A burgeoning multi-ethnic church based just east of Kansas City is raising $2 million to purchase two key properties owned by the scandal-plagued International House of Prayer Kansas City (IHOPKC). These include IHOPKC’s former sanctuary and a nearby property that matches the description of a former children’s center, but neither were officially listed. Leaders at The City KC, located in Raytown, leapt at the possibility of moving to prime real estate in Grandview, 11 miles away in Kansas...| The Roys Report
Matt Queen, the former interim provost at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, is now an associate pastor at a Southern Baptist church 30 miles away. Now listed as associate pastor of Plymouth Park Baptist Church in Irving, Queen, 50, is responsible for ministry to shut-ins and developing evangelism strategies. Queen pleaded guilty as part of a federal investigation into a 2022 case where a student at Southwestern’s four-year underg...| The Roys Report
(Opinion) In the wake of the historic schism that has fractured the worldwide Anglican Communion, lazy and ignorant narratives have already begun to emerge. The secular media and even some progressive Christian outlets would have you believe this is a simple story of progress versus bigotry—a misogynistic, homophobic, and unenlightened conclave of Global South bishops mostly from the African continent breaking away because a woman was put in charge. This narrative is not only wrong; it’s ...| The Roys Report
After years of decline, a growing number of Americans believe religion is on its way back, a new study from Pew Research Center suggests. The report, published Monday, found that about a third of Americans (31%) said religion is gaining influence in the country — up from 18% a year ago. “While this remains a minority view, it is increasingly held by adults across several demographic groups — with gains of at least 10 percentage points among Democrats and Republicans, adults in every age...| The Roys Report
The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, a Hispanic evangelical adviser to President Donald Trump, citing significant drops in church attendance in the face of immigration raids and mass deportations, is urging government leaders to recognize the “innocent people” who are being swept up in detention quotas. Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and pastor of New Season Church in Sacramento, California, said in an interview Thursday that some churches in the NHCL...| The Roys Report
Among American churchgoers, roughly half are concentrated within a small fraction — less than 10% — of the nation’s churches, according to data reported earlier this year on church attendance and size. The other half of America’s churchgoers are most likely to attend one of the 70% of U.S. churches that have 100 or fewer people in their weekly services. That’s a lot of small churches dotted across our country. In my lifetime I’ve belonged to churches of just about every size tha...| The Roys Report
The estate of A.M. Burton has reached a settlement agreement with the Nashville Church of Christ after years of dispute over the downtown Nashville, Tenn., church building formerly known as the Central Church of Christ. According to the settlement, approved by a Davidson County judge Wednesday, the court ruled the Nashville church violated a clause in the property’s deed that reserved it for “the use and benefit of the Church of Christ.” Therefore, ownership of the property reverts to...| The Roys Report
(Opinion) It is the evening of Yom Kippur as I write these words. My Jewish friends are preparing for their holiest day of the calendar year. They are preparing for the annual Day of Atonement, a day on which Israel tells the truth about itself and then by God’s grace receives forgiveness and the fruits of reconciliation. My colleague Dena, before she left school today, instructed me: “Don’t say happy Yom Kippur to me.| The Roys Report
Anglican women bishops in Africa are celebrating the unprecedented appointment of the Rev. Sarah Mullally as archbishop-elect of Canterbury, becoming on Friday the first woman selected as spiritual leader of the Church of England. Meanwhile, African traditionalists are rejecting the move as another miss for the Anglican Communion struggling to remain united. Mullally, 63, is a former nurse who was ordained a priest in 2006. She became the first female bishop of London in 2018.| The Roys Report
The Rt. Rev. and Rt. Hon. Dame Sarah Mullally, Anglican Bishop of London, will become the next Archbishop of Canterbury, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office announced Friday. She is the first female to be named to the role. While the position is technically the equal of others in the global 85 million-member Anglican church, the Archbishop of Canterbury has long been regarded as “first among equals.” That could be challenging in more conservative Anglican regions, which have resisted o...| The Roys Report
When churches split from the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada in 2009 to form the Anglican Church of North America, the denomination’s church leaders hoped for a fresh start. Though they had broken with their mainline Protestant church bodies because of their conservative views on LGBTQ+ clergy, same-sex marriage and women’s ordination, ACNA also aspired to be a more nimble, less hierarchical church, free of the infighting that came with too much oversight.| The Roys Report
As millions worldwide mourned the Sept. 10 murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) issued a statement lamenting his death and praising his message. While saying he believes Kirk’s assassination was “demonic,” the Rev. Dwight McKissic, a prominent Black pastor in the SBC, claims the statement’s omission of Kirk’s demeaning comments about persons of color was glaring and wrong. “We need to lament his death,” McKissic, senior pastor of th...| The Roys Report
The assassination of Charlie Kirk marks a watershed moment, challenging the Church to embody love, prayer, and peacemaking, writes Lance Ford| The Roys Report
As their congregants live in fear of deportation, pastors look to reassure & care for congregants, but to financially sustain their churches.| The Roys Report
Texas megachurch Gateway Church has canceled it popular annual conference in the wake of a sex abuse scandal involving founder Robert Morris.| The Roys Report
