Author: Steve Rabey
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Club Beyond offers military teens Christian community
Thirteen-year-old twins Mary and Mark recently relocated to Fort Carson from Ansbach, Germany, but they’re already frequent travelers accustomed to regular moves. This is the eighth time they’ve followed their Army father to new location. Such moves can be jarring for young people, who must start anew making friends, attending school, and finding a place…
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Health sharing helps believers, worries regulators
While most Americans secure medical care with health insurance, some go a different route, joining Christian “health share ministries” that connect members to other members who need help paying doctor bills. Together, the four biggest groups — Medi-Share, Christian Healthcare Ministries, Samaritan Ministries and Liberty HealthShare — claim the majority of an estimated 1 million…
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Colorado Springs historian explores race, religion
Billy Graham spoke for many white Christians when he warned Martin Luther King Jr. that he was “going too far too fast.” King was frustrated that whites didn’t embrace the crusade for racial justice and equality, writing his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to “My Fellow Clergymen.” “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the…
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Agreeing to disagree: Local United Methodists support historic split
United Methodists haven’t been truly united in decades. Last year, disputes over biblical teaching on human sexuality threatened to blow up America’s second largest Protestant denomination. Now, a diverse group of representatives from the denomination’s varied factions has come up with a plan to divide the church. The plan’s warm reception might indicate that the…
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Change that’s more than skin deep
Can people change? It’s estimated that 80 percent of people give up on their New Year’s resolutions within a month, and less than 10 percent actually follow through. But these numbers don’t discourage Brenda and David Brown, the owners of Fallen Heroes Tattoo on West Colorado Avenue, who regularly see transformation take place before their…
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Vanguard Church in Briargate among congregations open for business in commercial settings
Vanguard Church has been around for two decades, but it has only been housed in an actual church building for six months. Founded in 1997, Vanguard received support from its Southern Baptist denomination and initially met at Chapel Hill’s Baptist. Then the congregation rented space at Challenger Middle School and a former retail site at…
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Colorado Springs churches turning commercial spaces into sacred places
Vanguard Church has been around for two decades, but it has only been housed in an actual church building for six months. Founded in 1997, Vanguard received support from its Southern Baptist denomination and initially met at Chapel Hill’s Baptist. Then the congregation rented space at Challenger Middle School and a former retail site at…
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Catholic sex abuse report’s most prolific offender worked in Colorado Springs
When Pope John Paul II came to Denver for World Youth Day in the summer of 1993, he pledged that the Catholic Church would get serious about addressing the crisis of clergy sexual abuse. Two popes and a quarter century later, that pledge is coming to fruition here thanks to plan worked out between the…
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COVER STORY | Keeping the faith on mental health
COLORADO SPRINGS • “Pray harder,” Tracy Monteith heard from fellow churchgoers, including her husband, a fledgling pastor, when the darkness of depression kept her from getting out of bed in the morning. When hours would pass without Monteith accomplishing anything except turning on the television, and her four young children felt like a heavy burden,…
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National ‘Bless Your Pastor’ campaign has roots in Colorado Springs
Brian Kluth knew money would be tight when he answered God’s call, walked away from his six-figure salary in 1999, and moved to Colorado Springs to serve as senior pastor of First Evangelical Free Church for $50,000 a year. The congregation helped ease Kluth’s financial burdens by showering him and his family of five with…