News
It’s not every Sunday that church ceremonies involve burning paperwork. But then it’s not every Sunday that one of the city’s oldest Black parishes gets to celebrate the retirement of a mortgage. Marcus Allen, senior pastor at Mt. Zion Baptist Church on the South Side, said retirement of the mortgage, taken in 2004 to finance a major renovation, has been an important goal since he arrived in 2016.
Diverse religious organizations today welcomed a new Department of Education regulation that strengthens campus non-discrimination and inclusion policies. The new regulation encourages public colleges to treat all campus groups fairly, allowing each group to select leaders who agree with their groups’ religious beliefs. This regulation arose because public colleges sometimes discriminated against Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Sikh and other religious clubs based on their religious expectations for their leaders. For example, in 2018, the University of Iowa derecognized multiple religious groups, including Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Jewish, and Hindu student groups because their faith traditions require that religious observances be led by people…
In March, as communities responded to the growing coronavirus outbreak, the bishops of Wisconsin’s five Roman Catholic dioceses each granted a dispensation from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass. As the outbreak grew into a pandemic, all dioceses suspended the public celebration of Mass until it was safe to resume in-person worship. In recent months, dioceses and parishes throughout the state have been able to resume public worship by adhering to strict safety standards and by restricting access to services for those who are symptomatic, sick, or at risk of serious illness. Throughout this time, the faithful have not been…
First, the concerning news. A survey of clergy in Wisconsin found that 25 percent of them have seriously considered resigning or retiring as a result of the stress they face doing ministry in the midst of this pandemic. Then the hopeful news. One of the possible responses that could help: regular collaboration among clergy to reduce their sense of isolation. In the early days of the pandemic and the shut-downs – mid-to-late March – it was natural for clergy and congregations to turn inward and figure out how to adapt to a world that drastically limited in-person connections. Many found…
In the last week, Kenosha residents have grappled with a police shooting, deadly and destructive unrest in their streets and the weight of the nation’s collective outrage. The city needs to start healing, many said Thursday. Hundreds of people gathered in Harbor Park along Lake Michigan to pray for Jacob Blake, shot seven times in the back by a Kenosha police officer Sunday, and for peace and justice in their city. “Transform our city, Lord God,” local faith leader John Lalgee exclaimed to cheers and outstretched arms.
As outrage and protests continue to shake Kenosha, Wisconsin after the police shooting of another young Black man, the mother and the pastor of Jacob Blake are calling America to prayer. Before the Blake family began their press conference Tuesday afternoon, attorney Ben Crump introduced Pastor James E. Ward, Jr., the pastor of Blake’s family for more than 30 years, to lead the group of assembled family members, attorneys and media representatives in prayer. Ward explained that at Blake’s mother’s request and at Attorney Crump’s request, he wanted to set the tone of the press conference by briefly representing their…
Private schools in Dane County are pushing back — including weighing a potential lawsuit — against an order from the local health department that suspends most in-person instruction for the start of the new school year during the COVID-19 pandemic. Heads of private schools say an order issued Friday by Public Health Madison and Dane County requiring schools to teach students in grades 3-12 solely online is overly broad and poorly timed, and upends plans to give parents a choice between face-to-face or virtual learning options for their children. The order, which applies to both public and private schools, took…
(RNS) — Pam Schulz has never seen anything like it. Just about every home in the Cedar Rapids area has been impacted by the storms that swept across the Midwest last week with hurricane-force winds, according to Schulz, the executive director of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, a congregation in Marion, Iowa, affiliated with Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ. Some have trees downed in their lawns. Some have trees through their houses and on their cars. Some, more than a week later, still don’t have electricity. And unlike the flooding that swept Cedar Rapids about a decade ago, the damage…
“Schools shut down and immediately we were brainstorming, what are the kids and families going to need?” said Cherokee Heights Middle School social worker Abby Ray in an interview with Collaboration Project’s Jon Anderson and Westminster missions chair Pamela Wilson. Providing food for families who depended on the now-closing school food programs rose to the top. Ray reached out to Laura Glaub, social worker at Thoreau Elementary, as the two schools had many shared families. “What can we do?” she asked. They had two days to get food out of school food pantries and develop a plan. Glaub approached Westminster Presbyterian for…
With ever-evolving social restrictions amid the COVID-19 pandemic, mourning the death of a loved one can be difficult. But it doesn’t have to be. That’s why Fitchburg businesses like Gunderson Funeral and Cremation Care, 2950 Chapel Valley Road, and Agrace Hospice and Palliative Care, 5395 E. Cheryl Pkwy. have conceptualized ways to serve their clients in their grief process despite distancing.