“The Year of COVID-19” won’t be celebrated by many people, but don’t discount the innovation and creativity that continues to pop up because of the pandemic. Spirit of Abilene would like to share the innovative and creative ways that congregations, or individuals, are coping with the chaos brought about by the coronavirus. What does your “Everyday Ministry” look like during this
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By LORETTA FULTON Someday, Nathan Wright wants to put his math and science skills to work as either an aerospace or chemical engineer. For now, he’s perfectly happy using his muscles more than his brainpower to help others. Wright is one of 12 missionaries in Abilene serving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On Wednesday, July 22, they
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By LORETTA FULTON Possibly no one is happier about the Major League Baseball season finally starting than Dustin Tatro, organist at St. Paul United Methodist Church, who is doubling as organist for the Texas Rangers’ brand new Globe Life Park in Arlington. Tatro was named to the position before the coronavirus shut down baseball and all other sports last spring.
Read moreEditor’s Note: Nancy Patrick is a regular contributor to Spirit of Abilene. Her columns usually carry weight, but she recently posted the following “Lessons Learned,” with both insight and humor, on Facebook. Read and enjoy. Lessons learned from COVID-19 quarantine from Nancy Patrick 1. I know there is no one I had rather been quarantined with than my sweet husband
Read moreBy JIM NICHOLS For sports fans, this pandemic has been frustrating. Sports provide us with rhythms in the year; we use the word “season” not only for changes in the temperature and moisture, but also for which sport is when. The Major League Baseball season is trying to get a start here in the middle of the summer season rather
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Jemar Tisby, an author, speaker, and president of The Witness: A Black Christian Collective, will be guest speaker for the 2021 Don Williams & Royce Money Distinguished Lecture Series at Abilene Christian University Feb. 10-11, 2021. The series is hosted by The Carl Spain Center on Race Studies & Spiritual Action at ACU. Tisby holds a bachelor’s degree from the University
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By LORETTA FULTON Vacation Bible School already was unique at Southern Hills Church Christ, so children’s minister Holly Racca wasn’t thrown for a loop when the coronavirus interrupted this summer’s plans–even if it was her first year to be in charge. Several years ago, under the leadership of Ryan Maloney, former children and family minister at Southern Hills, the church
Read moreBy DANNY MINTON In the ’50s there were a lot of stories still hanging around from the World War II years. I remember one in particular about three little boys. One day these three boys were sitting around and began to argue about their dads and the war. The boys were boasting, as we may have done ourselves, about how
Read moreBy NANCY PATRICK Not often heard today, the word “integrity” has disappeared from most people’s vocabulary. Everyone seems to know what courage, honesty, sincerity, responsibility, and reliability mean; however, the word “integrity” seems even more abstract than those qualities. Definitions of the word include “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness; the state of wholeness
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