By LORETTA FULTON Appropriately, Bishop Michael Sis prefaced the Ash Wednesday liturgy with a bit of education. Appropriate because the setting was Logsdon Chapel at Baptist-affiliated Hardin-Simmons University. The education and the liturgy would be repeated later in the day at United Methodist McMurry University and at Abilene Christian University, with ties to the Churches of Christ. Before the actual
Read more
Editor’s Note: “A New Song” by Joshua Lain is one of the daily Lenten reflections written by members of Pioneer Drive Baptist Church. It is reprinted here with permission. By JOSHUA LAIN I waited patiently for the Lord; He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry
Read more
By LORETTA FULTON Stepping inside St. Luke Orthodox Church already was an experience all its own, evoking holy mysteries, but it just got better with the addition of a 4 x 5-foot icon of the Theotokos, or Mother of God, behind the altar. The icon, with its unmistakable Byzantine style and deep, rich colors, shows Mary seated and holding the
Read more
By LORETTA FULTON The only thing missing from the Feb. 27 meeting of the Abilene Association of Congregations was an altar call. Otherwise, it would have been “church,” not a “meeting.” The presentation by Dr. Kelvin J. Kelley, who was a church pastor before he was a professor, was that powerful. Kelley, associate professor of theology in Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon
Read more
By LORETTA FULTON Ash Wednesday will be observed at several churches in Abilene, at all three universities, and even on the sidewalk next week. Leslie Dunlap, pastor of Grace Lutheran Church, will be on the sidewalk in front of the church, 1202 S. Pioneer Drive, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 to 5:30 p.m. for “Drive-by Ashes.” Read
Read moreBy LORETTA FULTON East coast, West coast, Texas coast and points in between, Mike Cope has been there since leaving the pulpit at Highland Church of Christ in 2009. But listen a little closer to his life story the past 10 years and something becomes obvious. “We’ve never left Abilene,” Cope said. Read Loretta Fulton‘s complete story in the Abilene
Read more
By LORETTA FULTON United Methodists voted Feb. 26 in St. Louis to maintain the current wording in the church’s Book of Discipline concerning human sexuality issues. The denomination’s Council of Bishops, including Bishop W. Earl Bledsoe of the Northwest Texas Annual Conference, voted in May 2018 to support a plan that would have been more inclusive. That plan, and one
Read more
THE IDLE AMERICAN Commentary by Dr. Don Newbury One was nationally renowned, known for the spoken word–the other, for words written down. The former was radio newsman Paul Harvey; the latter–as eloquent in print as Harvey was on the airways–was William Arthur Ward. They were genuine to the core. During these days when too much is called “fake news,” these
Read more
By LESLIE STRADER The book of Joshua begins with a somber reminder that Israel’s beloved leader, Moses, was dead. But hopefully so was the rebellious, faithless way of living displayed by previous generations of the children of Israel. Because of their unbelief (Num. 14:2-4), they had wandered 40 years in the wilderness, waiting for the fulfillment of God’s judgment against
Read more
Spirit Of Abilene 