MC News
A program that since 1999 has sheltered homeless families in Madison-area churches and synagogues will end — at least partly because progress is being made finding such families permanent homes. The Road Home’s Interfaith Hospitality Network Shelter Program — the smallest family shelter in Madison — will end this spring, according to executive director Kristin Rucinski. Thirteen congregations currently take week-long turns hosting as many as 14 people, or three or four families. Some 40 other “buddy” congregations provide meals and other help to the sheltered.
This Saturday night the Upper House was filled with hundreds of students to participate in the All Campus Worship Night. The event was organized by an all student leadership team. There are over 30 Christian organizations on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This evening brought students representatives from those organization together with the purpose of worship.
A Downtown Madison Catholic parish doesn’t qualify for a property tax exemption on land where it intends to rebuild a cathedral, a state appeals court ruled Thursday. But a provision quietly tucked into the state budget will soon change that. The three-judge panel affirmed a 2016 ruling by Dane County Circuit Judge Rhonda Lanford that the property failed to meet a requirement for religiously exempt land to be “necessary for (the) location and convenience of buildings” since an arson fire destroyed St. Raphael’s Cathedral in 2005.
Dane County’s only voucher school is outperforming the rest of the Madison Metropolitan School District on most measures, despite serving a student body that is more diverse and more economically disadvantaged than any other school in the district, according to report cards from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. “LCS is making a difference for low-income minority children in Madison,” says pastor Marcio Sierra, whose Lighthouse Church operates the school. “Our goal is to help lower the achievement gap among minority students and their white counterparts in Madison and this report card shows that we are being successful.”
TOWN OF WESTPORT — Rosebud and Duchess seemed anxious to get to work as they heard trees being felled on a recent misty November morning. The pair of harnessed American Suffolk horses would soon be hauling timber out of a wooded area near Lake Mendota. The work, which recalled an earlier era when land was cleared by muscle alone, also seeks to turn the clock back on this parcel of land to oak savanna, now one of the rarest ecological environments in America. Holy Wisdom Monastery is undergoing a years-long project to convert some 30 acres of its property to…
It was a rare moment when the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison had a chance to address two of her passions – economics and Christianity. Chancellor Rebecca Blank talked on Wednesday to students, faculty, and community members at Upper House, an off-campus venue that provides a forum for the exploration of belief and action. In addition to being leader of a public educational institution, Blank is an internationally respected economist and someone who is a regular participant at a local church – First Congregational United Church of Christ near Camp Randall Stadium.
First United Methodist Church is celebrating the 180 years since Methodism was established in Madison. As part of the special anniversary celebration, the church invites members of the public to attend a walk journeying through the religion’s Madison history on Nov. 19. Events will begin at the 9 a.m. church service led by Bishop Hee-Soo Jung. After the service, Jung will lead the “Bishop’s Walk” around the Downtown area highlighting special liturgical locations.
There are various campus ministries at University of Wisconsin-Madison and many are doing their part to embody service. Campus ministries do not stop at worship and free food, but are acting as the light of Christ through the humility of service.
When people from 40 different Madison area churches come together to celebrate, something unusual is going on. But that’s typical for the annual Care Net Pregnancy Center of Dane County banquet. The center has enjoyed widespread support from the Madison church community, both Protestant and Catholic, over its more than three decades of operation. Kirk Walden, Advancement Director for Heartbeat International, an international Christian association of 2,200 crisis pregnancy centers, told the 500 people gathered at Monona Terrace for last Thursday’s banquet that the Madison center is one of the best in the country. “You need to know this,” he…
What if the different churches and leaders worked together to bring Heaven down to earth? I believe it would be a lot of fun, a lot more would get accomplished, and most importantly, our cities would be transformed a lot quicker by the power of God working through us. As I was studying the story of the tower of Babel in Genesis, I saw something that I had never noticed before. In Genesis 11:6 it says, “The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will…