They had no idea his late mother, Maria Landa, was an Ivy League-educated psychologist.

They just knew the son of Cuban immigrants looked homeless — and desperately needed a bath.

“I mean, Jesus is for everyone,” said David Duncan, preaching minister for the Memorial Church of Christ, which averages Sunday attendance of about 800. “Nobody’s going to be turned away. And he obviously had some very dire needs.”

“I mean, Jesus is for everyone. Nobody’s going to be turned away.”

Costabile, 59, who battles a variety of physical and mental health issues, saw a banner advertising the congregation at Houston’s Memorial City Mall. 

He walked 1.3 miles from the shopping center to the church building, just off Interstate 10.

“Let’s be honest: There have been conversations where people are like, ‘He doesn’t need to be here. It’s not safe for our kids,’” said Mike Avery, Memorial’s community minister. “Some people don’t want him around. But that’s because the church is human, right? And they’re scared, and they’re fearful.

Maurice Costabile enjoys a moment of relaxation at the Memorial Church of Christ in Houston.

“But I’m happy that our church overall has really worked to help him and not kick him out,” Avery added. “So we’re really trying, and we’re not going to give up on him.”

Avery helped Costabile connect with Houston law enforcement’s Homeless Outreach Team and has taken him to medical appointments.

However, finding a long-term solution off the streets has proven more difficult. Costabile’s lack of official documents, such as a birth certificate or a Social Security card, complicates applying for government benefits.

“We tried to get him into a halfway house,” Avery said, “but he only lasted a few days because it’s made for people who can take care of themselves physically, and he can’t do that.”

To make Costabile more presentable for worship, the congregation began renting a hotel room to give him a shower before the Sunday service.

“He knows how to survive on the street, but he’s in terrible health,” Duncan said. “It’s not that you can save everybody, but when somebody comes into your church building, I think you have a responsibility to help.”

“It’s not that you can save everybody, but when somebody comes into your church building, I think you have a responsibility to help.”

‘Maurice is God’s child’

With more than 25 nationalities represented in the pews, the Memorial congregation reflects the diversity of Houston.

Church volunteers — including an 83-year-old Jamaican immigrant named Sadie Powell and a 38-year-old Russian immigrant named Yulia Merchant — lead the effort to help Costabile.

On a typical Saturday night, Merchant, a nurse practitioner, and her three school-age sons pick up food for Costabile from Spencer Prather, one of Memorial’s children’s ministers.

The Memorial Church of Christ in Houston rents a hotel room to give Maurice Costabile a shower.

Then the mother and boys give Costabile a ride from the church building to the hotel, where they connect with Powell.

Costabile has leg wounds caused by lymphedema.

“We shower him together, and after his shower, I change any wound dressings, if needed, and wrap his legs,” said Merchant, who also spearheaded the launch of Memorial’s thriving ministry for Ukrainian refugees. “He usually gets a very good night’s sleep at the hotel.”

On Sunday morning, Merchant makes sure Costabile has breakfast and drives him to worship. Powell takes him to lunch.

Costabile has the mind of a child and can’t care for himself, Merchant said.

“If that would be my child, and God would take me to heaven, I would want my child to be taken care of,” she said of her motivation. “And Maurice is God’s child.”

A missing person

Costabile told church members that he and his mother were living in an extended-stay hotel during the pandemic. But then she got into an accident and later died of COVID-19, he said.

After he wandered away from the hospital, loved ones filed a missing person report in 2021.

“But the people who filed that have since died,” Avery said.

Memorial leaders pray that publicity about Costabile might alert relatives to his whereabouts and prompt them to contact the church.

“You got some new clothes,” Duncan, the preaching minister, said as he greeted Costabile in the church office this week.

“Yeah,” Costabile replied before turning the conversation to recent heavy rains in Houston. “It’s very bad weather out. The other day, there was a lot of thunder.”

Maurice Costabile enjoys a meal with a church member.

“I just can’t believe that you’re wearing a Mets hat,” Duncan teased, noting that Costabile’s father, who died in 2001, worked for the Yankees. “Do you like the Mets better?”

“Yeah,” Costabile replied. “They’re very, very, very nice people.”

Duncan introduced me to Costabile.

“Mr. Ross, like the store?” Costabile replied, referring to the Ross Dress for Less chain. “I heard of that. It’s a good store.”

As Powell discussed Costabile’s mental health concerns, he interjected, “I may be bipolar, but I’m pretty intelligent on stuff.”

“Extremely intelligent,” Powell agreed.

Maurice Costabile poses for a picture after getting a haircut and a shave at Great Clips.

‘Is this guy … an angel?’

Avery describes Costabile as friendly with the mindset of a 7-year-old.

“He loves to color and draw airplane cockpits, and he draws them to scale,” Avery said. “And his memory is incredible as far as things that happened a long time ago.

“But I always wonder: Is this guy like an angel? Or is it like, he’s one of ‘the least of these,’ and God is testing us?” the community minister added, alluding to Matthew 25. “Sometimes I wonder about that, but he’s really an interesting guy.”

David Bean, another Memorial member active in helping Costabile, came across a documentary video recounting his father’s camera work with the Yankees.

Duilio Costabile, left, shares a laugh with Yankees first base coach José Cardenal in the 2007 documentary “Duilio: Home Movies From The Bronx.” (Video still via YouTube. Warning: Video contains R-rated language.)

Duilio Costabile worked alongside Yankees greats Phil Rizzuto and Bobby Murcer.

Bean played the video for Maurice Costabile.

“At first, it made me really sad because I know this life is not what his parents would have wanted for him,” Duncan said. “But it also made me think that maybe there are people out there who know him and want to help him.

“But secondly and momentarily, it made me really happy that he had an opportunity to see a video with his dad, whom he hadn’t seen in many years,” the minister added. “It brought real joy to him. He kept saying, ‘My dad! My dad!’”

Maurice Costabile visits with a reporter at the Memorial Church of Christ in Houston as Sadie Powell listens.

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Ross writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged, where this piece originally appeared. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

This is part of a series exploring the identity of Churches of Christ. Read more here.

Yet the name has served — for better or worse — as a way to help us identify and fellowship churches with a particular understanding of Scripture and how the church should look and function.

Likewise, Churches of Christ are not defined by the Restoration Movement, by Barton Stone or Alexander Campbell. We strive to be heirs of the first century church, following the examples we see in the New Testament.

But — again, for better or worse — Churches of Christ have an undeniable connection and influence from that movement, its leaders and its plea to restore New Testament Christianity.

As we consider “Who Are We?” during our yearlong series on the identity of our fellowship, The Christian Chronicle Editorial Board thought it useful to reflect on our individual views of why the Restoration plea is meaningful to us and how it fits with our connections to Churches of Christ. — Calvin Cockrell, for the Editorial Board.

“Christian friends within and beyond Churches of Christ don’t always agree on theology or practice, but we are unified by Christ and him crucified. May we make peace with all believers and let God sort out the differences. The fellowship as we know it may not endure, but I’m confident in the future of the kingdom.” — Cheryl Mann Bacon

“Sectarianism and power are fundamental longings of fallen human hearts. Unity based upon the teachings of Jesus, and often imperfectly embodied by his earliest disciples, offers a better alternative. At our best, Churches of Christ work toward such unity, granting the liberty to embody the Gospel across diverse settings.” — Jeremie Beller

“I value the commitment commonly held by Churches of Christ to Scripture and the examples of the New Testament. Our emulation may not be perfect, but the Restoration plea continually draws us back toward the truth and love of God and helps us resist the drift of the world.” — Calvin Cockrell

“The issue is what do we need to be restored to. The church of our parents is different than today, and young folks can learn from the past and our older saints. Today, older people need to break down cultural boundaries. Let’s talk to people and find out what people are doing.” — Hamil Harris

A Bible lay open to Acts 2, where thousands were baptized and added to the church on the Day of Pentecost.

“I think the Restoration plea calls the church to focus on what is true and unchanging, despite changes we experience over time. Looking at New Testament teachings and examples, I see the fellowship of the early church. One reason I participate in Churches of Christ is because I experience that type of relationship with other members.” — Kenzie James

“With sharp divisions taking place in America, and even within our brotherhood, it is critical for members of the Churches of Christ to remain clear-eyed regarding Jesus’ message on unity. How are we supposed to spread the Gospel if we can’t agree on what it means to be disciples?”— Trindi Mitchell

“I love the simplicity of striving to live and love like Jesus and finding truth and meaning in the stories and teachings of the Bible. It connects me to Churches of Christ because we share a common experience of relying on the Scriptures as our ultimate how-to guide.” — Bobby Ross Jr.

Given that this particular conference was for the Evangelical Press Association, that didn’t surprise me. But an a cappella church service, sung from hand-held hymnals? That was not on my bingo card!

Three of us from The Christian Chronicle attended this year’s conference in the crowded Nashville suburb of Franklin, and I was the only one from our Oklahoma City office. I think that’s a good indicator of how the Chronicle has grown in recent years. Calvin Cockrell, our managing editor, drove up from his home in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and our intern, Ephraim Rodenbach, came from nearby Murfreesboro, where he’s a student at Middle Tennessee State University.

Erik Tryggestad takes a selfie with Christian music singer Jason Gray at the EPA convention.

Being in Nashville, the conference had to start with music. Singer/songwriter Jason Gray played some of his latest work, including a great one about responding to today’s culture of outrage called “Jesus Loves You (And I’m Trying).” He also did his hit “Remind Me Who I Am.”

After dinner, we spent the evening with Keith and Kristyn Getty, a songwriting couple from Northern Ireland who collaborated with Stuart Townend to give the world “In Christ Alone.”

The Gettys recently produced “The Sing! Hymnal,” a slick compendium of 900 worship songs from past and present.

Calvin and I thumbed through the pages in search of our fellowship’s national anthem, “Our God, He Is Alive,” but to no avail.

We’ll have to paste it on the inside back cover and call it No. 900b.

The Gettys had a keyboard on their little stage at the front of the conference room, so I figured we’d be listening to some instrumental versions of contemporary hymns they’d written. Instead, Keith asked us to turn in our hymnals to No. 4, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” The song, written in 1826 by Reginald Heber, may be “the perfect hymn,” he said, in terms of lyrics, structure and balance.

Erik Tryggestad poses with Keith and Kristyn Getty at the EPA convention.

Keith wanted all of us to sing it.

“And can we do this a cappella?” he asked.

The room — filled with Baptists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, the Salvation Army and more — answered with a resounding yes. I jumped up to film. The sound was absolutely heavenly. It felt like home. I told Calvin and Ephraim that I was going to post the video to TikTok and tell everyone it was from the first worship service of the Cool Springs Marriott Church of Christ.

Good hymns communicate “truth beyond the scratches on the paper,” Keith said. “God created with words, and words have creative power. They can speak new realities into existence.”

Keith advocates for churches to sing three old hymns for every new one they bring into a worship service “because the great hymns are a 50-year gift to people,” he told me after the service, “whereas a modern hymn is a five-year gift.”

Evangelical Press Association members sing “Holy, Holy, Holy” a cappella from “The Sing! Hymnal.”

Newer hymns tend to be “more transient,” his wife added.

He gave hymn No. 434, “Be Thou My Vision,” as an example. It’s based on a 10th century Irish poem (sometimes attributed to Dallán Forgaill, who was blind) and turned into a hymn by Mary Elizabeth Byrne and Eleanor Hull in the early 1900s.

The verses guide the believer through life, Keith said. The first, “Be thou my vision,” asks God to give us a sense of purpose and mission as we start out. “Be thou my wisdom” in the second verse is a prayer that our minds would grow. “Be thou my battle shield,” verse three, asks God to save us from temptation, and verse four builds on that by warning about the temptations of riches and “man’s empty praise.” Finally, verse five focuses on the end of earthly life. “May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heav’n’s Sun!”

Micah Voraritskul speaks on “AI Strategy for Gospel-Centered Content” during the EPA convention. Voraritskul is the founder of VerifiedHuman, a global certification platform for human-created work. His uncle, Verasak “Kim” Voraritskul, is a longtime worker with Churches of Christ in Khon Kaen, Thailand.

The rest of the conference touched on a variety of timely topics — artificial intelligence, covering controversial topics, intergenerational communication and more. But the musicians who launched the gathering provided a firm foundation for our endeavors. Throughout my time at the Cool Springs Marriott, I had multiple songs — some by the Gettys, some by Jason Gray and some by songwriters who lived hundreds of years before them — stuck in my head.

I guess that’s what great hymns do. They remind us who we are.

ERIK TRYGGESTAD is President and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact erik@christianchronicle.org.

That may seem like a lot of moving around, and it is, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I enjoy staying busy and being on-the-go. It’s normal for my friends to see me walking around campus, often with my camera or a coffee in hand. I’m probably between interviews for The Bison, photographing events or working at the student-run broadcast, HU16 — and sometimes, going to class.

My habit of being on the go developed because I grew up traveling with my family, going on summer vacations and making cross-country trips to visit relatives.

The Bison staff take a selfie while dressed up as Newsies for Halloween.

When I started at Harding three years ago, my travels expanded internationally. I spent a semester in Europe, where my friends and I trekked nonstop and visited 13 countries in three months.

I love exploring new places, but I also learned to appreciate returning to places I’d already visited.

When I studied abroad in fall 2024, my group stayed in Greece for two weeks. Some of the cities we explored included Porto Rafti, Athens and Corinth. For spring break this year, I returned to Greece for a communication class.

When we visited each city again, I felt calm as I recalled memories of roaming the streets with my friends.

Kenzie James works as a camera operator during a basketball game at Harding University in Searcy, Ark.

However, what I valued about returning to Greece was experiencing parts of each city that I didn’t see the first time. Spending a week or two in one location limited our experiences, so I was excited to focus on other aspects of the culture.

I’m experiencing similar feelings back in the Chronicle’s office in Oklahoma City — both the calm and excitement of returning to a place I’ve been before.

Those emotions may seem contradictory, but somehow, I feel them simultaneously.

Kenzie James poses for a photo at the Temple of Poseidon in Cape Sounion, Greece.

It was a very different story last summer. I had only spent a week in Oklahoma before my internship with the Chronicle, so I was a little nervous to be in an unfamiliar place and meet new people.

That feeling disappeared quickly.

I loved my time in OKC, and my internship had a huge impact on me as a journalist, specifically in my writing. I was the news editor for The Bison last year, and there were many times that I revised my articles because I could imagine what Chronicle Editor-in Chief Bobby Ross Jr. would say if he were editing the story.

Looking back at my introduction article from last year, I can proudly say I’ve grown as a writer because I struggled slightly less writing this intro.

Kenzie James produces a broadcast for HU16 at Harding University in Searcy, Ark.

When I drove into OKC this year, I felt calm. It’s a city I am now comfortable in, and I was excited to return to friends and co-workers at the office. My internship this year will be different, focusing on audio and video content. I don’t know what exactly my digital projects will be, but I look forward to finding out.

I’m excited to be in a new role in a familiar place.

KENZIE JAMES is a senior multimedia journalism major at Harding University in Searcy, Ark., and a returning Christian Chronicle intern. James grew up in Tallahassee, Fla., where she attended the Timberlane Church of Christ. Contact kenzie@christianchronicle.org.

Let me arrange the scene for you — or at least offer as good a view as you can get from a short college student from Middle Tennessee.

I joined the Bagdad Church of Christ following the death of my late father, Stacey Rodenbach. I grew up within the church but found a new home in a congregation nestled among the rolling hills of Pleasant Shade, Tenn.

In a season of loss, I found a family that welcomed my mother, Tracey, and me with outstretched arms and countless illuminating smiles. That fellowship helped me climb out of a hole, following the passing of someone who shaped who I am now.

Bagdad elder Tim Agee opens a worship service with a Scripture reading during the church’s 200th homecoming.

Every time I entered the small wooden church, an open handshake at the door and laughter shared among friends generated something many in my generation seek — genuine connection. That sense of connection led me to The Christian Chronicle.

Through countless headlines amid an ever-changing media landscape, the Chronicle provided a place for community with people who share and proclaim the love of Jesus. Every article offered a new perspective on God and how his Word impacts our lives.

With the Chronicle constantly filling my inbox and becoming a regular topic of discussion around my dinner table, I somehow completely missed the opportunity for the very internship I am writing about today.

One of my greatest journalism mentors from Smith County High School, Jason Robert Smith, suggested I apply for the internship.

Rodenbach enjoys Nashville barbecue with Chronicle President and CEO Erik Tryggestad, Managing Editor Calvin Cockrell and correspondent Ted Parks.

Without missing a beat, I filled out the application, hoping to spend my summer strengthening my faith.

What I didn’t expect was a call — or rather, email — back and the subsequent meetings confirming me as one of two summer interns for the Chronicle.

Ephraim Rodenbach, second from right, and fellow MTSU Sidelines staffers meet in Houchens Industries-L.T. Smith Stadium.

The reason for my surprise was hilariously simple: I do not attend Harding University, where many interns before me began their journalism careers. Now you may wonder — or not — where else a Chronicle intern could possibly attend college?

I attend Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, where I serve as managing editor of the student newspaper, MTSU Sidelines. I previously worked as the co-sports editor.

Rodenbach sorts issues of The Christian Chronicle at the 2026 Evangelical Press Association convention in Franklin, Tenn.

Throughout my sophomore year, I tackled everything from covering MTSU’s club hockey program to photographing events around campus.

However, my goal at the Chronicle is to tell stories that glorify God and the good work of the Gospel. With this endeavor in mind, I’m blessed to learn from members of the Chronicle staff who proclaim God’s work through storytelling.

I may not have expected this opportunity, but perhaps that’s the beauty of it all. God often creates paths far greater than the ones we plan for ourselves.

Now, as I pray before this immense opportunity, I hope that same connection, encouragement and love that first drew me to the Chronicle shine through the content that I create.

EPHRAIM RODENBACH, a sports journalism major at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tenn., is a Christian Chronicle intern. Contact ephraim@christianchronicle.org.

“Top Gun” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” were massive hits at the box office.

Telephones were attached to the wall, and long-distance calls were expensive. Not home? People left messages on answering machines.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram landed in my driveway each morning, and when I had enough quarters, I bought the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Times Herald at newsracks outside Food Fare, the only grocery store in this North Texas community.

Big hair was, um, big — both for the girls I knew and the pop culture that defined the time.

The year was 1986.

Bobby Ross Jr.’s senior picture appears in the Keller High School yearbook in 1986.

I graduated from Keller High School that May — exactly 40 years ago — so I find myself a bit nostalgic during this annual season of pomp and circumstance.

In past columns, I’ve reflected on my 35 years in full-time journalism and my 25 years covering religion news.

But I got my actual start writing for newspapers as a KHS student.

Keller, about 15 miles north of Fort Worth, was still more farm town than burgeoning suburb back then. An old gray water tower that proclaimed “Keller: Home of the Indians” greeted visitors along U.S. 377, referring to the school mascot.

I played sousaphone in the KHS marching band, traveled on mission trips to Mexico with my church youth group and drove my old Ford Pinto to flip Quarter Pounders at a McDonald’s in nearby North Richland Hills. In my free time, I listened to Texas Rangers games on my transistor radio.

But the turning point that transformed my high school experience — and my eventual career path — came when my late friend Jack O’Pelt urged me to join him in taking a journalism class.

The late Jack O’Pelt and Bobby Ross Jr. read a newspaper in the late 1980s or early 1990s. O’Pelt, the best friend of Bobby’s brother, Scott Ross, for 30 years, died suddenly in 2015.

But those ancient skills weren’t the most important lessons Ms. Crane bestowed.

Diana Dworin’s notes from a high school journalism class taught by Janie Crane Burchfield in the 1980s offer tips for counting headlines.

From the moment I walked into her classroom my sophomore year, her passion for core journalistic values such as truth, accuracy, fairness and impartiality resonated with me. She taught English students, too, but that subject wasn’t what drove her 25-year teaching career.

“The only reason I taught was to teach journalism,” she told me in a Facebook message this week.

It didn’t take me long to decide I wanted to spend my life in the newspaper business.

But first, I had to muster the courage to conduct my first interview.

Shy and introverted, I moved around a lot as a kid. My father served in the Air Force and then became a preacher. I attended schools in five states — Arkansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Missouri and Tennessee — before we moved to Keller in 1982 for Mom and Dad to serve as houseparents at a Christian children’s home. In my freshman year at KHS, I often ate lunch alone.

So when I got my first story assignment — a piece on the KHS stage band earning superior ratings — I scribbled my questions on a piece of paper. I snuck into band director Wayne Tympanick’s office and stuck my request for answers on his desk.

1980s-era copies of The Wigwam, the Keller High School student newspaper, are pictured.

Before long, Tympanick came and found me.

“If you want to be a journalist, you need to sit down and ask me these questions,” he told me.

So I did.

Over the next two years, I devoted more and more of my time to The Wigwam. I reported on topics ranging from students cheating to a fatal crash involving classmates I knew. By the second half of my junior year, I became the editor.

I covered trends such as the “VCR craze” — as we described it in a headline.

Here was the lede I wrote as an 18-year-old senior:

Signs that something’s sizzling, maybe even sweeping the nation, certainly abound.

From the ever-expanding number of video specialty shoppes to local supermarkets to convenience stores, rent-a-movie places are popping up almost everywhere.

Many teens are staying home on the weekends, popping their own corn and throwing “VCR parties”, as a substitute for those expensive, sky-high-priced trips to the movie theaters.

Besides our serious reporting, we had a whole lot of fun, too.

A Keller High School yearbook article from the 1980s profiles the student newspaper staff, including Bobby Ross Jr. Although Ross is pictured in a Texas Longhorns hat, he later repented and became an Oklahoma Sooners fan.

My junior year, Keller High opened a new school building with a large classroom for the newspaper and yearbook staffs. Each publication had its own office. They were side by side, and one day I mischievously lifted the tiles above the newspaper office and crawled into the ceiling space above the yearbook side to listen to the conversation below. Fortunately, when I crashed to the ground as I left a messy crater overhead, a chair below softened my fall.

Ms. Crane was anything but happy with me. But she evidently didn’t kill me. Because I lived to type this.

Fellow Wigwam staff member Diana Williams — now Diana Dworin — was a year younger than me but just as devoted to a future in journalism. While I was a geeky teen, her outgoing, bubbly personality made her popular beyond the newspaper classroom. She’d later attend the University of Texas and work for the Austin American-Statesman.

One time, Dworin and I wrote a joint column on how “squeezing the Charmin” had joined the list of KHS extracurricular activities. Yes, pranking people by covering their house, yard or trees with toilet paper was a thing even back then.

As high school students, Bobby Ross Jr. and Diana Dworin wrote a column about students’ toilet paper pranks.

To my delight, Dworin — now a hospital chaplain and, like me, a doting grandparent — recently mailed me a package of old Wigwams that helped stir the memories I’m sharing.

Another Wigwam alum is Barry Ryan, a fellow Class of 1986 graduate who was one of my best friends at KHS. We still enjoy catching up from time to time at Rangers games.

“We were a very good team that complemented each other well,” Ryan said of our high school newspaper experience. “I enjoyed both the camaraderie and, in the case of Bobby and Diana, the playful and healthy competition. As a bystander to it all, it was great to watch the banter and the occasional one-upmanship.

“For me,” he added in a Facebook message, “the opportunity to explore, learn and develop skills in addition to some outstanding friendship was a privilege and a blessing.”

Amen to all of that!

After graduating from KHS, I attended Oklahoma Christian University, where I edited the campus newspaper The Talon and earned my journalism degree in 1990. I later reported for small community newspapers in Oklahoma for three years before joining The Oklahoman staff in 1993 and then going to work for The Associated Press in Nashville, Tenn., in 2002.

Friends who worked together at McDonald’s in the 1980s reunite at a Texas Rangers game in 2023. Pictured, from left, are Barry Ryan, Rick Kalifa, Scott Ross, Bobby Ross Jr., Tony Cintron and Cintron’s wife.

I’ve spent the past 21 years with The Christian Chronicle, based in Oklahoma City. I’ve traveled to all 50 states and 20 countries to cover the news. I launched the Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged in 2020 and am in my seventh year of writing it.

In so many ways, I’m living my dream life as a journalist — four decades after my Wigwam days at Keller High.

In so many ways, I’m living my dream life as a journalist — four decades after my Wigwam days at Keller High.

To all my friends in the Class of 1986, happy 40th anniversary!

I know there’s a reunion planned, but I won’t be able to make it. Total honesty: That shy, introverted teen inside me never completely disappeared, and I’m still not ready for that level of social interaction.

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Ross writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged, where this piece originally appeared. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

Maybe that’s why I left my purse in the seat beside me when the game ended. Absentminded joy.

Said joy morphed into panic after I exited Globe Life Field and realized my bag was not on my shoulder. That would be the bag with my wallet, my ID, my credit and debit cards, a couple of prescriptions and some much-loved and really expensive prescription sunglasses.

Bobby Ross Jr. and Cheryl Mann Bacon pose together at a Texas Rangers game in Globe Life Field.

And my car fob.

Yes, I had a spare — at home in Abilene, 165 miles away. Yes, I went back inside the stadium to look for the purse, checked with lost and found and filed a loss report. Yes, I immediately put a hold on the cards, berated myself repeatedly and was reallllly nice to Bobby, who was well on his way to Dallas when he had to return to Arlington to get me.

Though editors generally have earned their gruff, green eyeshade reputation, he did not complain. Because Bobby is a Rangers fan. The Rangers had just beaten the Yankees. No forgetful freelancer could diminish his joy.

And he’s a really good friend.

The game was a side benefit to the real reason for the trip: The Christian Chronicle Board of Trustees retreat beginning the next morning, making Bobby’s patience that much more impressive.

So while he drove, I messaged my text groups: my family, the group euphemistically called “The Girls,” and HWC (as in “Hello, Win Column”), composed of six women who are ardent Rangers fans.

Christian Chronicle staff members pose for a group photo during a meeting in Dallas. From left are Cheryl Mann Bacon, Sawmi Sektak, Bobby Ross Jr., Erik Tryggestad, Calvin Cockrell, Connie Penick, Melinda Wilson and Alan Phillips.

Advice began pouring in. At one point, I actually was booking a roundtrip flight to Abilene using American Airlines miles to pick up the key fob. Then Bobby reminded me I had no ID. I couldn’t get on a plane.

So friends in Abilene contrived a plan to retrieve the extra fob from my kitchen drawer and FedEx it to me. I have great friends.

Still, this meant the car would be unattended, in an Arlington parking lot for two days. A kind Arlington police officer couldn’t promise my vehicle wouldn’t be towed, but he didn’t expect that to happen. That was consoling. Sort of.

For those unfamiliar with the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, it’s really big. As in 16,000 square miles. As in 8.3 million people, one of whom was probably trying on my sunglasses at that very moment. Globe Life Field in Arlington is roughly in the middle of it. The hotel where Chronicle staff and board were staying was 27 miles east of there. That’s where we were when my phone buzzed alerting me to a Facebook message from my new best friend, Angie Gallegos.

The lack of punctuation tipped me off that the sender was probably young. I didn’t care. She had found the purse and waited for someone to return. When no one came, she took it with her and found me on Facebook. Who needs commas?

“I didn’t want it to go in the wrong hands,” the message read, “so I’m reaching out to let you know I have your bag!”

“I didn’t want it to go in the wrong hands, so I’m reaching out to let you know I have your bag!”

I asked where we could meet, and she sent me a link for a QuikTrip some 21 miles east of our hotel. I told her we could be there in 30 minutes.

While Bobby drove some more, I updated the text groups whose faith in humanity was not exactly devout.

“If the QuikTrip is sketchy call police to be nearby,” replied my attorney friend, Jane, just seconds after I had told Bobby, “Jane would probably call the police to meet her there.”

“Don’t go by yourself,” said my son.

We arrived at the QuikTrip, next door to a funeral home. A nice neighborhood. Lots of customers around. I messaged Angie to alert her that we had arrived, and she said she’d be there in five minutes.

My daughter texted after seven minutes to check on me.

Cheryl Mann Bacon takes a selfie with Angie Gallegos after meeting at a QuikTrip to exchange Bacon’s purse.

In defense of my friends and family, I had agreed to meet a total stranger at a gas station. But Angie Gallegos was no sketchy stranger.

The high school senior was still grinning from the Rangers’ win when she walked up with my purse. We chatted. I took a selfie. I asked her about the medallion on the gold chain she wore with her Rangers T-shirt — St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. That seemed appropriate — for a Rangers fan and a retriever of lost purses.

I told her I’d send her a reward, which she assured me wasn’t necessary.

“I just wanted to do the right thing.”

“I just wanted to do the right thing,” she said. I sent one anyway.

As Bobby navigated through a full-stop traffic jam that involved 11 police cars and no apparent cause, the text groups celebrated, more than one commenting that their faith in humanity was restored, a much-needed restoration.

My children were even a tad sarcastic. I don’t know where they get that.

“Did you offer to write her scholarship, job and college recommendation letters?” my daughter asked. I should do that.

I don’t know much more about Angie, but she made my life a whole lot better because she just wanted to do the right thing. That’s a great recommendation for all of us.

CHERYL MANN BACON is a contributing editor for The Christian Chronicle. She served for 20 years as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University in Texas.

In fact, we must resist the temptation to pile more and more duties on our friend and colleague.

Calvin Cockrell, 30, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism from the University of Alabama, maintaining a perfect 4.0 GPA each time.

Calvin joined the Chronicle in 2021 as a part-time writer, editor and social media manager. In 2025, God provided the opportunity for us to hire him full time as our managing editor.

He helps coordinate coverage strategy, contributors and online and print publication. He crafts a weekly email newsletter along with social media posts highlighting the Chronicle’s articles.

Calvin has reported from seven states. Besides writing, he contributes photos, videos and reviews. He launched the Chronicle’s TikTok and grew it to 17,000 followers, with regular engagement and a viral video that reached 4.5 million views. He also published a Facebook post that reached 3 million views.

Calvin Cockrell, fifth from left, poses for a group photo with fellow Christian Chronicle staff members during a meeting in Dallas. Also pictured, from left, are Cheryl Mann Bacon, Sawmi Sektak, Bobby Ross Jr., Erik Tryggestad, Connie Penick, Melinda Wilson and Alan Phillips.

See what I mean? There’s nothing Calvin can’t do.

That’s why I nominated him for the Evangelical Press Association’s 2026 Emerging Journalist Award — and why all of us at the Chronicle were so excited when the EPA recently announced him as the winner.

“The first time I met Calvin was on a Zoom call,” said Erik Tryggestad, the Chronicle’s president and CEO. “I honestly thought that his screen kept freezing, but then I realized that he was just being really still and really quiet.

“He’s a man of few words, but he’s one of the brightest, hardest-working and most dependable people I’ve ever met,” Erik added. “The thing I appreciate most about Calvin is the initiative he takes without any kind of prompting. When you ask Calvin for a hamburger, he gives you a steak. He makes the Chronicle better, and I think he makes all of us better, too.”

Calvin and his wife, Katie, have a 2-year-old daughter, Violet. The family lives in his native Alabama, where he serves as the minister for young adults at the North Tuscaloosa Church of Christ.

Calvin Cockrell, left, receives the 2026 Emerging Journalist Award from Dwight Widaman, president of the Evangelical Press Association. The honor was announced at EPA’s recent national convention in Franklin, Tenn., south of Nashville.

Most of the Chronicle staff is based in Oklahoma City, so we don’t see Calvin often in person. But we enjoyed catching up with him during a recent meeting of the Chronicle’s national board of trustees in Dallas.

“It’s been a huge blessing from God to be a part of the awesome team at The Christian Chronicle and help share the good work of the church among our fellowship,” Calvin said of winning the Emerging Journalist Award.

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

That realization didn’t come from theory. It came from experience. After more than 20 years in a close friendship, I began to recognize patterns I had never been taught to see: manipulation, confusion and a slow erosion of my sense of reality.

What unsettled me most wasn’t just the behavior itself. It was how easily that same person could use church spaces, relationships and language to uphold a completely different image.

Growing up in the Church of Christ, I heard a lot about false teachers. We were taught to measure everything against Scripture and be careful about doctrines that didn’t align with God’s Word. That emphasis mattered. It protected many of us.

But there was another kind of danger I was never taught to recognize.

No one ever taught us how to identify harmful relational patterns.

Listen to Marie Stroughter, host of the the “MoMo 634” podcast, discuss mental health on The Christian Chronicle Podcast.

Today, the word narcissism is everywhere. It’s often overused and misused, and the Bible doesn’t use the term at all. But Scripture clearly describes the behaviors. In 2 Timothy 3:1–5, Paul warns about people who are “lovers of self,” abusive and yet maintain “a form of godliness.” Jesus cautions about “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matthew 7:15). And in 3 John, the elder calls out Diotrephes for loving prominence and using his position to push others aside.

The language may be modern.

The patterns are not.

What I’ve come to understand is that many Christians simply haven’t been equipped to recognize these patterns. We’ve been taught to watch doctrine closely but not always to “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1) or examine fruit in the context of everyday relationships. We know what truth sounds like. We don’t always know what manipulation feels like.

Church environments can unintentionally make this harder. We’re taught to see the best in people. We’re taught to forgive quickly. We often avoid conflict. And we elevate and celebrate those who appear spiritually mature. These are good and necessary parts of our faith. But without discernment and accountability, they can also provide cover for someone who is highly invested in maintaining an image.

“We know what truth sounds like. We don’t always know what manipulation feels like.”

In some cases, that image becomes a shield.

One of the more damaging dynamics that can emerge is what’s often called a smear campaign, where a person subtly or overtly discredits someone else to protect their own reputation. Because the individual has carefully built trust, credibility and spiritual standing, their version of events is often believed without question. Meanwhile, the person on the receiving end may find themselves isolated, misunderstood or even abandoned.

I once read a comment from a woman who described her husband as “shape-shifting” the moment he stepped into the church parking lot, becoming gentle, kind and respected in public while being something very different at home. That kind of contrast can make it incredibly difficult for truth to surface.

To be clear, not every difficult person is a narcissist. And the goal isn’t to label people or act as clinicians. You don’t need a diagnosis to recognize when a relationship consistently produces confusion, fear, manipulation or emotional harm.

The label isn’t the point. The pattern is.

Scripture calls believers to be both loving and discerning. Paying attention to patterns, especially when behavior consistently contradicts a person’s public image, is part of that discernment. It allows us to care well for ourselves and others and to avoid enabling harm in the name of grace.

“The ‘fruit’ Jesus speaks about isn’t just what people say. It’s what consistently shows up in their actions, especially in private.”

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and this is simply an encouragement to learn. Seek understanding about unhealthy relational dynamics. Talk with your children about manipulation and emotional harm in age-appropriate ways. Help them understand that the “fruit” Jesus speaks about isn’t just what people say. It’s what consistently shows up in their actions, especially in private.

For many of us, this kind of awareness was never part of our spiritual training. But it can be now.

And sometimes, that awareness is what protects our minds, our faith and our sense of self from harm we were never taught to see.

TANEISE PERRY, a Christian who lives in the Charlotte, N.C., area, serves on The Christian Chronicle’s board of trustees.

My wife, Jeanie, coaches the kids from our congregation, the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, who sign up to do Bible Bowl at the annual North Texas Leadership Training for Christ convention. Jeanie and I are a great team. She teaches the kids the Bible, and I write practice questions and tell jokes.

Leadership Training for Christ, or LTC, is a program where kids memorize Scripture, lead singing, give speeches, sign for the deaf, perform dramas and puppet shows and test their Bible knowledge. It’s similar to the Lads to Leaders program I did growing up in Macon, Ga. Memorial Road’s coordinators strongly recommend that all participants do Bible Bowl, Bible Quiz (an open-book test taken by teams) or Bible Reading in addition to whatever other events they want. Some kids pick two or three events to do before or at the convention. Others, like Wesley and Natalie LaRue, do basically everything on the list.

This year we had more than 60 kids sign up for Bible Bowl. That’s a record. We covered three books from the Old Testament — Joshua, Judges and Ruth. The theme for this year’s LTC, “We will Serve,” comes from Joshua’s warning-laden farewell speech to the Israelites. He told them to “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. … But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).

Serving 60 kids meant reviewing a host of unfamiliar names and places. The book of Judges alone is filled with hard-to-remember details — not to mention guys like Othniel, Ehud, Jepthah, Shamgar (who killed 600 Philistines with an ox goad), Tola, Jair (who had 30 sons who rode on 30 donkeys), Ibzan, Elon and Abdon.

Jeanie makes learning entertaining by using Lego illustrations of the Bible stories that she finds online. Yes, that includes Jael and her tent peg from Judges 4. We have to censor some of the Lego slides, no joke! And this year we ran into another challenge — there were no slides for the book of Ruth.

For Lucy, our 12-year-old sixth grader, this was an injustice that had to be corrected. So we got our Lego bricks out of the storage closet and went to work recreating the story of Ruth, Naomi, Orpah and their ill-fated husbands. Unlike the slides we used for Joshua and Judges, the story of Ruth had a decidedly Disney princess and “Star Wars” feel. Among the guests at the wedding in chapter four were R2-D2 and Cinderella. And one of the town elders who witnessed Boaz negotiate with Ruth and Naomi’s guardian-redeemer might have been Santa.

Ruth meets Boaz as she gathers grain in his field. The Lego scene is part of Lucy Tryggestad’s PowerPoint presentation for her fellow LTC Bible Bowlers.

We built the sets, placed the Lego mini figures, took photos and put together a PowerPoint that combined the pictures with the Bible verses from Ruth. In addition to teaching our Bible Bowl kids, Lucy entered the presentation in one of the LTC pre-convention events. At the convention on Saturday night, our church hosted its annual banquet and awards ceremony. Lucy got a gold medal for her PowerPoint — and a gold in Bible Bowl, which was no easy feat this year. Despite my best efforts to challenge our students with practice questions, this year’s Bible Bowl was nothing short of brutal. But I was so proud of how much our kids remembered.

Our church’s award ceremony is my favorite part of LTC. Those of us who coach line up and hand out full-size candy bars to the students — one for each year they’ve participated in LTC. This year was especially meaningful for me and Jeanie as we watched our 18-year-old, Maggie, get 10 candy bars. She started LTC in third grade. That’s the first year that students are allowed to participate. For sticking with the program for a solid decade, she got a $500 scholarship from Oklahoma Christian University, where she’ll start this fall.

Maggie is part of an incredible group of high school seniors at our church. We hugged, celebrated and prayed for them all. Maggie cried. Jeanie cried. Chris McKeever, one of our church’s elders who oversees children’s ministry, cried. I took pictures.

The annual, Easter-weekend trip to the Hilton Anatole in Dallas has become a big part of our lives — and will continue to be at least until Lucy graduates from high school. I know a lot of adults who stay involved in LTC even after their kids have left the nest. We all believe in the value of programs like LTC and Lads to Leaders. These programs encourage our kids to dive headfirst into Scripture and to develop fun ways to illustrate God’s Word through drama, puppet shows, speeches and art.

After the LTC award banquet, Maggie Tryggestad, center, shares a hug with her mom, Dr. Jeanie Tryggestad, left, and fellow seniors Olivia Newberry, Annie Compton and Megan Sims.

I always come away from our Bible Bowl studies more well-versed in the Bible. My big takeaway after studying Joshua, Judges and Ruth is the incredible difficulty of staying the course. Time and again, despite having God literally talking to them, the children of Israel lose focus on the things that matter and fall into the idolatrous patterns of the world. The kind of longevity that Lads and LTC promote is exactly what we need.

As much as I’d love to map out a direct path for my children along the straight and narrow, I know that they ultimately will decide whom they will serve. I pray that Jeanie and I have provided Maggie with as firm a foundation as possible as she takes these next, exciting steps.

ERIK TRYGGESTAD is President and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact erik@christianchronicle.org.

I heard the welcoming voice of my friend and colleague Hamil R. Harris as soon as I stepped out of my car in his Washington, D.C.-area driveway.

On a recent East Coast trip, my son Brady, 7-year-old grandson Bennett and I saw our favorite team, the Texas Rangers, play the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. In the nation’s capital, we explored sites such as the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

Bobby, Brady and Bennett Ross visit the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

But for me, a highlight of the trip was seeing Harris, a former longtime Washington Post reporter who serves on The Christian Chronicle’s Editorial Board.

“Y’all made it to the ’hood!” Harris said enthusiastically. “Come in, and give me a hug.”

The 66-year-old father of four has battled health issues in recent years. Still, he preaches regularly for the Glenarden Church of Christ in Maryland.

For years, Terry Mattingly, a nationally syndicated religion columnist, invited Harris to speak to students at the Washington Journalism Center, a former program of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.

Mattingly still recalls Harris’ attention to detail, including when he covered an anniversary of the 1968 D.C. riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Harris wanted to see the riots through the eyes of those who experienced them. So he rode buses through affected neighborhoods and took notes.

“Harris marked key buildings that were still in ruins,” Mattingly said. “Then he went back and wrote down the graffiti on the buildings.

“My students simply could not imagine going into that level of detail,” the columnist added. “But Harris didn’t settle for vague adjectives and sloppy adverbs. He sweated the details.”

The Washington Association of Black Journalists honored Harris in 2022 with its inaugural Legacy Award.

“Hamil is a celebrity in the D.C. journalism scene,” said Michelle Boorstein, the Post’s longtime religion writer. “Hamil is respected by and connected to so, so many people active in religious life in the D.C. area.

Hamil R. Harris and Bobby Ross Jr. pose for a photo at Harris’ Washington, D.C.-area home.

“For someone with such wide-ranging expertise … Hamil is one of the most loving and down-to-earth people you will meet,” Boorstein added. “When we worked together, he would always call me ‘Shelly’ and say I looked like Cher, which kills me.”

A Florida native, Harris cares about quality journalism.

But he cares even more about people.

Trindi Mitchell

“Hamil is not merely a colleague on the Editorial Board,” said Trindi Mitchell, a member of the Henry Street Church of Christ in Gadsden, Ala. “He is my big brother and mentor.

“I consider Hamil as a combination of John, ‘the apostle of love,’ and Barnabas,” added Mitchell, who serves alongside Harris on the board, which collaborates on topics and stances for the Chronicle’s editorial page. “He has an earnest, genuine love for all people, always ready to uplift and encourage everyone he meets.”

When Harris suffered a stroke back in October, I sent him a text message to tell him I was praying. Almost immediately, he called me from the hospital.

The stroke had slowed his speech, but he was grading papers — in his hospital bed — for a journalism class he teaches at Morgan State University.

Always eager to pitch a story idea, he offered to write about his stroke experience. I urged him to focus on his healing.

Anytime we talk, Harris always insists on praying. During the October call, I asked God to bless my brother’s recovery, and he emotionally thanked the Lord for saving his life.

Harris embodies 1 Thessalonians 5:17: He prays without ceasing.

“At the end of every conversation I have with Hamil,” Mitchell said, “he ends with a prayer and says, ‘I love you, sister.’”

Cheryl Mann Bacon, a Chronicle contributing editor, said, “I have never had a conversation with Hamil that he didn’t want to conclude by praying for me, and I know of no other person like that. No one ever feels so prayed for as when they have been prayed for by Hamil.”

Hamil R. Harris prays during a visit with the Rosses at Harris’ Washington, D.C.-area home.

Erik Tryggestad, the Chronicle’s president and CEO, echoed Mitchell and Bacon: “I can’t count the number of times Hamil has prayed for me over the phone. Just can’t say enough about this great reporter, minister and friend.”

I felt so honored that my son and grandson got to meet Harris.

“You know what?” my friend said as we visited. “There’s nothing like the power of fellowship.”

As we prepared to go, I knew what was coming.

“Bobby, you know how I am,” Harris said. “I’m going to say a prayer.”

But before he did, he had a question.

“You got enough money?” he asked. “You all right?”

Family photos hang on the living room at Hamil R. Harris’ Washington, D.C.-area home.

I assured him I had plenty of money.

Still, he reached into his wallet and pulled out $11, which he handed to Bennett. My grandson shyly accepted the cash and excitedly spent it later that day.

As I bowed my head for my brother to pray, I never felt so rich.

Hamil R. Harris offers a gift — $11 in cash — to 7-year-old Bennett Ross, grandson of Bobby Ross Jr.

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

We know you must be tired, but you energized us.

You and your Artemis II crewmates traveled 252,756 miles from Earth — a record for humanity.

We won’t take a lot of your time. But as your brothers and sisters in Christ, we must thank you.

Not for becoming the first African American astronaut to fly to the moon, although that’s cool.

Not for the fame piloting NASA’s first moon mission in 53 years brought you, although that’s terrific.

Not for the technical skills you demonstrated aboard “Integrity” — the name your crew gave the Orion spacecraft — although you’re brilliant.

Instead, we must thank you for the faith and humility you displayed throughout the mission.

You made us proud.

So, so proud.

A member of the Southeast Church of Christ in Friendswood, Texas, you never failed to glorify God. Again and again, you publicly thanked the Creator of the universe.

And again and again, you emphasized the importance of love. Specifically, you pointed to Jesus’ instruction to love our neighbors.

“To all of you down there on Earth and around Earth,” you said while still in space, “we love you from the moon.”

Your message came in loud and clear. A quarter million miles from home, you made the world seem smaller and brought us all closer together. Given the division that so often permeates our corner of the galaxy, that’s an amazing accomplishment.

Please pass along our appreciation, too, to your crewmates: Reid Weisman, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. 

Each of you reminded us of the value of teamwork and camaraderie. You didn’t just work hard. You also enjoyed each other’s company.

Even when faced with not-so-otherworldly problems — namely a clogged toilet in a part of the universe lacking plumbers — you kept laughing.

The Artemis II crew, including Reid Weisman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Jeremy Hansen, greets friends, family and colleagues at Ellington Airport near NASA’s Sapce Center Houston.

To our delight, you made us all feel like a part of the team.

“We wanted to go out and try to do something that would bring the world together, to unite the world,” Wiseman said.

Congratulations! Mission accomplished.

Koch talked about how much the support from those who followed Artemis II meant to the crew of three Americans and one Canadian.

“It was every bit as important as accomplishing the technical goals and being there for our NASA teammates,” she said. “(We wanted) to make this the world’s mission and for it to have a positive impact.”

Again, congratulations! Mission accomplished.

Hansen described viewing the Earth, the moon and the stars from such an amazing vantage point.

“We’re all kind of struck by these things that make us feel small,” he said. “The sense I had was this sense of fragility and feeling small — infinitesimally small — but yet this powerful feeling as a human feeling, like as a group.”

Amen!

Victor, thank you and your crewmates for journeying farther into space than anyone in history. You inspired us. You increased our awe.

We can’t wait to see where the Lord leads you on your next adventure.

Godspeed, dear brother.

Victor, thank you and your crewmates for journeying farther into space than anyone in history. You inspired us. You increased our awe.

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. He wrote this editorial on behalf of the Chronicle’s Editorial Board. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

In an interview with Glover and his crewmates Sunday, CBS News’ Mark Strassman noted that Apollo 8 — which in 1968 became the first human spaceflight to reach the moon — “had a memorable Christmas Eve reading from Genesis.

“Do you have a message from space that you’d like to share about Easter Sunday?” Strassman asked.

Glover replied that he didn’t have anything prepared but was glad Strassman brought it up.

Then the 49-year-old former combat aviator offered this eloquent response: 

“I think these observances are important, and as we are so far from Earth and looking at the beauty of creation, I think for me one of the really personal perspectives that I have up here is I can really see Earth as one thing. And when I read the Bible and look at all the amazing things that were done for us — who were created — you have this amazing place, this spaceship.

“You guys are talking to us because we are on a spaceship really far from Earth. But you’re on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe, in the cosmos. 

“Maybe the distance we are from you makes you think what we’re doing is special. But we’re the same distance from you. And I’m trying to tell you, just trust me: You are special. 

“In all of this emptiness — this is a whole lot of nothing, this thing we call the universe — you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together. I think as we go into Easter Sunday, thinking about all the cultures all around the world — whether you celebrate it or not, whether you believe in God or not — this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are and that we are the same thing and that we got to get through this together.”

The moon, backlit by the Sun during a solar eclipse, is photographed by NASA’s Orion spacecraft on Monday during the Artemis II mission. Orion is visible in the foreground on the left. Earth is reflecting sunlight at the left edge of the moon, which is slightly brighter than the rest of the disk. The bright spot visible just below the moon’s bottom right edge is Saturn. Beyond that, the bright spot at the right edge of the image is Mars.

‘Love God with all that you are’

On Monday, just before the Orion spacecraft experienced an anticipated 40-minute communications blackout on the far side of the moon, Glover again reflected on his faith.

“As we get close to the nearest point to the moon and farthest point from Earth — as we continue to unlock the mysteries of the cosmos — I would like to remind you of one of the most important mysteries there on Earth,” Glover said. 

“And that’s love,” he added. “Christ said in response to what was the greatest command that it was to love God with all that you are. And he also, being a great teacher, said the second is equal to it, and that to is love your neighbor as yourself.

“And so, as we prepare to go out of radio communication, we’re still able to feel your love from Earth. And to all of you down there on Earth and around Earth, we love you from the moon.”

I first became aware of Glover’s devotion to Jesus in 2020 — in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic — when a fellow Christian suggested that I tell his story.

At the time, the father of four daughters was preparing to embark on a six-month mission to the International Space Station.

I tried official and unofficial channels to request an interview, contacting NASA and sending an email to Glover’s wife, Dionna.

“It is likely too close to launch for us to be able to arrange for any time with Victor, but if you want to fill out the attached form and send it back to us, we can take a look and see if there’s anything we might be able to do,” a NASA public affairs specialist replied.

Podcast: Victor Glover discusses his faith with The Christian Chronicle

Two weeks later, when I checked on the status of my request, I was told, “I’m sorry, we don’t have any individual interview time left with Victor before his launch. However, he will be participating in a virtual Q&A event a few days before launch which you are welcome to join.”

But the next day, NASA emailed again to inform me Glover wanted to do the interview with The Christian Chronicle.

“We typically cannot arrange interviews this close to launch, but since Victor wants to support we definitely will,” said the NASA contact, who arranged a 30-minute window that afternoon for me to visit with Victor and Dionna via Zoom.

Glover’s faith journey

When we talked, Glover indicated that marrying Dionna and becoming a father played a major role in his faith journey.

“As we’ve become parents, that’s when I’ve really found an appreciation for my own faith and really growing my relationship with the Bible and my own personal spiritual growth,” said Glover, whose family attends the Southeast Church of Christ in Friendswood, Texas, about 6 miles from NASA’s Space Center Houston.

Of the International Space Station mission, he said, “I want to use the abilities that God has given me to do my job well and support my crewmates and mission and NASA. That’s really the thing I think the most about.”

In that same interview, Glover talked about learning patience. He joined NASA in 2013 and then trained for more than seven years before embarking on his first space mission.

“I would love to go to the moon, but that’s not something I control,” he told me then. “That’s really helped me understand patience. I spent some time meditating and thinking about that and praying and writing about that.”

Glover may be a famous astronaut, but he’s an attentive husband, too. When he sent me family photos to use with my story, he made sure to copy his wife.

“Of course, Dionna has first right of refusal,” he said in the email. “Thanks again and God bless you.”

After returning home from the space station, Glover appeared on the Chronicle’s podcast, hosted by my colleague B.T. Irwin.

“In the military, there’s a saying that there are no atheists in foxholes,” Glover said on the podcast. “There aren’t any on top of rockets, either, I would think.”

Victor Glover’s wife and daughters pose for a photo with fellow Christians after last week’s launch of Artemis II.

Faith in space

In a 2024 Associated Press feature, Holly Meyer highlighted a Baptist church’s effort to support its members on the space station:

About 10 miles from Johnson Space Center, a Houston-area church takes a moment during Wednesday Bible studies and Sunday evening services to pray for two members who cannot be there.

In fact, there’s no way on Earth for NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Tracy Dyson to show up at Providence Baptist Church. They’re in space, orbiting the planet. More specifically, these two members are working on the International Space Station together.

Like many astronauts before them, they brought along their faith when they launched into space.

“God uses all of us in pretty neat ways, and I think I get the most joy from what I do thinking about it in those terms,” said Dyson, discussing her job on the “Bible Project” podcast ahead of her March launch on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

While the Apollo 8 and Artemis II missions both included public references to religion, astronauts aboard the Artemis’ Orion spacecraft have struck a broader, more global tone, according to Religion News Service’s Jack Jenkins, who did his graduate thesis on religion in space.

In a story this week, Jenkins writes:

Much of the God-talk on the Artemis mission has centered on Glover, who is also the most publicly religious astronaut on the mission. He reportedly brought a Bible along with him for the 10-day journey in space, which is something he’s done before: He told The Christian Chronicle in 2020 that he had a Bible and Communion cups sent to the International Space Station in preparation for his arrival aboard a Space X capsule in November of that year. At the time, Glover suggested he planned to worship virtually with his church while in orbit, as he had been doing throughout the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On his Substack this week, Daniel Silliman — who interviewed Glover for Christianity Today in 2023 — recalled asking the astronaut about prayer:

Glover took the opportunity to talk about how prayer changed the way he saw himself as a pilot on a mission to the moon. He talked about how prayer shapes the pray-er, and that’s part of why Christians do it, not only to ask for things out there in the world but to communicate a request, a desire, a willingness for internal transformation. Prayer is an act of submission. It’s like opening a hand, more than pointing.

He gave the example of the Lord’s prayer, saying he prayed that a lot, praying that God’s will be done “on earth as it is in heaven” as he anticipated slipping over the line from earth to space.

“When Jesus was teaching the disciples to pray, he used that very specific prayer that we all know, ‘Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name …,’” he said. “So, listen, I am a messenger of his kingdom; his will be done.”

The Artemis II crew is expected to splash down off the coast of San Diego later today.

As Glover offers his post-mission thoughts, don’t be surprised to hear more about his faith.

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Ross writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged, where this piece originally appeared. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

But we often forget Micah’s words follow five and a half chapters of diatribe calling out the powerful of Israel for exploiting the poor of their own nation.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, we see ourselves as the willing helper or injured traveler — never as the priest or Levite. Applying the same pedagogy to the prophets, we’re inclined to do the same. We don’t see ourselves as abusers. We prefer the role of the downtrodden, thus invigorating our complaints against powerful leaders with whom we disagree.

But what if we should be Micah?

Micah pulled no punches in calling out the covetousness and corruption that had come to define Israel’s leadership.

“Micah pulled no punches in calling out the covetousness and corruption that had come to define Israel’s leadership.”

Woe to those who plan iniquity,
to those who plot evil on their beds!
At morning’s light they carry it out
because it is in their power to do it.
They covet fields and seize them,
and houses, and take them.
They defraud people of their homes,
they rob them of their inheritance.

These were not sins of ignorance. Covetousness made the Ten Commandments after all. The leaders of the Israelites know better. They exact their will “because it is in their power to do it.”

What if we should be Micah? Who should we call out when we see the vulnerable oppressed?

Churches of Christ have traditionally chosen one of two paths when navigating our relationship with the powerful. On the one hand, we are heirs of David Lipscomb who wanted nothing to do with government, politics and the seats of power. Throughout the 19th Century and until the advent of World War II we typically chose pacifism — not just in war, but in our daily walk.

Conversely, many today are drawn to the stream populated by our evangelical cousins who embrace Christian nationalism in ways that merge Gospel and governance well beyond the example of first century Christians and well beyond the constraints of the Constitution.

Micah chose neither. He did not stand with the powerful. He did not withdraw.

Instead, Micah spoke truth to power:

Hear this, you leaders of Jacob,
you rulers of Israel,
who despise justice
and distort all that is right;
who build Zion with bloodshed,
and Jerusalem with wickedness.

Micah was confrontational. He railed against “dishonest scales,” against the violent and the liars:

the ruler demands gifts,
the judge accepts bribes,
the powerful dictate what they desire —
they all conspire together.

“Our obligation to serve the poor does not end at the food pantry. Navigating Micah’s path of justice, love and humility also requires us to speak boldly.”

And he warned them: the Assyrians are coming.

The analogies to our world today are transparent and painful. The powerful wreak havoc on the powerless and oppressed. Our obligation to serve the poor does not end at the food pantry. Navigating Micah’s path of justice, love and humility also requires us to speak boldly.

Be Micah.

CHERYL MANN BACON is a contributing editor for The Christian Chronicle. She served for 20 years as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University in Texas.

Despite high wind warnings and plummeting temperatures on my 400-mile route, I got up early to drive to the Equip Conference at York University in Nebraska.

About 160 miles north of my home in Oklahoma City, I stopped for worship at the Northside Church of Christ in Wichita.

Toby Levering preaches at the Northside Church of Christ in Wichita, Kan.

“Maybe you didn’t intend to be here, but you’re from Nebraska, and you just blew in,” preaching minister Toby Levering said in greeting the crowd of 500.

I blew in from the opposite direction, but Levering’s astute observation made me chuckle.

I first met him back in 2015 when I did a feature on the Wichita Work Camp, an annual service-oriented event sponsored by the Northside church.

I enjoyed seeing Levering again and meeting a few of Northside’s elders, including Brian Middleton, who is active with the church’s Know Your Bible ministry, which began as a 30-minute TV program and is now a 24/7 resource online.

I missed saying hi to Mark Yeakley, Northside’s involvement minister and son of the late Flavil Yeakley, a church growth expert who was always extremely helpful to me in my Christian Chronicle reporting.

Mark Yeakley, who didn’t know I planned to visit, had to run to a missions committee meeting right after the service ended.

“Stop by again as soon as the wind changes direction!” he urged in a Facebook comment.

Mike Cope, Equip’s keynote speaker, was supposed to fly from Dallas to Omaha, Neb., and then drive 100 miles to York. 

But flights got canceled Sunday, and he didn’t make it until dinnertime Monday.

“It took a little doing to get here,” Cope, director of ministry outreach for Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., told Equip attendees Tuesday. “American Airlines pilots were not convinced that they wanted to land in 65 mph winds in Omaha.”

Mike Cope speaks at the Equip Conference at York University in Nebraska.

I don’t know which was louder on my drive to York: the howling outside my car windows or the country music I played to drown out that noise.

Somewhere near the Kansas-Nebraska line, I stopped at a Love’s Travel Stop to fill up my gas tank.

My car door slammed shut as I stepped into the storm, and I immediately feared my glasses might blow off my head. Somehow I managed to pull the door open again and place them inside.

I made it safely to my hotel late Sunday afternoon. After checking in, I headed to a nearby Walmart to buy a few snacks and a pair of gloves.

I’ve heard that Jesus can calm the wind. 

I credit him for doing just that. I awoke Monday to 8 degrees Fahrenheit outside — according to my car dashboard — but a much tamer gust. 

Kailyn Ruckman, right, and other students at York University in Nebraska pray during a chapel assembly at the Equip Conference.

I had a blast reporting on Equip and relished a peaceful drive home.

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

I mean, I’m not a good world traveler.

I pack too much. I’m a picky eater. Mostly, I prefer my bed at home to global adventure (unlike Erik Tryggestad, who has plenty of mosquito net stories).

Yet I am an inquisitive journalist and a big fan of on-the-ground reporting, so I’ve kept my passport up to date and covered stories in 20 countries during my 35-year career.

My most recent trip took me to this Caribbean island nation, where — as I noted in last week’s Plug-in — I reported on Christians keeping the faith at a trying time for Cuba.

Cuba in crisis: Read all the stories in the special package

Inevitably, such trips produce a memorable moment, be it frightening, frantic or funny. Sometimes, the notable occurrence relates to the actual story. Other times, an indelible personal experience stands out.

Here in Cuba, I interviewed longtime preacher Tony Fernandez in the dark as one of the island’s rolling blackouts hit the short-term rental house where I stayed. I used a tiny flashlight to see the questions in my notebook.

Fernandez didn’t seem to notice the power outage. He’s used to such inconveniences.

But the circumstances were new to me.

So, too, were these five unforgettable experiences during past international reporting treks:

1. Mexican checkpoint

In 2012, as turf wars waged between drug cartels south of the U.S. border, I joined an Oklahoma church team on its annual mission trip to a remote mountain village.

The day the team left, a Facebook friend was kind enough to post a U.S. State Department warning for everyone “crazy enough to travel to Mexico.” That same day, I read a news report about the violence — and statements such as “If you go, you better bring a body bag along” — making U.S. aid groups skittish.

Mexican church members and American visitors enjoy fellowship after a 2012 worship assembly.

So during the drive through Mexico, I was concerned when a convoy of trucks filled with men toting machine guns and sporting green military uniforms zipped past the Oklahoma team’s white rental vans and set up a makeshift checkpoint.

By “concerned,” I mean that I prayed hard.

As it turned out, the soldiers behaved extremely professionally as they examined the team’s cargo. They assured the Americans that they were trying to protect them from any potential threats.

2. Missing luggage

In 2009, I traveled to South Africa to visit a preacher-training school east of Johannesburg and report on signs of racial harmony 15 years after the end of apartheid.

I flew from Oklahoma City to Houston to catch my international flight and was assured my suitcase would meet me at my final destination.

Wrong!

Bobby Ross Jr. makes a new friend during a 2009 reporting trip to South Africa.

For nearly a week, I had no peanut butter crackers (I generally bring such snacks just in case I need them). Even worse, I had no change of clothes. I didn’t bother to pack any in my carry-on bag. I learned my lesson.

Before I had a chance to go to the store, my friend Mike Avery — a minister who was on that same trip — loaned me a pair of Fruit of the Looms. Actually, “gave” is a better verb there because he insisted I keep them, and we still laugh about it.

3. Missile attack

In 2019, after a busy day that included a tour of a high-tech company in Ramallah, West Bank, and a visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, I was wrapping up dinner when my phone pinged.

“Your mom just called super worried,” my wife, Tamie, texted from 7,000 miles away.

About the same time, a friend emailed to make sure I was OK.

Israeli Brig. Gen. (Res.) Nitzan Nuriel, a counterterrorism expert, briefs journalists, including Bobby Ross Jr., in the Golan Heights in 2019.

What in the world?

As I soon learned, rockets fired from the Gaza Strip had set off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv, where I had been earlier in the week. No damages or injuries were reported, but the attack quickly made international news.

In a nation with more than a million bomb shelters, this strike — which quickly drew an Israeli military response — was no big deal. I tried to assure my mom of this. And myself.

4. McDonald’s in Manitoba

In 2017, my daughter, Kendall, then a high school senior, accompanied me on a reporting trip to Canada, where I covered Syrian refugees in both western and eastern Canada.

We left Oklahoma City at 3:30 a.m. the day the trip began. We flew to Dallas and then Toronto, arriving at 10 a.m. Oklahoma time. Yet our day was just getting started. After a six-hour layover, we still had to fly halfway across Canada — to Winnipeg, Manitoba — and then drive another three hours to the small farming community of Dauphin.

Short version of the rest of our day: Despite our hunger as we left the Winnipeg airport, we passed up a McDonald’s we saw. We decided to eat somewhere better later. Ultimately, we spotted a bunch of snowy fields and cattle grazing along rural Manitoba’s two-lane farm highways. But somewhere to eat? Not so much.

Bobby Ross Jr. with his daughter, Kendall, on a 2017 reporting trip to Dauphin, Manitoba.

Finally, at 11:30 p.m., we made it to Dauphin and drove toward our Super 8 motel. And we spotted heaven on earth — the Golden Arches.

Starving and exhausted, we both laughed giddily. Who could have guessed that one of our precious memories from this trip would involve Chicken McNuggets?

5. Medieval rideshare drama

Just this past fall, my wife and I spent 10 days in France, where I did a series on spiritual renewal in the secular nation (along with a Plug-in column on “love in many languages”).

At 4:45 a.m. on our final day there, we found ourselves rolling our 50-pound suitcases (Tamie didn’t pack lightly either!) along dark sidewalks in Chartres in search of our rideshare driver.

Roadblocks in that medieval French city — famous for its Gothic cathedral — made it difficult to find him.

Tamie Ross rides a train from Le Mans to Chartres during the trip to France.

When we finally caught up with him, I dozed off on the hour-long ride to the Paris airport. But Tamie stayed awake and held on for dear life. Zigging and zagging along a major highway, she prayed as the driver exceeded 100 mph.

I won’t soon forget this. Tamie won’t let me.

Zigging and zagging along a major highway, she prayed as the driver exceeded 100 mph.

Thankfully, the driver delivered us in time to make our flight. Which was promptly delayed.

Back to my Cuba trip: I did something out of the ordinary for me. I boarded an international flight without checking a bag.

I’d like to suggest that this signifies deep growth on my part, that I’m becoming a better world traveler.

Actually, I learned before leaving that if I checked a suitcase, it’d go all the way to the Varadero, Cuba, airport — and I wouldn’t have access to it during my overnight stop in Miami.

So I forced myself, just this once, to pack lightly. But please don’t count on me to make it a habit.

---

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Ross writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged, where this piece originally appeared. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

Tony Fernandez thinks it’s the perfect time.

The longtime minister for the Versalles Church of Christ — a growing congregation in this provincial capital in west-central Cuba — welcomed a U.S. mission team this past weekend.

Cuba in crisis: Read all the stories in the special package

“A lot of people from the States who used to come to Cuba have decided not to come anymore, and that really discourages Christians here,” lamented Fernandez, who has helped start more than 50 congregations in his native Cuba. 

“A lot of brothers and sisters have the idea that if they send money to Cuba, that’s enough,” he added. “But even though there are a lot of needs here in Cuba, the most important thing is the presence of brothers and sisters who care about you.”

The U.S. State Department urges Americans to exercise increased caution in traveling to the Caribbean island nation — just 90 miles south of Florida — because of crime and unreliable electrical power.

Americans can’t visit Cuba for general tourism but can obtain special visas, including travel for religious purposes.

“I really want people in the U.S. to know that Cuba is a safe place,” Fernandez said. “There are scarcities, but it’s safe to come here.”

I’ve never felt unsafe in my two reporting trips to Cuba since 2023. 

After worship at the Versalles church on Sunday, a man on the street approached Americans and asked for money. But he did not appear threatening or react negatively when given no cash.

On the other hand, unreliable electrical power is an ongoing problem. Thankfully, I brought a battery-powered fan.

I interviewed Fernandez in the dark as one of Cuba’s rolling blackouts hit the short-term rental house where I stayed. I used a tiny flashlight to see the questions in my notebook.

And I relied on Tim Archer, a former missionary to Argentina who has made 48 mission trips to Cuba, to interpret Fernandez’s Spanish for me — and my English for him.

Tony Fernandez speaks as the Versalles Church of Christ in Matanzas, Cuba, gathers for an areawide worship assembly in 2023.

Fernandez didn’t seem to notice the power outage. He’s used to such inconveniences.

He’s focused on doing God’s work, regardless of the circumstances. The Versalles church baptized 236 people last year.

“I don’t see the U.S. groups as human beings,” Fernandez said. “I see them as people sent by God to bless the Cuban church.”

Then he said something that brought tears to my eyes:

“Giving a hug to a Cuban brother tells him that God has not forgotten him.”

“Giving a hug to a Cuban brother tells him that God has not forgotten him.”

Regaining my journalistic composure, I mentioned that the U.S. blockade on oil shipments to Cuba has spurred the island’s deepening humanitarian crisis.

As Cubans struggle with fuel and food shortages, I asked, do they hold any animosity toward Americans?

“The Cuban people love the American people,” Fernandez replied immediately.

I followed a group of Christians from six U.S. states to Cuba. They came to support and encourage fellow believers. Two global ministries — Herald of Truth and One Kingdom — organized the trip.

John Howard, an elder of the White’s Ferry Road Church of Christ in West Monroe, La., has traveled to 65 countries — sometimes on business but often for mission work.

“It’s a beautiful country, and the people are super friendly — at least all the ones we’re meeting,” Howard said of his first visit to Cuba. “There’s a lot of poverty, and all we can do is pray for them and hope for changes that will give them more freedom.”

Little traffic can be seen on a Matanzas, Cuba, street during the U.S. mission group’s recent trip.

For decades, Cuba has blamed U.S. sanctions for its economic problems, while the U.S. cites its aim to restore democracy and respect for human rights. 

Geopolitical tensions between the two nations do not fracture the bond between the Cuban and American people, Fernandez insisted.

“There’s a lot of things that people who don’t live in Cuba can’t understand,” he said. “But I hope they understand the love.”

“There’s a lot of things that people who don’t live in Cuba can’t understand. But I hope they understand the love.”

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

Those words, spoken by Rick Atchley at ReMission, capture why I have continued to support the ReMission movement through its first and second conferences.

I find it undeniable that Churches of Christ have lost their mission and are in desperate need of clarity. The alternatives pursued over the past decades have been biblically flawed and practically ruinous.

Forty years ago, for better or worse, the mission of Churches of Christ was clear. We were the restoration of the first century church. Creeds, catechisms and stuffy theologians had overcomplicated the Scriptures and left the people in darkness.

Our plain reading and following of Scripture brought the New Testament church back to life. Correct or not, it is inarguable that the mission was clear: We were the church, and if we did not convert the world, the world was lost.

On the whole, we no longer believe this — and with good reason. But if we are “a” New Testament church rather than “the” New Testament church, what does that mean for our future?

Speaking on a panel at ReMission are, from left, are Jeff Cary of Lubbock Christian University in Texas; Monte Cox of Harding University in Searcy, Ark.; Carson Reed of Abilene Christian University in Texas; Jeremie Beller of Oklahoma Christian University in Oklahoma City; Garrett Best of York University in Nebraska; Leonard Allen of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn.; and Dyron Daughrity of Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.

For the past 20 years, it meant avoiding legalism at all costs. It looked like wallowing in embarrassment over past beliefs rather than equipping the next generation with proper ones. It became an anxious rejection of our parents rather than a faithful formation of our children. It meant failing to teach the full counsel of God.

Many in the pulpits — and especially in the seminaries — were abundantly clear about one thing: They were deeply embarrassed about the Church of Christ of the past — not as a minor bug but a defining feature, one that profoundly shaped my generation.

What was intended as reform often functioned as retreat. We neglected the difficult doctrines of our faith. We did not teach clearly on God’s righteous wrath. To spare self-esteem, we stopped teaching on sin and abandoned moral clarity in an effort to be inoffensive.

All the while, the moral and cultural landscape around us grew increasingly disordered, and my generation was ill equipped to handle it.

So, why ReMission? In my lifetime, it’s the first gathering of Church of Christ ministers that’s ever given me hope. Our brotherhood no longer has the urgency provided by sectarianism, and the progressive “Christianity” our seminaries have played with for the past two decades has not borne fruit.

In my view, ReMission offers a path forward that is both biblically faithful and practically workable for the Churches of Christ. It is neither sectarian nor progressive. It seeks to boldly proclaim both grace and truth. It calls for focus on preaching good news to the lost. It seeks to recover the authority of the Scripture. And it yearns for the power of the Holy Spirit.

“ReMission offers a path forward that is both biblically faithful and practically workable for the Churches of Christ. It is neither sectarian nor progressive. It seeks to boldly proclaim both grace and truth.”

Such a direction would pull us away from our disastrous flirtation with the ruinous path of the mainline churches and, dare I say, restore the best of the Restoration Movement.

Christ will build his church — of that I have no doubt. But our brotherhood’s existence is not guaranteed. If we are to have a future in God’s salvific plan, we need to take the work of building the church seriously, in our own churches and as a brotherhood.

ReMission offers a vision forward that I truly believe has a chance to reignite a zeal for evangelism and the holiness of God and authority of his word. For that, I am incredibly grateful.

ZACHARY MCCARTNEY is the university minister at the Hillcrest Church of Christ in Abilene, Texas. He leads Holy Land tours to Greece, Israel, Turkey and Jordan in partnership with GTI Tours and is an adjunct Bible professor at Abilene Christian University.  He is working on his doctorate in archaeology and biblical history from Veritas University.

That morning, my home country attacked his.

Tony found out several hours before I did. He’d been up since 2 a.m., when messages from his friends and family in Iran flooded his phone. It was a rare night when he forgot to silence his WhatsApp account, and it turned out to be providential.

“My family is safe,” he said. “Yes, and I’m very happy and excited.”

Erik and Tony prepare to part ways after lunch at Simply Falafel in Edmond, Okla.

I met Tony when he was my Uber driver to the airport for my trip to the Red Tie Gala in St. Lucia last year. I’ve had a lot of interesting airport rides in two-plus decades with The Christian Chronicle. A guy in Sarajevo told me that his country had pyramids with mystic powers. One driver was convinced that the Denver airport is haunted. (Seriously, they have a horse statue nicknamed “Blucifer.”) And there was the lady who, at 3 a.m., had a song blaring all the way to Will Rogers Airport — “I hope that heaven has a smoking section!” (If you’re in the smoking section, that ain’t heaven, pal.)

Tony was different. “I like your shirt!” he hollered as soon as he pulled into my driveway. I had on the “Jesus You” T-shirt I got from The Park Church of Christ in Tulsa, Okla., a few years back. It has become my airport shirt and has sparked some wonderful conversations, as I’ve mentioned before. 

At the airport in Sofia, Bulgaria, Erik Tryggestad meets Steve Rice of Oskaloosa, Iowa, who traveled to the European nation as part of a mission trip to train Bulgarian evangelists.

Tony, who worships with a Baptist church in Oklahoma City, has traveled all over the world working with Farsi-speaking believers. After many years as a preacher, he now leads a ministry that helps Western Christians effectively share Jesus with their Muslim neighbors. 

I got his number and promised to stay in touch. Four months later, I finally made good on that promise.

At lunch, Tony told me about growing up in Iran, where he started attending mosque at age 5. (His surname, Emamghoraishi, competes with mine in length and pronounceability.) By his teen years, Tony had questions about his faith that his teachers struggled to answer. He balked against the justifications for holy war, for killing infidels and shuddered at the frightening depictions of hell and eternal punishment that he heard over and over. 

On top of a Farsi-language Bible open to the prophet Isaiah, an Iranian Christian named Miriam flips through her own copy of a Farsi New Testament. She has highlighted the parable of the Pearl of Great Price in the Gospel of Matthew. The Christian Chronicle spoke with Miriam in 2018 when she was living as a refugee in Athens, Greece.

As a Farsi speaker, he didn’t understand why Islam required him to learn Arabic. But it was the Muslim call to prayer that really puzzled him. He knew he was supposed to face Qibla, the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca. But what if he were at the North Pole, where every direction is south? That reminded me a bit of the “what if you get in a car wreck and die on the way to the baptistery” argument so many of us in Churches of Christ raised in our teen Bible classes.

Tony began studying to become a mullah, but the more he learned about Islam, the more dissatisfied he became. So he abandoned his faith and became an atheist, even flirting a bit with communism. Then he came to the U.S. in 1978, just before the Iranian Revolution, to study industrial engineering at Lincoln University of Missouri.

After completing his degree, he moved to Bartlesville, Okla., and ran small businesses, including a doughnut shop. There he met his wife, a native Okie. She was pregnant with their second child when the couple’s landlord hired a painter named Waymmond for the whole complex. Tony got to know Waymmond, who also was a minister, and occasionally let him use the phone in his apartment. 

“He was very, very nice. I mean, I could see love and compassion through him. He had a beautiful smile. (He said), ‘Tony, it’s OK. Jesus loves you.’”

“Then he started talking about Jesus Christ,” Tony said. “I told him, ‘My friend, stop right here. I’m atheist. I don’t believe in the one you call God. This Jesus guy you’re talking about, don’t waste your breath.”

So Waymmond stopped, much to Tony’s surprise. “He was very, very nice. I mean, I could see love and compassion through him. He had a beautiful smile. (He said), ‘Tony, it’s OK. Jesus loves you.’” 

No wonder he liked my T-shirt.

Erik Tryggestad takes a photo with members of  the Park Church of Christ in Tulsa, Okla., just before receiving his “Jesus You” T-shirt in early 2024. The Park church hosted Christians and community members during a weekend-long project to produce Manna Packs for the nonprofit Feed My Starving Children.

His wife began attending the church where Waymmond preached, and eventually Tony tagged along to see what it was like. The preacher “greeted me just like the others,” Tony recalled, “and he knew I was an atheist.” That’s not how it was at the mosques in Iran, he said. Non-Muslims aren’t welcome. And when they prayed, “they called God their father. Are you kidding me? In Islam, if you call Allah ‘father,’ that’s blasphemy. But with your father … you can share your feelings, You can share your success, struggles.”

Tony got a New Testament and started reading, hoping to find some details to disprove Christianity or to prove that it was the same as other religions. Eventually, his studies led him to embrace the faith he had sought to discredit. 

He remembers the morning after his conversion. He got up between 3 and 4 a.m., as usual, to make the donuts. “I said, ‘Man, I’m so light. I have great peace.’” He always worried about what would happen to his wife and daughters if he died, but that fear was gone.

Muslim tourists stroll through historic Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2025.

Since then, Tony has traveled the globe and baptized more than 300 former Muslims. He has preached for congregations of Farsi speakers across the U.S., including Oklahoma City. Now age 70, he’s “retired” but coordinates FMC Ministry (From Muhammed to Christ) that helps American Christians effectively serve and share the Gospel with their Muslim neighbors.

He hears a lot of Christians pray for doors to open to reach Islamic nations and for God to prepare the hearts of Muslim people for salvation. That’s great, Tony said, but it’s really important that we pray for God to remove their fear. Many Muslims are afraid to question their faith, even a little bit. The terrible depictions of eternal torment and routine condemnations of non-Muslims he heard as a child instilled in him more fear than faith, he said. 

The incarnation, God becoming flesh in the person of Jesus, is a really difficult — even blasphemous — concept for Muslims, Tony said. Allah is divine and would not debase himself in such a manner. He must be worshiped with extreme reverence and respect. It’s important that Christians focus on the why behind the incarnation. God loves us so much that he put on flesh and came to be with us, to rescue us. And his love for us isn’t contingent on what we do.

“You have to reach out to your God. My God reached out to me.”

One convert put it this way: “You have to reach out to your God. My God reached out to me.”

I’m praying for Tony, for his family, and for all Iranians in Iran and scattered around the globe. May God work through all of the bad to bring about good.

ERIK TRYGGESTAD is President and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact erik@christianchronicle.org.

The recent memorial service for Kathy Kaaiohelo defied my expectations. The auditorium wasn’t full by any means, but it was the first funeral I’ve attended in our building that had me saying to myself, “There are a lot of people here.”

And it was 11 a.m. on a Tuesday.

This service even had a celebrity. Former NFL pro and gospel preacher Willie Franklin was a few pews ahead of me.

I heard brother Franklin speak some 30 years ago when I was student at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn. I covered his visit for the student newspaper, The Babbler. (Yes, that was its name. And it’s biblical. Look it up.) Our sports editor, Willie Steele, wrote a column called The Cheap Seats but refused to let us run his head shot with it. So each week we picked a photo of a famous athlete named Willie and ran that instead. We had Willie “Mays” Steele, Willie “McCovey” Steele, Willie “Gault” Steele and, of course, Willie “Franklin” Steele.

Erik Tryggestad and Willie Franklin meet after Kathy Kaaiohelo’s memorial service.

Willie Franklin gave one of the most memorable chapel talks in my undergrad experience. He stressed the need for us to demonstrate character rather than “act like characters.” If we saw a young couple making out on the white porch swings scattered across campus, he urged us to yell out “REPENT!”

“You’re either leading somebody to God or you’re leading them away from God, amen?” he said. He also admonished us to not be “the clock-eyed brother,” watching the time rather than focusing on the power of God’s word. He broke into song and led us in a rousing rendition of “Amen!” “See him at the temple (Amen!). Talking to the elders (Amen!). How they marveled at his wisdom. Amen, amen, amen!”

“I sing bear-a-tone. I sing whatever tone I want to and everybody has to bear it.”

“I sing bear-a-tone,” he said. “I sing whatever tone I want to and everybody has to bear it.” He had a million lines like that.

All these years later, what was Willie Franklin doing at Kathy Kaaiohelo’s funeral? I asked him after the service and found out that Kathy and her husband, Kenny, had played a big role in his life — like they had in mine.

Kathy was a homegrown Oklahoma girl who met Kenny, a native of Hawaii, when they were students at Oklahoma Christian University.

They married in turbulent 1968 at Memorial Road (then the College Church of Christ).

Officially, they had two sons, but they raised many more kids than that.

“Kenny and Kathy took care of a lot of people,” said Al Branch, a former president at Oklahoma Christian and Christian Chronicle trustee emeritus. “They especially loved on and cared for college students.” Branch, who came to OC from San Antonio, said that he and many of his classmates “found solace in the Kaaiohelos’ home, and their laundry room, and their kitchen. It was our home away from home.” Branch added that he was able to marry his wife, Judy, only after Kathy and his aunt, JoAnne North, “gave me the thumbs-up.”

Kathy and Kenny Kaaiohelo celebrate their 57th wedding anniversary in May 2025.

Willie Franklin was a few years post-college when the Kaaiohelos came into his life. Born in Louisiana and raised in San Diego, he was a standout wide receiver for the University of Oklahoma in the early 1970s. His offensive coordinator was a guy named Barry Switzer.

Franklin and his Sooners played the Alabama Crimson Tide to a 24-24 tie in the 1970 Bluebonnet Bowl. Bama’s coach was a guy named Bear Bryant.

The NFL didn’t draft Willie, but then he played in an alumni game and caught three touchdown passes from teammate Ron Fletcher. He also caught the eye of a pro scout and was a walk-on for the Baltimore Colts. He returned to Oklahoma after his rookie season to do graduate work, and Fletcher helped him out in a much bigger way. Fletcher, who later became a minister for Churches of Christ, encouraged and studied Scripture with Willie — and baptized him.

“I met Kenny and Kathy after I had become a Christian and spent lots of hours at their home,” Willie told me. “In fact, I baptized their oldest son, Jason. They were always a strong influence in my life and still are. I consider them family.”

“They were always a strong influence in my life and still are. I consider them family.”

In 1974, Willie signed with the Los Angeles Rams, but the time he spent with the Kaaiohelos and other Christians tugged at his heart. He gave up football and enrolled in a two-year preaching program at Harding University in Searcy, Ark. He spoke at venues including the University of Wyoming, where he met his wife, Pam, who was there on a swimming scholarship. They married in 1983 and moved to Papua New Guinea in the Pacific to do mission work. Seven years later, they moved back and served Churches of Christ in Oklahoma and Texas.

Willie continued to travel the globe, speaking to churches, youth groups, colleges and a few greenhorn newspaper reporters like me.

Willie Franklin speaks at the West End Church of Christ in Knoxville, Tenn.

It was great to speak with Willie more than three decades after hearing him in chapel. And I loved learning about the Kaaiohelos’ influence on his ministry.

By the time I arrived in Oklahoma in 2001, Kenny and Kathy had “graduated” from serving college students to caring for young, single adults — a much-overlooked demographic in our pews. They encouraged a group of us, led by singles minister Bart Rybinski, as we formed a leadership team and organized activities.

One of those activities was an early morning Christmas care package delivery for a single mom. After we snuck onto her lawn to leave a basket of gift cards, Kenny Kaaiohelo invited us to Cracker Barrel for breakfast — and paid for everybody.

I found a seat across from Bart and his wife, Tamika, who were in the middle of a conversation with a cute medical school student from Altus, Okla. After breakfast, I learned her name — Jeanie Jacks. This June, we’ll celebrate 23 years of marriage.

Thank you, Kathy and Kenny, for the roles you played, big and small, and for the faith you instilled in a university president, a pro football star, a newspaper guy and countless others.

ERIK TRYGGESTAD is President and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact erik@christianchronicle.org.

I didn’t realize it at the time. As part of my visit to the Balkans for our “In Search of Shalom” series, I wanted to visit Vukovar, a city on the Serbian border that endured a monthslong siege during Croatia’s war for independence. Osijek has the closest airport, so I booked a flight on Croatia Airlines from the capital, Zagreb. 

The Osijek Airport welcomes visitors to northeastern Croatia.

I was one of six people on the small prop plane. When we touched down, minister Goran Kumrić was waiting for me. As we headed to Vukovar, we drove past field after field of bright yellow sunflowers. I thought about my friends in Ukraine who inspired the “Shalom” series. The sunflower is their national symbol. 

As I prepared to launch the series, I took a six-week online course through the nonprofit Peace Catalyst International, “Introduction to Christian Peacebuilding For Church Leaders.” The participants Zoomed in from locales around the globe and represented a diversity of faith traditions. Phil Gazley, a minister in Norwich, England, led the discussions.

Lisa Sharon Harper

Among the course materials were videos by Lisa Sharon Harper, founder and president of FreedomRoad.us. I downloaded an audio copy of her book, “The Very Good Gospel,” which she narrates herself.

I was surprised to learn that Harper had visited Osijek back in 2004 as part of a Balkan Pilgrimage for Reconciliation. She and her fellow sojourners saw the fields of sunflowers and broke into song, praising God. 

Later, they spoke with farmers who survived the wars of the 1990s. In a conference room in Osijek, “we shared with the director of a community development organization that we were overwhelmed by the beauty of the sunflowers,” Harper writes. 

The director’s response: “Yes. The sunflowers are so tall and plentiful because no one can go into the fields to plow them. The fields are full of mines.”

Harper also took part in a pilgrimage to 10 U.S. states, retracing the Cherokee Trail of Tears and the African American experience from slavery to civil rights. 

“I realized that my understanding of the Gospel was mute in the face of this evil, it had nothing to say,” she said in a video interview. “That was a frightening thought.” It also was the beginning of a 13-year journey of prayer and Bible study as she wrote “The Very Good Gospel.”

“The Very Good Gospel” by Lisa Sharon Harper (2016, WaterBrook).

“I believe that the Good News that Jesus himself proclaimed was that, in following the Jesus way, in following the way of Good News, then this world could be healed,” Harper said.

The book dives deep into Scripture, particularly the first three chapters of Genesis and the repeated phrase, “God saw that it was good.” It’s easy to read right past that without recognizing how good God’s goodness is. God declared shalom — a peace of wholeness, a just peace, a peace that theologian Neal Plantinga Jr. calls “the webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment and delight.” 

That’s a lot better than “good.”

I got to spend a few minutes with Harper recently, and I asked her how the pilgrimages she undertook helped to shape the vision of shalom she presents in her book. How can people who have endured brutal attacks from each other move toward shalom?

Recognizing mutual needs, and how cooperation can meet those needs, is key, Harper said. In Osijek, farmers told the story of how one family that had property free of land mines opened it up for the community to grow crops. That was a tiny step toward reconciliation. 

Tourists from around the world walk the streets of Sarajevo in summer 2025.

Harper also visited Sarajevo, where a priest had assembled a choir of Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. They sang each other’s sacred music.

“They’re not getting together in a room and working out things diplomatically,” Harper said. “but what they’ve done is built relationship and rebuilt trust from the very smallest unit of trust that they could muster, which is common need.”

I think back to 2011 when I attended a Bible conference on Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and witnessed baptisms in the Black Sea. Christian composer Konstantin Zhugulin, a Russian, led worship and introduced the crowd to some of his own, beautiful compositions in his language. Such exchanges seem unthinkable now, but perhaps someday music will once again be a tool God uses to restore shalom among our brothers and sisters in Eastern Europe. 

Konstantin Zhigulin, a church member in St. Petersburg, Russia, leads singing at an evangelistic seminar in Crimea in 2011.

This principle doesn’t just apply to Croats and Serbs or Ukrainians and Russians, Harper said. It can work in places like New York City or Minneapolis to bring healing among people in tension. Focusing on problems like poverty can build bridges among people of multiple, divergent faiths.

When people stop seeing each other as “other” and work toward a common goal, they can actually help heal the earth. Look no further than the sunflower. 

Sasha Prokopchuk baptizes and hugs a Bible student in the Black Sea during a 2011 conference in Crimea.

After the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 in Ukraine, the Soviet Union began massive containment and cleanup operations that ultimately cost thousands of lives. Soldiers roamed the abandoned streets of the industrial town of Pripyat shooting housepets that were infected by radiation. Grim.

The Soviets also planted vast fields of sunflowers in the lands around Chernobyl. It turns out that Ukraine’s national symbol is a hyperaccumulator of dangerous heavy metals, including the cesium-137 and strontium-90 found in the soil near the reactor. 

Sunflowers bloom in the Kherson region of Ukraine.

“Planting sunflowers will not suddenly solve all of your nuclear nightmares,” writes Max Barnhart, a researcher at the University of Georgia, “but the flowers do something pretty cool to help clean up the environment.”

In the search for shalom, it’s all about the “pretty cool,” the tiny steps, the “very smallest unit of trust,” as Harper put it. 

May we all have faith as small as a sunflower seed.

ERIK TRYGGESTAD is President and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact erik@christianchronicle.org.

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How did it make you feel?

These responses from readers of The Christian Chronicle have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity:

“While I was delivering mail, one of my customers pulled up in her car next to me and said, ‘What’s your favorite Girl Scout cookie?’ I asked back, “Oh, are you selling cookies?’ She responded, ‘I want to give you a box.’ It made my day, not just because I like cookies but because it made me feel appreciated.” — Terry Laudett, Tulsa, Okla.

“On a road trip to see my father, who is suffering from dementia, we left early and stopped at a fast food restaurant to get breakfast. Ordering breakfast for three adults is not cheap. But the car in front of us paid for our meal, and they have no idea how much it meant.” — Teresa Kerr Lewis, Weleetka, Okla.

“Deborah Kelly, a lady in our congregation, writes notes of encouragement. I have been the recipient of those notes on many occasions. I just received one recently from her. I told her, ‘I keep all of them, and I look at them when I have moments of discouragement.’” — Ross Mitchell, Fort Walton Beach, Fla.

“I recently received a card from one of our members stating how thankful they were that my wife, Libby, and I had moved here. Notes of encouragement like this are not atypical, but are always special. I keep every one of the cards and notes I receive in a box that I have dubbed my ‘Barnabas Box.’ Whenever I’m going through a valley in ministry, I pull out my Barnabas Box and read through some of the letters, and it lifts me up and refreshes my passion.” — Chris McCurley, Dickson, Tenn. 

“A young man purchased my fountain drink at the gas station. We didn’t know each other, and I said, “Oh, you don’t have to do that,’ but he commented that he had won some money from lottery scratch-off tickets and wanted to. I thought it was very kind.” — Kirsten Ping Kraft, Lebanon, Ind.

“Unable to find an item in the dairy section at Target, we asked a nearby worker named Dexter if he had any insight. He went back to inventory and searched but later returned and apologized that the item was on back order. He promised to save us two of the products and call us when they arrived. While we paid, my wife, Michele, mentioned to the store manager how much we appreciate Dexter’s due diligence. As we exited the store, we heard the manager on the PA system say, ‘We thank valued customer Michele Woodhouse, who brought to my attention the great service provided by valued employee Dexter Wright. Target is better because of both of you!” — Eddie Woodhouse, Asheville, N.C.

“I recently went to visit my parents, who are getting older and struggling with some health issues. My parents live in rural East Texas, but there is a Scooter’s Coffee drive-thru there, which makes it easier to get that little pick-me-up for the three-hour drive back home. I made my order, and when I pulled up to pay, the lady in front of me had already paid for my coffee. I have no idea who she was, but I am thankful for her.” — Paul Cartwright, Fulshear, Texas

A person holds a red heart in front of a sunset. A random act of kindness can make someone’s day.

“My son-in-law is a great cook. He recently gave me a small carafe used to spray oil. He said he had one and really liked it. It wasn’t a gift-giving occasion. He just ordered one for me. He’s a man of few words, but a kitchen gift is a really thoughtful thing coming from him. It made me feel like he thinks I’m a good cook, too!” — Cheryl Mann Bacon, Abilene, Texas

“We live in an apartment on the seventh floor. Rarely are packages addressed to us delivered to our door. The apartment building has a package room on the first floor, or sometimes packages are just left on the first floor by the mailboxes. Our next-door neighbor, Greg, one of the nicest young men you will ever meet, is always looking out for us. Just the other day, as is his custom, he brought our packages up to us. We are so grateful for his acts of kindness.” — Bill Robinson, New York City

“At the self-checkout at Kroger, I put everything in the bag and began the process to pay. While I was reaching for my wallet, someone immediately walked up from behind me and tapped their credit card at the register and paid for my bag of groceries. I turned around and recognized the person as a friend and brother in Christ from another congregation in town. We had a good but very short conversation … which included a thank you, mutual encouragement and affirmations to be the people of God who are faithful, joyful, kind and generous. We promised to pray for each other’s walk in Christ and our families.” — Randy Todd, Arlington, Texas

“A colleague in my franchising work wrote a whole LinkedIn post about how I had helped him. He went into great detail and publicly honored me with this post for something I felt was common but he thought was amazing. How did it make me feel? Humbled, honored, inspired to do it again!” — Shannon Wilburn, Tulsa, Okla.

WANT TO SHARE your own experience with a random act of kindness? Email letters@christianchronicle.org.

My 4-year-old granddaughter squirmed in her car seat as we pulled into the Chick-fil-A drive-thru.

Just after 6 a.m., Norah was wide awake and excited after a sleepover at her Papa and Nana’s house.

I rolled down my window and Norah’s, too, as we awaited our chicken and scrambled eggs. Norah giggled as she lifted her bare feet into the breeze.

“Norah, please keep your toes inside the car,” I requested, only making her tee-hee more.

After just a minute, a Chick-fil-A team member with a familiar face — let’s be honest, I’m a regular — arrived with our food and chocolate milk.

“You brought somebody with you today,” the team member said with a smile.

Bobby and Tamie Ross with their grandchildren, Norah and Bennett.

“Yes, it’s my granddaughter,” I replied, proudly.

“How many grandkids do you have?” she asked.

“Two. Norah has an older brother, Bennett.”

Then the woman handed me two little plastic bags with stuffed cows inside, in keeping with Chick-fil-A’s “Eat Mor Chikin” slogan.

It was just a tiny gesture. But as I drove away, I couldn’t help but feel better about the world.

American optimism has slumped to a record low, according to Gallup. Fewer than 60 percent of U.S. adults anticipate high-quality lives in five years, the recent poll found.

Among the concerns driving pessimism: affordability issues, turbulent national politics and global conflicts, the Washington Post reported.

Norah Ross enjoys a bit of reading with her breakfast.

Can you relate? Might a random act of kindness make you feel better?

It sure did for Aaron Sayles during a recent bout with COVID-19.

Fifteen years ago, Sayles served as the youth minister for the Tonto Street Church of Christ in Phoenix. Most of his youth group’s former teens are around 30 years old now. When one of them found out that Sayles, who now lives in Virginia, was ill, she called to check on him and tell him she was praying.

Aaron Sayles now lives in Virginia but previously served as a youth minister in Arizona.

“Then Ashley surprised me with a care package delivered right to my door,” said Sayles, a member of the Newport News Church of Christ. “Inside was delicious chicken noodle soup, warm rolls and cookies, along with a little note saying I was her favorite youth minister.

“It was such a thoughtful and touching act of kindness,” added Sayles, who serves on The Christian Chronicle’s board of trustees.

What if we all tried to be kinder — be it sending encouraging notes, waving at a stranger or just improving our sometimes surly attitudes?

In a dark theater recently, a woman sat down in one of the seats reserved for my wife and daughter. I leaned over and told her Seats 6 and 7 belonged to me.

“Well, where is five?” the lady asked.

“I assume it’s on the other side of six,” I replied, gruffly.

I could have — and should have — done better.

“Random acts of kindness should be so much a part of our life as a Christian that the word random is foreign to us,” said Charlie Harrison, minister for the Brunswick Church of Christ in Maine.

Kindness is biblical, after all. “Love is kind,” as 1 Corinthians 13:4 notes. Jesus himself said in Luke 6:31, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

“In the name of Jesus, the world could use a whole lot more kindness.”

Would you want others to be rude (like me at the movie) or kind?

In the name of Jesus, the world could use a whole lot more kindness.

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

No, I don’t drink.

But when we travel to events such as the recent ReMission conference, my friend always volunteers to take his truck.

This is part of a series exploring the identity of Churches of Christ. Read more here.

It’s a nice, sturdy pickup — a white 2017 Chevrolet Silverado with 175,000 miles on it. Still, I don’t think Beller’s love for his personal ride motivates him as much as stories he’s heard about my driving prowess. Or lack thereof.

“No one ever wants you to drive,” said my wife, Tamie, who took the wheel of our “Just Married” vehicle way back in 1990.

Actually, I did steer us away from the church on our wedding day. But then we stopped at a nearby Dairy Queen for treats. My bride kindly offered to switch seats before proceeding on the honeymoon.

Did I mention that I’m mostly blind in my left eye?

Beller and I made the 340-mile drive from Oklahoma City to Little Rock after Sunday morning worship at our respective congregations.

Beller, dean of the College of Bible at Oklahoma Christian University and opinions editor for The Christian Chronicle, picked me up at my office.

Speaking on a panel at ReMission are, from left, are Jeff Cary of Lubbock Christian University in Texas; Monte Cox of Harding University in Searcy, Ark.; Carson Reed of Abilene Christian University in Texas; Jeremie Beller of Oklahoma Christian University in Oklahoma City; Garrett Best of York University in Nebraska; Leonard Allen of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn.; and Dyron Daughrity of Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.

Jason Thompson, one of ReMission’s organizers, graciously offered to put the Chronicle in attendees’ swag bags. So Beller helped me load boxes filled with 600 copies into his truck.

Then I grabbed my roller bag and my laptop, and we hit the highway.

An hour or two east on Interstate 40, Beller spotted a Love’s Travel Shop. We stopped for gasoline and a restroom break. I bought a Baby Ruth candy bar.

Beller chose a bag of frosted animal cookies, his go-to snack on the highway. We’ll see if we remain friends after I just shared that.

At some point, our mutual friend, David Duncan, called. Duncan preaches for the Memorial Church of Christ in Houston and serves as vice chairman of Oklahoma Christian’s board of trustees.

Like us, Duncan was headed to ReMission. We planned to meet him for dinner at Texas Roadhouse that night, so he was checking in.

Bobby Ross Jr., Jeremie Beller and David Duncan enjoy dinner at a Texas Roadhouse restaurant in Little Rock, Ark.

I hit the “speaker” button on my iPhone. Duncan was reared in the tiny Texas Panhandle town of Canadian and regaled us with random Lone Star State trivia. If I could remember any of it, I’d share it.

Both Beller and Duncan work with churches that would be considered traditional in nature. I mean that in terms of a cappella singing, individual songleaders as opposed to praise teams and distinct gender roles.

Yet each returned for a second year to ReMission, organized mainly by church leaders with progressive stances on those subjects.

I’m a journalist — and an inquisitive friend — so I asked Duncan and Beller about their reasoning.

“If we don’t know each other, then we are never going to be able to learn from each other,” Duncan said. “I think one of the best things we can do is to open up and talk and be friends with each other.”

Raymond Kelcy and Hugo McCord — both now deceased — were renowned Bible professors during Duncan’s student days at Oklahoma Christian.

Attendees praise God during the ReMission conference in Little Rock, Ark.

“They were best friends,” Duncan said. “And in the open forum every year, Raymond Kelcy would get up and explain something. Then Hugo McCord would come up right behind him, and he would say, ‘Raymond is a good man, but he’s wrong.’”

Kelcy and McCord, Duncan recalled, “truly loved each other and considered each other brothers and friends.”

What we label as “conservative” and “liberal” within Churches of Christ would not translate to the wider world of Christendom.

At least that’s how Beller, congregational minister for the Wilshire Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, sees it.

“What I have appreciated about ReMission is, they’re very clear about their belief in the inspiration and authority of Scripture,” Beller said. “And they are very open and honest about a belief in traditional Judeo-Christian sexual values.”

In an unplanned stop at Walmart in Russellville, Ark., Bobby Ross Jr. picks out two new shirts.

At the Chronicle, we strive to cover the full diversity of our fellowship — the right, the left and in between.

That’s what drew me to Little Rock to report on ReMission.

If only I hadn’t left my dress shirts hanging in my car in Oklahoma.

Thankfully, we found a Walmart in Russellville — midway between the Arkansas state line and the conference site — and I invested $50 in two new shirts.

Beller made me proud. I just knew he’d try to sneak another bag of frosted animal cookies into the cart. But he refused to give in to the temptation.

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

Keith Stanglin, pulpit minister for the University Avenue Church of Christ in Austin, Texas, experienced a jolt himself when he discovered it.

“In the last year or two,” Stanglin told me in an email, “I’ve started watching a little more football (NFL and NCAA) again, after taking a nearly total hiatus for many years. So I easily notice how things have changed (in and around the game). One of the most obvious new changes is the ubiquitous advertising and promoting of online sports betting. I find it shocking and horrible; it angers me.”

Americans are expected to wager a record $1.76 billion legally on Sunday’s Super Bowl LX game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, according to USA Today.

For decades, religious opponents waged battles — albeit often unsuccessfully — to prevent legalized gambling. Nearly a quarter-century ago, I covered the fight over a proposed Tennessee state lottery for The Associated Press.

“Since 47 states have gambling, I would have to think God’s not really against it,” Democratic state Sen. Steve Cohen — Tennessee’s chief lottery proponent, who is now a U.S. congressman — told me in 2002.

Based on that logic, God must really love Americans’ ability to click on a smartphone and wager on a live NBA, MLB or NFL game.

In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a ban on sports betting. That decision opened the floodgates as nearly 40 states rushed to legalize the practice, an AP story noted.

It all happened so quickly — mostly without the fierce religious opposition seen on earlier gambling questions.

Why?

Christianity Today’s Emily Belz’s offered this explanation in a 2024 report:

State-level Christian organizations that tried to fight off the recent legalization of sports betting or put guardrails around it found that there was too much money on the other side of the issue and not much appetite for fighting in the pews.

Few Christians see sports gambling as a problem. A 2016 survey from Lifeway Research found that only 36 percent of Christians thought sports betting was morally wrong. Pastors carry more reservations, with a majority telling Lifeway in 2019 that betting on sports is morally wrong and three-quarters believing it should not be legal.

People responding on social media to critiques of gambling on Desiring God or The Gospel Coalition argued that the authors were being “legalistic” and that betting was no different than investing in the stock market or a 401(k).

Putting bucks on the big game through a few clicks on an app or sports site doesn’t have the social stigma that casino gambling used to carry. The 2020 Gallup figures on the issue showed that 71 percent of Americans said gambling was morally acceptable, the highest level in the 18 years it had done the survey.

But those who continue to be involved in antigambling activism say it’s still harmful.

In a different 2024 story, Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana cited similar reasons “why faith leaders lost the battle against online sports betting.”

Smietana emphasized the speed at which the nearly nationwide defeats occurred:

Some of the nation’s largest faith groups have long considered gambling immoral, or a “menace to society,” as the United Methodist Church social principles put it. But faith leaders like (Baptist pastor Greg) Davis are likely fighting an uphill battle, said longtime Boston College professor and Jesuit priest Richard McGowan.

McGowan, who has been nicknamed “the Odds Father” because of his research on gambling, said faith leaders were caught flatfooted by how fast legalized sports gambling became commonplace.

After New Hampshire started the first state-run lottery in 1964, he said, it took nearly 60 years for 40 other states to follow suit. Legalized sports betting took five years to get that popular — after the Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law that limited legal sports betting to Nevada.

Instead of having to jet off to Las Vegas to place a legal bet, in most states, people can pull out their phones and use a popular app like FanDuel or Caesar Sportsbook to place bets on the outcomes of games along with almost anything else that happens in a game.

The ease of legalized betting coincided with what McGowan called “the ethics of tolerance.”

This past fall, Slate’s Molly Olmstead delved into why evangelical gambling critics have “largely gone quiet at the moment the country needs them most.”

Olmstead noted:

To understand why evangelicals appear to have lost their taste for anti-gambling crusades, it’s necessary to first look at the ways the sports betting industry has enfeebled its entire opposition.

This issue cannot be understood properly without an acknowledgement of the bogglingly large sums of money poured into it. DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, and other major commercial interests have flooded statehouses with teams of lobbyists who often pitch gambling as a way to fund popular causes, such as scholarships or clean water. And those companies aren’t the only big players: The major sports leagues have seen the potential for their own gain—from increased fan engagement, from official paid partnerships, from media licensing, and from licensing the data sold to sportsbooks—and thrown their support behind the legalization bills. That pivot, a complete turnaround from the industry’s firm opposition to sports betting back in the ’90s, when athletes and league bigwigs testified that betting would corrupt sports, has eliminated one of the last major checks on the gambling industry’s lobbying power. 

Now, 14 percent of U.S. adults say they bet on professional or college sports online, according to AP, with a growing list of sports betting scandals making headlines.

A record $1.76 billion is expected to be wagered on the Super Bowl.

More people seem to be asking if legal sports betting is good or bad for America.

In a Pew Research Center survey last year, 43 percent of U.S. adults said “the fact that sports betting is now legal in much of the country is a bad thing for society.” That was up from 34 percent in 2022.

An expert quoted by the Deseret News’ Dennis Romboy detailed his concerns:

“I just feel like this all happened so quickly for people that they didn’t necessarily have a chance to digest what the stakes were, what the dangers were,” said journalist Danny Funt, who chronicled the rise of American sports gambling in a new book titled “Everybody Loses” due out in January.

“It happened so quickly that the gambling industry and their business partners had such a powerful lobby and public platform to assure people that this was, if not neutral, actually a good thing for sports and society.”

Funt said evidence of rising gambling addiction rates and dangers to public health along personal finance issues such as higher bankruptcy rates, less savings and college students tapping into their tuition fund is trickling in.

“All of these studies and research projects are creating a mountain of bad news,” he said. “I would expect those figures (in the poll) to continue to skew toward more concern than optimism as time passes.”

I have an email list that I sometimes use to seek feedback on topics such as this. So in advance of the Super Bowl, I asked about sports betting.

“It’s three will get you five that you don’t get the truth,” one friend replied, using betting parlance for high odds.

To be sure, no one replied to advocate for betting on Sunday’s game. But others shared thoughtful comments.

“For many Christians, the concern isn’t about a single bet — it’s about the cultural shift,” said Aaron Sayles, a member of the Newport News Church of Christ in Virginia.

“Gambling is now accessible 24/7,” added Sayles, who plans to watch the Super Bowl. “It is aggressively marketed. It is statistically addictive. It is financially destructive for millions. It subtly reshapes the heart toward risk, greed and escapism.”

“Gambling is now accessible 24/7. It is aggressively marketed. It is statistically addictive. It is financially destructive for millions. It subtly reshapes the heart toward risk, greed and escapism.”

Kevin Ward, a sports radio program director and an elder of The Park Church of Christ in Tulsa, Okla., said, “People can actually bet on something while the game is going on. I think this has become an epidemic among younger men, especially.

“Because bets are placed in smaller increments, I think a lot of people don’t view it as a big deal,” Ward added. “But then when you look back over time, it likely adds up to the same amount of spending.”

Makenzie Young, youth minister with her husband, Jonathan, for the Eugene Church of Christ in Oregon, said she heard a parent exclaim, “Man, I bet $100 on this game!” at a recent kindergarten basketball scrimmage.

“This was at a game where they don’t even keep score,” Young said.

“We talk about it some with our teens, to which most of them ask why it would be bad to go to Vegas only once,” she added. “I think a lot of people see it as a fun ‘once’ thing to do. But in reality, it’s a waste of resources God has given you, and it gives the devil a potentially huge foothold, in my opinion.”

Mitch East, adult education minister for the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, said online sports gambling preys on men.

“If pornography is a vice that enslaves male libido, online sports betting is a vice that enslaves men’s desire for risk and adventure,” East said. “I will not bet on the Super Bowl, and I never want any access to sports betting apps for me or my kids. I think every Christian parent should be worried if they have sons.”

Jake Perkins, senior minister for the Grace Crossing Church of Christ in Conroe, Texas, said he preached a series last fall called “Raised by a Casino” in which he attempted “to show people how the modern architecture of phone apps is built on the decades-old design of casinos in Vegas and beyond.

“It is definitely a problem,” Perkins said.

“And no, I don’t bet,” he quipped. “I am a preacher. Who has the money to bet?”

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Ross writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged, where this piece originally appeared. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

The trip was a last-minute, skymiles-burning endeavor sparked by the Jan. 3 capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Christmas lights were still on the palm trees as I rolled into Pompano Beach to stay with my gracious hosts, Anthony and Cheryl Fischetto.

Anthony Fischetto sits in his office at the Church of Christ on Griffin Road.

I met Anthony in 2018 when he was coordinating a small-group ministry for the West Broward Church of Christ in Plantation. Even then, the church had a lot of refugees from Venezuela, and its members were raising funds to send aid to the troubled country. Anthony set up a video call, and I talked to church members who said they pray daily, even hourly, for their family and friends back home.

Now Anthony preaches for the Church of Christ on Griffin Road in Southwest Ranches. That’s where I began Sunday morning. As the church’s Spanish service concluded, I explored the small church building and took advantage of the most organized Sunday school coffee setup I’ve ever encountered. ¡Muy bien hecho, hermanos y hermanas! You’re doing the Lord’s work.

@christianchronicle SOUTHWEST RANCHES, FLA. — Christian Chrnicle CEO Erik Tryggestad shows off the coffee service provided by the Spanish class of the Church of Christ on Griffin Road. #churchcoffee #churchofchrist #southfloridachurch #coffeebreak ♬ original sound – The Christian Chronicle

I spoke briefly to the English Bible class about The Christian Chronicle. Anthony was teaching on “Discerning Gospel, Obedience, Liberty Wisdom and Preference.” His outline included a “classification exercise” covering topics from baptism to observing Christmas and Easter to hand clapping during worship. I had to leave, but I told them to let me know when they had it all figured out.

Erik Tryggestad speaks with David Bozdogan before worship at the West Broward Church of Christ.

My next stop was the West Broward church. I spoke to David Bozdogan, a deacon and native of Colombia. He’s excited about the possibility of church members and missionaries from the U.S. and Latin America returning to Venezuela to help the Churches of Christ there. I also spoke with deacon Juan Carlos Martinez. He was filling in for the church’s Spanish-language minister, Ulbert Romero, who was wrapping up his holiday with family in Nicaragua. I spent more time with Juan Carlos on Monday morning at a coffee shop in Weston and learned about his incredible journey from Venezuela to the U.S.

My final stop was the Sunset Church of Christ in Miami. I took communion with the Spanish-language service and caught up briefly with my friends Jeff Hinson and Bob Perkins after the English service. The amazing Jim Holway, the church’s bilingual minister, translated for me as I interviewed Venezuelan church members. The church’s youth minister, Gustavo Rivera, and his wife, Gabby, are from Venezuela. I had lunch with them and brother Holway at my favorite South Florida restaurant chain, Polo Tropical.

A roadside iguana in Miami stands still for a photo.

As I headed back to Pompano Beach, I saw two huge iguanas crossing the road near the Sunset church’s parking lot. I stopped to get photos.

Not a bad way to end a busy Sunday.

ERIK TRYGGESTAD is President and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact erik@christianchronicle.org.

The federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota and Chicago has gone too far, and ICE’s tactics are biblically wrong and illegal. While we all can agree that we need immigration reform, border security and deportation of criminals, what ICE is doing is inhumane.

The killings of two U.S. citizen, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, are the worst of their immoral actions. But they are also brutalizing people, pulling people over on the basis of skin color and treating people with contempt — one of the sins Jesus pronounces the greatest judgment on in Matthew 5:22.

Even a police chief in Minneapolis stated ICE was violating the law, endangering citizens and escalating dangerous situations by their antagonistic attitudes. The police have the most to lose here. ICE is destroying trust in law enforcement, which makes law enforcement so much harder for the good police out there.

The criticisms of ICE cross party lines. Chris Madel, a leading Republican contender for governor in Minnesota, withdrew from the race because of the “unconstitutional” actions of ICE, even though he originally supported bringing ICE to Minnesota. Madel said that ICE’s operation is an “unmitigated disaster.”

He criticized the ICE policy of stopping anyone of color as wrong, saying he personally had heard from local Asian and Hispanic law enforcement officers who had been pulled over by ICE. He cited the “national Republican stated retribution on the citizens of our state” before sending in ICE as wrong, saying the party has “made it nearly impossible for a Republican to win a statewide election in Minnesota.”

Because of the outcry over the ICE killings, Republican Senator Rand Paul has called for the leaders of ICE to testify at an open hearing.

As Christians, we know God has special concern for refugees and aliens: “You must not mistreat or oppress foreigners in any way. Remember, you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21).

Many refugee organizations are Christian. One of them, World Relief, posted a plea for help for legal refugees being taken by ICE — immigrants they have helped resettle. These are people Christians have helped, people we have brought to Christ. We cannot look away when they are being treated illegally.

ICE has been terrorizing and harassing U.S. citizens. One of my children in Chicago was tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, shot with rubber bullets and thrown to the ground multiple times, bruised and scraped up while protesting ICE.

The agency has overstepped its authority, broken laws and not been held accountable. If we have a government agency breaking laws with impunity, we are moving to a lawless society. Anyone reading Romans 13 in favor of law and order must call for accountability for ICE.

Not only are the actions of ICE wrong, they have caused the agency to lose their credibility. This is evidenced by the vast numbers of people protesting their presence and tactics in Minneapolis. These aren’t radical liberals who are part of some organized anti-government group.

Attendees gather during a vigil where Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026.

Many are ordinary citizens — professionals, Christians, neighbors, moms — who saw what was happening and couldn’t passively watch. They know at this point they are risking their own lives, but they have not gone into hiding and instead have come out in greater numbers. In a video by Christian singer Sara Groves, she explains her involvement and answers questions.

The ICE crackdown is especially egregious to us as Christians because of the inhumane way some of the agents are treating people. A recording of ICE’s fatal encounter with Renée Good captures an ICE agent calling her a vulgar name immediately after one of them shoots her. This is hatred. This is contempt.

“We can uphold the law and uphold human dignity. We have before. We have to again.”

Some agents see any protestor or immigrant as the enemy. One video catches an agent hollering, “It’s like ‘Call of Duty.’ Pretty cool, huh?” It’s not the law enforcement that’s the issue. It’s the spirit, the dehumanizing.

We can all be in favor of good law enforcement and still speak out passionately against totalitarian, ungodly tactics. In fact, we have to. It’s our responsibility. As David French wrote, “It’s not a binary choice between brutal enforcement and unrestrained immigration.”

We can uphold the law and uphold human dignity. We have before. We have to again.

KELLY WALDEN is a mom of four, married to Wayne, owns a small business and attends the Reidland Church of Christ in Paducah, Ky.

As tensions continue to rise surrounding immigration restriction and federal enforcement of it, Christians are left to consider where God would have us stand. Can a Christian support deportations and stricter limits on legal immigration? I propose that we both can, and should.

Yes, Leviticus 19:33-34 commanded Israel to love foreigners as themselves. This principle should certainly guide us. But does the verse mean that borders are irrelevant? Does it mean that no one can ever be sent home? Does it mean that a nation cannot limit legal immigration?

Of course not. And most of those who point to the Levitical command would probably agree. But when it is used as a mic-drop prooftext, the impression given is that detaining and deporting anyone is inherently a mistreatment and a failure to love.

When you look at the rest of the Mosaic law’s teachings on sojourning, you see a more detailed picture. First of all, the individual sojourners were never meant to be 15 percent of the nation’s residents. Secondly, those visitors were not given full equality under the law (Leviticus 25:44-46; Deuteronomy 23:8, 20) and were required to assimilate (Exodus 23:12; Leviticus 24:22). Third, we’re told that at a certain point the foreigner’s increase is to be seen as a curse on the citizenry (Deuteronomy 28:43).

If our application of Leviticus only goes one way, we’re being unfair to our American neighbors. Love your neighbor, yes. But don’t forget to love all of them.

Aside from our duties as Christians, it is entirely legitimate for nations to have borders and enforce them. In the church, we are all one (Galatians 3:28), but the nation is not the church. The church would be disobedient to God if we drew lines between peoples. The nation would be disobedient if it didn’t.

Federal agents make a traffic stop on a U.S. citizen as they provide their identification including a passport and drivers license, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026, in Minneapolis.

God separated us into nations of peoples (Genesis 11; Acts 17:26), and nations continue to factor in his plan all the way unto the end (Revelation 21:24-26). Inside those nations, God placed rulers (Romans 13:1-2).

To illegally immigrate is to buck a government’s rightful authority, to trespass on the citizenry, and to cheat those who immigrated legally. Granting amnesty is to give in to squatters’ rights on a national scale. To remove a squatter from your house is to love the people who live there. Letting them stay is wrong, no matter who they are or how difficult it is to see them go.

It is even reasonable for a government to limit legal immigration if it is in their people’s best interests. To be an immigrant is to be a guest, but a nation struggling like ours is not in a position to host guests.

What about ICE’s tactics? Do clashes with protestors mean the operation must be abandoned? No. There is not space here to analyze every viral interaction, but those who support deportations are no more on the hook for explaining everything ICE does than those who support immigration are for every crime any immigrant commits anywhere. The bottom line is that the task they have been sent to do is both legally and morally defensible.

How should we act if we encounter ICE and border patrol officers? Despite what some have said or implied, they are law enforcement officers and should be treated as such. To interfere with their work is potentially a crime. If you believe they have violated a law, pursue legal means of reporting.

“These are human lives we are talking about, which is what makes this issue so challenging. But the personal side of the matter does not mean our doors are open and no one can ever be made to leave.”

What if someone in your church or community is here illegally? Though it can be a heartbreaking process, like Paul with Onesimus we should encourage them to comply with the law (Philemon 1:10). Encouraging them or even helping them disobey is to “bring judgment on” them and oneself (Romans 13:2).

These are human lives we are talking about, which is what makes this issue so challenging. But the personal side of the matter does not mean our doors are open and no one can ever be made to leave. You love every guest that comes into your house, but it does not make you any less loving to tell them when it’s time to go home.

JACK WILKIE serves as Digital Content Director at Focus Press and writes weekly at his site, jackwilkie.co. He’s a member of the Pond Church of Christ in Dickson, Tenn.

This is part of a series exploring the identity of Churches of Christ. Read more here.

These curious people do hard, tedious work. They ask questions that challenge us. Sometimes they ask questions that make us uncomfortable.

Most religious groups have some sort of data gathering entity. Ryan Burge, a political scientist with the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, studies them all. Except for Churches of Christ — because we don’t have a centralized system of data gathering.

The “Churches of Christ in the United States” directory is the closest we get to a systematic census. Thus the ongoing effort to update it, cleanse the database of churches that no longer exist and confirm the contact information and other relevant details becomes increasingly important.

Getting a clear-eyed view of ourselves — whether we’re growing or shrinking and where, why and how — is especially crucial. The Church Research Council was formed to gather that information, comprising Heritage21, 21st Century Christian, Abilene Christian University’s Siburt Institute for Church Ministry and The Christian Chronicle.

Past editions of the 21st Century Christian directory are displayed. Respond to the new census survey here.

Suzie Macaluso, sociologist and researcher for the council, crafted the survey the independent group is using to resurrect the directory that went dark during the COVID-19 pandemic. This survey goes beyond directory information to ask other questions designed to help us see ourselves more clearly.

The census is not complete. Numbers are not yet firm. But with every state now represented, researchers can begin to extrapolate the data that forms a clearer picture. That said, we know numbers don’t tell our whole story.

Part of the story is told in the way autonomy has led to division as reflected in the nine different codes of groups and subgroups among the non-institutional congregations, which comprise roughly 10 percent of all congregations nationwide. Other codes reflect ethnic differences or information about serving military populations. But church members all over the U.S. and stories on the pages of the Chronicle sadly illustrate that mainstream churches often are beset by division as well.

“I can go to a Church of Christ in any state and know pretty much what to expect. But they are still radically different in terms of what they emphasize in theology and the lines they draw.”

“I can go to a Church of Christ in any state and know pretty much what to expect,” Macaluso said. “But they are still radically different in terms of what they emphasize in theology and the lines they draw.”

First-century churches were filled with Greeks, Hellenistic Jews and Roman Gentiles. Missives from the Jerusalem church and letters from Paul sought to calm the storms of disagreement as new Christians from radically different cultures tried to figure out how to do church.

Two millennia later, we still haven’t figured out how to achieve the unity for which Christ prayed, “so that they may be one as we are one.”

A new directory and online database will not unify us. Only the saving grace of Jesus can do that. But doing this one thing together, in every corner of our diverse, autonomous collection of congregations — small and large, rural and urban, Black, White, traditional and progressive — can help us get a clearer answer to the question, “Who Are We?”

CHERYL MANN BACON is a contributing editor for The Christian Chronicle. She served for 20 years as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University in Texas.

The end of kindness. The end of decency. The end of democracy.

Truth is no longer about facts. It’s about feelings.

Justice is no longer about what’s right. It’s about making sure our side wins.

We no longer mourn with those who mourn. We mock them.

We no longer love our enemies. We punish them.

We no longer believe in the kingdom of heaven. We believe in the kingdom of self.

Our nation, once breathed to life through freedom, now favors fear-mongering.

Freedom of religion has given way to the freedom to ridicule.

Freedom of religion has given way to the freedom to ridicule.

Freedom of speech has given way to the freedom to hate.

Freedom to protest has given way to the freedom to hurt.

So, what is the biggest reason we are sliding toward the end?

Not immigration.

Not Christian nationalism.

Not a political party.

Not the president.

America is nearing an end for a simple reason: our sins.

America is nearing an end for a simple reason: our sins.

We’ve traded godliness for gaslighting, humility for pomposity, kindness for cruelty and piety for partisanship.

We’ve traded the love of others for the hatred of those who aren’t like us.

These days, we think salvation comes from sports teams and grace comes from winning the lottery.

We once believed in the Constitution. Now we believe that might makes right.

We once believed in the land of opportunity. Now we believe only some people deserve it.

We once believed that lifting others would lift everyone. Now we believe in building walls.

We are no longer willing to gaze in the mirror and realize that we are the problem. Instead of accepting responsibility, we blame others.

We curse our neighbor instead of building community.

We stoke the fires of fear instead of pursuing peace.

We have blood on our hands and act like the victims deserved it.

We sing “God Bless America” and cuss the driver who cuts us off in traffic.

We declare our nation is the greatest in the world, but we refuse to open our hearts to those in greatest need.

America has been conquered without firing a shot. Conquered by fear. Conquered by loathing. And, yes, conquered by sin.

Can America change course before it’s too late?

The answer is up to us.

JERRY MITCHELL is a journalist and the author of “Race Against Time,” which tells the story of how some of the nation’s most notorious murders came to be prosecuted decades later. He participates in mission trips to West Africa and worships with the Skyway Hills Church of Christ in Pearl, Miss. He serves as a member of The Christian Chronicle’s national board of trustees.

He was her “Pop.”

Keeble was born in 1878, 13 years after the end of the Civil War. He died in 1968, 16 days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Keeble’s formal education stopped at the seventh grade, and the Tennessee native lived most of his 89 years in the Jim Crow era of racial segregation.

Yet the humble, humorous son of former slaves became a renowned gospel preacher, baptizing tens of thousands of people, planting hundreds of churches and quietly working for integration.

I first met Cummings, Keeble’s great-granddaughter, when I interviewed 104-year-old Laura Keeble — Marshall’s widow — for The Associated Press in 2003.

Twenty-three years later, Cummings invited me to cover this week’s opening of a new exhibit at Nashville’s Jackson Street Church of Christ paying tribute to Marshall Keeble’s enduring legacy.

Bobby Ross Jr., right, visits with Gwen Cummings and her 8-year-old granddaughter, Makenna, at the new exhibit’s opening.

I enjoyed catching up with Cummings, 75, and hearing her personal reflections on the Keebles. 

These highlights from our discussion have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity:

On why Marshall and Laura Keeble were more like grandparents than great-grandparents to her

“My mother’s parents died early in her life, so Marshall and Laura raised her and her sister. They were Valentines, but brother Keeble changed their name to Keeble because he had to raise two little girls.

“As a result, I grew up with him being more like a grandfather than a great-grandfather. And I lived with them a lot, in and out, both with my mom and the Keebles. 

Gwen Cummings, second from left, at the Marshall Keeble exhibit’s opening. Also pictured, from left, are Darla Whitaker, Venessa White, Cathy Sherill and Stephanie Blacksmith.

“Then as I got older, when brother Keeble would leave to travel, I would stay with sister Keeble. Then as she got older, I just started staying more because I sensed that they really relied on me to be there and help them. 

“And after he died, I just stayed with her. And then when she went to a nursing home, my husband — Jackson Street elder Dr. Clinton Cummings Sr. — helped me take care of her.”

On why she spearheaded the effort to create the new exhibit honoring Marshall

“I know that this man was exactly what he preached. He was a good man, humorous and full of life, and he loved the Lord.

“He’d say, ‘When I meet the Lord, I’m going to tell him how I suffered for him.’ I’d say, ‘Well, don’t you know that the Lord knows that?’ He’d say, ‘Well, you’re too smart. I’m going to tell him anyway how I loved him.’

“He was just a genuine, true Christian, and I admired that.”

Marshall Keeble’s photo appears in an old directory of the Nashville Christian Institute.

On Marshall’s ability to view tragedies as blessings, from outliving his first wife, Minnie, and all five of their children to losing an eye

“He said, ‘Well, I’ve got more strength in this other eye to read the Bible and carry on the Gospel.’

“His son Clarence was coming home one afternoon after work — he used to do a little odd job after school — and there was a thunderstorm. And he was electrocuted right in front of the Keeble home.

“Marshall said Minnie was never the same. But he said, ‘It gave me more strength to look out and have more sympathy when people go through things.’

“And the week after Clarence’s death, he went right on and held a meeting.”

A picture displayed at the exhibit shows Marshall Keeble, front center, with four of his “boy preachers,” including Hassen Reed and Robert McBride, both standing, and Robert Wood and Fred Gray.

On Marshall’s response when Laura — who was 20 years younger than him — informed him of the 1964 death of his adult son Robert, his last surviving child

“When he came home that Saturday morning, I rushed into the bedroom. And my grandmother told him, ‘We lost brother.’ So he said, ‘When did it happen?’ She said, ‘It happened yesterday.’ And he said, ‘OK.’

“And we went to pick out the casket. He was so strong. And he said, ‘Well, the Lord’s will is being done.’ And he broke down crying.

“Very few times have I seen him cry, but he cried, and he was just through with it. And then he turned to me and my sister and told us to look out for Grandmama. 

“He didn’t say, ‘Look out for me.’ He said, ‘Look out for Grandmama.’”

Elders of the Jackson Street Church of Christ in Nashville, Tenn., pose by the new Marshall Keeble exhibit. Pictured, from left, are Terry Primm Sr., Richard Southall, Dr. Clinton Cummings Sr. and Jesse Tucker.

On why she considered Marshall and Laura — who lived to be 108 — “the best grandparents one could have”

“Because they could joke with you. He especially could joke with you and play with you and have fun and sneak you some of his sweet coffee.

“My grandmother didn’t want me to have coffee. And he would drink it just black, strong, nothing in it but sugar. And he’d just slide me a little on the saucer, and I’d turn it up at the table.

“And he would tell funny stories and tell little boys that I couldn’t stand that I liked them. And oh, he’d get a kick out of that. He’d say, ‘Gwen would love for you to call her.’ 

“I’d say, ‘Grandmama, make him stop. He knows I’m not saying that.’ But oh, he’d get a kick out of it. He was just a big tease with me.”

Attendees visit during the opening of the Marshall Keeble exhibit.

On Marshall’s friendship with prominent White minister and longtime Gospel Advocate editor B.C. Goodpasture

“Every year at Christmastime, brother Goodpasture would buy him a suit and a shirt and a tie. It got to the point where brother Keeble said, ‘I’m not going to be naked or in need of a suit because brother Goodpasture is going to make sure I have a suit.’ And that would tickle brother Goodpasture.

“Brother Goodpasture and brother Keeble were friends way before brother A.M. Burton (a key White supporter of Marshall’s ministry) came on the scene. And brother Goodpasture did brother Keeble’s eulogy in 1968.”

On taking Freddie Goodpasture, B.C.’s widow, to worship with Laura Keeble at the nursing home

“So this minister said, ‘Lord, have mercy. There’s sister Goodpasture and sister Keeble. What could I possibly preach about and say to them?’

“Even though sister Keeble went to a nursing home, I made it my mission to be at that nursing home just about every day. She loved being at Lakeshore, which was a Church of Christ facility, because people would remember her husband. And she’d just sit in her wheelchair in the lobby and wait for her meals.”

The late Laura Keeble, then 104, talks with Corrinne Osei at the Lakeshore Estates Retirement Nursing Home in Nashville, Tenn., in 2003.

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.

We made the painful decision not to produce that issue for multiple reasons. The biggest one: the unexpected closure of our printing press in Columbia, Mo.

The press manager called me in Tirana, Albania — where I was in the midst of reporting our “In Search of Shalom” series — to break the news.

We scrambled to find a new printer, and Midway Press in Dallas came to our rescue. We were able to pivot in time to make our September print issue deadline, though we may have neglected a couple of details (in case you’re wondering why that edition had no staples).

We also are transitioning to stand-alone nonprofit status. Since 1980, the Chronicle had functioned as a subsidiary of Oklahoma Christian University, which saved the newspaper from near-death in the late 1970s.

Through years of toil, sweat and sacrifice by the good folks at Oklahoma Christian, the Chronicle grew in wisdom, stature and circulation. In 2008, we paid off a longstanding debt to the university.

The staff of The Christian Chronicle meets in November 1989. From left are advertising manager Cynthia Fletcher, production specialist Linda Parker, managing editor Joy McMillon and staff writer R. Scott LaMascus.

For the past decade or so, we’ve functioned as a quasi-autonomous entity within OC, with our own board, endowment and resources. This past June, we became a fully independent nonprofit.

That switch required moving our large mailing list and donor database from the university’s servers to a new system. We had to redo our software licenses from Google and Adobe. It’s been a journey, and I’m so thankful for our hardworking staff and everyone who has helped along the way.

Amid the printer switch, the missing staples and the many transition issues, we decided to forgo our September print deadline for the October issue.

Going forward, we’re evaluating the long-term sustainability of 12 print issues per year. Printing and postage used to cost us a combined $43,000 per month. Now that price is closer to $56,000. And our printer shutdown wasn’t an isolated incident. In the past six years, we’ve switched printing facilities three times. As the daily newspaper industry shrinks, it’s harder and harder to find newsprint to print on.

For 2026, we’re planning to scale back to 11 print issues. In addition, we’re pondering a limited-run magazine-format edition focusing on a single topic, perhaps church plants, Christian education or a region such as Latin America. We’re also considering alternate formats, electronic editions and other ways that we can keep serving our audience and steward our resources.

I want to hear from you. Please tell us what you like about the print edition and share any thoughts you have on print vs. online and alternate formats.

ERIK TRYGGESTAD is President and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact erik@christianchronicle.org.

This is part of a series exploring the identity of Churches of Christ. Read more here.

As a new year dawns, The Christian Chronicle is launching a new series titled “Who Are We?”

We plan to explore key questions, challenges and, yes, opportunities facing Churches of Christ. At the beginning, we felt it important to highlight the principles that have driven generations of believers connected to the Restoration Movement and ask whether these principles still define us today.

These core principles were at work in August 1801 when ordained Presbyterian clergyman Barton W. Stone, along with other Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist ministers, determined to forget their confessions and creeds and simply preach Christ to the 20,000 who gathered at Cane Ridge, Ky.

The same principles inspired Thomas Campbell to welcome believers from outside the Presbyterian faith to share communion, against the wishes of his overseeing synod. After joining his father on the American frontier, Alexander Campbell championed these convictions through an influential life of preaching, publication, education and public debate.

And those same principles were behind a New Year’s Day handshake in 1832 between Racoon John Smith and Stone, merging the followers of Campbell’s and Stone’s efforts in their work toward unity, despite their differences.

Campbell, Stone and other leaders never desired to start a new church or their own denomination. Quite the opposite. People who shared their convictions came to be known as Churches of Christ, Christian Churches and Disciples of Christ — descriptions found in the Bible itself.

Barton W. Stone preached some of the core principles that would lead to the Restoration Movement at an 1801 revival at the Cane Ridge Meeting House in Kentucky.

Nearly 225 years after Cane Ridge, there is reason to question whether these two principles remain central to who we are.

Churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ and Christian Churches have branched off to become their own independent families. Among the Chronicle’s audience, unspoken fissures exist over questions of worship, gender roles and how we view people outside “Churches of Christ.” There is an implicit division over which colleges, conferences, ministries and ministers to support.

We have drifted increasingly close to becoming the very thing we once opposed, replacing written creeds with unwritten assumptions, statements of faith with blogs and publications, and denominational councils with lectureships and conferences. We’ve grown suspicious of one another.

All the while, Jesus’ prayer — “that they all may all be one” — continues to echo. Turns out, this work of restoration is an ongoing challenge.

“The beauty of the Restoration Movement is that it was never built on fidelity to Stone, the Campbells or any other besides Christ. Instead, it was built on the desire to simply be Christians.”

There is a tension between the work of unity and the commitment to Scripture. Sincere people have sincere differences about how Scripture speaks, the meaning of its silence and just what constitutes matters of faith and matters of liberty. The beauty of the Restoration Movement is that it was never built on fidelity to Stone, the Campbells or any other besides Christ. Instead, it was built on the desire to simply be Christians.

So who are we? At our best, we are committed to the unity for which Jesus prayed. We take Scripture seriously. And we live humbly within the tension.

We sense a spirit of restoration stirring within a new generation, and we prayerfully look forward to the opportunities to report on what God is doing in our time.

JEREMIE BELLER is opinions editor for The Christian Chronicle. He is dean of Bible and director of church relations for Oklahoma Christian University. He serves as the congregational minister for the Wilshire Church of Christ in Oklahoma City.

I’ve spent the last 20 of those with The Christian Chronicle.

The best part: I still love what I do.

My colleagues and I travel across the U.S. and around the globe to report real news that honors God. And you, kind reader, make it all possible. If you’d like to help us keep fulfilling the Chronicle’s mission, it’s easy to donate.

As I reflect back on 2025, here are 10 Sunday church visits on the road (and the related stories) that I’ll remember:

1. Farris Church of Christ in southeastern Oklahoma: 2025 marked the five-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The timing seemed appropriate to tell for the first time the story of my brother-in-law’s miraculous — as our family sees it — survival.

Tod Dillard, second from left, with his wife Tracie, sister Tamie and brother-in-law Bobby at the Farris Church of Christ in southeastern Oklahoma.

While at Farris with my family, I got to witness the baptism of an 80-year-old former Super Bowl champion named Carl McAdams.

2. Winterfest Way Out West in Flagstaff, Ariz.: Worship on this Lord’s Day occurred in a hotel ballroom 150 miles north of Phoenix.

Then — after a weekend spent reporting on the new teen event — I jumped in my rental car to head back to the airport.

A bonus: I interviewed Winterfest entertainer Hoss Ridgeway about his dual role as a preacher and a stand-up comedian.

3. Lincoln Avenue Church of Christ in Pasadena, Calif.: This Southern California congregation helped neighbors and trusted God after wildfires devastated its community.

My experience there prompted me to write about the positive side of reporting on way too many disasters.

Bobby Ross Jr., center, poses for a photo with minister Rodney Davis and his wife, Lejuene, at the Lincoln Avenue Church of Christ in Pasadena, Calif.

4. Arlington Church of Christ in Virginia: I traveled to Washington, D.C., to moderate a panel discussion at the Religion News Association annual meeting.

While in the nation’s capital, I visited the Arlington church and learned about its effort to make the Lord’s Supper more meaningful.

5. Lake Orion Church of Christ in Michigan: A feature on a faith event at a Detroit Tigers game brought me to the Motor City.

While in the area, I caught an Uber to the Lake Orion church and heard B.T. Irwin, the Chronicle’s podcast director and host, preach.

Bobby Ross Jr. watches his favorite team, the Texas Rangers, play the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park in Detroit.

6. Fifth Ward Church of Christ in Houston: Believe it or not, the deacon who oversees the Fifth Ward church’s visitors ministry is also an NFL head coach.

I interviewed the Houston Texans’ DeMeco Ryans after he preached on a Sunday night. By the way, Ryans’ team is headed to the NFL playoffs for the third straight season.

DeMeco Ryans discusses his faith during an interview with The Christian Chronicle’s Bobby Ross Jr.

7. Northwest Church of Christ in Fort Worth, Texas: Back in January, I wrote a column about the closing of the rural Greenwood Church of Christ near Decatur, Texas, where my father, Bob Ross, preached for almost 23 years.

My parents, Bob and Judy, later placed membership with the Northwest church. I visited that congregation — along with my brother Scott and sister Christy — on Mom’s birthday in June. Preacher Robert Dodson even wished Mom a happy birthday and gave the Chronicle a shoutout from the pulpit.

Bobby Ross Jr. at the Northwest Church of Christ in Fort Worth, Texas, with his father Bob, mother Judy, brother Scott and sister Christy Fichter.

8. Green Bay Church of Christ in Wisconsin: Herald of Truth is working to share the Gospel with the nation’s fast-growing Hispanic population.

I witnessed the ministry’s Mission: Evangelize Spanish America emphasis up close in Green Bay.

9. Midvale Church of Christ in Idaho: Some of the best faith stories can be found off the beaten path.

I traveled to western Idaho to write about a 144-year-old congregation that nearly died — but instead survived and thrived.

10. Chapelle de Fuveau Church of Christ in France: My wife, Tamie, and I worshiped with the French-speaking congregation during a 10-day reporting trip to the Western European nation.

Bobby Ross Jr., with his wife, Tamie, while reporting in La Chapelle au Riboul, France, about 160 miles southwest of Paris.

In France’s second-largest city, the Chapelle de Fuveau church is transforming an abandoned monastery into a Christian outreach center.

I’m excited to see where the news takes me in 2026.

First up: a trip to Nashville, Tenn., on the first weekend of the year. I’ll save the specific details of that story for later, but I can’t wait for you to read it.

If you have ideas for the Chronicle’s coverage in 2026, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

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

For the past six years, I’ve enjoyed asking some of the nation’s top religion journalists to share their favorite or most important story from the previous 12 months.

More than 60 of my Godbeat friends — representing a wide variety of secular and faith-based publications — responded to my 2025 survey.

In case you’re curious, here are the picks made by Chronicle journalists:

Elvis Rangel and his children, Hannah and Isaías, share their experience of emigrating from Venezuela only to lose their status and begin searching again for a safe home.

• Cheryl Mann Bacon: Venezuelan family waits, prays and fights its fear, from Abilene, Texas, published April 17.

Read all of Cheryl’s stories.

A Forever His camper arrives at the Karns Church of Christ with his family.

• Calvin Cockrell: A camp where everyone belongs, from Knoxville, Tenn., published Sept. 30.

Read all of Calvin’s stories.

Jack Evans Jr. preaches to the gathering of Christians.

• Hamil R. Harris: Crusade for Christ a blessing in person and online, published Aug. 20.

Read all of Hamil’s stories.

• B.T. Irwin: Lorraine Smith has hand-written cards for almost 7,000 new Christians in two years, aired May 14.

Listen to all of B.T.’s podcasts.

Students watch a boy outside of the Professor Humberto González School Center gate in San Salvador, El Salvador.

• Audrey Jackson: In the land of ‘The Savior,’ Bibles are welcomed, from San Salvador, El Salvador, published July 16.

Read all of Audrey’s stories.

Not Your Average Joe is a nonprofit organization that offers customer-facing meaningful employment for people with disabilities.

• Kenzie James: More than ‘the least of these,’ from Oklahoma City, published Sept. 11.

Read all of Kenzie’s stories.

Tall buildings in the crowded core of downtown Nashville, Tenn., flank the Nashville Church of Christ, formerly the Central Church of Christ.

• Ted Parks: Historic Nashville church building languishes amid lawsuits, from Nashville, Tennessee, published June 5.

Read all of Ted’s stories.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti speaks outside the U.S. Supreme Court after the oral arguments in U.S. vs. Skrmetti.

• Kenneth Pybus: Christian at center of big case has ‘this sweet spirit,’ published April 23.

Read all of Kenneth’s stories.

The sun sets over the South Walker Church of Christ building.

• Andrew Reneau: A Spanglish church where all are welcome, from Oklahoma City, published Aug. 13.

Read all of Andrew’s stories.

Graffiti and street art adorn an old bobsled track from the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, including a cartoon cat embracing a heart painted the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

• Erik Tryggestad: In Search of Shalom — the struggle toward divine reconciliation, from around the world, series published beginning in August.

Read all of Erik’s stories.

Missionary Craig Young speaks to American mission team members in the century-old chapel of the abandoned Betheline monastery in Marseille, France.

• Bobby Ross Jr. (hey, that’s me!): Faith in France: Exploring spiritual renewal in a secular country, from France, series published in November and December.

Read all of my stories.

Be sure to check out my full column on the best religion journalism of 2025.

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

To some readers in a hyperpartisan age, that description may sound like an oxymoron.

But Mitchell is a devoted follower of Christ. He’s a 1982 graduate of Harding University, a Christian university in Searcy, Ark. He’s a leader and Bible teacher in his home congregation, the Skyway Hills Church of Christ in Pearl, Miss.

At the same time, this man of deep Christian faith is a legendary Mississippi reporter.

His stories played a major role in putting four Klansmen and a serial killer behind bars and helped free two people from death row. His long-awaited memoir, “Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era,” was published in 2020.

Mitchell accepted an invitation earlier this year to serve on The Christian Chronicle’s national board of trustees. We were honored in 2022 when he first met with the Chronicle’s staff and board in Oklahoma City to discuss coverage of difficult topics.

Jerry Mitchell, third from left, visits The Christian Chronicle’s office in Oklahoma City in 2022. Also pictured, from left, are Audrey Jackson, the Chronicle’s former managing editor; Erik Tryggestad, president and CEO; and Bobby Ross Jr., editor-in-chief.

At that meeting, Mitchell recalled that a radio show host asked him once, “How can you be a Christian and a journalist?”

He was ready with a response.

“We’re actually both truth-seekers,” Mitchell said. “The thing about God’s word is, it doesn’t pull any punches. You get to see what Moses did, and you get to see what David did. And I think that’s kind of how I see journalism.

“We just kind of tell it like it is,” he explained. “We certainly do it out of love. We don’t do it out of spite or anything like that.”

Here at the Chronicle, we endeavor to report real news that honors God. Telling the truth, we believe, honors God. Sometimes the truth is positive and inspiring. Sometimes the truth is negative and concerning.

Flawed men inspired by God wrote the Bible. Well-meaning but imperfect journalists produce the Chronicle. 

We do our best to tell stories in ways that enhance understanding and contribute to constructive dialogue. For times when we have not lived up to those ideals, we ask for forgiveness. We commit to do better.

We love our fellow Christians and agonize over coverage of certain stories, but we make no apology for holding leaders, congregations and institutions of Churches of Christ to a high standard. 

We believe in light and truth.

Here are three things we believe:

• We believe in light and truth. We believe in exposing wrongdoing and abuse. We believe denial and coverup of problems hurt the church far more than any negative publicity. God is all-knowing and all-powerful. He can handle his own PR.

• We believe in fairness and accuracy. We believe in giving all sides an adequate opportunity to state their case, particularly in controversial stories. We believe in providing relevant context for readers to understand a particular issue or scenario. We believe in correcting mistakes when we, as all humans do, make them.

• We believe in Christian journalism. We believe well-told stories can inform, inspire and unite our fellowship. We believe insightful series — such as Cheryl Mann Bacon’s award-winning 2022 project  “Where have all the churches gone?” project — can help church members and leaders make better decisions to reach a lost world. We believe in the power of the written word to help transform people of faith.

Like Jerry Mitchell, we want to be truth-seekers.

Thank you for your prayers and support. 

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

This editorial is adapted from an original version first published in 2022.

You wake up on a train. At the station, you follow the crowd. You connect with your afterlife coordinator.

You have a week to decide where to spend eternity.

And, by the way, your wife of 65 years must choose between you and her first husband — a war hero who’s waited 67 years to see her again.

That’s the intriguing plot of “Eternity,” a new romantic comedy starring Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen and Callum Turner.

“The afterlife has always fascinated people,” Religion Unplugged’s Joseph Holmes noted in his recent film review.

“While organized religion is on the decline, more Americans believe in an afterlife today than they have since the 1970s,” Holmes wrote. “So it’s inevitable that we would start to see more creative interpretations of the death — and what happens after — in the stories we tell, unmoored by the need to be faithful to religious tradition.”

‘Nobody wanna go now’

Rated PG-13, “Eternity” is far from perfect, as Holmes’ review makes clear.

Still, I found the concept fun and entertaining, except for a few brief Hollywood cringeworthy moments.

The movie — which my 26-year-old daughter, Kendall, invited me to see with her — certainly made me think.

Elizabeth Olsen’s character must choose between her two dead husbands — Callum Turner and Miles Teller — in the “Eternity” movie.

As a Christian, I believe in heaven.

But like a lot of believers, I lack a clear idea of what to expect. And I’m in no hurry to go.

As Kenny Chesney sang in his 2008 No. 1 country hit, “Everybody wanna go to heaven. But nobody wanna go now.”

For theologians, N.T. Wright’s 2007 book “Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church” sparked ongoing debate over the nature of heaven.

“If there is a new earth, what kind of bodies will we have?” my friend Jeremie Beller, The Christian Chronicle’s opinions editor and Bible dean at Oklahoma Christian University, said of the questions raised. “What is the implication on things like marriage?

“Interestingly,” Beller added, “the movie sounds like a modern spin on the question the Sadducees asked of Jesus in Matthew 22:23-33: ‘Whose wife will she be?’”

My friend Trey Morgan, lead minister for the Sunset Church of Christ in Lubbock, Texas, said: “I personally don’t think my relationship with my wife will decrease in heaven, just change. It won’t be a marriage in heaven as it is on earth but somehow different.”

Morgan is OK with that.

“While I don’t understand what heaven will be like exactly,” he said, “I can find comfort knowing that God who designed the wonders of my marriage is who designed heaven as well.”

“I can find comfort knowing that God who designed the wonders of my marriage is who designed heaven as well.”

Heaven isn’t about being with earthly spouses, as my friend Bill Robinson, a domestic missionary in New York City, sees it.

It’s about being with Jesus.

“The glory of that world won’t be the resolution of all our earthly storylines but the joy of being fully healed, fully transformed and fully at home with the One who loved us first,” Robinson said.

A husband and wife — played by Miles Teller and Elizabeth Olsen — explore an afterlife in Beach World in the “Eternity” movie.

Inside the pearly gates

One of the fascinating aspects of “Eternity”: Each person picks the afterlife theme that fits them.

Options range from the Pearly Gates Classic Edition to Smokers World (because cigarettes can’t kill you twice).

Among others: America World. Beach World. Catholic World. Clown World. Corporate World. Infantile World. Medical World. Museum World. Muslim World. No Men World. Outdoor World. Paris World. Protestant World. Romance World. Space World. Weimar World (Without Nazis). Wine World.

But be careful: If you choose the wrong one, you can’t simply say “Oops!” and ask for a do-over.

“You’d probably pick Texas Rangers World,” my daughter suggested.

That sounds about right.

Bobby Ross Jr., far right, at a Texas Rangers game with his daughter Kendall, daughter-in-law Paige and son Keaton.

Others that might be fun to visit:

• Best Days World: I’d love to relive the day I met my wife, the day we got married and the days our children were born. I’d love to relive my first Texas Rangers game, my first time tasting the cheese sauce at my favorite Tex-Mex restaurant and my best Christmas with my parents, grandparents, siblings and cousins.

• Hallmark Christmas World: I already found my true love, but I’d love to help save a small-town cookie company from takeover by a big national corporation and welcome a snow-trapped royal family to an obscure village in New England. In fact, I’d love to enjoy a slightly different version of these same things year after year.

• Hound Dog World: I’d love to hear what my basset hound, Frannie, really thinks and learn more about what makes her droopy-eared breed so lazy and lovable.

Frannie enjoys time outside in her Oklahoma City neighborhood.

• Newspaper World: I’d love to go back to an era when Sunday newspapers were 4 inches thick and landed on nearly every driveway — and people actually read them. (Maybe in the afterlife, the ink wouldn’t leave black marks on your hands.)

• Role Play World: I’d love to enjoy a Hall of Fame baseball career. I’d love to be a famous country music singer and get invited to join the Grand Ole Opry. I’d love to write a best-selling novel renowned for its perfect prose.

I could go on, but I don’t have an “Eternity” to devote to this column.

If you’ve seen the movie, I’m curious to know what you thought and which afterlife you’d pick.

You die and go to … where?

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Ross writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged, where this piece originally appeared. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

From the beginning, he has invited us into that divine relationship — calling us to serve and lead within the context of the local church. Throughout Scripture and history, God has consistently worked through communities of people, each contributing unique strengths, weaknesses, stories and personalities to his unfolding mission.

Retiring minister Leonardo Gilbert and fellow elders of the Sheldon Heights Church of Christ in Chicago pray for the new senior minister, Justin M. Carter, earlier this year.

In that spirit, elders are not meant to function as solo performers. They are shepherds and catalysts — guiding God’s people toward a Spirit-led, shared vision. This vision rarely originates from the top down; it is shaped through prayerful discernment and the collective wisdom of God’s people, united in their desire to advance his kingdom.

Plural leadership — especially among elder teams — is inherently complex. It requires time, trust and intentionality. But when grounded in the right values, it becomes not only functional but deeply fruitful. Below are five values that distinguish high-functioning elder teams in today’s church:

1. Teamwork over individualism

In healthy elder teams, the mission of the church and the needs of the body take precedence over any one leader’s preferences or platform. These teams are characterized by mutual respect, open communication and a shared commitment to the whole. Joy, not just obligation, becomes the sustaining force for serving together.

2. Trust as the cornerstone

Trust is the foundation upon which healthy leadership is built. It is earned gradually through integrity, humility and consistency — and it can be lost quickly through poor judgment or ethical compromise. Elders must actively cultivate trust by creating a culture where difficult conversations are welcomed, confidentiality is honored and accountability is mutual and loving.

Richard Crowder, an elder of the Grace Chapel Church of Christ in Cumming, Ga., speaks before leading a special prayer at a racial unity service in 2022. Elders from Crowder’s congregation and the Bouldercrest Church of Christ in Atlanta gathered on stage.

3. Humility and a posture of service

Jesus redefined greatness with a towel and basin. He taught his disciples that leadership is not about status but service. Effective elder teams reflect this heart — using influence not to dominate, but to empower; not to be seen, but to bless. Servant-hearted leadership fosters unity and models the way of Christ. In a church heritage that has often prized theological precision, we must not lose sight of the spirit of 1 Peter 5:5: “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

4. A high view of God’s word and his activity

At their best, elders serve as spiritual discerners. They continually ask, “What has God revealed in His Word? What is the Spirit doing among us?” And they seek to align the church’s direction accordingly. This requires time in Scripture, space for prayer and a posture of listening. The aim is not merely to make good decisions, but to make God-honoring ones — decisions shaped by the eternal rather than the expedient.

A group of elders at the “Beside Still Waters” workshop hosted by the Mannford Church of Christ in Oklahoma in 2023 enjoy a meal together.

5. Cultural interpretation and awareness

Elders lead not only spiritually, but contextually. Anchored in an authoritative view of Scripture, they must read the cultural moment and understand the local church’s environment with clarity and care. When leaders disregard context, they risk irrelevance — or unnecessary division. But when they interpret well — both within the church and in the broader community — they serve as bridges of wisdom and transformation.

“Within every local church, elder teams have the opportunity to join in the ongoing work of God’s Spirit — shaping a future that reflects his character and carries his hope to the next generation.”

High-functioning elder teams don’t form by accident. They are forged through prayer, humility, intentional relationships and a shared commitment to God’s mission. Leadership in the kingdom is a sacred trust — a calling that invites us to empower, equip and release others into lives of mission.

Within every local church, elder teams have the opportunity to join in the ongoing work of God’s Spirit — shaping a future that reflects his character and carries his hope to the next generation.

JASON THOMPSON serves as executive minister for the Harpeth Hills Church of Christ and has consulted with more than 70 churches and faith-based organizations with ties to Churches of Christ.

It’s still dark outside in this medieval French city, famous for its Gothic cathedral.

In fact, I’m exploring the sidewalks around the cathedral right now. As I do so, I’m rolling a 50-pound suitcase and toting a lighter computer bag.

Faith in France: Read all the stories in the special series

I’m a bit frazzled because this early-morning walking tour is unplanned. I don’t normally wander about a foreign city — where I don’t speak the language — in the middle of the night. 

At least I have company: My wife, Tamie, is with me and maneuvering an equal amount of luggage.

After a 10-day reporting trip to France, we are flying home on this recent Friday morning. We spent an enjoyable final night in Chartres, about 60 miles southwest of Paris. We arranged for a rideshare driver to take us to the airport.

The view in Chartres, France, as Bobby and Tamie Ross searched for their rideshare driver.

But the old part of town where we stayed is undergoing street repairs. It’s full of roadblocks. Each day new sections are closed, seemingly without warning.

“Hello, I am your driver,” reads the text I received earlier. “I inform you that I have arrived. I am on the main road. I do not know where you are exactly. See you soon.”

Twenty minutes later, we still can’t find him. 

In moments like these in my Christian Chronicle travels, I often ask myself: How in the world did I end up here?

In this case, the answer is easy: Blame Dan Cooper, retired longtime minister for the Pitman Road Church of Christ in Sewell, N.J.

Actually, credit him — because this story has a happy ending, which I’ll explain.

Bobby Ross Jr., with his wife, Tamie, while reporting in La Chapelle au Riboul, France, about 160 miles southwest of Paris.

Earlier this year, Dan told me about the Chapelle de Fuveau Church of Christ in Marseille — in the south of France — buying an abandoned monastery to transform into a community outreach center. He thought this might make a great story, and I agreed. 

In case you missed reading that story on the front page of the Chronicle’s December print edition, be sure to check it out. Also from Marseille: my profile of Algerian immigrants Khaled and Djedjiga Hassani, the former monastery’s caretakers; and my reporter’s notebook feature on the love in many languages I discovered at the Chapelle de Fuveau church.

Bobby Ross Jr., right, interviews missionary Craig Young in Marseille, France.

Journey of a lifetime

Because of her battle with autoimmune diseases, Tamie can’t travel with me often. However, she’s always wanted to visit Europe. 

So persuading her to go along with me to France did not require much effort. We bought her a ticket (with personal funds) and prayed that she’d feel like going.

Even though she broke a foot a few weeks before the trip, I thanked God when the plane took off with her beside me. We flew from Oklahoma City to Atlanta and then all night from Atlanta to Paris before a quick connecting flight to Marseille.

Besides the story Dan suggested, Erik Tryggestad, the Chronicle’s president and CEO and roving international correspondent, told me about Jerry and Zoobi Jones buying an old convent school in northwestern France. 

Their dream: to open a Christian university serving members of Churches of Christ in Europe.

The Joneses’ place in the sleepy village of La Chapelle Au Riboul is about 600 miles from Marseille. So midway through our trip, Tamie and I rode a train to Paris and then caught another train to Le Mans, where Jerry picked us up. 

That leg of our trip turned into a challenging episode itself as we got lost in the Paris subway system. We found ourselves lugging our bags up and down steep concrete staircases. And did I mention that Tamie broke her foot before this trip?

Fortunately, a few nice French people along the way helped us find the right station — with no time to spare. 

And we had a wonderful time visiting with the Joneses and hearing their story, which the Chronicle published this week. After our time there, Jerry drove us back to Le Mans. We boarded one more train and made our way to Chartres for a bit of rest and sightseeing.

Also online today: my profile of Sherry Pogue, who bought a small castle in eastern France to launch a ministry serving missionaries; and my interview with Arlin Hendrix, who is celebrating 50 years as a missionary to France. We didn’t get to visit Pogue or Hendrix in person, but I enjoyed talking to both of them.

Read the entire series from France at this link.

Dan Cooper visits with Tamie Ross at the Chapelle de Fuveau church in Marseille.

Tamie Ross rides a train from Le Mans to Chartres during the trip to France. If she looks tired, she was.

Exhausted and exhilarated

Oh, I should finish the Chartres story.

Just as Tamie and I worry that we’ll never find our driver, he shares his location. He’s parked only a few minutes away. Whew!

“Please stay put,” I text, hoping my English translates. “On our way.”

When we catch up with him, he’s friendly. He places our luggage in the trunk. We slide into the back seat.

I doze off on the hour-long ride to the airport. But Tamie stays wide awake and holds on for dear life. Zigging and zagging along a major highway, she prays as the driver exceeds 100 mph. 

Thankfully, he delivers us in time to make our flight. Which is promptly delayed.

Tamie Ross explores an old Catholic church in La Chapelle Au Riboul, France.

But eventually, we take off.

Exactly 24 hours after searching for our driver, we walk in our front door in Oklahoma City. It’s 9:45 p.m. in our time zone. 

We are exhausted. We are exhilarated. We won’t soon forget our adventure in France.

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

A few months back, minister Mit Vikraman invited me to this bustling, business-minded city-state in Southeast Asia to celebrate with his congregation, the Moulmein Church of Christ.

The church had paid off a large debt it incurred while reconstructing its building. Its members also were hosting a somewhat-surprise retirement party for my good friend Dave Hogan. (He found out about it, party pooper.)

I asked if they’d let me preach on Sunday during my visit. I was eager to share stories from our new “In Search of Shalom” series about Christians around the globe crossing geographic, ethnic and economic barriers to serve as instruments of peace.

Sure, Mit said. Did I want to pick my own text or follow the lectionary they’ve been using?

“Oh, the lectionary, for sure!” I said, after which I clandestinely turned to my phone and googled, “What is a lectionary?” I learned that it’s basically a list of Scripture readings for each Sunday of the year. If you want to cover a variety of topics in a calendar year, it seems like a good idea.

Erik Tryggestad shares a story about Ukrainian refugees during his sermon.

Or it seemed like a good idea until I saw the Scripture I’d been assigned to go with my sermon on Christian peacebuilding. It was Luke 12:49-56, in which Jesus says, “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.”

Too proud and stubborn to renege on my lectionary promise, I started praying and reading.

How can we, as Christ-followers, be peacemakers in a world intent on tearing itself apart when Jesus himself said that following him would create division? Are we called to live in perpetual conflict with all who refuse to believe as we do?

“How can we, as Christ-followers, be peacemakers in a world intent on tearing itself apart when Jesus himself said that following him would create division?”

I was taking an online course called “Introduction to Christian Peacebuilding For Church Leaders” at the time, so I put the question to my fellow students. It’s a free study offered by Peace Catalyst, a nonprofit with connections to Churches of Christ and independent Christian Churches.

My class represented a variety of faith groups working all over the globe — the United Kingdom, Cameroon, Nigeria, even Jordan.

They pointed me to Autherine Lucy, a young woman who disrupted the peace on Feb. 3, 1956, when she enrolled as a graduate student in library science at the University of Alabama. She was the first African American ever admitted to a White public school in the state. The Ku Klux Klan burned crosses nightly on campus. Riots broke out. Lucy feared that the mob would kill her. She locked herself in a room in the university library and prayed for strength.

Autherine Lucy desegregated the University of Alabama.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a sermon about how Lucy “disrupted the peace.” He quoted a sister passage to the one in Luke in which Jesus says, “I come not to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). What Jesus is saying, according to King, is “I come not to bring this peace of escapism, this peace that fails to confront the real issues of life, the peace that makes for stagnant complacency. … Yes, it is true that if the Negro accept his place, accepts exploitation and injustice, there will be peace. But it would be an obnoxious peace.”

The “obnoxious peace” of Jesus’ day was the Pax Romana, a 200-year period known for sustained Roman imperialism, prosperous stability, hegemonic power and relative peace and order. Those who dared disrupt the Roman Peace were nailed to pieces of wood near city entrances to serve as cautionary tales for everyone else.

Many of those who opposed the early church weren’t as concerned about its teachings as they were about its potential to disrupt the Pax Romana. In the city of Ephesus, a silversmith started making problems for Paul and the church because they endangered his idol-making business. A comical shouting match followed as people flooded into the city’s theater — most of them without a clue as to why they were there. (Half of them thought it was about the Cracker Barrel logo.) Finally, the city clerk stepped in and told the people “we are in danger of being charged with rioting” (Acts 19:40).

As the church moved into the Roman capital, so did the disruptions. Roman historian Suetonius wrote about Emperor Claudius, who ruled from A.D. 41 to 54. “Since the Jews were constantly rioting under the leadership of Chrestus, he (Claudius) expelled them from Rome,” Suetonius wrote in “Lives of the Twelve Caesars.”

Members of the Moulmein Church of Christ study a Chinese-language lesson provided by the Alpha ministry.

The historian thought that someone named Chrestus, a common Roman name, was behind the disturbances.

I’m pretty sure he was confusing that name with someone else.

Eventually, the Jews returned to Rome, and they found the church very different from when they left. It was full of Gentile Christians. To help them find common ground Paul wrote them a letter that we now call Romans.

“The peace for which Paul advocates in Romans isn’t merely the absence of conflict. It’s shalom — the deep, abiding peace of equality to which Jesus calls us.”

Emphasizing that point, Paul opens his letter by combining a Greek greeting (charis) with one in Hebrew (shalom) — “grace and peace.”

The peace for which Paul advocates in Romans isn’t merely the absence of conflict. It’s shalom — the deep, abiding peace of equality to which Jesus calls us. It’s a state of wholeness, completeness, wellbeing and flourishing that’s robed in grace and justice. It’s a peace that allows believers to dwell and work together when the world tells them they should be enemies.

But what of this “division” Jesus talks about in Luke 12? Just after these words, he warns that “they will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother.”

I’ve seen this. A few years ago, as refugees from the Middle East flooded from Turkey into Greece and, from there, across Europe, I traveled to Vienna, Austria. I worshiped alongside brothers and sisters who read Farsi-language Bibles. They had left the relative peace of the Islamic Republic of Iran because they had visions of the cross.

Following Christ caused massive disruptions in their lives — and division. One couple had their first child on the way. I asked them if they thought their parents would ever get to meet their grandchild. The wife burst into tears, and I regretted asking the question.

Thankfully, these new Christians had a family of faith there in Vienna, with believers from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Erik Tryggestad sings hymns alongside Thailand missionary Robert Reagan and church members from across Asia during the “Bricks to Blessings” banquet hosted by the Moulmein Church of Christ.

Jesus is a disturber of the peace — the obnoxious peace of stagnant complacency that accepts injustice and maintains the us-versus-them status quo.

Division from that imperfect peace is a necessary step toward shalom — real peace that passes understanding.

That’s the peace for which I pray.

ERIK TRYGGESTAD is President and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact erik@christianchronicle.org.

That’s the advice a lot of us got from our home congregations before we left for college.

For many of us, college brings our first opportunity to choose where and how we worship and connect with fellow believers. As these new adults church-hop around town to find a congregation that clicks, they must ask themselves what they want in a church. When they discover a church body to worship with regularly, do they feel the church meets their needs?

We conducted an informal survey of 57 college-age adults across the nation — most of whom worship with Churches of Christ — and asked about what they look for in a church.

A majority of participants said their church met their needs, but responses revealed that young churchgoers search for community.

Many mentioned a desire for community or fellowship with other Christians when looking for a church. They emphasized community, relationships with other believers or being part of Christ’s body as reasons for their involvement.

Amy Kendall

Young adults have a deep desire for community, and church staffers across the nation see it among the students they serve. Amy Kendall, a campus minister at the University of Arizona, said she worries about students isolating themselves on campus and not finding a new community when they move to college.

Imagine walking into a church on a Sunday morning and seeing members greet one another, but you don’t know anyone. As seniors at Harding University, we had this experience when we moved to Searcy. Walking into an auditorium filled with hundreds of unfamiliar faces is simultaneously intimidating and awkward.

Students frequently gravitate toward the college section during worship because their peers in the college group are who they’re comfortable with. But they seek meaningful connections in church beyond the college group.

Many of us are involved with leading worship, teaching children’s Bible classes and participating in small groups to connect with Christians in other age groups.

David Fraze, youth ministry program chair at Lubbock Christian University in Texas, addressed students’ need for intergenerational, authentic relationships in the church. During his keynote presentation at the Campus for Christ conference in July, he described how a small group fell apart because it was only college students.

David Fraze

“It collapsed because it’s inauthentic,” Fraze said. “You know what we need? Some adults to engage.”

So how can church members engage with college-age adults? How should we foster those authentic relationships?

The Christian Chronicle explored conversations about intergenerational ministries in our July and August print issues this year. Churches in Oklahoma and Texas have started “grandparent ministries,” encouraging older members to minister to young adults in the church. Congregations across the nation also have intergenerational small groups for women.

Students who participate in these ministries spoke positively about the relationships they formed with older members. They were not the only ones who benefited. Older Christians valued the perspectives of the young adults in small group discussions.

Intergenerational relationships are not reliant solely on older members. College-age adults are responsible for initiating involvement in church. But when members reach out to students, the students feel welcomed.

Attendees at the Campus for Christ event worship together.

When members reached out to us outside of regular worship times, or were excited to introduce us to other members, we felt included in the congregation’s community.

Next time you see young adults at church, stop and give them a hug. Ask how they’re doing. Don’t let the conversation be cursory — take time to get to know them. You’ll both be better because of that relationship.

KENZIE JAMES and ANDREW RENEAU are recent summer interns for The Christian Chronicle. They are both senior multimedia journalism majors at Harding University in Searcy, Ark.

A rare books enthusiast, even Bever didn’t realize at first what a treasure he’d acquired.

The late Ron Bever

“You always think about going to a book sale and finding some rare book,” Bever told me in 1994, when I interviewed him about his collection of historic, out-of-print and hard-to-find hardbacks numbering more than 15,000. “This is one time in a lifetime.”

In fact, people are still talking about his find six-plus decades later — and three years after the longtime Oklahoma Christian University speech professor died at age 88.

Just this past week, family, friends and university leaders gathered to dedicate a special library display showcasing Bever’s collection, a major portion of which he donated to Oklahoma Christian, my alma mater, before his passing.

“The crown jewel among the collection is this incunabulum — a book printed in Europe before 1501, representing the ‘cradle’ or infancy of printing,” a plaque titled “The Bever Legacy” explains. “This particular incunabulum was printed in 1483.”

By my quick math, that’s 542 years ago — nearly a decade before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

A new display at Oklahoma Christian University showcases a 542-year-old canon law book that the late Ron Bever bought for 50 cents at an estate sale in the early 1960s. Checking out the display are Ronda Barneche and Jerald Ludwig.

I promise I’ll get to specifics about the canon law book Bever purchased soon. If you understand Latin, the title will make much more sense to you than it does me.

But first, I want to highlight the circumstances behind the book buy, based primarily on a story I wrote for The Oklahoman in 1994.

While working on his doctorate at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., in the early 1960s, Bever enjoyed going to estate sales to see what books he could find.

Most substantial estates at that time had large libraries, and often the books were sold at bargain rates when the owners died, Bever told me. At one such sale, he came across a leather-bound book about the size of a boot box.

At first, Bever thought it was an old Bible, which really didn’t interest him as a collector because “an old Bible’s not worth much.”

A new plaque in the Oklahoma Christian University library details “The Bever Legacy.” The late Ron Bever, a longtime speech professor, donated a major portion of his extensive book collection to the library.

The first clue

An original Gutenberg Bible from the 1450s might bring millions of dollars, Bever pointed out, but millions of Bibles were printed starting in the 1600s. That means, he said, a collector could “probably find Bibles from London that go back to 1650 or 1700 pretty cheaply because there were a lot of Bibles.”

But after opening this book at the estate sale, Bever discovered it was written in Latin.

Each page, though printed on a press, featured hand inscriptions and decorations in colorful ink.

The brother of the deceased estate owner was selling his family member’s possessions. Bever inquired about the price of the book.

“He looked at the outside and said, ‘Oh, 50 cents,’” Bever recalled. “I said, OK, I’ll take it.’”

He took it to Northwestern’s rare book room, where the librarian noted that it had been printed on Feb. 21, 1483.

The librarian offered him $50 for it — an immediate 100 times return on his investment. But Bever decided he’d rather keep it.

Titled “Supplementum Summae Pisanellae,” author Nicolaus de Auximo’s work was published in Cologne, Germany. The Catholic theological wordbook featured the beliefs of the day about topics such as confession, baptism and absolution.

The hand inscriptions, such as colorful, large letters at the beginning of sections, were done after the book was printed to keep it from looking drab and common, Bever said.

Because of the newness of printing, people were accustomed to distinctive hand manuscripts. The hand decorations assured the book would sell.

“It’s interesting that the paper that they used back there, the quality of that, is brilliant after 500 years,” Bever told me. “And the ink they used is still as brilliant as if it was put on yesterday, which suggests they knew how to make books back then and how to preserve them for us to enjoy today.”

Family, friends and Oklahoma Christian University leaders attend the dedication reception for Ron Bever’s book collection.

True value immeasurable

Now Bever’s find of a lifetime is encased in glass in Oklahoma Christian’s library.

“It’s an honor to have it at our university,” librarian Cheryl Snyder said. “There are only five other copies in the country. There are probably only 30 or 40 copies around the world.”

What price might it bring today?

“It can vary a lot based on the particular qualities of the edition, of which I’m not completely aware (quality of penned annotations, comparison with other works),” Nathan Shank, an English professor at Oklahoma Christian, said in an email, “but it looks like $4,000 to $18,000 given recent sales of the same work.”

That’s a whole lot more than the 50 cents Bever paid for it!

But for those who knew him, Bever’s legacy makes the true value immeasurable.

As for de Auximo’s work itself, Shank characterizes it as “a very practical guide for priests hearing confessions and applying canon law.

“It’s a very pragmatic book in itself,” Shank said.

Oklahoma Christian University English professor Nathan Shank speaks at the dedication ceremony for the late Ron Bever’s book collection.

‘Binding us all together’

Oklahoma Christian University is associated with Churches of Christ, which trace their modern roots to the Restoration Movement of the early 1800s, which advocated Christianity with “no creed but the Bible.”

Many of Bever’s treasured books and papers were important works in that movement, also known as the Stone-Campbell Movement. However, his most valuable find was not, as Shank noted during the ceremony recognizing Bever’s collection.

“It’s works like this incunabulum that represent the technology that decades later would allow Martin Luther to quickly distribute his 95 Theses and translate the Bible into common language in Germany,” Shank said, referring to the 1517 start of the Protestant Reformation.

“The Stone-Campbell Movement’s concern with reading the Bible afresh and restoring New Testament Christianity aligns closely with this care for the printed word,” the English professor added. “Now, there may even be a kind of hopeful irony in that this particular book is a work of Catholic — capital ‘C’ — canon law, and it’s being held in high esteem by a Protestant organization. Perhaps Ron was well aware of its value as a catholic — lower ‘c’ — symbol binding us all together.”

Bever’s sons, Ken and Stan, spoke at the dedication event. His daughters, Jane Raulston and Annette Bever, were unable to attend. Doris, his wife of 64 years, who is now 90 and living in Tennessee, also could not make it. But she sent a statement recalling her late husband as a devoted Christian who loved his family.

“Book collecting was only one of Ron’s many interests,” she said.

Ron Bever’s sons, Ken and Stan, pose by the display showcasing their father’s most valuable book — a 1483 edition of “Supplementum Summae Pisanellae” by Nicolaus de Auximo.

Indeed, the reception tributes focused as much on Bever’s exemplary life as the noteworthy books he left behind.

He loved teaching. He loved students. He loved God.

“He was a song leader,” Oklahoma Christian President Ken Jones said. “He was a preacher. He was an elder. He led mission trips. … He was a mentor to so many, and he did all that so that they could find their God-given potential.

“And along the way,” Jones added as the audience enjoyed a nice chuckle, “he apparently liked to collect books.”

Oklahoma Christian University President Ken Jones speaks at the dedication event about the legacy of the late Ron Bever.

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Ross writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged, where this piece originally appeared. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

Melanie van der Vorst, a social worker from the Netherlands, speaks Dutch, English and a bit of German.

But not French.

Faith in France: Read all the stories in the special series

That language barrier presented a slight challenge as van der Vorst, a Christian, looked for a place to worship during a trip to this Western European nation.

The challenge was one, though, that she overcame.

A little internet searching and a phone call preceded van der Vorst’s visit to the Chapelle de Fuveau Church of Christ, the Marseille congregation where I met her on a recent Sunday morning.

Melanie van der Vorst from the Netherlands visited a French-speaking congregation in Marseille, France, on a recent Sunday.

“I work with children with severe behavioral problems and trauma,” she told me, explaining the circumstances that brought her to France. “And one client, she is cycling up a mountain with a team, and I wanted to come to support her.”

Van der Vorst stayed in Mollans-sur-Ouvèze, a village about 90 miles north of Marseille, a seaside port that is France’s second-largest city.

“While being here, I thought, ‘Let’s explore the south of France,’ and I wanted to go to church,” van der Vorst said as we talked at a fellowship meal after worship.

A member of the Eindhoven Church of Christ at home — nearly 700 miles north of Marseille — she was pleased to find a sister congregation in this Mediterranean melting pot.

She called before visiting to see if an English interpretation of the Sunday service might be offered.

Dolores Dauner, wife of Chapelle de Fuveau minister Philippe Dauner, answered the call.

Dolores Dauner grew up in Belgium. Flemish, a dialect of Dutch, is her native language. She also speaks French and English.

“I already saw a video on their website of their singing,” van der Vorst said. “I mean, just as a small church, their singing ability was amazing. Like, it was so well harmonized, and I really appreciate that.”

In the phone call, Dolores Dauner and van der Vorst were able to communicate in Dutch.

Dauner explained that the congregation provides earphones that allow English-speaking guests to follow the Scripture reading, singing, sermon and communion thoughts.

Members and guests visit outside the Chapelle de Fuveau Church of Christ in Marseille, France, before a Sunday morning worship assembly.

“And she knows some people from my church and my region,” van der Vorst said of the immediate connection. “So that was like, yeah, it’s a small world.”

I had the same feeling when meeting van der Vorst.

We, too, know some of the same people — mutual friends in Churches of Christ.

Among them: Paul and Carol Brazle, missionaries in Antwerp, Belgium, with whom I stayed during a 2009 reporting trip.

So van der Vorst got up before sunrise and made the two-hour drive. She arrived early enough to use her drone to snap beautiful photos of Marseille.

I was excited when she shared the images with me.

“Melanie is a lovely young woman,” Carol Brazle told me, “and I am not a bit surprised that she went out of her way to meet with Christians.”

A drone image captured by Melanie van der Vorst shows the Notre Dame de la Garde basilica in Marseille, France.

Trilingual, bilingual or … American?

I traveled to Marseille to report on the Chapelle de Fuveau church’s work to transform an abandoned monastery — one of thousands of decaying religious structures in France — into a Christian outreach center.

Despite three years of high school Spanish, I speak only one language fluently: English.

I’m reminded of this old joke: What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual. Two languages? Bilingual. One language? American.

But time and time again in France, I found myself impressed by those who — unlike me — master multiple languages.

Rafael Reis would like to learn Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic to understand the Bible’s original languages better.

Portuguese is the native language of Rafael Reis, a 26-year-old Brazilian who just started a yearlong mission training internship with the Chapelle de Fuveau church.

In addition, Reis speaks English and a bit of Spanish. He’s working to learn French.

“I love this intercultural (connection) and the language stuff and all. I always like that,” he told me. “One day, I want to learn Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek to understand the Bible better.”

One woman I met, Mila Nataliya Govorukha, is a philologist who actually studies the history of languages.

A Ukrainian refugee and Chapelle de Fuveau member, Govorukha left Kharkiv — close to the Russian border — a few weeks before the war started in 2022.

“My first language is Russian,” Govorukha said. “At some point I had to learn Ukrainian, of course, because I’m Ukrainian, and English because I did missionary work.

“Most of the (missionary) projects were international,” she added. “And I was six years in Bosnia, so I speak Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian. … And now I’m learning French.”

Khaled and Djedjiga Hassani, ethnic Berbers who immigrated to France from Algeria, spoke Kabyle growing up.

The former Muslims, who converted to Christianity in Marseille, can converse in various dialects of Arabic and learned French after moving here.

Khaled understands quite a bit of English, too, but lamented to me that his mastery of my language wasn’t better.

“Your English is much better than my French,” I assured him.

Khaled and Djedjiga Hassani serve as caretakers for the former Betheline monastery, which is being renovated as a Christian outreach center.

A hug and a promise

An American mission team came to help with the monastery renovation project and wanted to show its appreciation to its French-speaking hosts.

So the team enlisted the help of Esther House — the French-born daughter of American missionaries Craig and Katie Young — to learn the French version of the hymn “I Love You With the Love of the Lord.”

The Americans sang it as a thank you on the group’s final work day in Marseille.

American mission team members, from left, Kathy Ashton, Krista Jacoby, Lois Gerst and Dan Cooper practice singing “I Love You with the Love of the Lord” in French

Like me, Krista Jacoby — one of the mission team members — enjoyed meeting Melanie van der Vorst.

Jacoby, who attends the Glen Rock Church of Christ in Pennsylvania, flew 4,000 miles to help with the monastery project.

“I love it,” Jacoby said of the diverse group of people she met in Marseille. “We do tend to think everything’s in English in the world, and everybody should speak that. But it’s fun to come here and see how God’s love pours out in different languages.”

Jacoby, who is learning French, hugged van der Vorst as they said goodbye after the fellowship meal.

The two expect to see each other again, in heaven if not sooner.

“It’s very encouraging to meet Christians from all over the world,” Jacoby told van der Vorst, “and someday we’ll all be together.”

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

These were the guiding questions of a listening tour I conducted over a year with churches in six cities — Memphis, Tenn.; Little Rock, Ark.; Dallas; Houston; Atlanta; and Chicago. The survey involved 134 participants representing 65 congregations of Churches of Christ.

Participants included preaching ministers, associate ministers, elders, deacons and engaged members. Racial demographics were fairly balanced, with a slight majority of White leaders (54%), and the churches themselves ranged from predominantly White or Black to racially mixed congregations.

When asked to describe their church’s surrounding neighborhood, the most common descriptor was racially and economically mixed.

Christians minister to the homeless in Washington, D.C.

I primarily asked four key questions to get at the heart of participants’ needs, hopes and dreams for their city church.

From rich conversations in writing, small groups and larger sessions, five themes emerged — consistent across all six urban contexts.

1. Church leaders want to come together. Leaders desire to work together more. Our autonomy causes isolation; our racial differences bring separation. But these leaders aspired to find ways to come together on common ground for kingdom causes. Leaders acknowledged the need for ministry partnerships to engage the city, yet they also admit theological differences that makes cooperation hard.
2. Church leaders believe God is working. Words like hope, revival, providence, awakening or openness peppered conversation concerning the current spiritual environment in cities. Leaders sense God is up to something, and hearts are softening toward spiritual things. As one minister put it, it feels like “tremors before the earthquake.” The key question is, will we be attentive to what God is doing? The hurry culture that is ever-present in urban areas may cause the church to miss what God is doing.
   

   “Leaders sense God is up to something, and hearts are softening toward spiritual things. As one minister put it, it feels like ‘tremors before the earthquake.’”

3. Church leaders long for missional renewal. Leaders desired for their churches to be incarnational witnesses that engage their neighborhoods in word and deed. Yet, barriers abound. Too often, churches are bogged down by tradition or other distractions. “Commuter churches” are disconnected from their neighborhood. The busyness of members and constantly changing urban dynamics often leave church leaders at a loss on how to engage missionally. And yet, overwhelmingly, leaders deeply desire to see their church reach out.
4. Church leaders want to better “do justice and love mercy.” Caring for the poor, welcoming the immigrant, loving the neighbor — these burn in church leaders’ hearts. And yet, how does a church do this well? The “city” is still viewed as scary and fearful by many. The needs of poverty can be overwhelming. Leaders expressed confusion on how to care for the needy in faithful and responsible ways, especially in the urban context, which can seem frightening and overwhelming.
5. Church leaders recognize the need to equip members. Leaders described wanting more training opportunities — not for preachers, for members. Churches in urban areas often feel strained, and the need is great. “The harvest is plentiful; the workers are few” was quoted regularly. Leaders advocated for finding more ways for ordinary disciples to be developed further in spiritual formation, discipleship and missional engagement.

Davis Worley, minister for the Sandtown Church of Christ, prays over a family during the church’s back to school campaign.

These five themes are not completely surprising, but I believe they offer strategic priorities. I submit that churches ask five questions to locate opportunities for the future:

1.     How can we create more ways to collaborate with other congregations across race and theological disagreements?
2.     How can we slow down to discern the new work God is doing in our cities?
3.     How can we become a missionary church in our neighborhood?
4.     How can we embody faithful practices of justice and mercy to the broken?
5.     How do we better train and release our members for ministry and mission?

While the historic past of Churches of Christ is rural, the future is urban. At the Harding Center for Church and City Engagement, we are committed to walking alongside churches to provide support and training to help churches to engage the city for the mission of God.

STEVE CLOER, based in Memphis, is an associate professor of ministry at the Harding School of Theology in Searcy, Ark., where he directs the Doctor of Ministry program and the Center for Church and City Engagement. Contact secloer@harding.edu.

Christians in Glenmora, La., are supporting men recovering from substance abuse. Christians in Eastern Europe are welcoming refugees.

Christians in St. Lucia are celebrating the late Botham Jean by empowering youth, promoting social justice and supporting communities in need.

Claire Higginbotham (orange shirt) helps a Forever His camper get close to the pigs at the camp’s petting zoo.

That’s what we talked about when The Christian Chronicle’s Editorial Board met in October — in part because we’re exhausted.

We’re exhausted by violence, wars abroad and wars of words, especially between church members who should be able to find some common ground in Christ and him crucified — in the true religion of looking after orphans and widows in their distress and keeping ourselves unspotted by the world.

We really longed to share a positive message in this space, and so we chose to talk about Christians helping their neighbors and churches working together to help their communities — stories we love spotlighting. And as we talked, our brother Hamil Harris told us about Christians in Glenarden, Md., just outside the nation’s capital, who put up a sign inviting the community to an ice cream social.

And neighbors came. Neighbors who are Christian. Neighbors who are Muslim. Neighbors who were simply hungry for ice cream and community.

It went so well they’re planning a giveaway of lightly used items from church members and friends to anyone who needs them. To help their neighbors. In telling the story, Harris was clearly touched by what a diverse group of neighbors showed up.

It’s not a coincidence that when an expert in the law asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus told about a good Samaritan. Not a good Jew, a good Levite, a good son of Reuben or Joseph or Benjamin. A good Samaritan. To the Jews, a half-breed descendant of the Assyrians, ethnically and theologically impure.

Ukrainian and Russian refugees pray earlier this year during a Russian-speaking Bible class at the Memorial Church of Christ in Houston.

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Jesus made it clear. Being a neighbor was not about jots and tittles, not about agreeing about every single word of the Torah before offering a cup of cold water or helping some guy get his ox out of a ditch.

Do it for the least of these, he told them. Do it for the sick, the prisoner, the stranger. In doing so, you do it for me.

We know Botham Jean’s family still grieves his murderous loss. We know it often feels futile to deal with neighbors caught in substance abuse. We’re terrified by the stories of human trafficking victims. We know those Christians feeding the hungry get tired. But they’re still out there being neighbors.

“Being a neighbor can be tiring. But maybe it’s exactly the kind of tired we need to be. Not exhausted but tired. A good tired.”

The late John Lewis told his friends in the Civil Rights Movement to go out and get in “good trouble.”

Being a neighbor can be tiring. But maybe it’s exactly the kind of tired we need to be. Not exhausted but tired. A good tired.

So look for the helpers. They just might help you find a neighbor.

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.

A mishap at a military veteran’s graveside service.

An accident inside the huge fish — an inflatable one anyway — that swallowed Jonah.

On lists of most dangerous jobs, professions such as logger, roofer and lineman rank high.

Preacher? Not so much.

But serving the Lord can be — at least occasionally — hard on one’s physical health, as my friends David Duncan, Randy Roper and Trey Morgan discovered.

An illustration of the biblical account of a big fish swallowing Jonah.

“I like to jokingly quote Galatians 6:17 out of the New Living Translation,” said Duncan, who hurt himself while baptizing a new believer. “It says, ‘For I bear on my body the scars that show I belong to Jesus.’”

“I wouldn’t compare it to martyrs of old or even in today’s world,” Roper quipped concerning his injury while lifting a casket at a military funeral.

“It was a brutal two weeks after I got swallowed by the fish,” suggested Morgan, who regretted taking the role of Jonah in a Vacation Bible School production.

‘Well, it’s a silly story’

In nearly four decades of full-time ministry, Duncan — who preaches for the Memorial Church of Christ in Houston — has brought hundreds of souls to new life in Jesus.

Not until just recently, though, did a baptism result in Duncan filing a workers’ comp claim.

“A woman called and said, ‘I’ve been studying the Bible with my brother and my niece, and they would like to be baptized,’” he recalled. “She said, ‘Can I bring them up to the church building? Can you baptize them?’ I said, ‘Sure, that would be great.’”

He baptized the niece without incident (which is a phrase I haven’t typed before).

Then Duncan, who is about 5 feet, 10 inches, turned to the 6-foot-2-inch brother.

“I had asked him to put his hand on his nose,” the preacher remembered. “His arm would be like a handle for me, and then I would take him backwards and immerse him.

“Well, when I said, ‘I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’ — at that point he just went straight backwards. Most people kind of go back slowly. They’re a little worried about it. He just fell backwards. And I tried to grab his arm, but I missed because it was happening so quickly.”

The man’s full weight fell on Duncan’s right arm. The minister said he felt his arm “ripping.”

Despite the pain, he used both his arms to push the man back up.

Outside the baptistry, the minister forced a smile during photos with the family.

Then he talked for 10 minutes with someone else who asked to see him.

Finally, Duncan told the person, “I’m sorry. I’m going to pray for you now. But I have to go to urgent care.”

The urgent care referred him to an orthopedist. A lady at that office asked him what had happened.

“Well, it’s a silly story,” he replied.

She didn’t laugh.

“We can’t talk to you because this is workers’ comp,” she told him.

Minister David Duncan and his journalist friend Bobby Ross Jr. in 2023.

“What?” he replied.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’ll have to file this with workers’ comp.”

Thus began a multi-week bureaucratic process of scheduling a doctor visit, an MRI and physical therapy.

He eventually learned he wouldn’t need surgery, which was a major relief.

For a few weeks, he returned to the pulpit with a sling on his right arm.

He chuckled at the restrictions on one doctor’s report, which recommended “no baptism, no pushing and pulling with right shoulder pending MRI.”

A doctor’s note concerning David Duncan’s injury.

Duncan told the doctor he’d do his best to follow the instructions.

“I said, ‘If someone really needs to be baptized, and there is absolutely no one who will do it, I’m still going to do it,’” he said. “‘But I feel confident I will be able to find someone who could do it for me.’”

David Duncan preaches with a sling on his arm after the baptism injury.

‘Sir, could you help me?’

In Roper’s case, a funeral home director asked a few years ago if he’d speak at a military veteran’s graveside service.

Roper — who preaches for the Edmond Church of Christ, my home congregation north of Oklahoma City — said he would.

“There weren’t a ton of people there — probably 20 or 25,” Roper said. “I finished my part, and a color guard came up to present the flag.”

A man in uniform reached for the stars and stripes draped over the casket.

The only problem: Part of the flag was caught under the casket — the corner closest to Roper.

An illustration of a U.S. flag draped over a casket.

“I’m standing there … not knowing what I should do or if I should do anything,” Roper said. “It’s this solemn moment, and you don’t want to interfere with the military doing all their thing.”

But then the military representative whispered, “Sir, could you help me?”

Still holding his Bible in his left hand, Roper reached under the casket with his right hand.

“As I’m lifting it up, I feel something explode in my arm. I feel it pop,” he said. “Thankfully, at that moment, I just got the casket lifted enough for him to pull the corner of the flag out. … I did find out later that the guy in the casket weighed over 300 pounds. He was a large fellow.”

Writhing in pain, Roper said the final prayer, greeted the family on the front row and stressed, “I need to go now.”

He saw an orthopedic physician assistant who attends our church and underwent surgery within two days.

Like Duncan, Roper wore a sling the next time he preached.

“What’s funny is that we both injured the same part — bicep tendon,” Roper said in a text message, referring to Duncan and himself. “And we were both burying someone!!”

Death can lead to injury, it seems.

Randy Roper preaches with a sling on his arm after the injury.

In case anyone needs a theological refresher to understand Roper’s quip, Christians view baptism as a reenactment of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

Roper also tore the patellar tendon in his knee one time playing basketball during a church fellowship.

That required him to preach while sitting on a stool wearing a knee brace — not that anyone noticed because that occurred during the COVID-19 era of livestream worship.

The video only showed him from the waist up.

“It was timely on that part,” Roper said of the knee injury.

‘And Jonah got spit out’

It seemed like a terrific Vacation Bible School idea: Turn an inflatable bounce house into the big fish that swallowed Jonah.

For a few nights, the prop worked just fine.

“We would tell the story, and then after the story, we would all go walk through the big whale,” said Morgan, who then preached for the Childress Church of Christ, a rural congregation in the Texas Panhandle. “And the kids would play in there, which was a lot of fun.”

Morgan’s wife, Lea, narrated the skit, while he performed as Jonah.

Stairs led the way into the fish’s mouth.

Trey Morgan with his wife, Lea. No picture was available of the fish-swallowing incident.

“You had to climb up into his mouth, and you’d go over to the side,” Morgan said. “And every night I’d be swallowed, and I’d go in. Then after less than a minute, she’d mention, ‘And the great fish spit Jonah out on the beach,’ and I’d come falling out of there.”

But the last night, Morgan stumbled going over the side and fell with his elbow underneath his ribs.

“I knew immediately I had done something that was not good,” said Morgan, now the lead minister for the Sunset Church of Christ in Lubbock, Texas.

While he was inside the bounce house, hurting and unable to get up, Lea repeated for the fourth time, “And Jonah got spit out by the great fish.”

Except this time, the fish failed to spit out Jonah.

With two ribs suddenly cracked, Morgan didn’t appear.

“Finally, I kind of stuck my head up over there and kind of waved that Jonah’s tapping out on this one,” he said. “And I think I crawled over.”

Two doctors in the church assessed him and determined he didn’t need surgery.

“They said, ‘If you want, we’ll go take an X-ray. But even if we take an X-ray, there’s nothing we can do about it,’” he recalled.

He just needed a few weeks to deal with the pain and — eventually — heal.

Morgan sure wasn’t laughing then.

But he is now — along with the rest of us.

Baptisms, funerals and giant fish can be hazardous to preachers’ health.

‘The funny thing is …’

While researching this piece, I enjoyed hearing from a few other folks who work in ministry about their on-the-job mishaps.

I’ll share a few anecdotes quickly since I’ve taken up so much space already.

In his time as the preacher for the Exchange Street Church of Christ in Union City, Tenn., Dan Huggins did a sermon illustration at a summer youth camp. One guy was supposed to stand behind him and grab him under his arms, while another held him by his ankles.

But the guy behind him was not paying attention when the ankles guy pulled his feet out from under him.

“When I hit the cement floor, it almost knocked me out,” said Huggins, now the pastor of Refuge Mission, a church plant in Union City. “When I stood up, everybody gasped because I was bleeding profusely from both elbows.”

He required a hospital visit and made a workers’ comp claim.

“The funny thing is that all the kids thought it was just part of the act,” he said.

A yellow jacket stung Justin Simmons on the back of his neck while he preached one Sunday.

“No major injury, just a whelp with a stinger that my wife removed after the service,” said Simmons, who preaches for the Glenmora Church of Christ in Louisiana.

While he didn’t require medical treatment, the church did call an exterminator.

Finally, Jason Moon rear-ended a police car during a funeral procession.

“Cop car was leading,” said Moon, who preaches for the Boone Church of Christ in North Carolina. “I was in front of the hearse. Cop car stopped. I did not.”

“Cop car was leading. I was in front of the hearse. Cop car stopped. I did not.”

The collision caused his radiator to burst, so he had to catch a ride with the officer whose vehicle he struck.

Was Moon injured?

“My pride, that’s all,” he told me. “Did the graveside after it happened.”

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

That’s a good summary of what happens when I travel for The Christian Chronicle. I often find myself explaining exactly what I’m doing wherever I am — and explaining how to pronounce my last name.

The sun sets over the volcanic beach near Beachcomber’s Hotel on the southern tip of St. Vincent.

I don’t exactly preach, although I always include Scripture. And I don’t exactly report. I focus on the spiritual lessons I’ve learned in my 24 years of experience with the Chronicle. It’s a weird mish-mash. Call it “evanjournalism.”

I was in St. Vincent, a beautiful, volcanic island in the eastern Caribbean, after attending the Botham Jean Foundation’s Red Tie Gala in nearby St. Lucia.

Joel Jack, my minister friend in St. Vincent’s capital, Kingstown, was going to be in Kenya during my visit. He connected me with Mark Charles, a hard-working, part-time minister who graduated from International Bible College (now Heritage Christian University) in Florence, Ala. Mark preaches for two Churches of Christ in St. Vincent and works in the insurance business. He’s got a heart to reach people in his home nation with the Gospel, so he asked me to do a presentation focused on ideas for evangelism.

@christianchronicle CALLIAQUA, ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES — Members of Churches of Christ across the Caribbean island of St. Vincent sing during a Wednesday night Bible class hosted by the Calliaqua Church of Christ. #caribbean #stvincentandthegrenadines #churchofchrist #acappella ♬ original sound – The Christian Chronicle

About 40 folks attended the Wednesday night class, representing six Churches of Christ. I spoke for a few minutes with Katra Walker about the work she’s doing in women’s prison ministry. She’s the daughter of Jimmy Bracken, a Vincentian minister who did mission work in nearby Barbados.

Fourteen congregations are spread across St. Vincent and the small islands to its south, the Grenadines. Churches started here in the 1960s through the work of missionaries including Ralph Wharton and Bob Brown. Back in 2009, I wrote a news brief about Walter Hackshaw, who ministered on the islands for 50 years before retiring. (On this trip, I met Hackshaw’s son on the Grenadine island of Bequia.)

Erik Tryggestad visits with the son of longtime preacher Walter Hackshaw on the northern Grenadine island of Bequia.

Recently, I wrote about a volcanic eruption in St. Vincent that damaged two church buildings and displaced hundreds of people. One congregation, Sandy Bay, still is unable to rebuild. Last year, Hurricane Beryl damaged a Church of Christ on Union Island in the southern Grenadines.

But the real challenge for Churches of Christ in this nation of about 100,600 souls isn’t weather or seismology. Churches that once had 100-plus members are in decline. Young people are leaving. There’s competition from denominational groups, especially Seventh-day Adventists.

Church members from across St. Vincent sing hymns during a Wednesday night Bible study hosted by the Calliaqua Church of Christ.

It’s easy to feel small here — on islands that you have to squint to see on most maps. I shared with the Christians a story from a trip I took to another island nation nearly 10 years ago — Vanuatu, in the South Pacific. Eric Brandell, then a missionary in Vanuatu, took me around the main island and introduced me to members of Churches of Christ. Some worshiped with congregations of 10 to 12 people. I asked them about their faith, their church and the challenges they face reaching lost souls for Christ. They sat silent, stonefaced.

Eric, who translated for me, said that they were confused as to what I was doing there. (Like I said, this often is a problem for me.) The people of Vanuatu didn’t understand why I flew across an ocean to ask them about their tiny churches on their tiny island. They felt like, in the grand scheme of things, they didn’t really matter.

Erik Tryggestad presents lessons from his travels around the globe during a Wednesday night Bible class in St. Vincent.

Of course, everyone matters to God, I told my new friends in St. Vincent. And when you think you’re too small to make a difference on your own, that’s when God can use you. I told the Old Testament story of Gideon from Judges 7. Gideon (after a great deal of convincing) answered God’s call to raise up an army against the Midianites. He gathered 32,000 men, which God said was too many. So he got rid of 22,000 of them. “That’s still too many,” God said, and he whittled Gideon’s force down to 300 — against a force of 135,000. God didn’t want there to be any doubt that he, not Gideon and his troops, defeated the Midianites.

I shared some evangelism ideas I got from Churches of Christ in Africa that I’ve visited over the years. I talked about Ethiopia, where the government said it would deny entry to a mission team from our fellowship unless they did something to help the community. So the missionaries found an underserved population in Ethiopia, the deaf, and built schools for them. Who are the underserved among us?

Wearing his Georgia Bulldogs cap, Erik Tryggestad follows a group of new believers to a pond in rural Burkina Faso to witness their baptisms in 2009.

I talked about the West African nation of Burkina Faso, where church members wrote their own hymns, one of which roughly translated as “Children of Christ, a visitor has come to our church. We greet you in the name of Jesus Christ! Go to them, and let’s grab them!” “Grab” basically means to shake hands, but visitors are likely to be put to work. The Burkinabe Christians ask their guests to help chop vegetables for the fellowship meal and perform other tasks. This may seem inhospitable, but it’s a way to give potential new Christians an immediate sense of ownership in the Lord’s work.

Adriano Lopes, a minister in the island nation of Cape Verde, discusses evangelism with fellow Portuguese-speaking preachers during a breakout session at the the Luso-Africa Global Mission Gathering in Angola in 2023.

I mentioned a recent evangelism workshop I attended in Angola for Portuguese-speaking African churches. My friend from South Africa, George Funk, taught the Four Fields Discipleship Method he uses in his ministry, Gospel Chariot/Gospel Share. His co-trainers, Christians from Ghana, talked about how their end goal as evangelists used to be getting people into the waters of baptism. But that’s just the beginning of the Christian’s journey, not the end. Discipleship training can produce churches that will grow and plant new churches.

On Vanuatu’s most populated island, Efate, members of the Etas church remove their sandals for worship as Erik Tryggestad gives a devotional with the subject “You Matter to God” in 2015.

I finished by returning to Vanuatu and sharing the wonderful sermon illustration I found on the south side of the main island. There, I saw a bunch of old piles of dirt that, from my eye level, didn’t look all that important. But, from up above, those dirt piles spelled out “USA.” Nearby was an old airstrip used by U.S. forces during the Pacific campaign in World War II. From our earthly perspective, we can’t see how important we are to God. But his perspective is far higher, far greater.

After my presentation, Chad Kizer stood up to say the closing prayer. An 18-year-old member of the Calliaqua congregation, he preaches on occasion. I hoped that, between brother Maxwell’s earlier prayer and Chad’s, the folks had discerned the message I was trying to bring them.

Chad Kizer leads the closing prayer after a Wednesday night Bible study in St. Vincent.

“Lord, it doesn’t matter if I baptize 50 people,” Chad said. “It’s not about ‘I.’ It’s about you. … There doesn’t have to be a million of us. There doesn’t have to be a thousand men. One man with God is everything.”

Next time I tell my Vanuatu story, I’m throwing that in.

A seabird flies over the island of St. Vincent, as seen from a ferry that travels between the island and the northern Grenadine island of Bequia.

ERIK TRYGGESTAD (pronounced “Trig-es-tad”) is President and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact erik@christianchronicle.org.

New York. Chicago. Los Angeles. Houston. Washington. I love covering the news in such important urban centers.

But my roots are country.

And I’m not just talking about music, although I certainly enjoyed the Grand Ole Opry when I worked in Nashville.

My earliest memories evoke images of southeastern Missouri’s Bootheel, where both sets of my grandparents lived.

My brother, sister, cousins and I played hide-and-seek amid rows and rows of taller-than-us corn stalks. We couldn’t avoid the stench of the monster-truck-sized hogs that a neighbor raised in a cesspool of mud and slop.

We savored ice-cold Grape Nehi soda in glass bottles that we bought at a tiny store down the street. That same store sold bologna sandwiches for a quarter and bags of candy for a dime.

A half-century has passed since those days, but I still treasure them.

A reporting trip to middle-of-nowhere western Idaho got me thinking about that time — and about the speck-on-the-map places that chasing stories takes me.

Often, we journalists — on the Godbeat and otherwise — find rural America difficult to cover. Sometimes, we can’t even grasp the concept.

I still chuckle over a Los Angeles Times story in 2015 that reported on a “small town” in Texas. That small town? Garland, a major Dallas suburb that then had a population of 237,000.

It’s all about perspective, I guess.

A major challenge is, of course, getting to places like Midvale — the Idaho town of 222 residents where I wrote about a 144-year-old congregation that nearly died.

Midvale, Idaho, has a population of 222, according to signs along U.S. Highway 95.

My trip required flying 1,900 miles — via an L-shaped route from Oklahoma City to Phoenix to Boise. Then I drove 90 miles to the church.

The trip was worth it. The people I met blessed me. The on-the-ground details proved crucial.

Also, a few stereotypes were shattered along the way. For instance, Kevin Hooper, the church’s preacher, doesn’t wear cowboy boots. And he’s no fan of country music. He grew up listening to rap.

In fact, Hooper left Midvale for a number of years, thinking he didn’t fit in. But he later returned and couldn’t be happier.

“I realized what a great upbringing I had, and I wanted to provide that for my children — more of a fenceless world,” the 53-year-old father of seven said.

“Maybe not country,” he added, referring to the music. “But rural, I like it a lot.”

Minister Kevin Hooper displays an old photo with a deer on the porch of the Midvale church.

As for me, I’ve grown accustomed to the amenities of big-city life — even if major media such as the New York Times don’t consider Oklahoma City, where I live, as such.

I don’t see myself ever relocating to a town like Midvale. I’m too addicted to my neighborhood Chick-fil-A. 

Still, I relish traveling to places off the beaten path and telling their stories — be they inspiring, heartbreaking or a bit of both.

While far from exhaustive, the following list highlights a dozen-plus such places that made an impact on me.

A quick note first: I thought it would be interesting to give an idea of the distances — both in the air and on the highway — traveled. But when flying, in particular, hardly anyone ever goes anywhere in a straight line from Oklahoma City. So I should emphasize that the numbers provided are estimates, helped by online tools, and probably low in a number of cases.

Alsea, Ore.

Population: 129. Flight path: 1,488 miles from Oklahoma City to Portland. Driving distance from airport: 107 miles. The story: After a string of suicides, a minister helps bring answers. When: 2011.

Canadian, Texas

Population: 2,169. Driving distance: 190 miles from Oklahoma City. The story: Texas Panhandle residents rely on their faith after the largest wildfire in state history. When: 2024.

The Canadian Church of Christ prays last year after a wildfire hit the Texas Panhandle town.

Dauphin, Manitoba

Population: 8,368. Flight path: 940 miles from Toronto (where I was pursuing a different story) to Winnipeg. Driving distance from airport: 196 miles. The story: A ministry seeks to overcome — and atone for — Canada’s history of snatching indigenous children from their parents. When: 2017.

Deadwood, S.D.

Population: 1,347. Flight path: 564 miles from Oklahoma City to Sioux Falls. Driving distance from airport: 431 miles to Bismarck, N.D. (for a separate story) and 291 miles to Deadwood. The story: Amid a massive biker rally, Christians renew ties and fellowship. When: 2016.

Each August, the world-famous Sturgis Motorcycle Rally draws hundreds of thousands of bikers to the southwestern region of South Dakota.

Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan

Population: 986. Flight path: 1,099 miles from Oklahoma City to Regina. Driving distance from airport: 117 miles. The story: While churches struggle in more than a few places in rural Canada, this one thrives. When: 2009.

Mayfield, Ky.

Population: 9,805. Driving distance: 580 miles from Oklahoma City. The stories: Neighbors break down barriers to help tornado victims. Also, rebuilding means rethinking for tornado-ravaged churches. When: 2022.

A sign hangs from a barrier fence surrounding the historic Mayfield, Ky., courthouse, which was damaged by a tornado on Dec. 10, 2021. The tornado killed 22 people in Graves County, where Mayfield is the county seat.

Montezuma, Iowa

Population: 1,421. Flight path: 584 miles from Oklahoma City to Des Moines. Driving distance from airport: 67 miles. The story: A 156-year-old congregation epitomizes the challenges of many small, rural churches but refuses to die. When: 2013.

Raymond, Maine

Population: 4,536. Flight path: 1,494 miles from Oklahoma City to Boston. Driving distance from airport: 123 miles. The story: For these New Englanders, a camp with mounted moose heads over the fireplace provides a place of refuge and fellowship. When: 2008.

Roanoke, Ala.

Population: 5,424. Flight path: 758 miles from Oklahoma City to Atlanta. Driving distance from airport: 70 miles. The story: Profile of a preacher marking 65 years with the same congregation (he’s nearing 68 years there, by the way!). When: 2022.

Seabrook, N.H.

Population: 8,401. Flight path: 1,481 miles from Oklahoma City to Manchester. Driving distance from airport: 122 miles. The story: Two New England houses of worship with common roots — one in New Hampshire, one in Maine — become a one body. When: 2024.

The marquee sign outside the Seabrook Church of Christ in New Hampshire.

Selmer, Tenn.

Population: 4,590. Driving distance: 558  miles from Oklahoma City. The story: A minister’s slaying and his wife’s arrest deal a double tragedy. When: 2006.

Somerset, Pa.

Population: 5,870. Flight path: 1,001 miles from Oklahoma City to Pittsburgh. Driving distance from airport: 69 miles. The story: A child molester’s son shines a light. When: 2015.

Jimmy Hinton preaches for the Somerset Church of Christ in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Wasilla, Alaska

Population: 10,318. Flight path: 2,876 miles from Oklahoma City to Anchorage. Driving distance from airport: 46 miles. The story: An annual gathering draws together people of faith separated by hundreds of miles and — in some cases — rugged terrain accessible only by boat or plane. When: 2014.

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Ross writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged, where this piece originally appeared. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

I wrote that the people streaming out of a theater in Plano, Texas, north of Dallas, “looked as if they’d just attended a wake — and many said they felt as if they had.”

The brutal, bloody nature of Gibson’s 2004 portrayal of Jesus’ death on a cross drew both fans and critics — and mixed reviews.

Podcast: Listen to our interview with Dallas Jenkins

In 2027, a new feature-length presentation of the Crucifixion will hit the big screen. It’ll mark the culmination of the much-anticipated Season 6 of the worldwide phenomenon “The Chosen.”

What should viewers expect?

Will it be similar to — or different from — “The Passion” version?

I welcomed the opportunity this week to ask such questions of Dallas Jenkins, the creator, executive producer and director of the hit religious drama, which premiered in the spring of 2019 as a crowdfunded project.

I talked to the evangelical filmmaker at Oklahoma Christian University, my alma mater, where he spoke Monday as part of the McBride Lecture for Faith and Literature.

“You, my friend, are lifting up the name of Jesus in such a powerful, powerful way,” Oklahoma Christian President Ken Jones said in welcoming Jenkins to campus.

Ariel Howarth, an 18-year-old freshman from Portland, Oregon, was among hundreds of fans of “The Chosen” who came to hear Jenkins.

“It’s a fun opportunity that we’re able to meet him and hear him speak,” the Oklahoma Christian student said.

“I really like how it brings all the characters to life,” she said of the first multiseason drama about the life of Jesus, “and it gives them personalities that I wouldn’t have thought about otherwise.”

These highlights from my interview with Jenkins — son of Jerry B. Jenkins, co-author of the “Left Behind” books — have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity:

Dallas Jenkins speaks to students during a chapel assembly at Oklahoma Christian University.

On why filming Season 6 was so difficult

“Season 6 was by far the hardest season we’ve ever filmed, one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It included filming in Utah, Texas and Italy. We were in Italy for a month.

“I think Season 6 was meant to be hard. It was the longest season of filming, the hottest, the most physically challenging.

“Season 6 really captures around 24 hours of Jesus’ final hours — and I think God wanted us to get a little taste of some suffering and sacrifice for the purpose of capturing this. I think a lot of the strain and challenge and even at times desperation that we had while we were filming comes out on the screen.

“I think it was very visceral, and I think it’s going to turn out to be our best season as well. But it was definitely our hardest.”

On why Season 6 won’t debut until late next year

“The separation between the previous season is longer because it took longer filming, and our hope is to translate this into several dozen languages and release it all at once in those multiple languages. And that takes a long time.

“So a lot of times we’ve just released it in English and Spanish maybe, and then the rest of the languages catch up, and we really want to do it at the same time.

“The first six episodes will come out to streaming, and then the finale is a big, kind of supersized theatrical experience. So that’ll be released all over the world at the same time in early 2027.”

Dallas Jenkins, creator of “The Chosen,” answers questions from The Christian Chronicle’s Bobby Ross Jr. at Oklahoma Christian University.

On how “The Chosen’s” portrayal of the Crucifixion will compare with that of “The Passion of the Christ” 

“There are two ways that I think we’re going to be different.

“Number one, we have more tools in our toolbelt than Mel Gibson did, by the fact that we have five seasons leading up to this. So he was using a lot of violence and visual intensity to try to capture the reality of the Crucifixion and the weight of the Crucifixion. But it was a movie, so he only had a limited amount of time.

“So we don’t need to do that to communicate just how visceral and intense a crucifixion was. Because for many people, just a simple reaction from one of Jesus’ closest friends is going to break us because we’ve known these characters for so long. So, it has more emotional weight because of the backstories that we’ve had for over five years.

“For many people, just a simple reaction from one of Jesus’ closest friends is going to break us because we’ve known these characters for so long. So, it has more emotional weight because of the backstories that we’ve had for over five years.”

“The second thing is, it’s not going to be quite as explicitly violent. Mel did it already. I don’t feel like I have anything new to add to the physicality of it. We’ve seen dozens of portrayals. Mel’s was the most violent. I think we’ve got an idea of what that looks like.

“I think for this storytelling that we’re doing, we’re trying to tell a story not just of the Crucifixion but of the history of humanity. This movie is going to cover and remind you of the history from the creation of the universe all the way to the Crucifixion — to help establish the need for the Crucifixion.

“So we’re coming at it, I think, from a little bit more of an emotional journey and a spiritual journey than a physical one.”

On why Jenkins — nonetheless — expects that journey to make a powerful impact 

“As we were filming it, we couldn’t get through the days without taking turns having some sort of emotional breakdown. I had my first experience on set where I couldn’t get myself together emotionally.

“I can’t predict how everyone’s going to react. But for us — and for what I believe we’re capturing and the story that we’re telling and the truths of the Crucifixion — I think it’s going to be easily the most emotional impact our show has ever had.”

Dallas Jenkins emphasizes a Scripture displayed prominently on an auditorium stage at Oklahoma Christian University, where he spoke this week.

On filming the Crucifixion in the same general area as ‘The Passion of the Christ’

“So ‘The Passion’ was filmed in Matera, Italy, which is a city that has still preserved its thousands-of-years-old status. I mean, it’s the only place we could find where the horizon line still looked like the first century.

“And so several Crucifixion film projects have filmed there, going all the way back to ‘The Gospel According to St. Matthew,’ Pier Paolo Pasolini’s film in 1964. So there’s a reason why multiple film projects have filmed there.

“So I think our crosses were set up about 50 yards from where Mel’s were. And he’s actually filming ‘The Resurrection of the Christ’ movie (a sequel to ‘The Passion’) there as well, right?

“It’s a very, very special place, and it was clear to us that it was the only place that was right for this project.”

On learning of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination during the last week of filming Season 6

“I wasn’t close with Charlie. I knew him a little bit, and we had a lot of mutual friends.

“I think the difference between what Charlie was doing and what we’re doing is that Charlie kind of used politics as an on-ramp into discussions of Christianity. We’re kind of the other way around.

“I mean, we’re talking about the stories of Jesus. We don’t get into the political realm as a show, even though many people want us to, from both sides. The story of Jesus is oftentimes used for political purposes. One side likes to quote Jesus to support some of their political ends or policies that they’re wanting. Then the other side will use other quotes to support their policies.

“What we’re trying to do is just tell the stories of Jesus, and how people react to that is up to them — between them and God, them and their families, them and their church. We’re just trying to authentically portray the stories of Jesus as much as possible.

At the invitation of Scott LaMascus, founding director of Oklahoma Christian University’s McBride Center for Public Humanities, Dallas Jenkins signs a special chalkboard. It contains the names of prominent guest speakers who have visited Oklahoma Christian.

“I used to be a little bit more politically active on social media. Since I’ve started doing ‘The Chosen,’ I’ve dramatically slowed that down. Because I feel like by telling the story of Jesus, I want to follow his example of, ‘Hey, look, I’m here about your heart.’

“And he was always speaking to very diverse groups of people. Sometimes he was divisive in his claims of salvation, and other times he was unifying. But the unification or the division was always on a spiritual level, not a political one.

“Now, of course, he would sometimes upset people because of politics. But I just found that my job is different from other people in the public sphere. So I’m just trying to tell the stories of Jesus as authentically as I can, and then the response is not up to me.”

On his excitement over speaking at Oklahoma Christian University

“I love college students. In many ways, ‘The Chosen’ was made for the college-age me. When I was in college, there wasn’t much in the way of media — other than like VeggieTales — that spoke to my experience and my faith.

“I was always frustrated by that, and it’s taken a long time for faith media to catch up. But I feel like now what I’m excited about is being able to speak to college students and also make ‘The Chosen,’ hopefully for them.

“I love college students. In many ways, ‘The Chosen’ was made for the college-age me. When I was in college, there wasn’t much in the way of media — other than like VeggieTales — that spoke to my experience and my faith.”

“Even at 50, I feel like I can serve some media that’s going to speak to their experience as much as possible. So I love coming to college campuses because I think this is the generation that we sometimes complain about because Gen Z is so different from us.

“But this is an opportunity to perhaps learn from each other.”

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