Abilene is filled with houses of worship but most Abilenians are familiar with the inside of only a handful. A periodic feature in Spirit of Abilene will give you an “Insider’s View” of some of those places you may have driven by many times but never entered. By LORETTA FULTONNAME: St. Luke Antiochian Orthodox Christian ChurchLOCATION: 501 Sunset DriveWEBSITE: https://www.stlukeorthodox.net/LEAD
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By LORETTA FULTON The last time the Texas Baptist Women in Ministry held an annual conference, the year was 2020, just before COVID-19 forced such gatherings to go online. And, the setting was in a very Baptist place–George W. Truett Theological Seminary on the campus of Baylor University. This time, things were different. The organization was meeting live again for
Read moreBy DANNY MINTON Our plane landed at DFW airport around 8:30 p.m. one evening this past June. Our flight to Abilene was to board around 10:30 p.m., with our arrival in Abilene scheduled for approximately 11:30 p.m. We were returning from a trip to Cabo San Lucas, where I had officiated for my great-niece’s wedding, backdropped by the waves of
Read moreTHE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury I, as well as most others who string words together, will never be confused with Robert Frost, the poetry genius from whose pen flowed marvelous words about his beloved New England. One of his best–published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1915–was “The Road Not Taken.” Actually, it was intended as a joke to
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Editor’s Note: Sept. 15-Oct. 15 is celebrated each year as Hispanic Heritage Month. Carlo Sosa-Ortiz, a pastoral assistant at First Central Presbyterian Church, wrote the following article on a 17th century Mexican nun named Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz in honor the month. By CARLO SOSA-ORTIZ A young girl is invited to the home of a prominent Mexican family. At
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By LORETTA FULTON McMurry and Abilene Christian universities both saw enrollment increases for fall 2022, while Hardin-Simmons University recorded its third consecutive enrollment drop. ACU, affiliated with the Churches of Christ, hit a record high for the fifth consecutive year. Total enrollment for fall 2022 is 5,731 students. The university saw increases in all key areas: undergraduate enrollment, graduate enrollment
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By NANCY PATRICK I have recently mentioned that my church, First Baptist Abilene, has an interim pastor while the church seeks a new senior pastor to fill the position vacated by Dr. Phil Christopher last fall. Our interim, Dr. Matt Cook, works for an organization called The Center for Healthy Churches. Among many aspects of church needs, the Center helps
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By JIM NICHOLS The devotional scripture for the morning was from Psalm 91. It read, “The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger? Your wrath is as great as
Read moreTHE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury Residents in the East Texas thicket where my Uncle Mort hangs out almost never leave, so welcoming a new family is quite a topic of conversation. Larger communities have welcome wagons delivering goodies to newbies, but it’s not every day that the guy bearing gifts drives up on a golf cart, carefully balancing one
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