The Best Christian Workplace Institute has honored 157 faith-based organizations as “2020’s Certified Best Christian Workplaces.” Among those churches, mission organizations, and parachurch ministries honored:
• 2|42 Community Church, Brighton, Mich.
• Canyon Ridge Christian Church, Las Vegas, Nev.
• Christ’s Church of the Valley, Peoria, Ariz.
• Compass Christian Church, Chandler, Ariz.
• Kingsway Christian Church, Avon, Ind.
• Northridge Christian Church, Milledgeville, Ga.
• Southeast Christian Church, Parker, Colo.
• StoneBridge Christian Church, Omaha, Neb.
• Summit Christian Church, Sparks, Nev.
• Traders Point Christian Church, Indianapolis
• CDF Capital, Irvine, Calif.
• Christian Children’s Home of Ohio, Wooster, Ohio
• Cookson Hills, Kansas, Okla.
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News Briefs
Surveillance cameras filmed a burglar who stole computer equipment, electronics, and a donation box from Hope Summit Christian Church, Rochester, Minn.
The suspect entered the church twice the night of Jan. 21-22. TV station KTTC reported on the burglary and shared the church’s 4-minute-plus surveillance video. The Rochester Police Department is investigating.
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Bill Czech, now in his 12th season as men’s basketball coach at Hope International University, Fullerton, Calif., is featured in a 45-minute interview for the Character Up podcast.
The podcast’s host site, PodBean, writes: “Bill has a profound perspective on the importance of getting closer to Christ as safety protocols and recovery from his battle with COVID-19 have gotten him further from being on the hardwood with his team. Bill has dealt with personal tragedy and loss in a way that will truly inspire you and has inspired his players to do something that will impact others.”
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Crossroads Christian Church in Washington Court House, Ohio, has seen its in-person and online attendance both trending up in recent months.
In January, in-person attendance at CCC reached about 75 percent of its pre-COVID-19 level of 375 weekly, lead pastor Adam Lynch reported. At the same time, online attendance has grown by 50 percent in the past two months, and online engagement also is up. CCC didn’t livestream services until early June.
“I am excited about how God is using livestream to reach people we never had a chance to reach before the pandemic,” Lynch said. “Although we have had to make difficult decisions and adjust how we do ministry, I would not change any of it. The disruption of the pandemic has forced us to be creative, and in turn, has opened up the door for us to reach more people.”
Lynch encouraged all churches to consider livestreaming (if they have not already done so). He also encouraged all churches that have established livestreams to continue investing in it once the coronavirus subsides. “Crossroads is now one church expressing itself in two forms, online and in person.”
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As a response to the financial impacts of COVID-19 on many students and their families, Point University, West Point, Ga., announced it will not raise tuition and fees for this coming school year.
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Mt. Vernon (Mo.) Christian Church opened a day care in January to help serve its community. MVCC’s operation can provide for up to 40 children from 6 weeks to 12 years old, day care director Diana Kruger told the Lawrence County Record. There also is an after-school program. Kruger said Mt. Vernon had a shortage of day care options.
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U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who opposed claims by Donald Trump and others that the November election was stolen and who was one of 10 House Republicans who voted in favor of the president’s impeachment, told Christianity Today that—despite many who vociferously disagree with him—the stance was the easiest of his career.
Kinzinger, a lifelong Christian who now attends Village Christian Church in Minooka, Ill., “doesn’t talk much about his faith in public and is wary of conflating the mission of the church with the work of politics,” Christianity Today wrote. “But he saw serious implications for both in the wake of the Capitol breach [on Jan. 6].”
“The Bible speaks . . . about the importance of truth, the importance of being a light in dark places,” Kinzinger said in CT’s article. “I’m not a Christian leader. I’m not a pastor. But I am a person who shares the faith and who looks at what that’s done to the political system in this country, and I decided to speak out.”
Kinzinger has called on Christian leaders to “lead the flock back into the truth.”
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The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education has approved Kentucky Christian University’s participation in the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement. This will allow KCU to accept online students from 49 states instead of from just a handful of states.
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Milligan University in Tennessee and William Jessup University in Rocklin, Calif., will be discussing immigration at separate events over the next few days.
Milligan will host “Thinking Biblically About Immigration” forums on Thursday and Monday; they will feature immigration advocate Joel Tooley of First Church of the Nazarene, Melbourne, Fla., and executive director of Mosaic Compassion. The forums aim to help students and faculty understand immigration issues in the United States and consider how best to serve immigrant communities.
Tooley will speak in a virtual chapel service at 11 a.m. (EST) Thursday that will stream on the university’s YouTube and Facebook accounts. A campus conversation at 7 p.m. Monday will feature a panel of students and faculty.
At WJU, “Immigration and Christian Faith: A Biblical Approach” is the 2021 Faculty of Theology’s Annual Spring Lecture, a free virtual event set for 7:00 (PST) on Thursday, Feb. 11.
Danny Carroll R. (Rodas), the son of a Guatemalan mother and an American father, will speak. He was raised bilingual and bicultural in Houston, Texas, and spent many summers of his youth in Guatemala. He later served 13 years as an Old Testament professor at a seminary in Guatemala City.
WJU’s website provides additional information and a portal to register.
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A group of women who meet at Cross Roads Christian Church in Princeton, Ky., and call themselves “God’s Covering” made dozens of quilts and pillows (along with a number of hats, gloves, and slippers) that they donated to a recovery house, a nursing home, and a family who lost everything in a house fire during 2020. The group also created a number of sleeping mats for the homeless and did a number of other good works last year, the Times Leader reported.
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