31st Sunrise Service an Easter tradition
Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church will host the 31st Community Easter Sunrise Service at 7 a.m. Sunday at First Security Amphitheater, 400 President Clinton Ave. in Little Rock.
Featured guests of this year's service are Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott; Sylvia Borchert, lay representative for the Arkansas United Methodist Conference; Ross Owyoung, director of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Downtown; Eve Jorgensen, director of Moms Demand Action: Ella Sargent, Freedom Schools director; and Ross Noland, director of Buffalo River Foundation.
Music will be offered by the combined Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church Chancel Choir, Arkansas Youth Chorale and Philander Smith College Choir. An offering will be taken that benefits the Central Arkansas Freedom School.
More information can be found at communitysunriseservice.com.
-- Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Author McGraw to read new novel
Author Erin McGraw will read from her newest book, Joy and 52 Other Very Short Stories, from 1:30-2 p.m. on April 27 at Christ Church, 509 Scott St. in Little Rock.
McGraw is also the author of works including Better Food for a Better World: A Novel, The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard, and Lies of the Saints, which made The New York Times Notable Book list in 1996.
After the reading, McGraw will be part of a moderated discussion and sign copies of her book.
-- Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Nick Floyd named successor to father
The Rev. Nick Floyd, campus pastor of Cross Church's Fayetteville location, on Sunday was named the successor nominee for his father, the Rev. Ronnie Floyd, as the church's senior pastor.
Ronnie Floyd was elected president and chief executive officer of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee on April 2, and announced last week that his last day as pastor of the nearly 10,000-member, four-campus congregation will be May 19. He has pastored Cross Church for more than 32 years.
Church board member Donnie Smith said in a video released Sunday that a succession plan had been in the works for several years, created in the event that the elder Floyd was suddenly unable to continue his ministry.
Nick Floyd, who was raised in the church, has served for the last 10 years in a pastoral capacity at the Springdale, Fayetteville and Rogers locations.
"[Nick Floyd] is a product of Cross Church," Smith said. He was baptized, called to ministry, licensed to the ministry and ordained to the ministry right at Cross Church."
Smith said an April 28 date was set for the board to ask the congregation to affirm Nick Floyd's succession.
-- Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Paris fire ignites church donations
A fundraiser to help three black churches rebuild from arson has raised more than $2 million as of Friday morning.
In late March and early April, fires consumed St. Mary Baptist Church, Greater Union Baptist Church, and Mount Pleasant Baptist Church within 10 days in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. Authorities have accused Holden Matthews, 21, of setting the fires, and this week, prosecutors charged him with hate crimes.
Freddie Jack, the president of the Seventh District Baptist Association, set up a GoFundMe page last week, which had raised about $50,000 on Sunday.
After the world watched in anguish as the famed Notre Dame cathedral in Paris caught fire Monday, France received international sympathy and what totaled almost $1 billion by Wednesday in donations and pledges, and some wanted to ensure that the St. Landry Parish churches were not forgotten.
Politicians, activists, celebrities and journalists rallied on social media Tuesday to spread word of the GoFundMe campaign.
Jack told The New York Times that he had initially set a goal of $600,000 but later tripled it to $1.8 million.
-- THE WASHINGTON POST
Religion on 04/20/2019