News
BELOIT – Would having your pet by your side make you more comfortable at church? Gridley Congregational Church, 1101 Partridge Ave., is inviting people and their (friendly) pets to services on the last Sunday of each month at 10 a.m. The first animal-friendly service will be Jan. 28. Pets should preferably be on a leash, or in a cage if necessary. Pastor Jerry Thomas, wife Cindy and minister-in-training Sean Williams want everyone to know they love animals and so does God. Pets have a soul and are great companions.
Nearly 400 people converged on First United Methodist Church for the Downtown church’s annual free Christmas meal, and they left Monday with their stomachs full and their hearts content. “It was a blessing to me,” said Virginia Cox, who said she will be homeless in one week. “It gave us life.” Cox, a first-timer at the holiday feast, came with her fiance, Thornton White, who said he has been living in his van since late November.
As the sun set at 4:26 p.m. Thursday, the ensuing darkness capped the shortest day of the year. But for some, it marked more than just the winter solstice — it was the start of months of cold winds and a snow-shrouded landscape that challenges survival. For the 10th year, members of Madison’s homeless community, faith leaders, advocates and friends honored homeless people who have died in the past year during the Longest Night memorial service.
Caring means having intimate and human connection with others. And it can be expressed in multiple ways — from helping an elderly person cross the street to fighting a house fire. But certain parts of America put this into practice more than others. As a whole, Americans have shown their care through charitable giving more and more. According to Giving USA, Americans donated over $390 billion in 2016, up 2.7% from the previous year. But even if you can’t afford to give away your income, there are plenty of other ways to show kindness to others.
Held captive by a determination to keep religion confined to churches and homes, the Freedom from Religion Foundation is demanding the Wisconsin Department of Corrections sever ties with an educational ministry that offers inmates a degree in Biblical studies. Modeled after the 22-year-old seminary housed at Angola Prison in Louisiana, the Wisconsin Inmate Education Association (WIEA) and Trinity International University (TIU) formed a partnership to create Operation Transformation, an educational program offering a Bachelor of Science in Biblical studies to inmates serving life or long-term sentences. After completing the four-year program, the inmates are reassigned to other prisons as “field ministers.”
Sadly, dozens of people die in Madison without a home, a funeral, a service, a remembrance of their lives or even an obituary. The “Longest Night: National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Service” is an opportunity to remember, honor, celebrate and mourn those often-invisible people in our community who have passed away. Houseless individuals, members of local faith communities and representatives from social service agencies, as well as the general public, will come together Thursday, Dec. 21, 3 p.m., for “Longest Night: National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Service” to remember and honor people who died without shelter in Dane County and elsewhere this…
This year, Willow Creek Community Church founder Bill Hybels announced that church volunteers would be ensuring that every single inmate in Illinois would be receiving a special Christmas gift bag this year. It’s part of Hybels’ newfound burden for incarcerated people. “I follow God’s son, Jesus Christ, who was blindingly clear about how I should engage with prisoners,” he told the church. “If I had passed away at 55 despite all that clear training and additionally because I’m a pastor, I would’ve had to explain to God that I didn’t pray for prisoners, that I had never visited one, I…
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.