Lake Junaluska hosts regional youth groups

Lake Junaluska hosted youth groups from across the Southeast recently during its annual Winter Youth Retreats.

Let’s keep politics and religion separate

To the Editor:

This week a friend posted a Will Rogers quote from 1931 that is certainly relevant today. “Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can’t buy enough to eat.” 

Creating A Different Kind Of Church

“This is my kind of church.”

That’s how one participant described the lunar women’s circles I started hosting recently.

Sitting in the mess can be worth it

I’m not the traditional church-going type. “Christianity” is an antiquated, laden term of which I’m not a fan. My faith is unique, evolving. My God is changing and alive with the times. My Bible is a book of stories, metaphors and poetry. It is not a hard and fast guidepost.

Local Methodist churches form Justice and Reconciliation Team

The Smoky Mountain District of the First United Methodist Church has created a Justice and Reconciliation Team to take on the work of understanding and healing discrimination in Western North Carolina. 

COVID-19 cluster identified in Macon church

Macon County Public Health has identified a COVID-19 cluster of positive cases in an area church located in Franklin.

Honking for Jesus: Churches adapt, ponder reopening after lawsuit

On May 17, a typical sunny spring Sunday in this community of churches, congregants gathered for religious services all across Haywood County much as they’d done hundreds or thousands of times before. 

Choirs warmed up. Pianos tinkled in the background. Pastors shuffled papers and pamphlets at podiums, testing the microphones and speakers and projectors. Worshipers parked themselves in place and prepared for the sermon.

Hiking through history: Little Cataloochee offers a window to the past

One hundred years ago, the parking area and campground just past the fields in Cataloochee Valley where elk often hang out was better known as Nellie, a remote community in what is now the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. 

As anybody who’s ever driven the steep and narrow access road from Jonathan Creek can imagine, it was hard to get in and hard to get out in the days when horsepower came mainly from actual horses. People didn’t have much, partly because of how difficult it was to transport outside goods up and over the ridge. 

Remembering the quieter, essential aspects of a life

The day of my stepfather’s celebration of life service was a brisk, sunny Saturday morning, as good a day as any to celebrate life. We got up before daylight, made coffee, put on our nice clothes, packed the car, and hit the road for the three-hour drive up to Sparta, where we would meet the rest of the family before all the people started showing up to hug us or shake our hands as we stood in a long line to greet them.

Campolo urges churches to get involved and change lives

For Tony Campolo, spending last week amid a gathering of senior citizens from across the Southeast was just about the most exciting thing imaginable. And that’s even taking into account that he views “exciting” as an overused word that’s best avoided.

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