Author: Gordon Govier

Since starting operations in March 2006, the River Food Pantry has come a long way in terms of broadening its volunteer base. Although many of its original volunteers were from Mad City Church, The River now counts on a number of volunteers from a variety of different churches, schools and organizations.But one group that has had a tremendous impact at The River is a group of men from the Dane County Huber Program and the Ferris Center. The men from the Ferris Center are not only working hard to help The River stock shelves, cook, clean, help out at Badger…

The River Food Pantry, like all other pantries in Dane County, has grown tremendously since the beginning of this year.The economy, which had not been very good for those at the low end, has worsened. Many people are making their very first visit to a food pantry.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Men who attend religious services regularly are more likely to have happy and stable marriages, more likely to be involved with their children and less likely to divorce, new research says.Read more of this story.

When he founded MinistryWatch, Rusty Leonard says, he expected the flak from leaders of the ministries his organization rates for financial accountability. "But I thought the donors would love it. Particularly I thought the larger donors would say, ‘Where have you been all my life?’Read more of this story.

PRESTATYN, DENBIGHSHIRE, WALES (ANS) — A minister posed as a tramp and gatecrashed his own service to teach churchgoers about "acceptance."According to a story on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) website, the Reverend Derek Rigby donned a wig and some torn clothes and surrounded himself with lager cans and syringes in the church doorway on Sunday morning. Read more of this story.

In an era of change, the Pilgrim People were ambassadors of innovation.They sang. They clapped. They smiled. They swayed. Navigating uncharted liturgical waters in a different church each Sunday, the ecumenical choir introduced many Catholic and mainline Protestant congregations across southeastern Wisconsin to Masses and worship services enlivened by guitars, a keyboard, drums, a harmonica and other instruments.Read more of this story.

LAMONT, Iowa (BP)–Flood debris sitting in the sun produced a foul odor in Lamont, Iowa, a small town of 490 people about 35 miles east of Waterloo. Some residents piled debris on the curb for sanitation workers to haul away, but they were at a loss for what to do next.Many of the town’s senior adults and some with physical disabilities had been waiting for assistance to clean out their homes, which were damaged by floodwaters when eight inches of rain fell the evening of May 25. The mayor of Lamont, Afred Hotchkiss, heard about Southern Baptist disaster relief at…

BRANDON, WI — Here’s the church, here’s the steeple. Open the door and see all the people.Or in the case of Emanuel Lutheran Church in Brandon, it’s actually more than 12,000 Legos visitors will be viewing as they walk through the vestibule.A detailed miniature replica of the 134-year-old church was fashioned out of Legos begged, borrowed and bought on eBay by Emanuel’s homegrown pastor, Stuart Dornfeld, who had some time on his hands in between sermons."I was looking for a challenge, and I wanted to build something from real life," Dornfeld said.Read the rest of this story and view photo.

TIPP CITY, Ohio It is not the fact that Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church sits in the middle of a Midwestern cornfield that makes it notable. Nor even that its pastor preaches in jeans and sandals to a working-class congregation sipping coffee in shorts and T-shirts. More to the point: Of the hundreds of American churches, ministries and local faith-based organizations that for almost three years have poured themselves out on behalf of wounded New Orleans, few have matched the sustained commitment of this megachurch 15 miles north of Dayton. Read more of this story.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–The American Family Association launched a boycott of McDonald’s July 3, saying the restaurant chain’s corporate leaders refuse "to remain neutral in the culture wars" by promoting the homosexual agenda.Read more of this story.