madison

By Barry Adams – Wisconsin State Journal – A void created by an arsonist nearly two decades ago is finally being filled. St. Bernard Catholic Church, long considered the “Mother Church of Madison’s East Side,” will become the cathedral for the Diocese of Madison after being approved by the Holy See, the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome. Read more of this story.

By David Dahmer – Madison 365 – Some amazing Gospel artists will be performing at Mount Zion Baptist Church on Madison’s South Side on Friday, Dec. 8, as PeBoGa Productions hosts the 19th Annual Fall Gospel Fest. “Year 19. That’s amazing, isn’t it?” says Clyde Gaines, the organizer of the 19th annual Fall Gospel Fest. “It’s amazing to be around that long because when we first started, we were just doing this event to bring Gospel music at that level to Madison and not really thinking we would be doing it for 19 years. It’s been an incredible run.” Read…

For the second year in a row, a broad spectrum of more than two dozen Madison churches and Christian ministries gave thanks to God in an ecumenical Thanksgiving service. The service was held Monday evening, November 20, at City Church on Buckeye Road. Foregoing their significant theological differences, participants chose instead to agree on their unifying faith in Jesus Christ and the blessings of faith that called for thankful praise. “Gratitude is our response to the gift of life,” said Madison Catholic Bishop Donald Hying in his Call to Worship. “Thanksgiving isn’t to be held to the fourth Thursday of…

Madison, Wisconsin, is home to one of the three international offices of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). (The others are in Oxford, England and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.) The work of IFES is featured in an article by Amy Lewis in the November 18 issue of World magazine. Zelalem Abebe took a circuitous route to the meeting of campus ministers he had traveled hundreds of miles to encourage. First stop, a hotel. But ­partway there, he switched cars. He had to make sure he wasn’t being followed. From the hotel, he drove to the meeting in a house. He…

By Abbey Machtig – Wisconsin State Journal – The Holy Name Heights apartments on Madison’s West Side could be the new home for St. Ambrose Academy, a local Catholic secondary school. St. Ambrose hopes to convert nearly 24,000 square feet of office space in the former Catholic seminary building on High Point Road into classrooms for a new school. The school would also use the parking lot, chapel, gym and outdoor fields already onsite. The new location would mean the school could increase its enrollment from 160 students to almost 300 over time. Read more of this story.

Dean Mosiman – Wisconsin State Journal – The small but engaged congregation of St. John’s Lutheran Church will soon gather a final time amid the Downtown building’s ornate woodwork and vibrant stained-glass windows. The congregation, active in the city for 167 years, will demolish its building at 322 E. Washington Ave. in a move to expand its ministry through a $46.5 million, 10-story redevelopment with a new sanctuary, community spaces and offices on the first floor topped by 130 mostly low-cost apartments above and structured parking below. Read more of this story.

David Wahlberg – Wisconsin State Journal – The Israel-Hamas war. Polarizing politics in Madison and Washington, D.C. Mass shootings. Nasty social media posts. It’s not hard to find situations in which forgiveness might make the world better. For Robert Enright, a professor of educational psychology at UW-Madison and pioneer of the scientific study of forgiveness, the first step starts at home. Only by forgiving those close to us who have harmed us can we become strong enough to think about forgiving more distant enemies, Enright said. Read more of this story.

Hope Night Wisco! Frank Lloyd Wright probably didn’t have this in mind when he first began designing what became Madison’s Monona Terrace Convention Center: a Friday night Holy Ghost revival service that filled Exhibition Hall B for three hours or more. Hope Night Wisco at Monona Terrace was the 13th event in a series of Hope Nights that started a year ago last March when a recently converted couple in Chippewa Falls decided to sell their bar and event center. Before the sale their pastor, Landon Huie of Eau Claire’s Oasis Church, suggested, “Let’s have a worship night and lift…

Madison Learning Community is offering two seminary-level courses this fall: Introduction to the Old Testament and Making Space for God.  Madison Learning Community is an initiative of the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary that launched in January to equip Madison-area pastors, church leaders, and others eager to deepen ministry skills. The learning community is representative of the church in Dane County, with currently registered students from 11 different churches and 9 denominations varying in age, race, and ministry experience. Students who were part of the spring course have described their experience as “incredibly life-giving,” “energizing,” and “life-changing.” One student exclaimed…