Latest news with #congregation
CBS News
2 days ago
- CBS News
More than $200,000 worth of supplies for new building stolen from Fort Worth church
A Fort Worth church is reeling after thieves stole an entire brand-new building from their property – a structure worth more than $200,000 before it was even assembled. Now, the congregation is asking for the community's help. When Pastor Brian Fisher arrived at Longvue Baptist Church's newest property in west Fort Worth the morning of Saturday, Aug. 9, he immediately knew something was wrong. "It was a gut punch. I can't think of anything else. It just takes the wind out of you," said Fisher. Several cut locks and chains remained, but every piece of the church's new metal auditorium and family life center, once laid out across the grass, was gone. "I just put my hands up. Oh, no. What do we do? I mean, what happened?" Fisher said. For the past year, the materials had sat locked behind a chain on Old Weatherford Road near Rolling Hills, waiting for permits and utility work to be approved by the city of Fort Worth. The plan was to begin construction soon and open their doors to serve more members of the community after two years of fundraising to purchase the supplies. "We've had families that have sacrificed so they could give toward it. It's heartbreaking," said Fisher. He never thought anyone would be able to steal it. "The material was brought in on three 18-wheelers... I mean, we're talking 160,000 pounds in all," he said. This isn't the first time the church has been targeted. Last December, Fisher said a $12,000 trailer was stolen from the same site and never recovered. Today, several trailers still sit on the property, and insulation materials have been rummaged through. "You can see, there's one last roll that was left here," said Fisher. He filed a police report with Fort Worth police and said there has been no update yet on the investigation. He believes the theft happened within the last several weeks. With no working security cameras on site, Fisher is now offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of the stolen materials, hoping someone saw or unknowingly bought the stolen property. "If someone has seen something, something that may stand out, I would love to be able to get it back," he said.
Yahoo
20-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Woman with Fertility Issues Says Her Grandma Ruined Her Gender Reveal — but Her Dad Says She's ‘Overreacting'
NEED TO KNOW A mom-to-be says her grandma revealed the gender of her baby to their church congregation — despite specifically being asked not to She also said that she has struggled with fertility issues in the past and wants to share news about her pregnancy on her "own terms' The woman — who shared her story on Reddit — said her dad is now defending her grandmother's behavior, and she's not sure who's in the wrongA mom-to-be is upset that her grandmother shared big personal news about her pregnancy — but her dad says she's being unreasonable. The woman shared her story on the popular Reddit forum 'Am I the A------,' a place where people can go to get advice on interpersonal issues. In her post, the Reddit user shared that she and her husband are both almost 30, and that they are about to have their first child in December 'after multiple miscarriages and adoptions falling through.' The woman said that she has only been telling very close friends and family details about the pregnancy 'in case I lose this baby as well.' However, she says that her grandmother keeps 'pestering' her to tell more people because she is 'so excited.' The woman went on to say that she and her husband recently found out the baby's gender, and that while they don't want to have a gender reveal party, she still wants to be able to tell people in her own time 'and on my own terms.' However, she said that her grandmother disregarded her wishes and 'told everyone' in their church — which she explained is in a small town community. 'Church members just began walking [up] to me saying congratulations on [my] baby's gender!' the original poster (OP) said, adding, 'My sister saw I was obviously distraught and told my grandma to stop telling people, which upset her.' The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now! 'Now, I feel I can no longer share information about my baby without [my grandmother] going behind my back and telling everyone every little detail,' the OP continued. 'My father says I am overreacting because 'this baby is all she has.' ' 'AITA [am I the a------] for not wanting her involved in my progress anymore?' the woman asked at the end of her post. The woman's fellow Reddit users were quick to assure her that she is not the unreasonable one in this scenario. 'It's not hers,' one person said, adding, 'She's not doing any of the work. She doesn't get a say. Tell her and [your] dad to kick rocks. NTA [not the a------].' Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Another person said, 'NTA. She can't be trusted to keep a secret. It doesn't matter if she's excited or not - it's your baby and not hers. Also, with a history of losses, that's a delicate subject and she needs to keep her mouth shut. Sorry, Dad, but you're wrong.' 'NTA for wanting to share your own news, but you need to stop telling granny info you don't want others to know yet,' added someone else. Read the original article on People
Telegraph
16-07-2025
- General
- Telegraph
Priest hits out at ‘unlikeable, entitled' parishioners in poem
A priest has written a scathing poem blaming his 'unlikeable, entitled' parishioners for dwindling congregation numbers. Father Pat Brennan, the parish priest at Holy Family Catholic Church in Coventry, announced in the church newsletter that he was leaving his post after nine years because of 'vocal criticism' from a few parishioners. In a poem that he described as a 'parting gift', Father Brennan asked: 'What makes people not come to church?' The answer, he suggested, was 'the righteous, the clique, the worthy' who offer a 'disdainful look', and complain when others sit in their seat and 'gossip'. These 'unfriendly' few he described as 'a mix of disgruntled, unlikeable, entitled offended … tutting for a living, whispering about you know who'. The priest asked in the poem, entitled Not I Lord Surely, whether prospective churchgoers may be put off by 'the cold indifference and quiet disdain of those who already go'. 'You can't please all the people' Father Brennan, who was ordained as a priest in St Dunstan's Kings Heath, Birmingham, in July 1992, said he would leave the parish with many fond memories, adding: 'I was very happy at Holy Family and had the privilege of meeting so many wonderful people.' However, he said: 'You can't please all the people and those few who have been vocal in criticism in and outside of the parish, have contributed to my leaving. Despite those few, I will keep the fondest memories in my heart and am grateful to have been parish priest here at Holy Family.' He added that priesthood was 'not an easy vocation' but the 'prayers, love and support' from parishioners act as great encouragement. Father Brennan ended his not by saying: 'Please pray for your priests.' A spokesman for the Diocese of Birmingham said that 'Father Pat is an experienced and much valued member of the clergy', adding that he would continue as parish priest at Bulkington and Bedworth. 'They should be ashamed of themselves' Maura Murray-Reeves, who has ties to the parish, shared the poem in a residents Facebook group, and said she was 'extremely disappointed' to hear that Father Brennan felt shunned. She said: 'Father Pat has been the parish priest for almost 10 years and he has always been very welcoming. It is disgusting to think that he was treated so poorly by a sad minority. They should be ashamed of themselves.' Ms Murray-Reeves later told the BBC: 'Being at Holy Family for 40-odd years we've had other priests and there's always been some [questions] as to why have they left. 'I can't imagine a priest is going to say something like that or vocalise that if it wasn't true – he'd have no reason to. This isn't the way we should be making a priest feel.'
Times
15-07-2025
- General
- Times
Priest calls out ‘entitled' parishioners in scathing poem
A priest has published a poem calling his parishioners 'entitled' and blaming their 'unlikeable' nature for his dwindling congregation. Father Pat Brennan wrote of 'the righteous, the clique, the worthy' who he says forced him out after nine years at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Coventry. The poem, titled Not I Lord Surely! and signed off as his 'parting gift', was shared in the church's newsletter, alongside a message saying he had been pushed out by 'those few who had been vocal in criticism in and outside the parish'. He also blamed them for putting new members off attending. 'Gossip flows from holy lips,' he wrote, blaming 'A mix of disgruntled, unlikeable,/ entitled offended, who don't want to know./ Better than you, holier too,/ tutting for a living, whispering about you know who…' He also asked: 'What makes people not come to church?/ Could it be the people who already go?/ The righteous, the clique, the worthy,/ the disdainful look given, the thought 'you're in my seat'/ the unfriendly, so that the stranger remains always so.' • Melanie Phillips: Catholic church has new appeal for the young Maura Murray-Reeve, a parishioner, shared the poem in a residents' Facebook group, describing it as 'extremely disappointing' that Brennan felt pushed out. She said he had been the parish priest for almost ten years and was always very welcoming. She wrote in the Facebook post: 'His letter of 'goodbye' and poem, from the newsletter, are below. It's disgusting to think that he was treated so poorly by a very sad minority. They should be ashamed of themselves.' Murray-Reeve told BBC Coventry that she was 'embarrassed' to be part of the church that had treated Brennan wrongly and it was important for him to share his experience. 'This isn't the way we should be making a priest feel,' she said. Another churchgoer, Chantelle-Louise Beach, said Brennan was 'the most amazing warm welcoming priest'. Another, Tara Court, said he was 'so lovely and down to earth' when she had to organise her brother's funeral. Others attested to the unsavoury nature of some parishoners. Kat Smith wrote that one of the reasons she stopped going to church was that she did not like the way she 'was looked down on and judged'. Brennan said he had fond memories from his time as parish priest but said you 'can't please all the people and those few who have been vocal in criticism in and outside of the parish, have contributed to my leaving'. • Pope Leo to take two-week holiday in break with 'pauperism' of Francis The Archbishop of Birmingham has appointed Father Charles Miller as the new parish priest, who will arrive at the end of July, according to the newsletter. The Archdiocese of Birmingham said in a statement: 'Fr Pat is an experienced and much valued member of the clergy. 'He has been running three parishes for several years, which is a large workload. 'As part of new parish clustering, Fr Pat will continue as parish priest at Bulkington and Bedworth and a new parish priest has been appointed to Holy Family.'
CNN
11-07-2025
- General
- CNN
In the face of tragedy, a pastor finds words — and a community listens
There was a rare and brief moment of stillness on Saturday –– after the last child waiting in the church was reunited with his parents –– when Rev. Jasiel Hernandez Garcia could sit with his staff and ask them: What do we say to the congregation? The leadership at First Presbyterian Church in Kerrville, Texas had originally planned to talk about celebrating independence and the importance of rest at their Sunday services on July 6. Then the flooding began. Starting Friday, the church staff spent 18 hours working on relief efforts. The building, just a few blocks from the Guadalupe River, served as a reunification center in the morning and as a shelter later in the day on Saturday. Then everyone learned that one of their own congregants had died in the flood. They scrapped all the readings, music, and the sermon. Instead, they put together a Sunday service that incorporated church members who volunteered to perform music they felt would be of comfort to their community. Garcia rewrote his whole sermon, focusing on the call to do what is right no matter what and to respond with hope and action. 'The amount of grief was something I had never experienced before,' said Garcia, the church's senior pastor. With at least 150 people missing and 120 people dead, including at least 27 children and counselors at a summer camp, from the flooding in Central Texas, people in Kerr County and across the country have been feeling sadness, anger and grief from the losses. Many people are turning to Garcia and other religious leaders to ask for guidance in the face of the devastation. What can they do with these feelings? When tragedy strikes, the messiness of pain, anger, sadness and fear of those experiencing loss don't need to be cleaned up quickly, said Rev. Shannon Johnson Kershner, senior pastor at Central Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Georgia. 'God is not scared of all of those feelings,' Kershner said. 'I think anger is faithful. Doubt is faithful. All of that is faithful because it means that you actually care.' For the people not directly affected by the flood but struggling themselves, that is natural and human, too, said the Very Rev. Sarah Hurlbert, dean of the Cathedral of All Souls, an Episcopal church in Asheville, North Carolina. The cathedral was inundated and extensively damaged by floodwaters from Hurricane Helene last September. Maybe the news reports and images trigger your feelings around a horrible experience at a camp, a personal loss of a child, or even just a loss of feeling safe and in control of the world, said Hurlbert. 'Sending your kids to a camp, what you expect is that they're going to have a great time and … come back with some bumps and bruises, but they had a good time doing it,' Hurlbert said. 'It's part of how we get disabused as human beings of the notion of control.' Bad things happen every day to people around the world, and you can't always stop and fully feel the pain because you have to keep going, said Rev. Janet Maykus, transitional pastor of the United Christian Church in Austin, Texas. But sometimes, she noted, an event hits a little closer to home. After witnessing Helene's destruction, Hurlbert has a sense of how words can fail to provide the comfort needed in the aftermath of tragedy. Last year, her congregation gathered in a church that was not theirs for the first time since the storm. As the people filed in and laid eyes on their community members –– many of whom they could not contact to make sure they were safe –– they just clung to one another, Hurlbert said. 'I don't even think I had a sermon that day,' she said. 'We just hugged and held each other and cried. And really and truly, that was the sermon.' It is human and natural to not want to say the wrong thing, Kershner said. Or you may so badly want the person you are with to not feel pain that you say anything you can to fix it for them. Often, that can drive you away from the people who are suffering. 'There's no right thing to say, but to move towards those places of hurt, rather than away from them, I think that's what we're called as people to do,' she said. If you can't take the pain away from someone experiencing loss, your presence can still be of some benefit, said Don Burda, president of the Jewish Community of the Hill Country in Kerrville, who lost his wife and two daughters to a drunk driver years ago. Burda isn't a rabbi, and his community has a congregation so tiny that he considers it a full house if 10 people show up. He is planning Shabbat services this Friday, where they will say the Mourner's Kaddish, as they do every week for lost loved ones, and he will share pictures of those who have died in the floods. 'Each of us reacts to tragedy differently,' Burda said via email. 'Some will be silent, some will scream to the heavens, some will try to find someone to blame. None of these things will bring their loved one back and no amount of good wishes and kind words will make a dent in what they're feeling, nor do anything to fill that huge chasm in their soul caused by their loved ones being ripped from them.' 'The kind words do one important thing: They let those who are left behind know that they are not alone. And that –– knowing they're not alone –– is perhaps the greatest gift we can give to those who mourn,' he said. Members of Garcia's congregation have begun to reach out for support for the loss or continued uncertainty about their loved ones. But so far, he has found that they are not looking for answers as to why it happened or what to do with their grief. Most of them just want to talk, to connect and to find someone who will listen, he said. 'They haven't really sat with their emotions. They're not really ready to really wrestle with the complexity of all that we experienced last weekend,' he said. An important place to start is to assure each other that feelings that come out of tragedy are OK, said Dr. Shelly Rambo, professor of theology at Boston University. What many people need in the aftermath is someone to sit beside them and hear their pain without being afraid of it or trying to tie it up and send it away, Rambo said. It isn't always natural for people to know how to stay in those difficult moments and allow others to grieve, she said. It takes intention to learn how to say, 'I am so sorry,' and then just sit there and say nothing else, Rambo added. You might hold the person if they want it, but you don't always have to. The important thing is that you are communicating to the person, 'I am here. I will be here for the long haul of this grieving. You have a safe place to put these feelings down,' she said. With the assurance of God's presence, or a call to the community to gather, or the promise of a listening ear, many religious leaders stressed the importance of those hurting not feeling alone. 'When we are just on our own, it can feel very daunting, very hopeless, very overwhelming,' Garcia said. 'But when we mourn and grieve together with other people that we can trust … then that allows for a kind of transformation in the community, a sense of love that is tangible.' In the 18 years Maykus worked as a hospital and hospice chaplain, she found that losing a loved one often upended a person's entire reality. She thinks of lives as a great web of all the communities you exist in and the people you love. When you lose someone, a critical chord is snapped and everything is unsteady for a time, she said. The web will never be the same again, but as you mourn and move forward, you will weave a new version, Maykus said. Having people by your side and supporting you in your grief helps hold the web in place while you work to rebuild your reality, she said. 'Your existence is now completely different, and everyone is walking around you like everything's the same and it's not,' Maykus said. 'Just knowing there's someone there, it's kind of a grounding thing.' It is important to allow others to support you when you are struggling and to show up when others suffer loss –– however you can do that, Maykus said. 'Some of us are really good at sitting in silence with someone, some of us are really good at listening, some of us have great things to say, and some of us don't have any of those things,' she said. Can you bring food? Mow the lawn? Clean the refrigerator? These things may not feel as important as the conversations, but they are, Maykus said. The presence and help in keeping life going sends a profound message, she said. 'It's saying to that person, 'You are a person. You are alive. You are here. We care about you,'' she said. The truth is that religious leaders are dealing with the grief and pain, too. Coming together as a community gives Kershner a place to hold her faith and hope when she is having trouble, just as she holds it for the people in the pews when they are suffering, she said. 'Sometimes we have to borrow faith from each other,' Kershner said. 'We don't go through any of this by ourselves.'
