Author: Gordon Govier

With influenza continuing to hit Wisconsin hard, schools closed in Richland Center Thursday and Madison-area clergy said they’re advising congregants to “rub elbows” or “fist bump,” instead of shaking hands or hugging, when sharing the peace during worship.

State Rep. Melissa Sargent (D-Madison) named longtime housing advocate Reverend Dr. Carmen Porco as a “Hometown Hero” in a ceremony during Thursday’s session of the State Assembly. “Carmen Porco is greatly deserving of the Hometown Hero award for his incredible dedication to addressing housing needs here in Wisconsin, and for his work within low-income communities,” Sargent said in a statement. “Rev. Porco has selflessly dedicated his life and work to fighting for just and equal opportunities, and has changed the lives of many.”

MADISON, Wis. (RNS) — Emma Brown didn’t know Pres House was a church when she walked in. The University of Wisconsin-Madison freshman had seen a sign for free ice cream at the Gothic Revival building at the heart of the university’s campus and decided to check it out. Inside, she met one of its two pastors and found herself surprisingly emotional when the topic of homesickness came up.

As the national debate around issues of immigration continues to swirl and divide people across the nation, people in Madison area churches are looking at hands-on ways to live out the Biblical injunction to “welcome the stranger.” For the Collaboration Project, that has involved bringing people together to share ideas, offer support and ponder new approaches. Last April, at the first gathering of the Immigration Affinity group, Pastor. Marcio Sierra from Lighthouse Church set the tone when he said, “The churches in Madison needs to open their eyes to the reality of what we have in Madison. A lot of believers here…

Fans of Madison’s Christian radio station Life 102.5 are making a big difference for children in hospitals this Valentine’s Day.

“Sometimes I wonder if the burning bush Moses encountered smelled like hickory,” Author and Culinary Historian Adrian Miller joked at a lecture about barbecue and soul food. Miller authored Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time which won a James Beard award, and most recently The President’s Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, from the Washingtons to the Obamas (2017) which received a nomination for the 2018 NAACP Image Award. He gave a lunchtime lecture on African American food traditions to an audience of over…

Schools are at the heart of every neighborhood, every community, so it makes sense that in its first months of existence, Collaboration Project has put a particular emphasis on ways congregations can serve the schools in their area. One of the dreams of the Collaboration Project is that every school have a church partner – and those partnerships already take a variety of forms. In the last six months, we have told the stories of some of those partnerships. At the upcoming Kingdom Justice Summit there will a day of intensive exploration of what else might happen.

In Jerusalem a quarter of a century ago, I heard the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin mis-identify Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as the three monolithic faiths. He meant, of course, the three monotheistic faiths. From a distance, they may look monolithic but Charles Cohen, University of Wisconsin Emeritus Professor of American Institutions, says they are far from monolithic. Cohen, who directed the former Lubar Institute for the Study of Abrahamic Religions at the University of Wisconsin from 2005-2016, discussed what he called the “Braided Histories” of the three traditions in a February 5 lecture at Upper House. The lecture…

If you look up the word “neighbor” in a dictionary, you’ll find definitions like: “a person living near or next door to the speaker or person referred to,” or “one living or located near another.” Those are not the definitions that Jesus was thinking of when He told the story of the good Samaritan or the good “neighbor.”  In the book of Luke, Ch. 10, Jesus provides us with a very clear picture of who a neighbor is and most importantly, what a neighbor does.

On a hot summer evening two and a half years ago my daughter, Charis, and I met some of our Madison neighbors whom we never had met before. We were walking in a community prayer march on the southside initiated by Mt. Zion Baptist Church. We prayed at Penn Park, the South Madison bus transfer station, Goodman South Library and the Boys and Girls Club. The neighborhood prayer march was an effort to walk the streets, take back the streets, and to pray that God would bring hope and healing to our city and bring an end to the unprecedented…