bobbyrossjr.com

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