Nashville, USA - Most churches have a youth minister. Kimberly Newsom is in charge of a different demographic: She's her church's pet minister.
Newsom is founder of Soul's Companions, a ministry of Religious Science of Nashville that promotes awareness and lends support to animal activists and owners struggling with a sick pet or grieving a lost pet.
On June 18, the ministry will draw on the church's country singers and songwriters — Ranger Doug of Riders in the Sky is among the church's members — to hold a concert to raise money for the ministry.
The church is one of many responding to Americans' growing devotion to their pets by, for example, offering special services in which pets are blessed and counseling for owners mourning a lost pet.
When the Religious Science of Nashville held a pet blessing service in April, about 40 people turned out — with their dogs and cats in tow.
"Animals, of course, are an expression of God. We're all made by the same Creator," says Newsom, who is studying to become a licensed minister through Religious Science International, with which Religious Science of Nashville is affiliated.
She's already licensed by the church to do counseling and preside over ceremonies that mark a pet's passing. "I felt like there needs to be a voice for those that have none."
Religious Science of Nashville is the state's only congregation affiliated with Religious Science International, a church popular in California that is based on the belief that a person's thoughts and actions create his reality. The church was started in the early 1900s by a scholar of the Church of Christ, Scientist, and it shares some beliefs with that faith.
Mitch Johnson, himself a singer and songwriter who penned the Kendalls' Old Fashioned Love, founded Religious Science of Nashville 16 years ago after moving here from California. The congregation now has some 250 members and worships Sundays in an old Baptist church building in west Nashville.
Newsom, owner of six miniature pinschers and two cats, had wanted to start an animal ministry for years and with her husband, Michael, kicked off Soul's Companions last August with a dog wash that benefited the Humane Society.
"Pets kind of reflect back to you how you treat them. Animals are very receptive to prayer work," she says. "They're connected to us. They're just God's creation as animals."