowd for Shermer that never booed or jeered, even if it did let most of his jokes fall flat.

Butt, an apologist for Montgomery-based publisher Apologetics Press, was strait-laced and methodical in his arguing for the proposition, “The God of the Bible exists.”

On the other side, Shermer, co-founder of The Skeptics Society, took a more lighthearted approach as he argued not so much against God’s existence as against any certainty of it.

During the two-hour-long debate, Butt laid out his case based on what he called the “four foundational truths.”

First, “every material effect has a cause,” Butt said. In other words, something can’t come from nothing.

Kyle Butt argues the existence of God at the Faulkner debate, with Michael Shermer behind.

Second, because the universe has a complex, functional design perfectly suited for life, it must have had an intelligent designer.

Third, objective moral values exist — without God, they wouldn’t.

Fourth, the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus — what is known of him both through the Bible and secular history — point to God’s existence.

Shermer, meanwhile, pointed to disagreements not only between many scientists and people of faith but also among different religions — particularly Christians, Jews and Muslims — as evidence of the elusive nature of truth.

“None of us knows anything for certain,” he said.

Shermer also referenced a well-known quote by the 20th century scientist Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” and argued that God is “in the realm of religious truths or mythic truths — truths that have values other than what science can provide for us.”

He added that humans must have the intellectual humility to say, “I don’t know what caused the first cause.”

“And really, that is the scientific answer,” he added. “Nobody knows. I know nobody knows because I don’t know, I know you don’t know, and I know the scientists who study this — they don’t know either.”

Michael Shermer makes arguments against the existence of God at the Faulkner debate.

Butt retorted, “Just because you don’t know everything doesn’t mean you don’t know something,” pointing to the apostle Paul’s statement in Romans 1:20 that “God’s invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made.”

“And so, can we look at what God has created and see aspects about God: that he must be eternal, that he must be supernatural — not part of the material cosmos and universe — and that he must be intelligent, he must be a moral person? Yes, we can do that.”

Other points discussed included naturalism versus supernaturalism (whether there are forces outside the laws of nature), the origin of objective moral standards, free will and the reason for suffering.

“You can’t use the argument of evil, pain and suffering against God logically,” Butt said in response to an audience question on why a loving God would allow human suffering, noting it was difficult to answer within two minutes.

Butt and Shermer respond to questions from the audience at the Faulkner debate.

“And then the emotional argument comes up: Well, where is God when I suffer? Why doesn’t he do something? … God is the same place he was when he allowed his son, Jesus, to die on the cross. … What comes after suffering, seen in Jesus Christ, is ultimately the answer.”

“I just don’t buy it,” Shermer responded. “I mean, childhood leukemia, you know the poor, miserable, suffering children, and then they die, and then their parents’ lives are in grief for the rest of their lives? And this is because God works in mysterious ways?”

Suffering was one of the major causes of Shermer, a 1976 graduate of Pepperdine University, losing his faith in early adulthood. His college girlfriend was paralyzed by injuries from a car accident.

“I prayed for her, you know, and nothing happened,” he recalled. “I thought, what kind of a loving God would not just fix this problem? … That was kind of the last straw for me.”

In the final moments of the debate, both speakers compared the existence of God to that of a watchmaker.

“I could go to the Tag Heuer company and see where they make it,” Shermer said, referring to the watch on his wrist. “I can see the designers designing it and making it. Where do I go to see there’s an intelligent designer, a supernatural intelligent designer? You can’t show it to me. There’s no place to go.”

For Butt, the question was not so much whether it’s possible to see the watchmaker but whether it’s necessary.

“Did he (Shermer) go down to the watch company and see it?” Butt asked. “I doubt it.

“What does that mean? It means that you can look at the thing itself without ever going to the company and (know) something about what the company does. … You could have a singular artifact that you could look at, and regardless of where it came from, you could know that there was intelligence behind its construction. And I think that’s what we do.”

Ultimately, Shermer never took a direct stance against faith in God.

“If you want to believe, go ahead,” he said in his closing statement. “If having a religious truth, like a mythical truth, is useful and works for you, fine. But take it out of the realm of ‘I can prove it’s true.’”

Are Christian debates still useful?

The Faulkner event marked the most high-profile debate involving Churches of Christ in recent history.

College students, families, ministers and others from across the U.S. — even some international visitors — were present, and more watched through the Gospel Broadcasting Network’s livestream.

A 1976 Christian Chronicle front page reports on the Warren-Flew debate.

The event didn’t quite match the magnitude of some of the debates of old, though — when, for example, 5,000 people attended a four-day-long debate on the existence of God between Thomas Warren, a professor at Harding School of Theology, and Anthony Flew, a British philosophy professor at the University of Reading, at the University of North Texas in 1976.

Even when Christian debates were more popular, there were questions about their effectiveness.

“The debater at best may swing a few non-committed persons into his camp and at worst may further alienate those opposed to his position,” a 1969 Christian Chronicle editorial supposed.

But for Faulkner President Mitch Henry, the goal was not so much to change anyone’s mind as to strengthen the faith of Christians who listened — especially young college students like the ones on his campus.

“On most issues, in order to get to the truth, it’s important for you to understand that there are two sides and … to give due consideration to two sides of an issue,” he told the Chronicle. “When you do that … your faith is built and you have a more solid understanding of truth.”

That’s why Julie Miller, a member of the Panama Street Church of Christ in Montgomery, attended the debate with her husband and five children.

“I wanted my kids to hear the debate,” she said, adding, “I think people appreciate hearing what both sides actually have to say rather than just hearing one side isolated by itself.”

Attendees talk with Michael Shermer after the debate.

Mabalo Sinyangwe also appreciated hearing the two arguments, having come from his home country of Zambia in southern Africa to attend the week-long Faulkner Bible Lectureship headlined by the debate.

“It’s opening our mind to see where we should stand as human beings because if I was doubting that there is no God, someone is going to clearly prove that there’s a creator,” he said.

All three Christians believed Butt presented the better case.

Henry said Faulkner plans on hosting more debates, with potential topics ranging from the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision on gay marriage to human suffering.

And he hopes the decorum of the recent debate can set an example for conversations on other hot-button issues.

“I think that so often today, we struggle as a culture, particularly in America now, to have civil discourse,” Henry said. “I think that our national political debates could take a few lessons from what we experienced here today.”

Air Force pilot Todd O’Brien regularly flies a C-17 filled with refugees from a war-torn country or a Gulfstream Jet carrying members of Congress on an official trip.

But once a month these pilots and others gather in Hangar 80 of Tipton Airport in Fort Meade where they plan missions to glorify God through the Maryland Chapter of Pilots for Christ.

The singing group Straight Company leads the hymn “On the Wings of a Dove,” at a recent Pilots for Christ meeting.

The Maryland PFC chapter is made up of about 20 military, airline and general aviation pilots who are part of a national network of men and women who shuttle people who are sick to hospitals and other venues in times of need.

In August, they also sponsored a youth day. In addition to airplane rides for young people, parents and older teens got to practice flying on flight simulators.  Isaiah Harris, 16, was so happy he told his father, “Dad, I can get my pilot’s license by the time I’m 17.” 

O’Brien has helped the younger Harris set up a study schedule and serves as his mentor.

“It was scary and fun,” said 12-year old Joshua Morris after he got out of a four-seat Piper Cherokee.

“This was a great day,” said McFadden, a resident of Laurel.

The husband and father of three worked on a ground crew loading planes before becoming a flight attendant and general aviation pilot more than a decade ago. Now, mentoring youth and ferrying cancer patients is just an extension of  McFadden’s work at the College Park Church of Christ where he is the minister.

“Before Pilots for Christ, I would struggle with the idea of how I could combine my two passions in life that inherently shared nothing in common—aviation and ministry of the gospel,” McFadden said.  “I didn’t know how, but I figured that there had to be a way to do it.” 

“Before Pilots for Christ, I would struggle with the idea of how I could combine my two passions in life that inherently shared nothing in common — aviation and ministry of the gospel. I didn’t know how, but I figured that there had to be a way to do it.” 

That combination became clear five years ago when he was called on to fly Jamila Nelson from South Carolina to Maryland for cancer treatments. Nelson, 24 at the time, was battling bone cancer, and neither she nor her mother could afford the commercial flight to Maryland. Her mother reached out to the South Carolina Chapter of Pilots for Christ who made the arrangements.

McFadden has earned three pilot ratings: single engine, multiple engine and an instrument flight rating where he had to take off and land a plane seeing nothing but instruments.

Melanie Ballard, another member of the College Park congregation, was there to meet the plane when the Nelsons arrived. Ballard is vice president of the Maryland chapter and drove the two ladies to a Bethesda hotel.

 “I know I have found the answer to my deepest desire!” McFadden said. “Through PFC, I can use my aviation skills to help those who need urgent transportation but lack the resources.”

PFC is open to anyone on Youth Day, and participants came from several cities across Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania, including members from several Churches of Christ.

More recently, the Maryland chapter hosted the organization’s national convention at the Embassy Suites hotel near Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. 

The singing group Straight Company sang an old gospel song “On the Wings of a Dove,” and participants were moving their hands like birds flying as singers brought them in for a landing. The group’s leader, Jesse Murray, preached the Sunday sermon the next day.

On Saturday night of the convention, Caleb Smith, 17, a high school junior and the only certified African American glider pilot in the U.S., talked about his adventure of becoming both a single-engine and glider pilot. He hopes to get a Congressional nomination to the Air Force Academy or Naval Academy or may attend Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Caleb Smith climbs into a glider. Smith, 17, is the only certified African American glider pilot in the U.S.

“I like to integrate everything I do with God,” Caleb told the audience. “When I’m up in a glider it’s total dependence on the elements of weather, and we know who controls that.”

Smith and his father, Chazz, attend Cornerstone Assembly of God in Bowie, Md., and enjoy being part of Pilots for Christ, because, the elder Smith said, “We fly together.” 

“Before we leave the house we pray, and there is no fear at all in God,” he said.

https://youtu.be/mljnGmCg-PM?feature=shared

But behind the scenes, the 54-year-old publication, widely read among Churches of Christ with a circulation of 21,000 in 96 countries, reached the end of an era.

The theme of the January 2019 Spiritual Sword was “The Sin of Denominationalism.”

The 73-year-old Getwell Church of Christ in Memphis, Tenn., which began The Spiritual Sword in 1969 and had overseen its publication since, announced in early October that it would close its doors after Oct. 29.

Though the Sword will live on, taken over by another congregation, it’s just one of several publications associated with Churches of Christ touched by larger trends of church closings and post-pandemic challenges affecting the fellowship.

Gospel Advocate magazine and the 21st Century Christian “Churches of Christ in the United States” directory, both headquartered in Nashville, Tenn., have been on hiatus since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gospel Advocate — which was one of the most prominent journals serving Churches of Christ, alongside the now-defunct Firm Foundation, for most of the 20th century —  was last published in 2019. The most recent 21st Century Christian directory was produced in 2018, though the publisher issued a supplemental statistics sheet in 2021.

Gospel Advocate Company co-owner Jodie Duke attributes the break in publishing by both the Gospel Advocate and Christian Woman magazine to disruptions throughout the publishing industry.

“Supply chain issues, staffing consistency, print companies experiencing timely fulfillment obstacles and postal changes are just a few of the areas that have caused an unprecedented impact on niche publishers and retailers,” Duke told The Christian Chronicle.

Meanwhile, the company — founded in 1855 by Tolbert Fanning and William Lipscomb, brother of Lipscomb University co-founder David Lipscomb — has continued publishing books and curricula.

It plans to resume publishing the two magazines as soon as possible, Duke added, though he provided no definite timeline.

Neighboring 21st Century Christian has faced similar challenges. A directory update planned for 2021 was delayed by the pandemic. CEO Matthew McInteer previously told the Chronicle that sending out surveys at a time when churches were in turmoil likely would have resulted in inaccurate data.

Past editions of the 21st Century Christian directory are displayed.

The company has been compiling data for the directory since 2003, and it has served as an important barometer of the growth and decline of congregations and members of Churches of Christ.

Since the pandemic, staffing issues, an office move and work on a new website have further delayed a new edition. The publisher’s bookstore has continued to operate, however.

Carl Royster, 21st Century Christian’s operations director, said the publisher plans to begin collecting new data soon, aiming to print a new directory by mid- to late 2024.

Meanwhile, the evangelistic publication House to House Heart to Heart — overseen by the East Ridge Church of Christ in Chattanooga, Tenn., about 300 miles east of Memphis — is taking over printing and mailing duties for the Spiritual Sword.

House to House Executive Director Luke Griffin told the Chronicle everything else about the Spiritual Sword will remain the same, from longtime editor Alan Highers to the printing schedule, availability of back issues and the price — $10 a year in the U.S.

“It is an important resource, and we plan to keep it going,” Griffin said.

East Ridge also will begin conducting the Spiritual Sword Lectureship next year, previously hosted by Getwell the third week of October since 1976 — even up to the final month of the congregation’s existence.

Publications created by and for members of Churches of Christ have long served a vital function in the fellowship — particularly given churches’ autonomous nature — uniting and at times dividing them over doctrinal issues, according to historian John Young.

“In the absence of official governing structures above or outside of individual congregations, periodicals have played important roles in building networks and facilitating the spread of ideas throughout Churches of Christ,” said Young, an expert in the Restoration Movement that gave rise to Churches of Christ and the Christian Church in the early 19th century.

“Of course, they have at times also contributed to, or at least reflected, some of the fault lines within the fellowship; publications perceived as leaning one way or another doctrinally are less likely to be supported by church members skeptical of that direction,” he added. “So, somewhat paradoxically, they can play a unifying role across a portion of churches, while also mirroring divisions throughout the fellowship as a whole.”

For example, Restoration scholar Douglas Foster wrote of the Firm Foundation in “The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement,” that in the years before its final 2010 issue, the publication “understood its role to be primarily one of targeting progressives and ‘change agents,’ especially in educational institutions and highly visible congregations of Churches of Christ.” 

Douglas Foster

Evangelism- and doctrine-focused publications, such as the Spiritual Sword, Gospel Advocate and Firm Foundation, have dominated the fellowship’s publication landscape in terms of quantity through its history.

Young said even if many of the evangelism publications have been short-lived or limited in their geographic reach individually, if you added them all together, they would represent the largest share of work penned by members of Churches of Christ by far.

Still, other kinds — data-focused, such as the 21st Century Christian directory, and news-focused, such as The Christian Chronicle, to name a couple — have also had their own particular influence over the years, he said. And while Young believes Christian print publications have less influence overall today, as do print publications in general, they still have an important role to play — particularly with the availability and accessibility of digital content.

“Some individual publications may not have the reach that they and their predecessors did,” he added, but “it has never been easier to see, hear or read from a wide variety of perspectives.”

Pepperdine students, faculty, community members and relatives gathered Sunday at the Firestone Fieldhouse to hold a memorial service in honor of four beloved young women: Niamh Rolston, Peyton Stewart, Asha Weir and Deslyn Williams.

The Pepperdine seniors were killed last week after being struck by a vehicle on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said the crash happened around 8:30 p.m. Oct. 17 after a driver lost control of his black BMW and sideswiped three parked cars before fatally striking the victims, along with two others who were hospitalized.

Floral arrangements in the shape of angel wings welcomed guests as they arrived at the memorial ceremony. Guests were encouraged to write a memory or prayer for the families of the four women. “These four girls are angels,” Aubrey Lewis said about her friends during the memorial service on Oct. 22.

Authorities arrested Fraser Michael Bohm, a 22-year-old man, on suspicion of four counts of murder, setting his bail at $8 million, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“We’re here to remember well the lives of who my wife affectionately calls ‘our girls,’” said Eric Wilson, lead minister for the University Church of Christ, who opened the memorial service.

The service included Wilson; Helen Holmlund, assistant professor of biology; Regan Harwell Schaffer, divisional dean of the Business Administration Division; religion professor Dyron Daughrity; Tim Spivey, associate vice president for spiritual life; President Jim Gash; and friends and family of the four women.

The deaths of Niamh, Peyton, Asha and Deslyn are an inexplicable loss for not only the families but the entire Pepperdine community, Schaffer said.

“Thank you for sharing your daughters with us,” Schaffer said.

“The beauty of having small class sizes is that we know who is present, and for us, most heartbreakingly now, we know who is absent.”

Gash sat on the front right side of the auditorium, visibly emotional, periodically wiping his eyes. He shared that a memorial of light will be installed on campus to give continuous tribute to the four students’ lives.

What the faculty cherishes most at Pepperdine is the opportunity to go through life with students, Schaffer said. Faculty often host student groups in their homes — they worship together, travel abroad through International Programs and build close-knit communities together.

“The beauty of having small class sizes is that we know who is present, and for us, most heartbreakingly now, we know who is absent,” Schaffer said.

Friends’ reflections

Seniors Aubrey Lewis, Bridget Thompson and Coco Crandall, all close friends of the four women, reiterated the love, confidence and optimism that Niamh, Peyton, Asha and Deslyn embodied and showcased unconditionally to every person with whom they interacted.

“I keep looking and expecting to see her (Niamh) there, and you know I can’t see her anymore,” Lewis said. “I do know she’s there still.”

Pepperdine faculty, friends and family of Niamh, Peyton, Asha and Deslyn gather after the memorial ceremony Sunday. There is an emptiness felt by the community since the passing of four remarkable women, Schaffer said.

Thompson, the roommate of Niamh, Peyton and Asha, said she lived life day in and day out with the three women.

“I went with them everywhere,” Thompson said. “This (the crash) is the one time I wasn’t with them.”

Members of the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Department, including Capt. Jennifer Seetoo, attended the memorial service.

Hope Dease led the Lord’s Prayer, and Waves Worship followed with two songs: “Lift You High” by Housefires and “Same God” by Elevation Worship.

Families’ reflections

Parents of the four women shared treasured memories of their beloved daughters.

“Niamh wasn’t shy to tell people she loves them,” said Niamh’s father, David Rolston.

Niamh’s father shared about her love for travel and excitement for meeting new people everywhere she went.

Alpha Phi Sorority sisters of Niamh, Peyton, Asha and Deslyn left a card and flowers at the memorial service. Many students and faculty members brought flowers for the families of the four angels.

Following Barry Stewart, Peyton’s younger sister, Kathleen Stewart, talked about her sister’s heart being too big for the world.

“To the outside, Pepperdine is a beautiful place, but the real beauty is on the inside,” said Asha’s mother, Vinita Weir.

Pepperdine has gone beyond what was expected for the victims’ families, said Deslyn’s father, Desmond Williams.

“One thing I take away is that they went together as a friend group, and they died together as a friend group,” Williams said.

Since news of the fatal crash broke, the word has spread internationally, Spivey said. Niamh, Peyton, Asha and Deslyn were no doubt intelligent women, but Spivey pointed out these women also left a lasting impact of goodness on the world.

“They were full of goodness, like the fruit of the Spirit type,” Spivey said.

Spivey encouraged those grieving to turn to prayer. He quoted Romans 8:26-27, “We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”

“This week we lost four bright lights on our campus. But not forever, we will be with them again.”

Gash ended the memorial ceremony reiterating the university’s 2023 theme of light, which is inspired by Matthew 5:14.

“This week we lost four bright lights on our campus,” Gash said. “But not forever. We will be with them again.”

Going forward, there will be a permanent display of four bright lights on campus, Gash said.

Gash concluded with a prayer: “No matter what we face, you are still on the throne, you are still in control, and no evil can ever stand against you for you alone have won the final victory,” Gash said to God.

“This tragedy is not the final word. You are the author of life.”

Reprinted here with permission; this article originally appeared in the Graphic, Pepperdine University’s student newspaper.

The Vienna, W.Va., school closed permanently in December 2021 after years of financial struggles. Longstanding technology issues there and the legal complications of OVU’s bankruptcy prolonged the challenges of students and alumni who needed transcripts.

Karen Driskill, the Oklahoma Christian registrar, said about 5,000 transcripts have been received to date, including those of OVU students and some from Northeastern Christian Junior College, that Villanova, Pa., institution that merged with OVU in 1993.

“We got a laptop and an external hard drive and have been receiving boxes of legacy and older transcripts and are working to make sure they’re in the electronic upload,” Driskill said.

Ohio Valley University in Vienna, W.Va., hosts a college recruiting fair for its remaining students a few days after the Dec. 8, 2021, decision to close permanently.

About 50 requests were received and filled in the first week. The office is no longer keeping a count of requests, but Driskill estimates about 100 have been sent so far.

Driskill went to West Virginia before OVU closed and said she “felt a really good pull with the students, especially after being there and hearing their stories. I really personally wanted to help them.

“A lot of them have had a really rough time getting a job — you can’t get a job without a transcript,” the registrar explained. “I know the past registrar was really trying as best she could, but that was becoming more difficult every day.”

The Parkersburg News and Sentinel reported that a judge in November 2022 granted a motion allowing the receivership handling the property to release student transcripts. Earlier this fall, Oklahoma Christian announced plans to initiate registrar services for OVU students and alumni.

“A lot of them have had a really rough time getting a job — you can’t get a job without a transcript.”

John deSteiguer, Oklahoma Christian’s chancellor; Christine Merideth, its chief development officer; and Jeff Dimick, its chief data and analytics officer, brought the laptop, hard drive and other materials back to Oklahoma after a trip to the West Virginia campus. Dimick had worked at OVU earlier in his career, and Driskill credited his knowledge of the institution with easing the process.

Students and alumni reported having difficulty getting transcripts even before the school shut down, and complaints filed with the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission were among the issues that led the commission to revoke the institution’s authority to issue degrees.

Michael Ross, the last president of Ohio Valley University in Vienna, W.Va., prays with students by a campus fountain.

Former president Michael Ross assured the commission at its Dec. 10, 2021, meeting that software was being installed on OVU servers that day, and he was cautiously optimistic they would be able to pull transcripts that afternoon to facilitate student transfers and teach-outs. That didn’t happen.

OVU alumni may request copies of transcripts by contacting OC’s registrar at oc.edu/registrar.

The large grant is part of the 75th anniversary celebration for Mabee, an organization started by John and Lottie Mabee in 1948 that supports various nonprofits in Texas and nearby states.

For 57 of those years, LCU has been a recipient of Mabee’s investments, making the foundation “an integral part in the growth and maturity of this university,” said Raymond Richardson, the school’s vice president of advancement, in a press release.

LCU’s honors program began more than 20 years ago and transitioned to a full-fledged college in 2016, offering programs specifically tailored to high-achieving students.

Kent Gallaher, LCU provost and chief academic officer speaks at the Mabee Foundation endowment announcement.

In appreciation of the new endowment, the college is being renamed to the J.E. and L.E. Mabee Foundation Honors College and will be housed in the renovated Mabee American Heritage Center.

LCU says the funds will also help the college provide students with additional scholarships, programs and coaching.

For more information about the grant, visit LCU’s website.

“That was 42% of all those involved, which is a phenomenal participation rate,” said the Henderson, Tenn., school’s nursing chair, Chris White, in a press release. “By adding to the registry, they have given people in need hope.  At some point in the future, if matched, they can give the gift of life.”

All it took to join the donor database was a cheek swab.

FHU is one of several universities associated with Churches of Christ that have partnered with blood cancer awareness organization Early Young’s Team — young donors offer recipients the best chance at survival.

FHU senior Brayden Martin, a student ambassador for Earl Young’s Team, makes a presentation to new students.

The team was founded by Earl Young, an Abilene Christian University graduate and Olympic gold medal winner who was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2011 and received blood stem cells from a donor in Germany.

Since 2019, FHU has helped contribute 1,098 donors to the registry, six of whom were matched to someone in need.

In total, the work of Early Young’s Team has registered more than 22,000 donors with 103 matches.

Read more about the drive at fhu.edu and about blood cancer awareness at earlyoungsteam.org.

TENNESSEE

CROSSVILLE — The Crossville Church of Christ celebrated its 100th anniversary recently.

The Crossville church began as a house church in 1923 when two families in the area began meeting in their homes. By 1924, the Crossville church exceeded 30 members and began renting a space on the second floor of the Potter Building on North Main Street.

Today the congregation worships in its auditorium built with native Crab Orchard stone and completed in 1986.

WEST VIRGINIA

MORGANTOWN — Members of the Morgantown Church of Christ are helping their neighbors through the We Are The Sermon Sunday program, when the church takes communion and then goes out into the community to serve.

Armed with paintbrushes, carpentry tools and work gloves, the congregation is partnering with The Human-Animal Bond, a nonprofit that is working with West Virginia University to renovate a farmhouse for teenagers aging out of state wardship as they enter college.

“I love that we’re able to come together to work on this,” Brad Schrum, minister for the Morgantown church, told WBOY 12 News. “We have people from all different backgrounds, all different skill levels, and we got some folks who really know what they’re doing.”

A Morgantown church member works on a service project in his community.

NEWSMAKERS

HIRED: Daniel Risser as the new evangelist at the Cape Cod Church of Christ in Marstons Mills, Mass. Matt Miller as co-minister for the 109 Church of Christ in Lebanon, Tenn. Will Hester as director of church relations and next generation ministries for Herald of Truth Ministries. Jordan Guy as preaching minister at the College Church of Christ in Searcy, Ark. Bryan Hudkins as film instructor at Harding University.

BAPTIZED: Dani, Tahdi and Machele Moore at the Greater Metropolitan Church of Christ in Kansas City, Mo. Pampela Woolds at the South Union Church of Christ in Houston. Savanah Poteet at the Foothills Church of Christ in Searcy, Ark. Lauren Easley at the 7th and Mueller Church of Christ in Paragould, Ark. Ladishia Jenkins and Olivia Haislip at the Red Bank Church of Christ in Chattanooga, Tenn. 

SPOTLIGHT

Freed-Hardeman University’s Justin Rogers, president David Shannon and guests congratulate Earl Edwards in a surprise portrait unveiling in his honor.

Freed-Hardeman University’s Justin Rogers, president David Shannon and guests congratulated Earl Edwards in a surprise portrait unveiling in his honor recently. 

“For more than 60 years, Dr. Earl D. Edwards has tirelessly devoted himself to ministry and missionary training,” said Rogers, dean of the College of Biblical Studies.  “Whether serving as a missionary, a local minister, a faculty member or an administrator, the church always received the best brother Earl had to give.”

Featured image (above): In the rural village of Kyanya, Uganda, people listen and follow along in their Bibles as church members read Scripture and discuss topics including the Sabbath and Jesus’ ministry. The open-air gospel meeting lasted three days, said Willy Bitson, a minister for the Kalhumanga Church of Christ.

“Continue praying for our gospel mission work,” Bitson said. “The work here is big and needs more prayers, more laborers in order to save the lost sheep.” 

INDIA

PUNE — Evangelist Prabhu Kumar journeyed more than 500 miles from his home in southeastern India to Pune, an information technology hub in western India with more than 6 million souls in its metropolitan area.

Prabhu Kumar

Kumar, who preaches for the Punadipadu Church of Christ, inaugurated a new branch of World English Institute, a ministry that uses the Bible to help non-native speakers improve their English. He also visited church members in Pune and worked with Charles Ekka, a member who lives in the town of Baramati.

NIGER

SOURA — In this landlocked West African nation, dominated by the massive Sahara desert, a faith-based nonprofit supported by Churches of Christ raised funds to dig 40 wells in rural villages.

And not a moment too soon.

A trifecta of calamities — a political coup, rampant inflation and disastrous flooding — befell Niger, said Lee Hodges, director of Gallatin, Tenn.-based Hope Springs International. The rains washed away crops. Now the nonprofit seeks to drill 40 additional wells — only 16 of which needed funding at press time, Hodges said.

“Without these wells, there will not be any opportunities to raise another crop until next year’s rainy season,” he said. “The result will be devastating to these families.”

PAKISTAN

SAHIWAL — Hundreds of Pakistani Muslims formed mobs to burn and vandalize church buildings and the homes of Christians in Pakistan’s Faisalabad district. The attacks followed accusations that two members of a Christian community had committed blasphemy.

Ministers in Pakistan survey damage done during recent mob violence against Christians.

Police arrested 130 people in connection with the attacks, but Pakistani Christians said that the police did little to prevent the attacks, Human Rights Watch reports.

“We face backlash, discrimination in each and every field of life, every day, 24/7.”

“We face backlash, discrimination in each and every field of life, every day, 24/7,” said Naeem Sabir, a minister and ministry trainer who works with Churches of Christ and a Bible college about 60 miles south of the attacks. Sabir is raising funds to rebuild the meeting place of a Church of Christ that burned during the riots.

SPAIN

SEVILLE — Christians gathered in this historic city for the 54th meeting of Churches of Christ in Spain.

In addition to Bible lessons, fellowship and times of worship coordinated by Víctor Rubí, this year’s meeting included an emotional moment when Yolanda Monroy presented two mosaic portraits, with allusions to the history of Churches of Christ, to church leaders Miguel Perdomo of Seville and Manuel de León of Asturias in northern Spain.

De León, minister for the Church of Christ in Sama de Langreo, spent nine years in a Catholic seminary studying to become a priest before he was baptized and became part of the Church of Christ. Attendees applauded his testimony.

Song leader Moisés Buzón concluded the meeting with the traditional singing of “El Espiritu Santo (“The Holy Spirit”). 

In a nearby hallway, the hip-hop beat gave way to the four-part harmony of Christians singing “The Old Rugged Cross,” “To Christ Be True” and “I Am Mine No More.”

The Upper West Manhattan Church of Christ worships God in rented space at Hostelling International’s Victorian-style building at the corner of West 103rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue.

Traffic speeds past Hostelling International’s Victorian-style building.

The 25-year-old congregation began meeting in a small karate studio in 1998 — in the community that, four decades earlier, inspired the Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim musical “West Side Story.” 

Don’t look for any Jets or Sharks in Upper West Manhattan’s pews, but the church counts members from every continent except Australia and Antarctica.

“It’s ethnically and culturally a very diverse congregation,” said Tim Norman, a domestic missionary who moved to New York with his wife, Tammy, in 2019. “We have five continents represented, and that’s a blessing.

“One thing you learn in New York City, if you come from the South, is that the church is not a Southern White institution,” he added. “It’s a worldwide institution with people of all colors and races and backgrounds, and that’s a refreshing insight.”

More than 3 million foreign-born residents call New York City home, according to the city government. Those residents speak more than 200 languages.

United Nations of Faith: Read all the stories in the series

The Normans and their missionary partners, Bill and Judy Robinson, see the nation’s largest city as a field “ripe for harvest,” as Jesus described the opportunity for making disciples in John 4:35.

“In a city of 8 million people, there are a lot of lonely people,” Bill Robinson said. “There are a lot of people who are just looking and searching. And their lives are just empty, even though they’re around millions of people and going to work and hustling and bustling.”

Pedestrians cross the street in front of the hostel where the Upper West Manhattan Church of Christ meets.

Evangelism in a metropolis

Juliet Gaengan, the daughter of a Filipino preacher, immigrated to the U.S. 40 years ago to work as a nurse. 

Gaengan, now 65 and retired, has worshiped with the Upper West Manhattan church since 2000.

“It’s a congregation where we strive to teach the Bible and the Bible only,” she said. “We try to do whatever the Bible tells us to do. We try to evangelize and teach people out there, especially the community where we are.”

The hostel is across the street from a 24-hour grocery store, a Chinese takeout restaurant and a bicycle shop. 

Bill and Judy Robinson, at left, pray during a Tuesday night Bible study.

Upper West Manhattan’s Sunday worship averages between 50 and 60 attendees. A smaller group gathers for Tuesday night Bible study. 

Years ago, the congregation chose to meet on Tuesday because other area Churches of Christ had midweek services on Wednesday.

“So we figured, if we would like to visit the other congregations, then Tuesday would be good for us,” Gaengan recalled. “It has worked really well for us.”

On Saturdays, members often pass out flyers inviting neighbors — including those who reside in nearby low-income housing projects — to attend Sunday worship.

Church member Desiree Wilson, left, helps Kim, a visitor, find the right song selection.

“We get a lot of visitors off the street,” Bill Robinson said. “They’ll walk by, and they’ll see our sign. And then some hostel guests will see our sign, and they’ll come and worship. … And what the visitors find most intriguing, I think, about our services is just the simplicity of it.”

The missionaries stay busy during the week studying the Bible with seekers.

“You don’t have to go looking for people to study with,” Tim Norman said. “They come to you.”

While a few Upper West Manhattan members drive to worship, most take a bus or subway — the church is a block from a train station at Broadway and a 10-minute ride from Times Square. 

The membership roll can be transitory as people move in and out of the city.

“It’s a very friendly group. It’s a very warm group,” said Bill Robinson, 69, who has preached for 50 years — from California to Alabama. “I would say that 90 percent of our members greet every visitor that comes through. So I think that’s a big appeal.”

Anthony Wilson prays during a Tuesday night Bible study by the Upper West Manhattan Church of Christ.

The religious landscape

Religiously, New York City breaks down this way: 59 percent Christian, 16 percent non-Christian (such as Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu), 24 percent with no faith and 1 percent who “don’t know,” according to the Pew Research Center.

Catholics (33 percent of the population) constitute the largest share of Christians, followed by evangelical Protestants (9 percent), mainline Protestants (8 percent) and historically Black Protestants (6 percent), based on Pew’s Religious Landscape Study, conducted in 2007 and 2014.

Members of a cappella Churches of Christ — with about 1.4 million men, women and children in the pews nationwide — make up just a tiny fraction of New York City residents.

Graffiti drips down a New York City sign outside of Hostelling International.

Thirty or so congregations with roughly 2,200 adherents are scattered throughout the city’s five boroughs, according to a national directory published by 21st Century Christian. Reflecting the Big Apple’s diversity, those churches include Ghanaian, Haitian, Korean, Russian and Spanish groups.

Robinson lights up when talking about the Upper West Manhattan church’s diversity.

“We’ve got Filipinos, Indians, Nigerians, Puerto Ricans, Caucasians,” he said. “I mean, we have a little bit of everything — and we all just get along, and we love each other, and it’s just really great.”

That love takes precedence over minor theological differences, church leaders said.

“It’s neat being in New York because the number of New Testament Christians is so much fewer than other places,” said Tim Norman, 62, a former CPA who previously preached in Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. “You really value each other a lot more than you do sometimes in other places.”

Upper West Manhattan characterizes itself as a non-institutional church. 

In general, such churches oppose congregational funding of orphanages and Christian colleges as well as missionary cooperatives that make use of a “sponsoring church.”

The institutional vs. non-institutional debate raged among Churches of Christ in the 1950s, but the fight loses relevance in a mission setting such as New York.

“The brethren are a lot more willing to sacrifice what they consider expediencies for fellowship and unity,” Norman said. “And a lot of the things that become issues that disrupt fellowship in other places are just not allowed to take root here.”

Church member John Tillman leaves the Soho Room, where the church meets.

Beyond the Bible Belt

Tim and Tammy Norman are the parents of three and grandparents of six. The couple moved from Arkansas to New York in 2019.

They live on the fifth floor of a 27-story apartment building. They’ve had to adjust to public transportation.

“We had three cars before we moved, and we haven’t had a car for four and a half years,” Tim Norman said with a chuckle. “It’s a strange thing being carless, but leaving the driving to somebody else is not a bad thing.”

The move, he joked, fulfilled Tammy Norman’s dream of “living in a place where she could just go downstairs to the street, and all the shopping that she would need would be right there.”

People wait to board at the nearest subway stop to the Upper West Manhattan church.

That convenience is nice, his wife said. 

But she also noted, “Whatever you purchase while you’re out, you have to carry home.”

On a more serious note, Tammy Norman said working with the Upper West Manhattan church has widened her view of global Christianity.

“It’s just been a huge blessing just to be around the diversity,” she said. “Not everybody looks and acts and thinks like the Bible Belt of America. So it’s been wonderful.”

They New York

For Bill and Judy Robinson, moving to New York brought the opportunity to win souls — and embed themselves in one of the world’s most remarkable cities.

“I love history and museums and that kind of stuff,” Judy Robinson said, “so this is the place for it.” 

The Robinsons have two adult daughters and four grandsons. This past February, they sold all their belongings, except for a few pieces of furniture, and moved into a 700-square-foot Manhattan apartment. It’s about a third of the size of their previous home.

The couple has enjoyed taking out-of-town guests — such as their grandsons — to the top of the 102-story Empire State Building, not to mention New York Yankees and Mets games.

“The church here — I mean, they have just welcomed us and made us feel like family.”

But their first priority is doing the Lord’s work.

“The church here — I mean, they have just welcomed us and made us feel like family,” Judy Robinson said. 

“It’s like foreign work in a lot of ways,” Bill Robinson said of seeking to evangelize New York City.

Before the move, he made 17 mission trips to India. Those trips, he believes, helped prepare him for his latest ministry.

“We love New York City,” he said. “I wasn’t sure about it, but I have really learned to love it.”

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. He has written about diverse churches in Chicago, Houston and beyond. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

Then again, the Long Island Church of Christ — a diverse body with members representing roughly two dozen nationalities — isn’t an ordinary congregation.

Far from the Bible Belt, the growing church meets for now in space rented from St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, about 45 miles east of New York City. Thus, the aforementioned kneelers and pipes.

More than four decades after its founding, the Long Island church recently appointed its first five elders — all first-generation Christians, just like the majority of the congregation — along with 11 deacons.

“We always longed for having elders and deacons, but because of the nature of the congregation, we had to grow into that,” said evangelist Pedro Gelabert, a former atheist who grew up in Puerto Rico.

The church, which each Sunday draws about 250 worshipers to its English assembly and 100 to its Spanish service, launched in 1980 in Kent Field’s basement. Field returned to his native Long Island to plant the church after studying preaching at Sunset International Bible Institute in Lubbock, Texas.

Elder Kevin Booker, left, holds hands with a Long Island Church of Christ member as he prays with her after the invitation song.

Later, the congregation met in a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall, two YMCA facilities and a rented chapel before leasing the Lutheran church about five years ago.

By now, church members had intended to move into their own building, but the pandemic delayed construction in Hauppauge, N.Y., about 20 miles from Lindenhurst.

“We took out a loan in 2019 to start building the church,” elder Steve Aponte Sr. said. “COVID hit and halted everything, which caused inflation and the rising cost of materials. This left us $500,000 short.”

Elder Steve Aponte Sr., center, joins fellow Christians in prayer before a Sunday afternoon assembly of the Long Island Church of Christ.

Rather than take out a second mortgage, the church is asking the congregation and fellow Christians across the nation to contribute to the building fund, Aponte said. 

The total cost of construction is estimated at $3.6 million. Long Island is not an inexpensive place to build.

United Nations of Faith: Read all the stories in the series

“We’re not going to build just for the sake of building,” Aponte said. “We’re going to do it right. We’re going to put it in a neighborhood where we can grow and evangelize.”

Even after the relocation, leaders pray the church will maintain its original DNA — an outreach-focused approach emphasizing door knocking and personal Bible studies.

“It’s a beautiful thing to have people from all walks of life come together for one common goal, and that’s to share a life in Christ here on Earth and then afterward when we’re living in heaven. I love that everyone can come together in peace and harmony.”

Tyrone Shaw, 40, was working at a Home Depot store when he first encountered Rob Young, now one of the Long Island elders.

“He happened to be preaching the Gospel to one of my co-workers,” said Shaw, who was searching for spiritual answers. “I was actually interested in studying the Bible, so I asked Rob how much he charged. He kind of laughed it off and said, ‘There’s no fee. It’s free.’ So I jumped on that.”

Nearly two decades after his baptism, the African American father of four said he relishes the Long Island church’s diversity.

“It’s a beautiful thing,” Shaw said, “to have people from all walks of life come together for one common goal, and that’s to share a life in Christ here on Earth and then afterward when we’re living in heaven. I love that everyone can come together in peace and harmony.”

God’s point of view

One Friday night a month, Long Island members gather for a trilingual devotional — in English, Spanish and American Sign Language.

At a recent devo, the congregation sang hymns such as “My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less” (“Mi Esperanza Firme Está”), “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder” (“Cuando Allá Se Pase Lista”) and “I’ll Fly Away” (“Yo Volaré”).

Charlie Gomez, the congregation’s Spanish-language minister and one of its elders, preached in English and Spanish. Gelabert, whose wife, Clary, is deaf, provided the sign language interpretation.

Clary Gelabert, right, and Cynthia Scott sign the words of a hymn during a worship assembly of the Long Island Church of Christ.

In his sermon, Gomez showed a picture of the Empire State Building, the camera gazing up from the bottom.

“It just looks overwhelming,” he told the church. “That’s the view from below.”

But peer down from the top of the 102-story skyscraper, and the people and buildings of New York City shrink, he noted as he switched images.

That’s the difference, the minister suggested, between how humans experience the world and how God sees it.

“Every situation in life, every trial, whatever it is, you have been invited — you have been given the privilege — to look at it from God’s point of view,” he said.

To Gomez, the heavenly point of view seemed unimaginable three decades ago.

Charlie Gomez, a Long island church elder and minister, preaches during a recent assembly as Pedro Gelabert and Michael Chan provide American Sign Language interpretation.

“They used to call me Saul,” he told The Christian Chronicle, referring to the future apostle who persecuted Jesus’ disciples.

Now 50, Gomez was a 19-year-old “militant atheist” when Christians eager to share the Gospel first knocked on his dorm room door at Stony Brook University.

“Sometimes I would slam the door in their faces,” he recalled. “Sometimes I would cuss them out. And sometimes I would just let them in and give them a piece of my mind and make fun of them.”

But a health scare that required a kidney biopsy softened his heart. He suddenly accepted an invitation to the Long Island church. 

When he first showed up, he recognized the faces of Christians who had tried to tell him about Jesus.

“I was super embarrassed,” he said. “I felt so ashamed about the way that I treated them.”

But his presence did not discourage his former targets.

It gave them hope.

“There was so much rejection that they faced every single day. I wasn’t the only one; I was just the nastiest,” Gomez said. “But to see someone like me come to Christ, it had to inspire them and really motivate them.”

“There was so much rejection that they faced every single day. I wasn’t the only one; I was just the nastiest. But to see someone like me come to Christ, it had to inspire them and really motivate them.”

‘A multiplying, thriving ministry’

Baptized in 1981, Bob Carr was one of the first college students converted by the fledgling Long Island church. 

He later served as the congregation’s minister for 22 years.

“The church in the book of Acts was a multiplying, thriving ministry that went beyond taking the Lord’s Supper and singing a cappella,” said Carr, who remains active in personal Bible studies. 

Another influential convert was Rebecca Aponte Young, who attended Stony Brook University with Charlie Gomez.

Rob Young, an elder of the Long Island Church of Christ in Lindenhurst, N.Y., prays with two women after the invitation song on a recent Sunday afternoon.

Unlike Gomez, Young wanted to learn more about Jesus. She tells how she chased after the Christians who knocked on his door and became a disciple herself. 

She later taught the Gospel to her parents, Steve and Laura Aponte, as well as her future husband, Rob Young. 

Little did she know that both her father and her husband would become church elders.

“The fact that God used me … in their coming to Christ is miraculous in and of itself,” Rebecca Young said. “I was the worst of sinners.”

Her father recalls that she started bringing groups of Christians to the family’s Staten Island home — more than 60 miles from the church — for barbecues.

“They came, and they were encouraging, loving people,” Steve said. “And there were a lot of them. One day, Laura said, ‘What are we going to do? We don’t have enough hamburgers and hot dogs.’ I said, ‘I’ll put on a pot of pasta and spaghetti sauce.’”

Despite enjoying the fellowship, the Apontes, who were culturally Catholic, resisted their daughter’s evangelistic efforts.

For a while, anyway.

“We gave God a good laugh for a couple of years,” Steve said, “until 1995 when Laura and I got baptized the same day. So we’re twins.”

‘We all have stories’

In the Long Island church, powerful stories of conversion abound.

Transformed lives fuel new Christians’ passion to share their hope.

“Because we all come from darkness, we all have stories,” said Bernadette Gomez, Charlie’s wife of 25 years. 

The daughter of Italian immigrants, she was baptized after studying with Deborah Tomengo, a Long Island member and fellow student at Suffolk County Community College.

“We’ve all been healed from so much,” Bernadette said, “and the church is such a safe place for us.”

A Long Island Church of Christ member is reflected in the glass separating the auditorium from the lobby of the St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church building.

There’s no place she’d rather be than in the house of the Lord.

“And it’s hard for us to understand,” she said, “when we visit another congregation, and everyone is at a football game or a baseball game instead of the devo.”

At the Long Island church, hugging fellow Christians is a deeply ingrained part of the culture — a way to greet one another and convey love.

“It’s a place where you can feel at home,” Bernadette said. “It’s a place where you’re going to be loved. We do hold each other accountable. It’s just a very special place.”

With about 100 boys and girls in the children’s program, the adult Christians face a new challenge: imparting their zealous faith to the next generation.

That’s definitely the congregation’s goal, said elder Ray Gomez, an immigrant from Costa Rica and the father of two daughters. (He is not related to fellow elder Charlie Gomez.)

“We have to train our kids … because we’re not getting any younger,” Ray Gomez said. “We have to see that God is going to take care of the church going forward.”

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

TO CONTRIBUTE to the Long Island building fund, click the “Giving” button on the church’s website. Checks can be mailed to: Long Island Church of Christ, P.O. Box 607M, Bay Shore, NY 11706.

“There’s a storm a-brewing,” minister Eric Wilson told those gathered at the University Church of Christ Malibu.

He wasn’t talking about the hurricane. He was talking about life.

“‘Come unto me all you that are weary and heavy laden.’ Come if you’re tired and been carrying too much,” the preacher said. “This is Jesus’ offer: ‘I will give you rest.’”

Technically, Hilary was a tropical depression when it hit Los Angeles County on Aug. 20. But the National Weather Service hadn’t issued a tropical storm warning here since 1997. Malibu, a coastal community about 35 miles northwest of Los Angeles, worries more about fire than rain. 

The University church met at 10 a.m. that Sunday, much like it has since 1970 when Christians first came together in the basement of the L.A. County Courthouse in Malibu. Most Sundays, members gather in the university’s iconic Stauffer Chapel. But the first services each fall meet in the adjacent amphitheater where back-to-school crowds can gaze at the Pacific.

The Waves Church planned its first-ever service by the campus fountain. Then Hilary arrived, soaking the usually sun-drenched campus, and both Churches of Christ moved indoors to Elkins Auditorium. Waves will also meet in Stauffer going forward, but on Sunday evenings.

Tropical Storm Hilary soaks Pepperdine University’s campus.

An a cappella praise team led the morning worship. A couple with a guitar led the evening worship. Both churches served communion. Crowds of about 140, made up mostly of students, attended each service.

Although church and university leaders describe both congregations as entirely autonomous, the University church has been — from its beginning — enmeshed with Pepperdine through common leadership, facilities and shared resources. 

Pepperdine provides “essentially the salary of the campus minister,” along with the rent-free use of all facilities, President Jim Gash said. In addition, the university allocated two on-campus condos purchased by the church for its minister and campus minister. 

The new Waves Church, led by board of regents member Alan Beard and his wife Sharon, Pepperdine’s dean of students, does not receive a cash subsidy but has free access to campus facilities. It was allowed to purchase an on-campus condo for minister Taylor Walling and his family, who recently moved to Malibu from The Hills Church of Christ in suburban Fort Worth, Texas. Donors are covering other expenses.

Waves was established at the behest of the regents’ Faith and Heritage Committee at its June 15 meeting. The committee, composed of trustees who are Church of Christ members, wields significant power, including tenure recommendations. Its primary responsibility, according to member Alan Beard, is oversight of spiritual life, “everything from Bible lectures to campus ministry.”

Where do students worship?

But how many Pepperdine students go to church anywhere on Sundays? Not a lot, and they’re scattered.

Only about 8 percent of Pepperdine undergrads are members of Churches of Christ, according to Gash, who is a member at University but also plans to attend Waves. He went to both on hurricane Sunday. 

Gash was an elder at the University church before he became president. Subsequently, the congregation shifted to leadership by a seven-member Pastoral Care and Oversight Council, three men and four women chosen by the congregation.

A few students attend a handful of congregations within 30 to 45 minutes of Malibu. All feature a cappella worship and broad though not identical leadership roles for women. Most are small. Most California churches are.

Other students — perhaps 100, Sharon Beard said — attend the evangelical Vintage Church Malibu. Vintage pursues the student population with carpools and weekly small groups, which, according to its website, meet on campus. Vintage’s influence on campus was the subject of extensive reporting last year by The Graphic, Pepperdine’s student news organization.

Regardless, most students do not go to church anywhere. The percentage of college students nationwide who attend religious services regularly has dropped precipitously over 30 years. 

Last year, students could choose from a cappella worship services at the University church on Sunday mornings; Wednesday night instrumental worship at The Well, sponsored by Pepperdine’s Spiritual Life Hub; or The Table, a Saturday evening instrumental worship and meal sponsored by the University church but funded by a donor through the president’s office. Gash said the Texas donor reported that his financial situation had changed, and The Table was canceled for this year.

This year is pretty much the same, except instead of The Table, other donors are supporting Waves.

The Waves Church meets on a Sunday night in Stauffer Chapel.

The ‘Why?’ question

So why does a campus with fewer than 4,000 undergrads need two Churches of Christ?

Alan Beard says it’s all about how Christian universities see students. Pepperdine attracts a lot of Christian students, but not necessarily from Church of Christ backgrounds.

“We thought there was an opportunity to look at Pepperdine in a new way — as a mission field — and try to reach students while they are on our campus,” Beard said.

To Walling, a second church provides an opportunity to minister to students in different ways.

“If the Church of Christ and Restoration Movement have a diversity of expressions, then it doesn’t feel out of step for there to be a diversity of expressions on a campus that has that heritage.”

“If the Church of Christ and Restoration Movement have a diversity of expressions, then it doesn’t feel out of step for there to be a diversity of expressions on a campus that has that heritage,” he said.

Gash said Pepperdine hasn’t always been involved in spiritual life programming, but he wants that to change. “That had been largely delegated to local churches, but it’s important to me for the university to be clearly involved beyond the classroom in learning.”

Not everyone is so optimistic. 

“People are already talking,” said Amy Doran, who heads the University church’s finance ministry. “Is this the beginning of the end of University church? If it starts faltering, are we taking out UCC and putting our resources into the new one?”

The Beards told University church members there was no reason for such fears. But, Doran said, “It’s a weird place to be. It’s a weird spot for all of us at University church.”

For students, it comes down to a choice between a multigenerational church vs. one focused exclusively on students. 

Multigenerational church

Falon Barton became a Christian as an undergrad through relationships she established at the University church. She’d never heard of the Church of Christ. She’s been campus minister there since 2021. 

“This is the community that has loved me and shaped me into who I am today,” she told students, encouraging them to find a multigenerational church somewhere.

That philosophy was evident in those leading in worship at University: children, parents, students and gray-haired faculty.

Falon Barton speaks at the University Church of Christ on a recent Sunday.

“You bring life to them,” Barton told the students. “We really focus on bringing college students here because we need you to worship with us.”

Barton said 50 to 60 students attend University’s worship most Sundays, and about 200 are involved in other activities including small groups, which have been part of the congregation’s campus ministry for decades. This year’s iteration is Unfiltered, focusing on students who are “nones, dones and almost dones,” Barton said, using terminology that describes young adults’ relationship with religion.

Once a month students also will be invited to a community life communion — communion as a full meal in members’ homes.

Stacy and Steve Rouse, members of University’s Pastoral Care and Oversight Council, have seen multigenerational ministry play out in students’ lives.

“We talk a lot about being an intergenerational church and a sending and receiving church. That presence is really powerful — saying, ‘We want you to be part of the life of this church.’”

“We talk a lot about being an intergenerational church and a sending and receiving church. That presence is really powerful — saying, ‘We want you to be part of the life of this church,’” Stacy Rouse said.

“It was a surprise for a new church to be created,” Steve Rouse added. “But it doesn’t necessarily mean we need to change.”

Barton also was surprised. The Pastoral Council was told of the plan just days after the regents’ decision. A few days later, the University church staff was informed, and on Sunday, June 25, council member Lucy Perrin read a letter from the Beards to University members.

“I know this is a lot to hear and absorb,” she told members. “The council is only days ahead of you.”

Amy Doran and husband Chris, a religion professor, watched online from Argentina when the letter was read. Chris is also outgoing Seaver faculty president. They’ve been at the University church for more than 20 years.

“My initial reaction,” the professor said, “was, ‘This is going to hurt a lot of people I care about, some of whom are part of the founding of the church.’ And second, ‘This is a really stupid idea.’”

“Throwing money and resources for a nighttime service has been tried by churches across the country with no success stories,” he added.

Amy Doran agreed. “It felt so dismissive of the work that University church does.”

More than that, Chris Doran added, “There’s a significant concern, and in some cases fear, that saying anything about this particular effort that could be perceived as critical could be detrimental to people’s careers.”

Student-focused church

The night of Waves Church’s first meeting, Hilary blew in full force. Ten minutes before the scheduled start, just a dozen students had arrived, but by a few minutes after 5, the crowd had grown. With lights dimmed, prerecorded music faded as the guitar player began worship: “I get to be the first to say, ‘Welcome to Waves Church!’”

Taylor Walling was on vacation when Alan Beard called him in late June. 

“He said, ‘We are starting a church on campus, and I want to talk to you about being the lead minister,’” Walling recalled. 

The Waves Church praise team leads worship on Sunday during Tropical Storm Hilary.

Walling, a 2009 Oklahoma Christian University graduate, believes college students should have a spiritual home throughout the college years, “and it should be a local congregation.”

Beard and Gash have been clear that Waves will focus exclusively on students — no children’s ministry, no youth ministry, no senior ministry. Because other churches in the region don’t have Sunday night services, Beard and Gash anticipate some families will also attend Waves in the evening.

The Beards plan to do that. They have been closely connected to the university since their student days. Professionally, Alan’s career as an entrepreneur in marketing, entertainment and technology includes a premier list of past clients: AT&T, Disney, Fox, Coca-Cola, Sony, Universal and others. Yet for 19 years he directed Won by One, Pepperdine’s a cappella singing group. Sharon has worked at the university since 2003. They love Pepperdine.

Alan brought that entrepreneurial energy to the creation of Waves, and the couple has planned every aspect of the start-up, from naming it to finding a minister. (Waves is the name of Pepperdine’s mascot.)

Sharon said they’ve handled logistics, reserving rooms, creating logos and dealing with the legal paperwork necessary for starting a church.

“We’re definitely learning as we go,” she said, “thinking about how we’ll reach students and get them to come. We’ve been in constant conversations with different groups of students and trying to do our best to communicate with University church and anyone who has questions.”

“I’d be lying if I didn’t say there’s some fear, some insecurities. … But when I think of the future of this church, it’s important to know no one on the team is building this church. Jesus is building this church. We’d love you to be part of that building project.”

Walling’s first sermon at Waves was from Matthew 16:13-20 and focused on Jesus’ questions: “Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am?”

“The first question is a matter of information,” Walling said. “The second question is formation.”

The minister talked about answering those questions amid the challenges of life as a college student:

“You’re going to take a class that will challenge your assumptions — you’ll have a conversation with a friend, an unexpected struggle or a tragedy. And we find ourselves wrestling again — what do I really believe?”

As Hilary raged outside, Walling assured students that working through the questions is worth it.

“I’d be lying if I didn’t say there’s some fear, some insecurities. … But when I think of the future of this church, it’s important to know no one on the team is building this church. Jesus is building this church. We’d love you to be part of that building project.”

CHERYL MANN BACON is a Christian Chronicle contributing editor who served for 20 years as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University. Contact cheryl@christianchronicle.org.

Churches can volunteer to host 30-minute or one-hour virtual meeting slots between 6 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, Oct. 20, and 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21.

William Cottman

University Parkway outreach minister William Cottman said the 24 Hours of Prayer Global event, now in its third year, began during the COVID-19 pandemic, when church members saw a need for connection.

“We wanted to be able to unify the Churches of Christ across the globe to be able to be that one body, to come together, discuss the things that were affecting us most intimately and pray, sing and be able to network and let people know that we care about them,” he told The Christian Chronicle.

For the first year of the prayer vigil, in 2020, churches from five countries and 18 time zones participated, filling the entire 24 hours. Since the event resumed in 2022, Cottman said it’s continued to grow.

Last year’s event featured Alexander Rodichev, a Ukrainian who talked about the history of Churches of Christ in the Eastern European nation and the plight of Christians there since the Russian invasion.

The University Parkway church has also kept in contact with several of the other international participants, from countries such as Nepal and Kenya, who need ongoing support.

“It’s refreshing being able to hear and see from individuals across the globe because sometimes we get caught up in our immediate circle and we forget other people who may be going through tougher times,” Cottman said.

He added that it’s important for Christians to “not only just say that we’re going to pray for someone but actually taking the time to spend time and pray with someone and just keeping in touch and having that connectivity.”

As of mid-September, 16 churches had agreed to help host the prayer event, with a few time slots still available. There’s also a need for people to help coordinate the Zoom calls — and to spread the word, Cottman said.

Congregations wanting to participate can email 24hoursofprayerglobal@gmail.com for information.

Individuals can also register at https://24hoursofprayerglobal.eventbrite.com to receive email updates and a link to the video stream.

It’s a familiar commitment. The junior general studies major has played softball since third grade. 

What’s new is her expressing her faith after practice at York University’s chapel.

Bailey Hardey

Gathering every day with her teammates and the rest of the York student body at 10 a.m., Hardey sings, prays and listens intently to the chapel speaker.

“Chapel is my favorite time of the day,” said Hardey, 19. “Because chapel, it gives you a lot of inspiration — a lot of inspiring talks from the faculty, the staff, the student body.”

But religion didn’t always play a large role in Hardey’s life. 

Culturally Catholic, she attended Sunday morning Mass occasionally with her grandmother while growing up in San Bruno, Calif., but had no specific individual faith. 

Then one of her professors, Sarah Van Gomple, invited her to the East Hill Church of Christ in York during her freshman year. 

Van Gomple’s husband, Ken, baptized Hardey at the East Hill church the following semester.

“All of a sudden, I got this itch,” Hardey recalled. “I loved going to church. I love having faith, being a Christian and just learning.

“It changed my life forever.”

Coming to play, not pray

Faith is an intentional element of York University, which is associated with Churches of Christ.

Besides the daily mandatory chapel for students, the university offers a Wednesday night worship service and encourages students to attend church on Sunday morning. 

But the average student doesn’t attend York for religious reasons. Many, like Hardey, are recruited for college athletics — not faith. 

“A lot of our incoming students are first-generation college students and looking for ways to feel plugged in and be affordable,” said Shannon Leinen, York’s provost. “Athletics provides a natural fit for that.”

About 80 percent of the York student body is involved in one of 18 athletic programs offered on campus, including esports and dance as well as most traditional sports. 

Those programs give the university leverage to recruit outside of its own state. Only about 30 percent of the student body, on average, is from Nebraska.

This year York recruited students from 35 states and 24 countries largely due to the athletic programs, according to David Odom, York’s vice president for enrollment. 

Potential students wait under the York University archway on the Nebraska campus.

But the university’s concentration in athletics makes leadership more sensitive to its Christian mission.

“When you have a lot of athletes and they’re here for athletics … then you could lose sight of trying to show that this is a Christian institution,” Odom said. “That’s why I think President (Sam) Smith has made it one of his vision statements to say, ‘We really must look that way, whether it’s aesthetically or just when people notice our behavior, how we respond or what programs we have — those have to show that we’re a Christian institution.’”

That’s where the coaches come in. 

Softball head coach Roni Miller is as focused on her players’ spiritual well-being as she is with how they perform on the field. 

She, like Hardey, chose to leave her life in California to play softball for York in 1997. 

“I believe that our faculty and staff are relentlessly intentional about what we do every day. … We are intentional with who we want them to become so that when they go into the world, they’re ready.”

Her time as a student is when her faith became her own, Miller said. Now she hopes her involvement with her athletes will have a similar influence. 

“I believe that our faculty and staff are relentlessly intentional about what we do every day,” Miller said. “We are intentional with how we interact with each other. We are intentional with how we communicate. We are intentional with who we want them to become so that when they go into the world, they’re ready.”

It’s an influence that doesn’t go unnoticed. Miller was one of the people who encouraged Hardey’s baptism. 

“She wants us to build our faith,” Hardey said. “Even if you’re Catholic, she wants you to build your faith as much as possible. And she’s not judgmental at all.”

Breaking records

Despite decreasing enrollment trends across the country, York University recently reported breaking the threshold of 700 students for the first time. 

York recorded a 5 percent increase among undergraduate students, with 446 on campus this semester. 

The stable population of graduate students — both online and in-person — as well as growth in York’s dual enrollment program raised the overall enrollment to 711. 

While the majority of undergraduate students attend due to athletics, partnerships with several organizations have aided the university in bolstering its graduate and dual enrollment programs over the past two years. 

“It is always our intention to continue to grow other aspects of campus,” Leinen said. “Our business program is our largest program on campus and thriving.

Jason Hawkins, youth minister for the Odessa Church of Christ in Missouri, leads a Soul Quest class on Peter in the York University library.

“Because we’re smaller, we work well together across campus, which I think you don’t always find in higher education,” she added.

The total tuition cost including room and board for the 2023-24 academic year ranged from $30,500 to $31,200. 

The average York student receives between $13,000 and $15,000 in scholarships each year, according to Odom. Students may stack up to three scholarships, which are capped at full-tuition coverage.  

The university reported that 98 percent of all students receive financial aid. The athletic program offers many of those scholarship opportunities for prospective students. 

While the majority of undergraduate students are athletes, Leinen expects other programs will grow in the future.

“But I feel like in the meantime, I don’t believe it’s a hindrance to our culture or our academics,” Leinen said. 

Training students physically and spiritually 

The university also reported growth in Bible majors, Church of Christ-affiliated students and children of alumni. 

Among those Bible majors are several who came to York University to play ball — not study the Bible. 

“Some of our Bible majors now came because they got recruited to play a sport,” said Garrett Best, chair of the Bible department and associate professor of Bible. “They didn’t come because they saw that we’re a premier Bible training institution.”

Garrett Best, chair of the Bible department and associate professor of Bible at York University, teaches a class on biblical history.

While Best’s long-term goals are to recruit students who attend York for the Bible program, he hopes all students find their spiritual calling.

“We’re here to train students for the church, and we’re here to serve the church,” Best said. “That is why we exist, and that is the majority of what we do.”

Three students — all athletes — were baptized at the beginning of the semester. New social club Chi Rho, sponsored by Best, hopes to aid the spiritual development of young Christians on campus.  

“We’re here to train students for the church, and we’re here to serve the church. That is why we exist, and that is the majority of what we do.”

Hardey joined the ranks as an officer this semester, a year and a half after her baptism.

“The club is basically to help students that don’t know God as well, who have no church background or don’t know Christ,” Hardey said. “For me, going to church, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. It’s honestly a life-changing club.”

Rick Odell announces OC’s Heritage Scholarship during statewide youth worship night at Memorial Road Church of Christ in Edmond, Okla.

Beginning with the fall 2024 semester, OC’s new Heritage Scholarship will guarantee first-year students active at a Church of Christ receive half of their tuition costs when combined with other university scholarships.

The discount will be renewable for up to eight semesters of undergraduate studies.

“We’re grateful to honor OC’s strong relationship with Churches of Christ through this initiative,” said Associate Director of Church Relations Rick Odell, who announced the scholarship at Unite — a statewide youth worship night. “With this program, potential students from Churches of Christ will be afforded an exceptional opportunity to further foster connections to faith communities while pursuing their educational and professional goals.”

OC President Ken Jones noted the importance of Churches of Christ to the history and success of the university.

“This program is one way we can pay homage to that legacy and support church growth,” Jones said in a press release. “We also remain focused on our role as a ‘kingdom university’ recruiting and serving students from all faith backgrounds. We will continue to seek innovative ways to create an enduring path for Christian higher education.”

For more information

For details about the scholarship, see Oklahoma Christian University’s website.

Hundreds of students took to the pews for Unite — a statewide youth worship night — filling the floor and forcing the church to open a section of its stadium seating.

Oklahoma Christian University President Ken Jones led the opening prayer.

“I pray tonight, Father, that you would be with each one of these young people who are here, that something can be done, said that will cause them to have even a stronger connection to you,” Jones said. “Father, we want blessings over all of our churches in this state, and we all want your kingdom to spread in this nation. We believe that the only way this nation can reverse the course that it’s on is that your kingdom spreads.”

Featured speaker James Simmons, lead minister for the Contact Mission Church of Christ in Tulsa, Okla., smiled as he studied the crowd.

“There’s so much of this world that tries to tell us through all sorts of different things that we are not
united,” Simmons said. “And the adversary will come in and … play these mind games. He says, ‘Yeah, you see that scandal there? That church? Yeah, they just split up, too.’ And systematically, he will give us this narrative as if the church is dying, is decaying.

“Here’s the thing: I am looking at the church of today, right here amongst us. You all are the church of now — not tomorrow, not Sunday.”

But unity doesn’t equal uniformity, Simmons stressed, referencing 1 Corinthians 12:12-14, “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body — whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free — and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.”

“I am looking out, and I am seeing the kingdom of God tonight, because I see different churches,” Simmons said. “I see different groups. I see different ethnicities and races and cultures, all mixed together under one banner of unity in Christ.

“I am seeing the kingdom of God tonight, because I see different churches. I see different groups. I see different ethnicities and races and cultures, all mixed together under one banner of unity in Christ.”

“The church should be known as a banner of love, of peace, of forbearance with one another, but there’s so many times we hear in our culture that the church isn’t united,” Simmons added. “I’m here today to tell you that we need to get back to the sentiment of unity.”

One event sponsor is supporting that unity financially.

Taking to the stage, a spokesperson for Oklahoma Christian University announced that starting with the freshman class in 2024, the institution will offer a 50 percent tuition discount to all active members in youth groups within Churches of Christ.

High school students in the audience gasped — and then began to whisper to each other. A drawing open to Unite participants offered an additional $500 scholarship.

The university also provided dinner for the Sunday event after worship, serving students fried chicken. Concession trucks offered snow cones and other treats outside in the Memorial Road church parking lot.

The teenagers were then free to choose between a myriad of activities: rock climbing, pool, inflatable wipeout,
9 Square, pickleball and more.

He has blessed thousands more through his reporting, editing and monthly columns in the pages of The Christian Chronicle.

Family, friends and Christian Chronicle staffers gather in the library of Oklahoma Christian University to celebrate the 90th birthday of the newspaper’s longtime editor and friend Bailey McBride.

So, on McBride’s 90th birthday, family, friends and Chronicle staffers gathered in the library of Oklahoma Christian University to celebrate as the Chronicle announced an endowment initiative in honor of McBride to support coverage of international news.

It was an appropriate setting for McBride, who mentored countless students during his tenure at the university.

The Bailey McBride Endowment is a portion of the Chronicle’s permanent endowment that will help the publication live up to its tagline — “an international newspaper for Churches of Christ.” The income will provide funds for reporters to learn firsthand how congregations, missionaries and ministries serve God around the world. The endowment also will help the newspaper connect with and equip foreign correspondents in places where Churches of Christ are growing rapidly — from Latin America to Africa to Southeast Asia.

McBride has harbored a passion for international missions since he read about Otis Gatewood’s work in Germany after the devastation of World War II, published in the Chronicle in 1947.

Baptized at age 12 in California, McBride’s journey of faith led him to Oklahoma Christian University, where he served for a half-century in roles including provost, academic vice president, dean, professor, master teacher and honors program director. In 2004, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame. He and his first wife, Joyce, led numerous student campaigns to Europe and the Pacific Rim.

When Oklahoma Christian took oversight of the Chronicle in 1980, McBride and editor Howard Norton worked tirelessly to rebuild the publication and continue its dedication to international news coverage.

Bailey McBride is surrounded by his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren during his 90th birthday celebration, held in the lobby of the Beam Library on the campus of Oklahoma Christian University, which owns The Christian Chronicle. (Photos by Audrey Jackson)

In the past year, McBride’s family and close friends have contributed $251,100 to the endowment. Their generosity is astounding, said Chronicle president and CEO Erik Tryggestad.

“Bailey McBride means the world to us,” said Tryggestad, who began working for the Chronicle 22 years ago as a reporter. “He’s been a second father to me, and he instilled in me a love for the global church.”

McBride offered his personal funds to help Tryggestad attend the Pan European Lectures in Russia and Estonia in 2002. Since then, Tryggestad has, at times, used his own funds to help finance international reporting.

“It’s always a worthwhile investment,” Tryggestad said, “and the income from this endowment will allow us to keep investing in international news after Bailey and I are gone.

Bailey McBride talks with Phil Brookman, minister for the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Oklahoma.

“If we can give our readers just a glimpse of a bigger world — and God’s involvement in it — then we’ve done our job. If we can reveal just the hem of the garment, we know Jesus will do the rest.”

SEND BIRTHDAY GREETINGS to Bailey McBride c/o The Christian Chronicle, PO Box 11000, Oklahoma City, OK 73136-1100 or email letters@christianchronicle.org.

To contribute to the McBride endowment, see christianchronicle.org/mcbride, send checks with the note “McBride” to our PO Box (see above) or call (405) 425-5070.