Place Of Worship

Name: Dick CrookHonored by The Carroll County Sun for: ReceivingCarroll Community College's Excellence in Teaching Award for his availability to students and refinement of the technical studies program, which Crook coordinatesAge: 44Residence; hometown: Timonium, Baltimore County; Cockeysville, Baltimore CountyEducation: Bachelor's degree in science from West Virginia Wesleyan College, Buckhannon, W.Va.; master's degree in educational supervision and administration from Loyola College, BaltimoreFamily: Wife, Mary, who teaches voice at their homePlace of worship: University Baptist Church, BaltimoreActivities/hobbies: Singing (member of the Baltimore Opera Company)

For people seeking spiritual growth, Howard County offers a diversity of faith communities that reflects its multifaceted population. In number and size, area congregations are growing, said George Martin, president of the Columbia Cooperative Ministry, an interfaith organization that promotes cooperation among religious groups. "There are about 290 faith communities in the county," he said. That's up 30 congregations since 2001, said Martin, a deacon at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Columbia who has tracked religious activity in the county since 1968.

Name: Charlotte KiblerHonored by The Carroll County Sun for: Being recognized as Outstanding Para-Professional of the Year by the Maryland Association of Vocational Education Special Needs PersonnelAge: 51Residence; hometown: WestminsterEducation: Graduate of Westminster High School; attended Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Mass., for one yearFamily: Married for 33 years to husband,Millard, 55, employed with Kibler Construction in Finksburg; sons: Carl, 31, employed as a mason with Krebs Masonry in New Windsor; Michael, 29, employed as a mason with Krebs Masonry; daughter: Patty Stephan, 20, employed as assistant manager of the Hair Cuttery in the Fredericktowne Mall in FrederickPlace of worship: Westminster Church of the NazareneActivities/hobbies: Enjoys sewing and needlework; employed as a special education assistant at the Carroll County Career and Technology CenterAccomplishments: Having raised three wonderful children; having two granddaughters; enjoying work every dayRecipient's comments: "I was surprised.

A Mardi Gras-style dance party on church grounds may seem like an ethical contradiction, but that's how Rockland United Methodist Church in Ellicott City promoted the grand opening celebration of its amphitheater last month. The Rockland theater is one of a growing number of showcases for popular music, theatrical productions and visual arts being run by churches or by outside organizations renting church space in the Baltimore region. "It's kind of a new trend," said Joanne Juskus, a Columbia folk singer who runs a 9-month-old eclectic music series called "The Bottom Floor" at St. John's United Methodist Church of Hamilton in Baltimore.

For the third time in its nearly 150-year history, St. John Catholic Church in Westminster will break ground on a new house of worship - a $6.5 million building that will become the largest parish church in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Cardinal William Keeler will officiate at a March 3 ceremony blessing a vacant plot of land along Route 140 near Sullivan Avenue, where a 20,000-square-foot church will stand in about 15 months. The new church will accommodate a growing congregation that could reach 15,000 people by 2005.

NEW YORK -- Faced with the most daunting task of their careers yesterday, religious leaders in and around New York tried to give solace to the inconsolable and make sense of the death and destruction that have dominated the lives of all Americans, especially those closest to the World Trade Center tragedy. Houses of worship in and around the nerve center of devastation have been flooded with the religious and nonreligious, all searching for answers through the teachings of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

BEIJING - Members of at least 40 Protestant congregations on China's southeastern coast are looking to celebrate Christmas elsewhere this year after local officials destroyed their churches and places of worship. The demolition campaign is part of a crackdown that has claimed not only churches but also hundreds of privately built local temples for folk worship in Zhejiang Province, Chinese officials and state-run newspapers say. Most of the destruction appears to have occurred in the past month.

At 10 o'clock Friday morning, a sea of communicants, many dressed with a hint or more than a hint of green, will enter St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church at Broadway and Bank Street in Upper Fells Point and quickly fill the pews for the church's annual St. Patrick's Day Mass. "It's usually an overflow crowd," the church's pastor, the Rev. James W. Gilmour, a Redemptorist priest, said yesterday. "There will be a reception after the Mass, and I understand Irish coffee will be served to those who are interested," he said, laughing.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Every Sunday for the past 29 years, a storefront church in the heart of San Francisco has swayed to the mellifluous tones and odd rhythms of jazz legend John Coltrane, in the name of divine worship. The music is not a prop but the very key to the Almighty. For this is no ordinary house of God, but the St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church, the first place on earth to turn a jazz saxophone player into an object of religious devotion. Jazz fans have been quietly coming for years, as have local aficionados bedazzled by the mystic allure of Coltranes sleeve notes for his 1964 album, A Love Supreme.

Sayed Hassan's family is celebrating Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, by praying daily in a makeshift mosque: a suite in the Wilde Lake Village Center. By the year 2000, the family likely will be praying in Howard County's first free-standing mosque.The planned Clarksville mosque will be "a place for people to come and gather and children to know that they belong to something," said Mr. Hassan, 53, president of the county's only mosque, Dar-Al-Taqwa.The county's estimated 200 Muslim families have worshiped in Suite 415 in the Wilde Lake Village Center since August 1992.

Passover greetings from our house to yours. Passover begins at sundown Saturday.This Palm Sunday, area churches will observe the day with religious ceremonies and church members invite you to join them.At 8:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. Sunday, St. Andrew's Church worshiping at Union Chapel will have the blessing of the palms, Holy Eucharist and a narrative reading of the Passion of Jesus Christ.Plan for Maundy Thursday supper with the church in the 4-H building at the Howard County Fairgrounds March 31.The simple family Lenten supper will begin at 6 p.m., and the group will celebrate the Last Supper at 7 p.m.Call Harry Brunett at 489-4035.