A journalist friend and former colleague sent this to me with the note: “You’ve got some company.” 

On the first Sunday morning of October, pastor Steve Scott looked far beyond the surroundings of his western Wisconsin congregation to find worthy subjects for their prayers: recent natural disaster victims in Indonesia and the Philippines.

There’s nothing unusual about clergy taking inspiration from headlines, but for Scott it’s instinctive. He spent 23 years as a journalist at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, most of the last five as religion reporter for Minnesota’s second-biggest newspaper.

“What you get with Steve is someone who is able to take current events and use them as a launching pad for sermons and biblical study,” said Glen Mabie, a parishioner and a former TV newsman in the nearby city of Eau Claire.

Scott’s previous job seemed tailored to his lifelong interest in faith and spirituality and he figured it would be his for decades. But in 2005 his newspaper eliminated the beat, a step many other newspapers are making in lean times. At least seven other metro dailies also cut religion beats, and many others ended or trimmed weekly religion sections, according to the Religion Newswriters Association.

Scott, now 49, was reassigned to cover several St. Paul suburbs. He was “petulant … pouting … not very professional,” he recalled. When the paper offered buyouts at the end of 2006, he took the opportunity without knowing what he wanted to do next. 

It all sounds awfully familiar…heh.