Over 42 million Americans are expected to lose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits this weekend due to the prolonged government shutdown. Over 40% of SNAP beneficiaries are children. This means many of our neighbors will have to rely on...
By Heather Mustain Earlier this month, six of us from Wilshire traveled to Skopje, Macedonia, to see and learn more from Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Field Personnel Jeff and Alicia Lee. We were joined on the trip by members of Second Baptist Church in Little Rock,...
By Heather Mustain, associate pastor In the fall of 2023, a group of Wilshire members gathered for our first ever Collective Consciousness Cohort on the state of housing in Dallas. Over six weeks, this group listened to community experts discuss factors that impact...
A few weeks ago I traveled to Skopje, Macedonia, with two other CBF clergy. The purpose was twofold: to visit and encourage CBF field personnel Jeff and Alicia Lee and their son, Ethan, and to learn more about what a new global partnership could look like. For...
Wilshire has launched a new rental and utility assistance program that will help meet immediate needs in our community. The initiative will be funded by about $81,000 in Missions Plus funds drawn from surplus giving to Wilshire’s 2023 Unified Budget. The program was...
Greg Garrett’s sermon has lingered in my mind and soul all week. As a parent, I’m never really certain what, if anything, my child sitting next to me is absorbing. In Greg’s closing, he reminded us that we don’t have to be so afraid. Without missing a beat, my Jimmie...
Today, 11 Wilshire members are worshiping alongside Primera Iglesia Bautista de Río Piedras in San Juan, Puerto Rico. First Baptist Church Río Piedras is a historic congregation. Established in 1899, it was the island’s first Baptist church and at one time its...
By Heather Mustain I remember my first missions trip like it was yesterday. I was a freshman at the University of Colorado and had recently come to know Christ. Eager to live into this new life, when the opportunity to spend my spring break in Jamaica serving at a...
Hot take: My least favorite thing about this upcoming holiday season is the American cultural understanding of what is appropriate to eat on Thanksgiving and Christmas. If I’m honest, I’d rather have Mariano’s fajitas for Thanksgiving and Jimmy’s lasagna for...
My mother recently found my first Bible packed away in her attic, a hardback, blue NRSV edition with my name, Heather Beard, engraved on the front cover. Inside the Bible, tucked safely away, we also discovered my first footprints, hospital card and baby bracelet....