As Charles Siburt battles cancer, friends and ministers mentored by him plan a day of prayer and fasting Friday, Feb. 3. Siburt, associate dean for ministry programs and services at Abilene Christian University in Texas, is a well-known leader among Churches of Christ.

Matthew Phillips’ church family in Abilene, Texas, is mourning the 16-year-old’s death.

We shared a news story last week on the theft of air-conditioning units at a Church of Christ in Florida. There has been a happy ending to that story, as WZVN-HD in Fort Myers, Fla., reports.

Faulkner University officials announced a significant new technology initiative Wednesday that will put iPads into the hands of 1,000 traditional students this fall, among other items. The Eagle iAdvantage program will upgrade the university’s website and wireless Internet infrastructure and add more opportunities for interactive digital learning. Through the use of iPads, the university also hopes to make use of e-texts, with the ultimate goal of saving money through digital textbooks.

Some glad morning when this life is o’er, I’ll fly away. To that home on God’s celestial shore, I’ll fly away.

I love the words to that gospel hymn penned by Albert Brumley in 1929. Just one quick question: Do we have to fly? Might God consider special options for those who prefer wheels to wings? Perhaps a “Gloryland Way” bus or train?

Read my tongue-in-cheek column on my fear of flying.

The same day a cash-strapped Church of Christ in Florida discovered $15,000 worth of vandalism to its property, it turned around and donated $200 to charity, a newspaper reports.

Marie Gage, an 82-year-old member of the Westbury Church of Christ in Houston, was robbed and killed in her home Thursday night. Her husband, Bill, 84, a fellow Westbury member, survived the attack. The couple’s daughter Loa Glenn tells Houston-area media that the family relies on its faith and knows God has a plan. Loa’s husband, Greg Glenn, is head of school at Westbury Christian School, next to the church.

The Gander Brook Christian Camp family is mourning the death of Cecil D. Perkins, a beloved figure to generations at the Maine camp. Camp director Shawn Daggett shared the news.

Lubbock Christian University has invited two candidates to visit with the search committee seeking the university’s next president: L. Tim Perrin and Brian Starr. Perrin is vice dean and professor of law at Pepperdine University’s School of Law in Malibu, Calif. Starr is executive vice president and professor of economics and investments at Lubbock Christian.

In what some legal scholars were calling the most significant religion case in 20 years, the Supreme Court ruled today that a Lutheran school teacher was a “minister” who could not sue the church that fired her in 2005, Christianity Today reports. “The First Amendment provides, in part, that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the unanimous opinion.