Which religious denomination has the best slogan? According to a vote of nonprofit professionals, it's the United Methodist Church.

The United Methodists took home the 2009 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Award in the category of Religion & Spiritual Development with an eight-year-old slogan: "Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors."

From the award citation:

The work of religious organizations often operates on several planes at once — a challenge for any organization and its messaging. Here, The United Methodist Church delivers a tagline trinity that supports its applied faith mission and is warm, enthusiastic and embracing.

“Our tagline embodies who we are as United Methodists,” the Rev. Larry Hollon, chief executive of the communications agency responsible for overseeing the advertising ministry for the 11.5 million-member denomination, said in a statement. “The characteristics it celebrates are perceived positively by the people we are trying to reach.”

Among the other winners were "A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste®," the 38-year-old slogan of the United Negro College Fund, and "Nothing Stops A Bullet Like A Job," the tagline for Los Angeles-based Homeboy Industries.

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Members of a Baltimore County church are looking for a place to worship on Sunday after a two-alarm fire early Friday destroyed their sanctuary.

Fire investigators say a lightning strike could have caused the fire at the Sharp Street United Methodist Church in Chase, Sun colleague Brent Jones reports. Ten-foot-high stained glass windows were shattered, the outer structure of the building was charred, and a smoky smell remained in the air for hours as church members steadily came by to observe the damage.

Lewis Foust was one of the men who built the sanctuary in 1972.

"That's really the hurtful part -- to see what you have done just gone," he told Jones.

Founded 145 years ago, the church was widely considered the oldest in Chase. If a lightning strike is confirmed, it would be the third such case involving a local historic church over the past two years.

The 140-year-old First Mount Olive Free Will Baptist Church in West Baltimore was destroyed by a fire sparked by lightning in July 2007, and Baltimore's Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Druid Hill Avenue was hit by lightning last month. The Bethel congregation is set to return to its church Sunday.

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

Kim Hairston/The Baltimore Sun

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Categories: Methodism