THE WOODLANDS Twenty months of construction are now complete on the new 1,000-seat Harvest Worship Center at The Woodlands United Methodist Church.

The church is commemorating the opening and dedication of the new worship venue with a live, continuous reading of the entire Bible. Hundreds of church members are volunteering to read scripture and pray through the 70 hours preceding the first worship service in the new space at 9:30 a.m. today. Doors are open to visitors and people are encouraged to come in and listen to the live Bible readings and pray for this worship community.

A new caf, bookstore and community meeting areas will open this weekend as part of the Harvest Worship Center. The auditorium is equipped to provide media-rich experiences through music, video and theatrical lighting.

The space features theater-style seating, surrounding a semicircular-shaped stage built for contemporary worship.

We hope this is a centerpiece for our faith community a place where friendships and family connections are strengthened, said Ed Robb, senior pastor. Weve designed a special place where people want to spend time, on Sundays and throughout the week.

Plant, Grow, Harvest is our theme and our focus for 2015, said Rev. Mark Sorensen, lead pastor of the Harvest worship community. We pray everyone who worships with us will become firmly rooted here and make meaningful connections with God and with others.

The Harvest Worship Center is the third of three building projects to open at the church as part of the $20 million Imagine capital campaign. The complex sits across the street from the new Whole Foods Market, currently under construction in Hughes Landing. The church is expanding to keep pace with new construction in Town Center and overall population growth in The Woodlands and South Montgomery County.

The Woodlands United Methodist Church is an 11,000-member congregation offering nine live worship services each week in four unique worship venues. TWUMC streams Sunday worship live, online each week at watch.thewoodlandsumc.org. Learn more about TWUMC at thewoodlandsumc.org and loftchurch.com.

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Harvest Worship Center opens at The Woodlands United Methodist Church

SINGAPORE: Ongoing tunnelling work for the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL) along Upper Thomson Road appears to have forced the Church of the Holy Spirit to close its chapel indefinitely, after some floor tiles within buckled.

The Catholic church revealed this in a post showing the affected tiles on its Facebook page on Thursday, preceded by another post of pictures of a long crack on the exterior of its building.

The floor tiles on the left side of our chapel have buckled, possibly due to extensive TEL MRT tunnelling work next to the parish. Some tiles have cracked. For safety reasons, our chapel is closed indefinitely, the post said.

The church, which is more than 50 years old, is located next to the construction site for the Upper Thomson MRT Station.

The contract for the stations construction was awarded to Sato Kogyo Singapore. Work began in the first quarter of last year and it is expected to be completed in 2019.

TODAY saw that the buckled tiles ran along the left side of the chapel during a visit yesterday. There were also some chipped tiles between the pews and loose tiles along the main aisle of the chapel. However, the cracks on the exterior of the church building have been patched up.

Mr Joseph Bong, the churchs head of pastoral care for the Sick Ministry, said it discovered the issues about two to three weeks ago. The road beside the chapel was also cracked, but has since been repaired by Sato Kogyo, he said.

Mr Bong added that it is in close contact with the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and the construction firm. Both have been informed of the problems and have been to the church to take photos, he said.

The three parties have also been meeting monthly since September last year to discuss the effects of the MRT work as well as traffic management, he added.

Mr Bong said he does not feel that the issues are serious and the church will commence repair work soon. It is sourcing for quotations and hopes to reopen the chapel by the middle of the year, he added.

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Buckled Tiles Prompt Closure Of Chapel Near MRT Work Site

THE WOODLANDS Twenty months of construction are now complete on the new 1,000-seat Harvest Worship Center at The Woodlands United Methodist Church.

The church is commemorating the opening and dedication of the new worship venue with a live, continuous reading of the entire Bible. Hundreds of church members are volunteering to read scripture and pray through the 70 hours preceding the first worship service in the new space at 9:30 a.m. today. Doors are open to visitors and people are encouraged to come in and listen to the live Bible readings and pray for this worship community.

A new caf, bookstore and community meeting areas will open this weekend as part of the Harvest Worship Center. The auditorium is equipped to provide media-rich experiences through music, video and theatrical lighting.

The space features theater-style seating, surrounding a semicircular-shaped stage built for contemporary worship.

We hope this is a centerpiece for our faith community a place where friendships and family connections are strengthened, said Ed Robb, senior pastor. Weve designed a special place where people want to spend time, on Sundays and throughout the week.

Plant, Grow, Harvest is our theme and our focus for 2015, said Rev. Mark Sorensen, lead pastor of the Harvest worship community. We pray everyone who worships with us will become firmly rooted here and make meaningful connections with God and with others.

The Harvest Worship Center is the third of three building projects to open at the church as part of the $20 million Imagine capital campaign. The complex sits across the street from the new Whole Foods Market, currently under construction in Hughes Landing. The church is expanding to keep pace with new construction in Town Center and overall population growth in The Woodlands and South Montgomery County.

The Woodlands United Methodist Church is an 11,000-member congregation offering nine live worship services each week in four unique worship venues. TWUMC streams Sunday worship live, online each week at watch.thewoodlandsumc.org. Learn more about TWUMC at thewoodlandsumc.org and loftchurch.com.

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Harvest Worship Center opens at TWUMC

Photo by: Rick Danzl/The News-Gazette

Bishop Lloyd Gwin and his wife, Mary, look over construction at the Church of the Living God building in Champaign.

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CHAMPAIGN The new Church of the Living God in Champaign shines like the sun, but inside there's work to be done.

A lot of work, according to the church's pastor, Bishop Lloyd Gwin.

It's his prayer that the new building will be ready for worshipers sometime in 2015.

Inside the gleaming structure, workers are installing drywall, insulation and electrical systems.

Still to be installed: sprinklers, heating and air conditioning, lighting, plumbing for restrooms and, of course, carpeting and furniture.

But the building at the northwest corner of Fourth Street and Bradley Avenue is taking shape.

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Pastor hopes new church transforms North End from 'notorious' to 'glorious'

In 2013-2014we celebrate one hundred years of the restoration of water baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We find examples of this practice throughout church history, but key events in the early twentieth century led to the greatest revival of this message since the third century.

The Jesus Name message was renewed in the modern Pentecostal movement, which originated with a Bible school in Topeka, Kansas, in January 1901 led by Charles Parham and with the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, California, from 1906 to 1908 led by William Seymour. Based on the examples in Acts, some early Pentecostals began to baptize in Jesus name, including Parham (1901), some in Los Angeles during the Azusa Street Revival (1907), and Andrew Urshan, a Persian immigrant in Chicago (1910).

The practice did not yet have strong doctrinal significance, however. Two notable events led to the development of the Jesus Name message as a distinct movement: the Worldwide Camp Meeting in Arroyo Seco in April 1913 and the rebaptisms of Frank Ewart and Glenn Cook in April 1914.

The Worldwide Apostolic Faith Camp Meeting was organized by R.J. Scott and George Studd and held at Arroyo Seco near Los Angeles, on a campground used by the Azusa Street Mission. The month-long meeting began on April 15, 1913, and perhaps two thousand people attended.

The main speaker was Maria Woodworth-Etter, a well-known Pentecostal evangelist. Expectations were high, and 364 people received the Holy Spirit. Many miraculous healings occurred as Woodworth-Etter prayed in the name of Jesus. At a baptismal service Robert McAlister, a Canadian minister, explained that single immersion was the proper mode for baptism, not triple immersion. As proof he cited the baptismal accounts in Acts. The apostles baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; they never baptized using the words Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as triple immersion requires.

McAlisters observation planted a seed in the minds of several people. A man named John Schaepe was so inspired that he spent the night in prayer. Early the next morning he began running through the camp shouting that he had received a revelation of the power of the name of Jesus. Quite a few campers were greatly stirred as Schaepe fervently explained his newfound understanding.

Another man who was deeply impressed was Frank Ewart, originally from Australia, where he had been a Baptist bush missionary. In 1903 he immigrated to Canada, in 1908 he received the Holy Spirit in Portland, Oregon, and in 1912 he became pastor of a Pentecostal mission in Los Angeles founded by William Durham. Ewart had been studying the name and oneness of God for some time, so McAlisters comments were especially intriguing to him. Ewart invited him to his home, where they discussed the theological implications of using the name of Jesus in water baptism. They concluded that when the apostles baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, they properly fulfilled Christs command to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Matthew 28:19).

After the camp, Ewart began working in Los Angeles with McAlister and Glenn Cook, a noted evangelist who had been the full-time business manager of the Azusa Street Mission. These men continued to study the name of Jesus and the doctrine of God. After several months McAlister returned to Canada and shared their thinking with ministers there, particularly Franklin Small. At some point they also included in their discussions G.T. Haywood, a ministerial friend and a prominent African American pastor in Indianapolis.

In November 1913 at a convention in Winnipeg, McAlister preached the first sermon on the name of Jesus in water baptism. Small had charge of the baptismal service and baptized thirty new converts in the name of Jesus Christ. These were the first Jesus Name baptisms to result from the Arroyo Seco meeting.

Back in Los Angeles, Ewart and Cook concluded that, following the apostolic pattern, water baptism should always take place with the invocation of the name of Jesus. They also concluded that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not three distinct persons but three manifestations of the one God, and Jesus is the revelation of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The reason why there is such power when believers preach, pray, and baptize in Jesus name is that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Jesus.

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FLORIDABLANCA -- Fr. Jess G. Manabat of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish here is regarded as the "builder priest" of Pampanga.

Devout Roman Catholics disclosed that Manabat had built a church, parish hall and convent at the Mawaque Resettlement Center (MRC) in Mabalacat City when he was assigned in the area for about four years beginning 1998.

"Father Jess is the builder priest of Pampanga. He builds the houses of God and improves the church's facilities as soon he takes over a parish," said long-time MRC residents who witnessed how Manabat had started from scratch and then worked for the construction of all the necessary facilities in the parish dominated by victims of Mt. Pinatubos eruption.

Manabat said he had initially lived at the MRCs hospital because there was no shelter for me and not even a chapel for the thousands of residents. He said what he had immediately done was to remind people that the lack of a church or chapel should not stop them from holding Holy Masses. He added that he had turned one of the rooms at the hospital into a chapel. Manabat said they held Holy Mass on Sundays at the streets.

We continue the mass at the streets even when the rains are strong. Expressing faith and devotion to God should not be stopped by the lack of an ideal place and rains, he added.

Manabat said he had asked families at the MRC to donate at least P20 each for the construction of the church and other facilities. Many of them gave more than P20 each. They were determined to have their own church, he added. Manabat said the church, parish hall and convent at the MRC were all completed over a period of fours year. He added: I was starting to enjoy the collective fruits of labor when I got a new assignment as a parish priest in another place.

A very challenging experience but a rewarding one, said Manabat in describing his stint as parish priest of the MRCs Christ the Prince of Peace Parish. He said he was down by dengue while living at the MRC hospital. He added that he almost died and his doctor had to use 15 bags of blood to save him.

In recent interview at the Sacred Heart of Jesus convent-church at the Palmayo Resettlement here, Manabat said he is attracting parishioners with liturgical arts. "I make the Church and its facilities very attractive to the people so they will attend mass and other religious activities more often than usual. Then I implant in their hearts and minds the importance of working together to keep the Church beautiful and sacred. More importantly, we have to remember that the real church is the people of God. The People of God is the Body of Christ, which is the Church."

Manabat said he was an elementary student when he felt "the artist in me," particularly on designing rooms and buildings. "I ended up as a priest and not an architect or interior designer," he added in a jest.

Manabat, a native of Macabebe town, studied at the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary at the City of San Fernando, Pampanga and he was one of the 30 students of the 1984 batch. He said they were asked to transfer rooms yearly at the seminary. He added that his classmates had raced to win the rights to occupy the room he just vacated. I design and fix my room well. I do the same thing on a larger scale when I am assigned as a parish priest.

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Priest builds houses of God to renew faith

A man is accused of stealing copper from a construction site at a church, according to police.

Palm Beach police said Leon Primus, 48, took copper from a construction site he was working at on Dec. 26 at The Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea, 141 South County Road.

He was arrested Tuesday.

According to an arrest report, a church employee saw Primus at the construction site by himself on Dec. 26. She became suspicious because she knew the construction workers had taken time off over the holidays. Police said the woman recognized Primus as one of the construction workers who had installed gutters earlier in the week.

When Primus saw her, he played it off like he was on the clock.

"Looks like we are the only ones working today," he told her, according to the report.

Officers found out Primus had sold about $4,000 worth of copper later that day, netting about $160.

He is charged with burglary, grand theft, dealing in stolen property and false verification of ownership. He is being held at the Palm Beach County Jail in lieu of $26,000 bail.

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Man accused of stealing copper from church construction site

Herman Laturnau is stepping down as CEO at Fred C. Church Inc.

Sun staff photos can be ordered by visiting our SmugMug site.

A Sun Staff Report

LOWELL -- Fred C. Church Insurance will enter its 150th year in business under new leadership.

Herman Laturnau, who has served as chief executive officer at agency since 2002, has announced his retirement.

Laturnau, who has been with the company since 1985, will remain a corporate officer and chairman of the board of directors until his retirement is official at the end of 2015. But as of Thursday, he will transition most of his current responsibilities to two promoted executives.

Executive vice president Chris Duble takes over as CEO, while another executive vice president, Mike Reilly, assumes the role of president.

"It has been my pleasure to work at Fred C. Church for nearly 30 years, and an honor to serve as president since 2002," said Laturnau, a Londonderry, N.H., resident, in a statement. "I am confident in Mike and Chris and their abilities to advance this company far beyond what it is today. They are savvy, forward-thinking, and most importantly, dedicated to exemplary customer service."

Laturnau added that one thing that will not change is Fred C. Church's commitment to remaining independent.

"Our independence allows us to provide the same sophisticated services as national insurance brokerages, but with better responsiveness, flexibility and personalization," he said.

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Laturnau to step down as CEO at Fred C. Church

Pics: Meryick D'Silva Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (MD)

Mangaluru, Dec 31: The newly-built Infant Mary Church at Bajjodi in Mangaluru will be inaugurated by the provincial superior of the Carmelites of Karnataka-Goa province Fr Charles Serrao on Friday January 2.

The holy Eucharist will be celebrated by Dr Aloysius Paul D'Souza, bishop of Mangaluru, who will also bless the new church at 9 am.

A felicitation function will be held after the holy mass followed by lunch.

Fr Joe Tauro, the superior of St Joseph's Monastery, Carmel Hill, Fr Antony Serrao, parish priest of St Sebastian Church, Bendore and Fr Melvin D'Cunha, presently the priest in charge of Infant Mary Church, Oscar Fernandes, MP, J R Lobo, MLA, Ivan D'Souza, MLC, FRr Pius James D'Souza, Episcopal Vicar for Religious, Lancy Mascarenhas, contractor, George, Engineer, Lawrence Cutinha, Architect and other dignitaries will be present with clergymen and devotees during the inauguration.

Addressing a press meet here on Wednesday December 31, Fr Melvin D'Cunha, presently the priest in charge of Infant Mary Church said that the new independent parish has six wards with 327 families and he also added that cost of construction of the new church was Rs 3.5 crore.

"Infant Mary Chruch, Bajjodi which has been part of the Bendore parish so far will beecome a new parish after the inauguration of the church. The Carmelite fathers from Infant Jesus Shrine, Carmel Hill always helped them in their spiritual needs as Bendore Chruch was very far for them to visit. Later the Carmelites were entrusted to build a new church when the need arose," he added

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Mangaluru: New Bajjodi Church all set for inauguration

TAMPA A month before reports of his charity's treatment of homeless people sparked controversy, New Beginnings of Tampa founder Tom Atchison was fighting to save his church in federal bankruptcy court.

Atchison's New Life Pentecostal Church owed more than $900,000 to a Texas bank. On Oct. 23, the bank's lawyer urged a judge to allow an auction of the church property.

But the church's lawyer said Atchison had a plan to pay down the debt. New Beginnings had just won a big grant, attorney David Steen told the judge. New Life church could use that money to pay the bank.

One problem: The $64,000 grant from Hillsborough County was supposed to pay for emergency shelter for homeless people. It could not be put toward the church's debt, a county spokeswoman said.

Atchison was asking a federal judge to allow him to misuse public grant money to save his church.

While the judge ultimately rejected the plan, it was in keeping with questionable ways Atchison has long run New Beginnings, one of Tampa's largest homeless charities.

For example:

New Beginnings for years made money from construction jobs performed by homeless work crews led by a recovering crack cocaine addict and alcoholic who is not licensed to lead contracting jobs in Florida. The man pleaded no contest to unlicensed contracting this year after a woman complained about a botched roofing job by New Beginnings.

Records show that Atchison listed Tampa City Council Chairman Charlie Miranda on New Beginnings' board of directors for several years. Miranda said his name was used without his permission and he's never been involved with New Beginnings.

The director of a local nonprofit for teenagers in foster care said she declined to refer homeless 18-year-olds to New Beginnings due to concerns Atchison wanted to "warehouse" them with violent criminals and drug addicts.

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For years, Tampa homeless charity raised and spent money dubiously