Where in the world in DisciplesWorld?

Rev. Ike Nicholson and his wife Shauna, of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Ashland, Ky., visited Jordan in March, hosting a group of 25 Disciples from Kentucky, and they took DisciplesWorld along - literally.

If your Disciples of Christ congregation or group is going on a mission trip or tour this summer, take us with you! Send us a photo of your group with our magazine, and we’ll post it on our blog.

We also want to hear about your experiences. We publish trip stories and reflections on our website under the “Disciples Around the World” and “Hurricane Recovery Stories” categories. This is a great way to tell others how Disciples are learning and serving in Jesus’ name. We also hear, from those who’ve been on mission trips and tours to places such as the Holy Land, that the experiences deepened their faith and that they received more than they gave. So send us your trip stories and photos!

Photo: Rev. Ike Nicholson (left) with Jordanian tour guide Ali, and Hakim, in the holy city of Petra.

The devil’s in the details…and the fine print

One of our regular writers, Rev. Gregg Brekke, is the pastor of a new church start called Nexus Church, a United Church of Christ congregation in Liberty Township, Ohio. This week, several local newspapers owned by Cox Publishing printed a nice story about Gregg’s congregation doing an outreach event for Lent.

Imagine Gregg’s surprise on Tuesday morning when he received several phone calls to let him know that one of the newspapers, the Middletown (OH) Journal, had identified Gregg’s denomination as the “United Church of Satan” in a photo caption.

The caption ran correctly in the other Cox publications, which means that most likely, someone at the Middletown Journal went into their publishing system and changed the caption. 

Gregg placed a call to both his writer and to his advertising rep at the paper. He says they are investigating the incident. To the newspaper’s credit, they ran an apology today. And Gregg, being a stand-up guy, isn’t upset. Bad publicity is still publicity, right?

VA Tech coverage…and hope

1 Peter 3:15 tells us to be prepared to give reasons for the hope that is within us.  When it comes to “the hope that is within,” the responses of people of faith to tragic events like the Virginia Tech shootings (and before that, many other natural and human-made crises) is at the top of my list.

Click here for a list of articles on the DisciplesWorld website relating to the Virginia Tech shootings last week and the response by Disciples in Virginia and elsewhere. May these strengthen your hope too.

Also, click here for a preview of a reflection on the shootings written by Eric Hutton, a Nashville Disciple and Virginia tech graduate (90). The article won’t actually appear on the front page of our site until Tuesday, but you faithful blog readers can read it now. Come back to comment though…..