The Central Church of Christ in Tuscaloosa, Ala., which lost its building in a tornado last year, has begun the rebuilding process.

Rolling Stone reports on the Secret Sisters, a duo who got their start singing a cappella in church and still can be found in the pews of the North Carolina Church of Christ in Killen, Ala. The bluegrass duo’s haunting ballad “Tomorrow Will Be Kinder” is included on the soundtrack for “The Hunger Games.”

The accolades keep pouring in for civil rights attorney Fred Gray, a longtime elder for the Tuskegee Church of Christ in Alabama.

The Huntsville Times in Alabama reports on the July 26 death of J.E. “Ed” Mitchell Jr., a former member of the Hunstville Airport authority. Mitchell’s work to develop the Huntsville International Airport and the surrounding region transformed the community over the past five decades, the newspaper reports. Mitchell was a member of the Mayfair Church of Christ in Huntsville.

In the immediate aftermath of the April 27 tornadoes that wreaked havoc on the South, Christians across the nation are opening their wallets to help. At the same time, disaster relief organizations associated with Churches of Christ are rushing resources to storm-ravaged communities. Click for links to ministries helping.

In a swath of twisters a week ago, winds stronger than 200 mph ripped away the front of the Hackleburg Church of Christ building in Alabama and ravaged the foundation, walls and roof, minister Mike Lane said. Bridget Renee Barnwell Brisbois, 34, a member of the Hackleburg church, died in the storm, Lane said. Her son, Mitchell, less than a month old, was with his grandparents and survived.

Julie Ramm is taking time off from work this week to go to work. Ramm, an employee of the city of Northport, Ala., said she took vacation days because her children are out of school for spring break. But rather than head to the beach or catch up on projects at her house, she decided to help build a house for someone in need. She and more than 100 volunteers plan to build and furnish the house in five days in a project they called Blitz Build 2011. The recipient of the house, a 67-year-old wheelchair-bound widow living in a rundown house in Tuscaloosa’s West End, is expected to move into her new home in Northport on Saturday. For the past several years, members of the University Church of Christ and its University Christian Ministry have helped the woman by working on her home, said volunteer architect Turnley Smith.

Christians in Alabama treated four high school students from the Central American nation of Panama to down-home Southern cooking, the NASA Space Center in Huntsville and a visit with Alabama Governor Bob Riley. The four teens traveled to the U.S. through a scholarship program sponsored by Panama Missions. “We choose promising students from poor circumstances who we feel will benefit from the experience,” said the ministry’s director, Larry Brady, an elder of the Davenport, Ala., Church of Christ. “Our message to them is, ‘You can break the cycle of poverty by setting goals for your life that include high moral, spiritual and educational standards.’”

Alabama’s secretary of state is making jokes about Churches of Christ — and Baptists, Methodists, Catholics and Pentecostals.
Religion writer Greg Garrison of The Birmingham News (who has written a few freelance features for The Christian Chronicle — click here and here) writes that Alabama Secretary of State Beth Chapman can tell a church joke like few other politicians.
Here’s what she had to say in her stand-up act about Churches of Christ:
“Any Church of Christ people here?” Chapman asked. No hands were raised. “Good. Let’s make fun of them,” …