Randall Forester, pastor of St. Paul’s, said Hicks is known in the area as a person who walks along the side of a road to Chicora, which is just over the Butler County line.

“Everybody’s seen Billy,” Forester said.

After community members began befriending Hicks, they saw the man’s home, which is now nothing more than a dilapidated two-story brick structure with pine cones strewn throughout the inside. They knew they had to do something to help the man.

Read the rest of the article: Volunteers build replacement for man’s dilapidated home

St. Paul’s Community Church of Chicora, PA is a“Faithful and Welcoming” congregation in the United Church of Christ .

Editor’s Note: The United Church of Christ was formed, in part, from the Evangelical and Reformed Church – a merger of Lutheran and Reformed congregations. In honor of this heritage and our stated interest in the theology of the Reformation, we pass this along.

Donate Theological Books
The Institute of Lutheran Theology is a new pan-Lutheran seminary grounded in the Scriptures and in classical Christianity of the Historic Christian Church..  The Institute is in need of donated books for its library. Begun last year, the Institute ministers to the theological and educational needs of those who are studying for the ministry, for pastors in congregations, and for laypeople who wish to grow in their theological understanding. While it is Lutheran in orientation, it seeks to be of benefit to the Christian Church at large.  This Fall the Institute began its first year of M.Div. classes. The Institute is seeking to build a library that can be used by both its students and its faculty. The school is asking clergy to consider donating a portion of their library, or, in cases of retired pastors, their entire library to the Institute. This is a great way to make sure that your books live on and minister to others long after you are gone. Those who are interested should contact the Rev. Douglas Morton, Library Director for the school. You may email him at dmorton@instituteoflutherantheology.org. For more information about the Institute of Lutheran Theology, please visit their web site at www.instituteoflutherantheology.org.

The publication of this devotional form of the New Living Translation (2007 update) is important because it shows how the broader evangelical church is seeking a new rootedness in the historic church.

The mainline church is desperately in need of this witness. We are the heirs who have squandered our birthright for a bowl of porridge and the evangelical church that sought to create itself ex nihilo with a Bible and a prayer is now acknowledging its desperate need of a past. Accordingly,it is seeking a lens through which to read that Bible and emerge from the ghetto of western modernity into the holistic faith of God’s people whom He has preserved across the generations and the continents. The Mosaic Bible is witness to that quest and will be an easily utilized pathway for that quest.

The evangelical humility in pursuing this work is a virtue we would do well to emulate in the mainline. In the coffers of our history we have much to bring to the conversation. If we will come to this work, we will find some of our forebears like Francke already there speaking for us. But will we come? Will we dust off the sacred history of God’s working in and through us and reclaim that holy legacy on the terms of the God of Holy Scripture instead of as actors in the name of our feeble contemporary idols?