Facebook started out as a way for teens and young adults to keep in touch with friends, share relationship status and post pictures from their latest get-together. New software developed by a University of Iowa Children’s Hospital physician and members of the hospital’s information systems team will now allow the social media outlet to help [...]

MARION — Bill Jacobson has been a member of St. Mark’s church for more than 40 years, and he plans to be a member for many years to come. He won’t leave over a difference of opinion. “This is a democracy, and in a democracy, you win some and you lose some,” said Jacobson, 69, [...]

You’re stuck inside while the snow piles up and blows around outside. The kids are restless and, quite frankly, there are just so many times you can pass Go and collect $200 before you start going a little stir crazy yourself. So what’s there to do when there’s nothing to do? Plenty. Jan Aiels, education [...]

MARION — A Marion church failed Sunday to attain a two-thirds majority in a vote that would have meant the nearly 1,800-member congregation would leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The congregation at St. Mark’s Faith and Life Center, 8300 C Ave. in Marion, took its second of two votes Sunday to leave the [...]

When Mount Mercy University senior Jayson Lawton watched MTV’s new series, “Skins,” with a group of friends, he said they all joked that the cable channel was trying to recruit teenagers for its other shows, “Teen Mom” and shows about drug addiction. “It just seems like they’re telling teens it’s OK to get messed up [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS — In an ideal move, Coralville and Hiawatha would become RAGBRAI brothers in arms this year, with each community hosting an overnight stay for the 10,000 bicyclists that ride each year. Both communities — Hiawatha in Linn County and Coralville in Johnson County — have put in bids to be overnight host cities [...]

MARION — In a second and final vote Sunday, the congregation at St. Mark’s Faith and Life Center, 8300 C Ave., will decide whether to leave the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination. The congregation voted 309 to 151 in October to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America due in large part to the ELCA’s 2009 [...]

With wizarding teens, talking dogs and families with superhero powers taking over the widescreen, Hollywood films have been known to stretch the truth just a little. Even less-family-oriented movies like the “Saw” and “Nightmare on Elm Street” series have taken evil to great extremes. When it comes to depicting exorcism in films, though, much of [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS — There’s nothing wrong with thinking big when setting goals. Holding yourself to those big plans, however, could mean setting yourself up to fail, says a Cedar Rapids psychologist and psychology professor. “It’s very good to set goals,” said Don Damsteegt, psychologist at Family Psychology Associates, 1221 Center Point Rd. NE, in Cedar [...]

As faculty adviser of a student atheist/secular organization at Kirkwood Community College, Lydia Hartunian has heard her fair share of reasons for leaving the church and religion. A lot of them, she said, were brought on by the inability of someone to reconcile his or her own beliefs and values with those of their church, [...]

A day after the devastating Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake flattened much of the most populated areas of Haiti — killing 300,000 and leaving 1.5 million people homeless — Cedar Rapids native Renee Dietrich wasn’t sure what the future held for the small country where she lives and works. “It’s already a really poor country. I’m [...]

Natalya Resendez and her husband, Ricardo, moved to Cedar Rapids from Roanoke, Va., about a year ago when Ricardo was transferred for work. With no friends or family in the area, Natalya Resendez, 35, wanted to find a way to connect with others in her new community. She’d heard a story about time banks — [...]

Two years ago there were eight churches in Cedar Rapids serving as distribution sites for Angel Food Ministries, a national discount food purchase program. Now there are just two. Within a 50-mile radius of Linn and Johnson counties, the number of distribution sites has dipped from 20 to 13. Organizers of those sites still in [...]

There may not be a partridge in your pear tree today, but if you don’t celebrate Christmas, you may be hard-pressed to find something to do. Most stores and restaurants are closed and chances are a good portion of your friends are with family celebrating the holiday. Before giving up all hope, wrapping up in [...]

The Rev. Howard Chapman, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Marion is beginning to write a sermon series based on the Bible’s book of Matthew, which lays out what people need to do to get into heaven. “The criteria of final judgment is: did you do the right thing, did you practice the right liturgy [...]

MARION – Heavy snow may have kept a majority of invited guests from Christmas dinner but it didn’t dampen the holiday spirit for those who were there. Just under 30 people attended a ham and scalloped potatoes dinner at First Presbyterian Church, 802 12th St., in Marion, prepared and served by volunteers from the church. [...]

Linda Stewart Kroon is saddened by the message she says some churches are sending to the gay community. “I feel sad that churches cannot find within the gospel a message of welcome,” she said. “I know it’s in there.” Stewart Kroon, 50, is the daughter of a retired Reformed Church in America pastor and has been [...]

Try to find a church near Kirkwood Community College and you’re going to have to drive a ways. Kirkwood, which sits just south of Highway 30 in southwest Cedar Rapids, and the neighborhoods around it are “underserved” when it comes to worship opportunities, the Rev. Kent Landhuis said. Landhuis and his congregation at Cedar Hills [...]

In what was likely the narrowest margin possible,  one of the largest ELCA congregations in Eastern Iowa voted Sunday to leave the denomination. The vote of the congregation at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 8300 C Ave., Marion, required a 67 percent majority. The congregation voted 67 percent plus one vote to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in [...]

The start of winter may still be weeks away but it’s going to feel much closer tonight when temperatures drop to near 30 and Eastern Iowa gets its first real possibility of a frost for the year. Sure, it’s just one night, but it’s going to be a cold one. You have a few hours [...]