Author: Steve Rabey
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Compassion International crosses $1 billion milestone
United Way, Salvation Army, Red Cross, YMCA. These billion-dollar charities have strong name recognition, long track records and big impacts. Now, Colorado Springs-based Compassion International has joined the billion-dollar charity club. Its income for the 2020 fiscal year, which ended June 30, was $1,001,200,000. The ministry grew 4% from 2019, even though many of its…
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Focus on the Family, James Dobson Family Institute among Colorado Springs ministries pushing to reelect Trump
The Pikes Peak region is home to numerous Christian organizations that help needy children around the world, minister to youth, evangelize nonbelievers, publish books, distribute Bibles and support churches in other nations. Most of these ministries are nonpolitical. As one executive said, “Presidents and politics have no impact at all on our ministry. We go…
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Colorado to celebrate America’s first saint
Even as a young girl, she was devoted to Jesus and committed to missionary service in faraway lands. She would make small paper boats, put a violet in each one, and cast them into a swift-flowing canal as “missionaries” to China. As an adult, she sought to put her commitment into action, but the pope…
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Promise Keepers offers free global livestream
When Colorado Springs businessman Ken Harrison announced last year that he was resurrecting Promise Keepers, the Colorado ministry that brought millions of men to stadium-sized teaching and worship events in the 1990s, he looked forward to the coming weekend, when up to 80,000 men were scheduled to gather in Dallas. COVID-19 changed those plans, but…
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Larry Yonker passing the torch after decade at Springs Rescue Mission in Colorado Springs
After a decade working at Compassion International and another decade running a communications and marketing consulting firm, Larry Yonker felt ready for a change. As a marketing and development executive at Compassion, he helped raise millions of dollars to help needy children around the world. His consulting work helped other nonprofits raise millions more for…
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New CEO Jack Briggs “called” to Springs Rescue Mission
Jack Briggs hopes his return to Colorado Springs from New York University in October for his new job as CEO of the Springs Rescue Mission is his last. His military father was assigned to Cheyenne Mountain when Briggs was an infant. Briggs returned in the 1980s to study at the Air Force Academy. From 2014…
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Colorado Springs groups await Supreme Court ruling on religious freedom vs.employee protections
LGBTQ rights in the workplace. Access to abortion. Federal funding for Christian schools. In the last week, the U. S. Supreme Court has issued major decisions on these highly-charged issues. But there’s another decision — one that could come Thursday — that’s being watched closely by dozens of local Christian organizations, some of which have…
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Sacred spaces: Return to public worship renews appreciation for church architecture and decoration in Colorado Springs
Many see the outside of the shining dome as they zoom down Interstate 25 south of Fillmore Street. Only those who worship inside Holy Theophany Orthodox Church see the dome’s inner beauty: a vivid painting of Christ looking down from heaven with love for his followers. “The design of the church is an expression of…
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From Manitou Springs to the world: Mate Factor Café part of global Twelve Tribes community
He grew up poor and troubled, spent time in a foster home, and his troubles continued well into adulthood. The customers who bought the methamphetamines he cooked up in a local trailer park called him Johnny D. “I was addicted to drugs, and my life was pretty much a mess,” he says. Desperate to find…
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Religious nonprofits in the Pikes Peak region face unprecedented challenges
Religious nonprofits in Colorado Springs receive more than $1.75 billion a year from donors to provide a range of services, programs and products that reach around the world. But the coronavirus pandemic has confronted these ministries with an unprecedented triple whammy: declining donations, unexpected expenses for sanitation and remaking workplaces for remote employees, and challenges…