Is it blasphemous or humorous?

Praise the loft, reads a slogan on a tall sign erected outside a church-turned-lofts development that leaves some Junction Triangle residents in a righteous anger.

Daniel Masih is calling for developers to remove the sign from the Union Lofts construction site and to strip the slogan from their website. He started a petition two weeks ago. It now has 33 signatures, he said.

The slogan is in bad taste, said Masih, calling it blasphemous.

Masih, who grew up Catholic in the area, said his mother alerted him to the sign earlier this month.

It made my mom very upset and I couldnt live with myself if I didnt do something, he said. If I was the marketing person for that I would definitely be ashamed.

The project by Windmill Development Group, Cornerstone Lofts Ltd. and One Development is on the corner of Perth and Wallace Aves., an increasingly gentrified neighbourhood.

Its a pun. Its a joke, said Alex Speigel, head of Windmill Development Groups Toronto office. I think people should lighten up.

He said no one involved in the project is anti-religious and the slogan is not blasphemous. It and another prepare to be converted are a whimsical reference to the structures history as a church.

Speigel was surprised by the timing of Masihs complaint, which wasnt made until two years after the sign went up and six months into construction.

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Junction resident outraged by blasphemous slogan for lofts

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is poised for expansion in Glendale and throughout the West Valley as construction has started on a retail service center and a warehouse and office complex.

The two buildings, located near West Bell Road and North 67th Avenue and close to the Kmart and Chuck E. Cheeses, will span nearly 70,000 square feet and cost almost $10 million, according to building permits the city issued in December.

It is anticipated that the opening will occur sometime in the first quarter of 2016, said Jennifer Wheeler, a spokesperson for the churchs Greater Phoenix Public Affairs Council.

The first building will contain a Deseret Industries retail store and an employment resource center. Future expansion could include a family history center, where people can do genealogical research, according to the citys building design review narrative.

The second building will have a bishops storehouse, to which local church leaders can refer the poor and needy for commodities; a center for food storage and commercial packaging; and offices to oversee missionary efforts in the region and where church members can receive counseling.

The services available at those buildings will be familiar to many church members.

The Deseret Industries chain operates 43 stores in seven western states with significant numbers of church members. Arizona already has two DI stores, with one each in Mesa and Phoenix. The Glendale DI will replace the one in Phoenix, Wheeler said.

Arizona has four home storage centers, where church members often package food that they plan to store for months or years, but the only one serving the Valley is in Mesa. The new center in Glendale will help meet the demand in the Phoenix area.

The Church makes every effort to construct facilities where there is a concentration of members to allow them to worship and have other support services that are convenient for them to access, Wheeler said.

The mission office slated for Glendale might house the staff for the already-existing Arizona Phoenix Mission, since the church did not announce any new Arizona missions at the start of this year, according to an article in the Deseret News.

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Membership growth spurs LDS expansion

When America was building its great institutions, including the churches that would form the cultural center of many newly-emerging communities, it was an absolutely booming time for the stain glass industry, noted Donald Samick.

What so many of those churches wanted, he added, were those iconic and artistic stained glass windows.

The American studios flourished, as did studios in Germany, Austria and England, to meet the demand for glass in new church buildings across the country, noted Samick, the president and owner of J&R Lamb Studios in Midland Park, N.J.

That boom would continue until the Great Depression, he added, which slowed down new church construction or those using stained glass windows.

But not for long, he added.

During the depression, The architects who were building churches did not want to use opalescent stain glass windows, he said. They wanted to go back to gothic.

Then came the second World War, and the trend shifted back again, Samick added.

At the end of World War II, another economic resurgence took place, he said. This time all the churches built at the turn of the century without stain glass suddenly wanted to put in tributes to the wars heroes.

On Wednesday, Samick gave a lecture on Stained Glass of the J. & R. Lamb Studios and Its Contemporaries of the 20th Century at the Hugh F. and Jeannette G. McKean Pavilion at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, as part of the museums free lecture series.

Before an overflow crowd inside the auditorium, Samick noted that there are some misconceptions about stained glass including the common view that it represents a relic of the past. Not true, he added.

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History of stained glass: from churches to collectors

Twenty five years ago, 17 people started a church in the basement of a Springboro home.

Today, Berachah Church has 500 members and worships in Middletown High School, but thats going to change after the Middletown City Schools District board of education voted 4 to 1, with Katie McNeil casting the no vote, to sell the former Verity Middle School and surrounding 60 acres to Berachah for $293,000, or 40 percent of its appraised value.

McNeil wanted to sell the school, but not all the acreage, she said.

More money was her reason, she said.

When the district held a public auction on Dec. 17 for the property at 1900 Johns Road, Berachah bid $293,000 for all three parcels, $3,000 more than the Performing Arts Academy, said George Long, district business manager. The property was appraised at $740,000, he said.

By selling the property, Long said the district wont have to demolish the school at a cost of $330,000 and that money can be used renovating Middletown High School and building a middle school. He said if the school was demolished, the 60 acres would be appraised at $250,000.

About 50 Berachah Church members stayed throughout the two-hour meeting until the board voted on the proposal. When it was announced the property was sold, there was a loud cheer in the council chambers.

During his address to board members, Lamar Ferrell, pastor of Berachah, thanked them for allowing the church to fulfill its vision and dream.

We are here to shine our light, he said. But its not our light. Its the light God put inside us. We believe in this community.

Then he added: The best is yet to come.

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Board OKs sale of former Verity School to church

Invercargills hundred year old First Presbyterian Church has been given an 80%+ earthquake rating - and is celebrating by offering free public tours of the building on Saturday 14 February.

First Church has been an iconic Invercargill building for 100 years, and based on a report from consulting engineers is likely to remain so for another 100 years. Hadley & Robinson Limited, Dunedin based consulting engineers, have assessed the building and their analysis concludes that "it can be reported with high confidence that the building rates at better than 80% NBS" and therefore it is not earthquake prone.

Hadley and Robinson reviewed the drawings of the original construction, completed a visual survey of the building and discussed the construction with workmen who had been involved in recent repairs to brickwork. They concluded that the massive brick walls were capable of resisting significant earthquake motions.

"It is wonderful news that First Church rates better than 80% NBS" said William Watt, Chair of the First Church Heritage Buildings Charitable Trust. "In February 2015 we will be celebrating the buildings 100th birthday and we can do so knowing that the building is safe to use for church activities and to hire out for other events."

"In 2009 a Conservation Plan was developed by well-known Invercargill architect, Allan Mollison who developed a plan for the restoration of the building. The stained -glass windows have been restored along with significant restoration of the exterior brickwork and roof. After the Christchurch earthquakes we felt it was important to know the strength of the building and whether any strengthening was required before we continued with the restoration of the building" Mr Watt said.

First Church is a major Invercargill landmark which was opened in 1915 and is of an Italian Romanesque design. Over one million bricks were used in the construction of the church which has a height of 15 metres. The Campanile bell tower has a height of 32 metres, with the walls at its base being one metre thick. Arthur Sefton, bricklayer, was regarded as one of the finest tradesmen in the country when the building was constructed with its complex arches and patterns.

"We owe a debt of gratitude to the original builders and to the generations of people who have maintained and cared for the building over the last 100 years. Tours of the building will be held on Saturday 14 February from 10am for people wanting to view the building and its construction. Tours will commence from the Tay Street entrance of the Church" William Watt said "This truly is a wonderful building and we would be delighted to show it to the community."

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Invercargill's First Presbyterian Church celebrates quake rating

Old Church Demolition-New Church Construction
Also in the video are the following: Father Romanchak #39;s Ordination New Church Consecration.

By: St. Mary #39;s R. O. Church

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Old Church Demolition-New Church Construction - Video

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BDM Mortgage Services Church Construction Loans - Video

Religious Site.Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma (fourth from left) and Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama (second from right) lead the groundbreaking ceremony of the site for the San Pedro Calungsod parish in Barangay Pulangbato.(Sun.Star Foto/Ruel Rosello)

A NEW church with a design inspired by St. John Paul II will soon rise in Barangay Pulangbato, Cebu City.

Despite the rain yesterday, a groundbreaking ceremony was held at the proposed site of the St. Pedro Calungsod Church in Pulangbato. St. John Paul II is the parishs second patron saint.

Present during the ceremony were parish priest Fr. Benjie Herrera, Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, barangay officials and parishioners.

The church, which will cost about P89 million, will consist of the main congregation, function rooms, an adoration chapel and a columbary.

Once completed, the church can accommodate at least 700 parishioners.

In an interview yesterday, Herrera said they found the site after one of the residents, Flor Montebon, donated her 4,300-square-meter property to the parish.

Of the donated property, 1,200 square meters will be dedicated for the construction of the church.

The design of the church has been conceptualized by Architect Michael Torres of ArchiGlobal Inc., who offered his services for free as his way of helping the parish.

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P90-M San Pedro Calungsod church to rise in Pulangbato, Cebu City

The Church of the Ascension is an unremarkable Middle River landmark, just a squat, brick building on an isolated peninsula south of Martin State Airport. But for Episcopalians in eastern Baltimore County's Wilson Point community, the small church has been a fixture for generations home to such cradle-to-grave memories as baptisms, weddings and funerals.

And on a street of mostly fenced-in front yards, the church's rolling lawn has served as an informal waterfront park to the entire neighborhood since aircraft pioneer Glenn L. Martin donated the property to the community 75 years ago. Residents walk their dogs to the tree-lined shore. A sliver of beach provides a popular spot for fishing. And a wooden bench perched amid a community garden beckons visitors to sit and gaze at the ducks on Stansbury Creek.

But these days the garden is dead, the creek is frozen and the church is locked. For two years the bucolic, nearly two-acre plot has stood at the center of a bitter property dispute in Baltimore County Circuit Court. It is a legal fight that turns on decades-old documents, fading memories and the intersection of civil laws and religious rules.

On one side is a congregation of fewer than 20 people represented by Towson lawyer Donna M.B. King, a sole practitioner. On the other is the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, which has 108 congregations and is represented by Venable, a national law firm with hundreds of attorneys.

The dispute is playing out as the diocese is grappling with a major crisis: Its assistant bishop, Heather Elizabeth Cook, has been charged with manslaughter in the December hit-and-run death of cyclist Thomas Palermo in Baltimore. Cook is out on bail while awaiting trial.

Nationally, the Episcopal Church has been ensnared in a number of property disputes. Typically such fights are triggered by congregations breaking away over issues such as the denomination's support for same-sex marriage and gay clergy, experts say. The Maryland diocese experienced such a defection in 2010 when Mount Calvary Church in Baltimore voted to become Catholic. In that case, the diocese simply sold the building to the departing church.

The issue in the Middle River case is different, inflamed by local passions for a property that many in Wilson Point see as a tribute to Martin's benevolent legacy.

"There are some hard feelings because there are a lot of emotional attachments to the church and a love of that community," King said.

Ascension members allege in their lawsuit that the diocese unlawfully took the building by falsifying a deed and improperly seized $27,000 in church bank accounts. They say that on Feb. 24, 2013, a diocese official ended the final Sunday service by leading the congregation outside and locking the door.

It's been locked ever since.

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Small church fights Episcopal diocese over land

Sun Jan 25 21:50:55 EST 2015

Gibney shocks with his latest.

"Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief"

From "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" to the Catholic church expos "Mea Maxima Culpa," Alex Gibney's documentaries often adopt a straightforward approach to exposing institutional dysfunction. "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief" falls into that tradition. The director's bracing adaptation of Lawrence Wright's 2013 book on the religion's bizarre history is fairly routine in terms of its allegations. But with such outlandish material, that's more than enough.

READ MORE:Alex Gibney Premieres His Scathing Expos on the Church of Scientology

By now, there's nothing entirely fresh about the story of L. Run Hubbard's construction of a cult based around far-fetched science fiction conceits and the devious antics that ensued from it many of which were perpetrated by Hubbard's tyrannical predecessor, the elusive David Miscavige. Nevertheless, taking cues from gripping testimonies provided by several high profile former members of the group including top-level executives and an eloquent Paul Haggis "Going Clear" delivers an efficient overview of Scientology's dark history with a cohesive focus on the precision of its corrupt motives.

The first half of "Going Clear" plays as a kind of non-fiction alternative to "The Master," sketching out the history of Hubbard's interest in crafting a religion based around his influential book "Dianetics." Hubbard himself appears in revealing archival footage at the height of his influence, discussing his murky philosophies associated with obtaining harmony through personal recollection.

Gibney contrasts his strange assertions with backstory from Wright as well as former Scientologists who witnessed Hubbard's nonsensical lectures years ago. As usual, the filmmaker also peppers his narrative with a healthy amount of archival material, including diary entries by Hubbard ex-wife Sarah Northup as she asserts her husband's desire to "create a religion for success."

Moving through the decades, "Going Clear" shows the precision of Hubbard's brainwashing abilities even as he faces scrutiny from the media. Gibney's subjects explain the dubious E-meter process ("two-thirds of a lie detector test"), the device that leads Scientologists to believe they can expunge their internal conflicts through a meticulous form of verbal repetition.

Though the movie eventually comes around to explaining the ludicrous conceit behind this practice Hubbard's assertion that human beings are infected by alien souls the movie's meticulous explanation for the test's seeming effectiveness ensures that "Going Clear" sticks to an empirical approach. With a measured journalistic prowess on par with his source material, Gibney takes nothing for granted.

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Sundance Review: Alex Gibney's 'Going Clear' is a Shocking Overview of Scientology's Demented Leadership