Four weeks ago, The Carroll News began featuring Weekly Devotion, a weekly religious column on our church page that currently features a roster of five local pastors.

In recent years, this spot in The Carroll News had been reserved for a weekly syndicated column by Clyde Dupin, an evangelist from Kernersville, N.C. The decision to make the switch was nothing against Dupin as much as it was a chance for the newspaper to give more exposure to our local pastors and churches. As a staff, we felt weekly viewpoints from local pastors who know the area, its people and its congregations would frankly be of more pertinence to our readers.

So far, five local pastors from different churches and denominations across the county have signed on to take part in Weekly Devotion. Currently, the roster includes Russell Payne of Coulson Church of Brethren; Dr. Lawrence Childs of First Baptist Church of Hillsville; Ronnie Collins, Associate Pastor at First United Methodist Church of Hillsville; Jeff Pickett, Pastor at Hillsville Pentecostal Holiness Church; and Rodney Christman, pastor of Camp Zion Church in Laurel Fork. Pastors from other churches in Carroll County are welcome and encouraged to join the rotation. We would just ask that interested candidates would be committed to offering a devotion once each cycle.

Simply put, we felt like this new weekly feature would help to expand the presence of our local churches in the area. We’d like to offer as many religious viewpoints as possible to our readers. So far we have received positive feedback about Weekly Devotion, and we hope you’ll continue to enjoy this new feature as it continues to grow.