December 6, 2011 - A Flomaton man is charged with stealing a woman’s purse during prayer at a local church because, he told police, he was smoking crack in Century and ran out of money.

The man, later identified as 30-year old Morris Andy Cumbie, walked into the Sunday evening service at the Flomaton Church of Christ about 6:15. Witnesses told Flomaton Police that Cumbie sat down in a pew, and as soon as heads were bowed for the opening prayer, he grabbed a church member’s purse and bolted out the door.

Church members gave chase, but backed off when Cumbie told them that he had a gun, Flomaton Police Chief Geoff McGraw said. He then sped away in Toyota Corolla.

Police turned to technology in an attempt to catch their purse snatcher. The victim’s cellphone was inside the purse; the cellphone company was able to narrow the location of the phone down to the area of Campbell and Old Flomaton roads in Century. Police were unable to locate the phone in the dark, but witnesses did report seeing a Toyota Corolla matching the suspect’s in the area.

“Then I was blessed enough to remember having dealt with Mr. Cumbie before,” McGraw said, “and we went to his house out from Brewton.”

McGraw said Cumbie initially denied any involvement and eventually gave authorities consent to search his home and Toyota Corolla. In the car, police found a bank statement belonging to the victim that had been in her purse.

Cumbie was booked into the Escambia County (Ala.) Detention Center in Brewton on charges of felony first degree robbery and second degree theft of property.

Residents of Ladner showed their generosity by supporting a  food drive for  the South Delta Food Bank on March 13.

The drive, which was organized by the Delta Church of Christ,  filled nearly  200 grocery bags, primarily collected from residents  in the Hawthorne and  Neilson Grove school zones.

Twelve students from Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, who  spent their  spring break working with the Delta church, provided  assistance.

"This was the second year we have conducted a food drive in  Ladner," said  organizer Larry Waddell. "Grocery bags and notices  were delivered to only about  1,000 homes the previous week. The  generous response says a lot about the  concern people in our  community have for the less fortunate."

The South Delta Food Bank, which is operated by the Ladner  Christian  Fellowship, was thrilled to have its cupboards replenished  as the number of  residents requesting assistance continues to grow.

Waddell said the Delta Church of Christ and the South Delta Food  Bank thank  everyone who contributed to the worthy cause.

Update: News Channel 5 in Nashville details the Smith Springs Church of Christ’s Sunday worship after the tornado.

A Feb. 24 tornado tore away sections of the roof of the Smith Springs Church of Christ in Nashville, Tenn.

The Tennessean reports:

The roof of the Smith Springs Church of Christ's meeting place after the tornado. (Photo via www.smithspringschurch.com)

The tornado’s path included adjacent churches on Smith Springs Road — Smith Springs Church of Christ and Priest Lake Presbyterian.

“I live five minutes away and we didn’t lose power,” Smith Springs Church of Christ Minister Tim Alexander said while standing in a sanctuary without most of the roof as members rallied to make temporary repairs Friday morning.

“It’s like seeing your home damaged,” church member Leesa Fields said. “But we’ll survive. We’re a tough church.”

Member Terry Wright was optimistic about both congregations.

“God is going to bless this church, the one next door and this community. This is a building. The church is the people.”

Both churches plan to rebuild. The Church of Christ probably will meet at another location Sunday, “but we will meet,” Alexander said.

Read the full story.

A note on the church’s website:

Thanks to all who have prayed for our church and given so much time in the clean-up efforts already. It is often easy to praise God when things are going great and easy. But, a true test of faith is how you glorify God when things seem not so great and not so easy. God will be glorifed in this.

Continue to pray as we work and wait to see what is to come of the precious building that has been a home to many Christians for many years.

Christians in Egypt are feeling the effects of their country’s political crisis, according to a church member who works with believers in the North African nation.

The church member — who asked for anonymity for security reasons — said that a church building near Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo was closed because of its proximity to the protests. The church does not use the phrase “Church of Christ” in its name because the phrase is not registered with the Egyptian government.

A small congregation for ex-patriots meets in Cairo. We haven’t received any updates on how its members are reacting. However, many of the expats living in Cairo have left the country, according to news reports.

Egypt, a nation of 80.4 million souls, is about 90 percent Muslim, according to the CIA World Factbook. About nine percent is Coptic Christian, and an additional one percent is categorized as “other Christian.”

“There are many secret churches in Egypt. No one knows how many believers meet underground. I have met some of these groups, but some are so concerned about security that they have to get several recommendations on a visitor before one is permitted to join the group — even for a casual meeting.”

Blogging from Tucson, Ariz.

Among the hundreds of calls and emails that the Mountain Avenue Church of Christ has received since Dorwan Stoddard died in the Jan. 8 mass shooting, one came from a Kentucky congressman.

Rep. Brett Guthrie, a Republican in his second term representing his state’s 2nd District, is a member of the Lehman Avenue Church of Christ in Bowling Green, Ky.

Rep. Brett Guthrie is a member of the Lehman Avenue Church of Christ in Bowling Green, Ky.

Guthrie talked with Mountain Avenue pulpit minister Mike Nowak, and Nowak recalled the conversation during Stoddard’s memorial service Sunday.

“Brother Mike, Congress has been given time on the floor to remember the fallen,” Nowak said Guthrie told him. “Would you mind if I tell Congress about my brother Dorwan?”

Nowak welcomed the gesture.

In the below video, Guthrie offers his prayers for his wounded colleague Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and pays tribute to Stoddard, his brother in Christ:

“Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be here to offer my thoughts and prayers for Gabby, our colleague. Like all of us, any interaction I ever had with her was always pleasant and memorable, and I look forward to her returning. I pray for her return. I am praying for her staff and praying for the other victims.

“I just want to hold up one victim this morning. I didn’t know Dorwan Stoddard, but through a close network of friends, I had the opportunity to learn a little bit about Dorwan Stoddard. He shielded his wife with his own body, saving her life but losing his own. He and his wife were having breakfast and decided they wanted to go to the ‘Congress on the Corner’ to give Gabby encouragement for the new year and the new Congress to encourage her.

A makeshift memorial outside the Safeway supermarket in Tucson, Ariz., where six people were killed and 13 wounded in a mass shooting Jan. 8. (Photo by Bobby Ross Jr.)

“He loved the Bible. He loved the Scriptures in its simplest and purest form and just wanted to internalize them and live them, which is evidenced in his life. He was very involved in church work. He ran the benevolence program, which lived up to Christ’s challenge to feed the hungry and clothe the poor. We know that he internalized the Scripture because of his last act. And I don’t know this, but I think I can say without fear of contradiction there were many times he was probably sitting in church, the minister was delivering a sermon on marriage, and I am sure the text was Ephesians 5:25 when it said: ‘Husbands, love your wife, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. What love he had for his wife, and what faith he had in God.’

“Throughout his life, he aspired to do good. Through his life, let us all aspire to do our best.”

"We were still a vibrant, loving family," remembers Richard Brown, an elder in the church. "But we were in decline."

More than half of the all-white congregation were older than 65, Brown said. Each year saw a few more members die or move away. The group had shrunk 25 percent in 10 years. The neighborhood around the church was crumbling.

Should they move to the suburbs, as other downtown congregations had done? Should they do nothing and enjoy their time together? Should they redefine their mission?

"We were not activists. We were not in the forefront of the Civil Rights wave of the 1960s," Brown said. "But we concluded we should stay where we were if we could render service as a downtown church."

They could reach out to singles, many newly divorced, who lived in nearby apartments, the members realized. And they could start campus outreach at the city's state universities, UAH and A&M.

Except A&M was for African-American students. Could they reach across the barriers of race and age? Should they?

Brown remembers a meeting presided over by J.D. Jones, a legendary elder with a booming voice who would die just a few years later.

"Brothers," Jones declared, "God is color-blind, and if we ain't, too, then he ain't going to bless us."

Ed and Delois Smith, at right, talk with Tamela Gibbs and her daughter, Savannah, after Sunday School at Central Presbyterian Church Sunday. In the 1970s, Central recruited the Smiths to help with campus ministry at A&M and UAH and to help them diversify their all-white congregation.

Servant to both campuses

The congregation decided that campus ministry would be part of their service. And that if they served one campus, they would have to serve both.

"We looked into the Bible," Brown said. "And what we found is that, over and over, with God, there is no favoritism."

The elders recruited Tom and Gail Bogle, a white couple who had been working in campus ministries at the University of Florida. The Bogles said to recruit Ed and Delois Smith, a black couple who had been helping them.

"We packed up, and came without jobs," remembered Delois Smith. Smith, an educational psychologist, is now vice-president for diversity at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and remains, with her husband, Ed., an active member of Central. They were among the first African Americans to join the church.

A church elder provided a house to live in, rent-free for a few months, while they found jobs - Delois with the Girl Scouts, Ed, who has a degree in finance, driving a truck. Each evening, after work, the Smiths would head up to campus to give Bible studies and talk with students. Their genuine friendship with the Bogles helped show, by example, what relationships can look like across racial lines.

Slowly, at Central, the hour Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously described as America's "most segregated," began to become America's most integrated hour.

The passion for spreading the message that Jesus' gospel is for all people came out of her own experience, Smith said. As a teenager, she'd looked around and saw that, while Christians talked about all being equal before God, they carefully kept their congregations segregated. It had driven her away from church.

"I hated it," Smith remembers. "I saw people saying one thing and doing another. I didn't want any part of that fake stuff. That's not what the kingdom of God is about."

But at the university, she had become part of an energetic congregation that included all races.

"When the elders asked us to come here, we knew we had to come," Smith said. "We knew how much we had benefited. When you bring different cultures, ethnicities and races together, it truly embraces everybody and everybody learns."

Special to The Huntsville TimesThe many hues of the faces of members of Central Church of Christ testify to the success of the formerly all-white congregation's determination to serve Huntsville without regard to race.

Perimeter of love

The leap worked.

Within five years, Central's membership had grown, half of the members were younger than 35, and about one-third were people of color.

"We added 100 college students - that added quite a bit of vitality to the congregation," Brown said. "We had some interesting times along the way."

"Interesting" included the pain of seeing people leave the church, uncomfortable about sharing pews or seeing their teenagers share pews with people of color. The Smiths saw some members hanging back, waiting to see if the project would flop. A few seemed to be hoping it would fail.

"It took awhile," Brown said. "But we had studies with the congregation. They knew it was biblically driven. And they determined that we are a family, and anyone who comes will be treated as family."

What about people who say most just feel comfortable with their own kind?

"I suppose for some folks that's true," Brown said. "But I don't think that's what the Bible calls you to."

But it involves give-and-take and learning new ways.

"A number of people had a lot of difficulty to begin with, but stuck with us because they knew it was right," Brown said. "They were not going to let their emotions rule."

One family

Emotions do seem to rule at Central these days.

On a recent Sunday, members met each other with hugs and exclamations. Several white parents have adopted children, telling agencies they would take the first available babies - who turned out to be black. Mixed race and international couples have found a home in the congregation, where skin color is no longer the first identifying mark. Small study groups meet during the week around the city, organized by location, not race. During college breaks, homes of all kinds are open to students of all kinds who need a place to stay over.

Members forced to move away from Huntsville because of jobs have found themselves looking for another congregation that seems to mirror the rainbow that God sees in the world. A few congregations have come to Central, asking how to begin a similar shift in their own pews.

"There are all kinds of blessings in diversity," Brown said. "One of the ways to measure your love is to see how much diversity you include in your perimeter of love. It gives us a more wholesome view of the kingdom of God."

The church's focus on something bigger than human beings helps people get a handle on human differences, Delois Smith said.

"When you have the belief that something is bigger than race, that belief in God is what matters, then you believe that other person is not there to hurt you," Smith said. "Then it gets good."

Rainbow resources

Increasing diversity in a congregation is possible, but requires "attention and intention," according to leaders at Central Church of Christ.

Local resources include:

a mission of Interfaith Mission Service, offers speakers and resources, and will lead a seminar this weekend for people . Delois Smith co-chairs with Dr. Robin Cox: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

One Huntsville, an informal gathering of people interesting in understanding and fostering interfaith, intercultural and interracial diversity. Meets third Tuesday of each month, 5-7 p.m., at Tin Tin Restaurant on University Drive just east of Memorial Parkway.

Prayer for the City, an interdenominational, interracial day of prayer for unity organized by congregations from both north and south Huntsville. Jan. 29, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., at The Rock Family Worship Center, 2300 Memorial Parkway.

. First organizational meeting for multi-denominational community service project that will see more than 1,000 local Christians doing good works around Huntsville on a Saturday in April. Potential group leaders urged to attend. Sunday, 4 p.m. Room 242, First Baptist Church, 600 Governors Drive. Pastor Mike Pearce: 256-428-9400, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Day of Service & Unity. On the Saturday closest to Sept. 11. Day of inter-faith and inter-racial service to the city. Organized by Interfaith Mission Service. www.InterfaithMissionService.org.

Tonight: Martin Luther King Jr. - Emancipation Proclamation Celebration, 7 p.m, featuring Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie. Organized annually by Greater Huntsville Interdenominational Ministerial Fellowship. Program at Progressive Union Missionary Baptist Church, 1917 Brandontown Road N.W.

During his latest project, he fell 20 feet when a ladder buckled, said his pastor and friend Michael Nowak.

When the shooting started Saturday, he dove to the ground, covering his wife Mavy, who was shot in the leg three times. The couple had been grade school sweethearts growing up in Tucson.

After their respective spouses died, they independently moved back to retire, became reacquainted and fell in love all over again.

Mavy Stoddard talked to her husband, who was shot in the head, for 10 minutes while he breathed heavily. Then he stopped breathing.

"He heard the shots and covered my mom with his own body and protected her and saved her," said stepdaughter Penny Wilson.

"We'd like to compliment the hero that lies in our father and we are just blessed that he's walking with the lord now. What a way to go, as the hero, he lived that kind of a life," said stepdaughter Angela Robinson.

A month of solid rain has devastated Pakistan, a predominantly Muslim country of 176 million souls.

The record-breaking monsoons have, in the words of BBC reporter Ben Brown, turned the Indus River into a sea, sprawling for miles. At least 1,500 people have died, news reports estimate, and more than 20 million are homeless. Especially hard-hit is Pakistan’s Punjab region.

Governments and aid agencies have pledged to help, but aid to those in need has been “painfully slow,” Brown reports.

Thus far the floods have spared Sialkot, a city in northeastern Pakistan near the Indian border. The members of the Church of Christ there are safe, said Hadayat Din, a Pakistani Christian who lives in the U.S.

But even Pakistanis safe from the floodwaters are feeling “the ripple effect of this devastating flood,” including food shortages and rising prices for necessities, he said.

“Please pray for both Christians and Muslims in Pakistan,” Din said.

We have started getting e-mails here at The Christian Chronicle from readers who want to help. I called several relief ministries associated with Churches of Christ to see if any have plans to send aid to Pakistan. Most said they are still looking for possible avenues to help. (If that changes, please post a comment.)

The Woodmont Hills Church of Christ in Nashville, Tenn., is collecting funds for relief in Pakistan, said Bruce Anstey, a member of the church’s missions committee. Woodmont Hills supports work in Pakistan and plans to send funds through Pakistani church members to help those affected by the flood.

“We want you to pray for those who lost their loved ones, and for those who lost everything they had,” said a Pakistani Christian in a message to Woodmont Hills’ missions committee. (Bruce asked that the Christian’s name be withheld for security reasons.)

The small Churches of Christ in the region near the flooding plan to what they can to help the flood victims, the Pakistani Christian said.

But the needs are great, he added.

“Though we can not help all .. we shall do as much as we can,” he said. “God will surely reward us in heaven for this act of kindness.”

Colt McCoy, a former University of Texas football star and now third-string quarterback for the Cleveland Browns, married his college sweetheart, Rachel Glandorf, this past weekend.

The couple got engaged in January, which leads us to thinking… if they can plan a wedding in six months, can babies really be that far behind?

The wedding sounded like fun, too, with Colt’s former Texas teammates writing him a song: “When I Grow Up, I Want to Be Like Colt McCoy” (of course, they included Tim Tebow, another soon-to-be NFL quarterback and a fellow teammate of McCoy’s). And why not? Colt is a self-proclaimed “country boy,” and we think his kids will presumably have a very stable growing environment — both McCoy and his new wife are active with the Church of Christ, with McCoy leading youth group and going on mission trips. He was also responsible for saving a friend from drowning back in 2006.

With his NFL career just beginning, and a bright future ahead, there’s no doubt that a mini-McCoy will soon be on the way!