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Recession and the Rust Belt: The economic impact on Churches of Christ?

In Churches of Christ on November 5, 2009 at 12:08 pm

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As a journalist, I’m always sniffing out potential news and features.

For instance, a couple of nuggets in recent Christian Chronicle stories make me think there might be a compelling story on the recession’s impact on Churches of Christ in the Rust Belt. But I am not sure I know yet exactly what that story is.

Nugget No. 1 came in a report by Ted Parks on Christian university presidents tackling issues facing higher education. Ted quoted Rubel Shelly, president of Rochester College in Michigan:

The presidents offered varied explanations about how their spiritual heritage has shaped their institutions and influenced future strategies.

Shelly suggested that Rochester College, near Detroit, was founded primarily because transplanted Southern church members worried that their children would stay in Texas or Tennessee if they left Michigan to study.

That founding generation is now gone, and with it the strong regional support the college once enjoyed, he said.

Nugget No. 2 came in a report by Joy McMillon on the closure of five K-12 Christian schools — including three in Ohio and one in Michigan:

School officials cited funding woes, the struggling economy and dwindling enrollment as reasons for the closures.

“I think the recent closures show just how hard it is to operate a Christian school in a geographical area where the Churches of Christ have been historically small,” said Philip Patterson, president of the National Christian School Association in Oklahoma City.

I mentioned my story idea to my Chronicle feedback e-mail list and got a helpful response from Roger Woods, minister and elder at the Walled Lake Church of Christ, northwest of Detroit.

Roger discussed the trend — not exactly a new one, it turns out — of Christians who moved North to find jobs returning South:

I know that Michigan began experiencing that back in the ’80s. As Southerners retired or just got homesick they returned to the South. In addition to this reverse migration is the current job-related exodus of those seeking work. Michigan is losing about 45,000 people a year and will likely have a negative population growth in the next census.

The church has been hit by both the reverse migration of Southerners and the exodus of folks looking for work. The churches are definitely feeling the pinch. But this has also begun to change the nature of the congregations: less Southern and more Northern in orientation. The Southern ties are still there, but they are rapidly loosening. This is a time of change and adaptation for the Churches of Christ in Michigan. Hopefully, we will come through this holding faithfully to the gospel as we more effectively engage our culture.

Chalk up Roger’s excellent insight as Nugget No. 3.

I’m still sniffing out this idea, but I think there might be something here.

Help me out: What thoughts, questions, nuggets do you have? What, if anything, about this story idea interests you?

— Bobby

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Crazy times — and wouldn’t want it any other way

In Personal on October 30, 2009 at 8:02 am

Dear Diary,

I’ve had a crazy few weeks — and it’s been a whirlwind of fun and stress.

I’m excited about a relaxing weekend off with my extended family after working the last couple of weekends with The Christian Chronicle.

Two weekends ago, I was busy on the Chronicle’s monthly press deadlines, finishing a Page 1 story and a sidebar on my reporting trip to South Africa. At the same time, I had a major feature to finish from my reporting trip to San Francisco. Then last weekend, I flew to Raleigh, N.C., to report on the amazing ministry for children with special needs at the Brooks Avenue Church of Christ.

 

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Besides my regular job, I have been a bit busy in my off time — completing freelance stories for Christianity Today, Religion News Service and The Washington Times in the last couple of weeks. My RNS story on religious folks forgoing Facebook for “digital fasting” and my Washington Times story on homeless deaths inspiring soul-searching both were published this week.

My Washington Times story — my first for them — ran on the front page. That sort of thing would have really excited me back in my early 20s. But now that I’m in my early 40s — yeah, it still does. :-)

— Bobby

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Lottery-funded scholarships: A gift from the devil — or a blessing from God?

In Churches of Christ, Personal on October 28, 2009 at 12:23 pm

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As Yogi Berra would say, “This is like deja vu all over again.”

Harding University has made a bit of news lately over its position on the new Arkansas state lottery. First came a report that the largest university associated with Churches of Christ would allow students to play the lottery. Then Harding reversed itself, deciding that the lottery would fall under the university’s general ban on students gambling.

In a statement presented during chapel Oct. 16, Harding President David B. Burks apologized for the handling of the matter and said:

It is important to me that all people, both here and away from campus, know that Harding University stands firmly against gambling.  Our goal is to graduate students of deep faith who have the skills and values to work hard, to make a good living, to be solid citizens, to strengthen their communities, and to be very generous with the blessings that God places in their hands.

This is where the “deja vu” part comes in.

In 2002 and 2003, while working as a religion and political writer with The Associated Press in Nashville, Tenn., I covered the referendum fight over Tennessee’s proposed lottery and later the legislative process of developing the lottery.

Conservative Christians, including many members of Churches of Christ, were among those who fought vehemently against the Tennessee lottery. But after voters approved the lottery, the question became: Would the opponents — including Lipscomb, Freed-Hardeman and other private religious universities — benefit from gambling-funded scholarship dollars?

Rubel Shelly, now president of Rochester College and then minister of the Woodmont Hills church in Nashville, was among those who told me that he wouldn’t accept lottery-funded scholarships “just as a matter of conscience”:

“But I also understand the dollar-driven nature of decisions that otherwise principled people feel compelled to make,” said Shelly, who served on the board of the anti-lottery Gambling Free Tennessee Alliance.

Shelly also wishes the state’s religious colleges would unite against the lottery — not fight to benefit from it.

But Bob Agee, executive director of the Nashville-based Association of Southern Baptist Colleges and Schools, said the issue isn’t morality but fairness.

As that same article reported, students from Freed-Hardeman and then-Lipscomb President Steve Flatt were among those who lobbied lawmakers to treat Christian universities the same as state institutions in awarding lottery scholarship money.

One of the funniest comments I ever heard at a legislative hearing was when state Sen. Steve Cohen — the quirky, camera-loving, Jewish legislator (now a congressman) who pushed years and years for a state lottery — responded to Flatt suggesting that lottery funding was sufficient to support public and private university scholarships:

“We’ve come a long way … to where my friend Dr. Flatt has more confidence in the lottery proceeds than me,” Cohen joked.

So now Harding faces the same dilemma of sorts.

Here is what the university’s spokesman, David Crouch, told me today concerning lottery-funded scholarships:

As is the case in most states with lotteries, the decision to accept or decline a scholarship is up to the individual student. Students are awarded the scholarships and those funds are theirs to use at the school they choose to attend, either public or private. If students choose to accept an Arkansas scholarship, then they can bring it to Harding.

In Arkansas it is going to be extremely difficult to trace where scholarship monies come from. Money generated from the lottery will actually be used to fund or supplement a variety of already existing state-supported scholarship programs. There is not going to be just one “lottery scholarship.”

So, here goes the question — make that questions — for discussion among yourselves:

1. Is playing the lottery gambling? Do you have a lottery in your state? Do you play? Why or why not?

2. Does your state offer lottery-funded scholarships? Whether or not you believe in the lottery, would you have a problem with your child accepting scholarship money generated by a lottery? Why or why not?

— Bobby

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