“It was a response to the Gospel calling us to love our neighbors as ourselves,” Anderson explains. “The church wanted to bring a balance between word and deed ministry and create an appealing service opportunity for men.”

In his annual report, Stated Clerk of the PCA General Assembly L. Roy Taylor reported that in 2015 the denomination had 1,534 churches, an increase of 35 from the previous year.

Seeing what’s happening now as we see them forced into boats and crossing the ocean, trying to find safety — I feel like their plight should be well-known and well-understood to us by now. And yet it’s not.

Ben Ellis, a Latin teacher for eight years at Christ Presbyterian Academy in Brentwood, died from esophageal cancer about 10 days after students and faculty gathered in his driveway to sing worship songs with him, according to an email the school sent to parents early Friday morning.

“The church should be leading the charge in this area,” said Collins. “We have a biblical mandate to protect children so that they can understand the Gospel without the trauma of child sexual abuse interrupting their growth.”

Thomas and co-founder Tami Resch launched Parakaleo in 2005. To date, the ministry has served more than 300 women in 16 networks, and thousands of women have attended Parakaleo training events and workshops.

Arguing over controversial issues in new media exposes and amplifies what may be the greatest difficulty facing Christians in this phase of American cultural conflict: loving each other.

“There is something special about taking things that are used and tainted and making something beautiful out of them. Art can be regenerative and represent what God does with us to make us new and beautiful again.”

“We decided to concentrate on preserving the cultural heritage, memories, and language of these communities by capturing oral histories. Supporting Christians now being displaced from the Middle East was a way to put my scholarship and training to practical use.”

“It seemed like the best way to minister to the Spanish speakers would be to provide as much in Spanish to them as possible, which means a whole worship service.”