Churches must work to become relevant
By Rachel L. Toalson
Managing Editor
He remembers the morning well. It was Easter, and people were pouring into San Antonio’s Alamodome for a special resurrection service. He hadn’t been to church in years, but he’d come at his mother’s request.
A homeless man hovered outside the doors of the dome, a few feet away from Josh Dean and his family. He was shaking from the cold. Hundreds walked right by him, averting their eyes.
“Not one single person helped him,” said Dean, 34. “I thought, ‘This is why I don’t go to church. These are the people who are supposed to be helping, but they’re here because they want to dress pretty and talk about how great it is to love God.’ I quit going to church altogether.”
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1 more church gains welcoming congregation status in April
One more Southwest Texas Conference church joined the list of certified welcoming congregations in recent weeks. Two more renewed their welcoming status for another year.
New welcoming congregation is:
> First UMC, Palacios, Victoria District, certified April 17.
Lake Travis UMC, Austin District, became the fifth congregation to renew its welcoming status for the third year. Faith UMC, Woodsboro, renewed its welcoming status for a second year April 17.
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Giving to capital campaign becomes part of legacy
By Rachel L. Toalson
Managing Editor
Pam Kilpatrick remembers breaking the news to her aunt that she was called into ministry.
She was afraid of startling her family, she said, because the call came back in the early 1980s, when only a handful of women were in pastoral positions. So she told her aunt. But her aunt’s reaction—turning “deathly pale”—made her momentarily second guess her decision.
Then her aunt explained how Kilpatrick’s grandmother, in earlier years, would visit the Concho River in San Antonio, where children played, and invite them to Sunday school. She would sew them shirts and dresses and give the new clothes to them when they showed up at the church.
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