Beyond Belief
Beliefs Ease Strain of Rime Buddhist Center Financial Struggles
In early March, the winter-brown grass on the vacant lot at the northwest corner of 30th Street and Highland in Kansas City reflected the harsh winter weather that pummeled the city for several months. It looked beaten, exhausted, almost breathless. But this land is where the Rime (pronounced REE-may) Buddhist Center has placed its long-term…
Read MoreChurch Is Ray Of Light In Urban KC Neighborhood
The Sheffield Family Life Center, a 6,000-member Assembly of God church, is a sparkling diamond in an urban coal mine. It’s big, diverse and a key center of life in Kansas City’s distressed Blue Valley area. “We are in a location where we kind of get left out,” says Sheffield’s pastor George Westlake III. “We’re…
Read MoreGatherings Create ‘Community of Reason’ Each Week At UMKC
A major story about religion in America in recent decades has been the decline of various Christian denominations and the rise of the religiously unaffiliated to about 25 percent of the adult population. But for all those decades, a group of people mostly outside of faith traditions has been operating in Kansas City. Just like…
Read MoreTwo Johnson County Churches Bridge Centuries-Old Theological Schism
Two neighboring Catholic and Lutheran churches in Johnson County are trying to repair some of the epic rupture to Christianity caused 501 years ago by a Catholic monk named Martin Luther. Luther, without really meaning to, started the Protestant Reformation by publishing a list of 95 matters he thought church leaders should debate. His disagreements…
Read MoreCelebrating Kansas City And All Its Traditions (From Here and Abroad)
For some, it is art. For others, it is food and music. The common thread, however, is that these activities are touchstones for transplants to the Kansas City area — some of whom arrived from halfway around the world as refugees from violent conflict and political turmoil. The holiday season is a time to celebrate…
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