• Bob Smietana contributes another look at what’s likely to be a big national story — and thousands of local stories — over the next few decades: “Thousands of churches close every year. What will happen to their buildings?” It’s a good overview of the decisions facing waning congregations and the communities surrounding them. A taste:
Hung also hopes congregations will develop what he called “kingdom-mindedness” — looking at the bigger-picture ministry of the Christian church rather than their own interests. When he talks with a church about closing — and what will happen to their buildings — he begins with a “posture of success,” giving thanks for all the congregation has accomplished in its history. He also gives thanks for those who gave generously to support the church’s mission in the past and encourages the church to bless future generations in the same way.
“What is the most loving thing we can do for our kids and for our neighbors?” Hung said.
Not all churches are open to that kind of thinking.
• That context makes me wonder about a tangential point in another RNS piece by Smietana — the strange tale of “How 5G caused a feud between a small Christian school and T-Mobile.” The school in question, Christian College of Georgia, trains part-time clergy for the Disciples of Christ. Smietana writes: “As the number of small churches rises — half the churches in the U.S. draw 65 people or fewer to services, according to the Faith Communities Today study — the need for part-time pastors will continue to grow. With a windfall from the sale of its license, the school could help provide training for many of them in its denomination.”
I haven’t plunged into that Faith Communities study, but it seems to me that the rising number of small churches could mean one of two very different things. It might mean that there are a growing number of new small churches with 65 or fewer people attending. Or it might mean that a bunch of churches that used to have many more people attending have now shrunk into that under-65 category, briefly registering there before shrinking further to join the ranks of the thousands of churches that close every year mentioned in that previous link.
• Celebration Church in Jacksonville is not one of those churches that “draw 65 or fewer to services.” But they soon might be. Yeesh.
• “Co-living rentals banned in this Johnson County city after unanimous council vote.”
• Mason, Tennessee, is a small rural town. The majority of its population is Black, but for most of its history its elected officials were all white. That changed a few years back when an investigation into massive fraud and corruption led to the resignation of almost the entire town government. The new mayor and council inherited a mess — financial records in total disarray and hundreds of thousands in debt incurred by the kleptocrats of the previous white administrations.
Mason’s new leaders have been making slow, difficult progress repairing the damage done to their community in those decades of minority rule, and now things are looking up: Ford Motor Co. is building a multi-billion dollar, 4,100-acre electric truck and battery plant just outside of town that’s expected to bring 27,00 new jobs to the area.
And so, of course, the state government is stepping in to ensure that the Black residents and leaders of Mason don’t benefit from this development.
This is how you pull a Rosewood 100 years later.
• For a different kind of American Gothic horror story from Tennessee, here’s Rene Ebersole for the Marshall Project, “He Teaches Police ‘Witching’ To Find Corpses. Experts Are Alarmed.”
And so here, again, is My Ouija Board Story.
• A perverse and unjust machine is becoming slightly less perverse and unjust: “Medical Debts Have Counted Against 43 Million Americans’ Credit Scores. That Is Finally About to Change“:
The shift will go into effect on July 1 of this year. On that date, medical debts that were previously paid will be erased from credit reports so they can’t be counted against people when they seek loans or undergo credit checks for employment. Unpaid debts that are less than $500 also will no longer be placed on credit reports. Unpaid medical debt that exceeds that amount will eventually appear on credit reports—but the agencies are increasing the time period before those debts would show up from six months to a year.
So wage-earners will continue to be quantified as inherently less trustworthy than usurers and rent-collectors, and thus will continue to be charged more for everything. But the fact that those wage-earners once incurred medical costs and paid them off will no longer be counted against them.
• The title of this post comes from this lovely personal testimony from Lucy Dacus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcdsHQ273Mc
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