Nothing but net from Oklahoma Christian on Vimeo.

John deSteiguer,president-elect of Oklahoma Christian University, displays his shooting skills.

TV station KTHV in Little Rock, Ark., reports:

One group of citizens in Benton (Ark.) saw a need to reach out to those neighbors who sometimes “fall through the cracks” when it comes to financial aid.

Jimmy Mitchell, youth minister for the Northside Church of Christ in Benton, Ark. (Photo via www.todaysthv.com)

Rent. Utilities. Gas. Everyday expenses take their toll on everybody — some more than others. When they all hit at once — the burden is even bigger.

CHAIN (Courier Helping Anyone In Need) began in 2009 when employees at the Saline Courier came together and have since helped families with rent, bills, car repairs and more.

Jimmy Mitchell, youth minister at Northside Church of Christ in Benton is a member of CHAIN. He says the founders came together, saying ”Let’s get something together. Get a whole group of people together! People that are leaders in the community. People that work with those who are in need. Ministers…and let’s talk about how we can help people in Saline County!”

Read the full story.

Atheist Billboard Targets African Americans: MyFoxDFW.com

David Lane, minister for the Marsalis Avenue Church of Christ in Dallas, responds to plans for a billboard touting atheism in an interview with a local television station:

“Traditionally African Americans come out of a tradition that is led and motivated by faith. We are where we are and we are who we are primarily because we’ve chosen to believe in a power that’s bigger than ourselves,” he said. “It will create a lot of dialogue. There will be congregations of all kinds in this area who will be challenged by the fact that such a movement is at our door.”

Fred Gray and Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center attend a dinner to honor Gray on Thursday at the Embassy Suites in Montgomery. (Photo by Amanda Sowards, Montgomery Advertiser, via www.montgomeryadvertiser.com)

The Montgomery Advertiser reports:

People honoring civil rights attorney Fred Gray — who rep­resented the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks and won landmark cases — during a dinner Thursday, repeated his own goal of finding everything segregated and destroying it.

The diverse crowd that hon­ored Gray in downtown Mont­gomery was evidence of his legacy. The Jones School of Law at Faulkner University hosted the din­ner and is host­ing the Fred Gray Civil Rights Symposium today.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson said that if he had a title for Gray it would be “the Legal Black Moses.” He said Gray parted the waters so that everyone could enjoy the other side.

Read the full story.

Also this week, the Christian Scholars’ Conference at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., announced plans to honor Gray.

The conference will confer an honorary doctorate upon Gray this summer “in recognition of his remarkable achievements in civil rights legislation, the defense of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Tuskegee Airmen, and for his life long devotion to Christ and His church,” CSC director David Fleer said.

For more background on Gray, read this 2008 Christian Chronicle interview with him and this 2005 Chronicle story on Gray’s reflections after Parks’ death that year.

If that’s the case, why is non-denominational Christianity on the rise?

As The Christian Chronicle prepares coverage of the latest data from 21st Century Christian, the Nashville, Tenn.-based publisher of the directory Churches of Christ in the United States, we’re looking for feedback and insight into the numbers — and the legacy of Churches of Christ in America’s religious landscape.

Members assemble for Sunday morning Bible class at the Elkhorn, Wis., church in 2008. (Photo by Jim Frost)

Carl Royster, data compiler for the directory, made some observations about the numbers. Improved data collection over the years has contributed to a better understanding of the fellowship as a whole, he said. Royster also cited changing demographics in the U.S. population, declining “brand loyalty” among younger believers, growth of independent or community churches and an increasing number of Americans who consider themselves unaffiliated with any religious group.

(We covered several of these trends in 2009, when the previous edition of the directory was released. In 2008, Chronicle Managing Editor Bobby Ross Jr. reported on a Pew Forum study  that revealed 44 percent of Americans have changed religions or denominations from the one — if any — in which they were raised. A few months later I interviewed teenage church members who told me that they’re looking for meaning — not entertainment — at church.)

What do the numbers mean to you? We often hear about the U.S. becoming a “post-Christian” nation, following the same course as Europe, but we also hear the term “post-denominational” used to describe Christianity in America. At the core of the Restoration Movement was a plea to move away from denominational creeds and embrace pure, New Testament Christianity, using the Bible as our sole guide (and, if you will, our “soul guide.”)

What does it mean to be a non-denominational Christian in a post-denominational world? How do you see Churches of Christ — and our call to reject human creeds — impacting the religious landscape of the U.S. today?

Please include your full name, home congregation, city and state in case we decide to quote you.

Billy Curl, the first African-American undergraduate student to register at ACU in the fall of 1962, speaks at the school's 2011 Summit event. Curl, minister of the Crenshaw Church of Christ in Los Angeles, is now a member of ACU's board of trustees. (Photo by Steve Butman, Abilene Christian University, via www.reporternews.com)

The Abilene Reporter-News in Texas reports:

The irony wasn’t lost on Grant Boone.

On the Monday that marked the 50th anniversary of the end of Abilene Christian College’s 56 years of segregation, African-American faculty member Jerry Taylor was cheered by audience members after a chapel speech that touched on reconciliation between races.

“ACU is a dramatically different place in February 2012 than it was in February 1962 in a million different ways,” Boone said, “but none of those ways are more significant, in my opinion, than that people of all races are allowed to attend here.”

Read the full story.

Is it something in the (beautiful ocean) water in Malibu, Calif.?

Once again, a Pepperdine University administrator has been hired as a university president, this time at Lubbock Christian in Texas.

The Pepperdine campus. (Photo via www.pepperdine.edu)

Tim Perrin, vice dean and professor of law at Pepperdine University School of Law, was introduced last week as president-elect of his Texas alma matter.

He joins a handful of other former employees of Pepperdine, which is associated with Churches of Christ, who serve as university presidents nationwide.

Among them: Southern Methodist University’s Gerald R. Turner, the University of Georgia’s Michael F. Adams, Baylor University’s Kenneth Starr, Lipscomb University’s Randy Lowry and Oklahoma Christian University’s Mike O’Neal (O’Neal is retiring at the end of this academic year).

“Even though we will miss Tim, it is a source of pride that not only our sister institutions but institutions across the country look to Pepperdine University as they seek dynamic and values centered leaders in their presidential searches,” Andrew Benton, Pepperdine’s president since 2000, said in a statement to The Christian Chronicle.  

“On the other hand, if this keeps up, I may consider charging a head hunters fee in the future,” Benton said.

S.F. and Maxine Timmerman at the French World Mission Workshop at the Castle Rock Church of Christ in Colorado in 2008. (Photo by Erik Tryggestad)

Update: Memorial service details added

Maxine Timmerman, a pioneering missionary to the French-speaking world, died Feb. 6 at a nursing home in Searcy, Ark.

A memorial service is planned for Saturday, Feb. 11, at the College Church of Christ, 712 E. Race Street, in Searcy, Ark. Visitation is at the church building from 10 to 11 a.m. with the funeral following at 11. Burial will be at White County Memorial Gardens in Searcy.

Timmerman and her husband, Samuel “S.F.” Timmerman, moved to Belgium in 1948 to serve as the first missionaries there for Churches of Christ. The couple spent 16 years in the European nation, focusing on the French-speaking region of the country, and helped plant churches in Verviers, Liege and Brussels.

Later the couple served in the Canadian province of Quebec, working with French-speaking churches there.

S.F. Timmerman died Dec. 28, 2009. (See his obituary and a story about the 2008 French World Mission Workshop in Colorado, where he was a featured speaker.)

Memorials may be sent to:

Truth For Today World Mission School, PO Box 2044, Searcy, AR 72145-2044

The Alzheimer’s Association

Great Lakes Bible College, Knutsen-Mukitus-Timmerman Scholarship Fund

Sandals, rubble and overturned pews are left behind after a 6.9-magnitude earthquake rocked the Jimalud Church of Christ in the Philippines' Negros Oriental province. Church members were conducting a funeral service when the quake hit. The falling debris killed an 11-year-old girl. (Photo by Junriel Silva)

In the midst of responding to one natural disaster, church members in the Philippines face a new one.

I received an e-mail from Salvador Cariaga, a longtime Filipino missionary, about a 6.9-magnitude earthquake that struck his home country Feb. 6.  Cariaga oversees a ministry that provides goats, farming techniques and micro-loans to Filipinos in need.

The quake’s epicenter was in the central Negros Oriental province, where there is a large concentration of Churches of Christ. A mayor of a town in affected area is a church member, Cariaga said.

Here’s more information from Cariaga’s message:

The preacher of Tayasan Church of Christ, Warmild Daleos, was conducting a funeral service when the earthquake struck. A wall in the building fell on him and his daughter. He broke his back and his daughter broke her collarbone and right leg. They are both in a local hospital. I was told that he needs to move to the city hospital for surgery. Then (they) need funds to be accepted. The brother of the deceased was severely injured. His daughter was instantly killed.

Several church buildings in our fellowship were destroyed. More casualties and damages are expected since many roads are not passable, bridges destroyed, and communication limited. One of my staff members is from Negros. He is now on the ground assessing the situation and helping out. Another worker is on the way there with a water filter machine from Cagayan. He will assemble the equipment when he gets there. The mayor requested it because their pipes are busted. More volunteers are going there this weekend to help.

Filipino Christians already were assisting victims of a recent typhoon in the Mindanao region of the Philippines. More than 1,500 people died in that disaster and tens of thousands of homes were destroyed. Churches of Christ there are “feeding the hungry and homeless, delivering water and helping rebuild the homes of the members of the church,” Cariaga said. (See the Philippines item in our Around the World section for more details.)

The following church-supported ministries are collecting funds for relief:

Shepherds Hill International, P.O. Box 3131, Abilene TX 79604.

Bread for a Hungry World, 6250 NE Loop 820, North Richland Hills, TX 76180-7842

Body and Soul Ministries, P.O. Box 1926, Colleyville, Texas  76034

Medical Action for Relief, Counseling and Healing (MARCH) for Christ, contact Chito Cusi at lpcusi@yahoo.com.

The meeting place of the Tayasan Church of Christ was destroyed by the Philippines quake. Sebio Catarinen is the church's minister. (Photo provided by Salvador Cariaga)

Aphiwe Harston, 11, with parents Buddy and Julie Harston, waves to the crowd at a Lipscomb University men's basketball game. (Photo by Don Claussen, via Lipscomb University)

The Tennessean in Nashville reports:

Lipscomb University is helping families defray the cost of adoption while filling seats at men’s basketball games.

The university recently launched Adoption Rally, a program that gives 100 percent of single-game ticket revenues to families in the process of adopting, either locally or internationally. Nine families have been helped by the program, and $17,000 has been distributed.

The theory is simple. Families get their relatives, friends, church members and neighbors to attend the game. As attendance rises, so does the size of the check the adopting couple receives.

There are benefits for the university, too. Lipscomb is filling more seats, as ticket sales are up 46 percent over last year, and the school has recently seen a surge in charitable contributions.

Read the full story.