Friday's News & Ideas - 5/8/2026
- LA fire recovery
- Prayer event largely Christian
- Pope deals with customer service
- Road map for UMC
- Joni Lamb dies
- My mother made magic happen
After the Los Angeles wildfires, clergy crossed denominational lines and forged new bonds
AP: Faith leaders in communities devastated by the fires that tore across Southern California have relied on interfaith and community partnerships to rally congregants who are picking up the pieces 16 months later.
Trump's national prayer event largely features Christian leaders
USA Today: A national prayer event meant to unite the country will largely reflect just one faith. Some religious leaders have called it "intentionally exclusive."
Local bank clerk hangs up on Pope Leo thinking it was a prank call
ABC7: Even the leader of the Catholic Church sometimes has to ask for a supervisor.
Two years after schism, a United Methodist scholar pens a road map for growth
Religion News Service: If the United Methodist Church wants to reach younger, more ethnically diverse people, it must focus on densely populated urban areas, suggests researcher Lovett Weems Jr.
Joni Lamb, Daystar TV ministry co-founder, dies at 65
Religion News Service: Lamb and her first husband, Marcus, founded Daystar in the 1990s and grew it into one of the largest Christian networks in the country.
The Spark
How my mother made magic happen
My mother’s great yearly project was my Halloween costume. All of her prodigious talent went into ensuring that I would win best in show at the town parade, says writer Perdita Finn in Literary Hub.
