Author: Gordon Govier

With 280 beds of student housing in 176 rooms, a residence hall being built on a former parking lot in the 400 block of North Murray Street is on schedule to open in August."It’s gone really well," said the Rev. Mark Elsdon, co-pastor and executive director of the adjacent Pres House, a student center at 731 State St., which is building the residence hall. "The building’s looking really good."Read the rest of this story.

A small group of worshipers joined Madison pastor Richard Pritchard to welcome the Easter sunrise at Wingra Park along the north shore of Lake Wingra. Pritchard, Pastor Emeritus of Heritage Congregational Church, started the tradition of sunrise services at Wingra in 1968, almost four decades ago.

HOLLYWOOD, CA (ANS) — Can you trust what the Bible says about the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in the Passover, Good Friday and Easter stories in the Bible? In the opening to the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Luke in the New Testament, the Greek physician Luke, a close friend of the Apostle Paul, writes, "I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning."How can we know if this is true? How can we find out if the books of the New Testament are accurate, reliable records of the teachings of Jesus Christ?In a court of…

It’s a predictable part of the Easter season: The period of reflection on the Crucifixion and Resurrection has become a popular time for marketers to roll out works — from the scholarly to the sensational — that challenge Christianity’s core beliefs. Christians across a broad spectrum of belief are angered by the trend.Read more of this story.

About 40 years after Dave Voetmann began work as an African aviation missionary in Africa, his dream of building a better plane to visit those hard-to-reach jungle settings is nearly complete.For the 72-year-old Edmonds man, it has taken almost 10 years just to build the Kodiak, a plane he says will modernize aid trips to places like Mok, West New Britain, and Aziana, Papua New Guinea — places too small to even be listed on a world map.Read more of this story.

March 26, 2007 issue – What would Jesus download? One of the hottest sites on the Internet is GodTube.com, the Christian answer to YouTube. It’s a goofy, fascinating window into the world of Christian youth. There’s a clip of Ray Comfort, the popular evangelical preacher, demonstrating the perfection of God’s creation with an actual banana. It’s hard—OK, impossible—not to see it as an (unintentional?) dirty joke. Another clip sends up the hip-hop anthem "Baby Got Back": This version is called "Baby Got Bible" and contains hilarious lyrics like "Bless me, bless me and teach me about John Wesley."Read more of…

When the levees broke in New Orleans, the Rev. Jerry Kramer scrambled to get his family out alive. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed their tiny house, but within days, Kramer, pastor of the Free Church of the Annunciation, was wading through the filthy floodwaters to help others. Before rebuilding his own home, Kramer helped rebuild homes and find shelter for many others. His congregation took out a million-dollar mortgage to turn the church and several surrounding properties into what they call Resurrection House, which includes a dormitory for volunteers who do construction work or reach out to the needy in…

BRIARCLIFF MANOR – Religious Protestants who have immersed themselves in national politics, taking on a culture they perceive as hostile to their values, may have lost sight of what they are trying to accomplish, a leading analyst of the religious right said.Read more of this story.

Christian ministries and charities promise to do all kinds of good things with your money, and that makes donors feel great about sending in their checks. The problem is, they can’t always find out exactly how their donation is being spent.Read more of this story.

Megachurch or small church, the life of a pastor’s wife has challenges. Crystal Cathedral’s Donna Schuller talks about her role one year later.If ministry can be difficult for a pastor, the adjustment of the wife has its own challenges. One pastor’s wife has written about the prerequisites for being a minister’s wife — “to be cute, perfect, always smiling, piano or organ player, soprano singer, having the perfect marriage, perfect children, setting a beautiful table, and putting out an extra couple dinner plates at a moment’s notice.”Read more of this story.