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(The Conversation) The first truly African-American musical form, the “Spirituals,” took shape in the 17th and 18th centuries within the generations of slaves born into the tough American experience. Music was a daily part of their survival and sustenance.

As an author of a book on the gospel canon, “Great God A’Mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds: Celebrating the Rise of Soul Gospel Music,” I have been particularly drawn to a compelling but lesser known outgrowth of the spiritual tradition – the African-American “folk” preachers.

ATLANTA — Stepping out in faith not knowing the destination is part of the story of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, popular author and theologian Brian McLaren told nearly 1,500 attendees Thursday evening at the 2017 General Assembly.

(RNS) When he founded the car-care ministry at McEachern Memorial United Methodist Church 15 years ago, David McCoy knew he was filling a need in his community. What he didn’t know was just how big a need that was.

Car-care ministries like McCoy’s, where church members repair cars for those in need, transcend state borders and religious groups. But, McCoy said, there still aren’t enough of them.

DECATUR, Ga.—The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship nominating committee recommended Gary Dollar, a nationally recognized nonprofit leader and former executive, as the organization’s next moderator-elect.

Dollar lives in Glen Carbon, Ill., with his wife, Gale, a CBF-endorsed chaplain serving at St. Luke’s Hospital in St. Louis.

The American Baptist Churches USA Biennial Mission Summit is meeting at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, June 30-July 2. The theme of the 2017 Summit is “Connect!” and features sharing missions ideas, fellowship and business.

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly will meet June 26-30 at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Atlanta, Ga. The meeting marks the organization's first quarter century.

WACO, Texas (RNS) Two decades before she took office as the first woman president in Baylor University’s 172-year history, Linda Livingstone helped break down a different barrier in this Central Texas city.

Then and now, Livingstone — who first nurtured her Christian faith in a little white church building in small-town Perkins, Okla. — insists she wasn’t trying to make history but simply to follow God’s direction.

(RNS) A nonprofit has calculated that every religious congregation in the U.S. — Christian or otherwise — would have to raise an additional $714,000 every year for the next 10 years to make up for the 2018 budget cuts President Trump has proposed.

The U.S. Supreme Court sided on June 26 with a Missouri church seeking aid from taxpayers to improve its playground. The justices handed down the ruling in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer on the last day of its 2016-2017 session, overturning lower court decisions and creating an exception to the Missouri Constitution’s prohibition against funding houses of worship. Yet, due to a contentious footnote, both supporters and critics of the church’s argument believe future cases will determine the scope of the shift in church-state relations created by the case.

Kindness — a virtue embraced by both the religious and the nonreligious — requires intentional behavior and can have beneficial results for both the giver and recipient of a benevolent act, experts say.

But, don’t we know that already? Aren’t most of us already kind?